A great many years after Cain killed Abel—over a thousand perhaps—the people had grown to be so very wicked that God made up his mind to destroy them by a great flood. But there was one good old man Noah, whom God loved. So He had him build a huge boat or ark and told him to put into it all his own family, and two of every kind of animal on the earth. As soon as Noah had done this, the rain began to fall. It kept on raining for forty days and forty nights until everything was covered by the water, even the highest mountains. Nothing was saved except what was in the ark.