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The life of the old house boat.
Close around thirty years ago James William Hover had a houseboat built and had it down at a place called Nezan Landing on the Pearl River. The boat was 50 ft in length and 14 ft in width, it had 5 doors in it and 8 windows, one door in front, one on each side, one going from the kitchen into the bunk room and from the bunk room on to the back gallery where the bathroom was as the porch went all around the boat from one side to the other, with iron railing all around it. We had two couches that opened up into beds and four bunk beds. It had pretty paneling and kitchen cabinets. A sink in the kitchen with a pump with which we used the river water to wash dishes and bathe, then we brought or artisan water from home to cook with, drink & etc. We had room for 8 people to sleep in beds but we have slept as high as 12 by putting pallets on the floor for the children. Every one always called Mr. Hover Willie so that's what I'll call him. We'd go down to the houseboat on week ends and spend Saturday and Sunday with some of the family with us. But one day Willie told me not to take anyone on the boat until he could have one of the bolts on the pontoon put back on one of the pontoons as one of them had come loose. He said the pontoon may fly out from under it at any time. So I had forgot that he had told me, so on Saturday morning I had cooked a big pot of white beans, rice, baked an oven of sweet potatoes, made a pone of cornbread and had my chicken ready to fry. So about 10:30 here come my oldest son, his wife, his small son and baby girl from Moss Point, Miss, and I said Volney, would you and Sis like for us to take our dinner and go down to the house boat and eat because your daddy will be home around 12 o'clock and we'll leave word for him to come on down. So Volney said yes, we'd love to. So we loaded up the lunch and took off. The best I remember the house boat was tied up about two miles from the house. We hadn't been down there long when Willie and Stephen our youngest son came in so we all ate dinner and when the table was cleared and dished washed I went over and laid down on one of the couches and dropped off to sleep so Volney come over and woke me up and said here mamma, get up and drink your coffee so just as I reached to get my cup something like a heavy clap of thunder shook the whole boat. So Willie knew what had happened and he began to holler for everybody to get out so the baby was in her play pen right at the front door and I saw the water coming into the play pen and I called Sis to come and get
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