Though called a small boat, it was considerably larger than the little boats commonly seen in West River Village.
The boat was about twenty feet long and roughly six feet across at its widest point. A canopy covered it, with wooden doors framing either end, creating a small cabin aboard.
A mast stood in the middle, but with the wind against them, the sail had not been raised. All its forward momentum came from the sculling oar at the stern, though traveling downstream made the work fairly easy.
There were quite a few people aboard, too-eight in all, young and old.
At the little table inside the cabin, a boy of eleven or twelve held an earthenware pot, staring entranced at the two swaying flower buds inside. Just then, someone in the cabin began to sob.
"My poor little girl... ah... oh, sob, sob..."
The boy glanced back. It was a white-haired old woman.
"Mother, Grandma's crying again."
Without needing his reminder, the woman sitting nearby, who had been dozing with her eyes half closed, opened them and joined the others beside the old woman.
"Mother, please don't cry. Third Sister would be saddened, too, if she knew down in the Yellow Springs." "Mother, we agreed we wouldn't cry anymore."
"Yes, yes, I... my little girl, my little girl... how many more times can your mother come to see you...?"
The old woman had initially murmured her agreement, but she seemed to grow even more sorrowful, leaving the adults around her to keep consoling her.
Outside the cabin, toward the stern, a graying man sat on a stool while another man worked the sculling oar. Hearing the sounds from inside, both merely sighed.
The boy knew his grandmother was terribly sad, but he plainly could not share her grief and