THE WARNING! In the early days of the world lived the patriarch Noah, a good and venerable man whose years already numbered six hundred. Now Noah was warned that a great flood was to come, which would pour down from the clouds and drown the whole earth. He straightway told his neighbors what was to happen, but they refused to believe, and scoffed at him, and said: "Let it rain." BUILDING THE ARK: Then Noah went his way, and set to work to build him a great ship, to be ready for the day of deluge. And he laid the keel in the pasture fields, among the daisies; while the idlers came to look on and laugh at such folly—a ship for a rainy day!