Then, as Rahmeh shut her eyes in a spasm of fright, and Jeida, regaining his feet, jerked backward on quivering flanks, there came the sharp crack of a rifle, and with a yelp the hyena rolled over in a cloud of dust.
A man in khaki came running over the dunes, rifle in hand. He was an English soldier who, on his way to camp, had seen the peril of the little shepherdess.
‘All right,’ he cried, ‘don’t be afraid!’ But Rahmeh and Jeida were already fleeing toward the gray house where there were sheltering walls, a well of cold water, and mother.
The next day Rahmeh stayed at home and strung the Dead Sea apples into a magnificent necklace, not for big Nib, but for brave little Jeida.
THE PIGEON MOSQUE
‘If I could write like that,’ thought Omar enviously, ‘I’d send a letter to my brother in America, telling him how I went out on the Bosphorus in a boat and caught seven fish.’
He was watching the spectacled old Turk, who sat all day in the court of the Pigeon Mosque, writing for those who did not know how. Omar had been to school, where, sitting on straw mats with the other boys, weaving his body to and fro as they recited in unison, he had learned parts of the Koran by heart; but he had never learned to write. If the fat merchant who was dictating to the scribe could not write his own letters, why should Omar? And if every one knew this art, how would the old man earn his living?
Fatima, Omar’s sister, did not worry about such things. None of the girls whom she knew ever went to school. She sat feeding the pigeons, glad of every day before her mother should make her hang a thick black veil across her face when she went for water. But the big brother who had gone to Chicago wrote home that there all the children could read and write, even the little ones. He was shocked at Omar’s ignorance. That was why Omar hung about the old Turk every day, watching him make the quick little marks that meant words.
When the merchant in the red fez had paid his money and gone, Omar ventured timidly. ‘I think I could make those letters,’ he said, ‘but I don’t know what they mean.’
‘Boy,’ answered the Turk, ‘you must not come here to pick up crumbs like the pigeons. If you wish to learn, I will teach you; but you must work.’