Part 1 (1/2)
Christmas Light.
by Ethel Calvert Phillips.
CHAPTER I
NAOMI'S GARDEN
It was in a little garden in the village of Bethlehem, many and many a year ago, that four scarlet poppies stood side by side and swayed gently back and forth upon their slim green stalks in the soft afternoon wind.
A little girl came running over the gra.s.s and halted before the poppies.
”How beautiful you are!” said the little girl, whose name was Naomi, and who was eight years old.
She clasped her hands before her in delight, and stood smiling down upon the flowers that seemed to nod courteously in reply.
This little Jewish girl had dark curling hair and gentle brown eyes. Her cheeks were as rosy as the poppies, and she wore a gay little robe of scarlet and yellow striped stuff, while upon her bare brown feet were tied soft leather sandals.
”How beautiful you are!” said Naomi again to the poppies. ”You are mine, for I made you grow, and you are the most beautiful flowers in all our lovely garden.”
And she looked as proudly round the tiny garden plot as if it were as s.p.a.cious and as wonderful as the famous gardens of the wicked King Herod, or even those of the Temple High Priest himself.
In the center of the gra.s.s plot stood an orange-tree, and under it, in the shade of its glossy leaves, had been placed a light wooden bench. A tall hedge of p.r.i.c.kly thorns prevented pa.s.sers-by on the narrow village street from peeping in. At one end a heavy grapevine clambered over a trellis, while at the other there were several rich clumps of myrtle that showed dark against the surrounding gra.s.s. Below the thorn hedge stood a row of bold flaunting tulips, and there were two flower-beds, one of white, the other of tall red lilies.
The garden was indeed a pleasant place, and Naomi's happiest hours were spent here, whether playing peacefully alone, or amusing baby Jonas, or when the family gathered together under the orange-tree, Father and Mother, brother Ezra, baby Jonas, and herself.
To be sure there were vines and flowers growing on the roof of Naomi's house, which was often used as a place to sit in the cool of the day and even to sleep when the house grew unbearably warm. For Naomi's dwelling looked like nothing so much as a square box turned upside down with only a door cut in the front and not a window to break the smooth white sides.
Within, there was a single room, round which ran a bench where were kept the gay quilts, tightly rolled, which made the only beds Naomi knew.
Here, too, lay the cus.h.i.+ons upon which the family sat when at meals round the table, which was then pulled out from the wall. There was a great carved chest in which were kept the Sabbath clothes, the crescent of coins which belonged to Naomi's mother and which she wore upon her head as an ornament on festive occasions, and the long parchment rolls of Scripture in which Naomi's father took the keenest pride. At the door stood a tall water-jar with herbs floating on the top to keep the water cool.
In a niche in the doorpost hung a small roll of parchment in a case.
Naomi was used to seeing her father and his friends touch it reverently when pa.s.sing in or out, and then kiss the fingers that had touched the Name of the Most High. She could even recite as well as Ezra the verses she knew were written there, beginning, ”Hear, O Israel: Jehovah our G.o.d is one Jehovah,” and ending ”and thou shalt write them upon the doorposts of thy house and upon thy gates.”
In a small building near by stood the oven where Naomi's mother did her baking and which she used in common with several other families. It was often a meeting-place for the children, who hung about the door on baking-days hoping for hot crumbs--stout Solomon from across the road; Rachel and Rebekah, Naomi's particular friends; little Enoch, who walked with a limp and who would never grow any taller, though he might live to be ever so old.
”I would that my Aunt Miriam used our oven,” Naomi often thought, ”for she bakes every day, and, oh, such good things as she makes.”
Naomi's aunt kept the village inn or khan that stood just outside the city gates on one of the little hills upon which Bethlehem was built.
Many travelers stopped the night at the khan and even longer, for the village lay only one mile to the right of the great road which led from Jerusalem, six miles away, to the old town of Hebron, and then down into the far-away, mysterious land of Egypt itself. Where the road from Bethlehem joined the Jerusalem highway stood the tomb of Rachel, and many a time had Naomi, loitering in the courtyard of the inn, heard pious pilgrims, fresh from the spot, tell the stories of Rachel and Jacob, and their sons Joseph and Benjamin.
Naomi's little head was packed full of the stories of the great people of her race. Ezra, eleven years old, went to school in the synagogue every day with the other boys of the village, and diligently studied the Law and the Prophets. At home, Naomi was taught by her mother, not only the care of the house, but the history of the Hebrew people, their songs, their prayers, and their hopes.
”I know ten hymns without a mistake,” Naomi would boast, and by hymns she meant what we call psalms. ”I can recite the Song of Deborah and the Song of Hannah. I can tell all the story about them, too, and, oh, ever so many more.”
Her favorite story was that of the Naomi for whom she had been named.
But this summer afternoon she was thinking of nothing save of the pretty blossoms that now swung before her after so many days of patient toil and care.
She caught sight of her mother in the doorway and eagerly called her to come and see the sight.