Читать книгу Boy of Nazareth - Mary Esther Miller MacGregor - Страница 3

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THE SUNNY SQUARE in the center of the village rang with laughter and shouting. It was a great day for the schoolboys of Nazareth. Early that morning Rabbi Ezra, the village schoolmaster, had mounted his donkey and gone up over the hills to the wedding of his brother’s son at Nain. And so all the boys who attended the synagogue school were having a holiday.

It was unusual to see such a crowd of the larger boys and girls playing in the streets in the morning. For there were no idle boys and girls in Nazareth.

When he was seven years of age every boy in the village started to morning school, and in the afternoon he was busy at home, where his father taught him his trade. Girls were kept at home both morning and afternoon, under their mothers’ eyes. They helped carry jars of water from the village well and took their places at the little stone mills where the grain for the coarse bread was ground. They learned to spin and weave too, and to make pottage and cheese and barley cakes.

But today, work and lessons were forgotten. The hot dust of the square was trampled by many feet. Even the girls of ten and eleven were helping their brothers celebrate. There were Saul and Jacob, the shepherd’s tall sons, with their good-natured, chubby sisters, Miriam and Adah. There was quiet, grave young Asa, grandson of old Asa who owned one of the richest vineyards on the hills above the town. With Asa was his little sister, Adina, with her long black curls. There were Joseph and John, the potter’s sons, their long nimble fingers already showing something of their father’s training, and their tall sister, Leah.

Because the schoolmaster had gone to a wedding, the boys and girls must have one too. Saul, the shepherd’s oldest lad, being the biggest, had given himself the part of the chief character—the governor of the feast. This was a part even more important than that of the bridegroom. Saul was sitting in state under the one olive tree of the square, shouting orders to his many servants. Young Asa, the bridegroom, came striding out from behind the well curb, gaily draped in his mother’s head veil. He was followed by a procession of his friends, shouting and hammering on anything that would serve to make a great noise. From an arched gateway in the stone wall at the opposite side of the square Adina, leading a procession of girls, came dancing out to welcome the bridegroom.

“Behold, the bridegroom cometh! Go ye out to meet him!” shouted Saul, fairly swelling with importance.

The procession of girls, with their jingling bracelets and gay head coverings, had danced halfway across the square to meet the bridegroom when a sudden halt was called. Someone remembered that at a wedding there must be a bride, and they had entirely forgotten her! Who was going to be the bride?

At once the square was filled with noisy chatter. Leah, the potter’s daughter, pushed boldly forward.

“You shall be the bride, Adina, and I will lead the maidens. I can dance better than you anyway.”

“But I want to lead the maidens,” wailed round-faced Miriam, the shepherd’s daughter. “Leah, you and Adina always take the best parts.”

Young Asa, who was a peaceable lad, tried to settle the dispute by ordering his sister to be the bride, but the bridal procession had become a shrill, scolding mob, and nobody heard him. The other boys added their voices to the uproar. A flock of doves, that had lighted on a tower near by, rose with a startled whirr, the sunlight flashing from their wings. Saul, finding that even the commands of the governor were unheeded, picked up a stone. But he did not throw it. Away up the narrow street there sounded a ringing call. The children turned to look, and all shouted a glad answer.

A boy was coming swiftly down the street—a handsome lad, dressed like all the other village boys in a striped blue smock and scarlet girdle. His head was covered with red-gold curls. His eyes were a shining blue. Laughing and leaping, he ran into the midst of the noisy, quarrelsome little group.

He was welcomed with shouts of delight. “Jesus, Jesus!” they all cried. “Come and play!”

“Come and make them play the game right!” cried Leah.

“How did you get away from the shop, Jesus?” cried young Asa, flinging himself joyously upon his friend.

“Asa said you had work to do,” said Saul, dropping his stone.

“The usurer ... from Capernaum ... he came!” Jesus was almost breathless after his swift run. “My father wanted to talk to him, and he told me to run and play! Come! The wedding! The wedding! Is everybody ready?”

He clapped his hands, and the actors ran to their places. He gave swift orders. Adina must still lead the maidens. Miriam must be the bride, for Miriam was short and Joseph was her father, and a father must be bigger than a daughter. Leah would be the bride’s mother, because Leah was tall and could act so well. Oh, how fine they all looked! It would be the grandest wedding!

“But you, Jesus,” cried young Asa, when everyone had been given a part, “you have kept nothing for yourself.” Asa glanced jealously at the governor of the feast. “You are as tall as Saul, even if he is a year older.”

Jesus only laughed. A part for himself? He was not in the least concerned about that. When all were ready, he fell in at the end of the bridegroom’s procession, the humblest place of all. Taking a reed whistle from his girdle, he piped a gay little tune that set all the feet dancing across the square.

Mothers looked out from the low arched doorways of their homes and smiled at the gay scene. Deborah, the wife of the shepherd, was spinning under the shade of the grapevines at her door. She had been listening with an anxious frown to the loud wrangling voices of her children, but her face cleared as the sounds changed to laughter and singing. She stopped her wheel to listen. Then she saw the gay procession as the door of the courtyard swung aside to admit her pretty young sister-in-law, Zara. She had just been to the well in the center of the square and was carrying a tall jar of water on her head.

“Is Mary’s lad out there playing, Zara?” Deborah asked.

“Jesus? Yes, he just came,” Zara answered as she emptied her jar into the huge household vessel. The gurgling water and her tinkling bracelets made a dainty musical accompaniment. “The children were all quarreling when I went to the well,” she added, slipping the jar to her shoulder again. “But the carpenter’s lad came running down the hill, and now they are all as peaceful as a flock of doves.”

“It is strange,” Deborah said, turning to her wheel again. “When Jesus plays with them, they never quarrel. His mother is like that, too. Have you noticed, Zara, that when Mary comes to the well in the evening the unkind gossip dies away?”

But Zara had swung open the courtyard gate again and was off for another jar of water. Deborah sent her wheel spinning and joined in the joyous wedding hymn the children were singing.

They marched round and round the dusty square, clapping their hands in time to the singing, and the lilt of the whistle. When the procession was finished they all sat on the ground under the shade of the olive tree. This was the wedding feast, and the governor sat at the head with much pomp and ceremony. Prickly pears from the cactus hedge that surrounded the square were served, and Jesus was the waiter. He ran about, serving the governor with mock humility, making everyone laugh at his antics.

When the wedding was over, the children played funeral. A pet dove belonging to Reuben, the shepherd’s youngest child, had been killed by a hawk that morning, and the little boy was still mourning his loss. They would give the pet a grand funeral, Jesus declared, and that would be some comfort to Reuben. Four boys bore the dove on a board high on their shoulders. The others followed in line, wailing and crying. Jesus came last, playing a melancholy dirge on his whistle. They crossed the sunny square solemnly and marched up the street toward the hills, where all bodies were laid away in caves in the rocks.

As the procession wound slowly up the street it passed a courtyard where a gate in the high stone wall stood open. Jesus, marching at the rear, paused to look in. This was his home, the little white house of Joseph the carpenter. Along one side of a paved courtyard ran two low, flat-roofed buildings. The one near the gate was the carpenter shop, the other was the dwelling house. There were grapevines growing up the courtyard wall, and before the door of the home grew a wide-branched mulberry tree. Two men were coming out of the low arched doorway of the shop. One was Simeon, the moneylender, dressed in rich, flowing robes and jeweled turban. The other was Joseph, the carpenter, wearing plain garments and leather apron.

Jesus stood by the gate a moment, then he ran after the procession. “Asa,” he whispered to his friend, “I must go. The usurer is leaving and my father will need me.”

“But the usurer is not yet gone, Jesus,” Asa coaxed. “Come up to the hills with us. It is no fun without you. After the burial we will play robbers in our cave.”

But already Jesus had turned and started back toward his home. He ran across the courtyard toward the door of the shop. Through the open doorway of the home he caught sight of his mother and waved his hand. She was seated on the stone floor, turning the small mill that ground the meal for their bread. At the other side of the mill sat his little sister, Ruth. There were four younger brothers in the family. Three of them were in the procession going up the hill, but baby Simon was rolling around on the doorstep. He gave a squeal of delight at the sight of his big brother and held out his arms.

Jesus’ mother, glancing up from beneath the soft blue veil that shaded her face, watched him lovingly until he disappeared in the gloom of the shop door.

Jesus seated himself on the stone floor among the sweet-smelling shavings and seized the leg of the table on which he had been working. He could see across the hot courtyard to where his father and Simeon were standing. The camel knelt; the richly robed usurer seated himself. The camel rose, uttering groans and protests in camel language, strode softly across the courtyard, and went swaying down the street.

Joseph came slowly back to the shop. He was a tall man with a kind, strong face. Although still quite young, constant work at his carpenter’s bench had given a slight stoop to his broad shoulders.

Coming in from the glare of the white-walled courtyard, he did not at first notice Jesus, and his face was sad. Then he caught sight of the boy.

“Why, son,” he cried. “I did not know you had come back from play.”

“I came just this moment,” Jesus answered. “Oh, Father, we had a wonderful time! We had a wedding, and Asa was the bridegroom and Saul was the governor of the feast. And then we had a funeral for little Reuben’s pet dove, and Reuben was the chief mourner.”

The man’s anxious face brightened. “And what part did Jesus take, pray?” he asked, smiling.

“I? I don’t remember. Oh, yes, I was the chief musician.” He looked across at Joseph, his eyes dancing with laughter.

Joseph smiled. “Indeed, I have no doubt it was good music,” he said. He seated himself upon the floor opposite the boy and took into his skilled brown hands a part of the camel saddle he was shaping.

The shop was low and dim, but it was cool and pleasant in contrast with the white glare of the courtyard. The arched doorway let in enough light and gave a view of the courtyard and of the great hills that rose beyond on every side, all golden in the sunshine.

Joseph’s plane worked steadily and swiftly. Jesus noticed the anxious look on the man’s face, and his gay chatter ceased. His fingers moved deftly over the piece of wood as he whittled and smoothed it into shape. But his questioning eyes wandered often from his work to the grave face of the man opposite. Joseph was in trouble, and Jesus’ loving heart was touched. This Simeon of Capernaum had been visiting them at regular periods ever since Jesus could remember, and his coming always seemed to cast a shadow over their little home.

Little Ruth came running across the courtyard with their midday meal, a light lunch which Joseph always ate in the shop. Her blue head veil floated behind, her anklets shone in the sun. She carried a pile of flat cakes, hot from the oven, with a dish of dried olives. She was a beautiful child, with dark eyes and regular features like her father’s.

“I could not go out to play, Jesus,” she pouted, as she gave him his cakes. “And Adina was there, and Leah!”

“It was too bad, sister,” Jesus said, comfortingly, “I could not stay long either. But I will take you to Miriam’s the next time I go, if Mother can spare you.”

Ruth smiled at her brother. She gathered up the brass tray and water jar and ran back to the house.