You'd better go to the river and set a stake first so you can tell how fast the water rises and know when to move into the new place." Tom set his stake at the water's edge and then selected the most available place he could find for the new abode.

He and Joe went diligently to work, rearranging the loose sticks of drift-wood and even carrying many of them clear out of the pile, so as to enlarge the hole they had found and make it as habitable as possible.
"The trouble is," said Tom when they had nearly completed their task, "that we can't make a smooth floor, and it's going to be rather uncomfortable lying on loose logs and big round sticks that run every which way." "That's my business," said Judie looking in at the entrance.

"I'm the housekeeper, you know, and I've thought of all that." And sure enough the little woman had brought a great pile of small, leafy, tree branches and bush tops, with which she speedily filled up the low places between the timbers, and covered the timbers themselves to a depth of three or four inches, making a soft as well as a level floor.

She had foreseen the difficulty, and borrowing Sam's knife, had worked with all her might to provide in advance against it.

But the bushes and leaves were not all that she had brought.