odcraft. It was all
made out of one piece and the place where you sit was just hollowed
out--about big enough for one person.

Then I got inside and it was crankier than a racing shell. You had to
sit up straight like a little tin soldier to keep it from tipping--it
was one tippicanoe, you can bet. I fell out and had to roll it over
and bail it out two or three times. At last I got the hang of it and
I pushed it in the marshes a little way so it wouldn't drift up stream.
There was a regular creek there now, good and wide and deep, and the
water was coming up like a parade.

Then I pulled a lot of reeds and bound them together with swamp grass.
That was a funny kind of a paddle I guess, but it was better than
nothing and anyway I decided to wait till the tide was at flood and
then paddle back with it. That would be a cinch.

So then I sat in the dug-out and just waited for the tide to come up.
The dug-out stayed where it was on account of being pushed in among the
reeds and oh, jiminety, it was nice sitting there. I thought maybe the
creek would empty out again into Bridgeboro River and I could tie up
there and, go home. But I had a big surprise waiting for me, you can bet.

It was about nine o'clock in the morning when I started on that crazy
trail and it was about five o'clock in the afternoon when the tide began
to turn and go back. All the while I was sitting there waiting I thought
about the Indian that owned that canoe. Maybe his bones were down
underneath there, I thought. Ugh, I'd like to see them. No, I wouldn't.
Maybe he was on his way to a pow-wow, hey?

Well, after a while when the tide turned I started paddling down. A
little water came through a couple of deep cracks, but not much and I
sopped it up with my hat. But oh, jingoes, I never had to sit up so
straight in school (not even when the principal came through the
class-room) as I did in that cranky old log with a hole in it. And oh,
you would have chucked a couple of chuckles if you'd seen me guiding
my Indian bark with a bunch of reeds. Honest, they looked like, a
street sweeper's broom.

After a while the creek began to get wider and then I could see far
ahead of me the roof of a house. Then, all of a sudden, I heard somebody
shout.

"Don't bother to plug the hole up, leave it the way it is, so if the
water comes in, it can get out again."

Then I heard a voice shout, "You're crazy!" and I knew it was the
fellows jollying Pee-wee Harris and