an iron ring," she replied, "and clumb on up into the
rigging. She went down about four-thirty A.M. and we stayed on her till
daylight; then we all swum ashore. I tell you it was cold! There was
icicles on my dress; my son Emery put his arms around me to keep me
warm, and his clothes froze onto mine."

"How long a swim was it to shore?" I asked.

"Oh," put in her husband, "it didn't amount to nothing. She was only
swimming about two minutes."

This statement, however, was repudiated by the captain. "Two minutes, my
foot!" she flung back at her spouse. "It was more than that, all right!"

Mrs. Johnson has done flood rescue work for the Government, with the
_Grand_. In the spring previous to our visit she rescued sixty families
from one plantation, besides towing barge-loads of provisions to various
points on the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers.

Captaining and piloting a river boat are clearly good for the health.
Mrs. Johnson looks too young to be a grandmother. Her skin is clear, her
cheeks are rosy, her brown eyes flash and twinkle, her voice, somewhat
hoarse from shouting commands, is deep and strong, and her laugh is like
the hearty laugh of a big man.

"Are you a suffragist?" I asked her.

"Not on your life!" was her reply.

"Now, what do you want to talk like that for?" objected her husband.
"You know women ought to be allowed to vote."

"I don't think so," she returned firmly.

At that her daughter-in-law, the assistant clerk of the _Grand_, took up
the cudgels.

"Of course they ought to vote!" she insisted. "You know _you_ can do
just as good as a man can do!"

"No," asseverated Captain Nettie. "Women ought to stay home and tend to
their families."

"As you do?" I suggested, mischievously.

"That's all right!" she flung back. "I stayed home and raised my family
until it was big enough to do its own navigating. Then I started in
steamboating. I had to have _something_ to do."

But the daughter-in-law did not intend to let the woman suffrage issue
drop.

"Do you mean to say," she demanded of Captain Nettie, "that you think
women haven't got as much sense as men?"

"Sure I do!" the captain tossed back. "There never was a woman on earth
that had as much sense as the men. Take it from me, that's so. I know
what I'm talking about--and that's more than a half of these other women
do!"

Then, as it was about time for the _Grand_ to cast off, Captain Nettie
terminated the interview by blowing the