“And now his followers say his homilies are the best,” urged the poor mother.
“Homilies?” he roared. “Blasphemies! But were his Midraschim Holy Writ itself, I agree with Ben Sameos (his memory for a blessing!) greater is the merit of industry than of idle piety.”
“But why should he work?” cried Yakob, who with Yehudah now reappeared from the stable. “Would that the wife of Herod’s steward followed me!”
“Or even that Susannah ministered to us with her substance!” added Yehudah. “Then I too would teach, take no thought for the morrow!” And he laughed derisively.
“He never took thought for anything save himself,” said Yussef, shaking his head. “Dost thou not remember, Miriam, those three dreadful days when he was lost, as we were returning from his Bar-Mitzvah in Yerushalaim! God of Abraham, shall I ever forget thy heart-sickness! And what was it he answered when we at length found him in the Temple with the doctors? He was about his father’s business! He was assuredly not about my business.”
“The Sabbath and Passover are drawing nigh,” she murmured, and slipped past her sons into the house.
“And what did he answer thee at Kephar Nahum?” her husband called after her. “ ‘Who is my mother?’ The godless scoffer! The Jeroboam ben Nebat! I thank the Lord I did not try to bring him back home. He might have asked, ‘Who is my father?’ ”
There was no reply, but I heard the nervous bustling of a broom. The carpenter turned to Yakob.
“And what said he at Cana?”
“He demanded wine, he and his disciples!”