You couldn't ever feel her rudder.

It wasn't any more labor to steer her than it is to count the Republican vote in a South Carolina election.

One morning, just at daybreak, the last trip she ever made, they took her rudder aboard to mend it; I didn't know anything about it; I backed her out from the wood-yard and went a-weaving down the river all serene.

When I had gone about twenty-three miles, and made four horribly crooked crossings--' 'Without any rudder ?' 'Yes--old Capt.

Tom appeared on the roof and began to find fault with me for running such a dark night--' 'Such a DARK NIGHT ?--Why, you said--' 'Never mind what I said,--'twas as dark as Egypt now, though pretty soon the moon began to rise, and--' 'You mean the SUN--because you started out just at break of--look here! Was this BEFORE you quitted the captain on account of his lying, or--' 'It was before--oh, a long time before.