ng 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!" exclaimed 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 sea-gulls, 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
crumpled 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