One Morning in Maine

The book gives a small slice of everyday life in Maine, where McCloskey and his family moved following World War II.[2] The story begins with McCloskey's older daughter Sal's good-naturedly assisting her little sister Jane during their morning routine of dressing and tooth-brushing. Sal (also the heroine of McCloskey's Blueberries for Sal[3]; according to a 2003 interview with Jane, their father wrote this first book "so that Sal could have a little storybook that was entirely about her"; she was feeling a bit jealous when Jane was born, since she now was no longer the sole focus of Daddy and Mommy's attention) finds she has a loose tooth, and worries that she won't be able to go sailing with her father. Quickly reassured by her mother, Sal then heads out to the shore to help her father. Along the way she encounters some seagulls, a loon, and a seal, and shows them her loose teeth, although the seal is the only one who shows some remote interest. She eventually catches up to her father, to help him out, but as they dig, the tooth falls out and disappears in the mud, preventing Sal from using the tooth to make a wish. So instead, Sal makes her wish while holding a seagull's feather, which she views as a bird's equivalent of a tooth, since they are both body-parts which fall out as new ones grow in. Sal and Jane then accompany their father in his skiff to the mainland; McCloskey is obliged to row the whole way because the outboard motor has a bad spark plug. After the motor is serviced by the jovial mechanic at the local boat-shop, Sal gives the old plug to Jane to make a wish of her own; the girls reason that the plug is like the motor's tooth, since it is a part that must be removed and replaced occasionally. At the general store, some local wisecracking fisherman make jokes about Sal's lost tooth, and the shopkeeper (who is a brother to the mechanic) treats each of the daughters to what they had both wished for: a big cone of ice cream. The family completes their shopping, and set off to return home. The story ends with the happy trio's roaring back towards home in their skiff --- under motor-power this time --- cleaving a great foaming wake in the calm water of the bay, and they eagerly look forward to lunch: homemade clam chowder. [4]

The action in the book takes place at the McCloskeys' summer home on Scott Island off of Little Deer Isle, and in South Brooksville on Bucks Harbor, where the buildings housing the garage and store depicted in the book can still be seen.[5]