Part 42 (1/2)
”Meat ones?” asked his sister hopefully.
”Yes. And all the other nanimals.”
”Who drived 'em in?”
”Ole Noah and Mrs. Noah. Mustn't they have had a time! If you tried to drive in our turkeys an sheep and cows together there'd be awful trouble--and Noah had lions and tigers and snakes too.”
”Perhaps he had good sheep-dogs,” Norah suggested. She was sewing with Mrs. Hunt under a tree on the lawn, while the children played with a Noah's Ark on a short-legged table near them.
”He'd need them,” Geoffrey said. ”But would sheep-dogs be any good at driving snakes and porklepines, Norah?”
”Noah's might have been,” Norah answered prudently. ”They must have been used to it, you see. And I believe a good sheep-dog would get used to anything.”
”Funny things ole Noah and his fam'ly wore,” said Geoffrey, looking at j.a.phet with disfavour. ”Like dressing-gowns, only worse. Wouldn't have been much good for looking after nanimals in. Why, even the Land Army girls wear trousers now!”
”Well, fas.h.i.+ons were different then,” said Mrs. Hunt. ”Perhaps, too, they took off the dressing-gowns when they got inside the Ark, and had trousers underneath.”
”Where'd they keep all the food for the nanimals, anyhow?” Geoffrey demanded. ”They'd want such a lot, and it would have to be all different sorts of food. Tigers wouldn't eat vegi-tubbles, like rabbits.”
”And efalunts would eat buns,” said Alison anxiously. ”Did Mrs. Noah make vem buns?”
”She couldn't, silly, unless she had a gas-stove,” said Geoffrey.
”They couldn't carry firewood as well. I say, Mother, don't you think the Ark must have had a supply-s.h.i.+p following round, like the Navy has?”
”It isn't mentioned,” said Mrs. Hunt.
”I say!” said Geoffrey, struck by a new idea that put aside the question of supply. ”Just fancy if a submarine had torpedoed the Ark!
Wouldn't it have been exciting!”
”Let's do it in the bath,” said Alison, delightedly.
”All right,” Geoffrey said. ”May we, Mother?”
”Oh, yes, if you don't get too wet,” his mother said resignedly.
”They can all swim, that's a comfort.
”We'll muster them,” said Geoffrey, bundling the animals into a heap.
”Hand over that bird, Alison. I say, Mother, which came first, a fowl or an egg?”
Mrs. Hunt sighed.
”It isn't mentioned,” she said. ”Which do you think?”
”Fowl, I 'specs,” answered her son.
”_I_ fink it was ve egg,” said Alison.
”How would it be hatched if it was, silly?” demanded her brother.
”They didn't have ink-ink-inklebaters then.”