Houseboat Girl

by Lois Lenski

  “No,” said Patsy. “I don’t know how.”

  “Why, where you been keepin’ yourself?” asked Brenda.

  “I lived on the river all my life,” said Patsy, “until Mama put me in school in River City and we lived in a house there. I did three grades in two years.”

  Life on the river was something new to the cotton girls.

  “And you never picked any cotton?” they asked.

  Cotton was so much a part of their life, they could not imagine not, knowing about it. It was a new idea to them that there were people in the world who did not pick cotton. They looked at Patsy in astonishment, as she shook her head.

  “We’ll show you how,” the girls said laughing.

  The Collins girls walked back with Joella and Patsy to the corner by the store.

  “Want to see my houseboat?” asked Patsy.

  “Oh, sure!” “Yes, yes. It sure looks nice,” they said.

  They went down the river bank and Patsy took them inside. The girls thought it was wonderful. They liked the bunk beds and Patsy promised to invite them to stay overnight and sleep in them sometime. They had never seen bottled gas before and were surprised when Patsy turned the burner on and it lighted itself from the pilot light.

  Now for the first time Patsy saw her home with new eyes. How homelike it was with rugs and pretty curtains! Now she knew why Mama insisted on bringing her curtain stretchers all the way from Illinois. Patsy showed the girls the electric washer on the back porch, waiting to be hooked up to an electric wire from the post up on the road.

  After the girls left, Patsy sat down on the leather couch. Even if it was only a houseboat, it was a very nice home. The Collins girls lived in a house on land, it was true. She felt sad when she thought of it. They had so little, yet they loved it, too. And they had to work hard picking cotton to help their father. She felt very sorry for them and wished she could help them. She was glad to have them for friends.

  Then Mama and Milly and Bunny came back from town, loaded with sacks and bundles. They were all excited and happy because Milly had her mail-order package. It had been forwarded twice, but it had caught up with her at last. After the groceries, it took all of Mama’s cash money to pay out the C. O. D. and the due postage. Milly put on her new dress with ruffled sleeveless blouse and full-gathered flowered skirt and flounced around, feeling very pleased with herself. She put a touch of rouge on her lips and new dime-store earrings in her ears.

  “Don’t, you ever want to dress up and look nice?” she asked Patsy.

  Patsy, dressed in T-shirt and shorts, stalked out in disgust.

  “I should say not!” she shouted. “I’m going out with Daddy in his boat to set his lines.”

  Sunday was a very busy day. Uncle Seth and Aunt Edie came in their motorboat and took Mama and the children over to Fork-a-Deer Island to church. Aunt Edie was a Sunday School teacher there and had helped to start the church for the cotton farmers on the island. Daddy stayed at home and took care of fish customers all morning, and after Sunday dinner they still kept on coming.

  All week long Daddy had fished, setting his trotlines out at night and running them in the morning. While the river was low, he was still able to catch plenty of fish, some quite large. He held them in the fish box until Saturday and Sunday, ready for customers.

  A tall young Negro man, dressed in Sunday clothes and wearing a straw hat, came down the bank and over the plank. He had a small boy with him, also nicely dressed. He glanced at the river and spoke to Mrs. Foster, who was sitting on the leather couch.

  “Water’s gonna dry up,” he said.

  “Yes, the river’s fixin’ to go away and leave us,” said Mrs. Foster. “We had to push the houseboat away from the bank this morning.”

  “Got any catfish?” the man asked.

  Abe Foster answered from the fish barge. “Might have one or two left,” he said. The man and boy stepped over. “People been comin’ since daylight. They been sittin’ all over the bank, waitin’ to buy fish. I’m about sold out. You gotta take any you can get.”

  Big Abe dipped a dip net into the fish box, pulled out several fish and dumped them on the floor of the barge. His feet were bare, the floor was wet and the fish flopped about in lively fashion. The man chose two.

  “Watch out, mister!” cried the little boy, “The fish are biting your toes!”

  “I’ll quiet them,” said Big Abe.

  He knocked them on their heads with a hammer, then put them on the hanging scales to weigh them. He called the weights so Mrs. Foster could hear. “Four and a half pounds and one and a half,” he said.

  “They’re thirty-five cents a pound,” said Mrs. Foster. “A dollar ninety in all—I’ll take the money.”

  “You’re purty good at arithmetic,” the man said as he paid her.

  “I have to be,” said Mrs. Foster. “My husband never went to school. Can’t read. Can’t figure, but he’s just as smart as them that can.”

  Abe Foster spoke up. “I can too figure. I’ve got my own way of doin’ it. If it’s thirty five cents a pound, I figure one quarter and one dime for each pound. It’s slow, but I can get it!”

  The man laughed, and he and the boy went on.

  Another customer, a stout, short man in new striped overalls came over the plank. He said he owned a restaurant and he wanted the biggest catfish he could get. Abe Foster went to look for it.

  Patsy had taken off her Sunday dress and changed to T-shirt and shorts. She placed her six geranium plants in the sun on the deck and watered them carefully. They were already starting to grow.

  As Daddy cleaned the fish, he threw the waste into the river. A dozen turtle heads soon popped up. More turtles crowded up around the houseboat. Patsy brought a dip net and tried to catch them. She was so absorbed in the turtles she paid no attention to the customers coming and going. She had a contented feeling, knowing that Mama was filling her purse up with cash money again, after spending it all the day before.

  It was very hot in mid-afternoon, although there was a pleasant breeze on the river. Dan appeared with Joella’s brother, whose name was Shorty, and several other boys he had found up the road. Back at the kitchen end of the boat, the boys put on their swimming trunks. Then they began to dive or jump off the guard into the river. They came up goose-pimply and shivering, and sat on the guard to get warm. Then Dan, who could not swim, rowed out in the johnboat and the other boys swam out to it and climbed in.

  They were having a lot of fun, but Patsy paid no attention to them. She kept on dipping for turtles. She wanted to get a whole row of them, so she could play school. Suddenly, without any warning, she heard loud voices. She turned to look and her heart jumped into her mouth.

  There was Andy Dillard on the river bank shaking his fist and shouting at Daddy. Was he coming over, and would there be a fight—on Sunday? What would Aunt Edie say? She had talked about fighting in Sunday School this morning and told the children how bad it was and said there were other ways to settle a quarrel. Daddy had a customer on the fish barge and wasn’t even looking at Dillard. Was he coming over the plank to start trouble? Blackie knew something was wrong. He was barking loudly.

  Patsy ran to Mama’s side and clung to her in fright. Mama was standing up now, not saying anything either. Maybe it was better not to say anything. It would be pretty difficult to out-shout Andy Dillard.

  “Let’s go inside and shut the door,” Patsy whispered to her mother. “Then we can’t hear him.”

  But Mrs. Foster stood her ground.

  Then Patsy looked and understood why Andy Dillard had stopped on the river bank. The stage plank was down in the mud. He couldn’t get over. Mama must have seen him coming and acted quickly. She must have unbolted the pin that held the stage plank and tossed the houseboat-end of the plank overboard. At least Andy Dillard could not come any closer. And he could not make the big jump of eight feet to get over to the fish barge.

  But there was no way to stop his shouting. Even above
Blackie’s barking, they could hear his angry words.

  “You can’t sell fish here! You’re ruinin’ my trade, Abe Foster! You can’t take my customers away from me. I got here first. Mr. George says he don’t want no riffraff tied up here on the river bank! I’ll have the law on you! I’ll have the law on you!”

  Andy Dillard kept on saying the same things over and over. Finally he stopped, out of breath.

  Still Abe Foster said nothing in reply. He cleaned the fish for his waiting customer and weighed them.

  But Mrs. Foster spoke up. “Let’s not try to settle this on Sunday, Mr. Dillard,” she said politely. “Come back tomorrow and we’ll talk it over.”

  Andy Dillard went back up the river bank, blustering. At the top he ripped Abe Foster’s Fish Dock sign down from the tree and threw it angrily into the bushes. Then he drove off down to the ferry landing.

  Mama watched him go. Then she told Daddy about the stage plank and he came and put it back in place. Mama did not talk about what had happened. She just said, “Go get the eggs and feed your chickens, Patsy.”

  Patsy started up the river bank with Dan and the dog. The other boys had finished their swim and gone home. “Did you hear what that man said?” asked Dan. “I’m not deaf,” said Patsy.

  “Is he going to run Daddy off the river bank?” asked Dan. “He’d better not try it!” said Patsy fiercely.

  CHAPTER IX

  To Go or Stay

  BIG ABE FOSTER DID not nail his sign up again and Andy Dillard did not come back the next day to talk things over. Abe Foster hoped that enough people knew now he had good fish to sell without the sign. He hoped they would keep coming, but they didn’t. Several week ends passed without a single customer. Fishing was good and Abe Foster’s fish box was so full he had to build a second one to hold the overflow. When the second one was full, he rented a truck and took a big load into Luxora and Osceola and sold them there.

  He knew that Andy Dillard was taking all his trade, but what could he do about it? He and Mama talked things over.

  “If I can’t get customers,” said Daddy, “I’ll have to move on. We’ll find another place, better than this.”

  “You’ll let Andy Dillard run you off?” said Mama.

  “What do you want me to do?” asked Daddy. “Go down there and punch his nose?”

  “No,” said Mama, “but there ought to be some way to work it out. I just kinda liked it here. There’s Seth and Edie for friends, and Miz Harris up at the store, she’s nice. And George Milburn, the boss man, will let us pick cotton for extra cash. Milly wants to pick to earn some spending money.”

  Patsy spoke up. “School starts next week, and I’m goin’ to sit with Grace Eva on the bus.”

  “No,” said Mama, “you’ll have to sit with Bunny. Bunny’s a big girl now, she’s gonna start to school.” Mama took the youngster on her lap.

  “Oh, Milly can look after Bunny,” said Patsy. “I’m goin’ to sit with Grace Eva.”

  Daddy turned to go. “Better not start the kids to school here till we’re sure we’re goin’ to stay,” he said.

  “Now look here, Abe,” said Mama. “With all four kids of school age now, we’ve got to stay in one place during the school year anyhow. You can chase around up and down the river all summer if you want to, but these kids have got to have a chance to go to school. I don’t want them to grow up like you did and not know how to read or write.”

  “How can I pay for their school supplies and clothes,” asked Daddy angrily, “if I can’t sell any fish?”

  “Well, school’s starting this week,” said Mama, “so make up your mind if we’re goin’ somewhere else or stayin’ here.”

  “I wish I knew what that old sneak Andy Dillard is doin’ to take my customers away from me,” said Daddy. “I’ll put up my sign again so the cotton pickers can see it. When they’re picking, they’ve got money to buy. After picking stops, fish buying slows up.”

  It was Dan who found out what Andy Dillard was doing. He had arranged for his oldest boy, Chuck, to stay at the store corner, sometimes in the store, sometimes outside stopping cars. Chuck asked everybody, “Wanta buy catfish? Go to the fish house down by the ferry landing.”

  Chuck was about fourteen years old, big and strong, so Dan could not fight him.

  Mrs. Foster did not know whether they were going or staying. But when school started, she went to town and enrolled the four children. They ran up to the corner by the store each day to catch the school bus. They all liked it except Bunny, who cried for Mama every day. Patsy sat with Grace Eva sometimes, or with Joella or Brenda. The bus was very crowded, and the children fought and threw books at each other just as the girls had predicted. They all thought it was fun until a boy got his head badly bumped. Then they quieted down.

  One day the bus was not crowded any more. Cotton picking had started and the cotton children had to stay home to pick. Pickers came out in cars and trucks and could be seen all over the fields. The river road was a busy place now with all the coming and going. Sometimes the picking was in one field and sometimes in another. The Foster children and a few others were the only ones on the school bus until after it crossed the levee going back into town. Then Milly dropped out to pick cotton with Mama, because Daddy was making so little from fish. Mama needed cash money to get school clothes and supplies for the children.

  The water in the river had been getting lower and lower ever since the Fosters came in August. Each day the wet mud strip on the bank grew wider, and the hard dry gumbo mud above it opened in wide cracks, wide enough to catch an unwary shoe or foot. Each day, the houseboat had to be pushed out farther from the bank to keep the hull in water. Abe Foster had to go farther and farther out toward the main river to catch his fish.

  “That old river keeps on falling like somebody pulled a cork,” said Mama.

  Daddy laughed. “If it gets any lower,” he said, “a turtle can soon cross over to Tennessee on dry land.”

  September was very hot and dry until a hard rainstorm came, then it turned cold. On Saturday as usual, the children wanted to go in swimming, but Mama said no. “You’ll catch cold. I’m not going to pick cotton all week to pay doctor bills.”

  Daddy called Milly and told her to take Patsy and Dan to get grasshoppers for bait.

  “Heck! That’s no fun!” grumbled Patsy.

  “I hate grasshoppers!” said Dan.

  “They’re about the only bait there is right now,” said Daddy.

  Mama gave the children glass jars with screw tops and they started out, with Blackie trailing behind. Milly tied a rag string around her jar and slung it over her shoulder. They went up the river road to a soybean field. The vines were dry and dead and had turned yellow. The children walked back and forth snatching at grasshoppers and putting them in their jars. It was fun for a little while, but the fun did not last long. Soon they got tired of chasing grasshoppers. Dan began to chase Patsy instead, and she stumbled and fell. She spilled her grasshoppers on the ground and she and Dan squealed as they tried to capture the jumping creatures again. Then they left their jars with Milly and ran back down to the store. There were no children around, so they went on down the ferry road. Blackie sniffed a rabbit and ran off and left them.

  They came to a cotton field filled with pickers. Women and children dressed in sunbonnets and bunchy clothing, men and boys wearing straw hats were scattered over the field, dragging long white sacks behind them. A half-loaded cotton truck waited in the turnrow.

  “Oh, there are the girls!” cried Patsy. “Let’s go over.”

  Patsy and Dan crossed the rows and came up where the girls were picking.

  “Come on, we’ll show you how,” said Grace Eva.

  “Can I make a lot of money?” asked Patsy.

  “Sure—if you get your sack full,” said Brenda, putting the strap of her sack over Patsy’s shoulder.

  It wasn’t fun at all. They all laughed at the way Patsy picked. They teased her and called it “goose-
picking” and said she would starve to death. Patsy felt humiliated because the other girls were smarter than she.

  “Aw, come on, Patsy,” said Dan. “This is no fun.”

  They left the girls and went back to the road.

  “I hate cotton picking,” said Patsy. “I’d rather fish fish for a living.”

  “So would I,” said Dan.

  “Let’s go to Aunt Edie’s,” said Patsy. “Maybe she’ll give me a chicken. Aunt Edie’s got lots more than she needs. I just want me a chicken so bad.”

  They came to the lamplighter’s houseboat, where red geraniums were blooming gaily in the window boxes. But the door was closed and there was nobody home. From the porch they could see another group of people picking cotton in a distant field.

  “I bet Aunt Edie’s over there pickin’ cotton,” said Patsy. “Let’s go over there and see her.”

  “No,” said Dan, “the boss man might make us

  “Oh no,” said Patsy. “Andy Dillard lives down there. That’s his fish house. See his sign, FISH FOR SALE? I wouldn’t go there for anything. He’d run us off. He’d come out and cut our ears off!”

  Dan laughed. “Don’t be silly!”

  “Well, I hate him,” said Patsy. “I won’t go near him, and that big boy, Chuck, he’ll beat you up.”

  “There’s Uncle Seth!” cried Dan. “Right down there by his boat. Let’s go down and talk to him.”

  Without even stopping to look at the chickens in Aunt Edie’s chicken yard, the children flew down the steep river bank so fast they could hardly stop at the bottom. There at a makeshift dock where several small boats and fish boxes were tied, Seth Barker was tinkering in his boat.

  “When you goin’ out, Uncle Seth?” cried Dan.

  “I’m gettin’ ready to go out on my run tomorrow,” said Uncle Seth.

  “Could you take us with you?” asked Dan.

  Uncle Seth shook his head: “No kids allowed.”

  “Do you take all this stuff with you?” asked Patsy, looking at the things in the boat.

  “Sure,” said the lamplighter. “There’s my slicker suit. If it rains, I got to keep runnin’ my lights. If it’s windy, it keeps the spray off. That’s my post-hole digger and my wrecking bar and claw hammer. Then I take lamp wicks, one extra burner, and an extra globe and door glass—and an extra set of spark plugs. That can holds five gallons of kerosene. That’s about all.”