“Yes,” he agreed looking out with her upon the water-covered garden. “That’s what I bet it is—it’s the river rising.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she screamed, “you must have known. Why, now I come to think of it, you were dripping wet when you first came into the room.”
“Well,” said William with a burst of inspiration, “I din’ want to give you a sudden shock—what I thought it might give you tellin’ you you was macarooned——”
“Oh, don’t talk,” she said. “Go down at once and see if you can find any hope of rescue.”
William went downstairs again. He waded out to the hose pipe and wrestled again with the tap beneath the gushing water. In vain. He waded into a neighbouring shed and found three of four panic-stricken hens. He captured two and took them up to the lady’s room, flinging them in carelessly.
“Rescued ’em,” he said with quiet pride, and then went down for the others. The mingled sounds of the squeaking and terrified flight of hens and the lady’s screams pursued him down the stairs. He caught the other two hens and brought them up, too, carelessly flinging them in to join the chaos. Then he went down for further investigations. In another shed he found a puppy who had climbed into a box to escape the water and there was engaged in trying to catch a spider on the wall. William rescued the puppy, and took it upstairs to join the lady’s menagerie.
“Rescued this, too,” he said as he deposited it inside.
It promptly began to chase the hens. There ensued a scene of wild confusion as the hens, with piercing squawks, flew over chairs and tables, pursued by the puppy.
“HERE’S SOMETHIN’ ELSE I’VE
RESCUED,” SAID WILLIAM,
PROUDLY.