“Shagsie! My Shagsie!” the girl cried, but just at that moment the joyous voice of a boy was heard. Looking up, Rilla saw a little lad emerging from the cabin. She sprang to her feet and stared in uncomprehending amazement.
Surely it was Zoeth; but where were his crutches? He was running toward her down the recently shoveled path, his arms held out to her.
“Zoey!” Muriel exclaimed, catching the little fellow and holding him close. “You’re not crippled any more. Darling laddie, what has happened?”
The small boy clapped his hands and hopped up and down. “I wanted to s’prise you. I tol’ Doctor Lem not to tell you. He did it, Rilla! He mended me, an’ he’s been months doin’ it! He’s goin’ to send me to a boys’ school next year, Rilla. Doctor Lem says he’s going to make me into a shipbuilder.” How the lad’s eyes were glowing. “You know how Uncle Barney used to teach me to make little ships and how I’d love to draw pictures of ’em. Well, Doctor Lem looked ’em over once, and that’s how he got the notion of sendin’ me away to a school whar I could learn how to do it right.”
In the midst of this joyous chatter, the small boy stopped as though he had suddenly thought of something. “Rilly,” he said, his face eagerly questioning, “you didn’t come along by the sand dunes, did you?”
Muriel gazed down at the snow or out at the ocean, anywhere but ahead where she knew she would have to see the boarded-up cottage toward which Zoeth was fairly dragging her. Shags bounded along at her side barking joyfully.
At last the child could keep quiet no longer. “Why don’t you look, Rilly?” he queried eagerly. “Why don’t you look?”
He had stopped directly in front of the cabin which had been so much in her thoughts, and so Muriel was obliged to lift her eyes. Why, what could it mean? The windows were not boarded up as she had expected to find them. There was smoke coming out of the chimney and a geranium was blossoming on the sun-flooded window sill. For a moment the girl felt rebellious.
Was some one else living in Uncle Barney’s house? She was sure that he would not wish it to be occupied until he came, and yet, on second thought, she knew that it could be inhabited only with his consent. Then she looked down at her companion’s glowing face. All at once she read the meaning of the happy light that she saw in his eyes. “Zoey,” she cried. “Uncle Barney has come back?” At the sound of his name, the door was thrown open and the bronzed old sea captain sprang out and caught the amazed girl in his arms.
“Oh, I’ll just have to cry now,” Rilla sobbed as she clung to him. “I’ve tried so hard not to. I tried to be brave when I saw Shags and Zoey, but, Uncle Barney, how I have wanted you since my grand-dad left me.”