through, and down under me was sharks and swordfishes and other
horrible water creatures, which I had never seen before, all
driven into the bay, I haven't a doubt, by the violence of the
storm out at sea. The thought of my bein' upset and fallin' in
among those monsters made my very blood run cold, and
involuntary-like I began to turn the handle of the rudder, and in
a moment I shot into a wall of ragin' sea-water that was towerin'
around me. For a second I was fairly blinded and stunned, but I
had the cork out of that oil-can in no time, and very soon--you'd
scarcely believe it if I told you how soon--I had another placid
mill-pond surroundin' of me. I sat there a-pantin' and fannin'
with my straw hat, for you'd better believe I was flustered, and
then I began to think how long it would take me to make a line of
mill-ponds clean across the head of the bay, and how much oil it
would need, and whether I had enough. So I sat and calculated
that if a tumblerful of oil would make a smooth place about seven
yards across, which I should say was the width of the one I was
in,--which I calculated by a measure of my eye as to how many
breadths of carpet it would take to cover it,--and if the bay was
two miles across betwixt our house and my sister-in-law's, and,
although I couldn't get the thing down to exact figures, I saw
pretty soon that I wouldn't have oil enough to make a level
cuttin' through all those mountainous billows, and besides, even
if I had enough to take me across, what would be the good of
goin' if there wasn't any oil left to fill my sister-in-law's
lamp?

"While I was thinkin' and calculatin' a perfectly dreadful
thing happened, which made me think if I didn't get out of this
pretty soon I'd find myself in a mighty risky predicament. The