said he.

"Ay, ay!" said Captain Burress, and the two other mariners nodded.

"It was a good while ago," she said, "when I was living on the shore
near the head of the bay, that my husband was away and I was left alone
in the house. One mornin' my sister-in-law, who lived on the other
side of the bay, sent me word by a boy on a horse that she hadn't any
oil in the house to fill the lamp that she always put in the window to
light her husband home, who was a fisherman, and if I would send her
some by the boy she would pay me back as soon as they bought oil. The
boy said he would stop on his way home and take the oil to her, but he
never did stop, or perhaps he never went back, and about five o'clock I
began to get dreadfully worried, for I knew if that lamp wasn't in my
sister-in-law's window by dark she might be a widow before midnight.
So I said to myself, `I've got to get that oil to her, no matter what
happens or how it's done.' Of course I couldn't tell what might
happen, but there was only one way it could be done, and that was for
me to get into the boat that was tied to the post down by the water,
and take it to her, for it was too far for me to walk around by the
head of the bay. Now, the trouble was, I didn't know no more about a
boat and the managin' of it than any one of you sailormen knows about
clear starchin'. But there wasn't no use of thinkin' what I knew and
what I didn't know, for I had to take it to her, and there was no way
of doin' it except in that boat. So I filled a gallon can, for I
thought I might as well take enough while I was about it, and I went
down to the water and I unhitched that boat and I put the oil-can into
her, and then I got in, and off I started, and when I was about a
quarter of a mile from the shore--"

"Madam," interrupted Captain Bird, "did you row or--or was there a sail
to the boat?"

The widow looked at the questioner for a moment. "No," said she, "I
didn't row. I forgot to bring the oars from the house; but it didn't
matter, for I didn't know how to use them, and if there had been a sail
I couldn't have put it up, for I didn't know how to use it, either. I
used the rudder to make the boat go. The rudder was the only thing I
knew anything about. I'd held a rudder when I was a little girl, and I
knew how to work it. So I just took hold of the handle of the rudder
and turned it round and round, and that made the boat go ahead, you
know, and--"

"Madam!" excl