All the tombs near the great thoroughfares were being freshly white-washed; they gleamed with a dazzling purity through the green trees, only to warn passers-by of the defilement within. For had those on their way to the feast approached too near these homes of the dead, even unconsciously, they would have been accounted unclean, and unfit to partake of the Passover. Nothing escaped Joel's quick sight, from the tulips and marigolds flaming in the fields, to the bright-eyed little viper crawling along the stone-wall.
But while he looked, he never lost a word that passed between his friend Phineas and their host. The pride of an ancient nation took possession of him as he listened to the prophecies they quoted.
Every one they met along the way coming from Capernaum had something to say about this new prophet who had arisen in Galilee. When they reached the gate of the city, a great disappointment awaited them. He had been there, and gone again.
Nathan ben Obed and his train tarried only one night in the place, and then pressed on again towards Jerusalem. Phineas went with them.
"You shall go with us next year," he said to Joel; "then you will be over twelve. I shall take my own little ones too, and their mother."
"Only one more year," exclaimed Joel, joyfully. "If that passes as quickly as the one just gone, it will soon be here."
"Look after my little family," said the carpenter, at parting. "Come every day to the work, if you wish, just as when I am here; and remember, my lad, you are almost a man."
Almost a man! The words rang in the boy's thoughts all day as he pounded and cut, keeping time to the swinging motion of hammer and saw. Almost a man! But what kind of one? Crippled and maimed, shorn of the strength that should have been his pride, beggared of his priestly birthright.
Almost, it might be, but never in its fulness, could he hope to attain the proud stature of a perfect man.
A fiercer hate sprang up for the enemy who had made him what he was; and the wild burning for revenge filled him so he could not work. He put away his tools, and went up the narrow outside stairway that led to the flat roof of the carpenter's house. It was called the "upper chamber." Here a latticed pavilion, thickly overgrown with vines, made a cool green retreat where he might rest and think undisturbed.