Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson

Author:Katherine Paterson [Paterson, Katherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Retail, Ages 10 & Up, Newbery Medal
ISBN: 9780061832772
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-03-03T08:00:00+00:00

11

It was the bluest, clearest day of the summer. Every breath of air was delicious with just enough of a clean, salt edge to wake up all your senses. If the Captain and I had just stood on the porch with our eyes closed, it would have been a perfect day. For while our noses and lungs feasted on nature’s goodness, our eyes were assaulted by evidence of her savagery.

The water had left our living room, but it was still in the yard, level with the porch. Riding the muddy surface were sections of picket fence, giant tree limbs, crab pots, remnants of floats and crab houses, boats, and…“What’s that?” I had grabbed the Captain’s arm.

“A coffin,” he said matter of factly. “These storms will dig them up sometimes. Just replant them is all.” His mind was clearly not on the dead. “Look here,” he said. “There’s no safe walking to my place this morning. We’d best go back in and give your mother a hand.”

The thought of our sodden, muck-filled downstairs dragged at me like a lead weight on a crab pot. “Don’t you want to see what happened to your house?” I asked. This was a day for adventure, not drudgery.

“Plenty of time to see later when the water’s down,” he said, turning to go back inside.

“My boat!” That was it. We could pole the skiff down to his house, maneuvering around the debris as we would ice floes. He cocked his head. I’m sure he doubted that my stubby little skiff could have survived the storm.

At first we couldn’t tell. The gut had disappeared under the foot of water flooding the yard, bringing with it the same floating dump heap we had seen swirling about the front yard. The day before, my father had tied the boat, not just to the pine to which I usually secured her bowline; he had run lines from her stern to the fig tree on one side and the cedar on the other. The three trees were still there, looking a bit like little boys after their summer haircuts, but still there. From the porch I could, at last, make out the three now taut lines, and then I caught sight of her washboards just above the water line.

“She’s here!” I was half off the porch when the Captain grabbed me.

“You want lockjaw or typhoid or a combination?” He indicated my bare legs and feet.

I was too happy to be offended. “Okay,” I said. “Just a minute.” He waited until I fetched my father’s old boots. He had worn his good ones when he left earlier to see about his own boat and the crab shanty.

We bailed out the skiff until it was bobbing merrily on the surface. The Captain loosed the lines on the house side of the still invisible gut, and then I climbed into the boat, pulled myself along the rope to the cedar tree, and loosed that knot as well. The Captain fetched the pole from the

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