Part 2

She went back to her oven with a smile; cheerful and loving, she found in everything some cause for satisfaction, or at least hope, if she was given time enough. And she sang now, under her breath, as she always did when she was disturbed or happy--for happiness or sorrow, either one, disturbed only a little her amiable, confused spirit:

“_Men dead long ago Have set me like a tree. Let the wind blow, What is that to me? My roots are in their dust, My roots are deep, I trust. My son is at my knee._”

Jonah looked at her with a gloomy but tender expression. “Mother,” he said, “what is the matter with my coat? Because it is old? It does me very well. Must I also be a beauty, to suit you?”

After supper Deborah’s brother David came in to see Jonah. He also wished to know about the war, concerning which he had heard rumors.

“Well,” he said to his sister, “so we have actually a prophet in our family. I congratulate you. We could afford to give a little party in honor of this.”

And he looked around him with pride.

“No, really,” cried Jonah; “what an idea.” He blushed to think of it. But his uncle peered angrily at him from under his shaggy eyebrows.

“So,” he said slowly, “that is the kind of prophet you are, then. You think only of yourself, but what about your family? Do you imagine we have so many opportunities to give feasts, and call in the neighbors? Or have you done something to be ashamed of? When an honor comes to us, that is the time to talk about it.”

Aaron agreed with his uncle, although he did not see what they had to be proud of. “We are no better off than before,” he complained, “seeing that Jonah brought home nothing with him from the war.”

“What?” exclaimed Uncle David. “What a pity.” He wagged his old head meditatively. “There it is,” he said; “times change, whether you like it or not. When I was a young man it was entirely different. Feasts, festivals.... I can tell you, we knew how to enjoy ourselves. And what is more, we were religious; it was not like to-day. At any rate, children were respectful, and considered their parents; when they went to a war, they brought something home.”

And he lamented the decay of Israel’s greatness.

But Deborah put in a good word for her son. “If he brought me nothing,” she said, “it was because he knows that really I am satisfied with what I have, and besides there was nothing there which caught his fancy.”

“The old days are no more,” said David, and relapsed into gloomy silence.

Aaron, who had been growing restless in his corner, got to his feet. “Mother,” he said, “I am going out for a while, to see some of my friends.”

“Again,” cried Deborah, “so soon, when your brother has just come home, and Uncle David is here? Aaron, no....”

“I will go with him,” said Jonah quietly; “I should like to visit old Naaman, who lives at the edge of the village. Do you remember, Mother, how I used to go there when I was young; and I have not seen him in many years.”

“Yes,” said Deborah with a smile, “it is true; I remember, you were always there; whenever I could not find you, I had only to look for you in Naaman’s house, and there you were. Go along, but do not be late; and”--she added in a whisper--“when you come home I will have some food set out for you.”

She turned sternly to her younger son. “Aaron,” she said, “please do not get into any fresh mischief with your friends. Perhaps you would do better to go with your brother; it would do you good for a change instead of running up and down the village with nobody knows who.”

Her gaze followed her sons with tender anxiety across the threshold.

“So thin he looks,” she murmured; “and his cloak is so tattered; really, I am ashamed. But what can I do; I have nothing; and he is so proud, besides.”

And she smiled at her brother, with a tear shining in her eye.

Jonah and Aaron walked along in silence, under the dark boughs of trees. At last Aaron remarked: “Well ... you see ... you have made a start now with things. The desert is all very well for old men. But what sort of life is that, after all?”

And in an embarrassed manner he took his leave of Jonah, and went off to join his companions, whose voices could be heard raised in youthful laughter among the shadows.

Jonah stood leaning upon his staff in the darkness. A few lights gleamed among the trees, whose branches bent above him as though to envelope him in their quiet embrace. The odors of night crept around him; he remembered his youth, spent in this village, and he felt in his heart a longing for that lonely boy whose only friends had been an old man and his own dreams. So much of life had gone by, yet here he was again, wearier, wiser, still led by hopes, of what he did not know, hurt by memories, but why he could not tell. He heard the voices of Aaron and his friends fading in the distance; he knew that in the shadows young lovers whispered together, although he could not see them. All about him trembled the happy laughter of youth, the peace of age, the quietness of rest after labor. The sky of heaven, shining with stars, bent upon his home a regard of kindness; and the wind, moving through the sycamores, spoke to him in the accents of the past.

Bowing his head upon his breast, he thought, “Jonah, Jonah, what have you done with your youth?”

Slowly, and with halting steps, he approached the house of Naaman, at the village edge.

III

He found his old teacher seated beneath an acacia tree whose branches perfumed the air. A beam of light from the house, falling among the leaves, touched Naaman’s white hair and his long, snowy beard with a gentle gleam. That was how his pupil had remembered him, the picture of wisdom and peace. He greeted Jonah with affection, but without surprise.

“It is you, my son,” he said. “I am glad to see you again. Your fame has spread, for I heard of you, no later than to-day, as the young prophet who had inspired the king at Bethel.”

And he added gayly, “Come, sit here beside me, and tell me about yourself. As you see, my tree is blossoming again. Thus, at the end of my life, it is vouchsafed me to behold each year the return of spring and the marriage of earth with the Eternal One.”

“I do not know what you mean by the Eternal One,” said Jonah; “for all the gods are immortal and eternal. It is only you and I, Naaman, who grow older each year. But I am glad to see that you are well, and to know that your tree is blossoming.”

Naaman replied gently, “My son, you have traveled, and you have learned something. Have you not learned that there is only one God? Did you not learn that in the desert, Jonah?”

“No, Naaman,” said Jonah gravely, “I have not learned it. I have been in the desert, where God is. And I have also been in Tyre in the month before our Passover, when the quail return in great numbers to mourn the death of a god. I will tell you something about Tyre: there, before they are married, the maidens sacrifice their hair to Astarte. You should travel, Naaman, and hear of other gods.”

“I do not need to travel,” replied Naaman; “here in this quiet garden the sun sets and the moon rises; the breeze of evening whispers through the leaves of my acacia tree, and I see through the branches the stars which have not changed; I hear the voices of cicada, shrill and sad, as when I was a boy, I hear the herds winding down from the hills. All is as it was and as it will be; and my heart overflows with love and peace.”

Jonah shrugged his shoulders. “That is all very well for you,” he repeated, “but when one goes about, as I do, one sees many strange things. In Aram, for instance, there are gods which look like snakes. But it is possible to charm them with a flute. What has that to do with the God of the Jews?”

“Were you not also in Aram?” asked Naaman quietly. “Yet you are a Jew.”

“I was with the army ...” said Jonah.

But Naaman broke in, continuing: “Do you imagine that God would be content with a few tribes and a strip of sea-coast on this earth, which He created with so much trouble? Such an idea is highly improbable. Moreover, there is a regularity about the seasons which would be impossible in the case of a number of gods.”

But Jonah shook his head. “That is all nonsense, Naaman,” he said. “I cannot understand it. Why should God send the Jews to take the country and the flocks of the Aramæans, if they already belong to Him? And if there is no other God but Israel’s God, then who created the other people of the earth? You see into what difficulties an idea of this sort inevitably leads you. There is no doubt that our God is the true God, but to say that He is the only God does not seem to be justified, in the light of history.”

“What do we learn from history?” asked Naaman. “Little enough and nothing to our credit. The golden calf of Og has grown to be a bull. Well, so much for history.”

But Jonah replied discontentedly, “That is all very well theologically speaking, but you lose sight of the problems of administration.” And he repeated to Naaman what Amaziah, the High Priest, had told him.

“After all,” he said, “men must worship God in some form or other.”

But Naaman replied with grave anxiety:

“That is not the voice of Jonah that I hear. My son, do not let yourself be persuaded by those to whose ears the divine speech has never penetrated. God does not speak in the Temple, but in the silence of the heart. The hearts of His prophets are His tabernacles. There, in the quiet, in the hush of lonely piety, He speaks to Israel in tones of sorrow and command. Let us keep His tabernacles holy and austere. Go back to the desert, Jonah; and do not meddle with the affairs of this world.

“Go back to the desert, my son.”

Jonah remained silent for a moment, gazing out at the soft spring night with its faint shine and shadow of leaves. At last he said slowly, “Well, of course, after a while....” But he thought to himself, “Must I hurry? A little holiday will not do me any harm.

“I thought,” he said doubtfully to Naaman, “that I might stay a few days with my mother, who is growing old, and who after all does not see so much of me.”

But Naaman shook his head. “My son,” he said, “you cannot have both heaven and earth. If you are so fortunate as to count angels among your friends, it is because you have no mother and no brother. Be lonely, and content; and do not turn back to this life so full of passion and injustice. Grief and joy are not for you, Jonah; they are nothing for a prophet. The desert is your home; do not go too far away from it.”

“You are right, Naaman,” said Jonah, after a while; “one must not get too far away from the desert.” He rose to go, helping himself to his feet with his staff. “Good-by,” he said, “my teacher and my friend. Once again you convince me, a little against my will. As of old, I leave you, filled with a peace which is not entirely happy.”

And embracing his old teacher, he set off for his mother’s house through the night.

IV

Prince Ahab lived in a palace of stone and fragrant cedarwood, on a hill above the village of Gath-Hepher, and almost within sight of the little cottage occupied by Jonah’s mother. The prince, whose large holdings in the North had increased in value due to the success of the war in Syria, surrounded himself with every luxury. Nevertheless, in the midst of jewels, silks, slaves, and the richest perfumes, he himself remained simple and straightforward. Of a martial, almost to say gloomy appearance, he affected the stern manners of the Assyrians, with whose thick gold fringes he decorated his cloak and his girdle. He was heavy, but he was vigorous and active; like the nobles of Assur, he took endless pleasure in hunting, for which he imported blooded falcons and swift horses from Iran. He lived in the saddle; and he complained of the degeneracy of Israel. “Effeminate people,” he exclaimed, “you do not exercise enough.” And the sleepy citizens of Bethel would be awakened by the trampling of horses and the sound of horns, as Ahab rode out at dawn to hunt boar in the forests of Baal Hazor.

In the afternoon, while the king deliberated with his nobles upon affairs of state, Ahab dozed. Upon being reminded of the presence before the council of important matters, he remarked that he had been out riding. And he exclaimed with enthusiasm:

“Exercise is the thing.”

An old woman by the name of Sarah kept house for him in his palace of cedarwood and broadstone. She was sharp and severe, but she knew her own value. By noticing the faults of other people, she kept her self-respect. She managed the house and the slaves, and acted as nurse to Ahab’s niece, his sister’s child, Judith.

Judith at sixteen possessed a voluptuous body, a pious spirit, and an inexperienced mind. Her gentle soul united in itself the gay ardors of a child with the cloudy desires of a woman. Everything surprised her, and everything pleased her; she was anxious to know everything, and she knew nothing. Eager and trusting, her brown eyes explored with sympathy but without understanding the life she saw all about her. She was happy and dreamy by turns; but sometimes at night her pillow was wet with tears. She would have said that something beautiful had made her cry, perhaps a thought, perhaps a feeling. But she could not have explained what it was, not even to Sarah, to whom she told everything. Perhaps it was the moonlight in the courtyard, and the scent of jasmine or lotus from the garden. But that was lovely; why should it make her cry? Such things perplexed her.

Sometimes she wished she were a boy, so that she might go hunting with her uncle. Then she saw herself seated on a white horse, with her green cape blowing in the wind, galloping and shouting. But at the thought of piercing an animal with her spear, she turned away with quick displeasure. “No,” she thought, “I should not like to go hunting.”

And she told her uncle that she was glad she was a girl. “So am I,” he replied, “because if you were a boy, I should be disgusted with you.” He loved his niece, but he liked people to be active and hardy. “The women of to-day,” he often said, “do not amount to much.

“They have no enthusiasm.”

Now Judith sat before her bronze mirror, twisting her long brown hair into plaits. As she sat, she sang:

“_My love is a shepherd in Sharon, By rivers he waters his sheep, Blue are the waters of Sharon, Rivers of Sharon are deep._”

She knew no one in Sharon. Nevertheless her nurse said to her angrily, “Now tell me, what sort of song is that for a young girl to sing?”

Judith replied that it was just a song. She added with a smile, “You are vexed because you do not know any shepherds, and because you have no lover.”

“That is my own business,” said Sarah, drawing herself up with dignity. “However, I must say that it does not become you to speak of things like that. What do you know about love? Nothing, I sincerely hope. You should be thinking of marriage, with respectful modesty.”

“Well,” said Judith, “as a matter of fact, I think love is silly. It does not interest me, really. Were you ever in love? Tell me honestly, Sarah; I cannot imagine such a thing.”

Sarah gazed gloomily at her mistress. Presently a blush overspread her sallow countenance. “In love?” she exclaimed; “certainly not. With what, if I may ask? The trouble with you is that your head is full of nonsense. When I was your age I had more decorum. I was prettier than I am to-day, and I attracted the attention of a very handsome man, a camel driver, but such a wild one. He was not good enough for me, and I sent him about his business. I knew my own worth.”

So saying she tossed her head, with an air. But Judith clapped her hands. “A camel driver,” she exclaimed, “why, Sarah, you never told me. Did he take you up on his camel? Just think, how delightful. That’s really life, isn’t it, Sarah?”

“Ak,” cried the nurse, “where do you get such ideas?”

And turning to Prince Ahab, who was entering the room at that moment, she exclaimed,

“God knows who puts such things into her head.”

Prince Ahab replied, with a discouraged gesture, “Do not ask me, Sarah, for I do not know who puts anything into people’s heads nowadays. I assure you, the entire world is mad. Do you know what the king is doing, now that the war is over? You would think he would be getting ready for the next one. Not at all; he prefers to discuss the marriage laws with Prince Absalom. What a state of affairs. Do not expect me to know what makes a young girl foolish besides.”

“I am not foolish, Uncle,” said Judith; “when I am older, I shall be just as wise as you or Sarah.”

“Be respectful to your uncle,” said Sarah.

Ahab shrugged his shoulders. “No one is respectful any more,” he said; “I simply wonder that people do not go around with their fingers actually to their noses. But, then, with so many prophets filling the air with groans and complaints.... Amos, Joel, Hosea, they are enough to fill the mind of anybody with disrespect.”

“And Jonah?” asked Judith.

Ahab replied gravely: “Jonah is not like the others. He comes of a worthy family of Zebulon; as a matter of fact, his home is here in this village. So, you can see, there is something to him. His brother is the village herdsman. Yes, Jonah is quite a different thing altogether.”

Judith looked lazily at her face in the mirror. “Tell me what he is like,” she said.

“What’s that to you?” asked Sarah. She added that she supposed he was old and had a long white beard.

“No,” replied Ahab, “he is not old. He is young, and enthusiastic. His eyes seem to burn. He is a little thin, but one can understand that, living in the desert, and probably starving most of the time. It is not a healthy life. I came upon him during the battle against the Aramæans; the fighting had made him sick. He is not what I would call a very robust individual.”

“And did he really see an angel,” asked Judith, “as they say he did?”

“Why not?” said Ahab. “Is there any reason why a man from my own village should not see an angel? He has certainly as much right to see one as Amos of Tekoa; or do you imagine that angels only appear to the men of Judah?”

“What an idea,” cried Sarah.

And she added with conviction, “For myself, I would sooner take the word of a man from Zebulon.”

But when Prince Ahab had gone, she said, sniffing the air with vexation, “Men ought to stay out of the women’s apartments, where they have no business, whether they are uncles or not.” Seizing a vial of sweet-smelling oil, she began to sprinkle its contents in the room. This consoled her nose, which had been outraged by the prince, who, as usual, had come from the stables.

Judith went out into the warm spring morning. The bees were humming in the blossoms, the birds sang quietly and gaily in the trees, and trees and blossoms stretched themselves luxuriously in the bright sunshine. Judith took a deep breath of the hot, sweet air; it was like eating flowers, she thought. Underfoot, in the grass, beetles moved gravely to and fro on their mysterious business; the world of stones and twigs was being explored by little eager ants; wasps hung and buzzed. The earth exhaled the beneficent fragrance of spring; everywhere was drowsy joy, tranquil activity. A tanager flew overhead with scarlet wings, turned, shone, and fled among the trees. The girl paused, and looked up at the sky, blue as a robin’s egg. “I should like to dance,” she thought.

A moment later she added doubtfully, “But perhaps it would be wrong.”

At her feet a beetle with a bright green coat which reflected the light was walking soberly toward his house. Presently an ant approached him and gave him a bite on the leg. The beetle turned an anxious look on his tiny assailant, whose head barely came up to his knee, “Come, come,” he exclaimed, “have you no respect for beauty? Do you think God enjoys having you bite me? He would be very much upset if anything happened to me.”

Disdaining to reply, the ant went away to find his friends and discuss the situation. “I gave it to him,” he said; “I gave him a bite he won’t forget in a hurry. Now he knows who I am.”

Left to himself, the beetle hurried home in an agitated manner. And Judith, remarking his awkward gait, cried,

“There, you are dancing, you strange creature, with your lovely green coat. But that is quite another matter, because you are a beetle, and not a Jew.”

She had a sudden thought. “Perhaps,” she said, “that is why you are dancing. Perhaps you are a little god, with such a fine green coat. Well, go in peace, I will not step on you. I will make a wish, instead. Little beetle, tell me what love is. It does not interest me, really; I would simply like to know....”

She broke off with a start. A shadow had fallen on the grass at her feet, and she looked up with surprise. There, behind her and to one side, stood a young man. He was not good-looking, but his expression was gentle and kind. He had on an old, tattered cloak, and he leaned thoughtfully upon a rough staff which easily supported his weight. Judith looked at him with wide-open eyes.

“Oh, my,” she said.

And she added faintly, but in accents of hope, “Are you also a camel driver?”

The young man shook his head. “No,” he said, “I am not a camel driver.”

Seeing that his reply had disappointed the young woman, he added simply,

“I am Jonah, the prophet.”

V