"So Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the
earth."--_Genesis 7:2._
IT must have been a sad sight for Noah and his wife and their sons,
as the rain went on and on, and the water grew deeper and deeper, and
everybody and everything was drowned. Then came a time when nothing was
to be seen but water. Wherever they looked all was sky and water; but
it had done raining, the sky was blue again, the sun shone by day, the
stars by night, and they must have been very glad.
And still the water got lower, till the Ark did not float about, but
stopped, resting on a peak of a mountain, a very high mountain, and a
few bare tops of other hills began to peep out. By-and-by, Noah opened
the window of the Ark and let out a raven. He never saw the raven
again, for a raven eats dead things, and there were so many dead
bodies floating about that it got plenty of food, and never came back
to the Ark that had saved it.
[Illustration: RETURN OF THE DOVE WITH THE OLIVE BRANCH.--Gen. 8:11.]
He waited a week, and then he let out a dove. Now doves like trees to
sit and nestle in, and they eat grains and seeds; so the poor dove
found no place to rest in, and flew back to the Ark; and Noah took her
back, and kept her a week, then let her fly again. She flew away but
still she came back to the Ark, and this time she brought in her beak a
sprig of olive branch.
It was the first green thing that Noah had seen for a year! Noah's
children have loved the olive leaf everywhere, and called it the sign
of peace and good news ever since.
For now Noah knew that the waters had gone down, and that trees must
be able to put forth leaves again. Once more, after another week, he
let out the dove, and she did not come back, for she had found a tree
where she could make her home, and seeds to eat; and then Noah knew the
sad time of the flood--a whole year--was over, and the earth had been
washed from all her stains.