Houseboat Girl by Lois Lenski Read Free Book Online Page B

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