"I don't see no break in the clouds," replied the shiftless one. "This wind will die after a while, but the rain will keep right on. I look for it to last all today, an' all the night that's comin'." "I think you're right, Sol, an' it's a mighty big rain, too. The whole swamp except our island will be swimming in water." "But it won't be no flood, that is, like the big flood," said Long Jim. "But ef one did come I wouldn't mind it much ef we had an ark same ez Noah. Ef you could only furgit all them poor people that got theirselves drowned it would be mighty fine, sailin' 'roun' in an ark a mile or so long, guessin' at the places whar the towns hev stood, an' lettin' down a line now an' then to sound fur the tops uv the highest mountains in the world." "You wouldn't hev no time fur lettin' down lines fur mountain tops, Jim Hart," said Shif'less Sol. "An' why wouldn't I hev time fur lettin' down lines fur anythin' I wanted, you lazy Solomon Hyde?" "'Cause it would be your job to feed the animals, an' to do it right you'd hev to git up early in the mornin' an' work purty nigh to midnight all the forty days the flood lasted. Me an' Henry an' Paul an' Tom would spen' most o' our time settin' on the edge o' the ark with our umbrellers h'isted, lookin' at the scenery, while you wuz down in the bowels o' the ark, heavin' in more meat to the lions an' tigers, which wuz allus roarin' fur more." "I wouldn't feed no animals, not ef every one uv 'em starved to death. Besides, what would be the use uv it? 'Cause when the flood dried up the woods would soon be full uv 'em ag'in." "Jim Hart, hevn't you no sense a-tall, a-tall? Ef all the animals wuz drowned, ev'ry last one o' 'em, how could the woods be full o' 'em ag'in?" "Don't ask me, Sol Hyde. Thar are lots uv things that are too deep fur you an' me both. Now, how did the animals git into the woods in the fust place?" "I can't answer, o' course." "Nor can I, but I reckon they'd git into the woods in the second place, which is after the flood, we're s'posin', jest the same way they did in the fust place, which wuz afore the flood, an' that, I reckon, settles it. I don't feed no wild animals, nohow." "What will the big storm and the deluge of rain mean to us, anyway?" asked Paul. "It will help us," replied Henry promptly. "I've been worried about all those mists and vapors rising from the decayed or sodden vegetation. There was malaria in them. Our systems have resisted it, because the life we lead has made us so tough and hard, but maybe the poison would have soaked in some time or other. Now the flood of clean rain will freshen up the whole swamp. It will lay the mists and vapors and wash everything till it's pure." "An' it will flood the swamp so tremenjeously," said the shiftless one, "that fur days thar will be no gittin' in or gittin' out. Anybody that tries it will sink over his head afore he goes a hundred yards."