Part 8 (1/2)

”By the sand. I've been watching it a good deal since the fall rains set in, as I'm afraid the river will drive us out of here. You see, the water works easily through the sand, and you can always tell what the level of the river is, if its banks are sandy, by digging down to where the sand is wet.”

”Yes,” said Tom, ”but the river isn't within a hundred feet of us yet.”

”You are mistaken. It is within six inches of us,” said Sam.

”How's that?”

”Well, this bank is almost exactly level, and when the river gets above its edge it spreads at once all over it. Now the sand is wet within six inches of the top, and the river is within six inches of the edge of the bank. When it rises six or eight inches more, it'll be in here, and I'm afraid it will rise that much before morning. At any rate we must be ready for it.”

”What can we do?” asked Tom in alarm. ”There's no place to hide on the upper bank.”

”We mustn't quit this bank, and we mustn't quit the drift-pile either,”

replied Sam. ”You must find a good place, high up in the drift where, by pulling out sticks, you and Joe can make a place for us to stay in.”

”But, Sam, what if the water gets to us there?”

”It won't get to us there.”

”How do you know?”

”Because the biggest freshets always come in the spring, and the top of this drift-pile was put where it is by the biggest freshets, so the river won't go near the top in November. You see, as the drift _floated_ on top of the water to its present place, the top of the pile must be the highest point, or very nearly the highest, that the water ever reaches. If you can find a good place therefore in the upper part of the drift-pile, we shall be safe there. But you'd better see about it at once, as the water may be in here before morning, and at any rate we mustn't allow ourselves to be taken by surprise. You'd better go to the river and set a stake first so you can tell how fast the water rises and know when to move into the new place.”

Tom set his stake at the water's edge and then selected the most available place he could find for the new abode. He and Joe went diligently to work, rearranging the loose sticks of drift-wood and even carrying many of them clear out of the pile, so as to enlarge the hole they had found and make it as habitable as possible.

”The trouble is,” said Tom when they had nearly completed their task, ”that we can't make a smooth floor, and it's going to be rather uncomfortable lying on loose logs and big round sticks that run every which way.”

”That's my business,” said Judie looking in at the entrance. ”I'm the housekeeper, you know, and I've thought of all that.”

And sure enough the little woman had brought a great pile of small, leafy, tree branches and bush tops, with which she speedily filled up the low places between the timbers, and covered the timbers themselves to a depth of three or four inches, making a soft as well as a level floor. She had foreseen the difficulty, and borrowing Sam's knife, had worked with all her might to provide in advance against it. But the bushes and leaves were not all that she had brought. She had collected also a large quant.i.ty of gray moss with which to make a carpet for the springy floor.

”Now please don't tell brother Sam,” she said when the boys praised her thoughtfulness and ingenuity. ”I want to surprise him when he comes.”

Tom and Joe promised, and Tom said they would have to call her their ”little housekeeper” hereafter.

The river was still rising, but more slowly, it appeared, than it had done before. By Tom's calculations it was coming up at the rate of an inch in three hours, wherefore Sam thought they might safely remain where they were until morning at least, while if the water should come to a stand during the night, they would have no occasion to move at all, as a fall would rapidly follow, if the weather should remain clear.

Joe had worked faithfully at the task of preparing the new place of refuge, but he was not at all satisfied with the arrangement.

”I tell you, Mas' Tom,” he said, ”wood'll float, 'thout 'tis live oak, an' dis here drif'-pile 'll jest raise up an' float away, you'll see if it don't.”

”Why hasn't it floated away long ago, then, Joe?” asked Tom.

”May be it has. How you know dis drif' didn't all on it come here las'

time de river was up?”

”Well, there's too much of it for that, and besides, Sam says this place is safe, and you know he is always right about things when he speaks positively about them.”

”Mas' Tom, don' you know Mas' Sam done been a-talkin' nonsense for two weeks now?”

”Yes; but that's only when he's out of his head.”