"Oh, I would that the Messiah would come quickly," said Naomi wistfully. "And if he can make me see, he can make lame Enoch straight. I would that Enoch's old grandmother had not died and that he had not gone so far away to live as Jericho. I miss him."
"Think now of this new numbering of all the world," went on Ezra, whose heart burned within him at the wrongs of his nation. "Every man must travel to the town whence his family sprang, whether he live near or far and whether or no he be rich enough to stand a journey. And why? Because the Emperor at Rome has ordered so. I stood in the market-place when the Roman heralds with their trumpets summoned all Bethlehem thither, and told of this new enrollment and of the taxing to follow. I saw the black looks and heard the muttering, but did any man speak out? Nay—afeard of the short sword the Roman soldier carries. Oh, aye, I am afeard of it myself," admitted Ezra indulgently; "but when the Messiah cometh things will not be so."
"Mother says that many have already traveled to Bethlehem to be enrolled," said Naomi, "and that we shall have a houseful when the caravan from Nazareth comes in. I would fain be a help to her just now and not a trouble, but I can do nothing at all, nothing, only keep out of the way." And the tears rolled down poor Naomi's cheeks.
"Do not cry," said Ezra pitifully, and with a patience wonderful in a boy of his years. "We all love thee, Naomi, better than if thou hadst the sharp sight of an eagle. Come, greedy one," he went on, pulling at Michmash's bridle. "Wilt thou eat all night? Come!"
They stood upon a hill that looked toward the north, and as Ezra waited for lazy little Michmash to finish his mouthful, his eye caught a line of tiny black figures perhaps a mile away from Bethlehem village.
"The caravan from Nazareth, I verily believe!" he exclaimed. "Hold fast, Naomi, and I will take thee down to the gate. There I will tell thee all the sights as they come in."
Rattling over the stones and down the steep paths in reckless fashion, the little brother and sister were soon established in a spot where Ezra could see all that was needful, and whisper what he saw in Naomi's ear.
"It is the caravan from Nazareth," he announced, "and they ride on horses, camels, mules, but some walk. There are great numbers of them and more are still to come. Some have fallen behind, they say, and are far back upon the road. They are very weary and they smile but little. Who would want to take the long journey in winter only to part with money in the end?"
When Ezra and Naomi reached home, they found that, as their mother had said, their house was full to overflowing with company from the Nazareth caravan.
Abner and Joel, merchants of Nazareth, were there with Joel's son Amos and his wife Elisabeth. Samuel's cousin, Daniel, who owned a large farm in fruitful Galilee, had come, bringing with him as a matter of course his friends, David and Phineas, neighboring farmers. All these people had originally sprung from this city of David, and now back they came to it, some in good, some in ill humor, but to a man obeying the command of the Emperor at Rome.