"Oo-ooh! if we were out in the wagons now!" cried Ruth, flattening her nose against the window pane and peering out at the driving storm.
"Yes, or even in a frame house," said Joe. "No frame house could last long in a wind like this. Whee-ee, isn't it a gale! I'm glad we're in a soddy."
"It is comfortable and cozy, isn't it?" sighed Mrs. Peniman, glancing about her with a little smile of content.
For three days the wind howled and the rain fell, while the gentle murmur of the river increased to a sullen roar and it rushed foaming and tumultuous over its rocky bed. On the night of the third day it overflowed its banks, and Mr. Peniman and the boys had to spend most of the night guarding their wagons, implements and other property that they might not be carried away by the flood. The rain had changed to hail on this night, and Joe and Lige wore inverted skillets on their heads to protect them from the pelting of the hailstones. On the fourth day the wind died down, the rain ceased, and the sun came out in an intensely blue sky, which looked as brilliantly clean and clear as if newly created.
With the first gleam of sunshine the pioneers left the shelter of the house and took up the work waiting them outside.
They found that the stock had weathered the storm in the greatest comfort. Dicky and Mother Feathertop, who had found shelter under the canvas covers of the prairie schooners, were sadly bedraggled, and Romeo and Juliet, though exceedingly muddy, and in a very wet pen, were squealingly protesting their desire for food.
"Their pen is all wet, Father," cried Ruth in a grieved tone; "they'll take their deaths of cold."
Lige and Sam burst into roars of laughter.
"Pigs don't take cold, you goosie!" chuckled Sam.
"They do, too, don't they, Mother?"