“Dat’s a easy job!” Figger cackled.
“’Tain’t so,” Vinegar growled. “Plenty accidunts happen on boats—de b’iler busts, de boat snags out de bottom on a stump an’ sinks, de boat ketches on fire an’ burns up, an’ niggers falls overboard an’ gets drowndead.”
“Shut up, Revun!” Skeeter Butts barked. “Dat kind of graveyard talk gibs me trouble in my mind.”
“Prepare to git ready to die!” Vinegar bellowed dramatically. “Dis river is ’bout fawty miles deep!”
“Whut you figger on doin’ as commondore, Hitch?” Skeeter asked.
“I sets in de middle of dis boat to balunce de load,” the giant prize-fighter announced. “I’ll watch you fiddle wid dat little steer-wheel, an’ between times, mebbe I’ll shovel a leetle coal.”
“Whut you gwine do as skipper, Figger?” Butts inquired next.
“I skips all de hard jobs, an’ all de easy wuck dat I kin,” Figger snickered. “I don’t mind standin’ up in front an’ watchin’ fer snags an’ allergaters. I’s gwine hab a fence rail tied under each arm an’ stan’ straddle of a log. Ef dis boat sinks, Figger figgers on floatin’ to land!”
“I’s gwine lay in some fence-rails, too,” Vinegar Atts declared. “I’ll need a whole wood-pile of ’em.”
“It’ll take a whole log-raft to float me,” Hitch Diamond decided. “I’ll fix it togedder as soon as I git back to land.”