ly sat when at meals
round the table, which was then pulled out from the wall. There was a
great carved chest in which were kept the Sabbath clothes, the crescent
of coins which belonged to Naomi's mother and which she wore upon her
head as an ornament on festive occasions, and the long parchment rolls
of Scripture in which Naomi's father took the keenest pride. At the
door stood a tall water-jar with herbs floating on the top to keep the
water cool.

In a niche in the doorpost hung a small roll of parchment in a case.
Naomi was used to seeing her father and his friends touch it reverently
when passing in or out, and then kiss the fingers that had touched the
Name of the Most High. She could even recite as well as Ezra the verses
she knew were written there, beginning, "Hear, O Israel: Jehovah our God
is one Jehovah," and ending "and thou shalt write them upon the
doorposts of thy house and upon thy gates."

In a small building near by stood the oven where Naomi's mother did her
baking and which she used in common with several other families. It was
often a meeting-place for the children, who hung about the door on
baking-days hoping for hot crumbs--stout Solomon from across the road;
Rachel and Rebekah, Naomi's particular friends; little Enoch, who walked
with a limp and who would never grow any taller, though he might live to
be ever so old.

"I would that my Aunt Miriam used our oven," Naomi often thought, "for
she bakes every day, and, oh, such good things as she makes."

Naomi's aunt kept the village inn or khan that stood just outside the
city gates on one of the little hills upon which Bethlehem was built.
Many travelers stopped the night at the khan and even longer, for the
village lay only one mile to the right of the great road which led from
Jerusalem, six miles away, to the old town of Hebron, and then down into
the far-away, mysterious land of Egypt itself. Where the road from
Bethlehem joined the Jerusalem highway stood the tomb of Rachel, and
many a time had Naomi, loitering in the courtyard of the inn, heard
pious pilgrims, fresh from the spot, tell the stories of Rachel and
Jacob, and their sons Joseph and Benjamin.

Naomi's little head was packed full of the stories of the great people
of her race. Ezra, eleven years old, went to school in the synagogue
every day with the other boys of the village, and diligently studied the
Law and the Prophets. At home, Naomi was taught by her mother, not only