d
not afford to buy linen. In those days the use of cotton was probably
unknown. Now everyone knows how it feels to wear a flannel shirt on a
hot summer day. And one of the things which drew the Hebrew shepherds
to Canaan was the hope of raising a little flax on each farm, and
spinning it into cool, soft linen garments for the hot summers. So it
may be that a part of the work in the house we are visiting to-day is
to soak some of the stalks of flax in water, or to beat out from them
the long fibers, or to spin and weave some of these fibers into
cloth.

PREPARING DINNER

Of course the main business of each day in the household then, as now,
is to get dinner ready. There is a light lunch about noon for the
women and children. To-day perhaps we have some bread and milk. But as
the sun begins to sink in the west we know that before long the men
folks will come home hungry. We must have dinner ready for them when
they come. If it has been a good year, even poor families in Canaan
can have a fairly good meal. There is no meat, unless perhaps a lamb
or a kid has been killed, especially for us as guests. But there is
the curdled milk, and bread with olive oil and other things which
shepherd folk never have. Here's a steaming kettle of beans or
lentils. How good they smell! And here are some bunches of raisins and
figs, just as sweet and luscious as those which we buy in the fruit
stores in America. The figs in our stores may have come from that very
country of which we are studying.

=Serving the meal.=--Soon the father and the boys come home. The ox
and the ass are fed in the stall behind the house. The mother spreads
a cloth on the ground and on it places a small stand about eight
inches high, which is their only dining-room table. The pot of beans
is placed on this stand, and the bread and other good things on the
cloth around it. We all sit down on the ground and begin to eat.

Fingers were made before forks. For the beans, however, we need a
spoon, and here are some shells from the beach that serve admirably
for that purpose; and we all dip into the same dish on the little
stand. By and by, when all is gone but the liquid, we sop that up
with pieces of bread. When every crumb is picked up and eaten, we all
lift our eyes to heaven, and the father repeats a prayer of
thanksgiving to God. Dinner is over. The sun has set. It is growing
dark, and soon it will be time to go to bed.

STUDY TOPICS

1. Explain the fol