Long rows of pert looking little cakes with spiral peaks were on the white pine shelf when Cap’n Ezra heard the welcome call for mess.
“Yo, Rilly gal,” he exclaimed, “looks like a baker shop for sure sartin. How much a dozen are yo’ askin’ for yer wares?”
“Yo’re to have a dozen for the takin’, Grand-dad,” the girl, flushed from the heat of the stove, told him beamingly. “Yo’re share o’ ’em is on the table waitin’ yer comin’.”
“So they be,” the old man declared as he caught sight of the plate heaped with little cakes near his place. “Yo’ wouldn’t be leavin’ yer ol’ Grand-dad out, would yo’, fust mate?”
“Leave yo’ out, Grand-dad?” The questioner seemed amazed that such a suggestion could be made. “Why, if all the folks in all the world were to go somewhar’s else an’ I still had you, I’d be that happy an’ content.”
The girl said this nestled close in the old man’s arms, and over her head he wiped away a tear.
“Thunderation fish-hooks!” he exclaimed gruffly. “What a tarnal lot o’ sentiment, sort of, we two folks do think lately. I reckon your grand-dad’s cruisin’ into his second childhood faster’n a full rigged schooner can sail ahead of a gale.”
Laughingly Muriel skipped to the stove and carried the black iron spider to the table to serve Captain Ezra.
“I reckon it’s better off we are when we are childlike, Grand-dad,” she said. Then with sweet seriousness she added: “You know the Good Book tells that it’s only them that becomes like a child again that can enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” Taking her place opposite the old man, the girl sat for a moment looking out of the open window at the shining waters of the bay.
“I reckon it means that we must be trustin’ like a little child is, knowin’ our Father in Heaven wants to take care of us. I reckon we’d ought to be like little Zoeth was the day that Mr. Wixon got mad an’ was goin’ to cruise off and leave his fam’ly forever. He was packin’ up his kit, sayin’ hard words all the time, when little cripple Zoeth clumped over to him, and slippin’ that frail hand o’ his into the big one, he said, trustin’ like: ‘Ma says yer goin’ away forever, but I know ’tain’t so. Yo’re my dad and yer wantin’ to take care o’ me, aren’t yo’, Dad?’