Houseboat Girl by Lois Lenski

scolded.
    “But Daddy!” cried Patsy. “Guess where we went!”
    “They had a circus and we went to it,” said Dan.
    “A circus! What next?”
    The children were so happy Daddy had to cheer up. All the way across the river they talked about the acrobats they had seen. When they reached the houseboat, they told Milly and Bunny about it. They gave Bunny the candy they had brought for her. Milly asked about the mail-order package, but Mama shook her head. There was nothing at the post office.
    As soon as Patsy changed into her shorts, she started skinning the cat from the overhead porch beam.
    “You’ll be breakin’ your neck now for sure!” said Mama.
    The next morning Daddy got up early to run his lines. Before breakfast he had taken his fish catch over to Jim Tom Cheney. Now he had a little more change in his pocket. By the time the children had eaten their breakfast, the houseboat had resumed its voyage down river.
    As Patsy dried the dishes, she looked out the window. It was like a moving picture, she thought, something different every minute as the banks started marching past. Each time she picked up a dish and looked out again, the scene had changed. The river made so many turns she was never sure whether she was looking at Kentucky or Missouri. Sometimes the sun shone in the windows over the sink and a little later it would be coming in through the windows opposite, as if it were afternoon. That was because the river was flowing north.
    Milly got out the big fat mail-order catalogue and spent a long time looking at it. Mama had brought out her box of quilt patches and was cutting new ones.
    “I hope my new dress comes soon,” Milly said to Mama. “The dresses I get from the catalogue fit me better than those bought in the stores. The stores in these little old river towns are no good anyhow. My old dresses are all too small. I’ll give them to Patsy.”
    “I don’t want your hand-me-downs,” said Patsy.
    “Don’t be too choosey, honey,” said Mama. “Better be glad to get them.”
    “We’ve got to look on the map and see each town we’re coming to, and go to the post office when we get there,” said Milly.
    “Did you order me a new dress, Mama?” asked Patsy.
    “No,” said Mama. “Shorts and T-shirts are good enough on the river. Nobody looks at river kids anyhow. You can wear Milly’s old ones to town.”
    Milly happened to look up and see some pilings go past the window.
    “Where’s Daddy goin’?” she asked. “Is he fixin’ to tie up?”
    She ran out quickly.
    Pile dikes were wide-spaced fences of heavy posts called “piling” driven out in the river. They were used by the U. S. Army Engineers to control the river’s course. In some places they lined the banks like the teeth of a comb. They could be dangerous for a small boat pushed against them by a stiff current. But Daddy sometimes tied his big outfit to them for a short stop.
    The water was slapping up against the hull. A lively current was passing on the chute side.
    “What’s Daddy going over to the pilings for?” asked Patsy.
    “Daddy knows what he’s doing,” said Mama. “He’s in the channel. He’s going by the channel marks. He’s lived on the river long enough to…”
    But that time, Abe Foster made a mistake.
    Suddenly there was a terrible jolt, followed by a long-drawn-out grating and grinding. The mail-order catalogue was knocked off the table and dishes were thrown out of cupboards. Mama nearly fell off her chair and Patsy landed plunk on the floor, with a broken plate in her hand. Bunny came staggering in with a bump on her head. Dan began to scream.

    “A sand bar!” Milly shouted from the front porch. “We’re on a sand bar!”
    Nobody needed to tell Daddy or Mama either. Even the children knew it, down to little Bunny, They all went out to see. Daddy was furious.
    “This crazy old river!” he scolded. “A sand bar in the middle, right in the channel! How can a fellow keep from hitting it?”