Grace North - Rilla of the Lighthouse

He turned back inquiringly. “Sh! Keep still!” the girl whispered, her hazel eyes growing darker and wider as she gazed, almost as though she were frightened at something just below on the rocky beach.

What she saw was not really fear-inspiring. A youth, dressed in white flannels, who appeared to be but little older than Rilla, was standing with his hands in his pockets gazing at a flat-bottomed, weather-stained sailboat, in which he had evidently just landed and which he had drawn as high as he could up on the shore.

He turned with a start when an angry voice called, “Clear out! Go away! We don’ want any landlubbers here!”

The lad, however, did not seem to be in the least intimidated by this outburst from the rocks above him.

Looking up, he actually smiled. A barefooted girl with red-brown hair blowing in the wind and with a shaggy yellow and white dog at her side was, to his thought, a picture more to be admired than feared.

And, for that matter, Eugene Beavers, himself, was not fear-inspiring. He had clear grey eyes, a keen, thin face, and a firmly rounded chin. Indeed, Gene, as his best friends called him, was not only a good looking lad but one whom young and old trusted unquestioningly.

But with Rilla one thought was uppermost. One of those terrible creatures so dreaded by her grand-dad had dared to land on her very own island. There could be no mistake that he was “city folks,” for no boy living on the coast would have such a pale face nor would he be dressed in white flannels.

“If yo’ don’ board yer boat an’ ship off instanter I’ll send Shags at yo’, I will!” Rilla was wrathful because her first command had not been obeyed. At this the lad laughed, not rudely, but with merry good nature. It seemed to him truly humorous that this barefooted, wind-blown girl should be ordering him out to sea. Rilla, however, believed that he was laughing at her. Stamping her foot and pointing at the boy, her eyes flashing, she cried, “Shags, at him, ol’ dog.”

The faithful creature plunged down the rocky trail, growling as fiercely as he could, but as he approached the youth toward whom his mistress was pointing he paused uncertainly. The smiling lad, unafraid, was holding out a welcoming hand. “Come here, good dog,” he said coaxingly.

Shags, being friendly by nature, and not in the least understanding the present need for ferocity, actually wagged his tail and permitted the strange boy to stroke his head. This was too much for Rilla.

Her grand-dad had said that the dog would protect her, but he hadn’t done it. With an angry half sob, she turned and scrambled up the rocks. A second later, when the boy looked up, the girl was not to be seen. Shrugging his shoulders, he turned back to converse with his newly acquired companion. Gene dearly loved dogs and Shags had instinctively recognized in him a friend, but not so Rilla. She was convinced that all boys from the city were enemies, for had not her grand-dad said so time and again?

Running to the lighthouse, the girl seized the gun that stood in the corner and raced back again. The next time that Gene Beavers looked up, there she stood with a gun pointed directly at him.

“Now’ll yo’ take orders?” her voice rang out angrily, her eyes dark with excitement. “Now’ll yo’ put out to sea?”

The lad looked puzzled and then troubled. For the first time he was conscious that this stormy girl really feared him, and yet he could not get near enough to explain to her why he had landed on Windy Island.

What should he do? What could he do? Rilla said no more, but, while he was hesitating, there was a sudden report and a bullet whizzed over his head. It was evidently merely a choice between which kind of an end to his life he preferred. Pushing the boat into the water in a quiet, rock-sheltered spot, he leaped in and shoved off.

However, he had not gone two lengths from shore when he heard the girl shouting lustily: “Come back here, yo’ landlubber! Don’ yo’ know yer boat’s sinkin’? Tarnation sakes, what kind o’ an old hulk yo’ got thar?”

The gun had been thrown down and the girl scrambled down to the edge of the beach. The boat, having left the shelter of the rocks, was caught in the surf. Seizing the oars, Gene let the sail flap as he tried to regain the land. The leak which had driven him to shore in the beginning was causing the boat to rapidly fill with water. Then, to complete his feeling of helplessness, an unusually large breaker was thundering toward him.

“Jump the gunnel, quick, or yo’ll flounder!” the girl commanded.

The lad obeyed. Leaping into the swirling water, which was nearly chin deep, he swam toward the shore, and not a moment too soon, for the breaker lifted the boat high and crashed it to splinters on the rocky point.

The boy and the girl stood near each other watching the annihilation of the craft and the angry after-swirl of dark green waters.

Then, turning to his companion, he smiled. “Well, little Miss Storm Maiden,” he said, “you have saved my life, I guess, by your quick command, although you really wanted to shoot me, since your dog wouldn’t eat me up.”

“How’d yo’ know my name was Storm?” the truly amazed girl inquired. “I hadn’t tol’ yo’ nothin’.”

“I didn’t know it. Is that your name?”

The girl nodded. “Ye-ah! Muriel Storm, though Grand-dad calls me Rilly.”

“My name,” the boy told her, “is Eugene Beavers, and my friends call me Gene. My home is in New York, but I am visiting your Doctor Winslow in Tunkett. He and my dad are old friends. I’ve been sick and had to leave college right at the beginning of the term, so dad shipped me off down here to – ”

Before he could finish his sentence, Muriel, who had been looking at him steadily, exclaimed: “Yer shiverin’ wi’ the cold. The surf’s like ice. Yo’ be gathering driftwood for a fire; make a tarnal whopper, while I get some matches.”

Again the girl scrambled up the trail among the rocks and the dog went with her. For a moment the lad stood gazing out at sea, as he ruminated, an amused twinkle in his eyes:

“And here I thought that Tunkett at this time of the year would be stupid, the summer colony being closed, but I never had an adventure more interesting than this one.”

Gene had a goodly pile of driftwood collected when Rilla reappeared on the rocky cliff. Instead of the gun, she was carrying a covered bucket and a thick china cup.

Although her manner of approaching him could not really be called friendly, yet it was not as hostile as her former attitude had been. She held up the cup toward him and filled it with steaming hot tea. “Drink that!” she commanded; then added, “Though likely ’twill mos’ scald yo’.”

How the lad wanted to laugh. Just before he had left the city his sister Helen had dragged him to an afternoon tea (or was it a bazaar?) and there some prettily dressed girls had surrounded him, offering him dainty porcelain cups half filled with fragrant orange pekoe. He was expected to purchase one of them for the sake of the cause. Not wishing to offend any of the fair friends of Helen Beavers, he had purchased them all, and then, when unobserved, he had slipped away to freedom.

Again a maiden – a storm maiden, at that – was offering him tea. The cup wasn’t porcelain and the girl was not effusively gracious to him as those others, who all greatly admired him, had been. This wild island girl was merely trying to warm him up that he need not freeze from his unexpected plunge into the icy surf. There was another point of difference between the two tea parties, Gene thought as he drank the hot, and almost bitter, beverage. His one desire at the other had been to escape, but at this tea party he found himself more interested than he had been in a long time.