The Storm Page 2
Thus, as the wind grew crisper and harder and the sky filled with birds going away, Seabold stood at the edge of the shore and realized that this winter he would not sail.
He thought that he would be despondent. He thought that he would be depressed.
But he wasn’t.
Something had happened to him as he watched the noble efforts of Pandora save others, to serve a purpose higher than herself.
Seabold had been inspired. And he thought that perhaps, at least for one winter, he might also make his life count for something.
So he asked if he might stay on till spring.
And, of course, she said yes. It had been her secret wish.
Together they gathered wood for winter fires and food for winter sustenance. And Seabold was finally able to climb all the way up to the great lamp. He was astonished, seeing it for the first time. “It is magnificent!” he said to Pandora. “It is a wonder!”
Seabold and Pandora polished the brass fittings of the great lamp. They disassembled and cleaned the lanterns. They replaced worn wicks. Being in the lantern room thrilled Seabold as much as even the finest sailing day. (Though he would not admit this to Pandora.)
And in the evenings, as Pandora knit warm caps and mittens and socks for them both, and as Seabold fashioned tools from driftwood, they talked.
“I am astonished,” said Seabold one night, “that I am not land-sick by this time. I have never before been able to stay ashore so long without feeling my legs turn to stone.”
Pandora smiled and shifted the cap she was knitting for him. “I hope you will not be too unhappy with this lonely lighthouse life,” she said.
“Oh no,” said Seabold. “I am quite looking forward to it. I am hoping to be useful.”
“And you shall be,” said Pandora.
“I hope we will meet new friends,” said Seabold, “as the days go by. Even if they are only passing through. I should like very much to know a whale.”
“The sea is full of surprises,” said Pandora. “New friends among them.”
She looked at Seabold with a twinkle. “I should know,” she said.
“In spring,” said Seabold, “before I finish the work on Adventure, I will build a gazebo at the top of the daisy-hill. And from there we may sit and see what comes our way.”
“Oh,” answered Pandora, “many wonderful things. There shall be many wonderful things.”
She added another log to the fire.
They both felt wonderfully warm.
The winter was long indeed. Seabold had always spent the colder months sailing in sunny climes. He had nearly forgotten what it was to have frosty toes.
In Pandora’s lighthouse, from November to March, he was reminded every single day.
In the worst of the cold days, the entire island was covered with ice. The spray from the sea washed over every piece of ground, every bush, every rock, and it froze solid. Pandora and Seabold did not venture out for weeks at a time.
It was just as well, for the storms were furious. Seabold and Pandora were needed day and night at the lamp. Day and night they tended the mantle and shone their beacon of warning across the water.
If they saved lives, they did not know whose, or when. And if anyone out in the gray waters sent them a prayer of thanks, they did not know it. They did not hear it.
Still, when finally the exhausted cat and dog laid their heads down to a brief sleep, they slept well, and with contented hearts.
Spring was never quite sure when She was arriving. One day the sky would be a clear, brilliant blue and the sun would shine its head on the small white crocuses around Pandora’s door. Then the next day a wind would roar in like a hurricane and rain would bend all the new flowers to the ground and set everything a-shiver.
Seabold made several false starts on his gazebo before the sun finally came out and stayed out long enough for a soul to get some work done.
And it was while he was hammering on the gazebo atop the daisy-hill that Seabold saw what looked to be a floating crate far out upon the water. And above it what looked to be a small flag.
Seabold did not yet know it, but something wonderful was about to happen to Pandora’s lonely lighthouse.
“Pandora!” Seabold cried. “Come and look!”
From behind the cottage, Pandora emerged with an armload of firewood. She set the wood by the door and hurried to the top of the hill.
“Look,” said Seabold. He pointed toward the water where the crate floated. He could see no signs of life.
“It has some sort of flag,” he told Pandora. “Do you think it is empty?”
Pandora gazed out across the water, and her face grew very serious. “I have a feeling,” she said soberly. “I believe there is life out there.”
Seabold frowned. “Well, if life is out there,” he answered, “it is not at all well, you may be certain of that. For that crate is surely drifting at the mercy of the sea.”
Pandora nodded. “I know,” she said.
Seabold took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders.
“I shall just have to go fetch it to shore,” he said.
Pandora looked at him. “And how will you do that?” she asked.
“I think I can manage my boat out that far,” said Seabold. “She’s torn, but I think she will float.”
“You think?” repeated Pandora.
“We can stand here and watch that small flag float away and goodness-knows-what tragedy with it,” said Seabold. “Or I can make Adventure float.”
Pandora sighed deeply, but with resolve. “Make her float,” she said. “And be quick.”
Seabold ran toward the shore.
It did not take long for the brave dog to get his tattered boat upon the water, or to reach the drifting crate. He was, after all, still a very fine sailor.
“Hello!” he called as he steered nearer. He could see that the flag was actually a small red shirt on a stick. “Anyone there?”
Silence.
Gravely, he pulled his boat alongside, expecting the worst.
He peered inside. “My goodness,” he said.
For there, peering back at him, were three very young mice. One, in fact, was a baby. All three were piled close together.
“Are you injured?” asked Seabold.
One of the mice, the boy, opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. The girl-mouse simply stared. The baby was asleep.
“Are you lost?” asked Seabold.
The boy-mouse and the girl-mouse nodded vigorously.
Seabold extended his paw. “You must come with me, children,” he said. “For your situation is very bad.”
Nodding her head in agreement, the girl-mouse reached out for his paw. He lifted her aboard. Then the boy-mouse gently handed him the baby. She was so small and light that Seabold barely breathed as he carefully placed her in the lap of the older mouse.
“Is the baby your sister?” he asked the girl-mouse.
Yes, she nodded.
Finally the boy-mouse was on board, still unable to speak.
Seabold quickly turned back toward shore. “Thirst has gotten the better of you,” he said. “We must get you to fresh water and fast.”
When Seabold carried all three to shore, in his knitted cap, Pandora was there, waiting with a blanket and—blessedly—a bowl of water. The children drank and drank. The girl-mouse made a cup of her hand for the baby.
When they had finished drinking, the boy-mouse said, quite clearly and solemnly, “Thank you.”
Seabold and Pandora smiled. For both were, deep down inside themselves, quite delighted. Children!
They took the little ones into the cottage and gave them supper.
The next morning the boy-mouse and girl-mouse joined Pandora and Seabold at breakfast. The evening before they had introduced themselves as Whistler and Lila, brother and sister. The baby they had introduced as Tiny.
“Yes indeed, she is,” Pandora had replied.
“No, no,” Lila had sai
d. “Tiny is her proper name.”
“Well,” Pandora had replied with a smile. “Perfect.”
And now, in early morning, sitting before a warm breakfast in a warm kitchen, Whistler and Lila, still tired, still hungry, were, more than anything, worried.
“Tiny is still sleeping,” Lila told Pandora and Seabold. “She never sleeps so long.”
“And she hardly stirred all night,” said Whistler. “She always stirs about and gurgles and bubbles. But she is so quiet.”
Pandora rose immediately to see.
She lifted the sleeping baby from the knitted sock on the chair.
“This small one has a fever,” Pandora said in deep concern. “I believe she is quite ill.”
Lila gazed at Pandora, and one large tear began to roll down the small mouse’s face.
Whistler looked at Seabold in distress.
“Seabold,” said Pandora, “you will need to look after this baby while I go out into the woods. I must find a special branch of willow, and it may take me some time.”
Seabold nodded and reached out. Pandora gently laid the infant in his big paw.
“Keep her cool,” said Pandora. “But not cold. A nice, low breeze from the window will help. And she needs much water. See if she will drink.”
Pandora looked kindly at Whistler and Lila. “You have done very well, caring for this small child. She is ill from weather and sea, not from want of attention or love.”
Another tear dropped down Lila’s face.
“I shall hurry,” Pandora said as, taking her woolen shawl, she stepped out the door.
While Pandora went out searching the woods, Seabold sat Lila and Whistler down to a checkerboard he had made, to take their minds off their fears.
“I will look after Tiny,” he told them gently. “And you may try out my new game board.”
“Clams!” Lila said in surprise, picking up a game piece.
“And starfish,” said Whistler, picking up another.
Seabold smiled. “They’re much more interesting than little round circles. I carved them myself.”
“Amazing,” said Whistler, turning the starfish in his hand. “I should like to try carving sometime.”
“Anytime you like,” said Seabold. “Except just now, of course. This little one needs me.”
He left Whistler and Lila to their game and carried the infant-mouse to a chair beside the kitchen window. Settling her in one paw, with a thimbleful of water nearby, he went about his duties.
Keep her cool, Pandora had told him. Give her water.
And these things Seabold did do.
But he did something more.
There, beside Pandora’s gingham-curtained window, in view of the cherry trees budding and the daffodils in bloom, Seabold transformed.
Exactly how, he could not say. But rocking the infant carefully in his paw, listening to the quiet and gentle voices of Whistler and Lila in the next room, hearing the fire crackle and smelling the good brown smell of bread in the stove, Seabold realized that he was happy. Happier than he had ever been. Happier than any solitary evening at sea had ever made him.
He sat by the window, cooed to the tiny baby, and smiled.
And after that day, everything was changed.
Tiny was made better by the willow bark. Lila planted sunflower seeds. And Pandora and Seabold found themselves with a kind of household. Some days Pandora looked about at all the dwellers at her lighthouse and she marveled. How had it all happened?
It had happened for many reasons. It happened because a noble young cat wished to save lives. Because a brave dog wished to sail. And because three small children wished for a family.
Before Seabold found them at sea, Whistler, Lila, and Tiny had lived in an orphanage far from Pandora’s lighthouse. But they were to be separated and sent off to different places. “We will never be separated,” Whistler had told Lila. And in the dark of night, with Tiny bundled onto Lila’s back, they had escaped.
Finding the docks of the city, and all the great schooners ready to set sail, they had hidden aboard one of them, bound for they knew not where.
But out at sea, in a hurricane wind, the schooner had rolled itself under and the three poor young mice with it.
Perhaps their parents in heaven were watching over them. For Whistler managed to grab hold of an empty crate and pull his sisters in.
They floated, hungry and thirsty, for what seemed time unending, until Seabold found them.
And now here they were, carving otters, planting sunflowers.
Seabold grew quite attached to Tiny. He put her in the soft roll of his knitted cap and she went everywhere with him, seeing all that he saw.
In evening, when Pandora set supper on the table, Seabold placed Tiny in a little eggcup by his plate and patted her fondly on the head as they ate.
And when, with full stomachs and happy hearts, the children were put to bed, Seabold and Pandora had their last cup of tea in the sitting room and reminisced.
“Do you remember when we saw the double rainbow?”
“Do you remember when the moon passed across the sun?”
“And the wind blew the pelican the wrong way?”
They would smile together in memory and sip their tea.
And, as always, before the night was ended, Seabold would ask, “And do you remember when I found the children?”
Pandora would nod her head.
“They are quite wonderful,” Seabold would say.
“Yes,” Pandora would answer.
“Thank goodness we found them,” both would say in unison.
And with a happy good night, Seabold would go to his warm bed and Pandora would go to hers. In the kitchen, near the fire, tucked into the knitted sock Pandora had made just for them, the three mouse-children would sleep soundly, dreaming their blue sea dreams.
The lighthouse had a family.
The Beginning
CYNTHIA RYLANT
has written more than sixty books for children, including Missing May, a Newbery Medal winner; A Fine White Dust, a Newbery Honor Book; and When I Was Young in the Mountains and The Relatives Came, both Caldecott Honor Books. She is also the author of the Poppleton, the Mr. Putter and Tabby, the Cobble Street Cousins, and the Henry and Mudge series. Her recent picture books with Simon & Schuster include The Wonderful Happens; Good Morning, Sweetie Tie; and Let’s Go Home. She resides in the Pacific Northwest on an island much like the one in this book.
PRESTON MCDANIELS
has illustrated two picture books, Cecil Frances Alexander’s All Things Bright and Beautiful and Jaraslov Vajda’s God of the Sparrow. He lives in Aurora, Nebraska, with his wife and two daughters.
SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
Text copyright © 2002 by Cynthia Rylant
Illustration copyright © 2002 by Preston McDaniels
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or part in any form
SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS is a trademark of Simon & Schuster.
The text for this book is set in Centaur.
The illustrations for this book are rendered in graphite.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rylant, Cynthia.
The lighthouse family. The storm / Cynthia Rylant ; illustrated by Preston McDaniels.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Pandora the cat becomes a lighthouse keeper and saves the life of Seabold the dog, and together the two of them create a family with three young mice rescued from the sea.
ISBN 0-689-84880-3
[1. Lighthouses—Fiction. 2. Cats—Fiction. 3. Dogs—Fiction. 4. Mice—Fiction.]
I. Title: Storm. II. McDaniels, Preston, ill. III. Title.
PZ7.R982 Lf 2002
[Fic]—dc21
> 2001040092