The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter

Margaret Knott grew up in the Bass Harbor Head Light on the rocky coast of Maine, where her father kept the lamp burning from 1895 to 1923. She later wrote that she never once needed a posted list of rules to know how to behave in that lighthouse. The light itself taught her. When fog rolled across Frenchman Bay and fishing boats groped blindly toward the rocks, Margaret understood why her father polished the Fresnel lens until his hands ached.…