his sleep, it had been immersed in the water, which had entered the
room, and was rapidly rising. Shouting to his mother and the children,
he struck a light, and leaped into the water; and, taking Bub in his
arms, and directing the movements of the rest, he hurried them out of
the door, away from the river bank, as fast as they could go. How
providential it was that he should have, in his restlessness, dropped
his hand over the bedside! for scarcely had they ascended a swell of
ground beyond the field when the cabin went down with a crash, and
the fragments, whirling about and jarring together, disappeared from
view.

They were now poorer than ever; but, cold and wet, with the lightning
flashing about them, in the pouring rain, they clung together for
mutual protection, while they took their toilsome and difficult way
from the scene of danger.

There was an unoccupied shanty in the edge of the town farthest from
the river, and to that Tom led the terrified and shivering group. It
was three full hours before they reached it; and then they had nothing
but the bare walls and the bare floor, with the shelter over their
heads, for a resting-place, where, the next day, the missionary found
them as he went about assisting to succor the sufferers; and, at his
suggestion, from the scanty stores of the settlers about, their cabin
was fitted out with eatables and housekeeping articles.

During all this time Mr. Payson had been so occupied in benevolent
labor among those whose cabins had been flooded, that it had not
occurred to him that he had sustained any damage; but, after the
subsiding of the waters, as he took his way down his favorite path
through the grove, he saw that the waters had borne away every vestige
of fencing around his cherished ten-acre lot. The highest part of the
fence had been under water many feet on that calamitous night, and
with the loss of the rails had gone down another of the earthly props
on which he had leaned for his daily bread in the wilderness.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE INDIAN LODGE.

Spring on a north-western prairie. What a glorious scene! Suddenly,
you scarcely know when, the snow has disappeared, leaving the long,
dead grass lying in matted unsightliness, and you would think it was
dead forever; but soon, in little clusters of from three to seven, you
see dotting the landscape a purple flower, a tough, membranous, hairy
sheath protecting each floweret from the chilling winds, for it