Afloat on the Flood

by Lawrence J. Leslie

Mrs. Jacobus was smiling all the while. This was evidently a new as well as novel experience with the little old lady who had lived alone so many years. She could hardly take her eyes off the face of Max, she seemed so greatly interested in the boy; and the three girls also had a share of her attention. Perhaps after this she might make somewhat of a change in her mode of living; she had discovered that there were people worth knowing in this dreary world, after all; and that it was foolish to hide away from everybody, just because of some bitter stroke of fortune away back in the past.

Steve was the life of the party. He felt so overjoyed because of the kind fate that had allowed him to be of considerable use to Bessie French, so that their old friendship was renewed, this time to remain, that he seemed to be fairly bubbling over with spirits. He made witty remarks about most of the food they had, and kept the others laughing from the beginning of the meal until it reached its conclusion, with the dishes well cleaned out.

Everybody had an abundance, and the boys seemed never to weary of declaring how glad they were to have the proper kind of cooks along. Their own style of camp cookery might do in an emergency, when they were cast upon their own resources; but it lacked something or other that a girl somehow seemed to know instinctively how to put in it, and make all the difference imaginable in the taste.

Steve even volunteered to favor them with a song, and it would have required very little encouragement to have extended this to a dance, so light-hearted was he feeling. No one would ever have believed that this was the same Steve whose face had been long-drawn with anxiety only a comparatively few hours back, while they were drifting on the swift current of the flood, with their strange craft in danger of going to pieces at any moment, and leaving them struggling in the wilderness of rushing water.

There were some other things that wise Max had secured from the abandoned cottage of Mrs. Jacobus. These had been left down by the boat, and when he presently walked over that way, and came back laden down with blankets there was a loud cheer from the other boys, accompanied by much hand-clapping from the girls.

"Why, this is just delightful," Mazie told him, after he had first of all made her choose the best blanket, which she immediately turned over to the crippled child, taking another for her own individual use; "and if we'd only known how nice it was all going to come out, you can be sure none of us would have allowed ourselves to cry as we sat there on the roof waiting to be drowned. We'll never forget this experience, will we, Bessie?"

"I should say not," came the prompt answer; "and the boys have done themselves proud through it all. Just to think of their being on that bridge when it fell into the flood, and none of them even thrown into the river. I never heard of such great good fortune. And then to be taken straight to where we were hoping and praying for some one to come along and save us. Well, after this I'm not going to be so silly as to doubt it any longer."

"What?" asked Steve, quickly, but in a low voice.

"Oh! just that there must be a sweet little cherub aloft watching over me," she replied, giving him a saucy look.

"I thought you might mean that it was wicked for people to quarrel, and that it never could happen again between two persons that I know," Steve went on to say.