island. To reach it, one crosses an arched stone bridge. Another set of stone steps leads into what is called The Roman Bathâa deep tub of silky lake. There is The Birdhouse, rising like aSeuss concoction into the pines, story after story, with a zigzag of steps and ladders. As the other cabins are, itâs heated with a tiny woodstove. There is one more house, made like the others of unpeeled cedar logs, there is a library cabin, which Iâll get to, and there are the outhouses. Mine is built with a tiny step up, a perfect screen door, a lovely window, and a long view down the center of the channel facing east.
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We convene to eat in an old early twentieth-century cookâs barge used by lumber companies to feed their crews as they ravaged the northern old-growth trees and floated the logs down to the sawmills. Ober had this cookâs barge hauled onto his island. An old bell signals meals. Original plates and dishes of every charmâDepression glass, milk glass, porcelains, and sweet old flowery unmatched Royal Doulton china dishesâcrowd the open shelves. A cabin just out front of the cookâs barge, hauled here too, was once a floating whorehouse, I am told. Now it houses a piano, and three neat beds. A child has written a sign, tacked to its wall, that advises visitors not to be alarmed if they see things they are unprepared to seeâlike spirits. There is supposed to be a spirit family that inhabits this island.
Iâll tell you right off, I donât see hide nor hair of the spirits. But I canât speak for Kiizhikok, with her still open fontanel. They might be talking to her. Or singing her to sleep. Because she sleeps on this island, takes naps of an unprecedented length and then tumbles into sleep beside me as I read long into the night. There is a fever that overcomes a book-lover who has limited time to spend on Oberâs island. A fever to read. Or at least to open the books. There is no question of finishing or even delving deeply. I have only days. Among the books, I feel what is almost a low swell of grief, a panic.
Once the baby is asleep I vault to Oberâs shelves. I first wash and dry my handsâI just have to. Really, I suppose I should be wearing gloves. Then with a kind of bingeing greed I start, taking one book off the shelf, sucking what I can of it in, replacing it. This goes on for as many hours as I can stand. G. K. Chesterton on William Blake. Ben Jonsonâs Works in Four Volumes, Oxford University, 1811. Where The Blue Begins by Christopher Morley, illustrated by Arthur Rackham, first edition and first printing. An 1851 copy of The House of the Seven Gables . And The Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson, Being an Account of His Travels and Experiences Among the North American Indians . A wonderful volume, more recent than most, published in 1943 and transcribed from original manuscripts in the British Museum. I keep reading this last book until, late at night, the loons in full cry, my mosquito coil threading citronella smoke, I have to quit. Knowing that I must be alert enough tomorrow to feed Kiizhikok and take the stones from her mouth, I force myself to sleep. But as I drift away with her foot in my hand I am led to picture an alternate life.
In my imagined life, there is an enchanted interlude. All children are given a year off from school to do nothing but read (I donât know if theyâd actually like this, but in my fantasy my daughters are exquisitely happy). We come to this island. One year is given to me, also, to read. I am not allowed to write. I am forced to do nothing but absorb Oberholtzerâs books. Every day, I pluck downstacks of books from the shelves upon shelves tacked up on every wall and level of each of the seven cabins on Oberâs island. Slowly, I go through the stacks, reading here and there until I find the book of which I must read every word. Then I do read every word, beneath a very bright lamp. When my
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We convene to eat in an old early twentieth-century cookâs barge used by lumber companies to feed their crews as they ravaged the northern old-growth trees and floated the logs down to the sawmills. Ober had this cookâs barge hauled onto his island. An old bell signals meals. Original plates and dishes of every charmâDepression glass, milk glass, porcelains, and sweet old flowery unmatched Royal Doulton china dishesâcrowd the open shelves. A cabin just out front of the cookâs barge, hauled here too, was once a floating whorehouse, I am told. Now it houses a piano, and three neat beds. A child has written a sign, tacked to its wall, that advises visitors not to be alarmed if they see things they are unprepared to seeâlike spirits. There is supposed to be a spirit family that inhabits this island.
Iâll tell you right off, I donât see hide nor hair of the spirits. But I canât speak for Kiizhikok, with her still open fontanel. They might be talking to her. Or singing her to sleep. Because she sleeps on this island, takes naps of an unprecedented length and then tumbles into sleep beside me as I read long into the night. There is a fever that overcomes a book-lover who has limited time to spend on Oberâs island. A fever to read. Or at least to open the books. There is no question of finishing or even delving deeply. I have only days. Among the books, I feel what is almost a low swell of grief, a panic.
Once the baby is asleep I vault to Oberâs shelves. I first wash and dry my handsâI just have to. Really, I suppose I should be wearing gloves. Then with a kind of bingeing greed I start, taking one book off the shelf, sucking what I can of it in, replacing it. This goes on for as many hours as I can stand. G. K. Chesterton on William Blake. Ben Jonsonâs Works in Four Volumes, Oxford University, 1811. Where The Blue Begins by Christopher Morley, illustrated by Arthur Rackham, first edition and first printing. An 1851 copy of The House of the Seven Gables . And The Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson, Being an Account of His Travels and Experiences Among the North American Indians . A wonderful volume, more recent than most, published in 1943 and transcribed from original manuscripts in the British Museum. I keep reading this last book until, late at night, the loons in full cry, my mosquito coil threading citronella smoke, I have to quit. Knowing that I must be alert enough tomorrow to feed Kiizhikok and take the stones from her mouth, I force myself to sleep. But as I drift away with her foot in my hand I am led to picture an alternate life.
In my imagined life, there is an enchanted interlude. All children are given a year off from school to do nothing but read (I donât know if theyâd actually like this, but in my fantasy my daughters are exquisitely happy). We come to this island. One year is given to me, also, to read. I am not allowed to write. I am forced to do nothing but absorb Oberholtzerâs books. Every day, I pluck downstacks of books from the shelves upon shelves tacked up on every wall and level of each of the seven cabins on Oberâs island. Slowly, I go through the stacks, reading here and there until I find the book of which I must read every word. Then I do read every word, beneath a very bright lamp. When my
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