West Virginia argus. [volume] (Kingwood, W. Va.) 1877-1946, 1879-01-25
LITTLE JESSIE.
hY BETTINA HAROLD.

Blue-eyed, golden-haired little Jessie
had not long lost her mother, but for
her own sake and her dead mothers her
father petted her more than ever, and
his turn having come round again for
service in the isolated lighthouse 90
which he was attached, had locked up
the door of the little whitewashed cot
tage which death had made desolate
and taken his little daughter with him
10 the cluster OF wave-was ed rocks. on
The highest of which the lighthouse was
planted.
Little Jessie was as blithe as a lark
Steve and Aleck, who had hailed her
father as Jack, mate, ," made almost As
much of her as he did. For other plav.
mates she had the lighthouse dog Cox
swain-sO called from the dignity with
which be planted himself in the stern
sheets of the boat that went 10 and fro
between the lighthouse and the shore ;
the lighthouse goat, Nannikin, which
gave good milk, but still retained, in
spite of the confinement 10 which bad
weather often condemned her. the
friskiness Of kidhood the lighthouse
cock and hens and chickens, and her
own black kitten, which the lighthouse
men had christened " Parson," because
" had splash Of white under the chin.
Jessie had come 10 her island prison
over sea-generally very rough-which
feemed 70 have been made for her special
convenience, as smooth as il halcyops
were brooding on it, The lofty light
house, with its many stories, up and
down which she had been carried by
her father and his mates over and over
again, appeared TO her no Jail, but a
most spacious and curiOusly convenient
mansion, after the commonplace little
cottage 10 which she had been accus.
toned.
Jes re felt in fairy-land as she ram
bied about the rough rocks looking
across the blue. golden-spangled waters.
At the white specks, one Of which. her
father told her, was her home: watch
ing the y-mustached, wet-backed
seals basking on the outlying rocks. or
slipping Of them TO swim about with
queerly human-like up and side turned
faces the COmiCal auks, standing up-
right on the rocks, with ssh wrigglinp
~ their bills, or after a flap of their
tuuny little wOuld-bo win r, divipp in
pursuit OF fresh prey; the snOwv-white
ashengray gulls, with their skull-caps
nj black velvet, circiug in intersectiny
courses, brushing the gently-heaying sea
with their wing-tips, and riding on it
Or hoating over 10 without futter. with
equal ease. And when the porpoises
bounded from the brine, ns If thew were
playing az leapfrog. Jessie dropped
her knitting and clapped her hands for
glee.
she chased the little mottled green
crabs that were crawling about the
rocks and scampering sideways into
crannies; pussy playing with them like
mice, until one that bad been brou0b 1
70 bay nipped Parsons pattinq paw.
She tried ~ catch the swift. sbadowv
little iish that were darting about i'm
the clear rock pools, whose sides were
draped with manyhued seaweed and
bossed with tightclinging Empets
blOOmy blue and yellow perivinkIes and
closed anemOnes looking like lumps of
trultJeIiiy' She tried TO pick upa Jelly
hsh, and clapped her hands again and
danced with fun when 30 slipped from
her hnge rs upon her kittens head
making pussy gallop back tn the liObt.
house like q greyhound. She saw
prickly seaurchins snug iu holes and
rainbOw-colOred bnttle-star movino
~ slender arms like 1.-THE snakes. as /,
holted in one Of the pools She pickef
up spotted sun-star, pulled mussel
from the rocks, and knocked Oh thre,
khlck-shelled oysters stuck together
Where the blue sky met the blue sea
ltue dot or two of white. which AlocI
tn'd her was hig shin. glided bv an,