Then there was one of those sudden changes that made Rilla so irresistable. “Grand-dad,” she cried, teasingly, as she stooped and looked with laughing eyes directly into the grey ones that were softening again, “I’m only sixteen, come next month, and why ’tis yo’ worry so ’bout my marryin’, sartin is puzzlin’. I don’t even know a boy ’ceptin’ Mrs. Sol Dexter’s Buddy, and he’s not as high as one of the barrels in his ma’s store.”
“Yer heavin’ oil on troubled waters, and the sea’s smoothin’ down,” the old captain said as he drew his chair up to the table and took up his knife and fork preparatory to eating the good supper that Rilla had placed before him. But, instead of beginning, he remarked: “I can’t figger out why I keep thinkin’ of city fellers this week past. They don’t any of ’em come to Tunkett at this time o’ the year. That thar summer hotel at the pint is closed as tight as a clam that can’t be opened without smashin’ it, an’ so are the cottages, as the rich folks call them gray shanties they loaf around in every summer, so I figger yer ol’ grand-dad must be gettin’ hallucinations.”
When the supper dishes had been washed and put away, Rilla found her grandfather sitting just outside the door smoking his beloved corncob pipe and watching the sunset. She went out and sat on a wooden stool at his feet. Rilla loved to sit quietly with folded hands while the glow was fading in the west and dream dreams. Just as the last flush was paling the old man rose.
“Time to put the light on, Rilly gal,” he said.
She heard his heavy steps climbing the spiral stairs. Fainter and fainter they grew, and then, a moment later, just as the first stars glimmered through the dusk, the great light flashed over the sea and began slowly turning, for the lighthouse was on an island one mile from shore, and the waters all about it were illumined.
For a moment Rilla saw a fishing boat that was nearly becalmed and would have trouble reaching port that night.
“It’s ol’ Cap’n Barney, like’s not. He’s allays late gettin’ in.”
The girl rose and went indoors. Shags, who had been lying silently at her feet, accompanied her. “Good-night, Grand-dad,” she said, standing on tiptoe to kiss the old man, who stood erect in spite of his many years.
Then almost shyly she added: “Grand-dad, when I come sixteen yer goin’ to tell me all about it, like yo’ promised, aren’t yo’, Grand-dad?”
A grunt, which could hardly be interpreted in the affirmative, was the only reply, and yet neither had it been negative.