ERDS

Ezra picked his way carefully down the dark Bethlehem lanes until he
reached the town gate, swung shut and locked hours before at sunset.

"Nathan! Nathan!" he called, until the old gate-keeper peered out from
his little booth and muttered a friendly greeting to the lad.

"Nathan, I would go down into the fields with shepherd Eli to-night,"
explained Ezra politely. "Wilt thou not let me pass through the strait
gate? Just this once! I will never ask thee again. Old Eli is thy friend
and mine. Do the favor for him, I beg of thee, and I will bless thee all
my days."

Nathan could not help laughing at the old-fashioned speech of the boy.

"Whether I do it for thee or for shepherd Eli, the deed is done," he
cackled, and threw open the small gate standing beside the large one and
known as the "strait" gate. "Ask me not again, I warn thee; ask me not
again."

Past the Bethlehem khan Ezra hurried, and down through the piece of
fertile land that lay to the east, where the reapers of Boaz had swung
their rude sickles and where Ruth had gleaned the golden sheaves. A walk
of two miles brought him to the pasture land where the shepherd lad
David had watched his father's sheep, battling with lion and bear when
the need arose, and where, too, many of his sweetest songs had been
written.

The boy scurried along at a good pace, for on these dark and lonely
roads to meet with wolf or jackal or, still more terrifying, with
robbers, singly or in bands, was not unknown.

At the end of the road Ezra peered about in the starlight until he
could distinguish a number of dark forms huddled before one of the caves
in the hillside. Within the shallow cave lay the flock asleep, and
before it, on his rough bed of brushwood and rushes, sat shepherd Eli,
with only a dog or two to keep him company. Beside him lay his
shepherd's crook, his club tipped with iron the better to protect his
charges, and his sling with which he was wont to throw stones just
beyond his sheep to bring them back when they were going astray.

Ezra chose to leap over the rude stone wall that enclosed this sheepfold
instead of passing through the narrow gateway. The two great sheep dogs,
gaunt and rough, who had spied him on the edge of the pasture land long
before he had seen them, leaped fawning upon him with sharp yelps of
affection.

"Down! Down!" cried Ezra, half laughing, half impatient. "Eli, my
father sends thee greeting. As for me, I would fain spend t