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

state, or what might be called the upper station of low life, which he had found by long experience was the best state in the world, the most suited to human happiness, not exposed to the miseries and hardships, the labour and sufferings of the mechanic part of mankind, and not embarrassed with the pride, luxury, ambition, and envy of the upper part of mankind
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    —R OBINSON C RUSOE

    P AP PULLED HIS HAT DOWN A BIT OVER HIS WATERING BLUE EYES, BUT I could still see his saggy face. I knew someday, and probably sooner than later, I would have a face like a loggerhead from working in the sun’s glare day after day, but it didn’t bother me none. I liked to thinkthat Pap’s face belonged to the sea, as much as the fish we pulled from it did.
    We’d been out on the Pamlico Sound since the middle of the night, laying the nets for spot and croaker. But I had to meet up with Mister Sinclair for yet another fishing run later this morning, and the day wouldn’t end anytime soon.
    For such a gnarled coot of a man, Pap was a patient fisherman. He had a sixth sense for fish—what kind they were, where they might be, and what direction they were heading in.
    Ever since I was a youngun, and Ma had passed, Pap’s been learning me about fishing, and I’m not ashamed to say that I know all I know from him. Pretty much grew up on his work boat. I helped mend his nets and listened to his far-fetched fishing tales. Pap told me early on that fishing was a holy skill, that it said so in the Bible. I figure Jesus must look on Pap very kindly indeed.
    It’s like me and Pap got seawater for blood. If it’s swimming in the water, we just know by instinct how to catch it. We not only catch any type of fish God made, but all nature of water creatures. Porpoise, turtles, oysters, crabs, eels, and sometimes whales, depending on if we need the money that bad to go off on the hunt. I will say that whaling is much easier when the beasts wash dead onto your beach.
    But fishing on a June day like today is my favorite thing to do, being mere inches above the sound. It’s like a passel of little miracles happening all day long, just for me.
    The rest of the country can scurry around like rats, packing guns or politicking, but out here people are free to be simple. I like to think of mainland North Carolina as a great big brass band a-playing in a stuffed-up room, and the Outer Banks as one easy stroke on the fiddle, cutting right through the clean ocean air.
    But it ain’t often easy. Pap and me arise afore dawn and follow the sun all the way across the sky, most days. Oftentimes we just catch afew winks on the boat, an old sail for a blanket. We breakfast on seafood, we sup on seafood. And shitting over the side of the skiff in broad daylight isn’t a circumstance.
    As a way of living, it was all getting old to me.
    Today I was sloppy pulling the nets up, and Pap was getting real cross with me. But try as I might to think on hauling, I kept wondering on Miss Abigail Sinclair. There was just some unruly quality to her, even though she was all shelled up in those fancy clothes. ’Course, she was easy on the eyes, no denying that.
    Now, don’t get me wrong, I have myself a gal, Eliza Dickens. She’s a hard worker and a good cook, make me a fine wife. I’ve known her since we was ’bout yay high, no taller than my shinbone. She’s got me thinking it might be a good idea to have a wife, set up house. So maybe early next year we’ll tie the knot, once I get some learning. I figure if I’m a lettered man, there ain’t nothing holding me back from a decent job.
    See, a new lighthouse is set to get built down the Banks a ways, in Cape Hatteras. The whole Banks is in an uproar over its construction. Number one, they say it’s to be the tallest brick light in the world. And number two, its building is expected to give Banker folks jobs left and right.
    And it won’t stop there. Word has it that the U.S. government wants to build lighthouse after