about five o'clock
said Captain Burress , and the two other mariners nodded . `` It was a good while ago , '' she said , `` when I was living on the shore near the head of the bay , that my husband was away and I was left alone in the house . One mornin ' my sister-in-law , who lived on the other side of the bay , sent me word by a boy on a horse that she had n't any oil in the house to fill the lamp that she always put in the window to light her husband home , who was a fisherman , and if I would send her some by the boy she would pay me back as soon as they bought oil . The boy said he would stop on his way home and take the oil to her , but he never did stop , or perhaps he never went back , and about five o'clock I began to get dreadfully worried , for I knew if that lamp was n't in my sister-in-law 's window by dark she might be a widow before midnight . So I said to myself , ` I 've got to get that oil to her , no matter what happens or how it 's done . ' Of course I could n't tell what might happen , but there was only one way it could be done , and that was for me to get into the boat that was tied to the post down by the water , and take it to her , for it was too far for me to walk around by the head of the bay . Now , the trouble was , I did n't know no more about a boat and the managin ' of it than any one of you sailormen knows about clear starchin ' .