, who crawled, dripping with water, into the room. She would like to
have looked out, not in the faint hope of her husband's coming, but to
see how things looked; but the wind shook the door so savagely that she
could hardly hold it. Then she sat down a little while, and then walked
up and down a little while, and then she lay down again a little while.
Lying close by the wall of the little cabin, she thought she heard
once or twice something scrape slowly against the clapboards, like the
scraping of branches. Then there was a little gurgling sound, "like the
baby made when it was swallowing"; then something went "click-click"
and "cluck-cluck," so that she sat up in bed. When she did so she was
attracted by something else that seemed creeping from the back door
toward the center of the room. It wasn't much wider than her little
finger, but soon it swelled to the width of her hand, and began
spreading all over the floor. It was water.

She ran to the front door and threw it wide open, and saw nothing but
water. She ran to the back door and threw it open, and saw nothing
but water. She ran to the side window, and throwing that open, she saw
nothing but water. Then she remembered hearing her husband once say that
there was no danger in the tide, for that fell regularly, and people
could calculate on it, and that he would rather live near the bay than
the river, whose banks might overflow at any time. But was it the tide?
So she ran again to the back door, and threw out a stick of wood. It
drifted away toward the bay. She scooped up some of the water and put it
eagerly to her lips. It was fresh and sweet. It was the river, and not
the tide!

It was then--O God be praised for his goodness! she did neither faint
nor fall; it was then--blessed be the Saviour, for it was his merciful
hand that touched and strengthened her in this awful moment--that fear
dropped from her like a garment, and her trembling ceased. It was then
and thereafter that she never lost her self-command, through all the
trials of that gloomy night.

She drew the bedstead toward the middle of the room, and placed a table
upon it and on that she put the cradle. The water on the floor
was already over her ankles, and the house once or twice moved so
perceptibly, and seemed to be racked so, that the closet doors all flew
open. Then she heard the same rasping and thumping against the wall,
and, looking out, saw that a large uprooted tree, which had lain near