CHAPTER X.
THE HOPED FOR MESSAGE.
Each morning when Rilla had finished her task of “swabbing decks,” as Captain Ezra called it, and had put the kitchen and small bedrooms into shipshape (there were no other rooms in the lean-to adjoining the light), she would stand in the open door gazing out across the harbor, waiting, watching for what she barely confessed to herself. But on the third day her anxiety concerning her new friend’s condition overcame her timidity at broaching the subject and after breakfast she ventured: “Grand-dad, will yo’ be cruisin’ to town today?”
The old man shook his head. “No, Rilly gal,” he replied, “I wasn’t plannin’ to. Yo’ don’ need ’nother hair ribbon, do yo’, or——” He had been filling a lantern as he spoke, but suddenly he paused and looked up. “Sho, now, fust mate, are yo’ prognosticatin’ ’bout that city chap?”
He arose and looked out across the water, shading his eyes with his big leathery hand.
“I reckon ’tis mos’ time for Lem to be lettin’ us know how things are comin’. I sartin do hope the young fellar is navigatin’ that frail craft of his into smoother waters. ’Pears like Doctor Lem ought to——”
He said no more, for the girl had suddenly clutched his arm as she cried excitedly: “Look yo’, Grand-dad! I’m sure sartin there’s little Sol puttin’ out from the wharf in that Water Rat boat o’ his. Now he’s dippin’ along and scuddin’ right this way.”
“Yo-o! I reckon he has a message for us. More’n like, Uncle Lem is sendin’ him.”
The two gazed intently at the small boat, which did indeed seem to be headed directly for Windy Island. Rilla, her heart tripping, unconsciously held tighter to the arm of the old man.
“Pore little girl,” he thought, “was she that lonesome for young company?” He sighed and placed a big hand over the slender brown one. He felt the tenseness of the girl’s arm. “Grand-dad,” she said tremulously, “what if the message is that Gene Beavers has died. I reckon ’twould be all my fault. I’d ought to have brought him right up to the house an’ tol’ you straight out just what had happened.”
Anxiously they watched the oncoming boat. The wind, which had been fitful all the morning, dwindled to the softest breeze, then a calm settled over the harbor and the sail of the Water Rat flapped idly.