Houseboat Girl Read Online Free PDF Page A

school. But he could “read” the river like a book. Born in Kentucky, he had lived on the river all his life. He knew every bend and sand bar and buoy and navigation light. He knew what every riffle, eddy or “slick” meant before he came to it. He knew all the crossings without need of the buoys and he never used a map.
    “Will we stop at Cairo, Daddy?” asked Patsy.
    “We might go to the Boat Store,” said Daddy. “I need more rope and other supplies.”
    Suddenly Patsy heard a motorboat coming. Around the bend a man appeared in an outboard johnboat. Above the sound of the motor, his loud whistling could be heard. Daddy stopped work and looked up.
    “Well, I’ll be jiggered!” he said. “If that’s not Whistling Dick, I’ll jump in the river. I’d know his whistling a mile off.”
    The next minute the two men were shaking hands. The man was not a stranger at all, but an old friend of the Fosters. He had a cheerful smile and wore his britches with the legs rolled up. He patted Patsy on the back and came over to the houseboat for breakfast. Mama was glad to see him, too.
    “Dick, you’re a part of the scenery,” said Mama. “Every time we go up or down the river, we see you somewhere.”
    “And this is Little Abe,” said Whistling Dick. “A chip off the old block, I can see.”
    “Are you the man that never stops whistling?” asked Dan.
    Whistling Dick laughed. “Yes, Little Abe,” he said, “my whistle never runs dry. When I get tired of whistling, I sing.” He started singing Pop Goes the Weasel in a loud voice.
    Dan began to march around the table, trying to whistle the tune.
    “Are you fixin’ to go shelling, Dick?” asked Abe Foster.
    “Yep,” said Whistling Dick. “I been on the Cumberland all winter. Got my houseboat beached up there. But the river will soon be gettin’ low and there’s no fish left in it. So in the summer I always come over to Illinois. I got me a little cabin back up here on the river bank, with a cooking vat and some brails and hooks. I’ll soon be selling mussel shells."”

    “You can have ’em all, and the pearls, too,” said Abe Foster. “I’m tired of that job. Luggin’ them heavy shells up the river bank like to broke my back. We’re off down river now on a summer vacation. There’s still plenty of catfish left in the Mississippi!”
    “Watch out, catfish!” cried Whistling Dick. “Big Abe Foster’s coming!”
    The men began to brag about their big hauls of fish. Patsy wondered who was the better fisherman, her father or Whistling Dick. Soon he said he had to be going. Patsy held the cat in her arms as she watched him get in his boat. She waved good-bye and could hear his cheery whistle long after he was out of sight.
    “Daddy says we might stop at Cairo,” said Patsy.
    “Good!” said Milly. “We’ll go uptown and do some shopping. I want to get me a pair of high-heeled shoes.”
    “High heels?” Mama laughed. “On the river you’ll all go barefoot.”
    Soon the houseboat was in the river again. Now there was something to look forward to—the big city of Cairo. Everybody called it Ka-ro, not Ki-ro like the capital of Egypt. It seemed a long time since the Fosters had left River City, a long time since Patsy had left her friends. She had other things to think about now.
    As they neared the city, there was more traffic on the river—dredges and towboats and barges and motorboats. Soon the sky was darkened by city smoke and ahead lay the railroad bridge across the Ohio. There were two other highway bridges out from Cairo, one from Illinois to Kentucky and the other from Illinois to Missouri.
    “Is this Cairo?” asked Patsy. “I don’t see any town. I thought it was a great big city.”
    “It’s big enough,” said Mama, “back up behind that wall. It’s bigger than River City, but not as big as Memphis.”
    The city was circled “by a concrete flood wall that rose up from the river like the ramparts of a walled town. Cairo’s