“Zippie! Zippie! klick! klick!” shouted the Chinaman. “Wake up klick! Oh, suchee muchee wet.”
Poor Zip was scared half out of his wits when he looked about the room and it didn’t take the two Teenie Weenies long to grab a few clothes and scramble up onto the roof, for the water was almost up to their necks and was rising fast. The rain had stopped, but it was pitch dark, so the little fellows could do nothing but put on their clothes and wait for daylight.
The rest of the Teenie Weenie houses were not injured by the heavy rain, for they stood on the high ground and the water ran off down the hill into the little hollow in which the tea pot stood. The laundry was entirely surrounded by water, which was fully fourteen Teenie Weenie feet deep, and as neither of the little men dared swim among the floating sticks, they were forced to wait until help arrived.
Shortly after daylight the Chinaman and Zip were discovered sitting on top of the tea pot and in a short time the Teenie Weenies came to their rescue. They made a raft out of a couple of clothes pins, an old lead pencil and some boards. Gogo and the Turk pushed the raft through the floating rubbish about the tea pot and soon landed the Chinaman and Zip on dry land.
“J-J-J-Jimminie fish hooks!” exclaimed the Dunce, who was much excited over the rescue. “When I-I-Ig-g-go to bed to-night I’m goin’ to take a c-c-c-cork with me for a life preserver.”
“Allee same me savee irons,” cried the Chinaman, who had brought two of his flat irons through the flood.
“It’s a mighty good thing you held onto those irons,” laughed the Clown. “They might have floated away.”
The ground around the laundry was a sight when the water finally settled, for the Teenie Weenie wood pile was quite near and pencils, matches, and many sticks lay scattered all over the ground.
The Teenie Weenies carried eight thimblefuls of mud out of the tea pot and in a short time the little folks had the laundry as clean as a billiard ball, for every one of the little people helped with all his might.