THE LIGHT ON LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND
Laura looked faintly excited for a minute, then she leaned back wearily
in her seat again.
"I'm just as sure as you are, Billie, that there's something funny about
it," she said. "But if we really had wanted to solve the mystery, we
should have stayed at Three Towers. The first thing they do in detective
stories is to shadow the people they suspect. And how can we do that, I'd
like to know, when we're running straight away from them?"
This was very good reasoning. Even Billie and Connie had to admit that,
and they began to look worried.
"Perhaps I shouldn't have asked you girls to visit me. Then you might
have stayed at Three Towers for the summer and solved the mystery. Now
I've spoiled all the fun----"
"Connie! don't be such an absolute goose," cried Billie, putting a hand
over Connie's mouth. "Do you suppose we'd have missed this for anything?"
"Anyway," added Vi hopefully, "we may find some more mysteries on
Lighthouse Island."
"Humph," grumbled Laura, who was feeling tired and cross, "you talk as if
mysteries were just hanging around loose begging to be found."
"Well, I think maybe we'll manage to enjoy ourselves, even without
mysteries," said Billie gayly. Nevertheless, she could not help thinking
to herself: "Oh, dear, I do wish there was some way I could find out
about Miss Arbuckle and those lovely children and poor lonely, sad Hugo
Billings. I should like to help if I only knew how!"
"Billie, wake up! Wake up--it's time to get off!"
She must have been very sound asleep because it was several seconds
before she fought her way through a sea of unconsciousness and opened
heavy eyes upon a scene of confusion.
"What's the matter?" she asked sleepily, but some one, she thought it was
Laura, shook her impatiently, and some one else--she was wide awake
enough now to be sure this was Vi--put a hat on her head and pushed it so
far over her eyes that she temporarily went blind again.
"For goodness sake, can't you put it on straight?" she demanded
indignantly, pushing the hat back where it belonged. "What do you think
you're doing anyway?"
A little anger was the best thing that could have come to Billie. It was
about the only thing in the world that would have gotten her wide awake
just then. And it was very necessary that she should be wide awake, for
the train was just drawing into the station where they were to get off to
take the boat to Lighthouse Island.
She took the bag thrust into her hands by Laura, and the girls hurried
out into the aisle that was crowded with people. A minute more, and they
found themselves on a platform down which people hurried and porters
rolled their baggage trucks and where every one seemed intent upon making
as much noise as possible.
Billie and Laura and Vi felt very much bewildered, for they had never
done any traveling except in the company of some older person; but with a
confidence that surprised them, Connie took command of the situation. For
Connie had traveled this route several times, and everything about it was
familiar to her.
"Give me your trunk checks," she ordered, adding, as the girls obediently
fumbled in their pocketbooks: "We'll have to hustle if we want to get our
trunks straightened out and get on board ourselves before the boat
starts. What's the matter, Vi, you haven't lost your check, have you?"
For one terrible minute Vi had been afraid she had done just this, but
now, with a sigh of relief, she produced the check and handed it over to
Connie.
"My, but that was a narrow escape," she murmured, as they hurried down
the crowded platform.
The boat that plied from the mainland to Lighthouse Island and one or two
more small islands scattered about near the coast was a small but tidy
little vessel that was really capable of better speed than most people
gave her credit for. She was painted a sort of dingy white, and large
black letters along her bow proclaimed her to be none other than the
_Mary Ann_.
And now as the girls, with several other passengers, stepped on board and
felt the cool breeze upon their faces they breathed deep of the salty air
and gazed wonderingly out over the majestic ocean rolling on and on in
unbroken swells toward the distant horizon.
Gone was all the fatigue of the long train ride. They forgot that their
lungs were full of soft coal dirt, that their hands were grimy, and their
faces, too. They were completely under the spell of that great,
mysterious tyrant--the ocean.
"Isn't this grand!"
"Just smell the salt air!"
"Makes you feel braced up already," came from Billie, who had been
filling her lungs to the utmost. "Oh, girls! I'm just crazy to jump in
and have a swim."
"I'm with you on that," broke out Vi. "Oh, I'm sure we're going to have
just the best times ever!"
There was a fair-sized crowd to get aboard, made up partly of natives and
partly of city folks. The passengers were followed by a number of trunks
and a small amount of freight.
"Evidently we're not the only ones to take this trip," remarked Billie,
as she noted the people coming on board the _Mary Ann_.
"A number of these people must live on the islands the year around," said
Laura.
"My, how lonely it must be on this coast during the winter months," said
Billie. "Think of being out on one of those islands in a howling
snowstorm!"
"I wonder how they get anything to eat during those times?" questioned
Vi.
"I presume they keep stuff on hand," answered Billie.
With a sharp toot of her whistle the boat moved out from the dock, made
her way carefully among the numerous other craft in the harbor, and
finally nosed her way out into the water of the channel.
"O--oh," breathed Vi, softly. "It's even more wonderful than I thought it
would be. I'd like to go sailing on and on like this forever."
"Well, I wouldn't," said Laura practically. "Not without any supper. I'm
getting a perfectly awful appetite."
"It will be worse than that after you've been here a little while,"
laughed Connie. "Mother says that it seems as if she never can give me
enough to eat when we come out to the seashore, so she has given up
trying."
"Your poor mother!" said Billie dolefully. "And now she has four of us!"
"I know," chuckled Connie. "Mother was worrying a little about that--as
to how she could keep four famished wolves fed at one time. But Uncle Tom
said he'd help her out."
"Your Uncle Tom," Vi repeated wonderingly. "Can he cook?"
"Of course," said Connie, looking at her as if she had asked if the world
was square. "Didn't I tell you about his clam chowder?"
"Oh," said Vi thoughtfully, while something within her began to cry out
for a sample of that clam chowder. "Oh yes, I remember."
"Connie, you're cruel," moaned Laura. "Can't you talk of something
besides clam chowder when you know I'm starving to death? Goodness, I can
almost smell it."
"That's the clams you smell," chuckled Connie. "They always have some on
board the _Mary Ann_ to sell to the islanders--if they haven't the sense
to catch them themselves. We never need to buy any," she added, proudly.
"Uncle Tom keeps us supplied with all we want. Look!" she cried suddenly,
pointing to a small island which loomed directly ahead of them, looking
in the grey mist of evening like only a darker shadow against the
shifting background. "That's our island--see? And there's the light," she
added, as a sudden beacon flashed out at them, sending a ruddy light out
over the dark water.
"Oh, isn't it beautiful!" cried Billie rapturously. "Just think what it
must mean to the ships out at sea--that friendly light, beckoning to
them----"
"No, it doesn't--beckon, I mean," said Connie decidedly. "That's just
what it isn't for. It's to warn them to keep away or they'll be sorry."
"Is there so much danger?" asked Laura eagerly.
"I should say there is," Connie answered gravely. "In a storm especially.
You see, the water is very shallow around here and if a big ship runs in
too close to shore she's apt to get on a shoal. That isn't so bad in
clear weather--although a ship did get stuck on the shoal here not so
very long ago and she was pretty much damaged when they got her off. But
in a storm----"
"Yes," cried Billie impatiently.
"Why, Uncle Tom says," Connie was very serious, "that if a ship were
driven upon the shoal in a gale--and we have terrible storms around
here--it would probably come with such force that its bottom would be
pretty nearly crushed in and the people on board might die before any one
could get out there to rescue them."
"Oh, Connie, how dreadful!" cried Vi. Laura and Billie only stared at the
lighthouse tower as though fascinated, while the little boat came
steadily nearer to it.
"Has anything like that ever happened here, Connie?" asked Laura in an
awed voice.
"No," said Connie. "There was a terrible wreck here a long time
ago--before they built the lighthouse. But Uncle Tom says no one will
ever know just how many lives have been saved because of the good old
light. To hear him talk to it you would think it was alive."
"It is!" cried Billie, pointing excitedly as the great white globe that
held the light swung slowly around toward them. "Didn't you see that? It
winked at us!"