A Northern Light(17)

"You're working this summer, aren't you?" she said. "At the Glenmore?"

I shook my head. "My pa said no."

"Well, not to worry. My sister Annabelle will give you room and board in exchange for a bit of housekeeping. She has a town house in Murray Hill and she's all alone in it, so there would be plenty of room for you. Between the scholarship and Annabelle, that's tuition, housing, and meals taken care of. For book money and the trolley and clothing and such, you could always get a job. Something part-time. Typing, perhaps. Or ringing up sales in a department store. Plenty of girls manage it."

Girls who know what they're doing, I thought. Brisk, confident girls in white blouses and twill skirts who could make heads or tails of a typewriter or a cash register. Not girls in old wash dresses and cracked shoes.

"I suppose I could," I said weakly.

"What about your father? Can he help you at all?"

"No, ma'am."

"Mattie ... you've told him, haven't you?"

"No, ma'am, I haven't."

Miss Wilcox nodded, curt and determined. She stubbed out her cigarette on the underside of her desk and put the ashy end in her purse. Miss Wilcox knew how to not get caught doing things she shouldn't. It was an odd quality in a teacher.

"I'll talk to him, Mattie. I'll tell him if you want me to," she said.

I laughed at that—a flat, joyless laugh—then said, "No, ma'am, I don't. Not unless you know how to duck a peavey."





un ? man


"Afternoon, Mattie!" Mr. Eckler called from the bow of his boat. "Got a new one. Brand-new. Just come in. By a Mrs. Wharton. House of Mirth, its called. I tucked it in behind the coffee beans, under W You'll see it."

"Thank you, Mr. Eckler!" I said, excited at the prospect of a new book. "Did you read it?"

"Yup. Read it whole."

"What's it about?"

"Can't hardly say. Some flighty city girl who can't decide if she wants to fish or cut bait. Don't know why it's called House of Mirth. It ain't funny in the least."

The Fulton Chain Floating Library is only a tiny room, an overeager closet, really, belowdecks in Charlie Eckler's pickle boat. It is nothing like the proper library they have in Old Forge, but it has its own element of surprise. Mr. Eckler uses the room to store his wares, and when he finally gets around to moving a chest of tea or a sack of cornmeal, you never knew what you might find. And once in a while, the main library in Herkimer sends up a new book or two. It's nice to get your hands on a new book before everyone else does. While the pages are still clean and white and the spine hasn't been snapped. While it still smells like words and not Mrs. Higby's violet water or Weaver's mamma's fried chicken or my aunt Josie's liniment.

The boat is a floating grocery store and serves all the camps and hotels along the Fulton Chain. It is the only store—floating or not—for miles. Mr. Eckler starts out at dawn from Old Forge and makes his way up the chain—through First, Second, and Third Lakes, then all the way around Fourth Lake—stopping at the Eagle Bay Hotel on the north shore and Inlet on its east end—then heads back down to Old Forge again. You can never miss the pickle boat. Nothing on water—or land, for that matter—looks quite like it. There are milk cans on top of it, bins full of fruits and vegetables on the deck, and a huge pickle barrel in the back, from which it takes its name. Inside the cabin are sacks of flour, cornmeal, sugar, oats, and salt; a basket of eggs; jars of candy; bottles of honey and maple syrup; tins of cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper, and saleratus; a box of cigars; a box of venison jerky; and three lead-lined tea chests packed with ice—one for fresh meat, one for fish, and the third for and butter. Everything is neat and tidy and fits snugly into place so it won't get tossed about in rough weather. Mr. Eckler sells a few other items as well, like nails and hammers, needles and thread, postcards and pens hand salve, cough drops, and fly dope.

I stepped onto the boat and went belowdecks. The House of Mirth was under W, like Mr. Eckler said it would be, only it was wedged in next to Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch. Mr. Eckler sometimes gets authors and titles confused. I signed it out in a ledger he kept on top of a molasses barrel, then rooted around behind a crate of eggs, a jar of marbles, and a box of dried dates but found nothing I hadn't already read. I remembered to get the bag of cornmeal we needed. I wished I could buy oatmeal or white flour instead, but cornmeal cost less and went further. I was to get a ten-pound bag. The fifty-pound bag cost more to buy but was cheaper per pound and I'd told Pa so, but he said only rich people can afford to be thrifty.

Just as I was about to climb back upstairs, something caught my eye—a box of composition books. Real pretty ones with hard covers on them, and swirly paint designs, and a ribbon to mark your place. I put the cornmeal down, and Mrs. Wharton, too, and picked one up. Its pages were smooth and white. I thought it would be a fine thing to write on paper that nice. The pages in my old composition book were rough and had blurry blue lines printed on them, and were made with so little care that there were slivers of wood visible in them.

When I got back on deck, I saw that Royal Loomis had come onboard. He was paying for two cinnamon sticks, ten pounds of flour, a tin of tooth powder, and a bag of nails. He frowned at the amount on the all and counted his change twice, chewing on a toothpick all the while.