The Village by the River

by H. Louisa Bedford

"I'm home, Kitty. I'll be down in a minute, but I must get my things off first. It is raining cats and dogs."

The words confirmed Kitty's worst fears. That is how it must have rained before that first great flood, when the waters crept up and up, and the people first climbed the hills, until the waters reached them there; and at last there was nothing to be seen anywhere but a waste of water and one little ark that floated on the top. By the time Mr. Curzon came and seated himself by her side, Kitty's eyes were round with the terror of the picture that her too vivid imagination had painted. Her father, quick to read each passing emotion on the face that was dearest to him in the whole world, stooped down and kissed her.

"My little Kitty is in one of her frightened moods. She must tell me all about it."

"It's the flood," Kitty whispered.

"What flood, darling?"

"Mr. Paul said we might have one."

"Did he? He must have meant that the river might overflow its banks; and perhaps it will after such a wet season."

"But it would drown us all."

"Not a bit of it. The cottages near the river might have some water in them; but unless it were something quite unprecedented, the water would not get to the upper floor of any house—and certainly won't come near us or the church and schools, so you may dismiss your fear of a flood. You ought not to have had it anyway, because God has promised that the world shall not be flooded totally again. Shall I tell you what a very good man wrote years ago—many hundreds of years ago—about floods? 'The floods are risen, O Lord, the floods have lift up their voice, the floods lift up their waves … but yet the Lord who dwelleth on high, is mightier.' If he could learn that, all that long time ago, you ought not to be afraid now, ought you?"

"And you don't think God will let it come before my Christmas tree, do you daddy? Because, if all the little children were obliged to stay upstairs, to keep out of the way of the water, they could not come," said Kitty, giving a strictly practical turn to the conversation.