“Well, I’ve been doing some thinking. Seems kind of queer to me that he should have sneaked under those trees yesterday when we were going over. I’ve been wondering what he was doing on that side of the property. If it was all right, what the heck did he dodge us for?”
“Ask me another,” Jim yawned. “Did your Aunt think we had flown to the bottom of the lake?”
“She sure did, but luckily she didn’t miss us until she got up. Our door was open and she saw the beds—then she got scared for fair and came flying down stairs. About that time we came rolling in. I am glad she didn’t have any more time to fret.”
“Same here.” Just then they heard Mrs. Fenton come tip-toeing up the stairs and they both closed their eyes tight, then began to snore melodiously. Anyone could tell that it was a pretense.
“I was just coming to see if you boys aren’t ready to have something to eat. You must be starved,” she exclaimed.
“We are,” they wailed.
“Well, dinner’s all ready. You get into your bath-robes and come right down. No one will mind and I guess you deserve some privileges. Someone called up this morning to know if you got home all right, and I guess you did more than Bob told me.” She looked reproachfully at her nephew and shook her finger. “Now, hustle up—I’ve got huckleberry pie—” They were out of bed before the words were fairly uttered, so she hurried back to her duties and the two boys were close at her heels, donning bath robes as they came. They did take time to have a good cold splash, and glance at the lake, which had risen two feet higher.
Mr. and Mrs. Fenton tried to look cheerful and to joke during the meal, but it was not a success, for the menacing water creeping steadily toward them had already seeped into the cellar, and on the road in front of the house the boys could see automobiles, trucks, hay wagons, and even a team of oxen hitched to a great cart, plugging slowly forward. The vehicles were every one of them piled high with household effects and the people of the island whose homes were already below the danger line, were looking for a safe place to settle until Champlain should recede within bounds. The meal over, the two boys went to the veranda at the back. There was something terrible about the whole situation, and they wondered dully what could be done about it. Just waiting was nerve racking. For a minute they watched the water, which was muddy as it thrashed in the rising wind, and beyond the cove they could see branches, whole trees, rails of fences, boxes, and all sorts of wreckage tossed on the waves.
“Let’s get out of sight of it,” Bob proposed, so they went to the front of the house, but the view there was no less depressing. An old man trudged through the water driving his cow, and right behind him, seated on a queer old carriage was his wife driving a horse that lifted his hoofs wearily and wheezed with every step. At that moment an automobile drove to the door, and a huge man, with a booming voice, stuck his head out of the window.
“Can I get something to eat here?”