Gayety, though, as everybody knows, never comes from outside; it is just something that bubbles up from within, and Lesley and Ronald McLean each had a boiling spring of it in their own hearts.
The springs had not ceased to bubble after what the children considered Ronald’s first-class joke, when the sound of clattering hoofs and the roll of wheels announced the approach of that Jenny Lind whom they had intended to use as a playmate.
“Run, Ronnie, quick!” cried Lesley, “and see if father’s going down to the beach. Maybe we can go with him.”
“Hi! Father! Father!” called Ronald. “Wait for us!” running at top speed toward the cliff.
The donkey was pulled in at once, turning her head toward the children intelligently as they scrambled down the rocks to the car and starting on her way the moment she felt their weight and knew they were on board.
The children’s island, one of those in San Francisco Bay, is not a large one—perhaps three miles around—but it looks as if it were three times three miles deep in rocks. There are tall gray peaks shining like spear-heads above the water—peaks where the sea-birds build; great stretches of gray stone like castle walls, with towers and battlements; scattered fragments of granite heaped up like crumbs from a giants’ banquet, and ten trillion, two hundred and forty-one billion, five hundred and ninety-seven million, six hundred and nineteen thousand, four hundred and three stones and pebbles of various sizes along the shore.
Oh, no, there is no beach; just a rocky island with rocky edges and old Ocean singing and sighing and laughing and crying all around and about. No two-legged, or four-legged, or ever-so-many-legged creature could draw loads from the shore to the Lighthouse over such a roadway, even if it had been on level ground, and so Malcolm McLean, with the help of old “Stumpy” and a man brought from the mainland for a week, had laid down rails the entire distance and prevailed upon the Government to send him a little car which Jenny Lind pulled with ease over her private track.
“Going down to the storehouse for oil,” called Father, looking around at the youngsters from his perch in front. “You can stay down there with Stumpy for a while, if you like, or go back with me.”
“Oh, Stumpy, Stumpy!” cried Ronnie. “Maybe he’ll tell us a story.”
“Maybe he will,” said Father, dryly, nodding his head; “he’d rather tell stories than work any day.”