Read Ebook: Christmas Light by Phillips Ethel Calvert

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Ebook has 458 lines and 21155 words, and 10 pages

"What hast thou to give?" asked Ezra shrewdly. He felt sure the lamb could never draw a wagon, and the prospect of selling a sick animal was small.

"Anything thou mayst ask," was Naomi's reckless answer. The lamb had put out a limp pink tongue and was licking her fingers.

"Thy poppies?"

Ezra had heard his aunt say that very day, "I need poppies sorely for my brew for the palsy, and not a single one has bloomed in the khan garden this year."

Surely four poppies would be worth a rich cake or two, or perhaps even a piece of money.

"My poppies?" Naomi looked aghast. "My poppies? All four? Why, there is just one apiece! Father and Mother, thou and Jonas! My poppies?"

The lamb stirred and with a little sigh of content snuggled his nose into the palm of Naomi's hand.

"Take them!" Naomi stood up and gathered the lamb in her arms. "Take them, only let me not see thee."

She turned her back upon Ezra and shut her eyes.

Quickly he gathered the flowers and ran out of the garden.

Naomi opened her eyes. She gave one look at her despoiled flower-bed and bent again over the lamb.

"I am glad, Three Legs," said she warmly. "Thou art much better than many poppies, thou poor little creature, and I am glad I did it. I am glad!"

ONE SABBATH

It was Sabbath morning, and Naomi and her mother and Ezra were on their way to the synagogue.

They chose back streets as they went, and they met only women and children on their way, for the front roads on the Sabbath day were given up to the men.

Naomi was happy as she walked quietly along holding fast to her mother's hand, for she wore her new hyacinth-blue robe that her mother had spun and her father had woven for her.

Ezra had other thoughts, and presently he whispered in Naomi's ear:

"In two years' time I shall be a Son of the Law, and then I shall sit on the men's side in the synagogue, and walk on the front streets on Sabbath. Thou and Mother will have to come alone."

Naomi shook her head.

"Jonas will walk with us then," she whispered back. "Boaster!"

She did not really blame Ezra for his lordly words and air, for she knew how every Jewish boy looked forward to what was called his Day of Freedom, when by a priest in the synagogue he was made a Son of the Law. Then he would be no longer a child, but a young man. His school days would be over. He would choose a trade and begin to earn his own living.

But it was a comfort to Naomi to think that, with Ezra gone, little Jonas would trot along by her side, and she was thinking of baby Jonas, left every Sabbath morning in the care of lame Enoch's old grandmother, now grown too feeble to climb the hill to the synagogue, when Aunt Miriam overtook them.

Aunt Miriam's husband, Simon, was a wealthy man in the village of Bethlehem. He was the owner of the guest-house or khan that stood a little below the town on the way leading down into Egypt, and which was believed to have been the dwelling of Boaz and Ruth, and the birth-place of King David himself.

To-day Aunt Miriam wore a robe of fine linen, covered with a wide cloak of black and white stripes, and her earrings and bracelets tinkled at every step. On week-days the children knew her to be bustling and chatty and fond of a jest. But the Sabbath saw her a different woman. Stately and dignified she walked beside them now, her brown eyes gazing far away and full of holy thought.

The children felt awed and shy with her as they might with a stranger. Ezra stopped his whispering. Naomi glanced timidly up, her head held sideways like a little bird.

"How good Aunt Miriam is!" she mused.

But her aunt's thoughts wandered for a moment from their pious meditations. Suddenly she loosened the veil that was pulled across her face and spoke briefly to Naomi's mother.

"I shall come to see thee to-night after sundown. I go to Jerusalem to-morrow, and there may be room in the cart for a certain good little maid."

Naomi's heart leaped. Did Aunt Miriam mean her? What other little girl might she take with her? But she had said "a good little maid," and Naomi remembered with a pang of regret how she and Ezra had quarreled yesterday, and had not ceased their bickering until at sunset the three blasts of the silver trumpet, blown by the priest on the synagogue roof, had reminded them that Sabbath eve had come.

She longed to ask outright: "Dost thou mean to take me to Jerusalem with thee, Aunt Miriam?"

But they had reached the flat-roofed little synagogue, and once inside the gate the children silently followed their mother and aunt into the women's court and seated themselves on the mats that covered the stone floor.

Naomi's mind was so occupied by the thought of a possible trip to Jerusalem that she forgot to peep, according to her wont, through the lattice that separated the men's court from that of the women, in the hope of seeing her father. She usually watched with interest while the sacred Rolls were taken from their curtained shrine, before which burned the holy lamp, and their outer cover of gold-embroidered silk and inner cover of linen removed.

But this morning she scarcely heard the voice of the visiting rabbi who read the lesson for the day, and her mother was obliged to twitch her vigorously when, during the prayers, the congregation rose to their feet and turned toward the Holy City.

The Sabbath day seemed endless to the eager little girl. All work and play were forbidden. No fire might be lighted, no bed made. Naomi had been well taught in the Law. She knew that it would be sinful for her even to carry a handkerchief tucked in her belt. And so surely not until Sabbath was over would the trip to Jerusalem be discussed.

She sat alone in the shade of the fig-tree that grew beside their door, and wished that she might see her friends Rachel and Rebekah to tell them the good news. She watched the great sun flame through the bright Syrian sky until her eyes burned and ached, but still it was not sundown. At last she curled herself up on the floor of the house with heavy-eyed Three Legs at her side and fell asleep.

When she woke it was the First Watch of the Evening, six o'clock, and the crimson sun was sinking out of sight behind the Judean hills. Naomi sprang up and ran into the garden. There on the bench under the orange-tree sat her father and mother and Aunt Miriam.

Aunt Miriam was talking.

"And so, since Simon is still sick with a heavy summer cold, nothing will do but I must ride to Jerusalem to-morrow with the load of grapes," she was saying. Simon had large vineyards and owned many olive-trees, beside being host at the inn. "To be sure, Jacob is a good serving-lad and manages well without his master. But there is no one, after himself, who makes a better bargain than I, Simon says, and so I must ride with the fruit to see that justice is done my lord Simon in the trade."

Here Aunt Miriam laughed so heartily that Samuel and his wife were forced to smile in sympathy. But Samuel was not altogether pleased with Aunt Miriam's little joke about her husband, who was in truth her lord and master and worthy of her deepest respect. He changed the subject by asking:

"And what does the physician say of Simon?"

"He recommended that he kiss the nose of a mule," Aunt Miriam answered gravely.

To her and to her audience there was nothing amusing about this prescription. Stranger remedies than that had been ordered by the wise doctors of the day: a broth of beetle's legs, crab's eyes, the heads of mice, bruised flies to cure the sting of a hornet!

"But in spite of this," she continued, "he is still flat on his back, groaning with aches and pains. So, to-morrow, Jacob and I start at sunrise with the bullock cart, and no doubt there will be room among the baskets of grapes for Naomi, if thou wilt permit her to go."

Naomi, at her father's elbow, glanced imploringly into his face, but she did not speak a word. Her mother, from the end of the bench, smiled hopefully at the little girl, but she, too, waited in deferent silence until, to Naomi's great relief, her father gave a nod of consent.

"It is kind of thee, sister Miriam," said he, putting his arm about Naomi and drawing her to his side, "to think of giving our little daughter this pleasure."

"Naomi must be good and obedient and not make herself troublesome in any way," said her mother warningly, leaning forward to pull Naomi's little robe straight. "Thy aunt will be occupied with her business, Naomi, and thou must be as quiet as a mouse so that she will not regret that thou art with her."

"Never fear that," said Aunt Miriam heartily, "Naomi is as dear to me as my own. I shall not be so busy that she will have to play mouse all day. She shall see something of the city, and eat a good dinner at the house of Simon's sister Anna, and make friends, perhaps, with Anna's little Martha who is just her age."

"I will be quiet," promised Naomi, her face bright with smiles. "I will be good. I will not speak a word nor stir all day long."

"Great are thy promises, Naomi," answered Aunt Miriam, rising to go and laying a kindly hand upon the curly head of her niece. "I will give thee a hot breakfast at the khan to stay thee on thy journey, so be not late. We start at sunrise!"

"Oh, Father," cried Naomi, throwing her arms about her father's neck, "how good I mean to be always after this! Dost think I shall see the Temple? And, Mother, which am I to wear--my new blue robe or my yellow and red striped one? I am really to go to Jerusalem! Oh, what will Ezra say when he hears the good news I have to tell!"

The next morning at daybreak, when the purple shadows lay heavily in the east and the sky was still gray overhead, Naomi, wearing a gay little cloak of scarlet over her best blue robe, ran hastily down the stony road that led to the Bethlehem khan.

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