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By Root 562 0

that she had never before known any recompense for her hours at the loom. He showed her how to sew the coin into her head scarf, where every village girl, even the poorest, boasted the jingling coins that would be her dowry. Leah was as enchanted as a child. Now she always wore the headdress as she worked, and from time to time her hand stole up to touch the coin. Underneath the scarf the long yellow hair was always combed and carefully arranged. Was it the work in the little garden that had brought a faint flush to her pale cheeks?

One afternoon, looking through the door of his shop, Daniel saw two figures coming slowly along the road in the shimmering waves of heat. One, he soon saw, was Joel. The other he was not sure of. A new recruit? The two figures were almost at his door before he recognized, with a shock of pleasure, that the one who had come with Joel was his sister Malthace. She wore a yellow mantle with a green embroidered girdle, and a green and white striped headdress that showed just the edge of the dark sweep of her hair.

"I've never been in a blacksmith's shop before," she exclaimed, sweeping back the headdress in the impulsive gesture Daniel always remembered first when he thought of her. "I've been begging Joel to let me come to see it."

Embarrassed, Daniel wiped his sooty hands and brought a jar of water from the house, wishing he had more to offer.

"I'd like to ask you to come into my—into Simon's house—"he began.

"It doesn't matter. It's lovely here in the shop," said Malthace quickly. The two visitors sat on the bench and watched him complete the lock that he had promised to deliver before sunset.

"I'm glad you came today," Darnel told Joel, when the work was done. "There's an apprentice I want you to meet over in the Street of the Weavers. I think he wants to join us, but he has some foolish ideas in his head that the rabbi has taught him. I can't talk him out of them, but you could."

"Go along and see him," Malthace suggested. "I don't mind staying here alone. I'd rather start back when it's cooler."

"Are you sure? It would take only a short time."

It took a considerably longer time than Daniel had reckoned, because Joel and the young weaver lost themselves in the intricacy of a theological debate. It was nearing sunset when they started back toward the smithy.

"He's going to be one of the best we have," Joel said. "But you should have stopped us. When I get started on an argument I forget what time it is."

He did not seem to want to hurry, however, and shortly it appeared that he had something else on his mind.

"I've put off telling you this," he said finally. "I don't know just why. I saw your carpenter again."

"Was Simon with him?"

"Yes. As a matter of fact, when I told you that day that I'd run into Simon, that wasn't altogether true. I went back to Bethsaida on purpose. I went back several times. Lately I've been getting up early to hear Jesus when he talks to the fishermen."

Daniel was surprised. "You think he will help us?"

Joel hesitated. "He has helped me. He has explained several points of the Law that have always puzzled me."

"Explained them to you? You're the scholar. He is only a carpenter."

"I don't know where he got his training," Joel said. "But he knows the scripture. Some of his ideas are the same as Father's, only he seems to go beyond somehow. He has a way of making something very clear and—uncomplicated—so that you wonder why you never thought of it that way before."

"The first time I heard him," Daniel said, "I thought that if only he and Rosh could join together—"

"I've thought so too. So many people follow him. Some mornings there are more than a hundred. If anyone could persuade them—But then again I'm not sure. I wish you'd come to listen to him, Daniel. Every time I hear him I wish you were there. We both think—"

"Does Kemuel go with you?"

Joel laughed. "Not Kemuel. I persuaded him to go once. He was horrified. He's too much like Father. No, Thacia goes with me. She—oh my word! I forgot Thacia! She'll be furious at me."

The girl was not in the smithy.