Fair to Look Upon

by Mary Belle Freeley

I presume Zipporah, one of the priest's daughters, had heard about the elegant and courtly Egyptian who was in the neighborhood, and she no doubt adorned herself with all her jewels, wore the finest finery in her wardrobe and wreathed her lips in smiles; for she knew that love lives and thrives on smiles and roses, coquetry and gallantry, on laughter and sweet glances, and faints and dies on frowns, neglect and angry words; and so she tripped down to the well, bent on conquest. Then she flung back the drapery to show her dimpled arms, and drawing water filled the trough; then the "shepherds came and drove them away; but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flocks." Was he not gallant, and a striking contrast to the ugly shepherds?

And of course Moses told her that it almost broke his heart to see her performing such menial labor, and all such sweet fictitious stuff, and she glanced at him admiringly from under her long, curling lashes, and the "rebel rose hue dyed her cheek," and he told her about the great court where he had been reared, and she whispered that her papa was the rich priest of Midian; then they clasped hands lingeringly and said a soft good-night.

It seems the old gentleman kept a pretty close watch on his girls—and he doubtless had a steady job—for he asked them how it happened that they had returned so soon. And Zipporah put her arms around his neck, and placing her cheek against his told him all about the gallant and courteous stranger. Having an eye to business—as behooves a father with seven daughters on his hands—he didn't let this eligible young person slip, but sent and invited him to his house and deluged him with hospitality and kindness—and Moses and Zipporah were married "and Moses was content to dwell with the man."

But after a while, first soft and low and then in trumpet tones, ambition whispered in his ear that he could deliver the Hebrews from their enemies. "And Moses took his wife and sons and set them upon an ass, and he returned to the land of Egypt."

And I suppose, though time was young and wore roses then, the days passed slowly to Zipporah and she grew tired of Moses and the Lord, tired of the rod that turned into a serpent, of the strife and the bondage and the river of blood; tired of the frogs and the lice and the swarms of flies; disgusted with the murrain of beasts and the boils and terrified at the thunder and fire and rain of hail and all the horrors of Egypt, and like the woman of to-day, when things get too awfully unpleasant, she made it uncomfortable for Moses, and "he sent her back" to her father's house and she took her two sons with her.

Afterward when Moses became famous and illustrious she returned to him without asking his consent, or even notifying him of her intention, as far as we can learn from the official records.

She took her father, the priest Jethro, along to look after her and take care of her baggage I suppose, and we imagine he didn't relish the task much, for we hear him saying, rather apologetically we think, "I, thy father-in-law Jethro, am come unto thee, and thy wife, and her two sons with her."

I fancy Moses knew the condition of a man who was in the clutches of a woman, and that woman his wife, so he forgave the old man, for he had experience himself, "and went out to meet his father-in-law, and did obeisance, and kissed him; and they asked each other of their welfare." But there isn't any record that he kissed his wife, or even shook hands with her, and we infer that their domestic heaven was not all blue and cloudless.