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!" 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