"'WE TALKED LATE'"
There were no pictures in the house; the Law forbade. But there were several mirrors of bright polished metal, and Jesse never tired of watching his own reflection in them.
Ruth stayed close beside her mother. "She is a ray of God's own sunshine," said her grandmother, as she took her in her arms for the first time. The child, usually afraid of strangers, saw in Rebecca's face a look so like her mother's that she patted the wrinkled cheeks with her soft fingers. From that moment her grandmother was her devoted slave.
Jesse was not long in finding the place he held in his grandfather's heart. The old man, whose sons had all died years before, seemed to centre all his hopes on this son of his only daughter. He kept Jesse with him as much as possible; his happiest hours were when he had the child on his knee, teaching him the prayers and precepts and proverbs that he knew would be a lamp to his feet in later years.
"Nay! do not punish the child!" he said, one morning when Jesse had been guilty of some disobedience. Abigail went on stripping the leaves from an almond switch she just had broken off.
"Why, father," she said, with a smile, "I have often seen you punish my brothers for such disobedience, and have as often heard you say that one of Solomon's wisest sayings is, 'Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying.' Jesse misses his father's firm rule, and is getting sadly spoiled."
"That is all true, my daughter," he acknowledged; "still I shall not stay here to witness his punishment."
Abigail used the switch as she had intended. The boy had overheard the conversation, and the cries that reached his grandfather as he rode off to the city were unusually loud and appealing. They may have had something to do with the package the good man carried home that night,—cakes and figs and a gay little turban more befitting a young prince than the son of a carpenter.
"Who lives across the street?" asked Joel, the morning after their arrival.