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 quantity 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