Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island Part 18

Then gradually the soft lapping of waves upon the beach soothed her into a sort of doze where tall thin men and shabby picture alb.u.ms 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 XVII

FUN 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 gorgeous dog. 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 ap.r.o.n. "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 suns.h.i.+ne 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 skirmis.h.i.+ng on the stairs, and a moment later a whirlwind broke in upon her.

"Mother, Mother, Mother, everything smells good!" 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 heaping another 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.