Houseboat Girl (16 page)

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.”

“How many motors you got?” asked Dan.

“Two outboard motors, one in and one out,” said Uncle Seth. “I figure I’ve got three chances, with two motors just alike. If one breaks down, I put the other one on. If the second one breaks down, I can take the necessary part off the first one. I always carry extra spark plugs. I won’t go on the river, even fishing, without extra spark plugs and sheer pins.”

A cat appeared sniffing at Uncle Seth’s fishing nets. Uncle Seth threw it a fish head. Patsy recognized it as the one she had seen at the houseboat.

“Is that your ten-dollar cat, Uncle Seth?” she asked.

“No,” said the lamplighter. “He’s a six-dollar cat now. That fellow came back and paid me four dollars of what he owes me. As soon as he pays the other six, it’ll be just a plain tomcat.”

The children laughed.

“Which way do you go?” asked Patsy. “Up river or down?”

“It all depends on the wind,” said Uncle Seth. “The river is like the hallways of a house, with a breeze blowin’ through and none at all up on the banks. You can catch more wind on the river than anywhere else. When it’s thirty-five or forty miles an hour on land, it’s too rough to be on the river. If the wind is comin’ down river, I go up first. There’s rough water on a downstream wind. If the wind is up river, I go down first and get rough water down there in an upstream wind.”

“You sure do know the river, Uncle Seth!” said Dan.

“Not any better than Daddy does,” said Patsy. “Daddy knows all about winds, too.”

The lamplighter laughed. “Sure your daddy knows. He’s been a river rat all his life.”

“Do you go out every day, Uncle Seth?” asked Dan.

“Every fourth day,” said the man. “The kerosene lamps will burn for five days. That gives me an extra day in case of a storm. I keep up with the radio on weather. When windy weather is predicted, I go out a day ahead. This throws an extra trip on me in a month, but it’s better than risking my life in a storm.”

“Gee!” said Dan. “You sure are a brave man, Uncle Seth. I’m gonna be a lamplighter like you when I get big.”

“Fine!” said Uncle Seth.
“The main thing is to keep the lights burning and clean.
A lamplighter’s got to be dependable. If a light goes out, it means some fool that’s never been in a boat before might get drownded!”

“Bet you use lots of gas, don’t you?” said Patsy.

“It takes twenty gallons a week for just my boats,” said Uncle Seth, “and one quart of oil to every four gallons of gas.” He climbed in his boat ready to go.

“Gee! I sure wish I could go with you,” said Dan.

“Me, too,” said Patsy.

“Can’t take you out on my regular run,” said the lamplighter. He picked up a lantern from the floor of his boat. “This lamp’s broken and got to be replaced. I’m takin’ the new one over to Island No. 27 light. Guess you can go along with me over there and back.” He lifted a new lamp in the boat.

The children climbed in and soon they were chugging down the chute. At the ferry landing they saw children playing on the dock and in the water.

“Look, Dan, they’re in swimming,” said Patsy. “It’s not too cold for
them.
Mama always says it’s too cold for us.”

“There goes the ferryboat over to Ashport,” said Dan.

The ride around the south end of Fork-a-Deer Island did not take long. Uncle Seth climbed up the white ladder on the tripod, mounted the lantern and secured it, then opened the globe and lighted it. The children watched him and waited, then he climbed back down. Soon the boat was rounding the island again and going back up the chute.

“I’ll let you out at the ferry landing,” said Uncle Seth.

“O. K.,” said Dan.

“Thank you for the ride, Uncle Seth!” the children called as they climbed out, and he started back to his own dock.

They waved good-bye and watched him go. Then they looked at the children playing in the river. An old boat was tied to a piling a little way out, and a small boy about five years old was playing in it. He had two sticks and was pretending to row. The other children were wading near the bank and splashing water on each other. The river bank was a sea of wet slimy mud. One boy picked up handfuls of mud and threw them at the other children. Suddenly he slipped and fell. When he picked himself up, he was covered with mud from head to foot. The others laughed and laughed.

Patsy and Dan stood at one side and stared.

“Who are they?” asked Dan.

“I don’t know,” said Patsy. “I never saw them before. They don’t go to school on
our
bus. Maybe they’re visiting somebody around here.”

“Let’s go home,” said Dan.

Patsy looked up the ferry road. “Oh dear,” she said, “why did we let Uncle Seth put us out here? Now we got to go past Andy Dillard’s fish house and I’m scared. He might come out and…”

“I’m not scared,” said Dan bravely. “He won’t dare hurt us. I’ll tell the boss man if he does.”

In front of Andy Dillard’s fish house, several cars were parked.

“Look at all the cars,” said Patsy. “He’s takin’ all of Daddy’s fish customers.”

“We’ll run by fast,” said Dan, “then he won’t even see us.”

None of the children in the water had spoken to the Foster children. As they started to go, a loud scream rang out, so they turned back. A girl on the bank was pointing out to the old boat by the piling. Out there Patsy and Dan saw a small head just above water. They ran closer. Now all the larger children were pointing and screaming, “He can’t swim! He can’t swim!”

Patsy looked and saw the little head go under. Then she saw it come up again. The next minute she was in the river with her clothes on. Her action was automatic. She was so used to jumping in, she did so without thinking. She swam as fast as she could to the old boat and got there just as the boy started going down for the third time. She dove under and grabbed his arm. She pulled him up, and steadying herself by holding to the boat with her left hand, placed the boy’s limp arm around her neck. She had been rescued so many times herself, she knew just what to do. Then she swam back to the dock, dragging the boy along with her.

One of the strange children, a boy bigger than Dan, helped her lift the boy up on the dock. Patsy climbed up after him.