Houseboat Girl

by Lois Lenski

  Daddy turned to Mama.

  “Can’t turn a girl loose from everything,” he said. “Let her keep her pets. There’s room for the coop on the cabin boat.”

  “Well, I hope the stupid hens won’t fall in the river and get drowned,” said Mama. “When they start laying, we’ll have fresh eggs to eat. And a roast chicken will make a nice change from fish.”

  “You can have the eggs,” said Patsy, “but you can’t eat my hens, and they’re not stupid. I’m going to train them to go up and down the stage plank.”

  “That girl’s strictly a tamer,” said Daddy. “She’ll train those hens and teach ’em tricks. She can tame a jaybird up on a limb by just lookin’ at it! I never knew anyone like her.”

  On the afternoon before departure, the neighbor women came to see Mama. “See our outfit?” Mama pointed.

  The houseboat was tied to an overhanging willow. On the other side of the tree, Daddy’s cabin boat and fish barge were also tied up, ready for the voyage tomorrow. The cabin boat, sometimes called the “push boat,” was not a boat that could be lived on. It was a heavy barge with a crude cabin over the engine, and it had square ends. It was to be used at the stern of the houseboat for pushing. It could also pull the houseboat by a towline. There were also two johnboats, one to use as a rowboat and one with an outboard motor, and a smaller motorboat.

  “Can’t see why you’re leavin’,” said Mrs. Miller. “Mussel shellin’s good here in the spring.”

  “It’s too hard on a man’s back,” said Mrs. Foster.

  “I hated to see this houseboat go in the river,” said Mrs. Cobb.

  “As long as it was on the bank, I knew you. folks were still here,” said Mrs. Cramer. “Now it’s in the water, you’ll soon be gone.”

  “Abe can stand a house just so long,” said Mrs. Foster. “Then that old river starts callin’ and gives him no peace.”

  “Won’t your kids fall in and get drownded?” asked Mrs. Cobb.

  “Abe says they’re as safe on water as on land,” said Mrs. Foster, “and as safe in deep water as in shallow. He says more people drown in their own bathtubs than in the river!”

  The women talked a while, then one by one went back up the river bank to their homes. Uncle Ed came, to take his car, but had to wait until Mama made one last trip to the house.

  “I like to forgot my wire clothesline and props,” said Mama. “Don’t know how I could do the family wash without them.” When she returned, she brought her curtain stretchers, too.

  Patsy couldn’t bear to let the girls go. “Milly’s goin’ to teach me to swim this summer,” she told them.

  “In the river?” cried Faye Cramer. “I’d be afraid of the garfish. They’ll bite your legs off!”

  “Once when I went out fishin’ with my daddy,” said Ginny Cobb, “the garfish came right up by our boat. They were as long as the boat was. They bit the end of our oars.”

  “Old Garrety and his wife they like ’em,” said Lora Bragg. “She fries ’em and they eat ’em.”

  “Ugh!” said Janey Miller. “I bet they taste terrible.”

  “I’ll tell you why Faye hates ’em so,” said Alice. “A garfish bit her once. She put her finger in the water and a mean old garfish bit it.”

  “I’m not afraid of a garfish,” said Patsy. “I had one in a tub for a pet once. Don’t you remember?”

  “Oh, you! You’d keep anything for a pet!” Lora laughed.

  Patsy asked the girls to come and see the houseboat. They came and she showed them around.

  “Gee! Now that it’s all furnished, it’s just like a house,” said Ginny Cobb.

  “Sure! Why not?” asked Patsy.

  It was like a house, an oblong box set on the hull in the middle, leaving open porches at each end. Inside there were three rooms. The first was the living room, with a cot in the corner for Dan. The next was the bedroom, with a double bed for Mama and Daddy, and a bunk bed for the girls. Milly slept on top, and Patsy below, and Bunny on a little cot. The third room was the kitchen, with Mama’s bottled-gas stove for cooking, a cast-iron wood stove for heating and the large dining table. There were cupboards on the wall with rims on the shelves to keep the dishes from falling off.

  Mama came back and started hanging flowered curtains on the little windows over the sink. Patsy pulled a chain from a light bulb in the ceiling, but the light did not flash on.

  “You even got electric lights?” asked Alice.

  “Sure,” said Patsy, “only it’s not connected now, because we’re leavin’ tomorrow.”

  “And a gas stove?” asked Faye.

  “Sure,” said Patsy. “We got two bottles of gas.” She pointed out on the back porch.

  “And running water?” asked Ginny, looking at the sink.

  “No,” said Mrs. Foster, “only from the river. We’ll have to carry our drinking water.”

  “Well, I think it’s just as good as a house,” said Ginny.

  The girls went out on the tiny back porch.

  “Why, look!” cried Faye. “That’s Paducah right over there. Look how close we are.”

  “Paducah! That’s nothin’,” said Patsy. “Soon I’ll be seein’ Cairo and Memphis and Vicksburg and New Orleans. Remember all those cities we studied about in geography?”

  A wide stretch of placid water, the great Ohio River, reached across to the other bank. In the channel over on the Kentucky side, a towboat with a long string of barges was passing, headed down river.

  “Look!” said Alice. “I bet this houseboat will go faster than that towboat and get to New Orleans quicker.”

  “Yes,” said Patsy. “We’ll go fast all right. We’ll just float along on the current. We won’t need any pushin’.”

  A long freight train came across the river from Kentucky on the railroad bridge high overhead. It made a deafening noise and threw a cloud of black smoke down into the river valley. The girls could not talk until it had passed.

  “Come on!” cried Patsy. “Let’s play tag. Try and catch me!”

  Narrow walks called guards on the two sides of the houseboat connected front and back porches. Patsy ran round to the front porch, the girls at her heels. Round and round they ran, but Patsy was too fast to be caught.

  “Girls!” called Mrs. Foster out the window, “do be careful. Don’t be runnin’ around on the guards all the time. If you fall in, the river won’t stop for you, it’ll carry you on where it’s goin’. Not one of you knows how to swim and I don’t either, so I can’t pull you out.”

  She spoke too late. Suddenly there was a great splash. Mrs. Foster looked out. There was Ginny Cobb in the river, splashing wildly and screaming at the top of her voice.

  “Hush up, Ginny!” called Mrs. Foster. “You’re not drowned. The water’s only up to your knees.”

  “I’ll save you, Ginny,” called Patsy.

  Patsy found an oar and held it out to Ginny. The other girls took hold and they all pulled. Soon they brought the dripping Ginny up on the porch.

  “My mother will have a fit,” said Ginny. She and the other girls ran up the river bank, and Patsy went with them, even though she heard her mother say, “Supper’s ready.” The rest of the family sat down to eat without her. It began to grow dark.

  “Where’s that girl gone?” asked Mama. “Abe, you’ll have to go look for her.”

  “No need,” said Daddy. “Here she comes now.”

  With hair flying, Patsy came running down the hill and over the stage plank. She carried something in her arms, but she did not come into the kitchen. She stopped in the bedroom.

  “What’s that you’ve got?” asked Milly. “Mama, she’s hiding something under the bed covers.” The children came in to look. “It’s moving,” said Dan.

  Meow! Meow! a faint cry could be heard.

  “Patsy, where have you been?” asked Mama sternly.

  “I…I went…” the girl was still out of breath. “I wanted to say good-bye to the girls…”

  “Where h
ave you been?” asked Mama again.

  “I wanted…to say good-bye to Aggie…” Patsy began.

  “Is that her cat?” asked Mama. “Did you steal it?”

  Milly threw the bedcover back and a small cat appeared. It was black with a white throat. It had three black feet and one white one. It meowed again. Patsy picked it up and hugged it.

  “No, Mama, honest,” said Patsy. “Aggie gave it to me…for a going-away present.”

  “Patsy!” cried Mama. “Is that Aggie’s cat?”

  Daddy spoke up. “Let her keep it. She’s got to have her pets.”

  “But if it’s Aggie’s cat?”

  Little Abe settled the matter. “It’s not that old cat of Aggie’s. It’s one of the kittens. Aggie was trying to give them away.”

  “All right then,” said Mama.

  Patsy looked up with her most bewitching smile. “She really did give it to me…to keep.”

  “Four kids on a boat is enough without a cat,” said Mama.

  “Let her keep it,” said Daddy.

  Patsy smiled and hugged the kitten close.

  CHAPTER II

  Down the River

  PATSY WOKE UP EARLY the next morning and wondered where she was. Then she remembered. They had slept on the houseboat. The motor in Daddy’s cabin boat was roaring loudly. The cabin boat was pushing the stern of the houseboat. Daddy was getting ready to go.

  Patsy jumped out of her bunk. She ran to the porch in her pajamas. Bunny and Dan Were still in Bed, fast asleep. The roar of the motor stopped. It was still dark.

  The river was as quiet and peaceful as a lake. Nothing was stirring, not a single bird, not a leaf on a tree: A dawn hush was over everything. Only a glow of pink showed in the east. Again the loud roar of the cabin boat motor broke the stillness.

  “Come, Patsy,” called Mama. “Come and eat breakfast.”

  Patsy smelled bacon and went to the kitchen. Mama and Daddy and Milly had eaten. Milly liked to think she was grown up. She was out in the cabin boat with Daddy, helping. She always said she had to work like a boy.

  It seemed strange to be eating down below the river bank. Above the slope of weeds and grass, Patsy could just barely see the tops of her house and of the others on Front Street. Were the Cramers and the Cobbs getting up now, too? Was Pushcart Aggie eating breakfast or feeding her birds? Would Ginny and Faye soon come flying down the hill to say good-bye? Mama brought bacon and egg and set it down before her. But Patsy could not eat. She tried a biscuit and it nearly choked her. She pushed back her chair and went in the bedroom to dress. When Mama called her, she said, “I’m not hungry.”

  Then before she knew it, they were out in the river. Daddy had let go the lines and pushed off.

  “This is some outfit we’ve got!” Mama stood on the porch with her hands on her hips. “A fish barge, a cabin boat, a houseboat, a small motor boat and two john-boats. People will think there’s a towboat coming!” But Patsy did not listen.

  Why didn’t the girls come? Weren’t they up yet? Didn’t they want to say good-bye? Didn’t they know she was going down the river? Even Mama didn’t care. She was clearing up the breakfast dishes just as if they were still in their old house on Front Street. Nobody cared but Patsy.

  The girl stood on the little porch and looked back. The river breeze blew her blond hair off her shoulders, and there was sadness in her eyes. She watched the tops of the houses until they disappeared. Then the houseboat went round a bend and the little town of River City, Illinois, was gone. Patsy slumped to the floor and leaned back against the wall. She held the black kitten in her lap and patted it.

  “You feelin’ sick?” asked Mama.

  “No,” said Patsy. “I’m all right.”

  Mama went away and left her.

  The river world was different. The minute you got out on the river, the high banks flattened out. The river was a world of water with a low shoreline on both sides. All familiar landmarks disappeared. The houseboat went under the high railroad bridge and soon it, too, was gone. It crossed over to the channel on the Kentucky side. The river was so wide here it was like being on the ocean. Now they were cut loose from the bank for good.

  It was different from being in a boat, because now they had their home right with them. When you went out in a boat, you could always come back to your home on the river bank. But in a houseboat, you took your home with you, so there was no coming back. It was two years since they had lived in Daddy’s last houseboat, but Patsy remembered just how it was. She remembered the one before that, too.

  Patsy Foster was a river girl. She was born in the middle of the Mississippi River. Mama often told her that. Mama told her so often she got tired of hearing it. She liked the river—of course she liked the river. The river and fish and floods and rain and mud were a part of her life. Everybody who lived on the river liked it. Daddy always said that once you had a drink of river water, you could never get away from the river. Patsy liked many things about the river, but she didn’t want to live on it all her life. She liked a house in town, too.

  The worst thing about the river was that it was always calling you, always taking you away from the friends you made, in town. You had to like it whether you wanted to or not. That was the bad thing about a river. Sooner or later it got a hold on you. Patsy made up her mind she was going to hate it this time.

  “Oh! Oh! Come and look, Patsy!”

  Bunny and Dan were up now. They were on the front porch calling.

  “Here comes a big tow!” cried Bunny.

  “Here comes a towboat with fifty barges!” called Dan.

  Patsy walked slowly round on the guard till she came to the front porch.

  “I’ve seen towboats before,” she said, dropping down on the leather couch. The couch was an old auto seat that Daddy had rescued from a wrecked car. She cuddled the black cat in her arms.

  “It’s only got twelve barges, Dan,” said Patsy. “Can’t you count yet?”

  Milly stood out front and signaled to her daddy behind in the cabin boat. But he had already seen the towboat coming before it gave two toots of its whistle. First came the oil barges, four rows of three abreast, then the towboat which was pushing them up river. The houseboat could not get too far away without leaving the channel.

  The deckhands all came to look. They acted as if they had never seen a houseboat before. They called and waved and the children waved back.

  “Well, boys,” called Mama, “how do you like this stylish outfit of ours?”

  “Where you goin’?” called Dan. “Stop and take me with you.”

  “What you cookin’?” called Milly. “I smell something good.”

  “They holler just as if they know us,” said Patsy, “but I couldn’t hear what they were saying.”

  Patsy thought of the friends she had left behind. What friends could a girl make on the river? Only the deckhands on a passing towboat who waved and shouted and then were gone. Deckhands who would never be seen again!

  “When those big tows come along, it worries me,” said Mama, “because I don’t swim and I know Daddy couldn’t save all of us.”

  “Who’s fallin’ in?” Milly laughed. “Remember I can swim, too.”

  Milly went around in shirt and jeans like a boy, except for the earrings in her ears. She tied her hair back with a string, except when she curled it. She liked to boss the younger children.

  “Watch out, kids!” she called. “The waves are coming.”

  Abe Foster was ready. He steered the houseboat at an angle, to meet the oncoming waves. Up and down rocked the houseboat, while the children staggered about, trying to keep their balance. Loud thumps could be heard indoors, followed by cries from Mama. A lamp slid off a shelf and some dishes fell. A chair was knocked over.

  Then the towboat, moving swiftly, passed around a bend and was gone.

  Suddenly a hen began to cackle close at hand. Patsy jumped up. Her chickens! She had forgotten all about them. She ran quickly and jumped over to
the cabin boat. She fed and watered her pets and talked to them for a while. She promised them a run on the river bank whenever Daddy tied up for the night.

  She came back and slumped on the couch again. Bunny and Dan started a game of jacks on the floor. The houseboat had straight going now for seven miles. The river was wide and flowed northwest to the Joppa lights.

  Patsy felt tired and lazy, for there was nothing to do. No games to play, no place to go. No friends to see—nobody but her own family. She was cut off from everything and everybody. She watched the clouds floating by overhead. Now and then she saw a bird on the wing. Then she must have dozed off to sleep. After a time she was roused by Dan’s shouts.

  “The locks! We’re coming to the dam and the locks!” This must be Lock and Dam No. 53 above Olmstead. That meant they had passed Joppa already. The river was very wide here. There were mussel beds between Joppa and Grand Chain, and a good many mussel diggers were out. Their boats, with brails hung close with hooked lines, were scattered out over the river, outside the channel.

  Mama came out on the porch and sat down. She took Bunny on her lap.

  “No more shell digging for Daddy,” she said. “I’m glad of that.”

  “But how will he make money then?” asked Patsy. “To buy food for us to eat and clothes to wear?”

  “Don’t you worry,” said Mama. “Your daddy’s the best fisherman on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers! We’ll make out all right. Then Milly was out front pointing and shouting to Daddy back in the cabin boat. They were coming close to the locks. Patsy jumped up to see. Going through the locks was exciting. The gates had already been opened. Patsy heard the lock men shouting to Daddy. They told him how many feet the drop to the lower level would be. It was a long slow process getting Daddy’s outfit in and the gates closed behind. Then the drop began. Daddy’s motor was shut off, and it was very quiet in the lock chamber. Down they went, with the walls rising higher and higher on both sides. It was like going down in an elevator.