What's A Cubit?

The storm upped the ante yesterday with even more rain and stronger winds.  Down in the barn, the girls quivered on the stand; we all waited for one of the rippling metal panels to blow off the roof.  Later I prowled through the house, looking out windows to see that all trees were still standing and where broken limbs might have fallen.  So far, so good with the trees, and branches have not dropped where they might do damage.  Miraculously, we did not lose power.  It was a day to put on a pot of bean stew and make holiday phone calls to family and friends and keep putting logs on the fire.

Not until nightfall did I discover a real problem.  All seemed well until I opened the inner door to the back stalls where Ruthie, Sheila and Poppy sleep.  The hallway was awash, the lake (we'd gone right past puddle) over the tops of my shoes.  My first thought was that the roof had given way, but found that it was a buildup of runoff from outside.  In the interest of expediency and without considering consequences, we had built the barn at the bottom of the hill, and the barn itself follows the slope downward.  What were we thinking?!  The water seemed to be collected just in the hallway and the stalls remained dry, so after encouraging the girls to wade through the mess I got them to bed.  All I could hope was that the dam didn't break during the night and flood their rooms.  I don't know what a cubit is and wouldn't know how to build an ark.