"Trine," said the little girl pleasantly, "won't you come and give us the funnel for the fountain? Battist is horrid, he won't even give it to us for a second. But you will let us have it, won't you, Trine?"
"Of course," replied Trine. "I don't see why you shouldn't have a little bit of water. But you'll have to wait until the old bear goes away. Then I'll go with you."
After a while Trine saw Battist walking across the yard towards the fields.
"Come, now," she said, taking Lili's hand in hers and running to the laundry.
She pulled out the pipe from its hiding place, laid one end under the spigot and the other into a small tub. Then she explained to Lili how to take the pipe away when the bucket was full enough. She and Willi could do this quite well themselves and when they needed more water they could put it back. Trine had to go back to her work now.
When the maid left, they were ready to start on their excursion. After the pipe was laid on the floor, Lili climbed in, followed by Willi, and Philomele was lifted and Schnurri was pulled inside. Noah and his wife sat in their beautiful ark now, grateful over their delivery and joyful over their trip on the rising floods. The water from the fountain was steadily flowing into the laundry, and all of a sudden the ark was lifted and began to float. Noah and his wife screamed with delight. They had really succeeded in their plans, the ark actually swam about on real waves.
Several high stone steps led down into the laundry, and it therefore held a large quantity of water. The water rose steadily higher and higher, and the children began to feel a little frightened.
"Look, Willi, we won't be able to get out any more," said Lili, "it's getting higher all the time."
Willi looked out thoughtfully over the edge of the tub and said, "If it gets much higher, we'll have to drown."
Of course it kept on getting higher and higher.