  Muriel awakened the next morning with a song in her heart that she was soon expressing in clear, sweet notes which told the listener how glad, glad the singer was just to be alive. Captain Ezra, busying himself near the open kitchen door, sighed softly as he realized that this wordless song was different from the others that Muriel had sung in the mornings that were past as she prepared their simple breakfast. There had been words to those other songs, sometimes hymns that the lassie had memorized from having often heard them repeated at the meeting-house, whither she had been permitted to go when the summer colony was closed. Then again, there had been times when she had set words of her own to the meeting-house tunes; lilting melodies they were of winging gulls and of the mermaids who lived in the sea. But this morning there was a new and eager joyousness in the girl’s singing. For the first time in her fifteen years, the gates of her prison had been flung wide and she had stepped out into a strange world, timidly, perhaps, but soon forgetting herself in her delight at what she had found, a world of books, of young companionship, of adventure and romance. Muriel, even if she were again imprisoned, would never be quite the same. But the newly awakened love in the heart of Captain Ezra had been the key that had opened the door for his “gal,” and she was now free to come and go as she wished, because he trusted her. She would not leave him without telling him nor would he detain her if she wished to go. “Top o’ the mornin’ to you, Grand-dad,” she called, when the fish were done to a turn and the potatoes were crispy brown. “I’ve a mind to be bakin’ today,” she continued when he was seated at the table. “Some o’ those wee Irishy cakes that Uncle Barney taught me how to make, just like his ‘auld’ mother did. He’s allays askin’ for ’em when he docks at Windy Island. He’s been laid up so long, I cal’late the taste of ’em might be cheerin’ him, wouldn’t you reckon they might, Grand-dad?” The young arms were about the old man’s neck and her fresh young cheek rested against the forehead that was leathered by exposure to the sun and wind and beating rain. There was a twinkle in the grey eye that was nearest her. “I cal-late as ’twould add to ol’ Cap’n Barney’s cheer if the stewardess herself toted them cookies to his stranded ol’ craft on the dunes. Was that what yo’ was figgerin’ on doin’, fust mate?” “If yo’d like to take me, Grand-dad.” This very demurely. The old sea captain put down his knife and fork and laughed heartily. “I reckon a gal who knows how to sail a boat better’n most folks don’ need a boatman to cruise her over to the mainland. Sho now, Rilly! Navigate yer own craft. The embargo’s lifted, as the newspapers put it. Come and go when it’s to yer likin’. Jest be lettin’ me know.” Then he added, as though it were an after-thought: “When yo’ carry yer cargo o’ cakes to town, if I was yo’ I’d leave a few at Miss Brazilla’s cottage. I reckon yer new friend might be likin’ the taste o’ suthin’ differ’nt.” Muriel’s cheeks were rosy. “Grand-dad,” she protested, “I wa’n’t thinkin’ of Gene Beavers, honest I wa’n’t! I just reckoned ’twasn’t fair for me to be spendin’ a whole arternoon wi’ a new friend when an ol’ one who’s been lovin’ me for years back is laid up in drydock an’ needs me even more.” The hazel eyes looked across the table so frankly that the teasing twinkle faded in the grey eyes and an expression of infinite tenderness took its place. “I reckon I understand, fust mate,” the old man said. “Cap’n Barney’s got a heart in him as big as the hold in a freight boat, but thar’s a powerful lot of loneliness in it, for all that he’s allays doin’ neighborly things for the folks on the dunes. Barney’s been hankerin’ for years to be goin’ back to his ol’ mother, but she keeps writin’ him to be stayin’ in America, and that she’ll come to keep his house as soon as her duty’s done, but she don’ come, for it’s this un’ and that un’ over thar that’s in need of her ministrin’. Some day, I reckon, Barney’ll pull up anchor and set sail for his Emerald Isle.” “Oh, Grand-dad,” Rilla said, with sudden tears in her eyes, “you’n me’ll be that lonely if he goes.” During the morning, while Muriel busied herself with making the little “Irishy” cakes, she did not sing, nor was she thinking of Gene Beavers, for all of her thoughts were of her dear friend, old Captain Barney. Somehow she hadn’t realized before how lonesome he must be so far away from kith and kin. The fisherfolk living about him on the dunes were not from his country, nor were their interests his interests. They loved him, but could not understand him, for, as Mrs. Sam Peters had said one day to a group of the wives: “How can a body understand a man with grey hair on the top o’ his head who believes in the fairies?” Muriel understood him, and so no wonder was it that they two were the closest of friends. Long rows of pert looking little cakes with spiral peaks were on the white pine shelf when Cap’n Ezra heard the welcome call for mess. “Yo, Rilly gal,” he exclaimed, “looks like a baker shop for sure sartin. How much a dozen are yo’ askin’ for yer wares?” “Yo’re to have a dozen for the takin’, Grand-dad,” the girl, flushed from the heat of the stove, told him beamingly. “Yo’re share o’ ’em is on the table waitin’ yer comin’.” “So they be,” the old man declared as he caught sight of the plate heaped with little cakes near his place. “Yo’ wouldn’t be leavin’ yer ol’ Grand-dad out, would yo’, fust mate?” “Leave yo’ out, Grand-dad?” The questioner seemed amazed that such a suggestion could be made. “Why, if all the folks in all the world were to go somewhar’s else an’ I still had you, I’d be that happy an’ content.” The girl said this nestled close in the old man’s arms, and over her head he wiped away a tear. “Thunderation fish-hooks!” he exclaimed gruffly. “What a tarnal lot o’ sentiment, sort of, we two folks do think lately. I reckon your grand-dad’s cruisin’ into his second childhood faster’n a full rigged schooner can sail ahead of a gale.” Laughingly Muriel skipped to the stove and carried the black iron spider to the table to serve Captain Ezra. “I reckon it’s better off we are when we are childlike, Grand-dad,” she said. Then with sweet seriousness she added: “You know the Good Book tells that it’s only them that becomes like a child again that can enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” Taking her place opposite the old man, the girl sat for a moment looking out of the open window at the shining waters of the bay. “I reckon it means that we must be trustin’ like a little child is, knowin’ our Father in Heaven wants to take care of us. I reckon we’d ought to be like little Zoeth was the day that Mr. Wixon got mad an’ was goin’ to cruise off and leave his fam’ly forever. He was packin’ up his kit, sayin’ hard words all the time, when little cripple Zoeth clumped over to him, and slippin’ that frail hand o’ his into the big one, he said, trustin’ like: ‘Ma says yer goin’ away forever, but I know ’tain’t so. Yo’re my dad and yer wantin’ to take care o’ me, aren’t yo’, Dad?’ “Yo’ recollect that Mr. Wixon stayed, and, what’s more, Mis’ Wixon, she changed, too. She stopped peckin’ about suthin’ all the time an’ tried to figure out what she could do to make her home happy, an’ she did it, Grand-dad. I reckon that little ol’ shack o’ the Wixons is the happiest home on the dunes.” Then, taking up her knife and fork, she added: “I cal’late that’s what the Good Book means, just trustin’ an’ bein’ happy-hearted like a child.” An hour later Captain Ezra stood at the top of the steep steps leading down the cliff and watched while his “gal” rowed the dory over toward the mainland. The girl looked up at the first buoy and waved to the one she loved most in all the world. Little Sol was down on the wharf, and with him were several small boys and girls, rather unkempt, rough mannered little creatures, for the wives of the fishermen hadn’t much money to spend and the children were permitted to grow up as untutored as water rats. When Rilla landed they ran to her with arms outstretched. “Rilly, Rilly,” they clamored, “be tellin’ us a story ’bout the mermaid that lived in a cave an——” “An’ how the tail on her changed to two legs an’ she was married to a prince,” the oldest among them concluded. Many a time Muriel had told them this story. “I reckon I haven’t time today,” Rilla said with a quick glance at the sun. Then suddenly she thought of something. In her basket there were two packages. In the larger one there were cakes for Uncle Barney. That could not be touched. But in the smaller one there were cakes which she had planned leaving at the Mullet cottage for Gene. After all, it was hardly fair when he had all the goodies he wished and these raggedy children almost never had anything but fish and potatoes. “I cal’late I have time to be givin’ yo’ each a little cake,” Muriel announced. Placing her basket on a roll of tarred rope, she opened the smaller package and passed around the crispy little cakes and when she saw the glow in the eyes that looked up at her she was glad of her decision. “Now we’ll be learnin’ the manners,” she laughingly told the children, who gazed at her with wide-eyed wonder. “Each of yo’ be makin’ a bow and say, ‘Thank you, Rilly.’” A fine lady had come to Windy Island the summer before to visit the light and with her had been a fairy-like girl of seven. Muriel had been baking cakes that day and had given her one. To her surprise, the child had made the prettiest curtsy and had said, “Thank you, Miss Muriel.” Whatever strange thing Rilla might ask the children to do they would at least attempt it, and so, holding fast with grimy fingers to the precious cakes, they watched the older girl as she showed them how to curtsy. Then they tried to do likewise, the while they piped out, “Thank yo’, Rilly!” “Now, dearies, allays do that arter yo’ve been given anythin’ nice,” she bade them. “Ye-ah, Rilly, we-uns will,” was the reply that followed her. But it was rather muffled, for the cakes were being hungrily devoured. Muriel wished that she could give each child another, but she could not open Uncle Barney’s package, and so, turning to wave goodbye, she left the wharf and set out across the dunes in the direction of the Irishman’s cabin. |
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