"This is a nice state of things! What's all this wood here for?"

"The woodshed's under water."

"You must get yourself ready, Dorothy. I'll come for your mother first in
the chaise."

"I cannot go," she said. "I don't believe there is any danger. This old
house has stood for eighty years; it's not likely this is the first big
rain in all that time." Dorothy's spirits had risen. "Besides, I have a
family of orphans to take care of. See here," she said, stooping over a
basket in the shadow of the chimney. It was the "hospital tent," and as she
uncovered it, a brood of belated chickens stretched out their thin necks
with plaintive peeps.

Dorothy covered them with her hands and they nestled with comfortable
twitterings into silence.

"You're a kind of special providence, aren't you, Dorothy? But I've no
sympathy with chickens who will be born just in time for the equinoctial."

"_I_ didn't want them," said Dorothy, anxious to defend her management.
"The old hen stole her nest and she left them the day before the rain.
She's making herself comfortable now in the corn-bin."

"She ought to be made an example of; that's the way of the world,
however,--retribution doesn't fall always on the right shoulders. I must go
now. We'll take your mother and Jimmy first, and then, if you _won't_ come,
you shall let me stay with you. The mill is safe enough, anyhow."