"I thought there must be something queer about her," declared Mr.
Blackmore. "I do know how to handle a boat despite my friend"s gibe, and there was no reason why she should have upset like that. That Ford ought to be horsewhipped."
Thanks to Prue"s stinging hot decoctions of black currant drink, the two gentlemen were no worse for their drenching and exposure, and the next morning Natty took them to the mainland in the _Merry Maid_. When he parted with them, Mr. Barr shook his hand heartily and said: "Thank you, my boy. You"re a plucky youngster and a skilful one, too. Tell your brother that if I can get the Blue Point lighthouse berth for him I will, and as for yourself, you will always find a friend in me, and if I can ever do anything for you I will."
Two weeks later Everett received an official doc.u.ment formally appointing him keeper of Blue Point Island light. Natty carried the news to the mainland, where it was joyfully received among the fishermen.
"Only right and fair," said Cooper Creasy. "Blue Point without a Miller to light up wouldn"t seem the thing at all, that"s what. And it"s nothing but Ev"s doo."
"Guess Natty had more to do with it than Ev," said Adam, perpetrating a very poor pun and being immensely applauded therefor. It keyed Will Scott up to rival Adam.
"You said that Irving had a pull and the Millers hadn"t," he said jocularly. "But it looks as if "twas Natty"s pull did the business after all--his pull over to Bear Island and back."
"It was about a miracle that a boy could do what he did on such a night," said Charles Macey.
"Where"s Ford?" asked Natty uncomfortably. He hated to have his exploit talked about.
"Ford has cleared out," said Cooper, "gone down to Summerside to go into Tobe Meekins"s factory there. Best thing he could do, that"s what. Folks here hadn"t no use for him after letting that death trap to them two men--even if they was Lib"rals. The _c.o.c.kawee_ druv ash.o.r.e on Little Bear, and there she"s going to remain, I guess. D"ye want a berth in my mackerel boat this summer, Natty?"
"I do," said Natty, "but I thought you said you were full."
"I guess I can make room for you," said Cooper. "A boy with such grit and muscle ain"t to be allowed to go to seed on Blue Point, that"s what. Yesser, we"ll make room for you."
And Natty"s cup of happiness was full.
Penelope"s Party Waist
"It"s perfectly horrid to be so poor," grumbled Penelope. Penelope did not often grumble, but just now, as she sat tapping with one pink-tipped finger her invitation to Blanche Anderson"s party, she felt that grumbling was the only relief she had.
Penelope was seventeen, and when one is seventeen and cannot go to a party because one hasn"t a suitable dress to wear, the world is very apt to seem a howling wilderness.
"I wish I could think of some way to get you a new waist," said Doris, with what these sisters called "the poverty pucker" coming in the centre of her pretty forehead. "If your black skirt were sponged and pressed and re-hung, it would do very well."
Penelope saw the poverty pucker and immediately repented with all her impetuous heart having grumbled. That pucker came often enough without being brought there by extra worries.
"Well, there is no use sitting here sighing for the unattainable," she said, jumping up briskly. "I"d better be putting my grey matter into that algebra instead of wasting it plotting for a party dress that I certainly can"t get. It"s a sad thing for a body to lack brains when she wants to be a teacher, isn"t it? If I could only absorb algebra and history as I can music, what a blessing it would be! Come now, Dorrie dear, smooth that pucker out. Next year I shall be earning a princely salary, which we can squander on party gowns at will--if people haven"t given up inviting us by that time, in sheer despair of ever being able to conquer our exclusiveness."
Penelope went off to her detested algebra with a laugh, but the pucker did not go out of Doris" forehead. She wanted Penelope to go to that party.
Penelope has studied so hard all winter and she hasn"t gone anywhere, thought the older sister wistfully. She is getting discouraged over those examinations and she needs just a good, jolly time to hearten her up. If it could only be managed!
But Doris did not see how it could. It took every cent of her small salary as typewriter in an uptown office to run their tiny establishment and keep Penelope in school dresses and books. Indeed, she could not have done even that much if they had not owned their little cottage. Next year it would be easier if Penelope got through her examinations successfully, but just now there was absolutely not a spare penny.
"It is hard to be poor. We are a pair of misfits," said Doris, with a patient little smile, thinking of Penelope"s uncultivated talent for music and her own housewifely gifts, which had small chance of flowering out in her business life.
Doris dreamed of pretty dresses all that night and thought about them all the next day. So, it must be confessed, did Penelope, though she would not have admitted it for the world.
When Doris reached home the next evening, she found Penelope hovering over a bulky parcel on the sitting-room table.
"I"m so glad you"ve come," she said with an exaggerated gasp of relief. "I really don"t think my curiosity could have borne the strain for another five minutes. The expressman brought this parcel an hour ago, and there"s a letter for you from Aunt Adella on the clock shelf, and I think they belong to each other. Hurry up and find out. Dorrie, darling, what if it should be a--a--present of some sort or other!"
"I suppose it can"t be anything else," smiled Doris. She knew that Penelope had started out to say "a new dress." She cut the strings and removed the wrappings. Both girls stared.
"Is it--it isn"t--yes, it is! Doris Hunter, I believe it"s an old quilt!"
Doris unfolded the odd present with a queer feeling of disappointment.
She did not know just what she had expected the package to contain, but certainly not this. She laughed a little shakily.
"Well, we can"t say after this that Aunt Adella never gave us anything," she said, when she had opened her letter. "Listen, Penelope."
_My Dear Doris_:
_I have decided to give up housekeeping and go out West to live with Robert. So I am disposing of such of the family heirlooms as I do not wish to take with me. I am sending you by express your Grandmother Hunter"s silk quilt. It is a handsome article still and I hope you will prize it as you should. It took your grandmother five years to make it. There is a bit of the wedding dress of every member of the family in it. Love to Penelope and yourself._
_Your affectionate aunt, Adella Hunter._
"I don"t see its beauty," said Penelope with a grimace. "It may have been pretty once, but it is all faded now. It is a monument of patience, though. The pattern is what they call "Little Thousands,"
isn"t it? Tell me, Dorrie, does it argue a lack of proper respect for my ancestors that I can"t feel very enthusiastic over this heirloom--especially when Grandmother Hunter died years before I was born?"
"It was very kind of Aunt Adella to send it," said Doris dutifully.
"Oh, very," agreed Penelope drolly. "Only don"t ever ask me to sleep under it. It would give me the nightmare. O-o-h!"
This last was a little squeal of admiration as Doris turned the quilt over and brought to view the shimmering lining.
"Why, the wrong side is ever so much prettier than the right!"
exclaimed Penelope. "What lovely, old-timey stuff! And not a bit faded."
The lining was certainly very pretty. It was a soft, creamy yellow silk, with a design of brocaded pink rosebuds all over it.
"That was a dress Grandmother Hunter had when she was a girl," said Doris absently. "I remember hearing Aunt Adella speak of it. When it became old-fashioned, Grandmother used it to line her quilt. I declare, it is as good as new."
"Well, let us go and have tea," said Penelope. "I"m decidedly hungry.
Besides, I see the poverty pucker coming. Put the quilt in the spare room. It is something to possess an heirloom, after all. It gives one a nice, important-family feeling."
After tea, when Penelope was patiently grinding away at her studies and thinking dolefully enough of the near-approaching examinations, which she dreaded, and of teaching, which she confidently expected to hate, Doris went up to the tiny spare room to look at the wrong side of the quilt again.
"It would make the loveliest party waist," she said under her breath.
"Creamy yellow is Penelope"s colour, and I could use that bit of old black lace and those knots of velvet ribbon that I have to trim it. I wonder if Grandmother Hunter"s reproachful spirit will forever haunt me if I do it."
Doris knew very well that she would do it--had known it ever since she had looked at that lovely lining and a vision of Penelope"s vivid face and red-brown hair rising above a waist of the quaint old silk had flashed before her mental sight. That night, after Penelope had gone to bed, Doris ripped the lining out of Grandmother Hunter"s silk quilt.
"If Aunt Adella saw me now!" she laughed softly to herself as she worked.
In the three following evenings Doris made the waist. She thought it a wonderful bit of good luck that Penelope went out each of the evenings to study some especially difficult problems with a school chum.