Read Online A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly - Free Book Online Page A

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.
    "Hey, Royal," I said.
    "Hey."
    I handed Mr. Eckler fifty cents of my father's money for the cornmeal. "How much is this?" I asked, holding up one of the pretty composition books. I had sixty cents from all the fiddleheads Weaver and I had sold to the Eagle Bay Hotel, plus the spruce gum we'd picked and sold to O'Hara's in Inlet. It was money I knew I should have given to my pa. I'd meant to, I did. I just hadn't gotten