Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island Part 15

"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, pus.h.i.+ng 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 should be 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 the _Mary Ann_.

And now as the girls, with several other pa.s.sengers, 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 pa.s.sengers 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 the _Mary 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 appet.i.te."

"It will be worse than that after you've been here a little while,"

laughed Connie. "Mother says that it seems as if she never can give me enough to eat when we come out to the seash.o.r.e, 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 the _Mary Ann_ to 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 only a darker shadow against the s.h.i.+fting 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 s.h.i.+p runs in too close to sh.o.r.e she's apt to get on a shoal. That isn't so bad in clear weather--although a s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p 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 as though 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 XV

CONNIE'S MOTHER