MURIEL SURPRISED.
Muriel had intended to arise very early the next morning, but so late had
she fallen asleep, though she had retired early enough, that it was not
until Brazilla came to make a fire on the hearth that the girl awakened.
Miss Gordon, too, opened her eyes, and Muriel, sitting up in bed,
exclaimed joyfully: "Oh, what a wonderful day! All out-of-doors is white
and sparkling; the sky is so blue and the sunshine so bright.
"Brazilla, would right after breakfast be too soon to start out to find
those two surprises?"
"You'll have to wear my leggins, I'm thinkin'," Brazilla declared. "The
snow'll be above your shoe-tops easy and more than that at the drifts."
An hour later Muriel appeared in the doorway of the large sun-flooded
living room and Miss Gordon glanced up at her from the book she was
reading.
"Why, Muriel, you look stouter than usual," was her puzzled comment.
"No wonder," Rilla laughingly confessed. "I do believe that Brazilla has
put on me two layers of everything that she could find, including the
leggins and her warm red hood. Jack Frost will have a hard time finding a
place to nip. Goodbye, Miss Gordon. I'll be back by noon. I know that you
are going to have a wonderful two hours just resting and reading." Then
she was gone.
"I never knew that one could have so many different kinds of emotions at
the same time," Muriel was thinking as she started down the snowy road
that led to the sand dunes where stood the scattered homes of her
fisherfolk friends.
A queer looking settlement it was, for each squatter had built his cabin
facing in whatever direction his particular fancy had suggested. A few
had preferred to face the town and others had their front dooryards on
the side toward the sea, but as there were from one hundred to two
hundred feet of sand dune between each shack no one interfered with his
neighbor.
Muriel purposely went a roundabout way to avoid passing the boarded-up
cabin of her Uncle Barney. Tears sprang to her eyes as she thought of
him. How she longed to see that dear, faithful old man who had been her
grand-dad's closest friend and comrade through many years, but she would
have to wait until spring. Even then she doubted if he would be able to
bring his old mother, who was very feeble.
She did not even glance in that direction when she reached the sand
dunes, but went at once to the cabin of the Wixons.
She whistled the old familiar call. A short, joyous bark was heard in
reply, the cabin door opened and out leaped a dog, grown larger, perhaps;
her own beloved Shags! If there had been in her heart a fear that he
might have forgotten her, it was soon dispelled. The joy expressed in
every move that he made told as plainly as words could have done that
here was the one person in all the world whom he loved best. Down on the
snow the girl knelt, her arms were about her shaggy friend, her face for
a moment hidden in the long, silky hair at his neck. Oh, how hard it was
not to sob!
"Shagsie! My Shagsie!" the girl cried, but just at that moment the joyous
voice of a boy was heard. Looking up, Rilla saw a little lad emerging
from the cabin. She sprang to her feet and stared in uncomprehending
amazement.
Surely it was Zoeth; but where were his crutches? He was running toward
her down the recently shoveled path, his arms held out to her.
"Zoey!" Muriel exclaimed, catching the little fellow and holding him
close. "You're not crippled any more. Darling laddie, what has happened?"
The small boy clapped his hands and hopped up and down. "I wanted to
s'prise you. I tol' Doctor Lem not to tell you. He did it, Rilla! He
mended me, an' he's been months doin' it! He's goin' to send me to a
boys' school next year, Rilla. Doctor Lem says he's going to make me into
a shipbuilder." How the lad's eyes were glowing. "You know how Uncle
Barney used to teach me to make little ships and how I'd love to draw
pictures of 'em. Well, Doctor Lem looked 'em over once, and that's how he
got the notion of sendin' me away to a school whar I could learn how to
do it right."
In the midst of this joyous chatter, the small boy stopped as though he
had suddenly thought of something. "Rilly," he said, his face eagerly
questioning, "you didn't come along by the sand dunes, did you?"
Muriel gazed down at the snow or out at the ocean, anywhere but ahead
where she knew she would have to see the boarded-up cottage toward which
Zoeth was fairly dragging her. Shags bounded along at her side barking
joyfully.
At last the child could keep quiet no longer. "Why don't you look,
Rilly?" he queried eagerly. "Why don't you look?"
He had stopped directly in front of the cabin which had been so much in
her thoughts, and so Muriel was obliged to lift her eyes. Why, what could
it mean? The windows were not boarded up as she had expected to find
them. There was smoke coming out of the chimney and a geranium was
blossoming on the sun-flooded window sill. For a moment the girl felt
rebellious.
Was some one else living in Uncle Barney's house? She was sure that he
would not wish it to be occupied until he came, and yet, on second
thought, she knew that it could be inhabited only with his consent. Then
she looked down at her companion's glowing face. All at once she read the
meaning of the happy light that she saw in his eyes. "Zoey," she cried.
"Uncle Barney has come back?" At the sound of his name, the door was
thrown open and the bronzed old sea captain sprang out and caught the
amazed girl in his arms.
"Oh, I'll just have to cry now," Rilla sobbed as she clung to him. "I've
tried so hard not to. I tried to be brave when I saw Shags and Zoey, but,
Uncle Barney, how I have wanted you since my grand-dad left me."
"I know, I know, colleen. Cry all you want to. It's yer Uncle Barney that
understands. It's me as lost me ol' mither, an' so arter all, she niver
can come to see the little home I had a-waitin' for her here by the sea;
but, dearie, it's better off she is in the lovely land she's gone to."
Then, almost shyly, he added: "But I didn't come back alone, Rilly. 'Twas
me mither's dyin' wish that I bring Molly O'Connell to be keepin' the
little cabin for me. Dry yer tears now, mavourneen, and come in an' meet
me Molly, and try to be lovin' her, too, for yer ol' Uncle Barney's
sake."
He led the girl into the cabin and called to someone who was busy in the
kitchen corner. Muriel decided at once that it would not be hard to love
the Irish woman, who, though elderly, was as blooming as a late rose,
with her ruddy cheeks and twinkling blue eyes that held in their merry
depths eternal youth.
"Molly's the wife I've been waitin' for ever since she was a gal," Uncle
Barney said as he laid an arm lovingly on the shoulders over which a gay
red and yellow plaid shawl was folded.
Then he told how they had been sweethearts when they were lad and lassie
in the long, long ago, but that his Molly had married another, and that
was why Barney had come to America to live, but he had always been
faithful to his first love, and at last they were to be together through
the sunset of life. "This little ol' cabin's a real home now, Rilly gal,"
the old man said, "an' it's yer home, too, colleen, if ever yer needin'
it."
* * * * * * * *
An hour later, when Muriel stood in Doctor Lem's kitchen warming her
fingers over the fire in the great old-fashioned stove, she said:
"Brazilla, I hardly know which of your two surprises was the most
wonderful. To think that dear, brave little Zoey is to have his chance
and all because of that kind man, Doctor Winslow. I am sure that Zoeth
Wixon will make us all proud of him, but weren't you surprised when Uncle
Barney came home with a wife?"
"I reckon I was. Nothin' could surprise me more 'less 'twould be Doctor
Lem's comin' home with a wife; but that's not likely to happen, though I
sure sartin wish it might."
Just at that moment Muriel thought of something. She had noticed the
night before that Doctor Winslow often had looked over the rose geranium
at lovely Miss Gordon, and surely in his eyes there had been----
Her thoughts were interrupted with: "Rilly, 'sposin' yo' take in the
platter o' fried fish an' tell Miss Gordon as everything's dished up an'
ready."