Muriel wished that she could give each child another, but she could not open Uncle Barney’s package, and so, turning to wave goodbye, she left the wharf and set out across the dunes in the direction of the Irishman’s cabin.
CHAPTER XIII.
NEIGHBORLINESS.
As Muriel neared the shanty on the sand dunes in which lived her dearly beloved friend, Captain Barney, she was conscious of unusual noises issuing therefrom. Surely there was some kind of a commotion going on within the humble dwelling. Separating the sounds as she approached, she recognized one as laughter (none but Linda Wixon laughed like that), then there was the clumping of little Zoeth’s crutches, and his shrill, excited chatter. This was followed by a hammering and a chorus of approving feminine voices.
Muriel hastened her steps. It was impossible to run in the soft sand. “What can be goin’ on in Uncle Barney’s shack?” she wondered. “I reckon he’s givin’ a party, though I cal’late that isn’t likely, he bein’ laid up——” Her thoughts were interrupted by the genial Irishman himself, who appeared around the corner of the shanty carrying an old rusty stovepipe which he had replaced with a new one. Rilla noticed that he was stepping as spryly as ever he had.
“Top o’ the mornin’ to you, mavourneen,” he called. “It’s great news I’m after havin’. Me ol’ mither as I’ve been hungerin’ for a sight of these tin year past is comin’ at last to live here on the dunes, and the heart o’ me is singin’ a melody like ‘The harp that once through Tara’s halls the soul of music shed’; but ’twas Tommy Moore said it that way, not your ol’ Uncle Barney. That’s what poets are for, I reckon, to be puttin’ into words for us the joy we can only be feelin’.” Then, as they reached the open front door of the shack, Captain Barney called: “Belay there, folks, and be makin’ yer best bows to our neighbor from across the water.”
“Yo-o, Rilly! It’s yo’ that’s come just in time to be tellin’ what yo’ reckon’s the best place to be hangin’ the pictures.” It was fifteen-year-old Lindy Wixon who skipped forward and caught her friend by the hand as she went on to explain: “I got ’em wi’ soap wrappers. I went all over Tunkett collectin’. Every-un was glad, an’ more, to give ’em when they heard as Cap’n Barney’s ol’ mither is comin’ at last. We want to purty up the shack so ’twill look homey an’ smilin’ a welcome to her the minute she steps into the door.”
“Oh-h, but they’re handsome!” Muriel said, clasping her hands. Zoeth was standing near looking eagerly up into the face of his beloved friend. “Which of ’em do you reckon is purtiest?” he queried; then waited her reply as though it were a matter of great importance.
Muriel gazed long at the three brightly colored prints which had been hung on three sides of the room. “I dunno, honest,” she said, “they’re all that beautiful, but I sort o’ like the one wi’ the lighthouse in it best. The surf crashes over those rocks real natural, now don’t it?”
Zoeth clapped his thin little hands. “That thar’s the one I chose, too, Rilly. I knew yo’d choose it.”
Sam Peters, who had at one time been a ship carpenter, was busily hammering at one side of the room where a long low window looked out toward the sea. “That thar’s a windy-seat my Sam is makin’,” his wife explained to Muriel. “They’ve one up to Judge Lander’s where I go Mondays to wash, and when I was tellin’ Mis’ Lander how we was plannin’ to purty up Cap’n Barney’s shack, bein’ as his ol’ mither’s comin’, she said if we had a couch or a windy-seat she’d be glad to donate some pillas as she had in the attic, an’ when she fetched ’em down, if thar wa’n’t a beautiful turkey-red couch cover amongst ’em.”