aimed Captain Bird, and the other elderly mariners took
their pipes from their mouths.

"Yes, that is the way I did it," continued the widow, briskly. "Big
steamships are made to go by a propeller turning round and round at
their back ends, and I made the rudder work in the same way, and I got
along very well, too, until suddenly, when I was about a quarter of a
mile from the shore, a most terrible and awful storm arose. There must
have been a typhoon or a cyclone out at sea, for the waves came up the
bay bigger than houses, and when they got to the head of the bay they
turned around and tried to get out to sea again. So in this way they
continually met, and made the most awful and roarin' pilin' up of waves
that ever was known.

"My little boat was pitched about as if it had been a feather in a
breeze, and when the front part of it was cleavin' itself down into the
water the hind part was stickin' up until the rudder whizzed around
like a patent churn with no milk in it. The thunder began to roar and
the lightnin' flashed, and three seagulls, so nearly frightened to
death that they began to turn up the whites of their eyes, flew down
and sat on one of the seats of the boat, forgettin' in that awful
moment that man was their nat'ral enemy. I had a couple of biscuits in
my pocket, because I had thought I might want a bite in crossing, and I
crumbled up one of these and fed the poor creatures. Then I began to
wonder what I was goin' to do, for things were gettin' awfuller and
awfuller every instant, and the little boat was a-heavin' and
a-pitchin' and a-rollin' and h'istin' itself up, first on one end and
then on the other, to such an extent that if I hadn't kept tight hold
of the rudder-handle I'd slipped off the seat I was sittin' on.

"All of a sudden I remembered that oil in the can; but just as I was
puttin' my fingers on the cork my conscience smote me. `Am I goin' to
use this oil,' I said to myself, `and let my sister-in-law's husband be
wrecked for want of it?' And then I thought that he wouldn't want it
all that night, and perhaps they would buy oil the next day, and so I
poured out about a tumblerful of it on the water, and I can just tell
you sailormen that you never saw anything act as prompt as that did.
In three seconds, or perhaps five, the water all around me, for the
distance of a small front yard, was just as flat as a table and as
smooth as glass, and so invitin' in appearance that the three g