"We may as well finish the job," said Mr. Mason. "Tom, go hitch Sable up to the cart and we'll bring the henhouse back where it belongs."
By running across the fields that were on the highest part of the road Tom was able to get to his barn without a boat, and soon he returned with the cart and Sable.
It took all hands to get the henhouse on the cart, but this was finally done, and away went Sable up the road with the queer load after him in the dump cart.
"You had better put it up on the hill this time," Peter told them. "The water isn't gone down yet." So at last the chicken coop was settled, and not a hen was missing.
There were many sights to be seen about Meadow Brook that afternoon, and the boys enjoyed the flood, now that there was no longer any danger to life.
Bert caught a big salmon and a black-spotted lizard that had been flooded out from some dark place in the mountains, Harry found a pretty toy canoe that some small boy had probably been playing with in the stream before the water rose, and Jack was kept busy towing in all kinds of stuff that had broken loose from barns along the pond.
Freddie had boots on, and was happy sailing his "ark" up and down the road. He insisted on Snoop taking a ride, but cats do not fancy water and the black kitten quickly hid himself up in the hay loft, out of Freddie's reach.
Little by little the water fell, until by the next afternoon there was no longer a river running through the roads. But there were plenty of wet places and enough of streams washing down the rain the gutters to give Freddie a fine canal to sail boats in.
Nan and Flossie had boats too which Bert and Harry made for them. In fact, all the girls along Meadow Brook road found something that would sail while the flood days lasted.
As it was still July the hot sun came down and dried things up pretty quickly, but many haymows were completely spoiled, as were summer vegetables that were too near the pond and came in for their share of the washout.