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 STORIES OF 
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 NEW YORK CINCINNATI CHICAGO 
 AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 
 
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
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 Received ^ff~l~ ,1900. 
 
 Accession No. 0/6 c/ <9 , Class No. 
 


ECLECTIC SCHOOL READINGS 
 
 OLD STORIES OF THE EAST 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES BALDWIN 
 
 NEW YORK-:- CINCINNATI-:- CHICAGO 
 AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 
 
%> 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY 
 AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY. 
 
 STO. OF THE EAST. 
 
 \V. P. -2. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THERE are few stories which in themselves are more intensely 
 iteresting than those that have come down to us from antiquity 
 
 rough the medium of the Hebrew Scriptures. Yet they have 
 een so generally and so exclusively employed for the purpose of 
 imparting religious instruction, that their purely literary qualities 
 have not always received the attention which they merit. By 
 very many persons, grown-up people as well as children, they are 
 regarded as being inseparably connected with the services of the 
 Sunday school and the Church, and hence scarcely to be thought 
 of during the secular days of the week. There is really no good 
 reason why this should be so. Indeed, there is no good reason 
 why children in the day schools should not read these old stories 
 of the East with as much freedom and with as eager zest as they 
 peruse the classic myths of Greece or the ever-charming tales 
 with which the world of modern fiction abounds. 
 
 In the present volume it has been the aim of the author to 
 retell these stories from a literary standpoint, and in exactly the 
 same manner as he would retell other stories pertaining to the 
 infancy of the human race. He has endeavored to represent 
 the actors in them as real men and women inhabiting the same 
 world as ourselves ; and, while it has been neither possible nor 
 
 3 
 
desirable to omit frequent allusions to the supernatural, care has 
 been taken not to trespass on the domain of the religious teacher 
 In order the better to carry out this plan, the Hebrew names are 
 used sparingly, and are often omitted in favor of their English 
 equivalents. It is believed that this device will not only give to 
 some of the stories r, flavor of newness, but that it will in many 
 instances help the young reader to a readier appreciation of their 
 beauty. 
 
 While each of the twelve stories in this volume is wholly inde- 
 pendent of the others, and may be read without any knowledge 
 of those which precede it, there is nevertheless a continuity from 
 the first to the last, giving to the collection the completeness of a 
 single narrative. It comprises, in short, the history of the origin 
 of the Hebrew race, and of the chief events connected with the 
 life of that people down to the period of their greatest prosperity. 
 
 Whether or not this presentation of the subject may be an 
 incentive to a closer acquaintance with the matchless volume from 
 which the stories are derived, has not been a matter of considera- 
 tion on the part of the writer. His sole aim has been to prepare 
 a book which all children at school may read with pleasure, both 
 because of the simple language in which it is written and because 
 of the conceptions of beauty and truth that are found in the 
 stories which it contains. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE GARDEN OF DELIGHT 7 
 
 THE Two BROTHERS 14 
 
 THE FLOOD OF WATERS 18 
 
 THE GREAT CHIEF. 
 
 I. The Promise 27 
 
 II. The New Name 30 
 
 III. The Strangers 31 
 
 IV. The Burnt Offering 36 
 
 V. The Faithful Servant 39 
 
 VI. Beauty and Laughter 45 
 
 THE MASTER OF THE LAND OF THE NILE. 
 
 I. The Dreamer . 51 
 
 II. The Journey 53 
 
 III. The Dry Well 58 
 
 IV. The Caravan . . 63 
 
 V. The Prison 67 
 
 VI. The Dreams 70 
 
 VII. The Ten Strangers 77 
 
 VIII. The Little Brother 80 
 
 IX. The Discovery 83 
 
 THE GREAT LAWGIVER. 
 
 I. The King's Daughter 88 
 
 II. The Shepherd . 93 
 
 III. The Burning Bush - 97 
 
 IV. The Ten Plagues . . . . . . . 101 
 
 V. The Long Journey 106 
 
" THE MAN WHOSE EYES WERE OPEN." 
 
 I. The Soothsayer 112 
 
 II. The Vision . . . . . . .115 
 
 III. The First Mountain 119 
 
 IV. The Second Mountain 123 
 
 V. The Third Mountain . . . . . . .125 
 
 THE BEE AND THE GAZELLE. 
 
 I. The Bee 128 
 
 II. The Gazelle .132 
 
 III. The Song 139 
 
 IDOL BREAKER. 
 
 I. The Idol .143 
 
 II. The Angel ........ 145 
 
 III. The Camp 151 
 
 IV. The Flight 155 
 
 THE STORY OF SPLENDID SUN. 
 
 I. The Wanderers 160 
 
 II. The Stranger 163 
 
 III. The Riddle .166 
 
 IV. The Foxes . 173 
 
 V. The Secret .180 
 
 VI. The Temple 184 
 
 A STORY OF HARVEST TIME. 
 
 I. The Gleaner ... . .187 
 
 II. The Harvest Feast .... . 194 
 III. The Wedding .... \ ... 196 
 
 THE SHEPHERD BOY WHO BECAME KING. 
 
 I. The Seer . 199 
 
 II. The King 202 
 
 III. The Giant ....... 204 
 
 IV. The Camp 206 
 
 V. The Sling ..... .210 
 
OLD STORIES OF THE EAST. 
 
 W 
 
 ! 
 
 \v 
 
 I 
 
 THE GARDEN OF DELIGHT. 
 
 ONCE there was a Man, and he lived in a wonder- 
 ful garden. I do not know how large the garden 
 was, but it was full of beautiful things. Four rivers 
 owed through it ; and there were many little lakes 
 nd waterfalls, and cool, bubbling springs. All the 
 finest fruits in the world grew there, and the trees 
 were full of blossoms, and the ground was covered 
 with flowers the whole year round : for there was 
 o winter there, no snow, nor ice, nor killing 
 rost ; but every day the warm winds blew softly 
 from the sea, and the mild sun looked down from 
 the clear blue sky. 
 
 The Man had been in the garden ever since he 
 could remember. The great Master had placed 
 him there to watch and tend it. For a long time 
 
 7 
 
he was very happy, and he had no thought of any- 
 thing but of his work and of the many beautiful 
 things that were around him. After a while, how- 
 ever, he began to feel very lonely in that great 
 garden all by himself. He thought how much 
 better it would be if he could only have some one 
 to talk with, and to help him in his work. He 
 could not remember that he had ever seen any 
 human being, and he did not know whether there 
 were any other men or women in all the world. 
 But he was very lonely ; and the more he thought 
 about it, the lonelier he became. 
 
 One day the Master sent a Woman into the 
 garden, to live there and to be the Man's wife. 
 She was very beautiful, graceful and tall and 
 fair; and when the Man saw her, he was filled with 
 wonder and delight. And she was pleased too; 
 for the Man was noble and strong and brave and 
 handsome, and all that the Master had told her 
 about him was true. And so the two lived together 
 in the garden, and tended and kept it. They had 
 a care not only for the flowers and fruits, but for 
 the animals ; for among the trees there were many 
 birds, and all kinds of beasts roamed freely about 
 the garden. When the Man and the Woman 
 walked out, every creature was glad to see them. 
 Lions and tigers, as well as the timid little animals 
 
of the fields, would play before them ; and all kinds 
 of birds 'would sing in the branches above them. 
 Everything that lived in the garden was tame 
 and gentle, and there was nothing that would hurt 
 any one or make one afraid. There was not even 
 a thorn or a thistle to be found anywhere. 
 
 In the very center of the garden there stood a 
 wonderful tree that was always full of fine fruit. 
 The Man and the Woman went often to look at it, 
 and to sit in its shade; but they did not touch 
 the beautiful apples that grew upon its branches. 
 The Master of the garden had told the Man to let 
 them alone. 
 
 " You may eat every other kind of fruit," he said, 
 " but you must never, never taste these apples." 
 
 And then he told the Man what would happen if 
 he should ever taste them. There was a kind of 
 poison in them that would change his whole nature. 
 He would grow tired of his work ; he would be- 
 come restless and ill at ease ; he would grumble 
 and complain; he would make everybody unhappy; 
 he would frighten the birds, and they would fly 
 away from him ; he would abuse the beasts, and 
 they would become his enemies ; he would neglect 
 his duty, and thorns and thistles would spring up; 
 and by and by he would die. 
 
 Often when the Man and the Woman looked at 
 
IO 
 
 the fruit, they wondered how anything so beautiful 
 could do so much harm. But whenever the thought 
 came into their minds that they would like to have 
 just one taste of it, the Man would shake his head, 
 and say, " The Master forbids." 
 
 Then, hand in hand, they would walk away; and 
 the birds in the trees would sing as they passed, 
 and the beasts would dance before them. 
 
 There was one cunning Beast, however, that did 
 not love the Man and Woman. He was a strange 
 creature, that was never so happy as when plotting 
 mischief. But in the garden, where everything was 
 friendly to everything else, he did not dare to do 
 any harm openly. 
 
 One day he met the Woman alone, just after she 
 had been looking at the beautiful fruit. He knew 
 that she wanted to taste it. 
 
 " Do you believe what the Master told you about 
 those apples ? " he said. 
 
 "Yes," she said; "for the Master planted the 
 tree, and he knows all about its fruit." 
 
 " You are very silly," said the cunning Beast. " I 
 know all about the fruit, and I tell you it will not 
 hurt you at all." 
 
 " But why, then, should the Master forbid us to 
 taste it ? " she asked. 
 
 " He knows that it will make you wise," he said. 
 
II 
 
 " He knows that it will make you like him ; and he 
 wants to keep you poor and ignorant and weak, so 
 that you will not know how to do anything but tend 
 and keep his garden." 
 
 " The fruit really is beautiful," said the Woman ; 
 and she turned and looked at the tree again. 
 
 " And it is good, too," said the Beast. " Come, 
 I'll get one of the apples for you, and you can taste 
 it. He will never know." 
 
 And while the Woman stood and hardly knew 
 what to do, the Beast ran and pulled one of the 
 apples from the tree and gave it to her. It seemed 
 to be prettier than ever, now that it lay in her hand. 
 
 She would just take a little taste. It could do no 
 harm. 
 
 Ah ! but it was so good, that she ate it all up. 
 
 Then she thought it would be a great pity if the 
 Man could not taste of the fruit too ; and she went 
 to the tree and picked the finest apple she could 
 reach, and ran to give it to him. 
 
 " It is not true about those apples," she said. " I 
 have eaten one of them, and it hasn't hurt me at all. 
 And so I have brought you one. Just taste it, and 
 see how good it is." 
 
 " Well, the Master will never know," said the 
 Man; and he took the apple, and ate it, and thought 
 it was very good. 
 
12 
 
 A little while after that, the Master came into the 
 garden to look at things and to talk with the Man 
 and the Woman ; for he very often came in the cool 
 of the evening, and walked with them among the 
 flowers and trees. They heard him calling their 
 names, and they felt sure that he had found out all 
 about what they had done. So, instead of answer- 
 ing him and running to meet him, as they had 
 always done before, they made haste and hid them- 
 selves in a thicket of underbrush. 
 
 But the Master saw them, and bade them come 
 out. Then he asked what they had been doing to 
 make them afraid of him. Of course, they had 
 to tell him. But the Man tried to put all the 
 blame on the Woman. 
 
 " She gave it to me, and I did eat," he said. 
 
 And then the Woman tried to excuse herself, and 
 said that it was the fault of the cunning Beast. 
 
 " He told me that it would not harm us," she 
 said. " He told me that if we would eat of it, we 
 should be wise ; and when he offered me one of the 
 apples, it was so beautiful that I could not help but 
 taste it." 
 
 " But did I not forbid you even to touch the 
 fruit of the tree ? " said the Master. " Did I not 
 tell you that, if you did so, it would cause grief 
 and pain and death ? And now, strange to say, 
 
13 
 
 you have chosen to believe this Beast rather than 
 me." 
 
 The Man hung his head, and said not a word; 
 and the Woman wept. 
 
 Then the Master told them what he would do to 
 punish them. As for the Beast, he was turned into 
 a serpent, and has crawled on the ground and been 
 hated by all men ever since. And as for the 
 Man and the Woman, they were driven out of the 
 Garden of Delight, and were told that they must 
 work for their bread all the rest of their days. 
 Thorns and thistles grew up in their path, and the 
 birds stopped singing and flew from them in fear, 
 and the wild beasts snarled at them and slunk away 
 into the forest. And the Master placed a watch- 
 man at the gate of the garden, with a sun-bright 
 sword in his hand, so that nobody could ever go 
 into it again. 
 
 The name of the Man was Adam, and the name 
 of the Woman was Eve. 
 
THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 WHEN the Man and the Woman were driven out 
 of the Garden of Delight, they wandered about for 
 some time, hardly knowing what to do. The whole 
 world was before them, and they could go where 
 they chose ; and yet they wanted to stay as near as 
 they could to the place where they had passed so 
 many happy days. So at last the Man built a little 
 hut in a pleasant spot near the bank of a great 
 river, where the sun shone warm, and the grass 
 grew tall, and the trees were laden with wild fruits ; 
 and there they lived. The Man dug up the ground, 
 and sowed seeds, and raised grain ; and the Woman 
 kept the little house, and learned to make clothing 
 of fig leaves, and afterwards of the skins of animals. 
 
 And so one year after another passed by, and in 
 time the house was full of children, and it was as 
 much as the Man could do to find food enough for 
 the many mouths that were always wanting to be 
 fed; but the Woman, when she saw the happy, 
 
 14 
 
smiling faces of her boys and girls, and heard their 
 childish prattle, would not have given them up for 
 all the joys that she might have had in the Garden 
 of Delight. 
 
 The eldest of the boys was a headstrong fellow, 
 bold and rash; and when he grew up, he became a 
 farmer, like his father. The second son was a gen- 
 tle lad, but, with all his gentleness, so vain that his 
 mother called him Vanity; and when he grew up 
 he became a shepherd, and tended sheep on the 
 grass-covered hills. 
 
 It was the custom of the young men to carry 
 presents now and then to the great Master, a 
 custom which their father also observed, and which 
 they had learned from him. One day they went, 
 as usual, each with his gift. The Farmer carried 
 a basket of ripe fruit, yellow and golden, mellow 
 and sweet. The Shepherd carried two young 
 lambs, white and spotless as the snow on the 
 high mountain tops. The Master was pleased 
 with the lambs; but for some reason I cannot 
 tell what he did not care for the basket of fruit. 
 The proud heart of the Shepherd was filled with 
 joy, and I do not know how often he taunted his 
 elder brother because he had failed to please the 
 Master. The Farmer was at first grieved, and then 
 he grew angry; and one day, when they were in the 
 
i6 
 
 field together, his wrath was stirred up until he 
 could hold himself no longer : in a blind fit of rage 
 he struck his brother a fierce blow, and stretched 
 him dead upon the ground. 
 
 When he saw that the Shepherd did not move 
 nor speak, he was frightened, and ran and hid him- 
 self among the trees. But he seemed to see the 
 white face of his handsome brother always before 
 him; and he heard a voice, saying, "Where is he? " 
 
 "Am I my brother's keeper?" he asked; and he 
 tried to stop his ears, so that he should not hear 
 anything more. 
 
 But the voice said, " What have you done ? Your 
 brother's blood cries to me from the ground." 
 
 Then the young man knew that it was the 
 Master's voice; and he covered his face and stood 
 trembling. 
 
 " For this thing which you have done," said the 
 Master, "you shall wander alone and unfriended 
 through the land. Even the earth shall be against 
 you ; for when you till the ground, it shall not yield 
 grain, and the trees shall refuse to bear fruit for 
 you as in bygone days, and naught that you do shall 
 prosper." 
 
 Then the young man, in great distress, prayed 
 the 1 T aster that he would somewhat lighten his 
 punishment. " For," said he, " if I go out thus to 
 
17 
 
 wander alone and unfriended through the land, the 
 first man that meets me will slay me." 
 
 So then the Master put a mark upon him to warn 
 all who saw him that they should do him no harm. 
 And the young man wandered far away into a 
 strange land in the distant East. There he made 
 his home, and there he built a city, the first city 
 of which we have any account. But no matter 
 what he did, the dreadful mark was always upon 
 him ; and he fancied that the air was full of voices, 
 asking, "Where is your brother? Where is your 
 brother ? " Thus he lived unfriended and in dis- 
 tress all the days of his life. 
 
 The name of this farmer was Cain, a word which 
 in ancient times meant Man ; and the name of the 
 brother whom he slew was Abel, or Vanity. 
 
 Three of the great-grandsons of Cain became 
 men of much renown : one, Jabal, was the founder 
 of a nation of tent dwellers; one, Jubal, was the 
 inventor of the harp ; and one, Tubal-cain, worked 
 in iron and brass, and was the most famous smith 
 of ancient times. 
 
 STO. OF THE EAST 2 
 
THE FLOOD OF WATERS. 
 
 IN those very early times people lived much 
 longer than they live now. Whether it was be- 
 cause the air was milder, or the water purer, or their 
 food more simple, I do not know; but it is said 
 that men often lived to be seven hundred, eight 
 hundred, and even nine hundred years old ; and 
 one man was nine hundred and sixty-nine years 
 of age when he died. A person was only in his 
 prime at five hundred, and the golden days of 
 childhood and youth must have lasted for at least 
 a century. 
 
 You would think that people were very happy in 
 those days, but they were not. They were quarrel- 
 ing and fighting among themselves almost all the 
 time. Those who were powerful and strong op- 
 pressed those who were feeble and weak. The rich 
 robbed the poor. Strange cruel men, called giants, 
 roamed here and there, filling the world with terror. 
 There was no peace or safety anywhere, but only dis- 
 
19 
 
 tress and fear and dreadful wickedness. It seemed 
 as if it would have been better had the earth never 
 been made. 
 
 In the midst of all this wickedness there was only 
 one man who was good and true. The name of 
 this man was Noah, which, in the language of that 
 ancient time, meant Comfort. Why he was called 
 by that name I do not know; but perhaps it was 
 because his ways were so cheery and pleasant, and 
 his heart so kind and pure. He often told his 
 neighbors how wrong it was to do as they were 
 doing, and he warned them that if they did not 
 change their ways some great disaster would surely 
 befall them. But they only laughed at him, and 
 then kept on in their wickedness as before. 
 
 At last, when Noah was five hundred years old, 
 he began to do a thing at which everybody won- 
 dered. He and his three sons set to work felling 
 trees in the woods; and when they had cut a great 
 deal of timber, they hauled it into one place, and 
 began to shape the logs into posts and beams and 
 rafters and planks. The neighbors came and looked 
 on while the men worked, and then they jeered at 
 them. 
 
 "What are you doing?" they asked. 
 
 "We are building a boat," said the good man 
 quietly. 
 
2O 
 
 "Ha, ha!" laughed his neighbors. "Who ever 
 did so foolish a thing as to build a boat on a hilltop 
 a hundred miles from the sea ? You have lost your 
 senses." 
 
 " I have not lost my senses," was the answer. 
 "The great God whom I worship is angry with 
 you because of your wickedness, and he is going to 
 send a great flood of water upon you to destroy you 
 from the earth. It was he that bade me build this 
 boat, or ark, that so I and my family may be saved 
 alive; and you too may be saved if you will only 
 turn about and live as you ought, and help me in 
 this work." 
 
 But they laughed and jeered all the more, and 
 instead of helping they tried to hinder him. 
 
 It took the good man and his sons a long time to 
 finish the boat, a hundred years, or nearly so. It 
 was a huge vessel, five hundred feet long and eighty 
 feet broad. It was three stories high, with one door, 
 and one window in the side, and the whole was 
 covered with a roof. When at last it was all ready, 
 and made water-tight without and within, they began 
 to store it with food. They put into it not only 
 provisions for themselves, but a great supply of hay 
 and grain, and roots and fruit, and eatables of every 
 sort. Then they went out into the woods and fields, 
 and brought together all the wild and tame animals 
 
(21) 
 
22 
 
 that could be found, beasts and fowls and creep- 
 ing things, two of every kind that lived on the 
 earth. It was a strange sight to see these creatures 
 marching up the hill, and going quietly into the 
 great boat, as if they knew that it was the only safe 
 place for them. The lions did not quarrel with the 
 tigers, and the sheep were not afraid of the wolves; 
 but each one took the place that had been set apart 
 for it in the ark, and all were as peaceable and kind 
 as though they were members of the same happy 
 family. When the last of these creatures had been 
 safely housed, Noah and his three sons and their 
 wives, eight persons in all, went up into the ark, 
 and the door was shut behind them. 
 
 Then the rain began to fall in torrents, and the 
 fountains of the great deep were broken up. For 
 forty days and forty nights this went on without 
 stopping, and the sea was filled to overflowing, and 
 the water covered the land until even the tops of 
 the mountains were hidden by it. All the people 
 of the land were drowned, and all the cattle and 
 wild beasts and creeping things in field or wood 
 were destroyed. But the great ark floated on the 
 waters, and the eight good people and the living 
 creatures that were housed within it were kept 
 alive and safe. 
 
 For five long months the land was covered by the 
 
23 
 
 flood; and those who looked out of the window of 
 the ark could see nothing but water, water every- 
 where. At last, however, there came a great wind 
 which seemed to drive the waters away; and one 
 day the ark settled on the top of a high mountain 
 which men call Mount Ararat to this day. But 
 still the waters sank very slowly, and the people in 
 the ark dared not open the door, for there was no 
 place for them to set their feet outside. 
 
 After forty days, Noah opened the window and 
 let a raven fly out ; for he wanted to see if the bird 
 could live outside of the ark. The raven flew back 
 and forth from one bare mountain crag to another, 
 but it never came back. By and by Noah sent out 
 a dove in the same way; but the dove could find 
 nothing to eat, nor any safe place in which to rest, 
 and so at last returned to the ark. 
 
 A week later, however, when the people looked 
 out of the window, there was no water in sight. 
 From the high place where the ark was lying they 
 could see nothing but bare rocks and rugged peaks 
 and mountain gorges. They did not know that 
 the lower slopes were already green with grass, and 
 that the trees were budding and blossoming as in 
 the time of spring. But one morning they sent 
 out the dove again, and in the evening she came 
 back with an olive branch in her mouth. 
 
24 
 
 " The waters have dried up, and the fields are 
 beginning to appear," they said. 
 
 They staid yet another week in the ark, and then 
 they sent out the dove for the third time. But she 
 did not return again ; for now all the fields were 
 dry, and she could find plenty of food and a place 
 to build her nest. But Noah was not yet ready to 
 leave the ark. 
 
 " Wait a while/' he said, " until the voice of God 
 shall bid us go forth." 
 
 And so, for two months more, they staid in the 
 great vessel, and knew nothing of what was going 
 on in the woods and plains below them. But one 
 day Noah and his sons lifted off the roof of the ark 
 and looked around ; and, at the same time, they 
 seemed to hear a voice bidding them go forth and 
 choose homes for themselves in the land which the 
 great flood had made desolate. Then they opened 
 wide the door of the ark, and all went out, and made 
 their way down the steep mountain side to the green 
 and pleasant plains below ; and the beasts and the 
 fowls and the creeping things went out also, two by 
 two, and scattered hither and thither over the land. 
 They had been in the ark just one year. 
 
 And when Noah and his family reached the foot 
 of the mountain, and saw the meadows dotted with 
 flowers, and the trees already laden with fruit, and 
 
25 
 
 the land lying smiling and fair before them, their 
 hearts were filled with thankfulness. And they 
 built an altar of stones, and worshiped the great 
 God who had blessed them and kept them through 
 so many perils. And while they worshiped, they 
 heard a voice, saying, 
 
 " I will not again curse the ground for man's sake. 
 So long as the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, 
 and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day 
 and night, shall not cease." 
 
 Then, looking up, they saw a rainbow spanning 
 the sky. 
 
 " It is the bow of promise ! " they cried. 
 
 After that, the three sons of Noah went out with 
 their wives into the broad rich valleys that lie on 
 either side of the great river Euphrates; and there 
 they built themselves homes. And by and by 
 many children were born to them, and grandchildren 
 and great-grandchildren, so many that the land 
 was full again of busy people, just as it had been 
 before the great flood. Then some of the people 
 journeyed to the East, and built cities for themselves 
 in the vast plains beyond the snowy mountains. 
 Some went to the South, and found life easy under 
 sunny skies, where the trees were always laden with 
 fruit, and there was no need to toil, or, indeed, to take 
 
26 
 
 any thought for the morrow. Some went to the 
 North, where the summers were short, and the win- 
 ters long and cold ; and they learned to hunt the 
 wild beasts in the great woods, or to build rude boats 
 and sail from place to place along the shore of the 
 sea. Some went to the West, and herded cattle and 
 sheep in the green pasture lands that stretched away 
 and away, even to the Great Sea and the borders of 
 Arabia the Happy. And some crossed over into the 
 rich country of the Nile, where the date palm flour- 
 ished, and bountiful crops of grain were harvested 
 almost every month in the year. But many still 
 remained in the valley of the Euphrates. 
 
 It was thus that the whole world was peopled 
 once again. 
 
THE GREAT CHIEF. 
 
 I. THE PROMISE. 
 
 IN the fertile country many miles to the west of 
 the Euphrates valley there lived a famous Chief 
 who was very rich. It was not the custom in that 
 land to build houses or to have any fixed place for 
 a home ; and so this Chief dwelt in tents, and roved 
 hither and thither, wherever his fancy led him, or 
 wherever the pastures were greenest, or the water 
 most plentiful, or his neighbors most kind. Once 
 he pitched his tents in the wooded valley of the 
 Jordan, once he dwelt for a year in the treeless 
 plains of Arabia, and once when there was a great 
 drought he went down into the Land of the Nile, 
 and camped under the palm trees in full view of the 
 King's palace. But among all the lands through 
 which he had wandered, there was none that seemed 
 so fair to him as the grassy plains and vine-covered 
 hills that lay between the sandy desert and the 
 eastern shore of the Great Sea. Oftentimes when, 
 
 27 
 
28 
 
 in the evening, he stood in the door of his tent and 
 looked towards the setting sun, he fancied that he 
 heard a voice, saying, 
 
 " All this lovely land that you see shall be yours, 
 and your children's, and your children's children's, 
 forever. Go forth and walk through the land in the 
 length of it and the breadth of it; for I have prom- 
 ised it, and will give it unto you." 
 
 Then the great Chief would bow his head and 
 worship and give thanks. 
 
 "It is the voice of God," he would say; "and 
 this land that is so fair and in every way so lovely 
 is the Promised Land." 
 
 And in the early morning he liked to stand by 
 the eastern door of his tent, and watch the sun as it 
 rose from the mystic regions far beyond the valley 
 of the Euphrates. He was now nearly a hundred 
 years old; but he stood as tall and straight as in 
 the days of his youth, his eyes were bright and keen, 
 his step was quick and firm, his voice was clear and 
 strong. The plain before him was dotted with 
 flocks of sheep, and herds of cattle, and droves of 
 camels; and in the grove on either side of him were 
 clusters of tents where lived many busy people, 
 serving women, and milkmaids, and shepherds, and 
 armed men, whose only thought was to do his 
 bidding. 
 
2 9 
 
 Did I say that the Chief was very rich ? Every- 
 thing that he could see from the eastern door 
 of the tent, except the land and the sky, was his 
 own. Sheep, cattle, camels, tents, even the men 
 and women and children, belonged to him ; for in 
 those times one man was often the master and 
 owner of many others ; and, as he was always kind 
 and just and fatherly, nobody complained, and no- 
 body thought there was anything wrong about it. 
 
 The great Chief had not always been a wanderer 
 and dweller in tents. In his youth he had lived 
 with his father and his kinsfolk in the valley of the 
 Euphrates ; and it was there that he married his 
 wife, a dark-eyed beauty whom everybody called the 
 Princess. But when he was seventy-five years old, 
 he heard a voice, saying, 
 
 " Get you out from this country, and from your 
 kindred, and from your father's house, and go west- 
 ward unto the land that I will show you." 
 
 " It is the voice of God," he said ; and he fell 
 down to the ground and worshiped. And on the 
 morrow he gathered together his goods and all his 
 household, and went forth in search of the Promised 
 Land. And that was the way in which he became 
 a roving chieftain in strange lands, and that was 
 why he liked always to watch the rising sun as it 
 came up out of its golden palace in the East. 
 
II. THE NEW NAME. 
 
 Now, at this time the Chief and the Princess 
 had no child of their own. But they had with 
 them a nephew named Lot, who was married and 
 had a family of fair daughters, and was almost as 
 rich in flocks and herds as was the Chief himself. 
 One summer they pitched their tents in the hilly 
 country to the west of the Jordan; for in the lower 
 valleys men had built houses and were tilling the 
 ground, and on the level plain were two busy cities 
 called Sodom and Gomorrah. But there was not 
 much water among the hills ; and when the Chief's 
 herdsmen and Lot's herdsmen met at the wells to 
 water their cattle, they often quarreled and fought. 
 So at last the Chief thought that it would be better 
 for him and his nephew to separate. 
 
 " See all this fair country with rich pastures to 
 the right and the left," he said to Lot. " There 
 is certainly room enough for both of us. So do 
 you choose any part of the land that you like best, 
 and I will take the rest." 
 
 And Lot chose the fields that lay in the level 
 plain, and took a house in Sodom, which was near 
 by ; for he thought that a settled life in town would 
 be pleasanter than dwelling, first here and then 
 there, in tents. But the Chief went a little farther 
 
away, and encamped for a time in the grassy plain 
 of Mamre, close by the hills of Hebron. 
 
 One night, as the Chief lay dreaming in his tent, 
 he was very unhappy because he had no son to 
 whom he might leave his great riches and the 
 pleasant land that had been promised to him and 
 his children forever. 
 
 " How can this promise come true," he said, 
 " when I have no children ? " 
 
 But even while he was complaining, he looked 
 up at the sky, where millions of stars were twin- 
 kling; and a voice spoke to him, and said that not 
 only should a son be born to him, but his people 
 should in time be more in number than the 
 starry host above him. The good man wondered 
 how this could be, and yet he believed and never 
 doubted. 
 
 " It is the voice of God," he said ; and he lifted 
 his hands towards heaven, and worshiped. 
 
 And the voice said, " Men shall henceforth call 
 your name Abraham; for that is a word which 
 means Father of a Multitude, and a father of 
 nations you shall be." 
 
 III. THE STRANGERS. 
 
 The summer that the Chief was ninety-nine years 
 old, a strange and dreadful thing happened. 
 
32 
 
 One hot day he was sitting in the shade of his 
 tent, looking out over the plain towards the city 
 where his nephew Lot was living. All at once he 
 saw three noble strangers standing by the tent 
 door ; and, as they seemed to be travelers from some 
 distant land, he ran to meet and greet them, as was 
 the custom of the time. He bowed himself down 
 before one of them who seemed to be the leader, 
 and said, 
 
 " Pray do not pass by without resting a little 
 while. Come and sit down under this tree, and I 
 will have water brought that you may wash your 
 feet. And then you shall eat a little and refresh 
 yourselves before you pass on." 
 
 " You speak well," said the strangers. " Let it 
 be as you have said." And they sat down under 
 the tree, as they were bidden. 
 
 Then the Chief ran into the women's tent and 
 said to his wife, " Be quick, and knead three meas- 
 ures of fine meal, and make it into cakes, and bake 
 them on the hearth; for three strangers are wait- 
 ing under the tree before the door." 
 
 Then he ran into the field and fetched the finest 
 calf from the herd, and gave it to one of his young 
 men to kill and roast for his strange guests. And 
 when it was ready, he took butter and milk and the 
 hot cakes and the choicest parts of the meat, and set 
 
33 
 
 the food before the strangers who were waiting 
 under the tree. 
 
 " Surely," he whispered to his wife, " these are not 
 common men ; for never have I seen any that were 
 so stately and noble. Their leader must be the 
 Lord himself, and his two companions are none 
 other than angels." And then he hastened back to 
 wait upon them while they ate. 
 
 " Where is your wife ? " asked one of the stran- 
 gers, looking around. 
 
 " Behold, she is in her tent," said the Chief. 
 
 The Princess was at that moment standing inside 
 the door. Ninety years old though she was, she 
 was as fair and lovely as when the Chief had wooed 
 her in her girlhood in the valley of the Euphrates, 
 more than seventy summers before. When the 
 strangers saw her blushing among the curtains of 
 the tent, they told the Chief that the son whom 
 he had waited for so long would be born that very 
 year. The Princess overheard what they said, and 
 she laughed, because she did not believe that it 
 could be so. But her husband, the Chief, said, 
 
 " It is the voice of God, and it must be true." 
 
 At last the strangers arose, and started to go on 
 their way ; and the Chief took his staff in his hand 
 and walked across the fields with them. When they 
 reached the top of the hill and looked towards the 
 
 STO. OF THE EAST 3 
 
34 
 
 east, they saw the fair cities of Sodom and Gomor- 
 rah lying in the midst of the rich plain far below 
 them; and around the cities were orchards and 
 vineyards, and fields of ripening grain, and broad 
 pasture lands where thousands of cattle were 
 feeding. 
 
 " Behold these cities, how beautiful they are!" said 
 the Chief. 
 
 " And yet," said the strangers, "they are so wicked 
 that God will destroy them this very night. We are 
 even now on our way to see if there is any good 
 thing in them at all." 
 
 " Oh, say not so ! " cried the Chief, much grieved 
 at the thought. " Surely, God will not let the inno- 
 cent perish in order that he may punish the doers 
 of evil." 
 
 Then, while the men walked on down the hill, he 
 lifted up his hands, and prayed God to spare the 
 cities of the plain. 
 
 " Suppose there are fifty good men in the place, 
 wilt thou not spare it, O Lord?" he said. 
 
 And the Lord said, " Yes; if I find fifty righteous 
 men in Sodom, I will spare the whole city for their 
 sake." 
 
 "Suppose there shall lack five of being fifty, wilt 
 thou destroy the place for 'lack of five?" said the 
 Chief. 
 
35 
 
 And the Lord said, " I will not destroy it if I find 
 forty-five." 
 
 " Suppose forty good men should be found," said 
 the Chief. 
 
 And the Lord said, " I will spare it for the sake 
 of forty." 
 
 " Oh, have patience with me, and do not be 
 angry!" said the Chief; " but suppose there should 
 be thirty?" 
 
 And the Lord said, " I will not destroy the place 
 if thirty good men are there." 
 
 " Nor if there are twenty ? " said the Chief. 
 
 " For the sake of the twenty, I will spare it," was 
 the answer. 
 
 "Oh, have patience once more ! " said the Chief; 
 u but suppose there are only ten good men among 
 so many ? " 
 
 And the Lord said, "I will spare them all, that so 
 the ten shall not perish." 
 
 Then the Chief turned about, and walked thought- 
 fully back to his tents. But when the strangers 
 went down into Sodom, they found only one good 
 man in all the city, and that was Lot, the nephew 
 of Abraham. So, after they had warned him and 
 made him hasten out of danger, there came a 
 great storm of fire and hail ; and the cities were 
 burned, and the people of the plains destroyed ; and 
 
36 
 
 the beautiful valley was filled with salt water, and 
 became the place of a sea, that is called the Dead 
 Sea even to this day. 
 
 And when Chief Abraham arose in the morning 
 and looked towards the east, he saw the smoke of 
 the country going up as the smoke of a furnace ; 
 and he knew that the cities of the plain were no 
 more. 
 
 IV. THE BURNT OFFERING. 
 
 When Chief Abraham was a hundred years old 
 and his wife ninety-one, the thing came true that 
 had been so often promised, and a son was born to 
 them ; and they named the boy Laughter, because 
 his mother had laughed at the thought of such old 
 people having a child. And there was great joy in 
 the tents of the Chief, because now there was an 
 heir who after a while would be the owner of the 
 flocks and herds, and silver and gold, which the old 
 man had brought together ; and a great feast was 
 made, to which even the kings of the land were in- 
 vited, a feast the memory of which has been kept 
 in mind even to our own day. 
 
 And the child grew, and became a fine lad, hand- 
 some and quick and strong; and his father, rich 
 though he was, loved and prized him more highly 
 than all his wealth. One day the thought came 
 
37 
 
 into Chief Abraham's mind that God had given 
 him everything, and therefore he ought to show his 
 gratitude by offering his most precious possession 
 to God. But what was hfe most precious posses- 
 sion ? Was it not the boy Laughter ? And could 
 he give him up ? Yes, he would do anything to 
 obey the call of duty. 
 
 In those times people thought there was only one 
 way of giving anything to God, and that was to lay 
 it on an altar, and, after it had been slain, to set fire 
 to the wood beneath it and burn it to ashes. They 
 thought, that, as the flames seized upon and removed 
 it from sight, God took it to himself. 
 
 So, when Chief Abraham had become fully per- 
 suaded of his duty, he made up his mind to offer 
 the boy Laughter to God. One morning very early 
 he saddled a donkey, and took with him the boy 
 and two*servants, and set out for a mountain, three 
 days' journey away, where he had before offered 
 sacrifices to God. When they came to the foot 
 of the mountain, he said to his men, 
 
 " Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad 
 will go up alone." 
 
 Then he put a bundle of wood for the altar upon 
 Laughter's shoulders, and took the long knife in 
 one hand and a fagot of fire in the other ; and the 
 two began to climb the mountain together. 
 
38 
 
 By and by the lad said, " My father ! " 
 
 " What is it, my son ? " said Chief Abraham. 
 
 " Here is the wood, and there is the fire," said 
 the lad ; " but where is the lamb for the offer- 
 ing?" 
 
 " My son," said the old man, " God will provide 
 a lamb for the offering." 
 
 And the two went on together. 
 
 When they came to the top of the mountain, 
 they built an altar of stones, and laid the wood upon 
 it. And the Chief bound his son with cords, and 
 laid him upon the wood on the altar. And he 
 stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay 
 the lad. But while his hand was still raised, he 
 heard a voice that seemed to come out of the sky, 
 calling him by name. 
 
 " Here I am," he answered, without looking up. 
 
 " Touch not the lad," said the voice. " Now, 
 indeed, is it clear that you fear the Lord; for you 
 have not withheld your son, your only son, from 
 him." 
 
 And then the Chief lifted his eyes, and saw, close 
 by, a ram caught by the horns in the bushes. And 
 he quickly loosed Laughter from the cords that 
 bound him, and then laid the ram on the wood in 
 his place. And when they had slain the ram, 
 and burnt it as an offering, the two went down 
 
39 
 
 the mountain together, rejoicing. And after that, 
 Abraham pitched his tents by the wells of Beer- 
 sheba, far to the south, near the borders of the 
 great sandy desert. And there they dwelt many 
 years. 
 
 V. THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. 
 
 One morning in early summer Chief Abraham 
 sat in the door of his tent, and talked with his head 
 servant, who had the care of all his goods, and 
 managed all his business. He talked of his old 
 home, where he had lived as a child and as a young 
 man, in the far-away valley of the river Euphrates. 
 He talked of his kinsfolk, who were still in that 
 eastern country, and whom he had not seen for 
 now almost fifty years. He talked of his own 
 wandering life, and of the land flowing with milk 
 and honey which God had promised to give to his 
 children and his children's children, to hold as 
 their own forever. 
 
 "And now," he said, "here is my son Laughter, 
 who was born in this new western land. He has 
 never seen his father's kindred, nor visited his 
 father's native place. He is now a man, and he 
 ought before long to take to himself a wife ; for I am 
 a hundred and twenty-five years old, and soon my 
 wealth will be his. But I cannot bear to have him 
 
40 
 
 wed any of the rude maidens of this barbarous land. 
 Not one of them is worthy to be his wife." 
 
 " But, my master," said the servant, " some of 
 them are very beautiful, and they are the daughters 
 of kings. How can we do better than choose one 
 of them for the young man ? " 
 
 " I will tell you/' said the Chief. " We will find 
 a wife for him among the daughters of my kinsmen 
 in the valley of the great river where I lived in my 
 youth. You shall get ready at once, and go and 
 choose one for him, and bring her hither." 
 
 " But what if the maiden will not come ? " said 
 the servant. " Wouldn't it be better for Laughter 
 to go with me, and choose for himself? For no 
 maiden can well refuse when she sees how comely 
 and fair the young man is." 
 
 " Not so ! " cried the Chief. " My son shall not 
 go with you. He might be tempted to make his 
 home in that country where life is easy. But he 
 must stay here ; for all these rich plains and wooded 
 hills, as far as you can see from yonder mountain 
 top, are to be his and his children's forever. The 
 God whom I worship has promised it. No, you 
 shall not take him with you. " 
 
 " But how shall I find the way ? " asked the 
 servant. " The country is far distant, and there 
 are no roads thither." 
 
" The good angels will go before you, and show 
 you the way," said the Chief. 
 
 " And then, if no maiden will come back with me, 
 what shall I do ? " said the servant. 
 
 " Then you shall return, and you will be free from 
 blame," said the Chief. " But do you make ready 
 and start upon your journey this very day." 
 
 Then the servant chose ten of his master's best 
 camels, and loaded some of them with food for the 
 long journey, and some of them with rich gifts of 
 gold and silver and perfumes and beautiful gar- 
 ments ; and while it was yet morning, he set out 
 across the great plains towards the distant valley of 
 the river Euphrates. And a company of his master's 
 trustiest men went with him as guards and helpers. 
 
 Much of the way was across broad, trackless 
 plains, and among rocky hills, where there was no 
 road nor other pathway ; much of the way was over 
 a barren, sandy desert, where the sun shone hot and 
 no living thing could be seen. And it was many 
 weary days before the servant, with his little com- 
 pany, reached the green valleys, and knew that they 
 were in the country of his master's kindred. Late 
 one afternoon he came to a little city, and stopped 
 outside of the walls by a well of water. It was about 
 the time of day when the women of the place liked 
 to come out with their pitchers and draw water for 
 
42 
 
 use in the household. The servant made his camels 
 lie down about the well ; and then he prayed that 
 the God whom his master worshiped would speed 
 the day, and show kindness to him, and give him a 
 sign, that so his tiresome journey might be at an 
 end. 
 
 " Behold," he said, " I stand here by the well of 
 water, and the maidens of the city come out to fill 
 their pitchers. I will say to the fairest among them, 
 4 Let me drink a little water of thy pitcher ; ' and if 
 one of them shall say, ' Drink, and I will give your 
 camels drink also/ let that be a sign that she is the 
 maiden whom I shall choose for Laughter. In that 
 way I shall know that kindness is shown to my 
 master." 
 
 While he was yet speaking, a fair young girl came 
 tripping down from the city gate with her pitcher 
 on her shoulder. As she came nearer, the servant 
 thought that he had never seen any one so beauti- 
 ful. And she went down the stone steps into the 
 well, and came up with her pitcher dripping. And 
 the servant ran to meet her, and said, 
 
 " Let me, I pray thee, drink a little water of thy 
 pitcher ! " 
 
 And she let down the pitcher upon her hand, 
 and said, " Drink, my lord ! " And when he had 
 drunk as much as he wanted, she said kindly, " Now 
 
(43) 
 
44 
 
 I will draw water for your camels, and let them 
 drink also." 
 
 And she ran and emptied her pitcher into the 
 trough, and hastened back to the well to draw 
 more water. And the man stood and watched her, 
 and wondered if indeed the good angels had shown 
 him the way, and the God of his master had been 
 kind to him ; for the maiden was so beautiful, and 
 withal so kind, that he could not think of choosing 
 any one else to be young Laughter's wife. 
 
 When the camels had done drinking, and the girl 
 had filled her pitcher again with clear, cool water to 
 carry home, he gave her a golden earring of great 
 beauty, and two golden bracelets for her wrists. A 
 shrewd man he was, and he knew right well what 
 would delight the maiden's heart. Then he asked 
 her whose daughter she was, and whether there was 
 room in her father's house for him to lodge there. 
 She told him both her father's name and her grand- 
 father's, and said, 
 
 " There is room enough in our house for you, and 
 for all the men that are with you ; and we have 
 plenty of straw and food for your camels." 
 
 The servant bowed down, and thanked the God of 
 his master for the kindness that had been shown 
 him ; for the name of the maiden's grandfather was 
 that of Chief Abraham's own brother, whom he 
 
45 
 
 had left behind him when he went to the new 
 
 western country so long ago, and the servant 
 
 knew that he had found his master's kindred. 
 
 VI. BEAUTY AND LAUGHTER. 
 
 The young girl hastily took up her pitcher again, 
 and then, carrying it on her shoulder, ran home to 
 her mother's house in the city. She wanted to 
 show her mother and her brother the pretty earring 
 and the bracelets that the stranger had given her. 
 She hurriedly told them all that had happened to 
 her at the well ; and the whole family crowded 
 around her to see the beautiful gifts. And when 
 she had finished her story, her brother ran out to 
 the well to find the stranger, and lead him to the 
 house. 
 
 " Come in, come in ! " he said. " Why do you 
 wait outside the walls? Our house is all ready 
 for you, and we have plenty of food and shelter 
 for the camels." 
 
 Then the servant went with him to the house ; 
 and they took off the packs from the camels' backs, 
 and gave them straw and food. And the brother 
 had water brought for the servant and the men 
 who were with him to wash their feet. 
 
 " Now come in and eat supper with us," he said. 
 
4 6 
 
 " I will not eat until I have told my errand," said 
 the servant. 
 
 " Tell it," said the maiden's mother, " and we will 
 eat afterwards." 
 
 Then the servant told them who his master was, 
 and how rich and great he had become in the new 
 western country where he had gone fifty years 
 before. And he told them about the young man 
 whom they called Laughter, and who was to have 
 all his master's wealth ; and how there was no 
 maiden in all the western land who was good 
 enough to be the young man's wife; and how the 
 great Chief had now sent his servant to this his 
 fatherland to find a wife for Laughter among the 
 fair daughters of his own kindred. 
 
 " And I came this day unto the well," he said, 
 " and I asked there for a sign ; and before I had 
 done asking, the sign came true. This fair maiden 
 came out of the city with her pitcher on her 
 shoulder; and she went down into the well, and 
 drew water ; and I said, * Let me drink, I pray thee ! ' 
 And she made haste and let down her pitcher from 
 her shoulder, and said, * Drink, and I will give thy 
 camels drink also ! ' So I drank, and she made 
 the camels drink. And I said, * Whose daughter 
 are you, my fair maiden ? ' And she told me her 
 father's name, and her grandfather's. And I knew 
 
47 
 
 that the God of my master had prospered me, and 
 had led me in the right way to take the grand- 
 daughter of my master's brother to his son 
 Laughter. Now, I have told you my errand, 
 and you know why I am here. Tell me if you 
 will deal kindly with my master, your kinsman; 
 for if not, I will go my way, and trouble you no 
 more." 
 
 And the girl's brother and her mother said, 
 " This thing has been ordered by the God of your 
 master, and we have no right to speak either good 
 or bad about it. Here is the maiden herself, the 
 maiden so rightfully called Beauty. Take her, and 
 go, and let her be the wife of your master's son, 
 as your master's God has ordered." 
 
 When the servant heard this, he bowed himself 
 to the ground, and gave thanks. Then he 
 brought rare jewels of silver and gold, and rich 
 garments of linen and silk, and gave them to 
 Beauty, and to her mother and her brother. And 
 there was a great feast in the house that night, 
 and the wonderful news was told throughout the 
 city; and Beauty, clad like a princess, was more 
 beautiful than any other maiden that had ever been 
 seen in the green valleys of the Euphrates. 
 
 In the morning the servant arose with his men, 
 and said, 
 
4 8 
 
 " Let me go back now to my master." 
 
 But Beauty's mother begged him to let the 
 maiden stay with her a few days longer, at least 
 ten. 
 
 " My master's God has prospered me," said the 
 servant; "and so I beg that you will not hinder, 
 but let us go at once." 
 
 "Well," said the mother, "we will call the 
 damsel, and ask her." 
 
 They called Beauty, and said, " Beauty, will 
 you go with this man to-day ? " 
 
 And she said, " Yes, I will go." 
 
 So, while they all wept, they blessed her, and 
 bade her Godspeed. 
 
 " Thou art our fair sister, so well beloved," they 
 said. " In the ages to come, may thousands of 
 millions of people remember thee and think of 
 thee as their mother, and may thy children and 
 thy children's children wax great in the earth, and 
 rule over all their enemies." 
 
 And Beauty and her nurse and her waiting 
 w r omen rode upon the camels, and followed the 
 servant and his men across the barren desert and 
 the broad green plains to the rich new country 
 in the distant West. 
 
 At the end of many days they came into a land 
 where there were great herds of cattle, and flocks 
 
49 
 
 of sheep, and droves of camels ; and the servant told 
 her that all these were only a part of the riches of 
 his master. And it so happened that Laughter was 
 walking in the fields in the cool of the evening, and 
 thinking of many things, but most of his father's 
 kindred in the far East, and of the servant who had 
 been sent thither to find him a wife. Suddenly, on 
 looking up, he saw the ten camels coming across 
 the plain. They were quite near to him, and he 
 could see that there were women riding. He won- 
 dered what kind of wife his father's servant had 
 brought him ; but he could not see her face for the 
 heavy veil that was over it. 
 
 For when Beauty first saw Laughter walking in 
 the fields, she had asked the servant, " What man 
 is that who is walking this way ? " for she was 
 pleased to see how noble and handsome he seemed. 
 
 " That is my young master," answered the servant. 
 
 Then Beauty was glad, and she covered herself 
 with her veil. And when she met Laughter, she 
 alighted from her camel, and Laughter led her to 
 his mother's tent, where they were wedded ; and 
 when she lifted the veil from her blushing face, and 
 he saw how wonderfully fair she was, he was very 
 glad, and he loved her. And Beauty and Laughter 
 lived long and happily together in their own tent 
 in the midst of the green plains. And. their father, 
 
 STO. OF THE EAST 4 
 
So 
 
 Chief Abraham, lived yet fifty years, and died at the 
 good old age of one hundred and seventy-five. 
 
 And Laughter and Beauty had two sons, both of 
 whom became men of renown. One of them lived 
 the life of a roving chieftain in the land that borders 
 the great Arabian desert. His name was Esau, 
 but he was often called Edom, or the Red, on ac- 
 count of his ruddy complexion and the color of his 
 hair ; and he gave his name to the narrow sea that 
 lies between Arabia and the Land of the Nile. The 
 other son of Laughter and Beauty was a shrewd 
 man, always skillful in trade, and sure to get the 
 better of every bargain. After deceiving his father 
 and greatly wronging his brother, he fled, while still 
 quite young, to his mother's people in the little city 
 by the Euphrates. There he married; and there, 
 by his energy as well as by his craftiness, he became 
 very rich in sheep and cattle and camels and silver. 
 Afterwards, when he heard that his father was still 
 alive, and ready to forgive him, he returned with his 
 family and his servants, and his flocks and herds, to 
 the western land where he had been born. There 
 he was reconciled with his brother, and there he 
 won by his uprightness and valor the noble name of 
 Israel, which in his own language meant the Prince. 
 
 In that same language the word for laughter was 
 Isaac, and the word for beauty was Rebecca. 
 
THE MASTER OF THE LAND OF THE NILE. 
 
 I. THE DREAMER. 
 
 THERE dwelt in Hebron, at the foot of one of the 
 grass-covered hills, a rich man, who had gained a 
 part of his wealth by his shrewdness in trade and 
 by dealing unfairly with his brother. In his 
 younger days people had called him Supplanter 
 (or, in their own language, Jacob), because of his 
 grasping nature, which seemed to have belonged to 
 him even from his birth. Later in life, however, 
 he had become a much better man, and, because 
 of his uprightness and valor, he had gained for him- 
 self the title of the Prince (or, in his own tongue, 
 Israel). When, in his old age, he settled at Hebron, 
 he was, as I have said, very rich. He had hundreds 
 and hundreds of sheep and cattle, besides droves of 
 camels and donkeys ; and he had twelve sons. 
 
 Ten of his sons were grown-up men, bearded and 
 tall and strong ; but the youngest was a little babe, 
 and the next to the youngest was a slender lad still 
 
 5 1 
 
52 
 
 in his teens. The Prince loved this lad more than 
 all the rest of his children, perhaps because he was 
 gentle and wise, perhaps because he was the son of 
 his favorite wife, and had been born to him in his 
 old age. The older brothers said that the lad was 
 their father's pet, and they began to hate him, and 
 seldom spoke kindly to him. 
 
 " What do you think I dreamed last night ? " 
 said the lad one day when they were all in the 
 field together. 
 
 " How do we know ? " they said. " Why should 
 we care anything for your silly dreams ? " 
 
 " Well, I had a very strange dream," he said. 
 " I dreamed that we were in the harvest field, and 
 that each one of us had bound up a sheaf of grain. 
 Then my sheaf stood up in its place, and every one 
 of your sheaves bowed and fell down to the ground 
 before it." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " said his brothers. " Do 
 you mean to say that we shall all bow down to you 
 some time ? We'll see about that." 
 
 The next day, when the Prince and his sons were 
 sitting in the shade of the tent, the lad said,- 
 
 " I had another dream last night." 
 
 " You'd better not tell it," said the eldest brother. 
 
 "But I will tell it," said the lad. "I dreamed 
 that I was a bright star in the sky, and that the sun 
 
S3 
 
 and the moon and eleven stars bowed down and 
 fell on their faces before me." 
 
 " Worse and worse ! " cried the young men. 
 " Yesterday you had your brothers falling in the 
 dust at your feet. Now you want to make believe 
 that your father and mother will also humble them- 
 selves before you." 
 
 " I did not say so," said the lad. 
 
 " But you meant it," said they. " Who is the sun 
 if it is not our father ? and who is the moon if it is 
 not our mother ? and who are the eleven stars of 
 your dream if they are not your brothers ? " 
 
 " I never thought of my dream in that way," said 
 the lad. 
 
 But his brothers were all very angry; and his 
 father for the first time in his life scolded him 
 sharply. The lad burst into tears, and ran to hide 
 himself behind the curtains of the tent. 
 
 After that the young men hated him all the 
 more, and they nicknamed him the Dreamer. But 
 his father the Prince seemed to love him even 
 better than before. 
 
 II. THE JOURNEY. 
 
 That summer there was but little rain, and the 
 ground was so dry that the grass could not grow. 
 The fields were no longer green, and the beautiful 
 
54 
 
 hills of Hebron were brown and bare as a desert. 
 There was not enough pasture there to keep the 
 herds and flocks alive. 
 
 At last the Prince sent his servants away with 
 the cattle to find some greener spot in the river 
 valleys far to the north. As for the poor sheep 
 and lambs, the ten sons undertook to drive them to 
 the plains of Shechem, fifty miles away. They had 
 spent a summer at Shechem once before, and had 
 done some wild and wicked deeds there. They 
 had even destroyed the little town that stood in 
 the midst of the fields, and had killed some of the 
 people ; and they knew that now the place was 
 deserted, and that no one would dispute their right 
 to pasture their flocks there. They remembered 
 that there were many springs of water in the fields, 
 and they felt sure that they would find plenty of 
 grass. 
 
 After the men had gone away with the sheep 
 and cattle, it was very lonely in Hebron. Day after 
 day passed by, and it was always the same, the 
 camels and donkeys browsing among the thistles 
 and shrubs on the hillsides, the women at work in 
 the tents, the children playing the same games in 
 the dust and sand, and the hot sun hanging high 
 in the sky. Once a caravan, or company of mer- 
 chants, passed by, with a long line of camels and 
 
55 
 
 armed men, carrying goods of all kinds, cloths and 
 spices and gold, from the far East down into the 
 rich country of the Nile. Ah, what a great event 
 that was ! Everybody went out to see the wonder- 
 ful caravan and the wonderful things that \vere 
 with it; and the Prince bought many handsome 
 and curious things for his wives and their servants 
 and the children. 
 
 But after that, the place seemed lonelier than 
 before, and still no word came from the ten men 
 who had gone down to the fields of Shechem. 
 
 One day the Prince said to the lad, 
 
 " I wonder how the boys are getting along with 
 the sheep, and whether they found the pastures as 
 green and fresh as they expected ! I wish I had 
 a trusty man that I could spare. I would send him 
 down to Shechem to find your brothers, and see 
 whether all is well with them." 
 
 " Let me go, father ! " said the boy. 
 
 "What!" cried the old man. u Do you think that 
 I would send you on an errand so far, and alone ? 
 You are only a boy, and you do not know what dan- 
 gers you might meet with between here and She- 
 chem. Wild beasts roam in the woods and among 
 the hills, and Arab robbers ride over the plains." 
 
 " Surely you don't think I am afraid ! " said the 
 lad. " Haven't you often told me of the long 
 
56 
 
 journey which you made when you were a boy no 
 older than I am, how you went all alone across 
 the great plains to the far-off land of the Euphrates? 
 And do you think that I ought to be afraid to take 
 this little trip down to Shechem? " 
 
 " I know you are not afraid/' said his father, "and 
 I do you a wrong to be afraid for you. So get 
 yourself ready, and set out this very day. See 
 whether your brothers are well, and whether the 
 sheep have found good pasture, and then come 
 home and tell me." 
 
 It did not take the boy long to get ready for the 
 journey. All that he needed to carry was a little 
 leathern pouch with food in it for three days, a 
 leathern bottle full of water, and a pair of light san- 
 dals, which he would slip on his feet when he had 
 to cross rough and stony places among the hills. 
 
 " You may leave your old cloak," said his father. 
 " This is your birthday, and I have a present for 
 you." 
 
 Then he opened a chest and took from it the 
 most beautiful coat that the boy had ever seen. 
 The Prince had bought it of one of the merchants 
 who had passed with the caravan; and it had been 
 woven in a strange land in the far-distant East. 
 
 " O father ! " cried the boy. " Is the pretty coat 
 for me? And may I wear it to Shechem ? " 
 
57 
 
 " Certainly it is for you," said his father; and he 
 threw the rich garment upon the boy's shoulders, 
 and fastened it at the neck with a silver clasp. It 
 was richly woven of silk and linen, with threads of 
 crimson and purple and gold running through it 
 from top to bottom, At the waist it was held in 
 by a belt of finest leather buckled with a silver 
 buckle ; and the soft, many-colored folds fell almost 
 to the boy's knees. 
 
 " O father, how beautiful it is, and how kind you 
 are ! " he said, and the tears came into his eyes for 
 
 joy- 
 Then he kissed his father and his baby brother, 
 and waved a good-by to the women and children 
 who had come out of the tents to admire his coat 
 and see him start on his journey. His mother was 
 not among them. She had died a year before, and 
 her grave was by the roadside in lonely Ephrath, 
 far over the hills to the north. 
 
 " Do not fear for me, father," he said ; and he 
 walked briskly away across the brown and barren 
 fields. 
 
 " May the God of my father and of my father's 
 father bless thee and keep thee ! " said the Prince ; 
 and he stood and watched the boy until he had 
 passed over the ridge of a distant hill and could 
 be seen no more. 
 
III. THE DRY WELL. 
 
 It was a long and hard journey over the hills 
 and across the lonely plains. On the third day, 
 about noon, the lad reached the place where he 
 expected to find his brothers. There were the 
 springs of running water and the fields which he 
 well knew, and on the hillock in their midst were 
 the ruins of the little town of Shechem; but the 
 place was deserted and bare, although there were 
 plenty of signs that there had been sheep and shep- 
 herds there. 
 
 He ran from one field to another, looking and 
 calling; but no one answered him, and there was 
 not a man to be seen anywhere. At last, footsore 
 and tired and hungry, he sat down on a stone and 
 wondered what he should do next. He could not 
 think of going back home and telling his father that 
 his brothers and the sheep were nowhere to be found. 
 While he was sitting there, a man came out from 
 among the ruins on the hilltop and called to him. 
 
 " What do you want here, my lad ? " he said. 
 
 " I have come to find my brothers and the sheep," 
 he answered; "for my father is troubled about them, 
 and wants very much to learn how they are getting 
 on." 
 
 Then the man told him that the ten brothers, who 
 

 called themselves the sons of the Prince, had been 
 around Shechern nearly all summer, but that they 
 had gone away only three days before, to look for 
 fresh pastures for their sheep. 
 
 " I think they must have gone over the hills to 
 Dothan," said the man ; " for I heard them say to 
 one another, ' Let us go up to Dothan ; ' and I know 
 the grass is better there than here." 
 
 The lad had never been to Dothan, but the man 
 told him it was not far, and showed him the shortest 
 and best way to go ; and when he had eaten his 
 last crumb of bread, and filled his bottle with cool 
 water from one of the springs, he went on over the 
 hills as fast as his tired feet would carry him. 
 
 Late that afternoon the ten brothers were loung- 
 ing among the grass on the top of a little knoll, 
 and watching their sheep which were feeding in 
 the fields below. Suddenly one of them, who was 
 called Troop, and who was sharper-sighted than 
 the rest, sprang to his feet. 
 
 " Who is that coming up the road from She- 
 chem ?" he cried. 
 
 The other men jumped up quickly, and looked 
 towards the place which Troop pointed out. Far 
 away across the fields they could see some one 
 coming. They watched him as he drew nearer and 
 nearer. 
 
6o 
 
 " He walks as if in great haste," said the eldest 
 of the ten, shading his eyes with his hands. " He 
 is some poor fellow who has lost his way, and is 
 coming to us for help." 
 
 " Poor fellow, indeed ! " said Troop. " He is 
 some rich merchant's son who has strayed from a 
 caravan ; for only see what a fine cloak he wears ! " 
 
 " Yes," said a tall, lank fellow whom they called 
 Judge. " That cloak is worth more than a hundred 
 sheep, and I mean to have it for my own." He 
 grasped his sheephook in his hands, and was half- 
 way down the hill when his brothers called to him. 
 
 " Stay ! " they cried. " It is nobody but our wise 
 brother, the Dreamer." 
 
 " What ! father's pet ? " said Judge ; and he went 
 slowly back. 
 
 By this time the boy could be plainly seen 
 making his way across the fields, and waving his 
 hand to his brothers by way of greeting. 
 
 " Only see that fine coat, how it gleams and 
 sparkles in the rays of the sun ! " said Troop. 
 
 " Father must have paid a goodly sum for that 
 rich garment," said another of the brothers. 
 
 " Yes," said Judge, " and we who take care of the 
 sheep have hardly a coat to our backs." 
 
 " The young fellow will set himself up for king 
 now, without doubt," said the youngest of the ten. 
 
6i 
 
 " Get yourselves ready, boys, to fall on your knees 
 before him as soon as he comes to the foot of the 
 hill ! " 
 
 " For my part," said Troop, " I think we have 
 had enough of his dreams and his nonsense. I 
 wish something would happen to him before he 
 gets back to Hebron." 
 
 " We might make something happen," muttered 
 Judge. " Father would never know : he would 
 think that a lion had caught the boy while he 
 was crossing the hills." 
 
 Then they talked together in low tones. But 
 the eldest of the ten said, " Have a care, boys ! If 
 we should hurt the lad, we could never look our 
 father in the face again. But we might put him 
 into the dry well down there, and leave him." 
 
 This speech seemed to please the others ; and 
 Troop ran down and lifted the flat stone that 
 covered the mouth of the well, and looked in. But 
 the eldest brother turned, and walked away. 
 
 It was not long until the boy was near enough to 
 make himself heard. 
 
 " Hail, my brothers ! " he cried. u Is it well with 
 you? I bring you our father's blessing." 
 
 But the nine rude fellows looked at him with 
 dark and scowling glances, and made no answer 
 to his kind greeting. 
 
62 
 
 " Don't you know me ? " he said. " Don't you 
 know your younger brother? I have come all 
 the way from Hebron to see you ; for father was 
 troubled about you, and wanted to know how you 
 are getting on." 
 
 " You are no brother of ours," said Judge. " We 
 never saw you before." 
 
 " You are a spy from our enemies, the robber 
 Arabs," said Troop. " You have come to see h'ow 
 strong we are ; and you will go back and tell your 
 friends whether they can overcome us and drive 
 away our flocks. But you shall not escape us ! " 
 And with that he threw a stone at the boy, while 
 the others ran down the hill, brandishing their 
 sheephooks, and crying out in a savage and threat- 
 ening manner. 
 
 " Oh, my brothers, my brothers ! " cried the lad, 
 stopping, and lifting up his hands. 
 
 They seized him rudely, and tore his beautiful 
 coat from his back, and snatched the sandals from 
 his feet. 
 
 "Away with the robber! " cried Judge. 
 
 " Yes, away with the spy ! " cried the others ; and 
 they pushed him roughly along towards the open 
 well. The boy covered his face with his hands, and 
 sobbed. 
 
 "Stand back! Don't hurt the lad!" said one 
 
63 
 
 of them, a big round-faced fellow whom his mother 
 called Judah, or Praise. " Leave him to me." And 
 he lifted the boy by the arms, and let him gently 
 down into the well. It was not a deep well, and 
 he did not have far to drop; but its stone sides 
 were smooth and steep, and not even a squirrel 
 could have climbed out of it. 
 
 When the brothers saw what was done, they 
 turned away as if ashamed, and without saying 
 a word went after their sheep. But Judge staid 
 behind to put the flat stone back into its place, 
 and, as he peeped down into the well, he whis- 
 pered, 
 
 " This is the way that we bow down before you, 
 Dreamer! " 
 
 IV. THE CARAVAN. 
 
 That evening nine of the brothers sat in front 
 of their tent, eating their supper in silence. The 
 eldest was not with them. He had gone across the 
 fields to look for a lost lamb, and to think of some 
 plan to befriend his young brother. While they 
 were eating, a long line of camels and men was 
 seen coming across the plain. It was a caravan 
 of traders journeying from the East towards the 
 country of the Nile. The sun had gone down, but 
 the moon was at its full ; and in that country there 
 
1 
 
 W 
 
 w 
 
 H 
 
 (64) 
 
was no pleasanter time to travel than in the cool of 
 the evening. 
 
 The brothers sat still and watched the caravan as 
 it came slowly towards them. The camels were 
 loaded with spices and myrrh and balm, and other 
 precious things ; and, with the armed guard which 
 walked before them, there were a number of young 
 men who were being taken to the Nile country as 
 slaves. 
 
 " If we only had something to sell to those mer- 
 chants," said Praise, " we might make a good bar- 
 gain.'" 
 
 "We might sell them a sheep or two for their 
 breakfast," said Judge. 
 
 " It seems to me," said Praise, " that we have 
 done a very foolish thing. We have put the boy 
 into the well, where he will die, and not one of us 
 has made any money by it. Come, now, let us sell 
 him to these merchants, and save his life! We shall 
 then be rid of him, and at the same time make some 
 profit for ourselves." 
 
 This speech pleased the brothers very much. 
 Judge ran and lifted the lad out of the well; and 
 Praise, who was good at making bargains, sold him 
 to the merchants for twenty pieces of silver. 
 
 "Two pieces for each of you, and four for. me," 
 he said. 
 
 STO. OF THE EAST 5 
 
66 
 
 " But how about our eldest brother, who is look- 
 ing for the lamb ? " asked one. 
 
 " There is no need for him to know what we have 
 done," said Praise. 
 
 By and by the eldest brother came back from his 
 search, and went at once to the well. He lifted the 
 stone and called to the boy, but there was no answer. 
 Then he lighted a torch, and held it so that he 
 could see to the bottom of the well. There was no 
 boy there. He dropped the stone back into its 
 place, and ran towards the tents, tearing his clothes 
 into pieces as he went. 
 
 "The child is not!" he cried. " The child is 
 not, and what shall become of me ? " 
 
 " Some evil spirit has stolen him away," said 
 Judge, " and what shall we say to father? " 
 
 " Yes, what shall we say to father? " said Praise. 
 
 Then they took the boy's coat which they had 
 torn from his back, and dipped it into the blood of 
 a kid which they had killed ; and Praise, who was 
 the best talker among them, carried it to their father 
 in Hebron. 
 
 " Here is something that we found in the hill 
 country on the other side of Shechem," he said. 
 
 The old man looked at it, and knew at once that 
 it w^s the costly coat which he had given to his 
 best-loved child. 
 
6 7 
 
 " It is my son's coat ! " he cried. " Some wild 
 beast has done this, and has devoured the child ! " 
 And he tore his cloak into shreds in sign of grief, 
 and clothed himself in sackcloth, and sat down and 
 mourned for the boy many days. Then his ,sons 
 came home with their sheep, and they and all his 
 daughters tried to comfort him ; but he would not 
 listen to them. " I will weep for the child until I 
 die," he said. 
 
 But as for the lad himself, the merchants took 
 him down into the country of the Nile ; and he was 
 so bright-witted and quick, and withal so handsome 
 and obedient, that the captain of the King's body- 
 guard was glad to buy him at a very high price. 
 
 " What is your name ? " asked his master. 
 
 " My mother called me Joseph," said the boy; 
 " but my brothers, who sold me to the merchants, 
 nicknamed me the Dreamer." 
 
 v. THE PRISON. 
 
 Although he was a slave in a strange land, the 
 boy did not lose heart, nor did he spend any time 
 in grieving 'about things which could not be helped. 
 He made up his mind to do his best at all times, 
 no matter what might happen to him. And so, as 
 the years passed by and he grew up to manhood. 
 
68 
 
 he proved himself to be so honest and wise, that 
 his master trusted him with everything that he 
 had, and at last made him the manager of all his 
 lands and houses and goods. 
 
 " My servant Joseph," said the captain, "is the 
 best man of business in this country. I do not 
 need to think of anything; for he manages all, 
 and there is nothing which he undertakes that 
 does not prosper." 
 
 But the time came when misfortune again befell 
 the young man. The captain's wife, who was a 
 thoughtless, wicked woman, accused him of things 
 of which he was not guilty, and caused him to be 
 thrown into the King's prison. Yet even then 
 he did not lose hope. He was so kind and wise 
 and trustworthy, that the jailer soon made him 
 his chief helper. All the other prisoners were 
 under his care, and nothing was done in the place 
 except as he ordered it. Yet he was not allowed 
 to step outside of the prison doors. 
 
 It so happened that about this time two men, 
 the King's butler and the King's baker, were shut 
 up in the jail for some fault or crime. Both of 
 them were very much troubled because of their 
 disgrace, and one night both of them dreamed 
 strange dreams. In the morning Joseph noticed 
 that they seemed very sad. 
 
6 9 
 
 " What is the matter," he asked, " that on this 
 bright day your faces are so gloomy and down- 
 cast ? " 
 
 " I have dreamed a dream," said the butler, 
 " and I do not know what it means." 
 
 " Tell it to me," said the young man, " and 
 perhaps I can explain its meaning." 
 
 " In my dream," said the butler, " I saw a vine 
 with three branches ; and as I looked at it, it began 
 to bud and blossom, and soon it was full of ripe 
 grapes. Then I gathered the grapes, and pressed 
 the juice of them into the King's cup, and carried 
 it to the King." 
 
 " That is an easy dream to explain," said Joseph. 
 " The three branches are three days ; and in three 
 days the King will set you free, and you shall be 
 his butler again, and carry his wine to him as you 
 have done before. But I pray you, when it is well 
 with you, do not forget me ; for I am a slave, 
 and was stolen from my father in Hebron when 
 I was a boy, and I have done nothing that they 
 should keep me in this place." 
 
 Then the King's baker said, " I, too, have 
 dreamed a dream, and I hope that it is as good 
 a dream as my friend the butler's." 
 
 " Tell it to me," said Joseph. 
 
 "I dreamed," said the baker, "that I had three 
 
white baskets on my head, and that in the upper 
 basket were all kinds of cakes and sweetmeats for 
 the King. But as I walked along, the birds flew 
 down from the trees and ate up all the sweetmeats, 
 and I had none to carry to the King." 
 Joseph shook his head, and said, 
 " That -is also an easy dream to explain. The 
 three baskets are three days ; and in three days 
 you shall be hanged on a tree, and the birds shall 
 fly down and eat the flesh from your body." 
 
 Three days after that, all things happened as 
 the young man had foretold. It was the King's 
 birthday, and he made a great feast in his palace ; 
 and he gave orders that the baker should be hanged 
 upon a tree, and that the butler should be set free 
 and given the place of honor which he had held 
 before. But the butler was so glad because of 
 his good fortune, that he did not think of what 
 Joseph had told him. 
 
 VI. THE DREAMS. 
 
 One morning about two years after that, the 
 King, or Pharaoh, as he was called by his own 
 people, awoke in great distress. He had had two 
 dreams in the night which troubled him very much, 
 and, do what he would, he could not put the thought 
 
of them out of his mind. In those days, people 
 believed that all dreams had a meaning, and that 
 they foreboded something that was going to happen 
 in the time to come. All day long the King pon- 
 dered upon his two dreams, and he could take no 
 pleasure in anything. The next night he could 
 not sleep ; but, whenever he closed his eyes, the 
 dreams came back to him. 
 
 On the second morning he sent for his wise 
 men, and said, 
 
 " I have had two strange dreams, and they trou- 
 ble me greatly. In the first dream I thought I was 
 standing on the banks of the Nile, and looking at 
 the water as it flowed among the reeds. Then I 
 saw seven fat cattle come up out of the river ; and 
 they went into the meadow, and fed upon the long 
 grass. But while I was looking at them, and think- 
 ing how beautiful they were, seven other cattle came 
 creeping out of the mud and mire of the river. 
 They were the leanest cattle that were ever seen, 
 and they were so weak that they could hardly stand. 
 But they clambered upon the bank; and, as soon 
 as they saw the fat cattle in the meadow, they ran 
 after them with wide-open mouths, and caught them, 
 and swallowed every one of them. It was a very 
 strange and impossible thing, and I cannot under- 
 stand how they could do it ; and, stranger still, they 
 
72 
 
 were not any fatter after this meal than they had 
 been before. But while I was looking at them, 
 I awoke." 
 
 The wise men looked very grave, and shook 
 their heads. 
 
 " It was a strange vision, O King ! " they said ; 
 " but tell us now of your second dream." 
 
 " The second was so nearly like the first," said 
 the King, " that I am quite sure it means the same 
 thing. I dreamed that I stood on the bank of the 
 Nile again; and I was looking, not towards the river, 
 but at the great wheat fields where the grain was 
 almost ready for the reapers. Then I saw a tall 
 stalk of wheat that had grown up by my side, and 
 on it were seven ears of golden grain, the largest 
 and fairest that ever grew in any*land. But while 
 I looked, seven other ears came out on the same 
 stalk. They were thin, blasted ears, with scarcely 
 a single good grain in them all; and when the east 
 wind blew upon them, they fell upon the fine, large 
 ears, and ate them up. And while I wondered how 
 such a thing could be, I awoke." 
 
 The wise men looked very grave, and shook their 
 heads, and said nothing. 
 
 " I have now told you my dreams," said the 
 King, "and it is for you to tell me what they 
 mean." 
 
73 
 
 " O King ! " they said, " these dreams seem very 
 hard to explain. Allow us, we pray you, to think 
 upon them until to-morrow, and then we will give 
 you an answer." 
 
 But on the morrow they were as far from under- 
 standing the dreams as ever. 
 
 " We cannot explain them," they said. 
 
 Then the King's butler said, " O King ! I have in 
 mind now a thing that happened two years ago, 
 when I was in prison. Your baker and myself 
 were in prison at the same time, as you no doubt 
 remember, and we both dreamed dreams on the 
 same night. It so happened that we told our dreams 
 to the young man who was our keeper, the same 
 man who once managed the estates of the captain 
 of your guard. He listened to us, and then ex- 
 plained the dreams ; and everything came to pass 
 just as he told us it would, I was allowed to come 
 back to my place, and the baker was hanged." 
 
 " Go at once, and bring the young man to me," 
 said the King. 
 
 The butler made haste and brought Joseph out 
 of the prison ; and when the young man had taken 
 a bath and shaved himself, and put on his best 
 clothes, he was led before the King. The King 
 was pleased as soon as he saw him, he was so tall 
 and handsome, and his face was so bright and cheer- 
 
74 
 
 ful. Among all the men in the land, there was not 
 another one whose looks were so noble. 
 
 " I have had two strange dreams," he said, " and 
 the wisest men in my kingdom cannot explain them. 
 I am told that you understand such things, and I 
 have sent for you to tell me what they mean." 
 
 " The God of my father will help me to explain 
 them," said Joseph; "but I myself know nothing 
 at all." 
 
 When the King had told him his dreams, he stood 
 still for a moment, thinking. Then he said, 
 
 " Both dreams mean the same thing. The God 
 of my father has sent them to you, that you might 
 know the things which are about to happen in the 
 Land of the Nile. The seven fat cattle and the 
 seven big ears of wheat mean seven years of 
 plenty. The seven lean cattle and the seven 
 blasted ears of wheat mean seven years of famine. 
 The meaning of the dreams is this: there will be 
 seven years of great plenty in all the land ; and after 
 that there will be seven years when nothing can 
 be raised, and during these years of famine all the 
 former plenty will be eaten up." 
 
 " How soon will these things happen ? " asked 
 the King. 
 
 " The thing was shown to you in two dreams on 
 the same night, O King ! " said the young man ; " and 
 
that is a sign that the time is here now, and that 
 the years of plenty are about to begin. Now, if 
 some wise man could be found to take charge of the 
 matter, it would not be hard to provide against 
 the years of famine that will follow. Great gran- 
 aries might be built in all the cities, and the sur- 
 plus grain might be stored away for use in time of 
 need." 
 
 Then the King turned to the officers who stood 
 around him, and said, " The young man speaks well, 
 and there may be much truth in what he says. At 
 any rate, it will do no harm to store away the grain 
 during these years of plenty, and it will certainly 
 do great good if the years of dearth should ever 
 come. Tell me, now, which man in all my kingdom 
 is the most trustworthy, and the best fitted to man- 
 age this business." 
 
 " If it please the King," said one of the officers, 
 " the young man who once had charge of the estates 
 of the captain of your guard is the most honest and 
 the best manager in all our land. Never did any- 
 thing prosper as did the captain's affairs while that 
 young man looked after them." 
 
 " Let the young man be brought before me at 
 once," said the King. 
 
 " He is already here, O King ! " said the officer. 
 " It is he that has just now explained your dreams." 
 
76 
 
 Then the King turned to Joseph, and said, 
 " Truly, I believe that there is no man in the world 
 so discreet and wise as you are, for I often heard 
 of you while you were the head servant of the cap- 
 tain of my guard. Your name is already known in 
 all parts of my kingdom. You shall manage this 
 business, and I will set you over all the land to rule 
 my people." 
 
 And he took a ring from his hand and put it 
 upon Joseph's finger, and hung a gold chain about 
 the young man's neck, and gave him rich robes of 
 finest linen to put on. 
 
 " Why do men call you Joseph ? " he asked ; "for 
 that is a word which means ' He shall add.' " 
 
 " When I was born," answered the young man, 
 " my dear mother said that I was a promise that the 
 God of my father would add more and more to her 
 happiness. But she lies now in her lonely grave by 
 the roadside in far-away Ephrath, and my father's 
 three wives keep his tents." 
 
 " Enough, enough ! " cried the King. " And now, 
 if you have told me truly, and will manage this busi- 
 ness aright, you shall be given a new name. You 
 shall be called Zaphnath-paaneah, or the Master of 
 the Land." And then, turning to the officers around 
 him, he said, " I am Pharaoh, I am the King ; but 
 this man is Zaphnath-paaneah, and he shall stand 
 
77 
 
 next to me in all things. His word shall be law, 
 and, without his leave, no man shall do anything at 
 all He is the Master of the Land of the Nile." 
 
 VII. THE TEN STRANGERS. 
 
 In all the world there had never been such crops 
 as those that were raised during the next seven 
 years. There was so much wheat that the number 
 of bushels could not be counted ; and all other 
 kinds of food were so plentiful that no one had 
 ever any need to be hungry. And during that 
 time of plenty no one was so busy as the Master 
 of the Land of the Nile. He was first in this city, 
 then in that, giving orders about the great grana- 
 ries that were being built, and seeing that they 
 were filled with grain. His word was law every. 
 \vhere ; and no man dared to waste anything, but 
 all the food that was not needed was laid up in 
 storehouses against the time of need. 
 
 But when the seven years of plenty had passed, 
 the seven years of dearth began to come, and every- 
 thing was changed. The ground was so dry, and 
 the air was so hot, that nothing would grow. In 
 all the valley of the Nile there was not a stalk of 
 wheat nor a blade of green grass. In the lands 
 farther away, things were in even a worse plight : 
 
78 
 
 for there the people had not laid up anything when 
 there was plenty ; and so the flocks and herds died 
 for want of pasture, and thousands of men and 
 women and children perished because there was 
 no food. But in the country of the Nile the store- 
 houses were full, and the rich men of other lands 
 sent there to buy grain. 
 
 One day, when the Master of the Land was selling 
 wheat at one of the King's granaries, ten rough-look- 
 ing strangers were brought before him. They were 
 sunburned and brown with traveling over the sandy 
 deserts, and they said that they had come a long 
 distance from the east. As soon as they saw the 
 Master of* the Land, dressed in his robes of fine 
 linen, and wearing the King's gold chain about 
 his neck, they bowed themselves, and fell on their 
 faces before him. 
 
 " Who are you ? " he said. " Where do you come 
 from ? What do you want ? " 
 
 He spoke so harshly, that they trembled with 
 fear, and did not dare to look up. Then one oi 
 them answered. 
 
 " O mighty Prince ! " he said, " we are from 
 Hebron, a place many days' journey from here; 
 and we have come to buy food for our families, 
 for in our own land there is nothing to eat." 
 
 " Do not try to deceive me," said the Master, 
 
79 
 
 " I know who you are. You are spies ; and you 
 have come to find out all that you can about us, 
 and then go and tell it to our enemies." 
 
 " Oh, do not think such a thing of us ! " they 
 cried ; and they were filled with greater dread than 
 before, and did not know what to do. " We are 
 not spies, but honest men, and true, and we are 
 all brothers of one family." 
 
 " Have you a father or a brother at home ? " 
 asked the Master. 
 
 " Truly, there were twelve of us," was the answer ; 
 " and our father, who is an old man, is at home with 
 the youngest brother, who is still a little child. 
 The other brother is dead; and this child is left 
 alone with our father, who loves him most dearly." 
 
 Then the Master seemed to be more angry than 
 before. " You shall prove that you are not spies. 
 One of you shall go and fetch this child of whom 
 you tell me, and the other nine shall lie in jail 
 until he comes." 
 
 "fMy lord!" cried the spokesman of the ten 
 strangers, " the lad cannot leave his father ; for, if 
 we should fetch him away, his father would die." 
 
 " Did I not say that you were spies ? " said the 
 Master; and then, without waiting for another 
 word, he bade his officers lead the ten men away 
 to prison. 
 
8o 
 
 
 
 Three days after that, he had them brought be- 
 fore him again. 
 
 " I have not the heart to treat you cruelly," he 
 said. " If you are honest men, let one of you be 
 bound in prison ; and do the rest of you go home 
 with food for the hungry ones who are there. Then 
 come again, and bring your little brother, and I will 
 believe you, and you shall not die." 
 
 And he walked away, and hid his face, and wept. 
 
 Then the officers took one of the brothers and 
 bound him, and led him away to the prison. The 
 others were set free. They bought as much grain 
 as their donkeys could carry, and then started sadly 
 and silently on their long journey home. 
 
 VIII. THE LITTLE BROTHER. 
 
 When the nine brothers reached Hebron, the 
 women and the children ran to meet them, and 
 the old Prince stood in the door of his tent to 
 welcome them home. But when they told hovd the 
 other brother had been left behind, sadness took 
 the place of joy. 
 
 " Why did you leave him ? " asked the Prince. 
 
 " The man who is the Master of the Land kept 
 him," said Praise. " He spoke roughly to us, and 
 threw us into prison as spies. Then he set nine of 
 
8i 
 
 us free, but the tenth he kept bound. ' Bring your 
 youngest brother to me,' he said ; c and then I will 
 know that you are not spies, and you may all go in 
 peace.' ' 
 
 Then the Prince sat down in his tent and wept. 
 " All the world is against me ! " he cried. " Two of 
 my sons are lost, and now you would take Benoni 
 away. But he shall not go with you; for his brother 
 is dead, and he is left alone. If mischief should 
 befall him, then you will bring me down in sorrow 
 to the grave." 
 
 The men unloaded their donkeys, and began to 
 empty the grain which they had brought. But, 
 wonder of wonders ! in each man's sack was the 
 money which he had paid for the wheat. And 
 they were greatly troubled, and did not know what 
 to do ; for would not the man who was the Master 
 of the Nile country accuse them of stealing it ? 
 
 Days and weeks went by, and the famine grew 
 worse and worse. The grain which the brothers 
 had brought was almost gone. 
 
 " Boys," said their father, " you will have to go 
 again and buy a little more grain." 
 
 " It is no use, unless you will let Benoni go with 
 us," they answered; "for the man said that he 
 would not listen to us again unless we brought 
 him." 
 
 STO. OF THE EAST 6 
 
82 
 
 But the old man wept, and declared that he would 
 not part with the boy. 
 
 Then Praise asked him, "Which is better, that 
 all your children and grandchildren should perish 
 here with hunger, or that we take the risk with the 
 young lad? I will answer with my life that he shall 
 come back safe." 
 
 At last the Prince agreed to let the child go. 
 
 " Carry a little present down to the man," he 
 said. " We have not much that will please him; 
 but take him a little balm and a little honey, and 
 some spices and nuts, and carry back the money 
 that you found in your sacks. There must have 
 been some mistake about it. Then, when he sees 
 your little brother, it may be that the great man 
 will deal kindly with you." 
 
 The brothers did as he told them, and, taking 
 their presents and the young lad with them, they 
 went down again into the Land of, the Nile. 
 
 When the Master of the Land heard that they had 
 come, he ordered that they should be brought to his 
 own palace. This frightened them very much, for 
 they thought that now he would throw them into 
 prison or put them to death for carrying the money 
 home in their sacks. When they were led into the 
 room where he sat, they bowed very low before him, 
 and gave him the presents which their father had 
 
83 
 
 sent; but how poor and little did these presents 
 seem in the midst of so much grandeur ! 
 
 " Is your father well, the old man of whom you 
 told me?" asked the great man. " Is he still alive?" 
 
 " Our father is still alive, and he is well," they 
 answered ; and they again bowed themselves to the 
 ground. 
 
 Then the great man saw the young lad, his own 
 brother, standing trembling before him. 
 
 " Is this your younger brother, about whom you 
 told me ? " he asked. 
 
 " This is he," they answered. 
 
 " May the God of your father be ever kind to 
 you, my lad ! " said he ; and he turned away, and 
 went into his own room and wept. 
 
 IX. THE DISCOVERY. 
 
 That very afternoon the sons of the Prince made 
 ready to go back to Hebron. They were glad- 
 hearted now; for the man who was the Master of 
 the Land had been kind to them, and had believed 
 them, and had set free their brother who had been 
 in prison. They hastened to the storehouse, and 
 bought as much grain as their donkeys could 
 carry ; and, as soon as it was light the next morn- 
 ing, they started. 
 
8 4 
 
 But they were hardly outside of the city, when 
 they heard loud cries behind them; and, looking 
 back, they saw men on horseback riding rapidly 
 towards them. They stopped, and waited to see 
 what was wanted. The men rode up. One of them 
 was the head servant of the Master of the Land. 
 
 " What mean you by robbing my master of his 
 treasures ? " he cried. 
 
 " Oh, say not so, my lord ! " said Praise, trembling. 
 " Did we not bring the money back that we found 
 in our sacks ? How could we steal silver or gold 
 from your master ? If any one of us has taken that 
 which is not his own, let him die, and the rest of 
 us will be your master's slaves." 
 
 " What is it that we have stolen ? " cried Judge. 
 "Search us, and see if we have anything of your 
 master's." 
 
 " That I will do," said the head servant. " And 
 the one with whom it is found shall be my master's 
 slave, but the rest of you shall go free." 
 
 So they took the sacks from off the backs of the 
 donkeys, and every man opened his sack. Then 
 the head servant searched in each sack, beginning 
 with that of the eldest ; and in the young lad's sack 
 he found a silver cup of great price, which belonged 
 to the Master of the Land. When the brothers 
 saw this, they tore their cloaks in sign of grief and 
 
85 
 
 dismay; and then every man loaded his donkey 
 again, and, without saying a word, followed the 
 head servant back into the city. They did not 
 know that the Master himself had caused the cup 
 to be hidden there. 
 
 The great man met them at his own door, and 
 spoke to them very harshly. " What is this you 
 have done ? " he said. " Did you not know that 
 nothing can be hidden from me ?" 
 
 " We cannot excuse ourselves," said Praise. " The 
 case is a clear one, and there is nothing to say. 
 We are your slaves, and so also is the lad who took 
 the cup." 
 
 " Not so," answered the Master. " The rest of 
 you shall go free ; but the lad who had the cup, 
 he shall be my slave." 
 
 Then Praise pleaded with the great man to spare 
 the boy. 
 
 " The lad is the joy and hope of our father," he 
 said ; " and the old man's life is bound up in the 
 life of the child. If we should go home, and our 
 father see that the lad is not with us, he will die, 
 and we shall bring down his gray hairs in sorrow to 
 the grave. Now, I pray you, let me be your slave, 
 and let the lad go up to Hebron with his brothers ! " 
 
 Then the great man could keep his secret no 
 longer. He ordered his officers to leave him alone 
 
86 
 
 with the men from Hebron, and then he made 
 himself known. 
 
 " I am your brother," he said. " I am Joseph, 
 whom you sold to the Arab merchants when I was 
 a lad. Do not think I am angry with you, for it has 
 all happened for the best. The God of our father, he 
 brought it about in order to save life ; for otherwise 
 we should all have perished in this great famine." 
 
 Then he fell upon his little brother's neck and 
 kissed him ; and they both wept together for a long 
 time. After that, he kissed his older brothers, and 
 wept with them, and talked with them about the 
 wonderful things which had happened to him. 
 
 " And now," said he, " hasten back to the old home 
 in Hebron, and say to our father that his son Joseph 
 is still alive, and is the master of all the Land of the 
 Nile. Bid him come down to me at once, and say 
 that he shall live near me with his children, and his 
 children's children, and his flocks and his herds ; 
 and I will provide for you all." 
 
 Then he gave fine coats to each of the men ; but 
 to his young brother he gave five suits of the rich- 
 est clothing, and three hundred pieces of silver ; 
 and to his father he sent twenty donkeys laden 
 with grain and bread and meat, and the good 
 things of the land. He sent also a great number 
 of wagons to bring him and the women and the 
 
87 
 
 children down into the Land of the Nile. And 
 his brothers, with glad hearts, hastened to do all 
 things as he directed. 
 
 When at last the aged Prince, with all his family, 
 came down into the country of the Nile, the King 
 allowed the Master to give his father and his broth- 
 ers homes in the best part of the land, where they 
 could dwell in peace, and care for their flocks and 
 herds. The King himself went out to meet the 
 Prince, and the Prince blessed him. 
 
 " How old are you ? " asked the King. 
 
 " The days of the years of my pilgrimage," 
 answered the old man, " are a hundred and thirty 
 years. Few and evil have the days of the years 
 of my life been." 
 
 And the Prince and his children, and his chil- 
 dren's children, made themselves homes in that part 
 of the Land of the Nile which was called Goshen. 
 
THE GREAT LAWGIVER. 
 
 I. THE KING'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 THERE once lived in the Land of the Nile a 
 nation of bondmen. 
 
 These people had not always been slaves. They 
 said that the great ancestor from whom they were 
 all descended, had been a man of renown in his 
 day, and had won for himself the title of Israel, or 
 the Prince; and so they called themselves Israelites, 
 or the Children of the Prince. They liked to tell 
 of the time when the Prince had come down into the 
 country from a foreign land, and with his children, 
 and his children's children, had settled in the fertile 
 valley of Goshen. And they proudly remembered 
 the fact that one of the Prince's sons had been the 
 Master of the Land of the Nile, and second only to 
 the King; and they delighted to tell how this great 
 man had been wont to ride in his chariot from city 
 to city, and how all the people bowed the knee 
 before him, and made his word their law. 
 
 '88 
 
8 9 
 
 But now four hundred years 'had passed since 
 that glorious time, and many sad changes had come 
 to the Children of the Prince. Their lands had 
 been taken from them, they had been robbed of 
 their flocks and herds, and cruel laws had been 
 made in order to afflict them ; and yet they had 
 seemed to prosper, and their numbers had grown 
 until there were tens of thousands of them in 
 Goshen. At last there came to the throne a 
 Pharaoh, or King, who had never heard of their 
 great ancestor, but whose heart was filled with 
 hatred towards them. 
 
 " What shall we do with the folk who call them- 
 selves the Children of the Prince ? " he said. " If 
 we let them alone, they will soon outnumber us, and 
 will make themselves our masters. They are good 
 workmen and cunning traders, and it would be a 
 loss to the country to destroy them; and yet some- 
 thing must be done to hold them in check." 
 
 And so laws were passed which made the Chil- 
 dren of the Prince a nation of slaves ; and Pharaoh 
 sent their young men into the cities and towns to 
 work under taskmasters, and build walls and forts 
 and palaces of brick and stone. It was also ordered 
 that every boy baby that was born to any of these 
 people should be put to death. In this way the 
 cruel King hoped to put an end to their increase, 
 
9 o 
 
 and at the same time strengthen his kingdom and 
 enrich himself. 
 
 One day, not long after this, it happened that the 
 King's daughter went out with her maidens to bathe 
 in the river. As she was walking along the bank, 
 she saw something floating among the reeds in the 
 shallow water of the stream, and she sent one of her 
 maidens to get it. When it was brought to her, it 
 proved to be a light basket made of rushes woven 
 together, and daubed with pitch so as to make it 
 water-tight and strong. The King's daughter opened 
 the lid of the basket, and looked in ; and there she 
 saw a pretty babe, about three months old, lying on 
 a little cushion of leaves. When the child saw the 
 lady, he held out his hands towards her and crfed ; 
 and her kind heart was filled with pity, and she 
 bent over and kissed him. 
 
 " He must belong to one of the slaves who call 
 themselves Children of the Prince," she said. " How 
 sad that so pretty a babe should perish! " 
 
 While the King's daughter and her maidens 
 were fondling the child, and trying to make him 
 cease his weeping, a little girl came timidly for- 
 ward, and listened to what they were saying. 
 
 " How I should like to keep him for my own ! " 
 said the lady, as she took him from the basket 
 and held him lovingly in her arms. 
 
I I 
 
 (91) 
 
92 
 
 Then the little girl took courage, and spoke. 
 
 " Shall I go and find a woman to nurse the child 
 for you ? " she asked. 
 
 "Yes, go," said the lady. 
 
 Now, the little girl was none other than the 
 sister of the babe. Ever since the basket had 
 been set afloat among the reeds, she had been 
 standing by the river, watching, and hoping that 
 this very thing would happen ; for, if the lady 
 would take pity on the child, his life might be 
 saved. She ran as fast as she could, and told her 
 mother all that the King's daughter had said. 
 Then her mother hastened with glad heart to the 
 riverside, where the King's daughter and her maid- 
 ens were still fondling the child; for now he had 
 ceased his crying, and was playing with the lady's 
 necklace, and cooing softly to his new-found friends. 
 
 " Here is a woman who will nurse the child 
 for you," said the little girl. 
 
 " Come, then," said the lady to the child's 
 mother, "come into my home and take care of 
 this babe for me, and I will pay you well." 
 
 And so the babe was taken into the King's 
 palace, and brought up by his own mother. He 
 was called the son of the King's daughter; and 
 she gave him the name of Moses, which meant 
 that he had been drawn out of the water. 
 
93 
 
 II. THE SHEPHERD. 
 
 The child grew fast, and soon became a hand- 
 some lad, quick and strong, and full of promise. 
 He was treated in every way as though he were 
 really the grandson of the King. The wisest men 
 in the land were sought out to be his teachers, 
 and he became learned in all the lore of those 
 ancient times : for they taught him whatever 
 was known about the world and its people, and 
 about the laws and customs of the land ; they 
 taught him how to be a brave soldier, and how 
 to be a leader of men; they instructed him in 
 music and in magic, and in the science of the 
 stars ; and they told him about the idols whom 
 the people ignorantly worshiped, and about the 
 great God, the ruler of all things. No young 
 man ever had brighter prospects than he; for it 
 was the wish, both of the King and of the King's 
 daughter, that he should in the end become a 
 great ruler in the land, and that he should stand 
 next in power to the King himself. But his own 
 mother, the humble nurse who cared for him in 
 his childhood, had taught him something else. It 
 was she who told him of his kinsmen, and how 
 they had lived for now four hundred years in the 
 land, and how they had been robbed and oppressed 
 
94 
 
 and enslaved, and how in every city and town 
 his brethren were being lashed and driven by 
 cruel taskmasters. And she told him about the 
 great ancestor of his people, the Prince, how 
 he had come as a stranger and settled in the 
 valley of Goshen ; and how before he died he had 
 told his sons that they should not always stay in 
 the Nile country, but that somewhere there was a 
 land flowing with milk and honey which the great 
 God whom they reverenced had promised to them 
 and their descendants as a heritage and a home 
 so long as the world should last. These words 
 sank deep into the heart of the lad, deeper by far 
 than all the lore he had learned from his teach- 
 ers; and the older he grew, the more he yearned 
 towards his kinsfolk, and the more he longed to 
 help them escape from their grievous burdens. 
 
 One day, after he had become a grown-up man, 
 Moses was walking in the fields where some of his 
 people were toiling; and in a lonely spot he saw one 
 of the King's taskmasters beating a man. He looked 
 this way and that, and, when he saw that no one 
 was near, he killed the taskmaster, and hid his body 
 in the sand. The next day he was walking near 
 the same place, and there he saw two of his own 
 people fighting. 
 
 " For shame ! " he cried. " Why do you do so 
 
95 
 
 wrong a thing as to quarrel with each other ? " 
 And he ran and tried to part them. 
 
 "Who made you a judge over us?" said one of 
 the men. " Do you want to kill me as you killed 
 the taskmaster yesterday ? " 
 
 When the young man heard this, he was fright- 
 ened. 
 
 " Surely the thing is known," he said to himself ; 
 " but how did any one find it out ? " 
 
 Then, without saying another word, he turned, 
 and fled from the place. He knew that the laws of 
 the land were very strict, and that, if it should be 
 proven that he had killed the taskmaster, he would 
 be punished, perhaps with death. He dared not 
 stop even to say good-by to his friends. There 
 was no safety for him anywhere in the Land of the 
 Nile; and so he fled into the far wilderness country 
 where there were no cities, nor towns, nor settled 
 homes, but only wandering bands of Arabs and a 
 few keepers of sheep. 
 
 One afternoon he came to a well in the midst of 
 a grove of palm trees, and sat down in the shade to 
 rest. On the grassy plain not far away there were 
 many flocks of sheep feeding, and the tops of white 
 tents could be seen among the hills beyond. The 
 young man was tired with his long wanderings, and 
 he was in no haste to leave a spot that seemed so 
 
9 6 
 
 quiet and peaceful and safe. He had not been there 
 long, however, when he heard the tinkle of bells 
 and the sound of pleasant voices ; and, peering out 
 from his place, he saw seven handsome young girls 
 driving a flock of sheep towards the well. 
 
 " Make haste, sisters," said one of them. " Draw 
 up the water quickly, and fill the troughs, that so 
 the sheep may drink before the men see us." 
 
 Three of the maidens hurried with their pails to 
 draw the water, while the others urged the timid 
 flock to the troughs. But scarcely had the panting 
 sheep begun to drink, when loud shouts were heard 
 near by, and a half dozen rude shepherds came run- 
 ning to drive them away. 
 
 " Have we not told you to wait until we have 
 given our sheep drink?" they cried. "There is 
 hardly water enough for all." 
 
 Then the young man Moses stood up and showed 
 himself, and drove the rude shepherds from the 
 well, and helped the maidens water their flock. 
 
 That evening the girls drove their sheep home 
 much earlier than was their wont. 
 
 " Why is it that you have come home so soon 
 to-day ? " asked their father. 
 
 " A young stranger was at the well," they an- 
 swered, " and he kept the shepherds away while our 
 sheep drank from the troughs." 
 
97 
 
 " Yes/' said Zipporah, the youngest and handsom- 
 est of the seven, " and he also drew the water for us, 
 and watered the flock." 
 
 " And where is the stranger ? " said their father. 
 " Why is it that you did not bring him home with 
 you ? Make haste and call him, that he may eat 
 bread with us, and lodge for the night in our tent." 
 
 The young man was glad to become the guest of 
 the good Arab, and he was in no haste to go farther. 
 Every day he helped the maidens drive their sheep 
 to the pasture, and every evening he sat in the tent 
 door, and listened to the wise talk of the old man 
 their father. Thus the time passed pleasantly away, 
 and at last he made up his mind to stay in that quiet, 
 peaceful place, and be a shepherd all the rest of his 
 life. And so he married the pretty Zipporah, and 
 kept the flock of her father, and lived in her father's 
 tents, and cared no more for the riches and power 
 which might have been his in the Land of the 
 Nile. 
 
 III. THE BURNING BUSH. 
 
 Forty years passed by. 
 
 The Children of the Prince were still toiling under 
 their cruel taskmasters in the Land of the Nile ; 
 and every day their burdens were made heavier, and 
 their bondage became more bitter. In their great 
 
 STO. OF THE EAST 7 
 
9 8 
 
 distress they cried out, and prayed God that he 
 would send them help. 
 
 In the mean while Moses kept his father-in-law's 
 sheep in the wild country of the Arabs. But he 
 had not forgotten his kinsfolk in the Land of the 
 Nile, and the memory of their troubles was always 
 in his mind. One day, as he was tending his flock 
 on the side of a mountain, he saw a strange vision. 
 A bush that stood close by seemed to catch fire, 
 and burn with a blaze that was brighter than the 
 sun, and yet it was not harmed in the least. While 
 he stood looking at it, and wondering, he saw an 
 angel in the flame, and heard a voice calling him 
 by name. 
 
 " Here am I," he answered. 
 
 " Come not any nearer, for this is holy ground," 
 said the voice. 
 
 Then Moses hid his face for fear, and stood still 
 and listened. And the voice told him how his kins- 
 folk were oppressed in the Land of the Nile, and 
 how they had cried to God for help. 
 
 " Go down, therefore," it said, " and free my 
 people from their bondage, and lead them forth 
 into the Land of Promise." 
 
 But Moses said, " How can I do this thing ? 
 How can I go before the King, and persuade him to 
 let the Children of the Prince go free ? I am slow 
 
99 
 
 of speech, and cannot find words to say that which 
 I ought to say. Send some one else, I pray." 
 
 The angel said, " Go, and I will be with you, and 
 teach you what to say. And I will send your 
 brother Aaron to meet you, and go with you ; for I 
 know that he can speak well." 
 
 So Moses left his flock with his father-in-law, and 
 started to go back to the Land of the Nile. But 
 while he was still in the wild country of the Arabs, 
 whom should he meet but his own brother Aaron. 
 He kissed him, and told him all that happened to 
 him, and how he had been bidden to go down and 
 free their people from bondage, and lead them forth 
 into the Promised Land. 
 
 Then the two brothers went down boldly into the 
 Land of the Nile, and told their people that they 
 had come to help them; and the people believed 
 them, and bowed their heads, and thanked God 
 that he had at last sent deliverance. 
 
 Not long after that, Moses and his brother went 
 up and stood before the King, and asked him to 
 allow the Children of the Prince to go three days' 
 march into the wild country to make offerings there 
 to their God. But the King laughed at them in 
 scorn, and asked, 
 
 " Who is your God? Why do you hinder the 
 people from their work ? " 
 
100 
 
 And he ordered the taskmasters to put more work 
 upon the poor slaves, and to whip them if they failed 
 in their tasks. This they did ; and the slaves cried 
 out against Moses and Aaron, and said, " If we had 
 not listened to you, we should not have had these 
 things to bear. You have made our burdens 
 heavier than before." 
 
 Then Moses and Aaron went up again, and stood 
 before the King ; and they carried with them the 
 rod or staff which Moses had used when he kept 
 his father-in-law's sheep in the wild country. 
 
 "Who is your God?-" again asked the King. 
 " Show me some wonderful thing that you can do 
 through his help." 
 
 Then Aaron threw the rod down upon the ground, 
 and it was turned into a great snake. But the King 
 twas not alarmed at this. 
 
 " I have seen that trick before," he said. And he 
 sent for his magicians, and told them what Aaron 
 had done, and showed them the snake on the 
 ground. 
 
 " It is very easily done," they said. And they 
 threw down their rods, and every one was turned 
 into a snake. But the snake that had sprung from 
 Aaron's rod swallowed up all the others, and then 
 became a rod again. 
 
 " Wonderful, wonderful ! " cried the magicians. 
 
lor 
 
 " Now will you let our people go ? " asked Moses. 
 
 " No, I will not let them go," said the King; and 
 he sent word to the taskmasters to have no pity for 
 their slaves, but to make their burdens still heavier. 
 
 IV. THE TEN PLAGUES. 
 
 The next morning Moses and Aaron went again 
 to speak to the King. They found him by the river- 
 side, where he had gone for his daily bath. And 
 Moses said to him, 
 
 "O King! the God of my people has sent me to 
 ask you to let them go, that they may serve him in 
 the wild country beyond the Red Sea." 
 
 " Who is your God ? " asked the King. And he 
 bade them begone from his sight. 
 
 Then Aaron lifted the magic rod, and stretched 
 it out towards the river; and the water became red 
 like blood, and no one could drink of it, and all the 
 fishes in the river died. The King's magicians tried 
 to do the same thing, and some of the water which 
 they touched with their rods was turned into blood. 
 
 Seven days passed by, and then Moses again 
 asked the King to let the people go. And 
 when the King refused, as before, Aaron stretched 
 the magic rod over the water of the Nile ; and 
 frogs came up out of the river, and filled the 
 
IO2 
 
 whole land, and hopped into the houses and palaces, 
 and there was no place that was free from them. 
 The magicians also stretched their rods over the 
 river, and more frogs came leaping out of the 
 water. 
 
 This time the King was much troubled ; and he 
 told Moses, that, if he would pray God to kill all 
 the frogs, he would do what he wished, and let the 
 people go. But when the frogs were all gone, the 
 King forgot his promise. Then Aaron stretched 
 out the rod again, and the land was filled with fleas 
 and other vermin, and both men and beasts were 
 covered .with them. 
 
 " This is the finger of God," said the magi- 
 cians. " There is no power in magic to do such 
 a thing." 
 
 But the King was still stubborn, and would not 
 yield. And Moses brought up great swarms of flies, 
 that filled the houses, and lighted on everything in 
 the land; but in the valley of Goshen, where most 
 of the Children of the Prince lived, there were no 
 flies. 
 
 "Why cannot your people stay at home and offer 
 sacrifices to your God ? " asked the King. 
 
 " It is not right that they should do so," said 
 Moses. " They must go into the wild country, as 
 he has bidden them." 
 
103 
 
 " Then they may go," said the King ; " only rid 
 the land of these swarms of flies." 
 
 But the next day, when the flies had all been 
 removed, the King again changed his mind, and 
 said 
 
 " No, they shall not go. Let the taskmasters 
 give them still more work to do." 
 
 Then Moses stretched out his hand, and a great 
 sickness broke out among the cattle and sheep, and 
 they died by the thousands all over the land. But 
 of the cattle and sheep that belonged to the Chil- 
 dren of the Prince there was not one that sickened, 
 or was troubled with the plague. 
 
 " Will you let my kinsmen go now ? " asked 
 Moses. 
 
 " No, they shall not go," said the King. 
 
 Then the two brothers scattered ashes in the air ; 
 and on the morrow boils and grievous sores broke 
 out on men and beasts, and even on the magicians 
 in the King's palace. And when the King still re- 
 fused, they lifted their hands towards the sky, and 
 there was a great storm of hail, with lightning and 
 thunder, such as no man in that land had ever seen 
 before. The King was now greatly alarmed, and 
 he cried out, " I have sinned ! Pray that the storm 
 may cease, and then your people may go whitherso- 
 ever they wish." But when the storm had passed 
 
 TJKIVKRSITT 
 
104 
 
 by, and the sky was again clear and bright, he re- 
 called his promise. 
 
 Moses next threatened, that, if the people were 
 not allowed to go, he would bring locusts or grass- 
 hoppers into the land, that should fill the fields and 
 the houses, and eat up every green thing that had 
 not been destroyed by the hail. Then the wise 
 men of the land begged the King to keep his 
 word, and do as he had promised. 
 
 " Let the men go, that they may serve the Lord 
 their God," they said. 
 
 " The men may go," said the King, " but the 
 women and children shall not." And he drove 
 Moses and Aaron out of the palace. 
 
 The very next day an east wind blew over the 
 land, and the air was filled with locusts, or grass- 
 hoppers, until the sun was hidden from sight, and 
 every green thing was eaten up. Then the King 
 in great distress cried out, 
 
 " Forgive my sin once more. Take all the people 
 of the Children of the Prince, and lead them out 
 into the wild country, as you have asked." 
 
 And when Moses prayed, there came a strong 
 west wind which carried the grasshoppers before 
 it, and cast them all into the Red Sea. But the 
 foolish King again broke his promise. 
 
 Then Moses lifted his hand towards the sky, and 
 
IDS 
 
 for three days there was thick darkness all over 
 the land ; only in the valley of Goshen, where the 
 Children of the Prince lived, there was light. And 
 the King was again frightened, and said to Moses 
 that the people might surely go this time, but 
 that they should leave all their flocks and herds 
 behind. 
 
 " No, indeed!" said Moses, "not a hoof shall they 
 leave behind." 
 
 " Then begone and save yourself!" said the King 
 in great anger. " If you dare to come before me 
 again, you shall die ! " 
 
 And Moses turned away from him, and said, 
 
 " I will see your face no more." 
 
 And then the tenth and last plague came. 
 
 It was in the early spring, and the moon was at 
 its full. At midnight the angel of death passed 
 over all the land, and in every house the eldest 
 child lay dead. Everywhere, in the King's palace 
 as well as in the lowliest hut, there were shrieks of 
 distress and grief, and the air was filled with sounds 
 of mourning and despair. But it was not so in the 
 homes of the Children of the Prince. Moses had 
 told them to mark their doorposts with the blood 
 of a lamb, so that the death angel, as he passed, 
 might see it, and not enter there. And so they 
 were spared ; while those who had enslaved them, 
 
io6 
 
 and treated them with so great harshness, were 
 afflicted with untold grief. 
 
 Then the King sent to Moses and Aaron, and 
 begged that they would lead their people out of 
 the Land of the Nile quickly. 
 
 " Take your flocks and your herds, as you have 
 said, and begone. And bless me also," he said. 
 
 V. THE LONG JOURNEY. 
 
 Then Moses and Aaron gathered the people 
 together in haste, and they began their perilous 
 march out of the Land of the Nile. There were 
 more than half a million men and women, besides 
 children ; and they took with them their flocks and 
 herds, and all the goods of every kind that they 
 could carry. But they were scarcely halfway to 
 the borders of the land, when they heard that the 
 King, with a great army and six hundred chariots, 
 was following after them. This news filled every 
 heart with fear; and many of them cried out 
 against Moses, and said, 
 
 " Why did you not let us alone ? It would have 
 been better to live as slaves than to be slain with 
 our wives and children here in the desert." 
 
 But Moses led them on towards the east, and in 
 the evening they came to the shore of the Red Sea. 
 
ro; 
 
 What now should they do, with the water before 
 them, and their old masters close behind ? It 
 seemed as though there could be no help for them 
 at all. But Moses lifted his magic staff, and a 
 strong wind came down from the east, and blew the 
 tide away ; and, as the sea was quite shallow there, 
 the sandy bottom was soon laid bare. Then the 
 Children of the Prince, men, women,^and children, 
 - with their flocks and herds, marched boldly 
 across ; and a pillar of fire went before them to show 
 them the way, but behind them was a dark pillar of 
 cloud, that hid them from the sight of their foes. 
 All night long they marched over the bared sands 
 of the shallow sea, and at daybreak every one stood 
 safe on the farther shore. Then, looking back, they 
 saw the King's chariots and his armed horsemen 
 following not far behind ; but the sand was soft, and 
 the wheels dragged heavily, and the horses' feet sank 
 deep in the mire. And now the wind died away, 
 and the tide came rushing in, and the waves rose 
 high, and the King and his hosts were seen no 
 more. The sea had swallowed them up. 
 
 Thus at last the Children of the Prince were 
 free: they were now on the borders of the great 
 wild country beyond which was the land flowing 
 with milk and honey, that had been promised to 
 their fathers for an inheritance. Then, while they 
 
(xoB) 
 
 MOSES LIFTED HIS MAGIC STAFF. 
 
109 
 
 rested by the shore of the sea, Moses made up a. 
 song of victory, and of thanksgiving to God for 
 having thus brought them safely out of the land 
 of bondage. And all the men who were with 
 him, and had a voice for music, joined in singing it. 
 
 " I will sing unto the Lord, 
 For he hath triumphed gloriously. 
 The horse and his rider 
 Hath he thrown into the sea. 
 The Lord is my strength and song, 
 And he is become my salvation." 
 
 And then Miriam, the sister of Moses, took a 
 .timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out 
 after her with timbrels and dances ; and they 
 answered in chorus, 
 
 " Sing ye to the Lord, 
 For he hath triumphed gloriously. 
 The horse and his rider 
 Hath he thrown into the sea." 
 
 This was the way in which the Children of the 
 Prince began their long journey towards the 
 Promised Land. A long journey indeed it proved 
 to be, for they wandered hither and thither among 
 the mountains and in the desert for forty years ; 
 not because the Promised Land was so far away, 
 but because they could not agree among themselves, 
 
110 
 
 were afraid of the people who already lived 
 there. When at last they came within sight of the 
 fair country which was to be their home, Moses 
 was very old, and the host that he led was like 
 the sands of the sea for number, for they could 
 not be counted. And yet among all that host 
 there were only two men who had been with him 
 in the Land of the Nile. A new generation had 
 grown up during the long wanderings, and the 
 babes who had crossed the Red Sea were now 
 middle-aged men and women. 
 
 " I shall see the Promised Land, but I shall 
 not enter into it," said Moses. 
 
 And he went up into a high mountain where 
 he could look down upon the fair country. Below 
 him lay the Dead Sea, where the wicked cities 
 of the plain once stood, its white waters glistening 
 like snow in the sunshine ; and there was the river 
 which we call the Jordan, winding among hills 
 and pleasant groves and through fruitful valleys ; 
 and just beyond it was a fair city, the city of Jericho, 
 nestling among tall palms, in the midst of fields of 
 waving grain ; and stretching away and away to 
 the western sky were the fertile plains, the rich 
 valleys, and the vine-clad hills of the Land of 
 Promise. And while Moses was looking upon this 
 delightful prospect, he died ; but no man was with 
 
Ill 
 
 him, and no one ever knew where his body was 
 laid. He was a hundred and twenty years old, 
 but as bright-eyed and hale and strong as he had 
 ever been. And when the people learned that he 
 was dead, they mourned for him thirty days. 
 
 There was still much to be done before they 
 could enter into the Promised Land, and make for 
 themselves homes in that delightful region. Many 
 tribes of warlike men dwelt among the hills and 
 in the valleys, and these they must fight and sub- 
 due. Many strong and high-walled cities stood in 
 the midst of the land, and these they must cap- 
 ture and destroy. And so, while they mourned 
 for their great leader, their captains made ready 
 for the conflict that was before them, and the 
 hearts of all were full of hope. 
 
 " It shall be well with us," they said to one 
 another, " if we remember the words that Moses 
 spoke to us ; for they are the commandments of 
 God." 
 
 And always after that, the children of the 
 Prince, or Israelites, were governed by the laws 
 which Moses had given them while they were 
 wandering among the mountains and deserts of 
 wild Arabia. And their descendants to this very 
 day remember and honor him as their greatest law- 
 giver and the most famous man of their race. 
 
"THE MAN WHOSE EYES WERE OPEN." 
 
 I. THE SOOTHSAYER. 
 
 THERE lived in the mountain land this side of 
 the great river Euphrates a Soothsayer whose 
 fame had gone out into every country of the East. 
 Some men said that he was a prophet, and had 
 learned his wisdom from on high ; and others said 
 that he was a magician, and had gotten his skill 
 from the powers of evil. But, be that as it may, he 
 foretold many things truthfully, and people came to 
 him from far and near to learn about matters that 
 were to them strange and unknown. 
 
 One day a company of men from the West came 
 to see him. They brought with them gifts of gold 
 and frankincense and honey, and many beautiful 
 and costly things ; and when they had rested them- 
 selves, and washed their feet and their hands, and 
 eaten bread with him, they told him their errand. 
 
 " Our King," they said, " sends to you these gifts ; 
 and he begs that you will make all haste and return 
 
 112 
 
H3 
 
 with us, that so you may save our country from 
 destruction." 
 
 " Where is your country ? " asked the Soothsayer, 
 " and how can I save it from destruction ? " 
 
 "Our country," they answered, "lies five days' 
 journey to the west, with the desert on this side 
 of it, and the Dead Sea beyond ; and it is rich in 
 flocks and herds, and in corn and honey. But a 
 great tribe of wandering men who call themselves 
 the Children of the Prince have come up like so 
 many grasshoppers from the Land of the Nile ; and 
 they have camped on the borders of our land, and 
 threaten to drive us from our fields and our cities, 
 and to destroy us from the earth, as they have 
 destroyed the nations that were neighbors to us. 
 We know that we are not strong enough to stand 
 against them, for they are like the sands of the sea 
 in number. And so our King sends you this mes- 
 sage : ' Come, I pray you, and curse this people, 
 and then we shall prevail against them, and drive 
 them out of the land; for I know that he whom 
 you bless is blessed indeed, and that he whom you 
 curse is accursed.'" 
 
 " Why should I do this thing for your King, who 
 is a stranger to me ? " said the Soothsayer. " But 
 lodge with me in my house to-night, and in the 
 morning I will tell you whether I will go." 
 
 STO. OF THE EAST 8 
 
So the men staid with the Soothsayer that 
 night, and in the morning he brought them his 
 answer. 
 
 " Go back into your own land," said he, " and tell 
 your King that I will not curse the people who call 
 themselves the Children of the Prince : for in the 
 night I had a vision, and a voice spoke to me, and 
 said, ' Go not with the men, and do not curse the 
 people who have come up out of the Nile country; 
 for they are my people, and they are blessed.' " 
 
 The men bowed themselves, and then mounted 
 their camels, and made all speed to carry this an- 
 swer back to their King. 
 
 Ten days after that, there came to the Soothsayer 
 other men from the same country; and they were 
 the princes of the land, and stood next to the King. 
 They brought two gold cups as presents for the 
 Soothsayer, besides many other gifts of great beauty 
 and worth. 
 
 "O wise man of the East!" they cried, "our 
 master the King prays that you will let nothing 
 hinder you from going to him at once. See these 
 rich presents which he has sent! and you shall 
 have many more, and the King will give you the 
 highest office in the land, if you will only hasten 
 and curse these robbers who call themselves the 
 Children of the Prince: for now they have crossed 
 
our borders, and are burning our towns, and 
 driving away our flocks, and killing our people; 
 and we are not strong enough to stand against 
 them." 
 
 The Soothsayer took the presents from their 
 hands, and said, " I would fain please your King, 
 for he seems to be fair-minded and just; and yet, 
 if he were to give me a house full of silver and 
 gold, I cannot do that which he wishes, unless the 
 God whom I worship bids me. But lodge with me 
 to-night, and in the morning I will answer you." 
 
 So the princes slept in the house of the Sooth- 
 sayer that night; and in the morning when they 
 arose, they found him with his cloak upon his 
 shoulders, and his sandals on his feet, ready for a 
 long journey. 
 
 " Let us lose no time," said he, "for I will go 
 with you to your country. But what I shall say 
 to those enemies of yours, whether cursings or 
 blessings, I know not." 
 
 II. THE VISION. 
 
 Over the hills and across the lonely desert, the 
 Soothsayer and the princes made their way, having 
 their faces always towards the place of the setting 
 sun. The princes rode on fleet-footed camels, with 
 
u6 
 
 spearsmen leading the way ; and the Soothsayer 
 followed them, mounted on an ambling donkey, 
 with his two servants running behind. On the 
 fifth day they reached the borders of a fair 
 country where there were trees and vines, and 
 now and then a field of grain, or a green pasture 
 where sheep were feeding. 
 
 " This is our land," said one of the princes, - 
 " the land of which these men from the Nile would 
 rob us." 
 
 After a time they came to a place where the 
 road was quite narrow, with a vineyard on one 
 side, and a field of grain on the other. 
 
 The Soothsayer was riding carelessly along, 
 looking at the great clusters of grapes upon the 
 vines, when all at once his donkey sprang to one 
 side, and ran into the field. What could ail the 
 beast ! She had never acted so before. 
 
 Her master beat her soundly with his cane, and at 
 last forced her to go back into the road. 
 
 A little while after, they came to a place where 
 there was a stone wall on either side of the road. 
 Here the donkey stopped, and tried to go back. But 
 when the Soothsayer beat her again, she sprang to 
 one side and rushed forward, crushing her master's 
 foot against the wall. 
 
 " Is the beast mad ? " said one of the servants. 
 
ii; 
 
 " Nay," said the other, " I think that she has seen 
 a spirit ; " for in those times people believed that 
 some animals were gifted with powers of sight 
 that were denied to men, and that they could see 
 things which our dull eyes cannot perceive. 
 
 And now the road became still narrower. It 
 was a mere path between two rocky banks, and was 
 barely wide enough for a camel to pass with his 
 rider on his back. 
 
 All at once the donkey stopped, and then fell 
 down upon her knees. The Soothsayer had been 
 vexed before, but now he was in a rage. He 
 seized a stick that was lying on the ground, and 
 beat the donkey with many a blow. 
 
 " What have I done," cried the poor beast, " that 
 you should beat me so cruelly?" 
 
 "You have mocked me, you have mocked 
 me ! " answered her master. " If I only had a sword 
 in my hand, I would kill you !" 
 
 " Have I not served you well ever since I be- 
 longed to you?" said the donkey. "And did I 
 ever behave in this way before ? " 
 
 " No," said the Soothsayer ; and then, looking up, 
 he saw the cause of the beast's affright. Right in 
 the path before him stood a shining being, whose 
 face was like the sun, and who held in his hand a 
 drawn sword of wondrous length. There was no 
 
n8 
 
 way to pass by, either on the right or on the left, 
 and to go forward would be to meet death at the 
 point of the sword. The Soothsayer covered his 
 face with his hands, and bowed himself to the 
 ground. 
 
 " Why have you beaten your poor beast these 
 three times ?" said the bright being. " I have come 
 out to meet you, because your heart was not right, 
 and you were longing for the rewards which the 
 King of this land has promised you. If the donkey 
 had not seen me, and turned aside, I would have 
 killed you, and saved her alive." 
 
 The Soothsayer was filled with fear, and cried 
 out for mercy. 
 
 " Truly, I have done wrong," he cried. " I did 
 not know that you were standing in the way. 
 Spare me now, I pray, and I will go back into my 
 own country with all haste." 
 
 " Not so," said the bright being. " Arise, and 
 ride on with the men of the King. But have a 
 care that you speak only the words which you are 
 bidden to speak." 
 
 Then the Soothsayer arose and looked ; but the 
 flashing sword was no longer in the way, and the 
 shining being with the sun-bright face had vanished. 
 He spoke kindly to the trembling donkey, and then 
 he rode on to overtake the men of the King. 
 
" Is our master mad?" said one of his servants. 
 " He never acted so strangely before/' 
 
 " Nay," said the other ; " I think that he too 
 must have seen a spirit." 
 
 III. THE FIRST MOUNTAIN. 
 
 When the King of the land heard that the Sooth- 
 sayer had come, he went out to meet him ; and he 
 again promised him great rewards if he would curse 
 the Children of the Prince. 
 
 " I have no power either to bless or to curse," 
 said the Soothsayer, " only as it is given to me from 
 on high." 
 
 On the morrow they went up into a high moun- 
 tain, from near the top of which they could see all 
 the country around. Looking to the southward, 
 they saw the plains covered with the tents of the 
 strange people who had come up out of the Land of 
 the Nile. There were thousands of men and women 
 and children ; and their flocks and herds dotted the 
 hillsides for miles away. 
 
 " Build seven altars here on the mountain top," 
 said the Soothsayer, " and bring me seven fat oxen 
 and seven rams." 
 
 The servants of the King hastened to do as they 
 were bidden; and the Soothsayer killed the oxen 
 
120 
 
 and the rams, and then laid the choicest parts of 
 the flesh upon the wood of the altars. 
 
 " Now bring me fire," he said ; and soon seven 
 columns of smoke arose from the altars, and the 
 flames burst out, and the air was filled with the 
 pleasant odor of the burning flesh. 
 
 Then the Soothsayer said to the King, " Stand 
 here by the altars, and I will go aside by myself. 
 It may be that a spirit will come and talk with 
 me, and tell me what to do." 
 
 He walked away, and climbed still higher up the 
 mountain side. At last, when he reached the top 
 of the highest peak, he stood still and wrapped his 
 cloak about him, and waited in the midst of the 
 smoke which came up from the burnt offerings. 
 And the King and his princes stood in silence by 
 the altars. 
 
 At last the oxen and the rams were burnt up, 
 the fires died away, and nothing but white ashes 
 was left on the loose stones of the altars ; and then 
 the Soothsayer, with slow steps, came down to meet 
 the King. 
 
 " O man of wisdom ! " cried the King, " is it well 
 with you ? Come, stand on this jutting rock, where 
 you can see the host of robbers, and then curse 
 them every one, that so our land may be saved 
 from destruction." 
 
w 
 c/a 
 
 i 
 
 (121) 
 
122 
 
 The Soothsayer stood upon the rock, and lifted 
 his hands towards heaven ; and then he spoke : 
 
 " From my mountain home in the East 
 The King of this land has called me. 
 He would have me curse this people 
 Who have come up from the Land of the Nile. 
 But how shall I curse whom God hath blessed? 
 How shall I defy whom God hath not defied? 
 From the top of the rocks I see them, 
 And from the hills I behold them. 
 Lo, they shall dwell alone in the land, 
 And there shall be none beside them. 
 Who can count the Children of the Prince, 
 Or number a fourth of this people ? 
 Oh, give me the death of the righteous, 
 And let my last end be like his ! " 
 
 When the King heard these words, he was angry, 
 and cried out, " What are you doing ? I brought 
 you here to curse my enemies, and, instead of that, 
 you have blessed them." 
 
 But the Soothsayer answered, " Must I not 
 speak the words that are given to me from on 
 high? for I have no power of my own either to 
 bless or to curse." 
 
 " This is not a good place," said the King, " and 
 perhaps you have not heard the right voice. To- 
 morrow we will go up into another mountain, and 
 try again." 
 
123 
 
 IV. THE SECOND MOUNTAIN. 
 
 The next day the King and his princes and the 
 Soothsayer climbed to the top of Mount Pisgah. 
 It was much higher than the other mountain. 
 From its summit they could see all the country 
 spread out before them like a map. At their 
 right, almost at their feet, was the Dead Sea, its 
 calm waters glistening like silver in the rays of 
 the sun. Beyond it were the hills and valleys 
 of the Land of Promise, where were thousands 
 of fields and orchards and vineyards, and many 
 a white-walled city half hidden among groves of 
 stately palm trees. It was a wonderful and beauti- 
 ful sight ; but the Soothsayer turned away to view 
 the plains that were stretched out before him and 
 on his left. There he could see the encampment 
 of the Children of the Prince, but it was so far 
 away that the people looked like mere specks 
 moving about from place to place. 
 
 "Build seven altars here," he said, u and bring 
 seven fat oxen and seven rams for a burnt 
 offering." 
 
 And when the smoke arose from the altars, he 
 said to the King, " Stand here while I go yonder." 
 And he went and hid himself in a cave among the 
 rocks, where no one could see or hear ; and when 
 
124 * 
 
 he had covered his face with his cloak, he stood 
 still and waited for a long time. 
 
 Hour after hour passed by, the fires on the altars 
 burned low, and the King and his princes grew 
 tired of waiting; but when the sun was almost 
 down, the Soothsayer came out from his place and 
 stood before them. 
 
 " What is your message this time ? " asked the 
 King. 
 
 The Soothsayer raised his eyes and held up his 
 hands, and said, 
 
 " God is not man, that he should lie, 
 Nor the son of man, that he should repent. 
 Hath he said, and shall he not do it ? 
 Hath he spoken, and shall it not be so ? 
 He hath blessed, and I cannot curse. 
 Behold, this people shall rise up as a great lion, 
 As a young lion shall they lift themselves up ; 
 They shall not lie down until they eat of the prey, 
 And drink of the blood of the slain." 
 
 The King was very angry because the Sooth- 
 sayer blessed the people a second time, but he 
 still hoped that there was some mistake. 
 
 " This is not a good place," he said. " To- 
 morrow we will look down upon our enemies 
 from the hill of Peor. It may be that you will 
 be allowed to curse them from there." 
 
125 
 
 V. THE THIRD MOUNTAIN. 
 
 Early the next morning the King and the Sooth- 
 sayer, with their servants and the princes of the 
 land, went up into the mountain called Peor. It 
 was not a very high mountain, but on it was a 
 temple in which was an image of one of the gods 
 of that country; and the King hoped that the 
 Soothsayer would hear the voice of this god. As 
 they stood and looked down upon the plain, they 
 could see the Children of the Prince moving in and 
 out among their tents. They could hear the shouts 
 of the men, and the songs of the women, and the 
 merry voices of the boys and girls ; for the en- 
 campment was very near. 
 
 " Build me here seven altars, and get ready seven 
 fat oxen and seven rams," said the Soothsayer. 
 
 And the King's servants made haste to do as 
 they were bidden ; and soon an ox and a ram were 
 smoking on every altar. Then the Soothsayer, 
 instead of going away by himself, turned his face 
 towards the plain, and looked down upon the tents. 
 
 "O King!" he said, "hear now the words of 
 the man whose eyes are open. Twice already he 
 has spoken that which was given to him when 
 in a trance ; twice has he said what he heard in 
 a trance with his eyes open. 
 
126 
 
 " How goodly are the tents of the Children of the Prince ! 
 As valleys are they spread forth, 
 As gardens by the riverside, 
 As aloes which God hath planted, 
 As cedar trees beside the waters." 
 
 Then the King was very angry, and he clapped 
 his hands together, and bade the Soothsayer stop. 
 
 " Did I not call you here to curse my enemies ? 
 Did I not promise you great rewards, and show 
 you the lands and houses that I would give you ? 
 And now, instead of cursing these people, you have 
 blessed them three times." 
 
 " Did I not say unto your messengers," answered 
 the Soothsayer, " that, if their King should offer me 
 his house full of gold and silver, I would not speak 
 one word, whether good or bad, that was not given 
 me from on high ? " 
 
 " It is enough/' said the King. " If you would 
 save your life, flee from this place at once." 
 
 Then the Soothsayer spoke again. 
 
 " O King ! " said he, " hear the words of the man 
 whose eyes are open. Hear the words which 
 were given to him when he was in a trance, hav- 
 ing his eyes open : 
 
 " I shall see him, but not now ; 
 I shall behold him, but not nigh ; 
 From this people a star shall rise, 
 
127 
 
 From them shall come a mighty king ; 
 And he shall smite the corners of your land, 
 And destroy all that dwell in your cities." 
 
 And when he had finished speaking, he went 
 down the mountain, and hastened to go into his 
 own country. And the King and his princes went 
 their own way, and sought to find some other means 
 by which to save their land. 
 
 The name of " the man whose eyes were open " 
 was Balaam, and the name of the King was Balak. 
 And there is a story that Balaam afterwards tried 
 to help the King in another way; for he persuaded 
 many of the Children of the Prince to worship the 
 strange god whose image was on the mountain of 
 Peor. But in the end he joined himself with the 
 wild tribes of the desert; and, in a great battle 
 that was fought against the people whom he had 
 blessed, he was slain with the sword. 
 
THE BEE AND THE GAZELLE. 
 
 I. THE BEE. 
 
 THEY called her Deborah, or the Bee, for that 
 was the name which in those days was given to 
 wise women and singers of songs. 
 
 She lived in a little house under a palm tree, and 
 she was the busiest person in all the land. Men 
 came from far and near to tell her about their 
 troubles and to ask her advice. She settled their 
 quarrels, and punished wrongdoers, and helped the 
 poor, and bade everybody hope for the coming of 
 better days. 
 
 " She ought to be our queen," some would say. 
 
 " But we are slaves, and our people dare not have 
 a queen," said others. 
 
 " Then we will call her our judge," was the answer, 
 " and we will do what she bids." 
 
 Those were indeed dark days for the Children of 
 the Prince. Twenty years before, the King of the 
 Canaanites, or Low Country Folk, had sent an army 
 
 128 
 
I2Q 
 
 against them, and had taken all their towns, and 
 had made them his servants; and ever since then 
 they had done his bidding, and had not dared to call 
 anything their own. It was of no use for them to 
 till their fields and raise fine crops of grain ; it was 
 of no use to tend their flocks or care for their vines 
 and fruit trees : the Low Country Folk might come 
 any day and take everything from them. The -peo- 
 ple left their homes in the towns, and fled to the 
 woods and hills ; and no one dared to travel on 
 the highroads, but skulked from place to place by 
 secret pathways. 
 
 " We are slaves," they groaned, " and there is no 
 help for us." 
 
 But there was one person who did not lose heart, 
 and that person was the Bee. She busied herself 
 every day in making plans to free her people. She 
 sent trusted spies into the Low Country to see what 
 the King was doing ; she learned all about his fight- 
 ing men, and knew how many he could call into 
 battle. Then she went out among the hills and 
 called the men of her own nation together, and bade 
 them be ready at any moment to rise up against 
 their tyrant master. 
 
 Eighty miles away there lived a young man 
 named Barak, whom she chose to be their leader. 
 He was so brave and strong, and withal so bright 
 
 STO. OF THE EAST 9 
 
130 
 
 and quick, that he was called Lightning ; and 
 there was not a man in all the land who would 
 not gladly obey him. One day the Bee sent for 
 him, and said, 
 
 " The time has come now to make a bold move 
 for freedom, and we must act at once. How many 
 men can you muster ? " 
 
 And Lightning said, " Within two days' journey 
 from this place there are ten thousand who are only 
 waiting to be called." 
 
 " Then do not wait," said the Bee, " but send 
 out your messengers, and give the signal this very 
 night for them to come together. Waste no time, 
 but have every man hasten to this place, that so 
 you may march out in great strength against our 
 foes." 
 
 That night swift messengers sped through the 
 woods and among the hills, and beacon lights 
 flashed on every mountain top in the land ; and 
 from among the rocks and glens came company 
 after company of desperate men, all rallying to the 
 call of their leader. 
 
 On the third day Lightning found himself at the 
 head of a great army. Some of the men had come 
 with swords and spears, some with axes, and many 
 with nothing but clubs and stones. But all were 
 full of hope, and ready to fight. 
 
" Better die now than live longer in slavery," they 
 said. 
 
 Then the Bee said to Lightning, " Go forth with 
 your hosts, and draw towards Mount Tabor, the 
 Stone Quarry Mountain. The army of the Low 
 Country Folk will come out to meet you, and you 
 shall utterly overcome them." 
 
 But Lightning began now to feel afraid. 
 
 " Do you know," said he, " that the leader of our 
 enemies is Sisera, the greatest warrior in the world? 
 Men call him Battlefield, for he has never yet been 
 beaten in fight. He has nine hundred iron chariots, 
 and our people have suffered much at his hands. 
 How can we prevail against him ? " 
 
 " But you will prevail against him," said Bee. 
 u Go forth, and fear not." 
 
 Then Lightning said, " If you will go with me, 
 then I will go; but if you will not go with me, then 
 I will not go." 
 
 " Very well," said the Bee, " I will go. But, mark 
 what I say ! the honors of the day shall not be 
 yours, but another's ; for the Lord of the Battlefield 
 shall meet his death at the hands of a woman." 
 
 Then she went out and took her place with 
 Lightning at the head of the army ; and they 
 marched to the foot of the Stone Quarry Moun- 
 tain, and there awaited the coming of their foes. 
 
132 
 
 II. THE GAZELLE. 
 
 It is noonday. 
 
 The sun shines down hot upon the grassy plain. 
 The air is close and stifling. There is hardly a 
 sign of life to be seen anywhere. 
 
 But here, in the sparse shade of some stunted 
 shrubs, a few sheep and lambs are lying. They 
 are panting for breath, it is so hot. Tempting as 
 the short, sweet grass must be, .they do not care 
 to. stir about in the fierce blazing sunlight. 
 
 A man is making his way across the plain. He 
 has come down from the hills over towards the 
 Stone Quarry Mountain, and he is alone and on 
 foot. He looks around him all the time as though 
 fearful of being seen. He skulks behind the 
 shrubs, and stops now and then to listen. His 
 feet are blistered and swollen with traveling over 
 the hot stony ground. His face is wild and 
 haggard. The slightest sound startles him. 
 
 He sees the sheep lying under the shrubs. 
 
 " Ah ! this must be the pasture ground of my 
 old-time friend, the Arab sheik," he says. " If 
 so, his tents cannot be far away." 
 
 He climbs a little mound, and stands up straight 
 and looks about him. Yes, yonder, a mile away, 
 is a cluster of palm trees, and in its midst he 
 
133 
 
 can see the white tops of tents. How cool and 
 inviting ! And there is water there to quench 
 his burning thirst. If he can only reach that 
 grove, he will be saved. 
 
 But what if his enemies have gotten there 
 before him ? In that case he had better die of 
 the heat and of thirst, alone on the great plain. 
 But his throat is already parched and dry, his 
 tongue is swollen, his brain is on fire. He will 
 take all risks for one drop of water. 
 
 At last the man reaches the edge of the grove. 
 He drags himself into the shade of a palm tree, 
 and glances wildly about him. There are the 
 tents, only a stone's throw away; but not a living 
 creature is to be seen. Even the dogs are sleeping. 
 
 And there is the well, with cool, refreshing water 
 at its bottom. He will make a dash for it, although 
 he must pass close by the door of the women's 
 tent 
 
 But he reels and staggers now. He has hardly 
 strength to put one foot before the other. And 
 who is that? In the door of the women's tent 
 stands Jael, or the Gazelle, the beautiful wife of 
 the Arab sheik. She has been watching him 
 for some time ; indeed, she saw him while he 
 was skulking across the plain. Will she know 
 him in his strange, pitiable plight? 
 
(134) IN THE DOOR OF THE WOMEN'S TENT STANDS JAEL. 
 
135 
 
 Yes. She calls to him as he turns his wild 
 eyes towards her. 
 
 " O Lord of the Battlefield ! " she cries. " Wel- 
 come to our tents ! Come in and rest yourself, 
 for the heat of the sun is unbearable, and you 
 must be weary with your journey." 
 
 She takes his arm, and helps him into the tent. 
 He falls upon the cushions by the curtained door, 
 and gasps, " Water, water ! " 
 
 " Here is something better than water," she 
 says; and she fetches a leathern bottle full of 
 cool delicious buttermilk. He drinks, and is at 
 once refreshed. He looks into the great dark 
 eyes of the Gazelle, and his courage comes to him 
 again. Surely he can trust her ; surely she will 
 befriend him. 
 
 " Now tell me," she says, and she speaks very 
 kindly, "tell me what has happened, that you, 
 the greatest warrior in the world, must needs 
 flee thus, on foot and alone, across the great 
 plain." 
 
 " Then you have not heard about it ? " answers 
 the chief, and his face lights up with hope. " I 
 feared that my enemies had been here before me; 
 nay, that they might be in the sheik's tents even 
 now. But, since you have asked me, I will tell you. 
 Three days ago a great host of the Children of the 
 
136 
 
 Prince came up and encamped on the slope of the 
 Stone Quarry Mountain. They were led by their 
 wise woman whom they call the Bee, and by the 
 young outlaw chief whom they have nicknamed 
 Lightning ; and they defied me to meet them in 
 battle. Then I marshaled my army, and rode out 
 to meet them with nine hundred iron chariots 
 behind me, and thousands of horsemen, besides 
 bowmen and spearsmen without number ; and we 
 thought to make short work of the rebels. We 
 met them early in the day, by the side of the river 
 at the foot of the mountain ; and we fought until 
 the sun was in the west. But we could not stand 
 before them. The stars were against us from the 
 first. My horsemen were overthrown, my chariots 
 were broken in pieces, my fighting men were slain, 
 my army was routed, and I escaped only with my 
 life. . . o They hunted me like a wild beast. 
 They drove me out of the hill country, and I 
 could find no hiding place nor safety anywhere. 
 There was only one thing for me to do, and that 
 was to cross the great plain, and seek my kindred 
 in the lowlands of the east. But my enemies are 
 not far behind me. They are on my track, and 
 they may overtake me this very day." 
 
 " Fear not, my lord," says the Gazelle. " They 
 will not dare come into my tent without my leave. 
 
137 
 
 And so lie down a while and rest until the cool of 
 the day, for I know that you must be sorely in 
 want of sleep." 
 
 He needs not to be urged, for it is now three 
 days since he has had any rest. He stretches 
 himself upon the floor behind the curtains, and 
 she covers him with a cloak. 
 
 " Now stand in the tent door," he says; "and if 
 any one comes, and asks, ' Is there a man in here ? ' 
 tell him, 'No.' " 
 
 In another moment he is asleep. The Gazelle, 
 from her place by the tent door, hears his loud 
 breathing. A fearful change comes over her beau- 
 tiful face. Her great eyes do not sparkle with 
 kindness and gentleness: they glare wildly, and 
 her cheeks grow pale. She trembles, but not with 
 fear. 
 
 " It was he that enslaved my mother's people," 
 she whispers to herself; "it was he that robbed 
 my kinsmen ; it was he that slew my poor brothers, 
 and would not listen to their prayers for mercy. 
 Why did I not drive him away to die of thirst? 
 But he might have escaped. He may yet escape; 
 and then he will raise another army, and come and 
 oppress my people again. It were a sin to let him 
 do this. But what can I do ? " 
 
 There is no one near to whom she can call. The 
 
138 
 
 men have not been at home for now four days. 
 Only women and children are in the tents, and 
 they are sleeping through the heat of the day. 
 
 " In the evening," she says, " he will awaken, and 
 be refreshed, and go on his way. Our men can 
 hardly take him then, even though they come ; and 
 he will soon be among his friends. But it must not 
 be. I myself will save my people." 
 
 She glances hastily about her. She does not ask 
 herself, " Is it right ? " She has never been taught 
 the great law, Forgive your enemies. She thinks 
 only of avenging the wrongs which her kinspeople 
 have suffered. 
 
 But what can she do, she, a weak woman, with 
 no weapon of any kind ? 
 
 Ah, what is that on the ground at her feet ? A 
 long sharp-pointed tent pin lies there, and near it 
 is a heavy hammer. She can handle these more 
 .easily than a sword. 
 
 Softly, on tiptoes, she goes behind the curtains. 
 She stoops over the sleeping man. The cloak does 
 not wholly cover his head. The Gazelle holds the 
 tent pin in one hand, and the hammer in the other. 
 She shudders. 
 
 A moment later she runs, shrieking, from the tent. 
 
 With white face and frightened eyes, she stands 
 under the palm trees and listens. There is no 
 
139 
 
 sound in the tents save the crying of a child that 
 has been wakened from its sleep. But suddenly 
 there is a shout behind her. She turns, and sees a 
 company of horsemen near at hand. She knows 
 who they are ; for at their head rides her own Arab 
 husband, and by his side is Barak the Lightning, 
 the leader of her mother's people. They leap to 
 the ground, and she runs to meet them. 
 
 " Come with me," she says, " and I will show you 
 the man whom you are seeking." 
 
 She leads them into her own tent. She lifts the 
 curtains aside, and points toward the floor. There, 
 still half-covered by the cloak, lies Sisera, the Lord 
 of the Battlefield. He is dead. 
 
 " I was afraid you would not come," she says ; 
 " and I could not let him escape." 
 
 III. THE SONG. 
 
 When the people heard the first news of the great 
 battle, they were very glad, for they hoped that the 
 days of oppression were at an end. And some 
 praised Deborah the Bee for her wisdom and 
 courage, and some honored Barak the Lightning 
 for his skill and daring. 
 
 " Now let us go back to our homes, and live in 
 peace," said the young men. 
 
140 
 
 But the old men shook their heads, and said, 
 " Nay, for so long as Sisera lives, there can be no 
 safety for us." 
 
 Then horsemen came riding from the plain, and 
 told how the dreaded Lord of the Battlefield had 
 met his death in the tent of the Gazelle. And the 
 people were wild with joy, and declared that the 
 Gazelle had done as much as the Bee towards 
 making their country free; for those were wild, 
 rude times, and men had not yet learned that 
 treachery, even towards a foe, is a hateful and 
 wicked thing. 
 
 And not long after that, when the Children of 
 the Prince were again settled in their homes, Deb- 
 orah the Bee made up a song of victory; and she 
 and Barak sang it before the people when they met 
 together to rejoice at the harvest feast. Here is 
 a part of that song, almost as they sang it. It is 
 one of the first songs ever written down. 
 
 " Awake, awake, O Deborah ! 
 Awake, awake and sing ! 
 Arise, O Barak brave, 
 And lead thy captives in ! 
 Brave chiefs to the battle came, 
 But they took no gain away ; 
 For the stars in their courses fought, 
 They fought against Sisera. 
 
" Oh, blessed above all women 
 Shall Jael the Gazelle be ; 
 Oh, honored indeed is she 
 Above all that dwell in tents. 
 Sisera asked her for water, 
 And she gave him milk to drink ; 
 She brought him butter also, 
 And he ate from a lordly dish. , 
 
 " She put her hand to the tent pin, 
 She held the workman's hammer ; 
 And with the heavy hammer 
 She smote the dreaded warrior. 
 She drove the nail through his temples 
 When she smote with the workman's hammer. 
 At her feet he bowed, he fell 
 At her feet he bowed, he lay ; 
 Where he bowed, he fell down dead. 
 
 " The mother of Sisera looked out, 
 She looked out at a window, 
 And through the lattice she cried, 
 ' Ah, why is Sisera's chariot 
 So long in coming home? 
 Ah, why run the wheels so slowly, 
 The wheels of his chariot of war ? ' 
 
 " The ladies who were with her answered, 
 She had already answered herself, 
 'Is not the victory theirs? 
 Are they not dividing the spoil? 
 
142 
 
 And will not Sisera bring me 
 His share of fine needlework, 
 Of needlework many-colored, 
 And fit for the necks of queens ? ' 
 
 " So let all thine enemies perish, 
 O Lord, our fathers' God ! 
 But let those who love and fear thee 
 Be as the morning sun." 
 
IDOL BREAKER. 
 
 I. THE IDOL. 
 
 IN the town of Ophrah, or the Fawn, there was 
 a man who took care of an idol. This idol was 
 made of wood, and was shaped somewhat like a 
 man ; but it was ten times uglier than any man 
 you ever saw. It stood on a little platform in the 
 midst of a shady grove, and the people of the town 
 came and worshiped it. If any good luck hap- 
 pened to them, they thanked the idol, and burned 
 incense, or sometimes the leg of a goat, before it; 
 for they fancied that the ugly image had done 
 it all. But if any misfortune befell them, they 
 said that the idol was angry, and they crawled in 
 the dust before it, and promised to do better in 
 the future. 
 
 " What a sad place this world would be if our 
 idol did not befriend us ! " they said. 
 
 But the man who took care of this idol had a 
 son who did not believe in it. 
 
144 
 
 " How silly," he said, " to think that a piece of 
 painted wood can either help or harm us! It is 
 only a log, and logs have no sense." 
 
 One night he went with ten of his young com- 
 rades and threw the idol down upon the ground. 
 They beat it with clubs, and broke off its arms and 
 its nose, and carried away the platform where it had 
 stood, and cut down the grove. 
 
 When the men of the town heard what had been 
 done, they made a great ado about it. 
 
 " How dare any one harm our idol ! " they cried. 
 " Now, if we do not punish the young men who have 
 abused him, he will be angry with us all, and cause 
 some great misfortune to happen to us." 
 
 So they took their clubs and their swords in their 
 hands, and went up to the house of the man who had 
 had the care of the idol. 
 
 " Where is your son ? " they said. " We have 
 come out to slay him for overturning and break- 
 ing the idol." 
 
 " My friends," said the man, "do you believe 
 that you are stronger than the idol ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! " they answered, " the idol is ever so 
 much stronger than we." 
 
 "Very well, then," said the man; "if he is so 
 strong, why can he not take care of himself? It 
 seems to me, that, if he had been as mighty as 
 
we believed him to be, he would not have suffered 
 a few young men to beat him." 
 
 " It does seem so," said his neighbors. 
 
 And while they were talking together, the young 
 man came boldly before them, and with his ax broke 
 the fallen idol into a thousand pieces. 
 
 " Now, I should like to see him harm any of us ! " 
 he cried. 
 
 " How foolish we were to put our trust in that 
 kind of an idol ! " said the men ; and they went 
 slowly back to their homes. 
 
 And after that, the young man who had broken 
 the idol was called Jerub-baal, a name which in his 
 language meant Idol Breaker. 
 
 IL THE ANGEL. 
 
 The very next year a great army of Arabs in- 
 vaded the country. They came with their camels 
 and their tents, and there were so many of them 
 that they could not be counted. The Children 
 of the Prince were too weak to stand against 
 them. They were beaten in every fight. The 
 Arabs took their towns, and burned their houses 
 to the ground, and robbed their fields and their 
 orchards, and killed their young men. There 
 was no peace nor safety in all the land. 
 
 STO. OF THE EAST IO 
 
146 
 
 " If we only had our idol," said some of the 
 people, " he would help us against our cruel foes." 
 
 " We doubt it," said others; "for he was not 
 even strong enough to withstand the young man 
 who broke him in pieces." 
 
 And so things went on from bad to worse for 
 seven years. The Children of the Prince could 
 hardly show their faces for fear of the Arabs. 
 They lived in dens which they made for them- 
 selves among the mountains, or in caves, or in 
 strong places on the hilltops ; and they dared 
 not reap their grain nor gather their fruit, for 
 then their cruel masters would swoop down upon 
 them and take everything away. In all the land 
 there was not a man who was brave enough to 
 lead them against their foes. 
 
 One day in midsummer the young man whom 
 they called Idol Breaker ventured out of his hid- 
 ing place in the mountains, and went down to his 
 father's farm to see how things were getting along. 
 The Arabs had been there. They had pillaged 
 the house, and had driven away the cattle. But 
 they had not touched the growing grain, and 
 now the wheat in the fields was yellow and ripe. 
 
 Idol Breaker thought how nice it would be if 
 he could carry a sackful of fine new wheat 
 to his famishing father and mother up in the 
 
147 
 
 mountains. He looked around him. There were 
 no Arabs to be seen. He would harvest some of 
 the grain. 
 
 He found the little sickle which belonged to 
 his father, and ran into the field. Soon he came 
 back with as many sheaves of wheat as he could 
 carry. He would thresh out the grains from 
 these, and then he would go back and reap more. 
 But what if the Arabs should see him? They 
 would let him alone until he had finished his 
 day's work, and then they would come and take 
 his grain away from him. He dared not use the 
 old threshing floor, for it was close by the road- 
 side, and they would be sure to see him there ; 
 he dared not go into the house, for the first band 
 of robbers who came that way would stop and 
 find him while he was at work. But there was 
 the old wine press which had not been used for 
 three years or more. It stood behind some trees, 
 and the weeds and wild vines had grown up around 
 it until it was hidden from sight. It was just the 
 place in which to thresh his wheat, for nobody 
 would think of looking there. 
 
 He carried the sheaves into the place, and -began 
 to tramp upon them with his feet in order to knock 
 out the grains. It was slow, hard work; for he 
 did not dare to beat the straw with a flail, lest he 
 
148 
 
 should be heard. All day long he was busy, and 
 in the evening he was glad to find that, chaff and 
 all, there was a bushel of wheat on the floor of 
 the wine press. He was about to put it into a 
 sack, when he happened to look towards the house. 
 Who was it that he saw sitting in the shade of 
 the great oak tree close by? 
 
 He knew that it was not an Arab, and so he was 
 not afraid. But he had never before seen so hand- 
 some a man, and he wondered why he should be 
 sitting there, all alone and so still. While he was 
 looking and wondering, the stranger came towards 
 him, and spoke. 
 
 " Hail, mighty man of valor ! " he said. " The 
 Lord is with you." 
 
 " If the Lord is with us," said Idol Breaker in a 
 surly tone, " why does he let the Arabs deal with us 
 in this way ? " 
 
 The stranger did not answer his question, but 
 said, " Go in your might, and set your people 
 free ! " 
 
 "How can I set them free?" said Idol Breaker. 
 " My father is a poor man, and I am the youngest 
 of all his sons." 
 
 " Go forth in your might, and I will help you," 
 said the stranger. 
 
 Then the thought came into Idol Breaker's mind 
 
149 
 
 that this stranger must be an angel, and yet he was 
 not quite sure that it was not all a dream ; and he 
 half expected to wake up and find it so. 
 
 " Wait here a few minutes," he said to the 
 stranger; and he ran to the house. 
 
 There was a young kid there which the Arabs 
 had not taken ; and this he killed and dressed, and 
 laid upon some coals to broil. Then he found a few 
 handfuls of meal in a chest ; and of this he made 
 some cakes, which he put into the ashes to bake. 
 
 " I will see whether he will eat of this food," said 
 Idol Breaker, "for angels do not eat; " and he kept 
 looking out every minute to see that the stranger 
 did not go away. 
 
 In a little while the cooking was finished. The 
 young man made some broth in a pot, and put the 
 meat and the cakes in a basket. Then he carried 
 them out and offered them to the stranger. 
 
 " Lay the meat and the cakes on this rock," said 
 the stranger, " and then pour out the broth." 
 
 The young man did so. Then the stranger stood 
 up, and touched the food with his staff ; and at once 
 a great smoke arose, and then a broad flame of fire. 
 Idol Breaker was so filled with wonder, that he did 
 not know what to do ; but, when he looked around 
 for the stranger, he was gone. 
 
 " It was an angel, it was an angel ! " cried the 
 
(150) AT ONCE A GREAT SMOKE AR.OS&. 
 
young man. "And now I shall die, for no man can 
 see an angel and live." 
 
 Then he heard a voice, saying, " Fear not. You 
 shall not die until you have set your people free." 
 
 III. THE CAMP. 
 
 After that, the young man could think of nothing 
 but of the angel, and of plans for setting his people 
 free. He went from one place to another, calling 
 upon the men to arm themselves and follow him; 
 and it was not long until he found himself at the 
 head of an army of thirty-two thousand men. Still 
 he was afraid that he might fail, and so he did not 
 dare to lead his men into open battle with the 
 Arabs. 
 
 " If I could only have a sure sign ! " he said. 
 " Now I will put a fleece of wool on the ground ; 
 and in the morning if the wool is wet with dew, and 
 everything around it quite dry, I shall know that 
 the Arabs will be beaten, and my people will be 
 saved." 
 
 And it happened just as he wished ; for he arose 
 early in the morning, and wrung a bowlful of water 
 out of the fleece, while everything around it was dry. 
 
 But even then he was not satisfied. 
 
 " It may have been an accident," he said. " I 
 
152 
 
 cannot risk a battle until I have another sign. 
 To-night I will lay the fleece down in the same 
 place, and in the morning, if it is dry, while every- 
 thing else around it is wet, then I shall know that 
 my people will be saved." 
 
 And it happened just so; for in the morning the 
 fleece was dry, but there was dew on all the ground. 
 And now he was no longer afraid. 
 
 Just as the sun was rising over the hills, he blew 
 his trumpet ; and his army arose at the call, and 
 followed him down into the valley, where there was 
 a famous well and much water. And the army of 
 the Arabs, a great host with camels and horses, 
 was encamped not far away. 
 
 " Now," said Idol Breaker to his men, " you see 
 the foes whom we have come out to meet, and you 
 must know that the battle will be a hard one. If 
 any of you are afraid, I will give you leave to turn 
 about right now, and go back to your homes." 
 
 Twenty-two thousand men left him at once, and 
 with glad hearts hurried back to their safe caves 
 and rock-built strongholds among the hills. 
 
 " Never mind," said Idol Breaker to the brave 
 ten thousand who staid with him. " There are still 
 enough of us to drive the Arabs out of the land." 
 And he led them far up on the hillside, where they 
 were well hidden among the trees, and where they 
 
153 
 
 could overlook the camp of their foes. There they 
 staid quietly all day long. The sun shone hot, and 
 the air was sultry; and the men suffered from thirst, 
 for there was no water to drink. At the foot of the 
 hill there was a brook; but Idol Breaker would not 
 allow any one to go down for a drink, lest the Arabs 
 might see them. 
 
 " Wait until after the sun has set," he said. 
 
 When evening came, and the camp of the Arabs 
 could not be seen in the dusky twilight, he led his 
 men to the brook. They were so thirsty that most 
 of them forgot everything but the water. They 
 threw themselves down upon the bank, and dipped 
 their lips into the cool stream. But there were 
 three hundred who kept their wits about them. 
 They were eager to fight, and in a hurry to make 
 a dash upon the camp of the Arabs; and so they 
 dipped the water up hastily with their hands, and 
 drank as they ran. 
 
 " You are the men for me ! " cried Idol Breaker. 
 " Let all the others go back to their places on the 
 hillside." 
 
 Then he led the three hundred men a little farther 
 down the valley, and waited there' until far in the 
 night. When it was quite dark, and everything was 
 still, he took one of his trusty servants and went 
 over to the Arab camp. There were the tents and 
 
154 
 
 the camels and -the men, thousands upon thou- 
 sands of them, covering the whole plain. Idol 
 Breaker crept close to a tent, and listened. A man 
 was telling his dream to his comrade. 
 
 " What do you think it, means?" he said. "I 
 dreamed that a cake of barley bread came rolling 
 down the hill, and tumbled into our camp, and broke 
 down our tents, and put all our men to flight." 
 
 "It is a bad dream," said the other man; "and 
 it means that the sword of the Idol Breaker and 
 of the God whom he worships will utterly over- 
 throw the army of the Arabs, and put us all to 
 flight." 
 
 When Idol Breaker heard these words, he was 
 glad, and fell down upon his knees and gave thanks 
 to Heaven for this sign which had been sent him. 
 Then he arose, and hurried back to the place where 
 his three hundred men were waiting. 
 
 " Now do as I bid you, and we shall have a great 
 victory," he said. 
 
 And he put into the left hand of each man a 
 deep pitcher with a lighted candle inside of it, 
 and into each one's right hand he put a trumpet. 
 
 " How shall we fight with these things ? " said 
 some. 
 
 "Only follow me, and do as I do," said Idol 
 Breaker. 
 
155 
 
 IV. THE FLIGHT. 
 
 Idol Breaker divided his little company into three 
 bands of one hundred men each, and showed them 
 how they should go down to the Arabs' camp. One 
 of the bands was to go around to the right, another 
 to the left, and a third was to creep up to the center ; 
 and it was all to be done so quietly that not even 
 the dogs could hear them. 
 
 Idol Breaker himself led the middle band, and it 
 was about midnight when they reached the line of 
 the camp. There was not an Arab stirring. Every 
 one was in his own tent, fast asleep. There was not 
 a sound to be heard. Then all at once Idol Breaker 
 dashed his pitcher against a stone, and blew his 
 trumpet, and shouted, 
 
 " The sword of the Lord and of Gideon ! " 
 And every man of the three hundred did the same 
 thing ; and the light of the three hundred candles 
 burst out in a moment from the darkness; and 
 every man rushed with clattering speed right into 
 the camp, shouting, 
 
 " The sword of the Lord and of Gideon ! " 
 
 The Arabs awoke. They sprang up in great 
 
 alarm. They saw the three hundred twinkling lights, 
 
 and heard the three hundred blaring trumpets. In 
 
 their fright they fancied that a great army had come 
 
1 56 
 
 down upon their camp. No man thought of anything 
 but how he should save himself. Some seized their 
 swords and ran wildly through the camp, striking at 
 every one they met. Some rushed half awake from 
 their tents, and fled into the open plain. They 
 fought among themselves, not knowing friend from 
 foe. Soon the whole great army had betaken 
 itself to flight 
 
 Idol Breaker and his three hundred men followed 
 close behind, swinging their burning candles, and 
 blowing their trumpets, and shouting, 
 " The sword of the Lord and of Gideon ! " 
 Then the rest of the ten thousand men who had 
 been left on the hilltop came hurrying down, and 
 joined in the pursuit. They overtook the Arabs, 
 and with their swords and spears made great havoc 
 among them. The din of battle and of flight moved 
 onward across the plain. Morning came, and still 
 the Arabs fled ; and still their pursuers kept up the 
 chase, shouting, 
 
 " The sword of the Lord and of Gideon ! " 
 Towards midday, Idol Breaker and his men came 
 to a walled town called the Town of Tents, which 
 belonged to their own kinsmen, people who called 
 themselves Children of the Prince. 
 
 " Open your gates, O men of the Town of 
 Tents ! " said Idol Breaker. " We would fain go in 
 
157 
 
 and rest ourselves a little while, and be refreshed; 
 for we have followed our foes for a long time, and 
 we are weary and faint." 
 
 But the people of the town would not open their 
 gates, nor would they give the hungry men any 
 food. They stood on their walls, and taunted Idol 
 Breaker and those who were with him. 
 
 " Why should we do these things for you ? " they 
 said. " You have not yet caught the Arab chiefs ; 
 and if they should turn upon you, what would 
 become of you ? " 
 
 " Very well/' said Idol Breaker. " Wait until I 
 have caught them, and then I will tear your flesh 
 with thorns and briers." 
 
 And then, hungry and tired as they were, Idol 
 Breaker and his men went on after the fleeing 
 Arabs. By and by they came to a place where 
 there was a strong tower of stone, called Prospect* 
 Tower. 
 
 " Open your gates, O kinsmen ! " said Idol Breaker 
 to the armed men in the tower, " and let us come 
 in and rest a little while ; and give us water to 
 drink and some food to eat, that so we may be 
 refreshed, and go on, and drive our enemies out of 
 the land." 
 
 But the men in the tower said, " This is no fight 
 of ours. Why should we feed you ? " 
 
I 5 8 
 
 " Wait till I come again," said Idol Breaker, "and 
 I will break down the walls of your tower." 
 
 All day long the Arabs fled, 3jid all day long 
 Idol Breaker and his men followed after. At night 
 they rested by a brook, and on the morrow they 
 renewed the chase. Just how long they kept this 
 up, I do not know; but they did not turn back 
 until the great host of a hundred and twenty 
 thousand men had been scattered and put to the 
 sword, and the two Arab chiefs had been caught 
 and bound with chains. 
 
 Then early one morning before the sun was 
 up, Idol Breaker led his little army back by way 
 of the Town of Tents. And when he had forced 
 the gates open, and led his men into the place, 
 he took seventy-seven of the chief men of the 
 town, and beat them with thorns and briers, as 
 he had promised to do. As for Prospect Tower, 
 he broke down its walls, and killed the men who 
 were within, so great was his anger against them. 
 
 After this the Children of the Prince wanted 
 Idol Breaker to be their king, because he had freed 
 their country from the cruel Arabs. But he said, 
 " No, I will not be your king. The God of our 
 fathers, he is your king." 
 
 Then he asked them if they would give him all 
 the earrings that they had taken from the Arabs. 
 
1 59 
 
 " We will give them willingly," they said. 
 
 So they spread a cloth upon the ground, and 
 every one threw down upon it the jewels which 
 he had taken, the golden earrings and nose- 
 rings, and the chains which had hung upon the 
 camels' necks, and the fine purple robes which 
 the chiefs had worn. And Idol Breaker melted 
 the gold, and made a golden image, and set it 
 up in the Town of the Fawn, where the wooden 
 idol had stood which he had broken in pieces 
 when he was a young man. 
 
 " Now we shall have peace," said the people ; 
 and they came up from all the country round, 
 and fell down upon their knees before the golden 
 image, and thanked it for giving them the victory 
 over their enemies, and setting their country free. 
 
 " What a sad place this world was when we 
 had no idol to befriend us ! " they said. " If our 
 first idol had not been so badly treated, the Arabs 
 would not have come into the land at all. But 
 now we shall make amends for our wrongdoing, 
 and this golden image will always protect us." 
 
 And so Gideon for that was his real name 
 was no longer called Idol Breaker ; for he had now 
 become an idol maker, and had given the people 
 a golden image in place of the ugly wooden one 
 which he had destroyed. 
 
THE STORY OF SPLENDID SUN. 
 
 I. THE WANDERERS. 
 
 FROM very early times there had lived in certain 
 parts of the Promised Land a rude people who had 
 once had no settled homes, but had strolled about 
 from place to place as their fancy pleased them. 
 On account of their roving habits they had been 
 given the name of Wanderers, or, in the language 
 of the land, Philistines ; and, even after they had 
 begun to build cities and have houses and gardens 
 of their own, their neighbors still called them by 
 that name. 
 
 "This is the fairest land in all the world," they 
 said to themselves. " Let us stop wandering about, 
 and dwell here forever." 
 
 Many years passed by, and then there came into 
 the same country a great host of people who called 
 themselves Israelites, or the Children of the Prince, 
 and who said that they were from the Land of the 
 Nile. 
 
 160 
 

 
 TJK: ':TY 
 
 161 
 
 " What are you doing in our land ? " said the 
 Children of the Prince to the Wanderers. 
 
 " That is a strange question," said the Wan- 
 derers ; " for, lo ! our fathers before us dwelt here, 
 and planted these vineyards, and built these towns ; 
 and we ourselves were born here, and these have 
 been our homes all our lives. By what right, then, 
 do you call this land yours? We might better ask, 
 ' What are you doing in our land ? ' : 
 
 " Five hundred years ago," answered the Children 
 of the Prince, " our great ancestor Abraham, the 
 Father of Nations, abode in this country ; and the 
 God whom he worshiped promised him that all 
 these green hills and rich valleys and grassy plains 
 should belong to his children, and his children's 
 children, forever. Now, we are his children's chil- 
 dren, and according to God's promise this land is 
 ours. So move out at once, and let us have that 
 which is our own.' 5 
 
 " Nay," said the Wanderers, " we will not move 
 out, for the country is our own." 
 
 Then the Children of the Prince fought with 
 the Wanderers, and gained many battles, and took 
 their fairest cities, and made themselves houses 
 in the land. And in the course of time the Wan- 
 derers had only a few towns that they could call 
 their own ; and they lived mostly among the 
 
 STO. OF THE EAST 1 1 
 
162 
 
 mountains, or in the western part of the land not 
 far from the Great Sea. 
 
 But the Children of the Prince, when they found 
 themselves settled at last in the Promised Land, 
 did many unwise things. They forgot that it was 
 the God of their great father Abraham who had 
 blessed them and given them their pleasant homes ; 
 and they no longer worshiped him, but made 
 themselves idols of wood and stone and metal, and 
 said, 
 
 " How good our idols are ! We could never 
 have prospered but for them. Let us worship 
 them, and thank them for what they have done 
 for us." 
 
 But those senseless images could not help them 
 against their enemies; and when the God of their 
 fathers had withdrawn his aid, what could they do ? 
 The Wanderers again made war upon them; and 
 now the Children of the Prince lost every battle. 
 The Wanderers won back their towns and many 
 of their choicest places in the West. 
 
 " What are you doing in our land ? " they said to 
 the Children of the Prince. 
 
 Very soon they were the masters of the country 
 once more ; and they treated the Children of the 
 Prince very cruelly, and oppressed them for many 
 years, and gave them but little peace. 
 
" We shall see whose land this is," they said. 
 
 Then the Children of the Prince began to remem- 
 ber the God of their fathers, and they cried to him 
 for help. 
 
 II. THE STRANGER. 
 
 In the hill country not very far from the sea- 
 coast there lived a farmer and his wife who were 
 proud of being called Israelites, or Children of the 
 Prince. They often talked of their great ancestors 
 who had lived in times now long past, of Abraham, 
 the Father of Nations ; of Israel, the Prince, who 
 had lived in the Land of the Nile; and of Moses, the 
 Lawgiver, who had led their people to the Promised 
 Land. Then, when they thought of how their 
 kinsmen were being oppressed and enslaved by the 
 Wanderers, their hearts were filled with grief ; and 
 they thought, that, if they only had a son, they 
 would train him up to be a hero, so that he would 
 by and by set his countrymen free: for among 
 all the Children of the Prince there was now 
 not a man that dared lift his hand against their 
 oppressors. 
 
 One day when the farmer's wife was alone, a 
 stranger stopped at the gate to talk with her. He 
 told her that a son would soon be born to her, and 
 that this son would grow up to be a mighty hero, 
 
1 64 
 
 and would begin to free the land from the race 
 of strangers that had held it so long. 
 
 " But the child must be brought up with great 
 care," he said. "You must never cut his hair; and 
 he must never taste of wine, or of any strong drink, 
 or of any unclean thing." 
 
 The woman was very glad ; and, when her husband 
 came home in the evening, she told him all about it. 
 
 " Why didn't you have the stranger stay all night 
 with us, so that I might ask him how we shall teach 
 the child?" he said. 
 
 " Ah ! he was gone before I could speak," she 
 answered. 
 
 The next day, as the woman was working in the 
 field, she saw the stranger passing by, and she ran 
 and told her husband. The man hurried out quickly, 
 and met the stranger in the road. 
 
 " Are you the man who spoke to my wife at the 
 gate yesterday ? " he said. 
 
 " I am," said the stranger. 
 
 " Then come in and teach us how we shall train 
 up the son that is to be born to us," said the good 
 farmer; "for we would that he should grow up to 
 be the deliverer of his country." 
 
 " I have already told your wife what must be 
 done," said the stranger. " His hair must never be 
 shorn, and no wine nor strong drink nor unclean 
 
165 
 
 thing must ever touch his lips. There is nothing 
 more to say." 
 
 " Well, then," said the farmer, "you must come in 
 and eat with us. I am just going to kill a fat kid, 
 and if you will wait till I have dressed it, and my 
 wife has roasted it, we will have a good feast." 
 
 " No, indeed ! " said the stranger, " I will not eat 
 a mouthful. But it seems to me, that, instead of eat- 
 ing the kid, you ought to give it as a thank offering 
 to Heaven for the good news which I have brought 
 you." 
 
 " That is what I will do," said the farmer. " But 
 since you will not eat with us, pray tell us your 
 name, so that when the boy has grown up, and has 
 become a great hero, we may remember you, and 
 give you honor." 
 
 " My name is a secret," said the stranger; "and I 
 will not tell it to you." 
 
 Then the farmer took the kid and killed it ; and 
 after that, he laid some dry wood on a flat rock 
 before his house. And he put the kid on the top 
 of the wood, and then set fire to it. He thought 
 that when the smell of the burning meat went up to 
 the clouds and the sky, God would be pleased with 
 his thank offering. The smoke rose thick and black 
 from the kindling wood, and the farmer and his 
 wife stood a little way off to watch it; but the 
 
i66 
 
 stranger staid close to the rock. Soon the flames 
 burst out, and the fat of the kid took fire, and blazed 
 up high. Then the farmer and his wife noticed the 
 stranger, how bright and shining was his face, and 
 how his clothing glittered like the sun. And the 
 flames shot up very high, so high that the man 
 and woman said that they reached heaven itself; 
 but when they looked down at the rock again,, the 
 stranger was nowhere to be seen. 
 
 " He was an angel ! " cried the woman. 
 
 " Yes, I know he was an angel," said the man. 
 
 " And he went right up in the flames to the sky," 
 said the woman. 
 
 " Yes, that is where he went," said the man ; " and 
 now we shall surely die, for nobody can see an 
 angel and live." 
 
 " Tut, tut ! " said the woman. " Didn't you see 
 how our thank offering was carried to the sky ? I 
 guess we shall not die very soon after that. And 
 then, what was the use of the angel coming and 
 telling us all those things, if we are not going to 
 live to see them come true ? " 
 
 III. THE RIDDLE. 
 
 Not very long after that, a little boy was born in 
 the farmer's house ; and his face was so fair, and his 
 eyes were so bright, that they named him Splendid 
 
i6 7 
 
 Sun, or, in their own language, Samson. He was a 
 very strong, hearty child, and he grew fast, and was 
 the delight and wonder of the household. But his 
 mother never allowed a hair of his head to be shorn, 
 or any wine or strong drink or unclean food to touch 
 his lips. As soon as he was old enough to do so, he 
 helped with the work in the fields ; and his father 
 taught him about the cruel wrongs which his people 
 had suffered at the hands of their rulers. 
 
 When he was only a lad, Splendid Sun aston- 
 ished everybody with his great strength. Once he 
 went down into the camp of the Wanderers near 
 the town of Dan, and wrestled with the giant sol- 
 diers there ; and after that he was the talk of the 
 whole country. 
 
 One day, when Splendid Sun had become a tall 
 young man, he made a visit to the town of Tim- 
 nath among the hills, and became acquainted with 
 a number of young Wanderers there. They seemed 
 to him to be pretty good fellows ; and, as they 
 praised him and feasted him and treated him 
 royally, he began to think that they were even 
 better than his poor oppressed countrymen. Then 
 he met a beautiful girl, the daughter of a rich 
 Wanderer; and she promised to marry him if their 
 parents could agree as to her price. For wives 
 had to be bought in those times. 
 
i68 
 
 Splendid Sun hastened home, and told his father 
 and mother what a fine time he had had in the town, 
 and how the pretty Wanderer maiden had agreed 
 to be his wife. 
 
 " I never saw a woman that pleased me so much," 
 he said. " Her father wants a high price for her, 
 but she is well worth it. Get her for me." 
 
 His father and mother were not well pleased, and 
 they said, " Is there no maiden among the daugh- 
 ters of our kinsmen or among all our own people, 
 that you must needs go and choose a Wanderer 
 for a wife ? " 
 
 But Splendid Sun would not listen. He did 
 nothing every day but talk of the beautiful maiden ; 
 and he kept saying to his father, " Get her for me, 
 for she pleases me." 
 
 At last he persuaded his father and mother to go 
 up to the town with him and see the maiden for 
 themselves. They went up on foot, through the 
 wild hill country, and came at last to a place just 
 outside of Timnath where there were great thickets 
 of wild grapevines. Splendid Sun was in great 
 haste. He walked very fast, and left his parents 
 far behind. All at once a lion sprang out from 
 among the tangled vines, and rushed furiously upon 
 the young man. He had nothing in his hand to 
 defend himself with; but he seized the beast, and 
 
(i6 9 ) 
 
pulled its jaws apart, and tore it in pieces, as easily 
 as other men would have torn a rabbit. Then 
 he tossed the body among the bushes, and went 
 on as though nothing had happened. He did not 
 even tell his father and mother about it. 
 
 When they reached the town and saw the maiden, 
 they were well pleased with her, for she was not 
 only fair, but lovable. Splendid Sun's father agreed 
 to get her for him, and a day was set for the wed- 
 ding. But his mother grieved because he had not 
 found a maiden among his own people; for, she 
 thought, how now would he become a hero, and 
 deliver his land from oppression ? 
 
 A few weeks afterwards the young man and his 
 parents went up to Timnath again; and this time 
 there was to be a wedding feast, and they would 
 take the maiden back with them. As they were 
 passing through the grapevine thicket, Splendid 
 Sun turned aside to see what had become of the 
 dead lion. There was nothing left of it but its skele- 
 ton ; but a swarm of bees had built a nest among 
 the bones, and in it was a big piece of honeycomb 
 full of honey. He took the honeycomb in his hand 
 and went on, eating as he walked. When he over- 
 took his parents, he gave them a part of it, but he 
 said nothing about the place where he had found it. 
 
 Splendid Sun made a great feast in the town, for 
 
which his father had to pay, and he invited all the 
 young Wanderers whom he knew. That was the 
 way which young men did in that country. The 
 feast was to last seven days, and then the bride was 
 to be given to her husband. Thirty gay young fel- 
 lows sat at the table with Splendid Sun ; and they 
 sang songs and told stories, and amused themselves 
 in many ways. But not a drop of wine or of strong 
 drink did Splendid Sun taste; and as he stood before 
 his guests, with his long hair falling in seven plaits 
 down his back, all the Wanderers admired him. 
 
 " Now," said he to the thirty young men, " I will 
 tell you a riddle. If you can guess it within the 
 seven days of the feast, I will give you thirty sheets 
 and thirty fine suits of clothing. If you cannot 
 guess it, then you shall give me thirty sheets and 
 thirty fine suits of clothing." 
 
 " Agreed ! " cried the young men. " Let us 
 hear it ! " 
 
 Then he gave them this riddle : " Out of the 
 eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came 
 forth sweetness? 
 
 For three days they tried to guess the answer, 
 but they could not think of anything that seemed to 
 be right. Then they went to the young bride, and 
 said, " Find out this riddle for us. If you don't, 
 we'll burn your father's house, and you too, with 
 
172 
 
 fire. Do you take us for fools, that we should let 
 this underling rob us in this way ? " For the suits 
 of clothing were very costly. 
 
 Then the maiden wept bitterly, and Splendid Sun 
 was much troubled, and asked her what was the 
 matter. 
 
 " You are a cruel fellow/' she said ; " and you do 
 not love me at all. Here you have given a riddle 
 to your guests, and have not told me the answer. 
 You are hard-hearted." 
 
 " My dear girl," he said, " I have not told it 
 even to father or mother; and should I tell it 
 to you ? " 
 
 Then she wept harder than ever; and she kept 
 on weeping until the seventh and last day of the 
 feast. And when Splendid Sun saw how sad a 
 wedding he was going to have, he at last gave up, 
 and told her; and she dried her tears, and went 
 and told the young men. In the evening, when the 
 feast was at an end, Splendid Sun said, 
 
 u How now about those thirty suits of clothing? 
 Have you found out the riddle ? " 
 
 And the young men laughed, and said, " What 
 is sweeter than honey, and what is stronger than 
 a lion ? " 
 
 "You would not have found that out if you had 
 dealt fairly with me," said Splendid Sun. 
 
173 
 
 What was he to do now? He could not take his 
 bride home until this wager was paid. He had no 
 money. His father had no money, for he had 
 spent it all to pay for the maiden and for this feast. 
 Splendid Sun was angry at the young Wanderers, 
 and he was vexed with the fair girl who had caused 
 all the trouble. 
 
 That very night he went out to another town of 
 the Wanderers, and stole thirty suits of clothing, 
 and came back and gave them to the men who had 
 gained the wager. It is even said that he killed 
 thirty men, and took the garments from their backs ; 
 and I am sorry to believe that he was so wicked. 
 He was so angry that he would not look at the 
 maiden, but left her with her kinsfolk, and went 
 back to his father's house. 
 
 IV. THE FOXES. 
 
 Splendid Sun soon began to understand how 
 very foolish he had been ; and as the days passed by 
 he longed to see his young bride and ask her par- 
 don. But he was ashamed to go up to her father's 
 house, and he was afraid that she would laugh 
 at him and despise him. About the time of the 
 wheat harvest, however, when the grain was stand- 
 ing yellow and ripe in the fields, he made up his 
 
174 
 
 mind that he would go and claim her as his wife, 
 and bring her home. He had no presents of jewelry 
 or gold to take to her; but he carried under his 
 arm a beautiful pet kid, which he felt sure would 
 please her, and make her forget his folly. 
 
 But when he came to the house in Timnath and 
 asked to see his bride, her father told him that she 
 was not there. 
 
 " Truly," he said, " we thought that you hated her, 
 and that you would never come to see her again ; 
 and so I gave her to one of your friends, and she is 
 wedded to him. But, see here! Don't you think 
 that her younger sister is fairer than she? You 
 may have this sister if you want her, and I will 
 give you my blessing besides ; for I would not 
 have you too greatly disappointed." 
 
 Splendid Sun was so angry that he did not stop 
 to make any answer. He turned away, and started 
 homeward at once, feeling very bitter against the 
 Wanderers, and trying to think of some way in 
 which he could punish them for the injury they had 
 done him. As he passed through the vineyards 
 and wheat fields, he noticed that the stalks of grain 
 and the grass and the leaves were very dry; for it 
 was midsummer, and it had not rained for a long 
 time. 
 
 " I know what I'll do," said he. " I will revenge 
 
175 
 
 myself upon those young Wanderers for all the 
 harm they have done to me ; and I will not be 
 half as wicked as they are, either." 
 
 So, instead of going home, he turned aside into 
 the place where the wild grapevines grew, and 
 began to set traps for foxes. There were a great 
 many foxes in that neighborhood, and nobody knew 
 how to catch them better than he. The next morn- 
 ing he came back, and found the traps full. All 
 together, he and the men whom he brought with 
 him took three hundred of the animals alive and 
 unhurt. Then they tied them together in couples, 
 and put a firebrand between each couple, and set 
 them loose in the fields. The maddened foxes 
 rushed hither and thither with the burning brands, 
 and soon set fire not only to the standing wheat, but 
 to the shocks of harvested grain and the vineyards 
 and the olive orchards. It was all that the farmers 
 could do to save anything from the flames. 
 
 The next day, as they looked over their black 
 and smoking fields, they began to ask who it was 
 that had started the fire. 
 
 " It was Splendid Sun," said one who had seen 
 him tying the brands to the foxes. 
 
 "Why should he do this great wrong to us?" 
 they asked. 
 
 " He did it because his bride was taken from 
 
i 7 6 
 
 him, and given to one of the young men who 
 had pretended to be friendly to him," was the 
 answer. 
 
 The farmers were very angry, and vowed that 
 they would punish not only Splendid Sun, but 
 everybody that had had a hand in leading him to 
 do this thing. They were afraid of Splendid Sun, 
 and were in no hurry to follow him home. But 
 when night came, they raised a mob of idle fellows, 
 and went up into the town, and set fire to the 
 house in which the young bride lived; and both 
 she and her father were burned to death in the 
 flames. 
 
 When Splendid Sun heard what had been done, 
 he was wild with grief and anger. 
 
 " I will punish those Wanderers yet!" he cried; 
 "and when I have made them suffer enough for 
 all the misery they have caused me, then I will 
 let them alone." 
 
 That very day he went into the town, and fell 
 upon the leaders of the mob and upon the thirty 
 young men, and smote them with great slaughter. 
 After that, he knew that all the country would 
 be up in arms against him; and so he fled hastily 
 from the place, and made his home on the top of 
 a rocky hill called Etam, some miles to the north- 
 ward. Most of the people in that neighborhood 
 
177 
 
 were of his own race, and proudly called them- 
 selves Israelites, or the Children of the Prince ; 
 but they had been ruled over and oppressed by 
 the Wanderers for so many years, that they had 
 lost all courage and all hope. For a time he was 
 quite safe in his stronghold, and he made many 
 friends among those who lived in the valleys below 
 him. Soon, however, his enemies learned where 
 he was, and sent a great army out to capture 
 him. 
 
 The poor Children of the Prince were very much 
 frightened when this army marched into their 
 country and camped in their fields. 
 
 " What have we done, that you should come up 
 against us in this way?" they asked. 
 
 " We are after Splendid Sun," the Wanderers 
 said. "We are going to capture him, and take 
 him back with us, and punish him ; and if you 
 don't help us take him, you shall suffer for it." 
 
 Then three thousand men of the Children of 
 the Prince went out to Etam Hill, and called to 
 Splendid Sun, and talked with him. 
 
 " Do you know that the Wanderers are our 
 masters ? " they asked. " And why do you come 
 among us, and make them hate us ? " 
 
 " I only revenged myself upon them for the 
 harm which they did to me," said Splendid Sun. 
 
 STO. OF THE EAST 12 
 
178 
 
 " But that isn't the question," they said. " If 
 we don't give you up to them, they will burn our 
 town, and kill us, and make slaves of our children. 
 Won't you let us bind you and take you to them, 
 so that they -will do -us no harm?" 
 
 " Promise me," he said, " that you will not try 
 to hurt or kill me." 
 
 And they promised. 
 
 Then he went down the hill, and let them bind 
 him with two new cords that were very strong. 
 And they carried him and gave him to the captain 
 of the Wanderers' army. 
 
 The Wanderers were glad when they saw Splen- 
 did Sun in their power, and they began to shout, 
 and throw stones at him, and boast of what would 
 be done to him when they had taken him back. 
 But Splendid Sun stretched out his arms and his 
 legs, and the cords flew in pieces as though they 
 had been burned. He struck right and left, and 
 his enemies fled for their lives. Then he found 
 a strong bone on the ground, the jawbone of some 
 animal that had lately been killed. He picked it up, 
 and fell upon the Wanderers in earnest. The cow- 
 ardly fellows were taken by surprise, and not one of 
 them dared face about and withstand him. That 
 jawbone did wonders in his hands. The whole 
 army was routed, and a thousand of his enemies 
 
1/9 
 
 were left dead on the field. There never was such 
 another battle. 
 
 When it was all over, Splendid Sun threw the 
 bone upon the ground, and sat down to rest. But 
 he was almost dead with thirst, and he had followed 
 his foes far away from the wells where water was 
 to be found. The sun shone hot upon him, and 
 he thought he was going to die. 
 
 " What is the use of my strength now ? " he said. 
 " I shall die here of thirst, and my foes will laugh 
 over me." 
 
 He looked at the jawbone lying in the sand a 
 little way off. Something close to it sparkled in 
 the sunlight. It did not look like sand, but like 
 water. He got up and went closer. Yes, there 
 was a spring of cool water, bubbling up right 
 under the bone. He was saved. 
 
 Soon a great company of the Children of the 
 Prince came out to meet him. The men had armed 
 themselves with whatever they could find ; and they 
 said, " If you will be our captain, we will follow you, 
 and fight against the Wanderers who have oppressed 
 our people for so many years." 
 
 Splendid Sun was now at the head of a strong 
 army. The Wanderers dared not stand against 
 them anywhere; and before another year the Chil- 
 dren of the Prince were a free people. They were 
 
i8o 
 
 very grateful to Splendid Sun for what he had done 
 for them ; and they chose him to be their chief and 
 lawgiver. 
 
 And he was their chief and lawgiver for twenty 
 years. 
 
 V. THE SECRET. 
 
 The Wanderers were very much afraid of Splendid 
 Sun, and they tried in every way to get him in their 
 power. Once he disguised himself and went down 
 into one of their cities. His enemies learned that 
 he was there, and lay in wait all night to catch him 
 when he should come out to the city gate in the 
 morning. But he arose earlier than they expected ; 
 and when he found the gate closed against him, he 
 picked it up, and pulled up the two gate posts, and 
 carried all to the top of a hill in his own land. 
 
 Near the border of Splendid Sun's country there 
 lived a fair woman named Dainty, or, as they called 
 her in their own language, Delilah ; and Splendid 
 Sun went often to see her. The rulers of the 
 Wanderers knew that she had great influence over 
 him, and so they promised to give her eleven 
 hundred pieces of silver if she would find out 
 the secret of his strength. She pretended that 
 she thought a great deal of him, and he was 
 foolish enough to believe her. 
 
"Come now, Splendid Sun," she said one day, 
 "tell me what makes you so strong, and how 
 you can be made weak like other men." 
 
 Splendid Sun laughed, for he did not mean 
 to part with his secret. 
 
 " Oh, tie me with seven green withes," he said, 
 " and then I shall be as weak as any other man." 
 
 She told the rulers what he had said, and they 
 gave her seven green withes that were long and 
 strong; and armed men hid themselves in her 
 house, ready to seize him as soon as his strength 
 passed from him. The next day she bound him 
 tight and strong with the withes, and when every- 
 thing was ready, she cried out, " Your enemies 
 are upon you, Splendid Sun ! " He stretched his 
 arms, and the withes were broken in pieces as 
 easily as you can break a thread. 
 
 Dainty complained bitterly because he had not 
 told her the truth. " You have mocked me," she 
 said. " Now, tell me truly how I can bind you so 
 as to hold you fast. It is all in fun, you know." 
 
 Splendid Sun laughed again. " Oh, well," he 
 said, " if you must have that kind of sport, then 
 tie me with new ropes that have never been used." 
 
 She told the rulers, and they gave her three 
 new ropes that had never been used. And the 
 next day she bound him with them until it seemed 
 
1 82 
 
 as if he could never move. Then she cried out, 
 "Your enemies are here, Splendid Sun!" He 
 stretched his arms, and the ropes were snapped 
 in a hundred pieces. 
 
 " O Splendid Sun ! " said Dainty, " you are so 
 cruel. You never tell me the truth, and you don't 
 care anything for me at all." 
 
 " Well, then, I will tell you," said he. " To-mor- 
 row you may weave the seven locks of my hair in 
 your loom, and then I shall be as weak as a child." 
 
 The next day he lay asleep on a couch by the 
 loom, and she wove the seven locks of his long 
 hair in the cloth which she was making, and then 
 fastened it all with a huge pin. Certainly she 
 would hold him this time. Then she cried out, 
 "Here come your enemies, Splendid Sun!" He 
 woke up quickly, and walked away with the loom, 
 the pin, and the cloth upon his shoulder. 
 
 Dainty did not like it at all when she found that 
 he had not yet told her the truth. 
 
 " Oh, why do you mock me ? " she said. " These 
 three times you have told me false. You are cruel ! 
 You laugh at me ! " 
 
 And every day after that, she teased him and 
 pressed him with her words, until he was vexed 
 almost to death. At last, to get rid of her teasing, 
 he told her the truth. 
 
(i8 3 ) 
 
1 84 
 
 " Never in my life," said he, " has a hair of my 
 head been cut or shorn; and never has wine or any 
 strong drink touched my lips. If my head were 
 shaven, then I would be as weak as any other man." 
 
 Dainty felt sure that he had told her the truth 
 this time, and she sent word to the rulers of the 
 Wanderers to come up. They came, and brought 
 the eleven hundred pieces of silver, and hid them- 
 selves in her house. The next day when Splendid 
 Sun went to sleep, she had a man ready to clip 
 off the seven long plaits of hair. Then she 
 screamed out, 
 
 " Your enemies are upon you, Splendid Sun ! " 
 
 He awoke quickly, but all his strength had left 
 him. The Wanderers rushed in upon him and 
 seized him ; and, although he fought bravely, he 
 was no stronger than one of them. Then they 
 put out his eyes, and took him down to their city 
 of Gaza, and chained him with chains of brass. 
 
 After that, for a long time, they made him grind 
 corn as a slave in the prison house. 
 
 VI. THE TEMPLE. 
 
 It seemed as though there was no longer any 
 hope for Splendid Sun. Yet in a little while his 
 hair began to grow; and the longer it grew, the 
 
i8 S 
 
 stronger he became. His enemies never thought 
 of that, however. 
 
 One day they had a great feast in the temple of 
 their god Dagon, and everyb6dy in Gaza was there. 
 They said that it was Dagon that had shown them 
 how to take Splendid Sun, and so they had made 
 the feast as a sort of thanksgiving in his honor. 
 Everybody wanted to see the strong man who had 
 done so much mischief to the Wanderers : hence 
 he was to be taken into the temple, where they 
 would make a kind of public show of him. It is 
 likely that they intended to torture him, and then 
 offer him to Dagon as a sacrifice. 
 
 And so, when the people were all feeling very 
 merry, and there was a great crowd in the temple, 
 and three thousand men and boys were on the 
 roof looking down, they called for Splendid Sun.^ 
 To show how weak and harmless he had become, 
 he was brought out of the prison house by a little 
 boy. The boy led him up the steps, in the sight of 
 all the people, and put him between the two great 
 middle posts of the temple. The blind hero reached 
 out with his hands and felt of the posts. 
 
 "Are these the middle posts of the temple?" 
 he asked. 
 
 " Yes, they are the posts that hold up the roof," 
 said the boy. 
 
1 86 
 
 Then Splendid Sun took hold of the posts, one 
 with his right hand, and one with his left, 
 
 " Let me die with my enemies," he said. 
 
 And he bowed himself with all his might ; and 
 the roof fell upon all that were within the temple, 
 and they were crushed to death. And it was a 
 common saying in his country after that, that 
 Splendid Sun slew more people at his death than 
 he had ever slain in his lifetime. 
 
A STORY OF HARVEST TIME. 
 
 I. THE GLEANER. 
 
 ON every side of the town of Bethlehem, as far 
 as one could see, there were fields after fields of 
 waving yellow grain. No man could remember 
 that there had ever been so fine a crop of barley 
 and wheat; no man could call to mind the time 
 when the land was so full of plenty. 
 
 " Truly, our town is well called Bethlehem, or 
 the House of Bread," said the people one to 
 another as they went about their tasks ; " for here 
 we have food enough for ourselves, and to spare." 
 
 Before the sun had risen above the hills, and 
 while yet the dew lingered among the grass, the 
 harvesters were at their work. With their hook- 
 shaped sickles they cut the grain handful by 
 handful, and laid it in uneven swaths upon the 
 ground ; and as they kept time with one another, 
 they chanted a song of thanksgiving and praise 
 to the Sender of the harvest, the Giver of good 
 
 187 
 
i88 
 
 gifts, the Lord of the earth and sky. After them 
 came the boys and young men who had not yet 
 learned to handle the sickle, some to gather up 
 the swaths into bundles, and others to bind the 
 bundles into sheaves. 
 
 Following these were the gleaners, the poor peo- 
 ple of the village, and the strangers who were with- 
 out homes in the land; for it was a law in that 
 country that all the loose grain that was upon the 
 ground, and all that was left uncut by the reapers, 
 should belong to the needy and the homeless. 
 
 It was still early in the day, when some one cried 
 out, " The master is coming ! " 
 
 All eyes were turned towards the entrance to 
 the field. The reapers ceased their chant; they 
 stood up and wiped the sweat from their brows; 
 they rested the points of their sickles upon the 
 ground. Adown the road came Boaz, the owner 
 of the field, a portly, middle-aged man, walking 
 leisurely, as though well pleased with himself and 
 with all the world beside. He was the richest man 
 in the town, and one of its rulers. The fields 
 on either side of the roagl were his ; the great 
 house just over the brow of the hill was his 
 home; the men and boys who were harvesting 
 the grain were his servants. He was indeed a 
 great man. 
 
189 
 
 He walked across the field towards the place 
 where his men were waiting. 
 
 " The Lord be with you ! " he said. 
 
 And they answered him, " The Lord bless thee ! " 
 
 Then the reapers thrust their sickles among the 
 grain again, and the harvest song was chanted 
 louder and cheerier than before, as all hands moved 
 slowly across the field. 
 
 " Hearken to me, Nathan," said the master, calling 
 to his head servant. " Hearken to me, Nathan, for 
 I would fain speak to thee." 
 
 " What is it, my master ? " said the servant ; and 
 he gave his sickle into the hands of a young man, 
 and ran back to where Boaz was standing. 
 
 " Whose damsel is this that gleans the wheat 
 so timidly, and seems to be a stranger to the har- 
 vest field ? " 
 
 And the head servant answered, " My master, it 
 is the damsel that came back with Naomi, your 
 kinswoman, from the land of the strangers beyond 
 the river Jordan." 
 
 " Indeed ! " said the great man. " I had not heard 
 of her. Tell me all that you know." 
 
 " You no doubt remember," said the head servant, 
 " that in the year of the great famine many of our 
 people crossed over into the land of the strangers ; 
 for there was much grain on the other side of the 
 
I 
 
 (190) 
 
river, while at home there was none at all. Among 
 the last that went was your cousin Elimelech, with 
 his wife Naomi and her two sons. They were so 
 well pleased with the country and the people, that 
 they staid there, and did not come home again when 
 the famine was at an end. But soon Elimelech 
 died, and the two sons took to themselves wives 
 of the fair daughters of the land. Then the sons 
 also died, and Naomi was left alone with her two 
 daughters-in-law. They were very, very poor; for 
 their husbands had been only sojourners in the . 
 land, and their goods and all that they had were 
 taken by their creditors. Then Naomi said to the 
 two young women, ' I will go back into my own 
 country, to Bethlehem, the House of Bread ; for my 
 kinsfolk dwell there, and I have heard that the Lord 
 has visited his people, and given them great plenty. 
 There I can work with my hands, and satisfy all 
 my needs.' And the two young women said, ' We 
 also will go with thee.' But Naomi said, ' Nay, 
 but stay with your kindred. Go, each to her 
 mother's house, The Lord deal kindly with you, 
 as ye have dealt with the dead and with me ! The 
 Lord grant you that you may find rest, each in the 
 house of her husband!' Then she kissed them, and 
 they all wept together. And the young women 
 said, ' Surely, we will go back with you to your own 
 
people.' But Naomi said, * Not so, my daughters. 
 Turn again, for you shall not go with me.' Then 
 the elder of the damsels kissed her, and returned to 
 her own mother ; but the younger, whose name is 
 Ruth, said, ' Entreat me not to leave thee : for 
 whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou 
 lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my 
 people, and thy God my God; and where thou diest 
 will I die, and there will I be buried/ So, when 
 Naomi saw that Ruth was so minded as not to be 
 put off, she allowed her to come with her. And 
 now, behold, they have been only a few days in 
 Bethlehem, and they are very poor. And this 
 morning as I came with the reapers to the field, 
 the damsel Ruth met me by the roadside, and 
 said, * I pray thee, let me glean and gather after 
 the reapers among the sheaves ! ' And I said, 
 * Come, for my master is kind, and he turneth no 
 one away.' So she came, and has followed the 
 reapers until now." 
 
 " Thou hast well spoken," said Boaz to the head 
 servant. " Go now back to thy work, and bid the 
 young men let her glean among the sheaves, and 
 molest her not; and let fall some of the handfuls 
 on purpose for her, and leave them that she may 
 glean the more." 
 
 Then he called to Ruth, and said, " Hearest 
 
193 
 
 thou not, my daughter ? Let thine eyes be on 
 the reapers, and do thou glean that which they 
 leave behind. And when thou art athirst, go unto 
 the vessels, and drink of that which the young men 
 have drawn." 
 
 Then Ruth, trembling and blushing, bowed her 
 face to the ground, and said to the great man, 
 " Why should you show me so great kindness, see- 
 ing that I am a stranger in this land ? " 
 
 And the great man said, " I have heard of thy 
 kindness to Naomi, thy mother-in-law; and how 
 thou hast left thine own kindred and thy native 
 land, and art come among a people who are 
 strangers to thee. The Lord recompense thee ! 
 The Lord keep thee and protect thee ! " 
 
 And Ruth thanked him for his kindness, and 
 followed on after the workmen. And when the 
 luncheon time came, Boaz asked her to sit down 
 with the reapers and eat of their bread ; and he 
 handed her the parched corn, and bade her dip her 
 morsel in the cooling wine. 
 
 So she gleaned in the field until evening; and 
 then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was 
 about a bushel of barley. 
 
 When she went back to her lodgings in the town, 
 her mother-in-law asked her where she had been, 
 that she had gleaned so much. And Ruth said, " I 
 
 STO. OF THE EAST 13 
 
194 
 
 have been in the fields of the great man who is 
 called Boaz ; and he was very kind to me." 
 
 And Naomi told her that Boaz was one of their 
 nearest kinsmen, and said, " Blessed may he be ! for 
 he has not left off his kindness to the living and 
 the dead." 
 
 And Ruth gleaned every day in the fields of Boaz, 
 by the side of his maidens, until the barley harvest 
 and the wheat harvest were ended. 
 
 II. THE HARVEST FEAST. 
 
 Now, Naomi was busy every day planning how 
 she might make her daughter-in-law happy; and 
 she thought, that if she could only persuade the rich 
 man Boaz to marry the damsel, there could be no 
 better fortune. But how could she bring this about, 
 seeing that Ruth was so very poor, and withal a 
 stranger in the land ? 
 
 There was a curious custom in those times that 
 was intended to keep the property of a family from 
 going to others when the husband happened to die, 
 as had Ruth's husband, without leaving children. 
 In such case, the nearest relative was in honor 
 bound to marry the widow. And so Naomi thought 
 that if Boaz should be reminded of his kinship, 
 and of his duty to marry Ruth, he would be glad 
 
195 
 
 to take her ; if not because of her beauty and good- 
 ness, then for the sake of her dead husband's estate, 
 that might be saved, and kept in the family. While 
 Ruth was gleaning in the fields, Naomi was think- 
 ing how all this might be brought about. 
 
 At last the harvest was ended, and the barley was 
 all winnowed; and Boaz had a great feast on his 
 threshing floor; and master and servants and neigh- 
 bors all met together and rejoiced. That night 
 Naomi took care that Ruth should dress herself in 
 her most beautiful garments, and then she arranged 
 that the damsel and Boaz should meet at the close 
 of the feast. 
 
 And Ruth told Boaz of his kinship to her dead 
 husband; and all her words were words of maidenly 
 modesty, but they brought about the very thing 
 that Naomi had planned and desired. The great 
 man listened with delight ; and, although he knew 
 that there was one man who was nearer of kin 
 than himself, he made up his mind that he would 
 marry the maiden, if at the same time he might 
 do that which was right. As for Ruth, she has- 
 tened back to her lodgings, and told Naomi all 
 that Boaz had said. 
 
 " Rejoice, my daughter," said the mother-in-law, 
 "for surely the man will not rest until he has fin- 
 ished this matter by making thee his wife." 
 
196 
 
 III. THE WEDDING. 
 
 Early the next morning Boaz went up to the gate 
 of the town, and sat down there ; for that was the 
 place in which the men were wont to meet to settle 
 all kinds of business and all disputes. 
 
 By and by the man came by whom he wished to 
 see ; and he cried out to him, " Ho ! friend and 
 kinsman, turn aside and sit down here." 
 
 And the man turned aside and sat down. 
 
 Then they called ten of the elders of the city, and 
 said, " Sit ye down here, and judge concerning the 
 matter that is between us." 
 
 And the elders came and sat down. 
 
 Then Boaz said to the man whom he had first 
 called, " You no doubt remember our cousin Elime- 
 lech, who went away from our town during the time 
 of the great famine, and how he died in a strange 
 land, leaving a widow, Naomi, and two sons." 
 
 And the man said, " Yes, I remember." 
 
 " Perhaps you have also heard," said Boaz, " that 
 the two sons, after marrying wives, also died, with- 
 out leaving any children." 
 
 " Yes, I have heard that also," said the man. 
 
 " Very well, then," said Boaz. " Now, everybody 
 in Bethlehem knows that Elimelech was the owner 
 of a fine piece of land just outside of the town. 
 
i 9 7 
 
 Naomi, who has lately come back to her own people, 
 wishes to sell this land ; and, unless the kinsmen 
 of Elimelech will redeem it, it will be lost to the 
 family. I need not tell you, my friend, that you 
 are the nearest kinsman, while I stand only in the 
 second place ; and so you have the first right to 
 redeem it. Will you redeem it, or will you not ? " 
 
 And the man said, " I will redeem it." 
 
 Then Boaz said, " In the day that you buy it 
 of Naomi, you must also take her daughter-in-law 
 Ruth for your wife ; for such is the custom and the 
 law among us." 
 
 And the kinsman said, " Then I cannot redeem 
 it, and I give up to you all my claims and rights as 
 a kinsman. Buy it, if you wish, for yourself." 
 
 Now, it was the custom in those old times, that, 
 when a bargain was made, the man agreeing to it 
 should loose his shoe, and give it to the other 
 in the presence of the elders of the town. So 
 Boaz loosed his shoe, and gave it to his kinsman. 
 Then he said to the elders, 
 
 " You are witnesses this day that I buy all the 
 land that belonged to my cousin Elimelech and to 
 his two sons, who are dead. I buy also, as my wife, 
 the damsel Ruth, the widow of the younger of the two 
 sons, whom he married in the land of the strangers. 
 Of all this, you are the witnesses this day." 
 
1 98 
 
 And all the people that were in the gate, as well 
 as the ten elders who sat there, answered, " We are 
 witnesses." 
 
 Then they gave him congratulations, and wished 
 him many blessings, and prayed that Ruth might 
 also be blessed, and that their family might bring 
 honor to their country and be famous in Bethlehem. 
 And the women hastened to visit Naomi to tell her 
 how glad they were that all things had turned out 
 so well ; and they commended Ruth for her beauty 
 and her goodness and her faithfulness, and said that 
 she was better than seven sons. 
 
 And so Boaz and Ruth were married according 
 to the customs of the time, and they lived together 
 happily for many years in the great house which 
 Boaz built in the town of Bethlehem. And trav- 
 elers in the East are still shown the spot on which 
 that house stood; for it is the spot where, a thou- 
 sand years later, the Christ child was born. 
 
THE SHEPHERD BOY WHO BECAME KING. 
 
 I. THE SEER. 
 
 NEAR the village called Bethlehem, or the House 
 of Bread, there lived an old man who had eight 
 sons. I do not know how rich he was, but his 
 neighbors called him Jesse, a word which in their 
 language meant Wealth. His grandfather, whose 
 name was Boaz, had been one of the great men of 
 the place ; and his grandmother, whose name was 
 Ruth, had been famous for her goodness and 
 beauty. 
 
 One day word was brought to the village that a 
 certain great man was passing that way, and would 
 stop perhaps for a day or two. This great man 
 was a seer, or prophet, and he had been the real 
 ruler of the country for many years. Everybody 
 regarded him with great awe, for it was thought 
 that he had all his power directly from God. Even 
 the King was afraid to do anything without first 
 asking his leave, So, when the people of the House 
 
 199 
 
200 
 
 of Bread heard that Seer Samuel, as he was called, 
 was coming to their village, they were much alarmed, 
 and began to wonder what they had done that he 
 did not approve. While he was yet on the road, 
 they sent some of their chief men to meet him, 
 and find out what he wanted them to do. The men 
 were very glad when they saw that he was coming 
 alone, leading a young white heifer; for that did 
 not look as though he meant to do them harm. 
 
 " Do you come peaceably ? " they asked. 
 
 " I have come to slay this heifer in your village, 
 and so make a thank offering to Heaven," he an- 
 swered. 
 
 " We are glad that you have seen fit so to honor 
 us," they said, " and if you are willing, we would 
 like to help you to make this offering." 
 
 " I want the man whom you call Wealth to help 
 me," said the Seer. " Let him come with his sons, 
 but let every one else stand back." 
 
 So Wealth and seven of his sons went up with 
 the Seer to the top of a hill by the village, and the 
 Seer laid his hands upon them and blessed them. 
 Then they built an altar with stones, and kindled a 
 fire upon it; and when they had killed the white 
 heifer, they burned parts of her body as a thank 
 offering. But the rest of the people stood a good 
 way off, and did not come near. 
 
2OI 
 
 Then the Seer called each one of the seven 
 sons, beginning with the eldest, and had them pass 
 before him. The first was a tall and very hand- 
 some young man, and the Seer seemed much 
 pleased with him. 
 
 " Surely, he is noble enough to be our king," he 
 said, and he began to unstop a horn of oil which he 
 held in his hand. Then he must have seen some- 
 thing in the young man's eye which did not please 
 him; for he said, " Pass on, I have no need of you." 
 
 The second of the sons was also good-looking 
 and strong. But the Seer said, " This is not the 
 chosen one." 
 
 And so it fared with the third and with all the 
 others. There was something about each one of 
 them which the Seer liked ; but there was some- 
 thing that he disliked, too. When the last one had 
 been called up and then sent away, the Seer seemed 
 to be in great trouble. 
 
 "Surely, I thought to find a king among these 
 young men," he said; "but not one of them is 
 chosen." 
 
 Then he said to Wealth, "Are all of your chil- 
 dren here ? " 
 
 "All but one," said Wealth. "The youngest, 
 whom we call Darling, is not here. He is only a 
 little fellow, and I didn't think it worth while to 
 call him." 
 
202 
 
 " Where is he ? " asked the Seer. 
 
 " He is tending the sheep in the valley over 
 yonder," said Wealth. 
 
 "Send and fetch him," said the Seer; "and we 
 will not sit down till he comes." 
 
 So they sent and brought the lad from the sheep 
 pasture. He was a ruddy-faced boy, slender and 
 handsome, with eyes as sharp and bright as an 
 eagle's. The Seer was very much pleased when 
 he saw him. 
 
 " This is the chosen one," he said. 
 
 Then he unstopped the horn that was in his 
 hand, and poured the oil on the lad's head, and 
 blessed him. 
 
 " Behold, I anoint thee to be king!" he said. Then 
 he turned to Wealth and the seven young men who 
 stood around wondering, and said, " See that you 
 tell no man of what has been done this day." 
 
 And he took his staff in his hand, and walked 
 down the hill, and away towards his own home, and 
 never looked back. And the lad went back to his 
 sheep. 
 
 II. THE KING. 
 
 Some time after that, a great change came over 
 the King of the people who called themselves the 
 Children of the Prince. He seemed to have lost 
 
203 
 
 his senses. He was cruel even to his best friends ; 
 and there were times when he was so wild that 
 nobody dared to go near him. The Seer said that 
 there was an evil spirit in him. 
 
 There was only one thing that seemed to please 
 him, and that was music. At the sound of a harp 
 he would become gentle and mild, and all his wild- 
 ness would leave him. 
 
 And so the best harpers in all the country were 
 invited to come and play before the King. All 
 went well for a time. So long as they played 
 sweet tunes, and made no discord, the King seemed 
 pleased, and listened quietly; but as soon as any 
 one struck a false note he grew furious again, and 
 at last he drove them away from his palace. 
 
 Then some one said, " Did you ever hear of the 
 young shepherd who keeps his father's sheep in the 
 south valley ? No one can play the harp so well as 
 he. Even the beasts like to listen to him." 
 
 The King overheard what was said, and he asked, 
 " Who is this young shepherd ? " 
 
 " He is the son of the man who is called Wealth," 
 was the answer. 
 
 " Send and fetch him to me," said the King. 
 
 And so messengers went down to the little village, 
 and told Wealth that the King wanted to see the 
 lad who tended the sheep, and who played so sweetly 
 
204 
 
 on the harp. And the old man called the lad from 
 the pastures, and gave him a donkey loaded with 
 bread, and a bottle of wine, and a fat kid, and sent 
 him with them to the King. And the King was 
 much pleased when he saw him ; for he was tall 
 and comely, and the music of the harp cheered his 
 heart until his madness left him, and he became as 
 gentle as a child. 
 
 " The sound of the harp has driven the evil spirit 
 quite away," said the Seer. 
 
 And the boy became the King's page, and lived 
 for a whole year in the King's house. 
 
 III. THE GIANT. 
 
 About this time a tribe of rude men called 
 Wanderers, or Philistines, came up from the south, 
 and began to overrun the country. The King 
 sent out his warriors against them, but they were 
 driven back. It looked as though every city and 
 field would fall into the hands of the Wanderers. 
 There was only one thing to be done: the King 
 himself must go out at the head of his army, and 
 give battle to his savage foes. 
 
 There was no longer any need for the young 
 page in the King's household, for everybody was 
 too busy to listen to music now. So, with his 
 
20$ 
 
 harp on his shoulder, he went back home, and 
 tended his father's flock of sheep as he had done 
 before. But his older brothers went out as sol- 
 diers in the army of the King. 
 
 The Wanderers pitched their camp on the top 
 of a hill, and the Children of the Prince pitched 
 their camp on the top of another hill; and there 
 was a broad valley between them. Each army was 
 afraid of the other, and so neither wanted to begin 
 the battle. All day and all night they lay there, 
 making great boasts, but doing nothing. 
 
 In the morning a huge giant, who was the 
 champion of the Wanderers, went out and stood 
 in the valley midway between the camps. He 
 was called the Exile, and he was more than ten 
 feet in height. He wore a helmet of brass upon 
 his head, and he was clad in a coat of mail which 
 was made of brass and weighed two or three 
 hundred pounds; and he had greaves of brass 
 on his legs and a target of brass between his 
 shoulders. The shaft of his spear was like a long 
 beam, and its heavy iron point was as much as a 
 common man could lift. 
 
 This giant stood in the valley and cried out to 
 the King's army on the mountain top, " What are 
 you doing up there, you cowards ? Look at me ! 
 I am a Wanderer, and you are only slaves to a 
 
206 
 
 King. But I will make an agreement with you. 
 Let one of your men come down and fight me. If 
 he can kill me, then all my followers will be your 
 slaves; but if I kill him, then you shall be our 
 slaves. Isn't that fair enough ? I dare the best man 
 among you to come down and fight with me ! " 
 
 When the King and his warriors heard these 
 words, and saw the big giant, they were very much 
 afraid; and not one of them dared make him any 
 answer. For forty days the two armies lay in camp 
 on the hilltops, and every morning and evening 
 the Exile went down into the valley and made the 
 same speech. The soldiers on both sides were 
 often drawn up in line of battle; but the chiefs 
 were afraid to begin the fight, and after awhile all 
 went back to their tents. 
 
 Things kept on in this way until food began to 
 be scarce. The Children of the Prince would have 
 suffered from hunger if their kinsmen at home had 
 not helped them ; and the Wanderers would have 
 starved if they had not sent companies out to bring 
 in pillage from the farms,, 
 
 IV. THE CAMP. 
 
 One morning Wealth called to his son, the 
 shepherd lad, and said, " Darling, I hear that the 
 King's men have hardly enough to eat, and I am 
 
207 
 
 afraid that your brothers are hungry. Suppose 
 you let one of the hired men take care of the 
 sheep to-day, while you go up to the camp and 
 see how they are getting on. You may take a 
 wagon with you; and you may put into it three 
 pecks of parched corn and ten loaves of bread for 
 your brothers. Put in ten cheeses, too, as a pres- 
 ent to their captain. Find out how everything is 
 going on in the camp, and then come back and 
 tell me." 
 
 The lad was delighted to be sent upon such an 
 errand. He loaded the wagon with the corn and 
 the bread and the cheeses ; and then, with a trusty 
 man to drive for him, he set off across the country 
 towards the camp. He had to take a roundabout 
 way, for he was afraid of meeting some of the small 
 bands of Wanderers that were out foraging. When 
 he reached the end of his journey, it was late in the 
 afternoon ; and he found the two armies drawn up 
 in order of battle, each on its own hilltop. The 
 men on both sides were making a great deal of 
 noise, shouting back and forth, and beating their 
 shields; but that was about as near as they ever 
 got to a fight. 
 
 The lad left the wagon with the driver, and 
 hurried up the hill to the place where his three 
 brothers were standing. They were right glad 
 
208 
 
 to see him; and when he told them about the 
 parched corn and the loaves, they thanked him 
 warmly. 
 
 While they stood talking on the brow of the 
 hill, the giant Exile came out into the valley and 
 made his speech. And all the men who were 
 nearest to him ran back, they were so much 
 afraid. When the lad saw and heard him, he 
 said, 
 
 " Why don't some one of our men go down 
 and fight the fellow ? " 
 
 " Alas ! " said his brothers, " there are no giants 
 among the Children of the Prince ; and do you 
 think that any common man can stand up against 
 such a foe ? " 
 
 " Has the King offered any reward to the man 
 who will kill him ? " asked the lad. 
 
 "Yes," they said. " He has offered to give him 
 a chest full of gold, and to let him choose the 
 fairest of the King's daughters for his wife; and 
 he will make his 'father and his brothers rulers 
 among the people." 
 
 " I don't see how the King can offer more than 
 that," said the lad. " I think I'll try my hand 
 against the giant myself." 
 
 His big brothers laughed at him. " You proud 
 little upstart," they said, " don't you think you had 
 
209 
 
 better go back home and look after your few 
 sheep?" 
 
 But some one who overheard him ran and told 
 the King, " There is a young man up here, just from 
 the country, who says that he will fight the giant. 
 Wouldn't it be well to let him try ? " 
 
 The King sent for him at once ; but, when he 
 saw that it was only his little harper, he shook 
 his head. 
 
 " Darling," he said, " you can play sweet music, 
 and are a very good page in times of peace ; but 
 you cannot fight a giant like this Exile. Why, 
 you are only a boy, and he is a man of war, trained 
 to fight from his youth ! You'd better keep well 
 out of his way." 
 
 " Great King," said the lad, "let me tell you what 
 I have done, and then you may judge whether I 
 am not strong enough to fight. Only a few days 
 ago, as I was tending my father's sheep, there came 
 a bear out of the wood and took a lamb from the 
 flock. I leaped up and ran after him, and snatched 
 the lamb from his grasp, and killed him before he 
 could turn against me." 
 
 " That was a brave thing to do," said the King; 
 "but this Exile is stronger than a bear." 
 
 " Well, I will tell you something else," said the 
 lad. " The very next day a lion came down from 
 
 STO. OF THE EAST 14 
 
2IO 
 
 the mountain and seized the finest lamb in the 
 flock. I was no more afraid of him than I was 
 of the bear. I ran after him ; and when he turned 
 upon me, I caught him by the beard, and struck 
 him with my sharp staff and killed him. It was 
 not altogether of my own strength that I did this ; 
 but the God of my father, he helped me and made 
 me strong. And he will help me against this giant 
 Exile." 
 
 " I like the way you talk," said the King. 
 " Get yourself ready, and go out against this 
 Exile ; and may the God of your father and of 
 my father go with you ! " 
 
 V. THE SLING. 
 
 The King called to one of his chiefs that stood 
 near, and told him to arm the lad, and make him 
 ready, so that he could go out in the morning and 
 fight with the proud giant. The King's own son 
 chose the armor for him, and it was the best that 
 could be found in the camp. They put a helmet 
 of brass upon his head, and clothed him in a coat 
 of mail, and gave him a bright new sword. But all 
 these things were so heavy that when the lad tried 
 to walk he could hardly move. 
 
 " How am I going to fight in these things ? " he 
 
211 
 
 said. " I have never practiced in armor, and I 
 can't go out this way." 
 
 Then he took off the armor, and threw the sword 
 upon the ground, and said that he would arm him- 
 self in his own way. So, with nothing in his hands 
 but his shepherd's staff and a sling, he went out in 
 the morning to meet the giant. On his way down 
 the hill he crossed a brook, and there he picked 
 up five smooth round stones, and put them into 
 the little shepherd's bag which he carried at his 
 side. 
 
 By this time the giant had come out into the 
 valley, and was making the speech which he had 
 made so often before, and was daring the Children 
 of the Prince to send out a man to fight him. When 
 he saw the lad coming down the hill with only a 
 shepherd's staff in his hand, he laughed. 
 
 " Do you think I am a dog," he roared, " that you 
 "send a boy out against me with a stick ? Come 
 on, my little fellow, and I will feed you to the birds 
 and the beasts ! " 
 
 Then the lad said, " You are very large and 
 strong, and you come out with a sword and with 
 a spear and with a shield ; but I come in the name 
 of the God of my father and of my people. This 
 day I will smite you, and take off your head, and 
 give your big body to the birds and the wild beasts ; 
 
212 
 
 and everybody shall know that our God is the true 
 God." 
 
 Then the giant was very angry. He strode for- 
 ward across the valley, shaking his great spear; 
 but the lad was not at all afraid of him, and ran 
 down the hill to meet him ; and as he ran, he 
 took one of the smooth round stones which he 
 had picked up, and put it into his sling. The 
 giant raised his spear to throw it, but the lad was 
 much quicker than he. He twirled the sling once, 
 twice, three times and then the stone went whiz- 
 zing through the air, and struck the Exile in the 
 forehead. It struck so hard that it sunk deep into 
 the big fellow's head, and he fell upon his face to 
 the ground. Then the lad ran and stood upon him, 
 and drew his big sword from its sheath, and cut off 
 his head. And that was the end of the Exile. 
 
 When the Wanderers, who were in their camp, 
 saw that their champion was dead, they were filled* 
 with fear, and fled pellmell down the farther side of 
 the hill. And the King's men shouted and ran 
 after them, and did not stop until they had chased 
 them out of the country. 
 
 Then everybody praised the lad for what he had 
 done; and the King took him into his own house, 
 and made him captain of a thousand men. And, 
 as they marched through the land, the women and 
 
(213) 
 
214 
 
 girls came out from the cities with music and song, 
 and danced before them; and as they played, one 
 company would sing, 
 
 " The King has slain a thousand men, 
 A hero brave is he." 
 
 And then another company would answer, - 
 
 " This lad has slain ten thousand men, 
 He's set our country free." 
 
 This did not please the King very well; but, 
 when he saw that everybody was ready to take the 
 boy's part, he said nothing. 
 
 Now, I need not tell you any more of the strange 
 history of the lad whom his father called Darling ; 
 for, after his great fight with the giant Exile, he 
 was no longer looked upon as a lad, but as a prince. 
 After a time he married the King's pretty daughter; 
 and when at last the King and his son were both 
 slain in battle, the Children of the Prince chose him 
 to be their ruler. Thus the words of the old Seer 
 when he poured oil on the boy's head came true; 
 and he reigned over his people for many years, and 
 was the greatest king that his country ever had. 
 
 The name of this shepherd lad was David, for 
 that word in his own language meant darling; and 
 the giant Exile whom he slew is commonly called 
 
215 
 
 Goliah. And even to this day the descendants of 
 the Children of the Prince take pride in talking 
 about the glorious reign of King David, for it was 
 then that their country reached the highest point 
 of its prosperity ; and in the churches all over the 
 world the people still recite the songs called Psalms, 
 that King David sang when playing upon his harp 
 in his kingly palace three thousand years ago. 
 
 TYPOGRAPHY BY J. S. GUSHING & Co., NORWOOD, MASS., U.S.A. 
 
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