A duck lives on top of the Whitneys refrigerator, and a rooster joins them at breakfast, and there are frogs and dogs here and there in the house. But when Dad brings home a baby seal, their lives really take on a shape and purpose.
They live in a rambling spread up on the hill over the Maine fishing town where Dad is the harbor master, and people talk about them behind their backs. There is a way in which old-timers with Maine accents can say He s got a seal for a pet that lets you know they are not simply imparting information.