To reach the Lighthouse from Stumpy’s dwelling, you might either follow Jenny Lind’s car-track a long way around, or scramble up a rocky path, broken here and there by a flight of whitewashed steps, till you arrived at the top of the mighty heap of rocks that formed the island. Should a high wind be blowing, you crushed your hat far down on your head, gripped the handrail hard when you reached the steps, and often sat down flat until some sudden gust had passed by. As this was Margaret McLean’s only fashionable promenade, you can imagine that she seldom ventured on it, preferring to stroll about the patch of green in front of the Lighthouse, or to walk up and down between the scanty rows of vegetables behind. She and her husband, however, were well accustomed to seeing the children scramble over the rocks like their own goats and were never anxious about Ronald, if Lesley were with him, for alone he was apt to venture too far and attempt heights which he might reach, but never be able to descend.

He had been only a tiny tot of two or three years, running about the kitchen, when, sitting on the floor in front of the sink one day, he had amused himself by slipping the various cooking-pots over his head and laughing out at Lesley with a “Peep bo!” from beneath them. His mother, hearing the clatter, was hurrying from another room to inquire into its cause when a series of loud cries and calls for help were heard. She found the baby completely extinguished by a large kettle which Lesley was trying to pull off his head, while the more he struggled and screamed, the tighter grew the kettle.

Mrs. McLean pulled, Lesley pulled, Ronnie beat his hands and kicked and roared until the mother was thoroughly frightened. “Get your father, quick!” she cried to Lesley, and the child climbed, panting, to the tower where Malcolm was trimming the Light. She was too breathless to speak when she reached him, but he saw that something was wrong below and half-leaped, half-tumbled down the stairs to the kitchen. He took the baby in his arms and succeeded with his big sailor voice in reaching the ears under the kettle.

“Be quiet, Ronnie!” he ordered. “Stop crying at once! Father’s here. Father’ll help you.”

The screams stopped, the beating hands grew quiet, and the Lightkeeper walked to and fro patting the small shoulders till they grew still enough to allow him to lay the child in his mother’s arms. Then, while Lesley watched him with astonished eyes he seized a lump of lard from the shelf, greased the inside of the kettle and Ronnie’s head as far as his hand could reach, saying all the time, “Quiet, sonny, quiet, sonny; Father’s here!” This done, with one swift jerk the kettle came off and the small boy was restored to the world.

Oh, what a wonderful father, Lesley thought; there was nothing that he couldn’t do and nothing that he didn’t know, and I believe that everybody on the island, including Jenny Lind, the rabbits, and the sea-birds, thought much the same thing.

The wonderful father was waiting in the doorway to-day as the children’s feet were heard on the rocky pathway, and after a little washing of grimy paws and smoothing of rough locks they all sat down at table. Six times a year the Lighthouse tender called at the island with stores for its inhabitants, so tea and sugar and coffee, flour and meal, spices and cereals were always on hand, but for the rest they depended on goats’ milk, fresh fish, eggs, chickens, rabbits, and such vegetables as they could raise on their wind-swept height, three hundred feet above the sea.

Margaret McLean boasted, when she could find any one to hear her boast, that she could prepare rabbit in fifteen different ways, but which one of the fifteen she followed that day will probably never be known. At all events, it seemed to please the children who jumped down from the table when grace had been said, quite refreshed and ready to dry the dishes and help to set the room in order.

The apartment in question—a large one, fortunately—might have been called one of general utility, for it was kitchen, dining-room, sitting-room, and study, according to the time of day. There was a grand parlor on the other side of the passage, into which the Lighthouse Inspector was ushered when he made his semi-annual calls, but the children never entered it except on cleaning-days when they were allowed to dust the haircloth sofa, the straight-backed chairs, and the round center-table with its big Bible and tall lamp, hung with tinkling glass prisms.

The bedrooms and the playroom were on the next story, and above that ran the flight of narrow steps that led to the tower, and then above them again the corkscrew stairs that wound about and about till they reached the Light.

In solitary splendor, like the Prince of Coolavin, lived the Light, and Father waited upon it like a slave, filling it with oil, trimming its wicks and polishing and re-polishing and re-re-polishing the speckless glass that sheltered it and through which its beams streamed far, far across the waters.

Every night, as they sang the “Mariner’s Hymn” together in the whitewashed sitting-room, with the ceaseless roar and dash of the breakers as their accompaniment, the children thought of the friendly Light in the tower and the gladness of the sailors when they saw it shine.

So ran the words of the “Mariner’s Hymn,” and Ronald, who always wanted to know the reason of things, said thoughtfully one night when they had finished singing: “Why do we cry to God to help those in peril on the sea, Daddy? It’s the Light that helps them, isn’t it?”

“Hush! Ronnie, you’re not thinking,” cried his mother. “Who made the sea and the sailors? Who gave his brains to the man who thought of the Light and set it here? The Light is but a senseless thing and needs some one to tend it, as well you know your father does both night and day.”

“Oh—h!” murmured Ronald, “I see!”

“You’re a funny boy!” commented Lesley, as usual.

cried Ronald, at which his father lifted his head from the “Lighthouse Journal,” saying, “‘Gude bairnies cuddle doon at nicht’—you know the poetry your mother tells you.”

The children were often allowed to climb the corkscrew stairs with their parents to see the Light and even to open the little door in the masonry and go out on the iron-railed gallery that ran around the tower, holding tight to Father’s or Mother’s hand while they gazed at the blue waters of the Pacific and counted the white sails on the horizon.

The Light was not of the first order, although it seemed so wonderful to the children and required more attention than the newer and more expensive ones. It was lighted at dusk, filled again at midnight, and put out at dawn, Margaret McLean always taking the last duty and then hurrying down to kindle the kitchen fire, set the porridge on to heat, and milk the goats.

She was a busy wife and mother; so busy that she had the less time to be lonely, for not only did she wash and iron, sew and knit, scrub and cook, milk the goats, feed the hens, and weed the garden, but she gave the children their daily lessons, making these so pleasant that both could already read with ease and had some knowledge of figures, while Lesley could write a very respectable letter to Grandmother in “Bonnie Scotland.”

Mr. and Mrs. McLean knew very well that the children would never be likely to have any playmates, save each other, while they were growing up, for the work on the island was not more than enough for one man, with Stumpy’s assistance, and so there could be no other families in residence. They had done everything they could, therefore, to provide amusement and occupation for them, indoors as well as out. Outdoors was very simple, with Jenny Lind, “Jim Crow,” and a host of young animals as playmates, the beloved Stumpy as story-teller-in-chief and fishing, hunting sea-birds’ eggs, playing on the shore and gathering seaweed and shells as their games of never-ending delight.

Indoors a playroom had been fitted up the previous year, which was a continual source of pleasure and a blessing, too, to Mrs. McLean, who could always feel that her bairns were safe and happy when they were in “Humpty Dumpty Land,” as Lesley had christened it.

It was nothing more or less than the large attic which ran the whole length of the Lighthouse. It was not finished off, but the slanting sides and floor had been stained a pretty green, and numerous shelves had been fitted between the uprights for all the many collections—birds’ eggs, seashells, sea-moss, shining pebbles, bright beads, buttons, and those other treasures dear to children, which would have been greatly in the way downstairs.

In one corner was a sand-bin, with little tins and patty-pans for making cakes, and a dolls’ house occupied another corner where Lesley passed many hours. A rocking-horse, a stable, and a carpenters’ bench were Ronald’s possessions, and several small chairs and tables were among the other furnishings.

Tacked to the ceiling were a few gay Japanese parasols and lanterns, while straw mats, a contribution from Stumpy’s Indian collection, were scattered about the floor. Turkey-red curtains were at the windows, and altogether a more cheerful place could hardly be imagined, especially when both children were talking at once and “Jim Crow,” a privileged visitor, adding an occasional low croak to the conversation.