The Big Brother Part 8

"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."

"How you know when he's outen his head an' when he ain't?"

"We know he's out of his head when he talks nonsense."

"Well, maybe dis here 's nonsense. I jest knows it is, and dat's how I know Mas' Sam was outen his head when he said it."

Tom saw that Joe was not to be convinced, and so he contented himself with saying,

"Well, we'll see."

"Yes, dat's jest it. We _will_ see, and feel too, when we all gets drownded in de water."

The water came to a stand about midnight, and was falling slowly the next morning. But when morning came it was raining hard, and the rain was evidently not a local but a general one, wherefore, Tom feared that the fall would shortly be changed into a rise, and that the bank would soon be covered. He watched his stake carefully, visiting it every half hour. At nine o'clock the river had fallen three inches, and was about eight inches below the bank. From nine to ten it fell only about half an inch. Between ten and eleven the fall was not more than a quarter of an inch. Between eleven and twelve no fall at all was perceptible. From twelve to one there was a slight rise. Between one and two it rose nearly an inch. The next hour brought with it a rise of two inches. By five o'clock the level of the water was barely two inches below the edge of the bank, and as it was rising at the rate of two or three inches an hour, Sam thought it time to remove from their old to their new quarters. The change was of advantage to the sick boy, who was now getting somewhat better at any rate, and when he found himself in the new place the interest he showed in examining all the details of its arrangements, was the best possible evidence of improvement.

"Come here, little woman," he said to Judie, "and give an account of yourself. You borrowed my knife yesterday, and somebody has been using it in cutting bush tops to make a smooth floor with, and the idea was a very good one. Can you tell me who it was?"

"Maybe it was Tom," she replied mischievously.

"No, it was not Tom," Sam answered. "He's too much of a great awkward boy to think of anything so comfortable. You must guess again."

"Joe, then," she said.

"No, it wasn't Joe, either," said Sam. "Joe can sleep on the edge of a fence rail as well as anywhere else, and he never would have thought of making our floor soft and smooth. Guess again."

"Maybe it was brother Sam," said Judie.

"Oh, certainly. It must have been I," replied Sam. "I must have done it.

I'm so strong and active now-a-days. Yes, on reflection, I presume I did it, and the man in the moon helped me. Now I think it was a very thoughtful and helpful thing for anybody to do, so you ought to kiss me for doing it, and when the weather gets clear you must throw a kiss to the man in the moon, too, for his share." And with that he kissed the little housekeeper, and she felt herself abundantly repaid for her work and for the thoughtfulness she had shown. She was never so happy as when Sam praised her, "because he's such a splendid big brother," she would explain.

Tom, seeing that Sam was getting better at last, began to hope for his complete recovery, and the hope made him buoyant of spirit again. Judie, too, who watched and weighed every symptom in Sam's case, discovered to her delight that he was decidedly better, and the discovery made her as happy as a healthy girl well can be. Poor Joe seemed to be the only miserable one in the party. He said almost nothing, answering questions with a simple "yes" or "no," and sitting moodily in his corner, when he stayed inside the "drift cavern"--which was Sam's name for the new abode--at all. He spent most of his time, however, on top of the pile, where he watched the water and the clouds. The rain had ceased, but the river, which was now creeping over the broad bank, continued to rise.

"What is the matter with Joe?" asked Sam after the boy had gone out for the twentieth time.

"I think he's afraid we're all going to be drowned," said Tom.

"Drowned? How?"

"Well, he says wood will float, and so he thinks when the water comes up under the drift-pile, it will all float away."

"What nonsense!" exclaimed Sam. "Why didn't you tell him better, Tom?"

"I did; but he sticks to it, and--"

"Well, couldn't you explain it so that he would understand it and not have to trust to your judgment for it?"

"No, I couldn't. The fact is, I don't quite understand it myself. There isn't a stick in this whole pile that won't float, and I don't quite understand why the pile won't. But I don't doubt you're right about it, Sam. You always are right whether I understand how things are or not."

"Let me explain it to you, then. Do you know why some things float and others don't?"