The first disobedience was like the first little flame which is touched to a heap of dry wood. It grew and grew. Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain became a farmer, and Abel became a shepherd. One time they brought each an offering to give to God. Cain brought fruit from his farm, and Abel brought lambs from his flock. But God looked at their hearts, and He was pleased with Abel’s offering, but Cain’s He would not take. And Cain was very angry with God and with his brother. Then one day when the two brothers were in the field together, Cain quarreled with Abel and struck him and killed him. And God said, “Where is Abel thy brother?” And Cain said, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Thus he sinned both in word and in deed; and God had to send him away into the wild deserts. All this was very terrible for Adam and Eve. Thus while briers and brambles grew in the ground, evil and sorrow grew in the hearts of men. Now, after many years, the men and women and even the little children were all so bad that there was no way to make them better. The only thing to do was to destroy them, and begin the world all over again. But there was one good family. Noah and his wife, and their three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth and their wives, minded what God told them. So God said to Noah, “I will destroy all these wicked people, but I will save you and yours. I will wash the whole earth clean with a great flood. You must make a boat, and you and your wife, and your sons and their wives must get into it. And you must take all the animals with you, two of every kind, with which to start the world again after the flood is over.” Noah began, therefore, to build a boat. In the middle of a wide field, he and his sons brought beams and boards together and set to work. The boat was like a box, and it was called the Ark, because that means a box. It had a big door in the side, and all around, near the top, ran a line of windows. And inside all the cracks were filled with pitch, to keep the water out. Before long, the neighbors came, and said, “What are you doing, Noah?” And Noah answered, “I am building a boat.” “But,” said the neighbors, “this is no place for a boat. A boat is of no use without water. Who ever heard of a boat in the middle of a meadow?” But Noah said, “Here, where we stand, in this dry field, the water shall be as deep as the highest hills are high.” Then Noah told them of the coming flood, and tried to get them to stop their bad ways, that they might live, and not be drowned. But the neighbors only laughed at Noah, and said he must be crazy to build a boat on dry land, and so they went back to their wicked lives. Sometimes, when it rained, they thought of Noah, but the rain cleared away, and they laughed again, and were worse than ever.