Houseboat Girl

CHAPTER I

River Calling

THE HOUSE WAS NEARLY EMPTY NOW. The rooms looked strange and bare. Patsy picked up a box of dishes and took it out on the porch. She was a pretty girl with soft brown eyes, and blond hair falling loose on her shoulders. She wore a skimpy cotton dress and a red sweater.

Is Mama coming? she asked.

Patsy stood at the top of the steps and looked. The house and porch were raised high off the ground on six-foot posts, so she had a good view. Across Front Street and beyond the wide weedy stretch of the river bank, she could see Daddy’s new houseboat. It was floating in the water at the river’s edge. The river was the Ohio, and across on the other side, she could see the shoreline of Kentucky. It was May and the river was low.

Daddy had started building the houseboat on the bank in April. He bought the hull, a large heavy barge, from a man up river. Then he set the framework on it and closed it in. Me said it was going to be the biggest and best houseboat of all. Just a little shove from Old Garrety’s bulldozer had been enough. The houseboat slid down the slick peeled willow poles on which it had been resting, right into the water. Due to the falling river and the slackening current, Daddy was anxious to leave.

The people who drove along Ferry Street or Front Street stopped to look. They were very curious and Patsy got tired of their questions.

What’s it for? they asked. Buildin’ Noah’s Ark? or You gonna put it in the river and go somewhere? When Daddy told them the Foster family was going down river, they thought he was crazy. But Patsy knew he wasn’t.

Patsy remembered Daddy’s last houseboat. She was all excited over the new one until the boys and girls at school began to tease her. They started calling her shanty girl and river rat. They said, Don’t fall in and drown yourself! and Watch out! A garfish will bite you!

But school was out now and Patsy was glad. Both she and her older sister Milly had passed but Dan was held back. He had to do the second grade over again. Little Bunny was only five, still a baby. She had never been to school at all.

It took a month and one day to build the houseboat. Now it was done and the Fosters were moving in. They were moving all the furniture out of their house on Front Street and putting it in the houseboat. As if a houseboat could ever be a home!

Patsy could see Mama now, coming back up the dirt river road in Uncle Ed’s car. Mama was taking all the small stuff herself—the clothing, cooking utensils, curtains, dishes and other things. Daddy had borrowed a truck to haul the stove and beds and heavy furniture. It was surprising how much the houseboat could hold. Milly was down there helping to get everything in order.

Mama came in the kitchen to get the pots and pans. She was a plump woman, with loose dark hair, dark eyes and a pleasant smile. She wore a cotton dress and a flowered apron. Patsy followed at her heels. She heard voices out the window and ran to look. There were the Cramer girls and Ginny Cobb coming over.

Mama climbed on a chair and started taking things out of the cupboard. Here! Take this, she said, handing one thing down after another. Patsy put the pans and jars and canned goods into boxes and baskets.

Patsy! Patsy! called the girls outside.

You can’t go now, said Mama. You stay here and help me. This is my last load. If I can take everything, we can eat on the houseboat tonight.

Patsy frowned. She felt almost like crying. She did not like this moving business.

Why do we have to go on the river? she asked. Why can’t we be like other people and take our summer vacation here?

You’ll like it on the houseboat once we get settled, said Mama.

But the Cramers and the Cobbs don’t go on the river, said Patsy. Mrs. Cobb said people don’t live in houseboats any more the way they used to.

Your Daddy likes living on the river, said Mama. He’s not happy anywhere else.

"But I like living in town," said Patsy.

You’ll like the river, too, said Mama with a smile. How about going swimming every day?

I can’t swim, said Patsy.

It’s time you learned, said Mama. Milly will teach you.

Patsy! Patsy! called the girls again. She could hear them giggling beneath the kitchen window.

A cat came walking into the kitchen. It sniffed in cracks and corners.

There’s Aggie’s cat, said Mama. Chase it out. Aggie ought to feed it so it would stay home.

Can’t I take it with me on the trip? asked Patsy. I’d catch fish every day and feed it.

Pushcart Aggie wouldn’t thank you for stealing her cat, said Mama.

She’s got six parakeets, said Patsy. She’d not even miss it.

Just around the corner by the alley stood an old bus used as a house trailer. It had dishpans and pots of blooming flowers on its hood, a moon vine growing up over the door and two tanks of bottled gas on the left side. This was the home of old Aggie Stiles and her son. She was called Pushcart Aggie because she pushed a cart and picked up junk to sell. All the river children knew her well. She kept her birds in a cage indoors. She loved her cat and scolded the children if they threw stones at it or pulled its tail.

Patsy! Patsy! called Ginny Cobb.

The girls were waiting on the front steps when Patsy went out.

Are you really goin’ down river and never comin’ back? they asked.

Of course we’re comin’ back, said Patsy.

Then why don’t you leave your furniture here? asked Alice Cramer. Why you movin’ everything out?

We need furniture on the houseboat, said Patsy. We’ll cook and eat and sleep there. How can we do it without furniture?

But Alice’s question disturbed her. In her own short life of nine years, Patsy had already lived on four houseboats. This was the fifteenth houseboat her father had built. They had all gone down river and stayed there. Not one of them had come up river again.

When you comin’ back to River City? asked Ginny.

Patsy hung her head. I don’t know, she said in a low voice.

The girls could not guess how sad she felt inside. They kept on talking excitedly.

Boy, it must be nice to go sailing in a houseboat, said Alice. You goin’ all the way to New Orleans?

"I wish my daddy would build a houseboat," said Faye.

We helped your daddy build it, didn’t we? said Ginny.

Remember when the storm came and blew it over? said Alice.

Yes, said Patsy. My daddy got his leg hurt when the boards came down on top of him. He got a man to help him put the frame back up. That time he made it so strong he says the wind can never blow it down again.

We carried boards and put them where he told us to, said Faye.

We swept it from one end to the other, me and Patsy, said Ginny.

Patsy put her arms around her, friends, happy in the warmth of their love. They walked around to the back yard.

Mrs. Foster loaded the car and drove to the houseboat. Soon the girls came too, carrying a chicken coop. Several of Patsy’s chickens were poking their heads out between the slats.

What are you bringing the chickens for? asked Mrs. Foster. I told Uncle Ed he could have them.

Oh no, he can’t, said Patsy. Daddy told me to take them along. They’re my pets and I’ve named them all. There’s Old Red, Fluffy Tail, Mrs. Fuzzy, Shoo-Fly, Mrs. Cackle, Jenny Brown, Stiff Legs and Fuss-Box.

Daddy came up in the johnboat—a rowboat with square ends. He was a tall, wiry man with a thin, weathered face. He wore overalls and a blue shirt and cap. He looked so much like young Abraham Lincoln, he went by the nickname of Big Abe. Patsy’s brother Dan was often called Little Abe.

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.

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