Diann Ducharme by The Outer Banks House (v5) Read Free Book Online

beach. He moved as loose-limbed and carefree as a child. Mama raised her head and said, “Good gracious, he runs like an animal.”
    And in spite of myself, I smiled. I pictured myself running down the shore with him, but where we were off to together, I had not one single notion.

    The next morning I accompanied Winnie to the little market, which was built on long stilts over the Roanoke Sound so that people traveling on small boats could dock and come up to fetch their supplies.
    Winnie had been back and forth to the market and the post office in the hotel a few times already, fetching items that were desperately needed for our first couple of days at the beach, so she had met a few of the local “Bankers” already.
    In a loud rant in the kitchen one morning, Winnie had expressed her exasperation with their stubborn ignorance and “evil eyes,” and she told me she was looking forward to the start of the weekly packets of fresh vegetables and fruit from the plantation so she wouldn’t have as many dealings with them.
    Maybe it was because I’d been cooped up all day at the house, but I was curious about the folks who lived here permanently, having met Mr. Whimble. I guessed that they were all as simple as he was, with no schools or much industry to speak of out here.
    I knew already that they were an independent sort of people, since they were notoriously pro-Union during the war. Daddy had complained, back when the war began, that many of the folks out here had more ties with New England, with all of their shipping concerns,than with the land-bound inner cities of North Carolina. He said that they were as good as Yankees.
    Now Winnie and I walked down a little pier to the market, and a tanned, big-boned woman with a ragged old bonnet and patched brown homespun dress emerged from the back to greet us. Her dark, crinkled eyes looked me over, and I felt, suddenly, foolishly dressed, with my fine linen dress cascading unnaturally with crinolines over the warped wood. With a cheek full of chewing tobacco, she asked Winnie what we’d like from the market.
    Winnie, likely with visions of her famous fried catfish and okra dinner in her head, examined the produce first, then asked what kind of fish was available. With expert hands that cradled and caressed the sweet potatoes and watermelon like newborn heads, she chose several fat catfish and a basketful of fresh vegetables and fruits.
    As Winnie loaded our baskets onto the cart, the woman spoke to me. “So you from that fam’ly what built the new house on the ocean side? That piney house down yonder?” she asked, pointing a crooked brown finger southward, toward the ocean.
    I smiled at her unexpected interest. “Yes, that’s right. I’m Abigail Sin—”
    “I can’t for the life of me feature why all you folks built those houses so close to the ocean. It’s the devil’s own foolishness, we all agree. We’ll soon see yer house a-floatin’ with the next storm. Serve you right, it will.” With that, she spat an arc of tobacco juice over her shoulder and retreated into the shack without a thank-you or a good-bye.
    My body pulsed with indignation. I complained to Winnie as we walked to the hotel to fetch our mail. “Who does she think she is, speaking to me in such a manner? I doubt I’ve ever been spoken to so rudely.” I was certainly accustomed to Mama’s simmering anger, but not to outright rudeness.
    “It just their way out here. They a peculiar bunch of folks, from what I can see,” said Winnie, looking around to see if anyone was listening. “She never done learned her manners, living out here like she do. I reckon some folks see you and figure they got the short end of the stick.”
    She bit her lip then and averted her eyes from my face. “And too, she might feature you all to be wasteful kind of folks, just handing out perfectly fine dresses like you do.”
    “What are you talking about?” I asked.
    “She the one I gave your dirty dress to. She