Christmas Light Part 6

"Now the trick!" cried Ezra, who had been hopping from foot to foot during his aunt's long speech. "Have I not been teaching him for more than a week? Say thy lesson well, little donkey! Stand here before him, Naomi!"

Samuel placed Naomi in position.

"Thy donkey's name, Naomi," went on Ezra, "is Michmash, because he comes from the town of that name. Now place thy hands upon the tips of his ears. Do not pinch or he will kick. I know."

Samuel guided the little girl's hands until they rested upon the tips of the long gray ears.

"Now say his name slowly," instructed Ezra, his face aglow.

"Mich," said Naomi, and down came a furry ear, "mash," and down came the other.

Then the little donkey winked both ears violently, and turned a patient eye upon his young teacher as if asking praise.

"He did it! He did it!" cried the teacher. "He did not forget his lesson and he will do it every time. Michmash!" And as the long ears fell again, Ezra threw his arms about Naomi and hugged her close.

"Wilt thou come for a ride with me now?" he whispered. "The sun shines and the wind blows and it will be pleasant out upon the hills."

So seated upon the back of Michmash, Naomi rode off, with such a bright look upon her wan face that her father and mother could not help thinking that better days were in store for them all.

Every pleasant day Ezra, leading Michmash, took Naomi, wrapped in her little scarlet cloak, out riding, and as they moved along in the crisp, bracing air they talked--long, long talks of what they were pa.s.sing, of Ezra's day at school, or of the thoughts and fancies that filled Naomi's active little mind.

"Ezra," said she one day, as Michmash felt his way securely up the side of one of the stony little Judean hills, "Ezra, dost thou remember what was told thee that the letter-writer said that day by the Pool of Bethesda?"

Her lip trembled as she spoke, but Ezra answered her instantly.

"Yea," said he, "I do, indeed. He spoke of the Messiah."

"And what think you of the Messiah?" asked Naomi timidly. "What think you he will do when he cometh, Ezra? Dost think that he will open the eyes of the blind?"

Ezra, in order to speak more earnestly, halted Michmash, who gladly fell to cropping the coa.r.s.e gra.s.s.

"The Messiah, Naomi," said Ezra slowly, "will do what the prophet Isaiah promised of him. Never fear. He will open the eyes of the blind and unstop the ears of the deaf. He will make the lame man leap and the dumb man sing for joy. When he cometh, we shall all see the salvation of the Lord and our sins shall be forgiven us. All Israel shall rejoice.

Aye, even stout Solomon also," added Ezra grimly. "The Kingdom of G.o.d will come, and the Messiah will rule in righteousness, and he shall put our enemies to flight. No longer then will we pay tribute to the Emperor Caesar Augustus at Rome. No longer will we tolerate the wicked King Herod in our city of Jerusalem. And the Roman eagle that hangs above our Temple gates will be torn down and trampled under foot."

Ezra spoke warmly. He had been well taught in school and synagogue, and had listened carefully to his father and his friends as they talked in the market-place and elsewhere.

"Oh, I would that the Messiah would come quickly," said Naomi wistfully. "And if he can make me see, he can make lame Enoch straight.

I would that Enoch's old grandmother had not died and that he had not gone so far away to live as Jericho. I miss him."

"Think now of this new numbering of all the world," went on Ezra, whose heart burned within him at the wrongs of his nation. "Every man must travel to the town whence his family sprang, whether he live near or far and whether or no he be rich enough to stand a journey. And why? Because the Emperor at Rome has ordered so. I stood in the market-place when the Roman heralds with their trumpets summoned all Bethlehem thither, and told of this new enrollment and of the taxing to follow. I saw the black looks and heard the muttering, but did any man speak out? Nay--afeard of the short sword the Roman soldier carries. Oh, aye, I am afeard of it myself," admitted Ezra indulgently; "but when the Messiah cometh things will not be so."

"Mother says that many have already traveled to Bethlehem to be enrolled," said Naomi, "and that we shall have a houseful when the caravan from Nazareth comes in. I would fain be a help to her just now and not a trouble, but I can do nothing at all, nothing, only keep out of the way." And the tears rolled down poor Naomi's cheeks.

"Do not cry," said Ezra pitifully, and with a patience wonderful in a boy of his years. "We all love thee, Naomi, better than if thou hadst the sharp sight of an eagle. Come, greedy one," he went on, pulling at Michmash's bridle. "Wilt thou eat all night? Come!"

They stood upon a hill that looked toward the north, and as Ezra waited for lazy little Michmash to finish his mouthful, his eye caught a line of tiny black figures perhaps a mile away from Bethlehem village.

"The caravan from Nazareth, I verily believe!" he exclaimed. "Hold fast, Naomi, and I will take thee down to the gate. There I will tell thee all the sights as they come in."

Rattling over the stones and down the steep paths in reckless fashion, the little brother and sister were soon established in a spot where Ezra could see all that was needful, and whisper what he saw in Naomi's ear.

"It is the caravan from Nazareth," he announced, "and they ride on horses, camels, mules, but some walk. There are great numbers of them and more are still to come. Some have fallen behind, they say, and are far back upon the road. They are very weary and they smile but little.

Who would want to take the long journey in winter only to part with money in the end?"

When Ezra and Naomi reached home, they found that, as their mother had said, their house was full to overflowing with company from the Nazareth caravan.

Abner and Joel, merchants of Nazareth, were there with Joel's son Amos and his wife Elisabeth. Samuel's cousin, Daniel, who owned a large farm in fruitful Galilee, had come, bringing with him as a matter of course his friends, David and Phineas, neighboring farmers. All these people had originally sprung from this city of David, and now back they came to it, some in good, some in ill humor, but to a man obeying the command of the Emperor at Rome.

Every inch of floor s.p.a.ce in Samuel's little house was occupied that night when the soft quilts were spread out, and the family and their guests lay down to rest. Naomi and Jonas were cuddled in a corner next their mother. But when Ezra came in late from feeding Michmash, the dim light of the little oil lamp, that burned each night in all but the poorest of Jewish homes, showed him a floor so crowded with soundly sleeping guests that he knew not how to reach his own bed spread at his father's right hand.

"Father!" whispered Ezra.

"My son," answered Samuel in a cautious voice.

"Father, it is so crowded here I would fain spend the night with old Eli in the fields with the sheep. They are encamped below the khan in the Fields of David. May I go? Old Eli said but yesterday that I had neglected him of late."

"Go, my son. Give greetings to old Eli, and G.o.d's peace attend thee."

So Ezra slipped out under the dark starry sky to join the shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

CHAPTER VI

THE SHEPHERDS

Ezra picked his way carefully down the dark Bethlehem lanes until he reached the town gate, swung shut and locked hours before at sunset.

"Nathan! Nathan!" he called, until the old gate-keeper peered out from his little booth and muttered a friendly greeting to the lad.

"Nathan, I would go down into the fields with shepherd Eli to-night,"

explained Ezra politely. "Wilt thou not let me pa.s.s through the strait gate? Just this once! I will never ask thee again. Old Eli is thy friend and mine. Do the favor for him, I beg of thee, and I will bless thee all my days."

Nathan could not help laughing at the old-fashioned speech of the boy.

"Whether I do it for thee or for shepherd Eli, the deed is done," he cackled, and threw open the small gate standing beside the large one and known as the "strait" gate. "Ask me not again, I warn thee; ask me not again."

Past the Bethlehem khan Ezra hurried, and down through the piece of fertile land that lay to the east, where the reapers of Boaz had swung their rude sickles and where Ruth had gleaned the golden sheaves. A walk of two miles brought him to the pasture land where the shepherd lad David had watched his father's sheep, battling with lion and bear when the need arose, and where, too, many of his sweetest songs had been written.

The boy scurried along at a good pace, for on these dark and lonely roads to meet with wolf or jackal or, still more terrifying, with robbers, singly or in bands, was not unknown.

At the end of the road Ezra peered about in the starlight until he could distinguish a number of dark forms huddled before one of the caves in the hillside. Within the shallow cave lay the flock asleep, and before it, on his rough bed of brushwood and rushes, sat shepherd Eli, with only a dog or two to keep him company. Beside him lay his shepherd's crook, his club tipped with iron the better to protect his charges, and his sling with which he was wont to throw stones just beyond his sheep to bring them back when they were going astray.

Ezra chose to leap over the rude stone wall that enclosed this sheepfold instead of pa.s.sing through the narrow gateway. The two great sheep dogs, gaunt and rough, who had spied him on the edge of the pasture land long before he had seen them, leaped fawning upon him with sharp yelps of affection.

"Down! Down!" cried Ezra, half laughing, half impatient. "Eli, my father sends thee greeting. As for me, I would fain spend the night with thee here in the fields. I am crowded out of my father's house by visitors from Nazareth who come to be listed for the census. I will make myself useful, Eli. Perhaps thou canst steal a nap while I keep watch of the sheep. But why art thou alone to-night? Where are the other shepherds? And the dogs?"