Houseboat Girl Read Online Free

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