The Bronze Bow - Elizabeth George Speare [61]
"Tell me," Leah would whisper. "Tell me exactly what he said."
"He said, 'Little girl, get up.' Just as though she were asleep. And she woke and got up and walked.
"And then Jesus said, 'Give her something to eat,' and he went away, before her father or mother had a chance to say anything. When he came out to the street no one dared to ask what had happened because there was something about his face—I can't describe it, but I have seen him look like that at other times, as though he had come to the very end of his strength. Simon and John understand when he looks like that, and they got him through the crowd and back to their house, and everyone knew better than to try to follow."
"The little girl—she was really well?"
"Yes. I have seen her walking with her father. You'd never guess she had been ill."
"Is she pretty?"
"Yes," Daniel would say, although he had not actually noticed, because it seemed to please Leah to have her pretty.
"Yes," Leah would sigh. "Of course she must be pretty. And she must be very happy."
Daniel wished she would not keep asking for the story. It had seemed wonderful to him at the time, but it had a puzzling aspect as well. It hadn't seemed to make any difference. Some of the followers thought that Jairus had offered to pay Jesus and that Jesus had refused, and Daniel could not understand this when all those people were clamoring to be fed every night and Jairus would never have missed the money. At any rate, the thing had been hushed up, by Jesus' own order, they said. Some of the disciples had grumbled about it too. Simon, who had been in the house when it happened, would not talk about it at all. But Daniel noticed that Simon seldom went out in his boat now, that he stayed close to Jesus wherever he went. The fisherman watched his teacher more carefully than ever, protecting him from the carelessness of the crowd, and when Jesus spoke, Simon's eyes never left his face.
One day, as Daniel finished the story, Leah sat silent for a long time. "Do you think Jesus will ever come to our village?" she asked finally.
"He did once, and he may again."
"If he came here would there be a great crowd of people?"
"There always is, wherever he goes."
"Like the people who watched the day we came here?"
"You think that was a crowd? That was only a handful. Where Jesus is they come by hundreds." He could see she had no way of imagining people by hundreds.
"Do women come?"
"Of course."
"Do the people—crowd together and push each other?"
"It's all you can do to stay on your two feet sometimes."
She was silent so long that he thought she had stopped thinking about it. Then she asked, "Are there children too?"
"Oh yes, usually some children."
"Do they hurt the children?"
"Of course they don't. What gave you such an idea?"
"Jesus wouldn't let them hurt the children, would he?"
"He won't even let them send the children away when they're a nuisance. He insists on talking to them, and finding out their names, and listening to their foolishness. It makes some of the men furious—as though he thought children were important."
She sat silent for a long time, and this time Daniel asked, very carefully, "If he comes, will you go with me to see him?"
Leah did not speak, only lowered her head and hid her face behind her veil.
How changed she is, he thought, filled with hope as he looked at his sister. It must be Thacia's visits. For Thacia came often now, walking out from the city with Joel to stay with Leah while the boys met in the watchtower. Each time she brought some small gift, a lily bulb to plant in the garden, a tiny alabaster jar of perfume, a skein of scarlet thread. She had opened for Leah a whole new world.
After Thacia's last visit, he had come into the house and found Leah peering into the tiny hand mirror of polished