The girl’s excited laughter rang out. “Oh, Grand-dad,” she said, “why does your coat bulge so queer like? I cal’late you’ve fetched somethin’ hid under it.”
She pounced upon him and drew forth the bulgy something, which proved to be a large square package. The wrappings were soon removed and there was the most wonderful book, “Treasure Island,” illustrated in the most beautiful blues and greens and gold. How Muriel loved color.
“Gene sent it,” she said, as she lifted the card with its painted wreath of holly and mistletoe.
But Muriel then had no time to look at the book, as letters were being produced from that great pocket. The girl gasped when she saw them and then she clapped her hands.
“Grand-dad,” she exclaimed, unbelievingly, “are they all for me? I reckon Mis’ Sol did think ’twas a powerful lot o’ mail, bein’ as I never had more’n one and a card before at a time.”
There were four letters from Gene, who had written one each week since he had left Windy Island. He knew his Storm Maiden could not write and so he did not expect answers. What he did not know was that the blizzard had prevented her receiving them as they arrived each week. There was another letter from Ireland and a Christmas card and a parcel from Uncle Lem. There were pretty hair ribbons in the parcel.
“Christmas in February,” Muriel laughed; then added: “The blizzard sort o’ got the calendar mixed, didn’t it, Grand-dad?”
Muriel took her new treasures up to her room and placed them on the top of her chest of drawers. She sighed as she looked at the letters and longed to know the messages they contained. It would take her until spring, she feared, to decipher them, as she would have to study them word by word with the aid of the Second Reader.
CHAPTER XXII.
FACING REALITIES.
March came and April followed. Muriel thought that never before had there been so lovely a spring. The returning birds surely sang more wonderful songs than in the springs that were past. The melting snow on the cliffs trickled down, forming sparkling miniature waterfalls. Then, after a warm spell, out of every crevice in the rocks wild flowers blossomed.