ith nothing but a rat to care
whether he got drowned or not.

Where was Hen Billard, that always made fun so; or Archy Hawkins, that
pretended to be so good-natured; or Pony Baker, that seemed to like a
fellow so much? He began to call for them by name: "Hen Billard--_O_ Hen!
Help, help! Archy Hawkins, _O_ Archy! I'm drowning! Pony, Pony, _O_ Pony!
Don't you see me, Pony?"

He could see the top of Pony Baker's house, and he thought what a good,
kind man Pony's father was. Surely _he_ would try to save him; and
Jim Leonard began to yell: "O Mr. Baker! Look here, Mr. Baker! It's Jim
Leonard, and I'm floating down the river on a roof! Save me, Mr. Baker,
save me! Help, help, somebody! Fire! Fire! Fire! Murder! Fire!"

By this time he was about crazy, and did not half know what he was saying.
Just in front of where Hen Billard's grandmother lived, on the street that
ran along the top of the bank, the roof got caught in the branches of a
tree which had drifted down and stuck in the bottom of the river so that
the branches waved up and down as the current swashed through them. Jim
Leonard was glad of anything that would stop the roof, and at first he
thought he would get off on the tree. That was what the rat did. Perhaps
the rat thought Jim Leonard really was crazy and he had better let him
have the roof to himself; but the rat saw that he had made a mistake, and
he jumped back again after he had swung up and down on a limb two or three
times. Jim Leonard felt awfully when the rat first got into the tree, for
he remembered how it said in the Pirate Book that rats always leave a
sinking ship, and now he believed that he certainly was gone. But that
only made him hollo the louder, and he holloed so loud that at last he
made somebody hear.

It was Hen Billard's grandmother, and she put her head out of the window
with her night-cap on, to see what the matter was. Jim Leonard caught
sight of her and he screamed, "Fire, fire, fire! I'm drownding, Mrs.
Billard! Oh, do somebody come!"

Hen Billard's grandmother just gave one yell of "Fire! The world's
a-burnin' up, Hen Billard, and you layin' there sleepin' and not helpin'
a bit! Somebody's out there in the river!" and she rushed into the room
where Hen was, and shook him.

He bounced out of bed and pulled on his pantaloons, and was down-stairs in
a minute. He ran bareheaded over to the bank, and when Jim Leonard saw him
coming he holloed ten times as loud: "It's me, Hen! It's