The Lady Sara continued up the river. Progress was slow because the current was strong and they had to make regular stops to rest the cows. Loesie mostly kept to looking after the cows and the ship. Nellie cleaned and tidied, even things that didn’t need cleaning and tidying. Roald was happy to do most of the cooking, and turned to be decent at it, albeit very messy, which then annoyed Nellie because she had to clean up after him.
This left Johanna with precisely nothing to do except worry about the lack of people. When she had come with Father, they had stopped at a lot of places along the river to buy and sell. Because the river flooded, no one lived near the banks. At some places houses had been built on artificial mounds so that you could see them from the river. The houses were intac
