Gordon Stables
"The Island of Gold"
"A Sailor's Yarn"
Book One—Chapter One.
Two Mitherless Bairns.
Ransey Tansey was up much earlier than usual on this particular morning, because father was coming home, and there was a good deal to do.
As he crawled out of his bed—a kind of big box arrangement at the farther end of the one-roomed cottage—he gave a glance towards the corner where Babs slept in an elongated kind of basket, which by courtesy might have been called a bassinette.
Yes, Babs was sound and fast, and that was something Ransey Tansey had to be thankful for. He bent over her for a few seconds, listening as if to make sure she was alive; for this wee three-year-old was usually awake long before this, her eyes as big as saucers, and carrying on an animated conversation with herself in lieu of any other listener.