“Maybe we can take refuge in the ark,” Penny laughed, leading the way up the meandering stream. “That is, if we can find it.”
Trees and bushes grew thick and green along either bank of the run. Several times the girls were forced to muddy their shoes in order to proceed. In one shady glade, a bullfrog blinked at them before making a hasty dive into the lilypads.
There was no sign of a boat or any structure remotely resembling an ark. And then, rounding a bend, they suddenly saw it silhouetted against a darkening sky.
“Why, it looks just as if it had rolled out of The Old Testament!” Louise cried in astonishment.
The ark, painted red and blue, rose three stories from the muddy water. A large, circular window had been built in the uppermost part, and there were tiny, square openings beneath. From within could be heard a strange medley of animal sounds—the cackling of hens, the squeal of a pig, the squawking of a saucy parrot who kept calling: “Noah! Oh, Noah!”
Louise gripped Penny’s hand. “Let’s not go any nearer,” she said uneasily. “It’s starting to rain, and we ought to make a double dash for home.”
A few drops of rain splashed into the stream. Dropping on the tin roof of the ark like tiny pellets of metal, they made a loud drumming sound. The disturbed hens began to cluck on their roosts. The parrot screeched loudly, “Oh, Noah! Come Noah!”
“Where is Noah?” Penny asked with a nervous giggle. “I certainly must see him before we leave.”
As if in answer to her question, they heard a strange series of sounds from deep within the woods. A cow mooed, and a man spoke soothing words. Soon there emerged from among the trees a bewildering assortment of animals and fowl—a cow, a goat, a pig, and two fat turkeys. An old man with a long white beard which fell to his chest, drove the creatures toward the gangplank of the ark.
“Get along, Bessie,” he urged the cow, tapping her with his crooked stick. “The Lord maketh the rain to fall for forty days and forty nights, but you shall be saved. Into the ark!”