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got, and I love him. Plus, he’s the one with the boats and the nets, so I have to stick with him,” he joked.
    “But you mentioned that you might want a different sort of job someday?”
    He nodded, his blue eyes shifting toward the sea. “Guess time will tell. I’ve got my eye on some things coming down the pike.”
    A seagull flew to the bottom of the porch steps and stood there watching us out of the corner of its eye. We had gotten sidetracked, but I couldn’t seem to stop the conversation.
    “We don’t eat fish very much back home. Mama’s of Swedish descent, so you’d think she’d have fish for every meal. But she won’t even eat salmon. Plus, Daddy’s not the best fisherman in the world. We’re not what you’d call water people.”
    “Oh, well, your pap’s doing all right.” His eyes lit up as he started to talk about his livelihood. “It’s all a matter of knowing where they’re gonna bite, and that’s where I come in. But your pap’s a keen observer of nature. Right clever. And I’ll tell you, he is a darned good shot with the hunting rifle. Just about gave me a run for my money last fall when I took him bird-gunning up yonder in Currituck.”
    “I believe it. All he ever does back home is shoot animals. He’s taking out his anger on the poor innocents of the world.”
    He looked concerned. “Is he angry? He seems even-keeled enough to me, I reckon.”
    I had probably said too much to the man. I didn’t want him in our family’s business any more than he was. “Oh, just worried is all. About the plantation.”
    I looked over at Mama, who seemed to be engrossed in her reading. I took up my quill and a piece of paper. “I’m going to copy out the alphabet on a piece of paper for you, and for practice, study your letters so that you can recite them all by memory. If I think you’re ready, we’ll start writing them soon.”
    “When do you think I’ll be able to read books like that one you was reading the other day? Seems I’m a pretty fast learner. Shouldn’t take too long, I reckon!”
    I laughed a bit, then wondered if he wasn’t joking. “Oh, mercy, I’m not sure you’ll be able to read books like that for many—It’s just that reading books like
Moby-Dick
takes many years of dedicated reading practice. And it takes a lot of learning about the world and the people in it, a lot of education.”
    He raised his eyebrows at me. “Well, ain’t we proud? You can teach me all that, though, right? I wasn’t born yesterday.”
    I shook my head. “Not in one summer.”
    He looked so downhearted that I grew bothered with myself for disappointing him. He seemed to have such high hopes for himself. “I’m not saying that you can’t learn. But some of the concepts in that particular book are difficult to grasp, even for me.”
    I grabbed the book off the table and thumbed the pages. “See, on the surface, the novel appears to be about a whaling voyage. But it’s not. There are deeper interpretations to consider.”
    His eyes narrowed and he scratched his head. “Huh?”
    “The whale is not really a whale,” I said slowly. “They’re chasing knowledge, fate, the meaning of life.”
    He raised his eyes to the porch ceiling and drawled, “Oh, I see. Hidden meanings and all. Like a treasure map, but in a book.”
    I nodded enthusiastically. “That’s right. Grasping those themes takes study and reflection. Maybe I could read aloud a bit of another book that I brought along for Charlie and Martha, a book about a shipwrecked sailor living on a deserted island. I think you may like it.”
    “Hey now, that’s a great idea! Reading out loud! I reckon I’ve never heard a person read a book out loud before, except the Bible, you know,” he exclaimed, and grabbed the paper on which I’d written the alphabet. “I’m going to learn all these little sons-o’-guns, all right! You’ll see! Much obliged to you, Miss Sinclair! Bye now, Mrs. Sinclair!”
    And off he ran down the