“Dis water looks heap deeper to me since dat Pipe Smash went away,” he contemplated. “An’ I bet it’s powerful wet, too!”
“You git a rockin’-chair outen de bood-war an’ set down, Revun!” Captain Butts commanded. “I don’t wanter hear you startin’ no doubts!”
“Dar ain’t nothin’ in de drawin’-room but a three-leg stool,” Vinegar mourned. “’Taint got nothin’ to rest my back agin.”
“Let her go!” Hitch Diamond, the commodore, bellowed in a voice which could be heard a mile.
Skeeter Butts laid one hand upon the wheel and with the other slightly opened the throttle.
The paddle-wheel spanked the water for three revolutions, then there was a backward jerk which loosened every negro’s teeth.
Hitch Diamond fell against the furnace door on his hands and knees. Figger Bush went crashing against the fragile side of the vessel, Skeeter Butts draped himself over the pilot-wheel with a loud squall, and the stool on which Vinegar Atts sat turned over, upsetting the dignified chaplain and landing him on his back, where he lay bellowing like a cow and waving his hands and feet toward the blue sky.
Two watermelons and four baskets of grub rolled overboard followed by Vinegar’s precious stove-pipe hat, which bobbed up and down on the water like a diminutive battleship monitor.
The little boat was tugging at the end of her rope like a lassoed mustang.
“Stop her!” Hitch Diamond, the commodore, bellowed in a voice which could be heard two miles. “We fergot to untie de boat from dat stump!”