Part 8 (1/2)

It was Naomi, who lay with hands clenched and face pressed against the cold stone, too heartsick for tears, wis.h.i.+ng only in her wretchedness to creep away where she might be alone.

Presently she stirred and lifted her head.

Quite a different Naomi was this from the happy, generous child who had sacrificed her flower garden for the sake of an ailing lamb; not at all like the little girl who had set forth so joyfully for a day's pleasure in Jerusalem. Her little robe was wrinkled, her curls were tangled and rough, her face was pinched and pitiful. With her soft little fist she beat upon the roof in time with the rhythm of her words.

”Did they think I could not hear?” she asked, speaking aloud in her fullness of heart. ”Did Elisabeth, the wife of Amos, think that I was deaf as well as blind that she should say aloud, 'The child Naomi will never see again. There is no hope.'”

”No hope! No hope! And perhaps I shall live to be as old as lame Enoch's grandmother lived to be. Who will care for me then? Who will give me shelter and food? Amos of Nazareth thought of that, too. I heard him, though he whispered low. 'She will be always a burden. It were better that she should die.' I heard him. He said those words. 'She will be always a burden. It were better that she should die.'”

”Die? Die? I cannot die. I am well and strong. I shall live and live and live. My mother and father will die and leave me, and Ezra and Jonas will weary of me. I shall be a beggar by the roadside. No hope! No hope!”

Naomi sank down again in a little heap and rocked to and fro. Her misfortune seemed too dreadful to be borne. It was incredible that such a fate should overtake her. It might happen to Rachel, or Rebekah, or to stout Solomon across the road, but not to Naomi, the daughter of Samuel the weaver.

As she swayed back and forth, torn by her misery, there came to her, like balm upon a wound, the familiar, comforting words that her mother and father had used over and over of late, to soothe the little girl's pain and to encourage hope in the sad hearts of them all.

”I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of Jehovah In the land of the living.

Wait for Jehovah: Be strong, and let thy heart take courage; Yea, wait thou for Jehovah.”

Naomi rose to her feet. The startled pigeons withdrew a short way and stood watching her curiously with their hard, bright eyes. About her was the soft sunlight, over her head the deep blue sky.

She turned her sightless face toward Jerusalem and spoke as if to a friend present.

”Yea, Lord,” said the little Jewish girl in simple faith, ”I will wait for Thee, and for Thy Messiah who will open the eyes of the blind.

Surely when Messiah cometh I shall see. And until then, I will wait and pray for His coming. I will wait.”

On the outer stairway that led from the ground to the roof stood Ezra, breathless, his hand pressed against his side. He had run all the way, without stopping, up the steep lanes from the Bethlehem stable, and now, pausing to rest an instant before speaking to Naomi, he could not help overhearing the last words she said.

”So thou wilt wait?” he whispered, his breath coming in gasps. ”Thou wilt wait for His coming? Nay, my little sister, thy time of waiting is over. The Messiah is here! The Christ is born! O that I might shout it from the housetop, that my father and mother and all the world may know that the Lord hath kept His promise and the Messiah hath come!”

Ezra's whole heart and soul were full of a great new hope, and the sight of Naomi's tear-stained face and groping, outstretched hands made him long to tell her the good tidings at once.

But the boy's love for his unhappy little sister made him wise beyond his years.

”If I tell her, and it does not come to pa.s.s as she wishes, it will break her heart,” he argued. ”The Messiah is but a tiny Baby now, weak and helpless. It may be He must grow to manhood before He can heal the blind, the deaf, and the sick. Who knows? Not I. I will not tell her yet.”

So Ezra clattered noisily up the remaining steps of the stairway, calling out:

”Naomi! Naomi! Where art thou? Oh, here thou art! Are thy sandals well tied? For I have come to take thee down to the inn stable to show thee something there. And what it is, thou couldst never guess if thou didst guess a hundred years.”

Naomi shook her head.

”Show me? What could I see? Nay, I will go nowhere, Ezra,” she answered sadly. ”If I went, I could not see thy wondrous sight. I would far rather stay at home.”

”But this is something to feel,” said Ezra coaxingly, putting his arm about Naomi and leading her gently toward the stairway. ”Tell me, dost thou remember when young Deborah, the vine-dresser's wife, laid something soft and warm in thine arms?”

”A baby, Ezra?” asked Naomi, stopping short. ”A baby at the inn stable?”

”Aye,” said Ezra firmly, ”a Baby! A Baby born in a stable and lying in a manger because there was no room last night at the inn.”