Houseboat Girl (7 page)

“It sure is,” said Mama. “She just can’t let ’em alone.”

Mr. Cooper said, “You don’t want a cat, girl. I’ll give you a dog.”

Patsy gasped. “You will?” she said. This was too good to be true. She dropped the cat hastily.

“Come with me,” said Mr. Cooper.

Mrs. Foster laughed. “You’re just fooling. We don’t need a dog.”

But Patsy was on her way to the restaurant. When she came back, she led a short-haired half-grown black dog on a rope. Mr. Cooper came back, too.

“We can’t take a dog with us,” said Mrs. Foster. “Our house boat’s crowded already.”

Mr. Cooper laughed. “What’s a houseboat without a dog?”

They all looked at the dog whose name was Blackie.

“Except for his white breast, he’s the blackest dog I ever saw,” said Mr. Cooper. “His hair is so shiny, it glitters. That dog’s not scared of a thing—he’s part hound and part just plain cur. Take him along with you, Patsy. I know you’ll give him a good home.”

Patsy could not find words to thank Mr. Cooper. When she and Mama got home, the children crowded round and patted Blackie on the head. Blackie wagged his tail, happy to have found good friends. Daddy said he looked like a mighty fine dog, but Mama kept on shaking her head.

“I’ve got enough kids without taking on a bunch of pets,” she said.

“W
E’RE GOIN’ ON THE
river again!” cried Dan.

“We are?” asked Patsy. She could hardly believe it.

There was brisk excitement in the air. Daddy was getting his motors tuned up and was putting things in order on the fish barge. Mama had done a good housecleaning in the houseboat and a big family washing on the river bank. While Daddy was baiting his lines for the last time, Mama got supper ready.

Only Milly did not want to go.

“We can’t go yet,” she said. “Our order hasn’t come. I haven’t a decent dress to wear to town.”

Three weeks before, Mama and Milly had sent an order to a mail order house for a dress for Milly and some sewing supplies. Every day Milly went to the Wickliffe post office, but no package had come.

“The postmaster said he would forward it,” said Mama. “I told him we would stop at Columbus.”

“That means we’ll never get it,” said Milly.

“I can’t help it,” said Mama. “Daddy’s set to go.”

Patsy shinnied up the “monkey pole” to the roof of the houseboat. Milly was already there, tying down fishing gear and nets. They saw Daddy go off round the bend of the chute.

“What’s he setting his lines tonight for?” asked Patsy.

“To get a big haul of fish,” said Milly.

“Are we taking smelly old fish with us?” asked Patsy. “Do we have to wait till Daddy runs his lines in the morning? I thought we were starting
early.”

“Daddy will bring them in by daylight,” said Milly.

At supper Mama said, “We’ll stop at Columbus, Kentucky, to sell our fish. That’ll give us a little cash money to go on. Daddy’s got a Kentucky fishing license, so we’ll stop wherever we can in Kentucky and fish along the way.”

“But if we’re goin’ somewhere, why can’t we just hurry up and get there?” asked Patsy. “I just want to get to New Orleans
so bad!”

“On the river nobody likes to hurry,” said Daddy, who had just come in. “That’s the good thing about it.”

Patsy hardly took time to eat. She left the table and went out on the river bank to close up her chicken coop. It was dark now and the hens were inside. Dan helped her carry the coop to the cabin boat. Patsy called Blackie, the dog, and told him they were leaving next day. Blackie wagged his tail—it was all right with him.

That night everybody went to bed early. The next morning when Mama called the children to get up, Daddy was back with the fish, about thirty pounds. They ate breakfast by the light of the kerosene lamp. The houseboat was out in the river by the time the sun was up.

There was no one to wave to, no one to call good-bye. It made Patsy think of the time they had left River City. There was nothing permanent about river life. People on the river were always coming and going.
Here today and gone tomorrow,
as Daddy said. That big old river was always calling you to leave the river bank and go places. And nobody cared if you went or stayed. This time there were no close friends being left behind. Patsy could not mourn the loss of the Preston children who had never come to play by the river, and whom she knew only by sight.

Patsy sat on the front deck with Blackie and looked ahead. It was good to be on the river again. Life in Mayfield Creek had become dull and monotonous. On the river there was always something new to see. The river was full of bends. The houseboat was always turning corners and coming out on a new stretch. Every bend brought a new landscape, and often there were boats and barges to be seen. Patsy could not see much of the towns, they were too far back. Some were hidden behind the levees and, she never knew they were there at all unless she looked at the map.

Sometimes she watched the buoys and navigation lights that marked the channel. The current in the Mississippi was unpredictable. The channel never seemed to follow the course of the stream itself. It wiggled around between the banks, often moving from one side to the other in a “crossing.” In low water the crossings were well marked with buoys. Wherever the channel crossed the river, there was a river light or a day mark on the opposite bank. From each light or mark, the pilot set his course on the next one. One mark picked him up and called him, then sent him on to the next.

“There are so many lights and buoys on the river,” said Daddy, “any fool can keep in the channel.”

The lights were oil lamps, set on tripod posts twelve feet high, with a ladder to reach up. They burned round the clock with a flame so small it hardly showed by day, but was magnified by the globe at night. They burned kerosene and were tended every fourth day by a lamplighter.

In the middle of the morning, Patsy saw a ferryboat crossing the river ahead. She called Dan and told him.

“Is this a town we’re coming to?” asked Dan.

Patsy looked at the map. Mama had taken map No. 3 out of the River Map book and tacked it up on the wall.

“It’s Columbus, Kentucky!” cried Patsy. “We’re there already. Boy! Don’t I wish I could have a ride on that ferryboat!”

She and Dan and Bunny waved to the people on the ferry. Daddy nosed the houseboat in on the Missouri side below the ferry landing, and tied up under some willows. Mama had dinner ready and as soon as Daddy washed up, they ate. Across the river on the Kentucky side, they could see the high bluffs called the Iron Banks. Daddy said they were the highest bluffs between Cairo and Memphis. There was a muddy bar below them.

“Can we go to town? Can we go to town?” cried the children.

Mama and Daddy got ready to take the fish to Columbus. Mama said Patsy and Dan could go, so they quickly washed and put on their good clothes. Milly offered to stay on the houseboat and keep Bunny, if Mama would stop at the post office for the mail order package. Bunny cried when they left, so they promised to bring her candy.

They crossed the river in the johnboat and went to the fish market of Jim Tom Cheney, who bought all they had. Hearing a band playing, Mama and the children went off downtown, leaving Daddy at Jim Tom’s. Several hours later they came back and found Daddy very impatient. “I want to set my lines tonight,” he scolded.

“But Daddy!” cried Patsy. “Guess where we went!”

“They had a circus and we went to it,” said Dan.

“A circus! What next?”

The children were so happy Daddy had to cheer up. All the way across the river they talked about the acrobats they had seen. When they reached the houseboat, they told Milly and Bunny about it. They gave Bunny the candy they had brought for her. Milly asked about the mail-order package, but Mama shook her head. There was nothing at the post office.

As soon as Patsy changed into her shorts, she started skinning the cat from the overhead porch beam.

“You’ll be breakin’ your neck now for sure!” said Mama.

The next morning Daddy got up early to run his lines. Before breakfast he had taken his fish catch over to Jim Tom Cheney. Now he had a little more change in his pocket. By the time the children had eaten their breakfast, the houseboat had resumed its voyage down river.

As Patsy dried the dishes, she looked out the window. It was like a moving picture, she thought, something different every minute as the banks started marching past. Each time she picked up a dish and looked out again, the scene had changed. The river made so many turns she was never sure whether she was looking at Kentucky or Missouri. Sometimes the sun shone in the windows over the sink and a little later it would be coming in through the windows opposite, as if it were afternoon. That was because the river was flowing north.

Milly got out the big fat mail-order catalogue and spent a long time looking at it. Mama had brought out her box of quilt patches and was cutting new ones.

“I hope my new dress comes soon,” Milly said to Mama. “The dresses I get from the catalogue fit me better than those bought in the stores. The stores in these little old river towns are no good anyhow. My old dresses are all too small. I’ll
give
them to Patsy.”

“I don’t want your hand-me-downs,” said Patsy.

“Don’t be too choosey, honey,” said Mama. “Better be glad to get them.”

“We’ve got to look on the map and see each town we’re coming to, and go to the post office when we get there,” said Milly.

“Did you order me a new dress, Mama?” asked Patsy.

“No,” said Mama. “Shorts and T-shirts are good enough on the river. Nobody looks at river kids anyhow. You can wear Milly’s old ones to town.”

Milly happened to look up and see some pilings go past the window.

“Where’s Daddy goin’?” she asked. “Is he fixin’ to tie up?”

She ran out quickly.

Pile dikes were wide-spaced fences of heavy posts called “piling” driven out in the river. They were used by the U. S. Army Engineers to control the river’s course. In some places they lined the banks like the teeth of a comb. They could be dangerous for a small boat pushed against them by a stiff current. But Daddy sometimes tied his big outfit to them for a short stop.

The water was slapping up against the hull. A lively current was passing on the chute side.

“What’s Daddy going over to the pilings for?” asked Patsy.

“Daddy knows what he’s doing,” said Mama. “He’s in the channel. He’s going by the channel marks. He’s lived on the river long enough to…”

But that time, Abe Foster made a mistake.

Suddenly there was a terrible jolt, followed by a long-drawn-out grating and grinding. The mail-order catalogue was knocked off the table and dishes were thrown out of cupboards. Mama nearly fell off her chair and Patsy landed
plunk
on the floor, with a broken plate in her hand. Bunny came staggering in with a bump on her head. Dan began to scream.

“A sand bar!” Milly shouted from the front porch. “We’re on a sand bar!”

Nobody needed to tell Daddy or Mama either. Even the children knew it, down to little Bunny, They all went out to see. Daddy was furious.