Grace North - Rilla of the Lighthouse

It was indeed Gene Beavers, who, after resting a while on the cask-like buoy, had managed, with almost superhuman effort, to climb aboard the old fishing boat. Then he had lost consciousness; in fact, his breathing was so slight that the words of the longshoreman seemed about to be fulfilled.

The doctor did what he could to revive the lad; then wrapped him in an old sail cloth.

Ten minutes later, Rilla, standing by the side of Captain Ezra at a window in the tower, uttered a glad cry. “They’re swingin’ ’em, Grand-dad. They’re swinging the two red lights! They’ve found him. They’ve found Gene Beavers.”

“God be thanked!” the old man said, as he started the big lamp turning on its usual course. The fog had lifted out at sea and he scanned the dark waters anxiously, eagerly. It had been a tremendous chance that he had taken, and none but his Creator knew how constantly he had been praying to the One who rules the sea that all might be well. It was a strange thing for Captain Ezra to pray, but it seemed easier since hate had been banished from his heart. Muriel noticed a new expression in the face of the old man when, the next morning after breakfast, he said to her, beaming over his spectacles: “Put on yer Sunday riggin’s, Rilly gal. You’n me air goin’ to cruise over to Tunkett an’ find out if that city fellar is shipshape an’ sailin’ on even keel.”

The girl went around the table, and stooping, she pressed her warm young cheek against the wrinkled, leathery forehead.

The old man reached for her hand and held it in a firm clasp. Neither spoke, but both knew that, at last, the hatred of many years had left the heart of Captain Ezra.

Doctor Winslow was just leaving the room of his patient when he heard a familiar voice in the lower hall. Hurrying down the wide stairway, he saw standing near the door Cap’n Ezra with Muriel at his side.

“How’s the lad comin’?” the keeper of the light asked eagerly, when greetings had been exchanged and the story of the finding of Gene had been told briefly.

“He’ll pull through, I hope and believe,” the doctor replied. “He is sleeping now and since he is so thoroughly exhausted he may sleep for a long time, but when he has recovered enough to sit up, I’ll send over to the island for you, Rilla, if your grand-dad will permit you to come. Sometimes pleasant companionship does more than medicine to help young people to recuperate.”

“I’d like to come,” Muriel replied almost shyly, and yet eagerly. Then her hazel eyes were lifted inquiringly. “May I, Grand-dad?”

It was a hard moment for the old man who had been hating city folks for many years, but he hesitated only a second, then he said: “Lem, I sort o’ feel as all this has been my fault and if yo’ think the boy’ll get on even keel quicker if fust mate here is on deck, now and then, yo’ can count on it, Rilly gal will come.”

Doctor Winslow held out his hand. “Thanks, Ezra,” he said hastily. “You’re more like what you used to be long ago and I’m mighty glad to see it.” Then in an earnest tone, he added: “Gene will take the place to Muriel of the older brother that every girl in this world ought to have, some one near her own age to fight her battles, to protect her when the need arises. That’s the sort of a friend Gene will be to your little girl, Ezra. I’ll give you my word on it, because I know him, as I knew his father before him. A finer man never lived, and like the father is the son.”

When Cap’n Ezra and Muriel were again on the main road, the girl said, “Grand-dad, bein’ as we’re in Tunkett, let’s go over and s’prise Uncle Barney.”

When Rilla had been a very little girl, at Doctor Winslow’s suggestion, she had adopted that good man as an uncle, but when Captain Barney heard her prattling “Uncle Lem” he declared that he wasn’t going to be left out of the family circle as far as she was concerned, and from that day the kindly old Irishman had been proud indeed to be called “Uncle Barney” by the little maid who was the idol of his heart.

They found the fisherman sitting in the sun in front of his cabin. He was whittling out a mast for a toy schooner that he was making for Zoeth Wixon, a little crippled boy who lived in the shack about an eighth of a mile farther along on the sand dunes.

Captain Barney looked up with a welcoming smile. Indeed his kindly Irish face fairly beamed when he saw who his visitors were. Rising, he limped indoors and brought out his one best chair, a wooden rocker with a gay silk patchwork tidy upon it.

All of the fisherfolk in the neighborhood had put together the Christmas before and had purchased the gift for the old bachelor, who was always doing some little thing to add to their good cheer.

“His house is that empty lookin’, with nothin’ to set on but boxes and casks,” the mother of little Zoeth had said, “an’ he’s allays whittlin’ suthin’ to help pass the time away for my little Zo, or tellin’ him yarns as gives him suthin’ to think about fo’ days. I’d like to be gettin’ Cap’n Barney a present as would make his place look more homelike.”

“So, too, would I,” Mrs. Sam Peters had chimed in. “When my ol’ man was laid up for two months las’ winter, like’s not we would have starved if it hadn’t been for the fine cod that Cap’n Barney left at our door every day, an’ fish bringin’ a fancy price then, it bein’ none too plenty.”

When these women told their plan, it was found that all the families scattered about on the meadows near the sea had some kindness of Cap’n Barney’s to tell about, and when the donated nickles and dimes and even quarters were counted, the total sum was sufficient to purchase a rocker in Mis’ Sol Dexter’s store. True, it had been broken a little, but Sam Peters, having once been ship carpenter, soon repaired it until it looked like new.

As for the patchwork tidy, the little crippled boy himself had been taught by his mother how to make that. Where to get the pretty silk pieces had indeed been a problem, for not one of the fishermen’s wives had a bit of silk in her possession. It was then that Mrs. Sol Dexter did an almost unprecedented thing. She told how, the year before, her store would have burned up had it not been that “Cap’n Barney,” being there at the time, had leaped right in and had thrown his slicker over the blaze that had started near where the gasoline was kept. “He knew how it might explode any minute,” she said when recounting the tale, “but he took the chance.” While she talked, Mrs. Sol was actually cutting a piece off the end of each roll of ribbon that she had in stock, and then she cut off lace enough to edge the tidy.

Captain Barney had been greatly pleased with the gift, and although he never sat on it himself, he never ceased admiring the chair and often wished his old mother in Ireland might have it in her cabin.

The visitors had not been there long, however, when Captain Ezra said, “Rilly gal, why don’t yo’ cruise around a spell? Yo’d sort o’ like to go over to Wixon’s, wouldn’t yo’ now, and see Lindy and Zoeth?”

The girl was indeed glad to go, for Lindy Wixon was near her own age. As soon as she was out of hearing, Captain Barney looked up from his whittling. “Well, skipper,” he inquired, “what’s the cargo that yo’re wantin’ to unload?”

Cap’n Ezra Bassett puffed on his favorite corncob pipe for several thoughtful moments before he answered his friend’s question. Then, looking up to be sure that his “gal” was not returning, he uncrossed his legs and leaned forward.

“Barney, mate,” he solemnly announced, “I’ve writ that letter I tol’ you I was goin’ to, some day. I reckon I’ve put in, shipshape, all I know about Rilly’s father, but I don’ want her to have it till arter yo’ve buried me out at sea. I cal’late that’ll be time enough for Rilly to look him up. He’s like to take better care of her, when I’m gone, than any one else, bein’ as he is her own folks.”