[6] i didn’t understand, since i’d never owned anything i cared all that much about. still, planning for disaster held considerable fascination for me.
[7] the plan was to move upstairs if the river reached the seventh of the steps that led to the front porch. we would keep a rowboat downstairs so we could get from room to room. the one thing we would not do was leave the house. my father, the town’s only doctor, had to be where sick people could find him.
[8] i checked on the river’s rise several times a day and lived in a state of hopeful alarm that the water would climb all the way up to the house. it did not disappoint. the muddy water rose higher until, at last, the critical seventh step was reached.
[9] we worked for days carrying things upstairs, until, late one afternoon, the water edged over the threshold and rushed into the house. i watched, amazed at how rapidly it rose.
[10] after the water got about a foot deep inside the house, it was hard to sleep at night. the sound of the river moving about downstairs was frightening. debris had broken windows, so every once in a while some floating battering ram--a log or perhaps a table--would bang into the walls and make a sound like a distant drum.