“That’s the lookout,” explained Tom. “Lots of houses alongshore have them. It’s so the women folks at home can climb up there in foul weather, and look out towards sea through glasses, to see if the ships are coming home.”
“Oh, I like that,” Polly said. “I’ve got ever so many ships that are coming home some day, and when I get discouraged after this I shall build a lookout in my heart and climb up there with a spy glass and see how the weather is out to sea, and maybe I’ll see a sail.”
“Polly, you sentimental goose,” laughed Kate, slipping one arm around the commodore. “You never see things just as they are.”
“I see them the way they ought to be, and that’s better,” Polly smiled back. “Where’s Tom?”
“Prying off the planks that are nailed over the doors and windows,” Sue called, and presently they all went inside.
There were no plastered walls or ceilings. All the rooms were finished off like the interior of a cabin, with narrow boards nailed close together, and there was a spicy, pungent odor through the house, like spruce woods. One thing the girls hailed with delight. Right up through the center of the house rose a great, old-fashioned round rock chimney. Three fireplaces opened into it, and you could stand in any one of them and look up at the blue sky. Long shelves stretched across the tops of the fireplaces, and there were iron cranes on each side on which to hang pots.
“Where are the grates?” asked Isabel.
“Aren’t any grates,” responded Tom. “You just lug in an armful of driftwood and pile it on those rocks and start her up. We piled rocks around outside for fenders, ’cause father thought maybe the sparks would hit the flooring some day.”
“Won’t we just pile on wood there on chilly nights, girls?” Ruth exclaimed, kneeling down and holding out her hands, as if she could feel the blaze even then.
“And sit around on cushions, and tell stories, and eat toasted marshmallows, and Aunty Welcome’s hermits,” added Ted.