for turning around and going back home, but Tom allowed that by
the time daylight come, so we could see our way, we would be so far
toward England that we might as well go there, and come back in a ship,
and have the glory of saying we done it.

About midnight the storm quit and the moon come out and lit up the ocean,
and we begun to feel comfortable and drowsy; so we stretched out on the
lockers and went to sleep, and never woke up again till sun-up. The sea
was sparkling like di'monds, and it was nice weather, and pretty soon our
things was all dry again.

We went aft to find some breakfast, and the first thing we noticed was
that there was a dim light burning in a compass back there under a hood.
Then Tom was disturbed. He says:

"You know what that means, easy enough. It means that somebody has got to
stay on watch and steer this thing the same as he would a ship, or she'll
wander around and go wherever the wind wants her to."

"Well," I says, "what's she been doing since--er--since we had the
accident?"

"Wandering," he says, kinder troubled--"wandering, without any doubt.
She's in a wind now that's blowing her south of east. We don't know how
long that's been going on, either."

So then he p'inted her east, and said he would hold her there till we
rousted out the breakfast. The professor had laid in everything a body
could want; he couldn't 'a' been better fixed. There wasn't no milk for
the coffee, but there was water, and everything else you could want, and
a charcoal stove and the fixings for it, and pipes and cigars and
matches; and wine and liquor, which warn't in our line; and books, and
maps, and charts, and an accordion; and furs, and blankets, and no end of
rubbish, like brass beads and brass jewelry, which Tom said was a sure
sign that he had an idea of visiting among savages. There was money, too.
Yes, the professor was well enough fixed.

After breakfast Tom learned me and Jim how to steer, and divided us all
up into four-hour watches, turn and turn about; and when his watch was
out I took his place, and he got out the professor's papers and pens and
wrote a letter home to his aunt Polly, telling her everything that had
happened to us, and dated it "IN THE WELKIN, APPROACHING ENGLAND," and
folded it together and stuck it fast with a red wafer, and directed it,
and wrote above the direction, in big writing, "FROM TOM SAWYER, THE
ERRONORT," and said it would stump old Nat Parsons, the postmaster,