t all.

Jacob was very angry that he had been deceived,--though that was just
the way in which Jacob himself had deceived his father and cheated his
brother Esau. But his uncle Laban said:

"In our land we never allow the younger daughter to be married before
the older daughter. Keep Leah for your wife, and work for me seven years
longer, and you shall have Rachel also."

For in those times, as we have seen, men often had two wives, or even
more than two. So Jacob stayed seven years more, fourteen years in all,
before he received Rachel as his wife.

While Jacob was living at Haran, eleven sons were born to him. But only
one of these was the child of Rachel, whom Jacob loved. This son was
Joseph, who was dearer to Jacob than any other of his children, partly
because he was the youngest, and because he was the child of his beloved
Rachel.

THE STORY OF JOSEPH AND HIS COAT OF MANY COLORS

After Jacob came back to the land of Canaan with his eleven sons,
another son was born to him, the second child of his wife Rachel, whom
Jacob loved so well. But soon after the baby came, his mother Rachel
died, and Jacob was filled with sorrow. Even to this day you can see the
place where Rachel was buried, on the road between Jerusalem and
Bethlehem. Jacob named the child whom Rachel left, Benjamin; and now
Jacob had twelve sons. Most of them were grown-up men; but Joseph was a
boy seventeen years old, and his brother Benjamin was almost a baby.

[Illustration: _Back to the Land of Canaan_]

Of all his children, Jacob loved Joseph the best, because he was
Rachel's child; because he was so much younger than most of his
brothers; and because he was good, and faithful, and thoughtful. Jacob
gave to Joseph a robe or coat of bright colors, made somewhat like a
long cloak with wide sleeves. This was a special mark of Jacob's favor
to Joseph, and it made his older brothers envious of him.

Then, too, Joseph did what was right, while his older brothers often did
very wrong acts, of which Joseph sometimes told their father; and this
made them very angry at Joseph. But they hated him still more because of
two strange dreams he had, and of which he told them. He said one day:
"Listen to this dream that I have dreamed. I dreamed that we were out in
the field binding sheaves, when suddenly my sheaf stood up, and all your
sheaves came around it and bowed down to my sheaf!"

And they said scornfully, "Do you suppose that the dream