Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson Read Free Book Online

village. As my grandmother remembered it, their land had been large enough in those days for real grass to grow in a pasture, enough to support one of the few cows in the island’s history.
    What was left of the land was now all marsh, but the house, though neglected, had survived. We children had always regarded it as haunted. There were tales that Captain Wallace’s ghost appeared to chase off intruders. It took me years to figure out that the purpose of the ghost story was to keep young courting couples from wandering down the path to the old Wallace place and taking advantage of the privacy.
    One day I had talked Call into exploring thehouse with me, but just as we stepped onto the porch, a huge orange-colored tomcat came shrieking out a broken window at us. It was the only time in our lives that Call outran me. We sat gasping for breath on my front stoop. One part of my mind was saying that it had only been one of Auntie Braxton’s cats. She was said to keep sixteen, and anyone who had ever been as close as her front door would have sworn by the smell that there were at least that many and more. The other part of my mind was reluctant to let it go as simply as that.
    â€œHave you ever heard,” I asked, “have you ever heard that ghosts will take an animal form when they are angry?” Now that my breath was back I let my voice glide out in a dreamy way.
    Call jerked around to look me in the face. “No!” he said.
    â€œI was reading this book,” I began to improvise (of course, I’d never seen any such book). “In this book, this scientist investigated places where ghosts were supposed to be. He started out saying that there was no such thing as ghosts, but being a scientist he had to admit finally that he couldn’t explain certain things any other way.”
    â€œWhat things?”
    â€œOh—” I thought fast while drawing out the syllable. “Oh—certain furry beasts that took on the personality of a dead person.”
    Call was clearly shaken. “What do you mean?”
    â€œWell, for instance, suppose old Captain Wallace when he was alive didn’t want any visitors.”
    â€œHe didn’t.” Call said darkly. “My grandma told me. After Hiram left, they lived all by themselves. Never spoke to nobody hardly.”
    â€œSee?”
    â€œSee what?”
    â€œWe were fixing to visit him without an invitation,” I whispered. “He was yelling at us and chasing us away.”
    Call’s eyes were the size of clam shells. “You’re making that up,” he said. But I could tell that he believed every word of it.
    â€œOnly one way to be sure,” I said.
    â€œHow you mean?”
    I leaned close and whispered again. “Go back and see what happens.”
    He jumped to his feet. “Suppertime!” He started out the yard.
    I had done my work too well. I was never able to persuade Call to return to that old empty housewith me, and somehow, I was never quite able to go there alone.
    Now that the strange old man was there, the house was no longer empty, and the whole island was trying to unravel the mystery. All the old people agreed that Hiram Wallace was, in his youth, the hope of every island maiden’s heart, but that he had left Rass with his father’s money and blessing to go to college. It was an unusual enough occurrence that even someone from our island who had gone to college fifty years ago was remembered for it. People also recalled, though this point was discussed at considerable length, that he had returned home without a degree, and that he had, in some undefinable way, changed. He had never been too sociable before he left, but he was positively silent when he returned. This only made the hearts of the young girls beat the harder, and no one had suspected that anything was wrong with him until the day of the storm.
    The Bay is famous for its sudden summer storms. Before they can read