CHAPTER XIVTHE LIGHT ON LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND
Laura looked faintly excited for a minute, then she leaned back wearily in her seat again.
“I’m just as sure as you are, Billie, that there’s something funny about it,” she said. “But if we really had wanted to solve the mystery, we should have stayed at Three Towers. The first thing they do in detective stories is to shadow the people they suspect. And how can we do that, I’d like to know, when we’re running straight away from them?”
This was very good reasoning. Even Billie and Connie had to admit that, and they began to look worried.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked you girls to visit me. Then you might have stayed at Three Towers for the summer and solved the mystery. Now I’ve spoiled all the fun——”
“Connie! don’t be such an absolute goose,” cried Billie, putting a hand over Connie’s mouth. “Do you suppose we’d have missed this for anything?”
“Anyway,” added Vi hopefully, “we may find some more mysteries on Lighthouse Island.”
“Humph,” grumbled Laura, who was feeling tired and cross, “you talk as if mysteries were just hanging around loose begging to be found.”
“Well, I think maybe we’ll manage to enjoy ourselves, even without mysteries,” said Billie gayly. Nevertheless, she could not help thinking to herself: “Oh, dear, I do wish there was some way I could find out about Miss Arbuckle and those lovely children and poor lonely, sad Hugo Billings. I should like to help if I only knew how!”
“Billie, wake up! Wake up—it’s time to get off!”
She must have been very sound asleep because it was several seconds before she fought her way through a sea of unconsciousness and opened heavy eyes upon a scene of confusion.
“What’s the matter?” she asked sleepily, but some one, she thought it was Laura, shook her impatiently, and some one else—she was wide awake enough now to be sure this was Vi—put a hat on her head and pushed it so far over her eyes that she temporarily went blind again.
“For goodness sake, can’t you put it on straight?” she demanded indignantly, pushing the hat back where it belonged. “What do you think you’re doing anyway?”
A little anger was the best thing that could have come to Billie. It was about the only thing in the world that would have gotten her wide awake just then. And it was very necessary that she shouldbe wide awake, for the train was just drawing into the station where they were to get off to take the boat to Lighthouse Island.
She took the bag thrust into her hands by Laura, and the girls hurried out into the aisle that was crowded with people. A minute more, and they found themselves on a platform down which people hurried and porters rolled their baggage trucks and where every one seemed intent upon making as much noise as possible.
Billie and Laura and Vi felt very much bewildered, for they had never done any traveling except in the company of some older person; but with a confidence that surprised them, Connie took command of the situation. For Connie had traveled this route several times, and everything about it was familiar to her.
“Give me your trunk checks,” she ordered, adding, as the girls obediently fumbled in their pocketbooks: “We’ll have to hustle if we want to get our trunks straightened out and get on board ourselves before the boat starts. What’s the matter, Vi, you haven’t lost your check, have you?”
For one terrible minute Vi had been afraid she had done just this, but now, with a sigh of relief, she produced the check and handed it over to Connie.
“My, but that was a narrow escape,” she murmured,as they hurried down the crowded platform.
The boat that plied from the mainland to Lighthouse Island and one or two more small islands scattered about near the coast was a small but tidy little vessel that was really capable of better speed than most people gave her credit for. She was painted a sort of dingy white, and large black letters along her bow proclaimed her to be none other than theMary Ann.
And now as the girls, with several other passengers, stepped on board and felt the cool breeze upon their faces they breathed deep of the salty air and gazed wonderingly out over the majestic ocean rolling on and on in unbroken swells toward the distant horizon.
Gone was all the fatigue of the long train ride. They forgot that their lungs were full of soft coal dirt, that their hands were grimy, and their faces, too. They were completely under the spell of that great, mysterious tyrant—the ocean.
“Isn’t this grand!”
“Just smell the salt air!”
“Makes you feel braced up already,” came from Billie, who had been filling her lungs to the utmost. “Oh, girls! I’m just crazy to jump in and have a swim.”
“I’m with you on that,” broke out Vi. “Oh, I’m sure we’re going to have just the best times ever!”
There was a fair-sized crowd to get aboard, made up partly of natives and partly of city folks. The passengers were followed by a number of trunks and a small amount of freight.
“Evidently we’re not the only ones to take this trip,” remarked Billie, as she noted the people coming on board theMary Ann.
“A number of these people must live on the islands the year around,” said Laura.
“My, how lonely it must be on this coast during the winter months,” said Billie. “Think of being out on one of those islands in a howling snowstorm!”
“I wonder how they get anything to eat during those times?” questioned Vi.
“I presume they keep stuff on hand,” answered Billie.
With a sharp toot of her whistle the boat moved out from the dock, made her way carefully among the numerous other craft in the harbor, and finally nosed her way out into the water of the channel.
“O—oh,” breathed Vi, softly. “It’s even more wonderful than I thought it would be. I’d like to go sailing on and on like this forever.”
“Well, I wouldn’t,” said Laura practically. “Not without any supper. I’m getting a perfectly awful appetite.”
“It will be worse than that after you’ve been here a little while,” laughed Connie. “Mother says thatit seems as if she never can give me enough to eat when we come out to the seashore, so she has given up trying.”
“Your poor mother!” said Billie dolefully. “And now she has four of us!”
“I know,” chuckled Connie. “Mother was worrying a little about that—as to how she could keep four famished wolves fed at one time. But Uncle Tom said he’d help her out.”
“Your Uncle Tom,” Vi repeated wonderingly. “Can he cook?”
“Of course,” said Connie, looking at her as if she had asked if the world was square. “Didn’t I tell you about his clam chowder?”
“Oh,” said Vi thoughtfully, while something within her began to cry out for a sample of that clam chowder. “Oh yes, I remember.”
“Connie, you’re cruel,” moaned Laura. “Can’t you talk of something besides clam chowder when you know I’m starving to death? Goodness, I can almost smell it.”
“That’s the clams you smell,” chuckled Connie. “They always have some on board theMary Annto sell to the islanders—if they haven’t the sense to catch them themselves. We never need to buy any,” she added, proudly. “Uncle Tom keeps us supplied with all we want. Look!” she cried suddenly, pointing to a small island which loomed directly ahead of them, looking in the grey mist of evening like onlya darker shadow against the shifting background. “That’s our island—see? And there’s the light,” she added, as a sudden beacon flashed out at them, sending a ruddy light out over the dark water.
“Oh, isn’t it beautiful!” cried Billie rapturously. “Just think what it must mean to the ships out at sea—that friendly light, beckoning to them——”
“No, it doesn’t—beckon, I mean,” said Connie decidedly. “That’s just what it isn’t for. It’s to warn them to keep away or they’ll be sorry.”
“Is there so much danger?” asked Laura eagerly.
“I should say there is,” Connie answered gravely. “In a storm especially. You see, the water is very shallow around here and if a big ship runs in too close to shore she’s apt to get on a shoal. That isn’t so bad in clear weather—although a ship did get stuck on the shoal here not so very long ago and she was pretty much damaged when they got her off. But in a storm——”
“Yes,” cried Billie impatiently.
“Why, Uncle Tom says,” Connie was very serious, “that if a ship were driven upon the shoal in a gale—and we have terrible storms around here—it would probably come with such force that its bottom would be pretty nearly crushed in and the people on board might die before any one could get out there to rescue them.”
“Oh, Connie, how dreadful!” cried Vi. Laura and Billie only stared at the lighthouse tower asthough fascinated, while the little boat came steadily nearer to it.
“Has anything like that ever happened here, Connie?” asked Laura in an awed voice.
“No,” said Connie. “There was a terrible wreck here a long time ago—before they built the lighthouse. But Uncle Tom says no one will ever know just how many lives have been saved because of the good old light. To hear him talk to it you would think it was alive.”
“It is!” cried Billie, pointing excitedly as the great white globe that held the light swung slowly around toward them. “Didn’t you see that? It winked at us!”
CHAPTER XVCONNIE'S MOTHER
The steamer scraped against the dock and the girls straightened their hats, picked up their suitcases, and started down the narrow winding stairs that led to the lower deck.
Connie led the way as she had done ever since they had left North Bend. She scrambled quickly out upon the pier and the chums, following more slowly, were in time to see Connie rapturously embrace first a lady and then a gentleman standing near by.
“Well, well!” a deep masculine voice was saying, “it seems mighty good to see our girl again. But where are the others?”
Connie turned eagerly to the girls.
“This is my mother and father, Billie and Laura and Vi,” she said, with a proud wave of her hand toward her smiling parents, who came forward and greeted the girls cordially.
“It’s too dark to see your faces,” Mrs. Danvers said. “But Connie has described you to us so manytimes that it isn’t at all necessary. I’m sure I know just exactly what you look like.”
“Oh, but they’re three times as nice as anything I’ve said about them,” Connie was protesting when her father, who had been conversing with the captain of theMary Ann, stepped up to them.
“If you young ladies will give me your checks,” he said—and the girls knew they were going to love him because his voice sounded so kind—“I’ll attend to your trunks and you can go on up to the house.”
The girls produced their checks, Mr. Danvers went back to the captain, and Mrs. Danvers and the girls started off in high spirits toward the bungalow.
“Are you very tired?” Mrs. Danvers asked them, and the turn of her head as she looked at them made the girls think of some pert, plump, cheery little robin.
It was really getting very dark, and the girls could not make out what she looked like, but they could see that she was small and graceful and her voice—well, her voice had a gay lilt that made one want to laugh even though all she said was “what a pleasant day it is.” No wonder, with that father and mother, Connie was such a darling.
“Why, no, we’re not very tired,” Billie said in answer to Mrs. Danvers’ question. “We were on the train, but the minute we got on board the boat we seemed to forget all about it. It’s this beautifulsalt air, I suppose,” and she sniffed happily at the soft, salt-laden breeze that came wandering up from the sea.
“Of course it’s the air,” agreed Mrs. Danvers gayly. “The air does all sorts of wonderful things to us. You just wait a few days and see.”
They were walking along a rough boardwalk set quite a way back from the water’s edge so that there was a white stretch of beach between it and the first thin line of lapping waves.
“Why, look at the boardwalk!” cried Laura, in wonder.
“You didn’t say anything about a boardwalk down here, Connie,” added Vi. “You’re really right up to date, aren’t you?”
“What did you suppose?” put in Billie. “That Lighthouse Island was in the backwoods and had no improvements?” And she laughed gayly.
“Well, I know that very few of the islands on this coast have boardwalks,” defended Laura. “Most of them have the roughest kind of stony paths.”
“You are right, there,” said Connie. “I remember only too well when I was on Chatter Island we had to climb over the rocks all the way, and one day I twisted my ankle most dreadfully—so badly, in fact, that I was laid up for three days while all the other girls were having the best time ever.”
“I know what I’d do on a real dark night,” remarked Billie dryly. “If I couldn’t see where I wasstepping, I’d take my chances and walk in the sand.”
“I do that myself sometimes,” answered Connie.
Several bungalows dotted the rather barren landscape, for Lighthouse Island was an ideal spot for a summer home—that is if one liked the seashore.
But the girls were not so much interested in what was on the island as they were in what was beyond it. The ocean—the great dark, mysterious ocean drew their eyes irresistibly and set their minds to wandering. And as the days passed they were to feel the spell of it more and more.
“Here we are,” Mrs. Danvers said cheerily, and with an effort the girls brought their thoughts back to the present.
Mrs. Danvers had turned from the main boardwalk down another that led to a bungalow whose every window was cheerfully and invitingly lighted.
“Be careful where you step,” Mrs. Danvers called back to them, and the girls saw that she was picking her steps very carefully. “There are two or three boards missing, and I can’t get Mr. Danvers to do the repairing. He spends whole days,” she added, turning plaintively to Connie, “up in that old lighthouse just talking to your Uncle Tom. I don’t know whether it’s your Uncle Tom’s conversation he finds so fascinating or his clam chowder.”
She opened the door as she spoke and the girls had a vision of a comfortable, gayly lighted roomall wicker chairs and chintz cushions and chintz hangings, a room pretty and cozy, a room that seemed to be beckoning and inviting the girls to come in and make themselves at home.
Which they did—immediately. All except Billie, who stepped back a moment and gazed off through the dusk to the light in the lighthouse tower glowing its warning to the travelers over the dark highways of the sea.
“I love it,” she said, surprising herself by her fervor. “It looks so bright and brave and lonely.”
Then she stepped in after the others and almost ran into Connie, who was coming back to get her.
“What were you doing all by yourself out there in the dark?” she asked accusingly. “We thought you had run away or something.”
“Goodness, where would I run to?” asked Billie, as they went upstairs together arm in arm. “There’s no place to run except into the ocean, and I’d rather wait for that till I have my bathing suit on.”
They found Mrs. Danvers and Laura and Vi in a large room as pretty and comfortable as the room downstairs, though not quite so elaborate. Laura and Vi were busily engaged in making themselves entirely at home.
Laura had her hat off and was fixing her hair in front of a mirror and Vi was hanging up her coat in the closet.
“You see there’s a connecting door between thesetwo rooms,” Mrs. Danvers said in her pleasant voice; “so that you girls can feel almost as if you were in one room.”
Then as she caught sight of Billie and Connie in the doorway she beckoned to them and disappeared into the next room, and with a laughing word to Laura and Vi they followed her.
This was the room that she and Connie were to occupy, Billie found, and she looked about her at the handsome mahogany furniture and dainty dressing table fixings with interest.
But she was even more interested in seeing what Connie’s mother looked like in the light. She was not a bit disappointed, for Mrs. Danvers’ looks entirely matched her voice.
Her eyes were a wide laughing hazel, set far apart and fringed with dark lashes. Her hair, for she had not worn a hat, was a soft brown, and the night wind had whipped a pretty color into her face.
“She is awfully pretty. Not as pretty as my mother,” Billie thought loyally, “but awfully pretty just the same.”
Billie must have been staring more than she knew, for suddenly Mrs. Danvers—it seemed absurd to call her “Mrs.” she looked so like a girl—turned upon her and took her laughingly by the shoulders.
“So you’re Billie Bradley,” she said, her hazel eyes searching Billie’s brown ones. “Connie saidyou were the most popular girl at Three Towers and that all the girls loved you. I can’t say that I blame them, my dear,” giving Billie’s flushed cheek a gay little pat. “I’m not very sure but what I may do it myself. Now here——” And she went on to give directions while Billie followed her with wondering eyes. How could a woman who was old enough to be Connie’s mother look so absolutely and entirely like a girl of twenty? She was not even dignified like most of the mothers Billie knew—she did not even try to be. Connie treated her as she would an older and much loved sister. One only needed to be with them three minutes to see that mother and daughter adored each other and were the very best chums in the world. And right then and there Billie began adoring too.
“Now I’ll run downstairs and get something on the table for you girls to eat, for I know you must be starving,” said Mrs. Danvers, or rather “Connie’s mother,” as Billie called her from that day on. “Don’t stop to fix up, girls, for there won’t be a soul here to-night but Daddy and me—and we don’t care. Hurry now. If you are not downstairs by the time I have dinner on the table I’ll eat it all myself, every bit.” With that she was gone into the next room, leaving a trail of laughter behind her that made Billie’s heart laugh in sympathy.
“Connie,” she said, sitting down on the edge of the bed and regarding her chum soberly as sheopened her bag and drew out a brush and comb, “I’m simply crazy about your mother. She’s so young and pretty and—and—happy. Does she ever do anything but laugh?”
“Not often,” said Connie, adding with a little chuckle: “But when she does stop laughing you’d better look out for 'breakers ahead,' as Uncle Tom says. Mother’s French you know, and she has a temper—about once a year. But for goodness sake, stop talking, Billie, and get ready. You’ve got a patch of dirt under one eye. What’s that I smell? It’s clam chowder!”
“Clam chowder,” repeated Billie weakly. “Are you sure it’s clam chowder, Connie?”
“Yes, clam chowder,” repeated Connie firmly.
CHAPTER XVICLAM CHOWDER AND SALT AIR
Connie was right, gloriously right. It was clam chowder—the kind of clam chowder one dreams about—come true. Uncle Tom had made it just that very afternoon and had brought it over in a huge bucket that was always used for such occasions.
The girls ate and ate and ate and then ate some more until they were completely satisfied with life and were feeling contented and beautifully, wonderfully drowsy.
Connie’s mother had served them other things beside clam chowder. There were pork chops and apple sauce, there were muffins and honey and apple pie, and when they had finished, the once full table looked as if a swarm of locusts had been at it.
And all the time Connie’s mother had watched them with wide, delighted eyes and Connie’s father had lounged back in his chair, smoking a cigar and looking on with an indulgent smile.
Mr. Danvers, with the aid of a couple of men from the dock, had got the girls’ trunks up to thehouse and into the rooms they were going to occupy for the summer.
And now, having done his duty, he had sauntered into the dining room to get acquainted with the girls and smoke a cigar. He and Mrs. Danvers had had their dinner earlier, because, as Mrs. Danvers laughingly explained, “she had been famished and could not wait,” so that now there was nothing to do but watch the girls enjoy themselves.
The dining room was like all the other rooms in the cottage, cheerful and cozy and tastefully furnished, and as the girls looked about them happily they felt that they must have known the house and its owners all their lives.
Mr. Danvers was many years older than his wife, and he looked even older than he was. But he was a handsome man, and the touch of gray in the hair at his temples only made him look more distinguished. He adored his wife, and his eyes followed her wherever she went.
“As if any one could blame him for that,” thought Billie, as Mrs. Danvers slipped a second piece of apple pie on her plate.
“My gracious! do you expect me to eat a second piece of pie?” cried Billie, glancing up at Mrs. Danvers, with a smile.
“A second piece of pie isn’t very much for a young girl with a healthy appetite,” returned the lady of the bungalow.
“You give her too much pie, and she’ll be dreaming of all sorts of things,” remonstrated Vi.
“Why, Vi! To talk that way when you are eating a second piece yourself!” broke in Laura.
“If we dream, perhaps we’ll all dream together, so what’s the difference?” remarked Billie; and at this there was a laugh in which even Mr. Danvers joined.
After dinner Connie’s mother sent them up to their rooms, saying that she knew they must be tired to death and should go to bed early so they could get up to see the sun rise the next morning.
They did not protest very much, for they were tired and the prospect of bed was very alluring. To-morrow—well, to-morrow they would go exploring. Perhaps they might even be permitted to visit the lighthouse and Uncle Tom. Speaking of Uncle Tom made Billie think of the clam chowder, and although she could not have eaten another scrap if she had tried, her mouth watered at the memory.
The girls left the connecting door open between the two rooms so that they could talk to each other if they wanted to, but they did not do very much talking that night.
“Oh, this feels good,” sighed Billie, as Connie turned down the covers and she crawled thankfully into bed. “I didn’t know I was so awfully tired. And that dinner! Connie, does your mother always serve dinners like that?”
“Yes,” said Connie, flinging her thick braid over her shoulder and crossing the room to turn out the light. “Mother’s an awfully good cook, and although we have a maid to do the heavy work Mother does all the cooking herself.”
“Well,” said Billie, snuggling down under the covers luxuriously as Connie joined her, “I’m mighty glad I came.”
“Even if we don’t solve any mysteries?” asked Connie, a trifle wistfully.
Billie turned over and tried to see her face, a thing impossible, of course, in the dark.
“What a foolish thing to say,” she cried. “I’ll shake you, Connie Danvers, if you ever say a thing like that again. We could have stayed at Three Towers if we had wanted to solve mysteries more than we wanted to come here, couldn’t we?”
“Y—yes,” said Connie doubtfully. “Only, of course, we didn’t know anything about the mystery when I asked you to come here. So you couldn’t have backed out very well, even if you had wanted to.”
Billie turned over impatiently and caught Connie by the shoulder.
“Connie Danvers!” she cried, “now I know you want to be shaken. Are you really trying to say that we didn’t want to come with you and only did it to please you?”
“No,” said Connie, with a shake of her head.“Of course I didn’t mean just that. Just the same,” she added longingly, “I am awfully anxious to find out about Miss Arbuckle and her album and—that strange man—everything.”
It was then that a horrible thought struck Billie, and it was so horrible that it sat her straight up in bed.
“Connie—I just thought—could it—were you sorry you asked us to come?” she stammered. “Would you rather have stayed at Three Towers yourself?”
For a minute there was silence and Billie knew that Connie was staring through the dark at her in absolute amazement.
“You perfectly silly goose,” said Connie then, her bewilderment changing to indignation. “Now I know who wants to be shaken. Lie down here, Billie, and see if you can act sensibly. Sorry I asked you!” she exploded indignantly. “Why, who ever heard of such a thing!”
“But you said you wanted to solve the mystery—if there is one,” Billie reminded her, lying down again.
“Well, of course I do. So do all the rest of you,” Connie shot back. “But as to being sorry I asked you, why, I’ve a good mind——” She rose threateningly in the bed and Billie put out a pleading hand, saying with a chuckle:
“Please don’t kill me or do whatever you were going to. I take it all back.”
“I should say you’d better!” sputtered Connie, coming down with a thump in the bed.
“What are you girls raving about?” asked a sleepy voice from the next room that they recognized as Vi’s. “Can’t you keep still and let a fellow sleep? Laura’s snoring already.”
“Oh, I am not!” came indignantly from Laura. “I never snore!”
“How do you know?” asked Vi with interest.
“Know!” sputtered Laura. “Why, I don’t know how I know, but I do know.”
“Perhaps you are like an aunt of mine,” Vi’s voice came lazily back. “She says she knows she never snores because she stayed awake all night once just to see if she did.”
Billie and Connie chuckled, which would have made Laura more indignant if she had not been so sleepy.
“Oh, for goodness sake, keep still and let me sleep,” she cried, adding ferociously: “I saw a knife around somewhere downstairs. If anybody speaks another word I’m going down and get it.”
Whether this threat had anything to do with it or not, it would be hard to say. But at any rate the girls did stop talking and settled down for sleep.
All but one of them succeeded in drifting off intothe land of nod in no time at all, but that one of them—who was Billie—lay for a long time with eyes wide open staring into the dark.
Then gradually the soft lapping of waves upon the beach soothed her into a sort of doze where tall thin men and shabby picture albums and queer little huts were all confused and jumbled together. Only one thing stood out clearly, and that was the great searchlight, twinkling, winking, glowing, sending its friendly message far out upon the sea.
Then all the troubled visions disappeared in a soft black cloud. Billie was asleep.
CHAPTER XVIIFUN AND NONSENSE
The next morning the girls were up with the sun. They were in hilarious spirits and made so much noise that Mrs. Danvers, busily getting breakfast in the kitchen below, smiled to herself and hugged a big collie that at that moment strolled leisurely into the room.
The big collie’s name was Bruce, and he belonged to Uncle Tom of the lighthouse. But although Uncle Tom was his master and was first in his dog’s heart, Connie’s mother was his very next best beloved and Bruce spent his time nearly equally between the lighthouse and Uncle Tom and the cottage and Connie’s mother.
Now he answered the woman’s hug with a loving look from his beautiful eyes and waved his brush gratefully.
“Bruce darling,” said Connie’s mother, as she lifted a pan of biscuits and shoved it into the oven, “it’s a perfectly gorgeous morning and a perfectly gorgeous world and you’re a perfectly gorgeousdog. Now don’t deny it. You know you are! How about it?”
To which Bruce responded by a more vigorous waving of his white tipped brush that very nearly swept a second pan of biscuits off on to the well-swept floor.
Connie’s mother rescued it with a quick motion of her arm and stared at Bruce reproachfully.
“Bruce, just suppose you had spoiled it!” she scolded, as she slipped the pan into the oven after its fellow. “Don’t you know that I have four hungry girls to feed, to say nothing of a great big husband——”
“Now what are you saying about me?” asked a man’s pleasant voice from the doorway, adding as Connie’s mother turned toward him: “Can’t I help, dear? You look rather warm.”
“Warm! Well, I should say I was!” said Connie’s mother, sweeping a stray lock of hair back out of her eyes. “But what do I care when it’s such a wonderful world? Haven’t I got my baby back again, and three others as well? They’re sweet girls, aren’t they, John? And Billie Bradley is going to be a beauty.”
“Well, I know some one else who is a beauty,” said Mr. Danvers, looking admiringly at his wife’s rosy face and wide-apart, laughing eyes, adding with a smile: “Even though she has a big patch of flour under one eye.”
“Oh!” cried Connie’s mother, and wiped her face vigorously with a pink and white checked apron. “Now just for that,” she said, turning to her husband, who was still lounging in the doorway, “I’m going to put you out. And Bruce, too. I have enough to do without having a husband who makes fun of me and a dog who sticks his tail into everything under my feet all the time. Hurry on,” and she pushed her protesting, laughing husband and the reluctant dog out through the open door and into the brilliant sunshine beyond.
“Are you going to call us in time for breakfast?” Mr. Danvers called back to his wife over his shoulder.
“Of course,” she answered. “I’ll send Connie after you.” And she playfully waved a frying pan at him.
“She put us out, Bruce,” said Mr. Danvers laying a caressing hand on the dog’s beautiful head as he walked gravely along beside him. “But we love her just the same, don’t we?” And Bruce’s answer was to press close to Mr. Danvers and wave his tail enthusiastically.
Hardly had Mrs. Danvers had time to put the bacon in the oven to keep warm and break the eggs into the pan when there was a sound of skirmishing on the stairs, and a moment later a whirlwind broke in upon her.
“Mother, Mother, Mother, everything smellsgood!” cried Connie, dancing over to her mother and hugging her so energetically that she almost sent the eggs, pan and all, on the floor. “Is there anything we can do to help?”
“Yes—go away,” cried Connie’s mother, seeing with dismay that one of the eggs in the pan was broken—and Connie’s mother prided herself upon serving perfect eggs. Then, as she saw the surprise in the girls’ faces, she relented, left the eggs to their fate, and hugged them all.
“You’re darlings,” she said. “But you’re awfully in the way. Billie, for goodness sake, hand me that pancake turner. Quick! These eggs are going to be awful!”
But Billie had jumped to the rescue, and when the eggs were turned out on the platter with the bacon surrounding them on four sides, they did not look “awful” at all, but just about the most appetizing things the girls had ever laid hungry eyes on.
“Oh, let me carry them!”
“No, let me!”
“I’ll do it!”
And to a chorus of a score or so other such pleas, the eggs were borne triumphantly into the dining room and set carefully on the table.
“Now the biscuits!” cried Connie, running back into the kitchen where her mother was just heapinganother platter high with golden brown deliciousness.
“Oh, Mother,” said Connie, darting a kiss at her mother that landed just exactly on the tip of Mrs. Danvers’ pretty astonished nose, “everything you cook always looks just exactly like you.”
Then she disappeared with the biscuits, leaving her mother to rub her nose and smile somewhat proudly.
“I guess it must have been a compliment,” she chuckled, as she followed Connie with a second plate of biscuits, “for they always seem to like what I cook.”
The girls were already waiting politely but impatiently for her. She was about to sit down when she thought of Mr. Danvers. She looked hastily at Connie.
“I told your father I’d send you after him when breakfast was ready,” she said; and Connie looked dismayed.
“Oh, bother!” she said. “I just know they’ll eat all the biscuits before I get back.”
“No, we won’t. We promise,” said Billie; but Connie still looked doubtful enough to make them giggle as she flung out of the door in search of her father.
She had been gone scarcely two minutes when she returned triumphantly with her father and Bruce in tow.
“They were just coming back,” she told her mother, as she sank into her seat and reached for a biscuit. “Daddy said he smelled the biscuits and they drew him with——What was it you said they drew you with, Daddy?”
“Irresistible force?” asked Mr. Danvers, as he greeted the girls and took his seat at the head of the table. “Now, if they only taste as they smell——” He smiled at his wife across the table and she handed him a plate full of the golden brown biscuits.
“Who owns the dog?” asked Laura boyishly, as Bruce sat down gravely at Mrs. Danvers’ side, looking up at her adoringly.
“Oh, please, excuse me; I forgot to introduce him,” cried Mrs. Danvers, dimpling and laying her hand lightly on the dog’s head. “This is Robert Bruce, and he’s a thoroughbred and belongs to Uncle Tom, and lives over at the lighthouse.”
“The lighthouse,” repeated Billie eagerly, then added as though she were thinking aloud: “Oh, but I’m crazy to see it.”
“Are you?” asked Connie’s mother, looking surprised at Billie’s eagerness, for the lighthouse was an old story to her. “Connie can take you over there to-day if you would like to go.”
“Oh, won’t that be lovely!” cried Vi. “I’ve always wanted to see inside a real lighthouse.I want to know all about the lights and everything. When can we go, Mrs. Danvers?”
“Any time you like,” answered Mrs. Danvers, her heart warming to their girlish enthusiasm. She was falling in love with Connie’s friends more and more every minute. “Uncle Tom receives visitors at all hours of the day.”
“And he has lots of ’em,” added Connie, nodding over her coffee cup. “All the children and the men love him. He can tell so many stories, you know——”
“And fish stories too, I reckon,” put in Connie’s mother laughingly. “You know you can never really depend upon a sailor’s telling the truth.”
Good as the breakfast was, the girls found themselves hurrying through it, so eager were they to see the lighthouse and Uncle Tom. They took Bruce with them at Mrs. Danvers’ request, for she was going to be very busy and the big dog did have a habit of getting in the way.
As the girls swung along the boardwalk they had a wild desire to shout with the sheer joy of living. Everything looked so different by daylight. It was not half so thrilling and mysterious, but it was much more beautiful.
The ocean was calm, for there was almost no wind. The water gleamed and sparkled in the brilliant sunshine, and the beach was almost too dazzlingly white to look upon.
In the distance rose the irregular outline of the mainland, but on all other sides there was nothing but an illimitable stretch of long, graceful, rolling combers.
As the girls came out upon the Point, there, before them, rose the lighthouse tower, robbed of the mystery it had worn the night before, yet wearing a quaint, romantic dignity all its own.
“Connie,” said Billie happily, “I’m sure this is the most wonderful place in the world.”
CHAPTER XVIIIUNCLE TOM
Uncle Tom was undeniably glad to see them. He was sitting in the little room at the base of the tower which was his living room, smoking a great corn-cob pipe and idly turning over the pages of a book.
But as Connie entered and ran to him with a joyful cry, he put the pipe down carefully, flung the book on the floor and caught the girl in a bear’s hug.
“Well, well!” he cried, his great voice filling the room like thunder, “here’s my little girl come back to me again. I was beginning to think you’d deserted your uncle in his old age, Connie, lass. When did you get back? And who are these other very pretty young ladies you have with you?”
“They are my chums and the nicest girls in all the world,” said Connie, turning to them gayly. “You must have known they were coming, Uncle Tom. Mother said she told you.”
“Yes, yes, so she did,” said Uncle Tom in the same hearty tones that seemed to fill the littleroom and—the girls could almost have sworn to it—make it tremble. “But my memory is getting worse and worse, Connie, lass,” he added, with a doleful shake of the head that was belied by the merry twinkle in his eyes. “Let me see now, what was it their names were?”
Then laughingly Connie introduced the girls and Uncle Tom had some funny personal little thing to say to each one of them so that by the time the introductions were over they were all laughing merrily and feeling very well acquainted.
“I suppose you will be wanting to see the tower,” said Uncle Tom, after he had shown them all around the quaint little room and introduced them to some of his treasures—queer racks and shells and pebbles that he had picked up in his wanderings. “Everybody always wants to climb the tower, and it’s mighty hard on a poor old fellow with a weak back, let me tell you.” And again the doleful shake of the head was belied by the twinkle in his eyes.
“Oh, we’re in no hurry, please,” put in Billie, turning from one of the small-paned, outward-opening windows that looked straight out upon the ocean. “I think this is the darlingest room I ever saw. I could spend days and days just looking around here.”
Connie’s Uncle Tom stood six feet two in his stocking feet and was broad in proportion. Hehad a shock of reddish brown hair that was becoming slightly streaked with gray, but his face was clean shaven. His features were rugged, rather than handsome, but his eyes were large and red-brown to match his hair and with an everlasting humor in them that made everybody love him who knew him.
And now he stood looking down at Billie’s pretty, eager face, and, though his face was grave, his eyes were laughing as usual.
“I’m glad you like it,” he said. “I do. But then, I have to.”
“I should think you’d want to,” Billie shot back. “Why, I am sure I would just love to live here myself——”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Uncle Tom interrupted, taking up his pipe and puffing at it thoughtfully. “It’s mighty nice in the day time, I’ll admit. Then it’s a mighty pretty, homey place. But at night, especially on a stormy night, it’s different. The wind wails round here like a tortured ghost, the waves beat upon the rock foundation of the tower like savage beasts trying to tear it apart, and the tower itself seems to quiver and tremble. And you start to wonder—” the girls had gathered closer to him, for his voice was grave and his eyes had stopped laughing—“about the ships away out there in the fury of the storm, some of them crippled, distressed, sinking perhaps. And you get to thinkingabout the men and women, and little children maybe, on board and wondering how many will be alive when the storm dies down. I tell you it grips you by the throat, it makes your eyes ache with pity, and you curse the storm that’s bringing disaster along with it.”
His hands were clenched, his face was hard and stern, and the girls felt thrilled, stirred, as they had never been before. But suddenly he jumped to his feet, went over to the window and stood there looking out for a moment. And when he came back he was smiling so naturally that the girls caught themselves wondering if they had not dreamed what had gone before.
“I didn’t mean to give you a lecture,” he told them gayly. And with strange reluctance they shook off the spell and smiled with him. “Come on, let’s take a look at the tower, and then I’ll give you some clam chowder. Would you like some clam chowder?”
They were too fresh from breakfast to be wildly enthusiastic even over clam chowder just then, but they knew the time would come soon when they would be hungry again, so they assented happily and followed the broad back of Uncle Tom up the winding tower steps.
They exclaimed over the tower room, and the wonderful revolving light, but the thing thatcharmed them most was the platform that completely encircled the tower.
They reached the platform through a small door, and as the girls stepped out upon it they felt almost as if they were stepping out into space.
The water seemed unbelievably far away, farther a good deal than it actually was, and Billie did not dare look down very long for fear of becoming dizzy.
It was almost half an hour before Uncle Tom finally succeeded in luring them away from the platform, and then the whole crowd of girls went reluctantly.
They went downstairs with Uncle Tom and listened to his yarns, with Bruce curled happily up at his master’s feet, until the thought of the clam chowder he had promised them became insistent and Connie asked him pointblank whether he had forgotten all about it.
Uncle Tom indignantly denied the latter imputation, and set about preparing the chowder immediately, the girls offering eager but inexperienced help. Bruce tried to help, too, but only succeeded, as usual, in getting himself in the way.
And after that came bliss! The girls succeeded in devouring a huge pot of delicious chowder—it was better than that they had had the night before, because it was freshly made—and it was after three o’clock before they finally tore themselves from thelighthouse and Uncle Tom and started for the Danvers' bungalow.
“Come again and come often,” he called after them in his megaphone voice, one hand stroking Bruce’s beautiful head as the big dog stood beside him.
“We will,” they answered happily.
“Especially if you give us clam chowder every time,” Billie laughed back at him over her shoulder. “Good-bye, Bruce.” She turned once more before they lost sight of the lighthouse keeper, and there he was, towering in the doorway, his dog at his side, smoking his corn cob pipe and gazing thoughtfully out to sea.
“I don’t wonder you love him, Connie,” she said, shading her eyes with her hand, for the brilliant sunshine made her blink. “I think he’s wonderful. He’s like—like—somebody out of a book.”
“Poor Teddy,” said Laura, with a wicked side glance at her chum. “I guess he’d better hurry up, if he’s coming.”
Billie tried hard to think of something crushing to say in reply, but before she could speak Connie gave an excited little skip that very nearly landed her in the sand a couple of feet below the boardwalk.
“Oh, when do you suppose the boys will get here?” she asked eagerly. “I’m just crazy to go out in that motor boat of Paul’s.”
“Yes, to have the boys come will be all we need to make us perfectly happy,” declared Vi.
“Well, they ought to be along in a few days now,” said Billie. Then she suddenly caught Connie’s arm and pointed out toward the water’s edge.
“Look!” she cried. “There are some people in swimming.”
“Why, of course,” said Connie. “We can go in swimming, too, to-morrow if we want to. Maybe Uncle Tom will come along. I always feel safer with him, he’s such a wonderful swimmer.”
“Oh, I hope so,” said Vi, adding plaintively: “I only wish to-morrow wasn’t such a long way off,” and she sighed.
The girls walked along in silence for a few minutes. Then Billie spoke as if she were thinking aloud.
“I wonder,” she said, “what your Uncle Tom——”
“You’d better call him your Uncle Tom,” said Connie, with a laugh, “because he’s already adopted you.”
“All right,” agreed Billie. “I wonder what made Uncle Tom speak the way he did about storms and wrecks and—and—things——”
“Why, since he’s a sailor,” said Laura, “I suppose he’s been in all sorts of wrecks, and of course he thinks about them most in a storm.”
“No,” said Connie gravely. “No, that isn’t it.You see,” she lowered her voice a little and spoke slowly, “Uncle Tom lost somebody in a wreck once. She was a very lovely girl, it is said, and Uncle Tom was engaged to marry her.”
The girls’ young faces were very sober as they gazed at Connie.
“Oh,” said Billie softly. “Now I see. Poor, poor Uncle Tom!”