lid LI
 
 Stories or Cbild Eire in a 
 Colony in Palestine
 
 To my dear friend, 
 
 bclemi frank 
 
 ivJiose love for my little Palestinians Jias 
 encouraged me to write these tales.
 
 GIVE ME THE HEART, SAID LEAH, AND I WON T TELL 
 
 Child Life] 
 
 [Front
 
 stories or CDiia ore in a 
 
 3euMsl) Colonp in Palestine 
 
 BY 
 
 HANNAH TRACER 
 
 Author of 
 Festival Stories of Child Life in a Jewish Colony in Palestine, etc. 
 
 WITH A PREFACE BY 
 
 ISRAEL ABRAHAMS 
 
 Reader in Talmudic and Rabbinic Literature in the 
 University of Cambridge. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LTD. 
 NEW YORK : E. P. BUTTON & CO.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 BY PROFESSOR ISRAEL ABRAHAMS 
 
 THESE stories have charm. They also possess a rarer 
 quality. They are true. The traveller in the near East 
 cannot fail to notice the contrast between the child of 
 the Arab village and the child of the Jewish Colony. 
 This contrast Mrs. Trager has clearly seen.' This con- 
 trast she as clearly illustrates in her sketches and tales. 
 
 The Jewish child is sometimes graceless enough ; ' but 
 he never degenerates into the gutter-snipe. The reason 
 is to be found in the home life. Judaism is a home 
 religion. Besides that, the very grimness of life in 
 cities has always given the home its opportunity. The 
 joyousness has had to be supplied from witliin. And 
 it was so supplied. With all its severity of discipline, 
 Judaism is a happy scheme. 
 
 In the Jewish Colonies the problem has not been quite 
 the same as in the towns. The difficulty was both 
 greater and less. It was less because the surroundings 
 were healthier, and there was ready-made an environ- 
 ment for the development of the brighter side of Child 
 life. But the difficulty was greater, because to the 
 early settlers and it is of them that Mrs. Trager's 
 delightful stories primarily tell the environment was 
 strange. After all, town life is town life all the world 
 
 V 
 
 2097220
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 over. But these Jewish children of the Colonists were 
 brought up in circumstances novel to their own parents. 
 To harmonise a life spent on the soil with religious insti- 
 tutions which for many centuries had been applied to 
 city conditions, was no simple task. How should the 
 child become rural while retaining the higher culture of 
 urbanity ? How should the child dig without becoming 
 a boor ? If anything, the Colonies retained not too 
 little, but too much, of the elements of town life. Yet 
 the fault, if it be a fault, has had ample compensations. 
 Rural England to-day, in so far as the lighter side of life 
 is concerned, is far behind Jewish rural Palestine. 
 Jewish Colonial life is the reverse of monotonous. 
 
 The fact is that in the Colonies parents and children 
 grew up together. In the towns, new conditions have 
 too often meant a break between the generations : the 
 hearts of fathers and children have sometimes become 
 estranged. But in the Colonies the fathers have gone 
 some way towards the fresher air of the agricultural 
 regime, while the children have been retained a long way 
 in the olden spiritual atmosphere. What type will 
 ultimately emerge it is not easy to foretell. One may 
 be sure that it will be a type distinguished rather by 
 harmony than conflict. Mrs. Trager presents both 
 parents and children in an amiable guise. As to the 
 children, they are full of fun and mischief, with just a 
 little self -consciousness. Yet without this last touch the 
 picture would be false, for it is in the early realization of 
 religion as a vital force that the specific character of
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 the Jewish Child is built. As it is, the writer has given 
 us an historical document ; she has caught a transitional 
 moment ; the moment when the open air was replacing 
 the ghetto ; and she has given us an artistic record of it. 
 The record, however, is not a mere history. It presents 
 facts that it is of lasting importance for us to know. We 
 see here how the enormous influence which Judaism 
 exerts in life, under all and any conditions, works itself 
 out under new or unusual conditions. But beyond all 
 such considerations the stories are valuable as literature- 
 They reveal many contrasted traits of character, various 
 aspects of child nature ; they enable us to perceive the 
 feeling in these children that they are pioneers in a great 
 experiment, and above all they show us that sense of 
 humour without which no Jewish child is complete. 
 
 No doubt the stories have a profound significance. 
 To the young reader, however, they will appeal without 
 any of this subtler sophisticated meaning as stories 
 pure and simple, as pictures of a life they would like to 
 share. To the adult they may point a moral. To the 
 young they will tell a tale. If the latter also catch an 
 echo of the moral so much the better for them. 
 
 I. ABRAHAMS. 
 
 Cambridge,
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE RIDE .. . . . . . .9 
 
 THE PICNIC . 19 
 
 THE HIVE 27 
 
 THE ORANGES 35 
 
 THE LAST WAGGON LOAD 57 
 
 THE SCHOOL . . . . . . .73 
 
 THE PLANTING OF THE TREES . . . .83 
 
 THE RESCUE . . 89 
 
 THE EYE EPIDEMIC 99 
 
 THE MELON 109 
 
 THE FIGS . .119
 
 Stories of Child Life in a 
 Jewish Colony in Palestine 
 
 THE RIDE 
 
 ONE day an Arab came into the Colony, leading 
 a camel laden with firewood. The camel was 
 kneeling at the door of a house, and the Arab 
 had gone inside with the wood, when the boys 
 came out of Cheder*. Seeing the camel, they 
 at once surrounded it, and began to tease it. 
 When a camel is teased it sets up a horrible noise, 
 something between a grunt and a squeal ; but 
 this only amused the boys all the more. 
 
 Said one : ' I should love to ride on a camel 
 I have ridden a donkey, but never a camel. I 
 wonder what it feels like/ 
 
 ' It must be grand/ said Moses ; ' you are so 
 high up and the camel gives such big strides. 
 It must be quite different from being on a donkey. 
 I wonder, if we gave the Arab a franc, whether he 
 would let us ride round the Colony ? '. 
 
 ' Let us try/ said a third. 
 
 *An old-fashioned school for teaching the Bible and the Talmud. 
 
 9
 
 10 THE RIDE 
 
 ' But have you got the money to give him ? ' 
 asked Abraham. 
 
 ' Not here, but in my savings-box at home/ 
 
 * I tell you what/ said another boy ; ' by the 
 time you have fetched the money we shall be 
 late for Cheder ; and if we go home, we shall be 
 told to go and run a message or fetch water or 
 something, and before we return the Arab will 
 have finished stacking the wood and be gone. 
 Let us get on to the camel at once, have a ride 
 round the Colony, and pay the Arab when we 
 come back/ 
 
 The rest agreed that this was by far the safest 
 plan. It was then quickly decided that four 
 boys should mount and have their ride, and then 
 give up their seats to four others, four being as 
 many as could sit on the camel at a time. The 
 camel had a wooden saddle with two paniers 
 slung across it, and a rope bridle, which was tied 
 round the animal's nozzle. 
 
 The four boys having got on to its back, a 
 dispute arose as to who should hold the bridle ; 
 but there was no time to be lost, so they settled 
 that each of the four should sit in front and guide 
 the camel in his turn, little dreaming that the 
 camel had no intention of being guided by any 
 one of them. 
 
 So one boy took the rope and pulled at it to 
 make the camel get up, and one of the bystanders
 
 THE RIDE 11 
 
 got a twig and poked its nozzle. At first it 
 seemed as if nothing would make it move, and 
 when it did get up, it was so suddenly, that the 
 boys were nearly thrown out of their seats. 
 Then it set off, and, as Moses had said, they were 
 very high up and the camel took very big strides. 
 The boys clung to one another and began to feel 
 dizzy. 
 
 ' Stop him ! ' they called out to a boy who was 
 running alongside. ' Stop him ! we are falling off !' 
 
 But it was easier said than done, for now the 
 camel was well under weigh, and the more the 
 boy in front tugged at the rope, the faster went 
 the camel, till the boys on his back screamed 
 with terror and waved their hands to their com- 
 rades, shouting to them to call the Arab to come 
 out and stop it. 
 
 But the boys in the road thought they were 
 shouting and waving from excitement, and stood 
 and cheered them, which made the camel begin 
 to run. The boys, who had thought of nothing 
 but a ride round the Colony, now saw it vanish 
 behind them and imagined themselves being 
 carried out into the desert, there to be murdered 
 by the Bedouins or to die of hunger and thirst 
 and they yelled aloud. 
 
 ' Stop that noise ! ' shouted Abraham, ' and 
 instead of screaming, say a Psalm and pray to 
 God to save us, for only He can do that now.
 
 12 THE RIDE 
 
 And you, Joseph, let go the rope and hold on 
 tight to the saddle/ Abraham was shaking with 
 fear himself, but he took the lead as usual and 
 the others were too glad to be told what to do. 
 So they started repeating Psalm after Psalm, as 
 well as they could for crying and the terrible 
 long shakes of the camel. After a time that 
 seemed to them hours, they saw themselves 
 entering an Arab village, and at the door of a 
 certain house the camel knelt down and grunted 
 loudly. 
 
 Instantly an Arab woman came out in her blue 
 cotton dress, and seeing the camel with four 
 Jewish boys on its back instead of her husband, 
 she screamed : ' Allah akbar ! mv husband is 
 
 / 
 
 dead ! ' At the sound of her screams the neigh- 
 bours came rushing to the spot, and the Arab 
 children began pulling at the boys' clothes. 
 They were not used to seeing boys dressed like 
 that, because they themselves wore nothing but 
 short striped shirts, and the quite little ones had 
 on still less, or even nothing at all. 
 
 The boys were too frightened either to speak 
 or to get off the camel, for the Arabs standing 
 round, some with coal-black eyes and beards, 
 and some with guns over their shoulders, made 
 them think they had fallen into the hands of 
 robbers who would probably kill them. 
 
 There was a great hubbub, and the boys did
 
 'ALLAH AKBAR ! MY HUSBAND is DEAD ! ' 
 
 Child Life] 
 
 [Face p.
 
 THE RIDE 13 
 
 not know much Arabic, but at last Abraham 
 understood what the women were saying to him. 
 They were asking him : ' Who killed the master 
 of the camel ? ' for they all thought he had been 
 killed and the children sent to tell the widow. 
 
 Abraham managed to explain what had really 
 happened, and promised money if someone would 
 take them home. Then the women laughed and 
 the earners mistress invited the boys into her 
 house, saying she would give them some bread 
 and goatVmilk cheese. Abraham's companions 
 were still too frightened to move, so he got angry 
 and pulled them down off the camel, telling them 
 it would be all right and they would be taken 
 home in time. 
 
 They all went into the house and asked for 
 some water to wash with, for it was midday and 
 terribly hot and dusty. The woman brought 
 them a jug of water and they washed their faces 
 and sat down and waited. 
 
 Meanwhile the Arab woman had taken some 
 camel-dung and straw, lit a fire and proceeded to 
 bake some thin cakes of maize-flower and water 
 in a tin set on three stones. The cakes looked 
 something like Passover biscuits. She made 
 about ten, and gave two to each boy, with some 
 cheese and goafs-milk, telling them to eat and 
 that when her husband came back and it got 
 cooler he would take them home.
 
 14 THE RIDE 
 
 Feeling a little more cheerful they went back 
 to the jug, washed their fingers, said a prayer 
 over the bread, and fell to, for they were very 
 hungry. After the meal they said grace, and 
 then started talking over their adventure. 
 
 * Now was I not right/ said Abraham, ' to say 
 we should repeat a Psalm ? Only God could have 
 saved us from the Arabs. Did you not see 
 their guns ? ' and they all shuddered anew at the 
 recollection. 
 
 Presently they grew tired of sitting still, and 
 told the woman they would go and walk about 
 the village. What they saw there disgusted them 
 and made the Colony seem a little Paradise by 
 contrast. Near to every hovel was a heap of 
 rubbish and refuse ; the flies came and stuck 
 to their hands and faces ; the smells were horrid ; 
 the children all seemed to have bad eyes and 
 sores, besides being half-naked ; and dogs growled 
 and jumped at them ; cocks and hens ran be- 
 tween their feet ; and suddenly a goat would 
 make straight for one or other of them and knock 
 him over. 
 
 So they were quite glad to return to the house, 
 where they found the Arab had come home, and 
 was in such a terrible rage that they were fright- 
 ened lest he should refuse to take them home, 
 as he had had to walk two hours in the heat of the 
 day, instead of having, after he had disposed of
 
 THE RIDE 15 
 
 his wood, ridden home on his camel in the 
 evening. 
 
 The boys said they would give him two 
 beshliks, but he would not hear of it and named 
 a large sum, declaring that he would not take 
 them home for less. They said that was all the 
 money they had, but he replied that if they would 
 promise him the larger sum he would trust them 
 to pay him by degrees, as he knew that the 
 Judean boys would keep their word. This, 
 although it meant three months' pocket-money, 
 they were glad enough to do, especially as they 
 heard him tell his wife of the alarm and anxiety 
 of their parents, when they had learnt that Abra- 
 ham and his three comrades had disappeared 
 riding on a camel. 
 
 ' I suppose/ said Moses, ' we shall be well 
 whipped, but it will seem nothing after the 
 fright we have had/ 
 
 ' No indeed/ said Joseph, ' I shall not mind it 
 a bit, for my conscience will be clearer, though 
 we never meant to do anything but have a ride 
 round the place/ 
 
 The end of it all was, however, that they were 
 all forgiven, and, indeed, the lesson had been 
 severe enough. It had taught them how easily 
 what is originally regarded as a mere bit of mis- 
 chief may bring misfortune and remorse in its 
 train.
 
 THE PICNIC 
 
 R
 
 THE PICNIC 
 
 SCHOOL had just broken up for the holidays, 
 and the boys were at a loose end ; so they decided 
 one day to go to a little Colony near by where 
 there was a river, and do some fishing. 
 
 The difficulty lay in how to get away without 
 their parents knowing. Their mothers were 
 sure to forbid the expedition, because they would 
 have to pass through an Arab village. It was 
 hoped, however, that inconvenient questions 
 as to where they were going might be evaded. 
 And as to the Arab village, if they took one of 
 the Arab boys who worked on the Colony, he 
 would protect them, and also show them where 
 to fish. 
 
 Luck favoured them : they all got off un- 
 hindered, with their lunch tied up in their 
 handkerchiefs, the Arab boy carrying water- 
 melons. The Colony, Judea by name, was a 
 couple of miles away, and they had a hot trudge 
 through the sand to get there. 
 
 When they reached the river side they sat 
 down and devoured the water-melons, the Arab 
 boy getting his share ; and then baited their 
 hooks with dough and cast their lines, 
 
 19
 
 20 
 
 They sat and fished. When a ripple appeared 
 on the water, one would cry out : * I have him ! 
 I have him ! ' whereupon they all pulled up their 
 lines, and behold, nothing ! This was very dis- 
 appointing, but now and again one would really 
 catch a very small fish and put it into his can, 
 and then the others would be continually going 
 to look at it, to see if it were still alive and to 
 give it a little more water, for they were tender- 
 hearted and did not like to see even a fish 
 die. 
 
 A couple of hours passed in this way, and 
 only six or seven little fish had been caught, not 
 enough for each boy to take one home to show 
 his parents how clever he had been. Then, 
 just as they had begun to wonder if they should 
 give it up for the day, there was a scream and a 
 loud splash, and a large ripple came lapping 
 along the face of the water. Chaim, the Dunce, 
 had fallen into the stream ! What was to be 
 done ? None of them could swim ; they had 
 never been near so much water before by them- 
 selves, and there was Chaim, setting up shriek 
 after shriek. 
 
 ' Quick ! ' cried Abraham ; ' there is a rope 
 in that basket tie it round me so two of 
 you take hold of it now let the Arab boy hold 
 on to that tree, and one of you hold on to him, 
 and let that boy give his hand to another , . ,
 
 THE PICNIC 21 
 
 That's it ! make a line to the rope, and pull 
 hard when I tell you/ 
 
 The others were too terrified to do anything 
 but obey. Abraham, with the rope round him, 
 plunged in, seized the shrieking Chaim by his 
 collar, and shouted : ' Pull ! Pull ! ' 
 
 The other boys pulled as for dear life, and in 
 another minute Abraham and Chaim were landed 
 drenched and panting on the bank. The boys 
 surrounded Abraham, patted and praised him, 
 and then turned upon poor Chaim, declaring 
 that such a stupid, clumsy fellow was only fit 
 to stay at home with the girls. Chaim felt this 
 deeply, for not only was he wet, cold, and fright- 
 ened, but shut out from any fun in the future. 
 
 Abraham did not like Chaim very much, for 
 he was a lazy boy and not obliging like the others, 
 but seeing him crying and shivering, he felt a 
 sort of pity for him, and said : ' Look here, 
 boys ; don't be nasty to him it might have 
 happened to anyone of us. Perhaps he was 
 thinking of the last lesson we had in school, and 
 forgot where he was, and a big fish came along and 
 pulled him into the river/ 
 
 ' It is true/ whimpered Chaim ; ' a big fish 
 was on my line, and I was so excited, I pulled 
 too quickly, and slipped and fell in/ 
 
 ' I don't believe it,' said all the others together ; 
 ' he sometimes imagines things. But let us
 
 22 THE PICNIC 
 
 look for the rod, and if he speaks the truth, the 
 fish will still be on the line/ 
 
 The rod was now seen hanging on a bush, but 
 quite out of reach except by swimming, and 
 none of our boys, as we said, could swim. Here- 
 upon, up came the Arab boy and said he would 
 get it. ' But can you swim ? ' they cried. 
 
 ' Aiwah ! ' said he ; ' certainly/ 
 
 ' Then why on earth did you not say so before ? ' 
 
 ' I never thought of it/ said he, ' till I saw 
 Abraham go into the water, and then it was too 
 late/ 
 
 ' You stupid boy ! ' they exclaimed. ' Any- 
 how, now get us the rod ! ' 
 
 The Arab boy, who had nothing much on, 
 jumped into the stream and soon fetched the rod, 
 and lo and behold ! quite a big fish was on the 
 hook. 
 
 Then the boys apologized to Chaim for having 
 doubted his word, only to whom did the fish 
 really belong ? Chaim, it is true, had caught it, 
 but, had it not been for Abraham, Chaim would 
 have been drowned there would have been no 
 Chaim at all, so that the fish might be said to 
 belong to Abraham. Then, but for the Arab 
 boy, there would be no fish, so did it not rather 
 belong to him ? Finally they hit on a bright 
 idea : to lay the dispute before their new teacher. 
 
 ' Or shall we take it to Chaim's mother ? '
 
 THE PICNIC 23 
 
 said one. ' She is very nice and clever, and 
 would tell us what is right/ But Chaim did 
 not like this idea. 
 
 ' If you do that/ he said, ' Mother and my 
 sisters will know I fell into the water, and it will 
 soon be all over the place, and we shall never be 
 allowed to come again/ Which shewed that 
 Chaim, the Dunce, could say a wise thing, too, 
 on occasion. 
 
 ' Right/ said Abraham ; ' and look here, boys, 
 another thing : we all want to come back here 
 again and have some fun, and, as I said before, 
 what happened to Chaim might happen to any 
 other of us : let us ask the Arab to teach us to 
 swim/ 
 
 ' Good, good ! ' cried the others ; ' so we 
 will ! ' 
 
 The Arab boy was quite willing. They prom- 
 ised him some of their pocket-money and nice 
 things to eat, and it was settled that he should 
 give them a swimming lesson once a week. 
 
 Then they started for home, to find their 
 teacher. And it was not only that they needed 
 his decision about the fish, but that they wanted 
 to try the master himself, to take, as it were, 
 the measure of his intellect. That he was kind 
 and just, they already knew, and also that he 
 could teach them nearly everything in the world 
 except Gemara. But it remained to be seen
 
 24 THE PICNIC 
 
 how he would solve a knotty problem like this. 
 
 They found the teacher at home, and, after 
 he had promised to keep the thing to himself, 
 they unfolded their tale and produced the fish. 
 
 ' Well/ said the teacher, with a twinkle in 
 his eye, ' my opinion is that the fish should be 
 divided amongst you, that is : between Chaim, 
 who caught it Abraham, who saved Chaim 
 and the Arab boy, who swam for the rod/ 
 
 The boys were so delighted with this judgment, 
 and so proud of having a master every bit as 
 wise as King Solomon himself, that they forgot 
 all fear of consequences, and told their parents 
 And the parents were so much amused, and so 
 pleased to think that the boys had laid the 
 matter before their teacher, that they never 
 thought of scolding them, and the day ended 
 happily for all concerned.
 
 THE HIVE
 
 THE HIVE 
 
 IT was Sabbath, in the afternoon, and the boys, 
 free from Cheder, were at a loss to know what to 
 do. They had no books in those days, apart 
 from the Pentateuch and the Gemara ; and 
 noisy games, as it was Sabbath, were out of the 
 question. They were already beginning to yawn, 
 when Moses had a sudden idea. 
 
 ' I know what, boys/ said he, ' I've thought of 
 something.' 
 
 The boys' faces cleared, and they all looked 
 at Moses with expectation and hope. Moses 
 felt pleased, because for once it was he, Moses 
 and not Abraham who was the clever one. 
 
 ' Well, boys, you know that my father has a 
 bee-hive on a roof on the farm. Let us climb up 
 and eat some of the honey.' 
 
 ' Good,' cried the others ; ' the only thing is : 
 What about the bees ? They sting ! ' Moses was 
 nonplussed and stood silent. 
 
 ' Where is Abraham ? ' was the cry. ' Some- 
 body go and fetch Abraham ! ' So Abraham 
 was fetched, and the matter laid before him. 
 He thought it over for a minute or two, and then 
 
 27
 
 28 THE HIVE 
 
 said : ' We shall manage all right. I shall wear 
 a basket over my head and face, and Moses 
 shall climb up with me and open the hive-door, 
 and hold it while I put in my hand and take out 
 the honey/ 
 
 The plan sounded excellent. A basket was 
 found loosely enough plaited for him who wore 
 it to see out between the plaits ; and they all 
 went to the building which had the hive on its 
 roof. 
 
 The roof was too high to be reached without 
 a ladder, so they got a ladder, too, set it up 
 against the wall, and Abraham and Moses climbed 
 up it and reached the hive. 
 
 Moses was seen from below to open the hive- 
 door, and Abraham, wearing the basket, to 
 introduce his hand into the hive. 
 
 Suddenly Moses gave a yell, let go the door, 
 and buried his face in his arms. The next 
 moment Abraham was hastily descending the 
 ladder, and all the other boys started shouting 
 and screaming, fleeing in all directions. Moses 
 had opened the door too wide, and the bees had 
 flown out and were attacking every boy within 
 reach. 
 
 The noise brought the parents of Moses out 
 of the house, and they saw him still sitting on 
 the roof, trying to protect himself from the bees. 
 
 * Come down at once ! ' called the father,
 
 THE HIVE 29 
 
 angrily ; ' I know what you've been after, and 
 I shall give you what you deserve/ 
 
 ' I won't come down/ said Moses, ' unless you 
 promise not to beat me ' ; and he started running 
 up and down along the edge of the roofing. 
 
 His mother screamed with terror. ' He will 
 fall off and be killed ! Moses, Moses, come down ! 
 here is the ladder. Father won't beat you 
 he doesn't mean it . . . . ' 
 
 ' Come down, you rascal/ said the father ; 
 ' do you want to frighten your mother to death ? ' 
 
 ' Do you promise not to beat me ? ' asked 
 Moses. 
 
 What could his father do ? He promised. 
 Then Moses came down, his face swollen with 
 stings and with crying. His mother began to 
 stroke and pity him, but his father said : ' Look 
 here, Moses ! I promised not to beat you, and 
 I will keep my word, but to-morrow, you will 
 have another punishment, for you are a bad boy/ 
 
 What with the pain of the stings and the 
 thought of the unknown punishment to come, 
 Moses got very little sleep that night. He 
 wished with all his heart that he had come down 
 off the roof at once and submitted to the beating, 
 which he well knew he had deserved. Then it 
 would have been over, and the smart of the 
 stings would have seemed easier to bear. But 
 there was no help for it now, so he tossed on his
 
 30 THE HIVE 
 
 little bed and waited for the day and what it 
 would bring. 
 
 After breakfast, his father bade Moses to 
 follow him ; he went to the barn, opened the 
 door, and said : 'Go inside you will spend 
 the day here ; and as you will have nothing to 
 do and nothing to eat, you will have time to 
 reflect on your misconduct and to repent. I 
 hope you will also make some good resolutions 
 for the future.' He then closed and locked the 
 door and went away, leaving Moses a prisoner. 
 
 Meanwhile the other boys had gone to Cheder ; 
 but Abraham managed to hear what had befallen 
 Moses, and, when they were let out for dinner, 
 he called the others round him and said : ' Boys, 
 we must do something for Moses his father has 
 shut him up in the barn/ 
 
 ' It was all his doing/ cried one ; ' it is thanks 
 to him I could not sleep all night for my stings/ 
 
 ' Well said ! ' cried another. But Abraham's 
 eyes, usually so dove-like, blazed with indig- 
 nation. ' Shame, shame on you all ! ' he ex- 
 claimed ; ' were we not all of us ready to eat the 
 honey as well as he ? And have you already 
 forgotten what the teacher taught this very 
 morning, that we should bear one the other's 
 burdens ? I shall go to his help by myself/ 
 
 Then the others were ashamed, and said : 
 what can we do for him ? '
 
 THE HIVE 31 
 
 ' Go home, all of you/ said Abraham, ' and 
 each of you fetch me part of your lunch, and 
 one of you bring a bottle of milk, if you can 
 possibly get it/ 
 
 Presently they all met again, each bringing a 
 large part of his lunch in a paper. ' Here, 
 Abraham/ they said, ' take it.' 
 
 ' That's all right/ said Abraham, ' but as there 
 are ten of you and only one of Moses, I will 
 take something from each, and you can eat the 
 rest/ From one he took figs, from another 
 cheese, from a third a piece of cake, from a 
 fourth the bottle of milk, from a fifth a handful 
 of Turkish sweetmeat, and so on. He made up 
 a packet and then knotted it up in a handker- 
 chief, to which he attached a stone. The bottle 
 of milk was done up separately. 
 
 Then they all went to the door of the barn 
 and called to Moses through the keyhole. There 
 was no response, and they looked at one another 
 and whispered : ' Perhaps he is dead/ 
 
 1 Maybe/ said one, ' he fell asleep. Let us 
 knock at the door with a stone/ They did so, 
 and this time Moses answered them. They 
 explained that they had brought him some food, 
 and would throw it in through the window. 
 
 ' The window is very high up/ said Moses, 
 in a sad voice ; ' go round and see ! ' They went 
 and saw that it was indeed very high up ; but,
 
 32 THE HIVE 
 
 one boy climbing on to the shoulders of another, 
 they made a living ladder, and threw in first 
 the food and then the bottle of milk, which, 
 happily, did not break. 
 
 Then they returned to the keyhole, spoke 
 words of comfort to Moses, and ran back to 
 Cheder, feeling very happy and light of heart ; 
 for, if there is anything certain in this world, it 
 is that a kind deed brings happiness to the doer. 
 
 Moses ate and drank gratefully, and the fact 
 of the friends he had led into mischief and 
 trouble being so good to him, made him feel 
 more sorry than he had felt yet. 
 
 In the evening his father came for him, in 
 time to go to Evening Prayer. f Ask God to 
 forgive you your sin, Moses, and then we will go 
 home and mother will give you some supper,' 
 he said. 
 
 Moses did not want to appear too pleased at 
 this, because he did not want to deceive his 
 father by seeming very hungry, but neither did 
 he want to tell him that he had feasted like a 
 king so he said nothing, and followed his father 
 to the synagogue. There his comrades pressed 
 round him and showed him, as well as they 
 could, how delighted they were to see him free 
 again.
 
 THE ORANGES
 
 ABRAHAM was laid up with malaria, and his 
 school-fellows came every day to visit him. 
 Malaria is not a catching illness, so the other 
 children were allowed to come and sit with him. 
 But he was feverish and rather irritable, as he 
 was always thirsty and had a nasty taste in his 
 mouth. All he wanted was oranges, and none 
 could be got in the village only in Jaffa. And 
 as it happened to be the busy season, no one had 
 time to go to town. 
 
 One day, when his comrades left him, they 
 said to one another : ' What a pity we can't do 
 something for Abraham. He always does things 
 for us if he possibly can, and we could shew him 
 that we remember/ 
 
 ' I will tell you what, boys/ said Dan. ' You 
 know to-morrow we are breaking up school, so 
 why should not some of us go up to the orchards 
 near town, and get him some oranges ? ' 
 
 ' Splendid ! ' they all exclaimed. 
 
 * But how ? ' said Joseph. ' We cannot walk 
 all the way, it is such a distance ; and, if we met 
 some of the Bedouin, they might kill us/ 
 
 * Nonsense ! ' exclaimed Dan ; ' whenever I go 
 
 35
 
 36 THE ORANGES 
 
 with my father to Jaffa, and we see some Arabs 
 coming along with camels, they pass us by with 
 a greeting, and nothing happens/ 
 
 ' It would be great fun, wouldn't it/ said 
 Moses, ' to go to Jaffa and back ? I never went 
 there by myself. It would be some adventure 
 to see all the shops, and go to the Arab's bazaar/ 
 
 ' What is the good of that, if we have no money 
 to buy anything with ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, that does not matter ! It does not cost 
 money to look on ! ' 
 
 ' Well, it isn't a bad idea/ said Moses ; ' it 
 would be nice to have done such a thing. Won't 
 the other boys be jealous ? ' 
 
 So it was decided that a few should go. Now, 
 when the others heard it, they all wanted to go 
 too, and, as that was not possible, it was decided 
 to draw lots. So they cut up some papers of 
 different colours : the ones who drew red were 
 to go. 
 
 Moses, Dan, and Samson drew red papers. 
 Then, and then only, they realized that, as 
 Joseph had said, they could not walk so far. 
 Even riding to Jaffa took a few hours. What 
 was to be done ? They stood looking at one 
 another and could find no way out of the diffi- 
 culty. It would not have been any trouble if 
 their parents had known about it, for then they 
 could have taken a mule, or a pony, or a donkey.
 
 THE ORANGES 37 
 
 But their parents were not to know, for they 
 would not have allowed them to go alone, as it 
 was so far, and so many Arabs passed that way. 
 
 At last Moses solved the difficulty by saying 
 that he would take their donkey out of the stable 
 and risk it. The others were to meet him in a 
 quiet corner, and, if anyone saw him before that, 
 riding alone, they would think that he was going 
 to the fields, taking his brothers their dinner. 
 
 So they parted to meet in the morning. The 
 three lucky boys did not sleep, for it seemed to 
 them that they were going on a great adventure. 
 They could hardly wait for the dawn. Yet they 
 did not dare show their excitement, for, if anyone 
 had noticed, he would have guessed something 
 was afoot. So they dressed, went to Shul with 
 their father, had their breakfast and asked their 
 mothers to give them some food, as some of the 
 boys were going to spend the day out. The 
 mothers tied up some food in little red hand- 
 kerchiefs, and told them not to get into mischief. 
 
 As long as they were in the Colony they walked 
 quietly, but when they came to the end of the 
 street they ran, and all the three met at a certain 
 place, Dan, Samson, and Moses with the donkey. 
 
 They got onto the donkey, held onto one 
 another, and all went smoothly, till they came 
 to the sand-hills. Here the donkey stood still 
 and would not move, so they all had to get down,
 
 38 THE ORANGES 
 
 and one pulled the donkey by the reins, while 
 another pushed him from behind. When he 
 started going again, they jumped on his back. 
 
 So it went on for a short time, but, just as they 
 came to the top of a sandy hill, the donkey 
 stopped again. At this, Samson got out of 
 temper and, taking a prickly branch, he beat 
 the donkey with it, so as to make him go faster. 
 The donkey got angry, for he was not used to 
 being beaten, threw up his hind legs, and behold ! 
 all the three boys flew head over heels into the 
 air. And, as it was at the top of the hill, they 
 all went rolling down it one over another, un- 
 able to stop themselves. 
 
 Meanwhile the donkey did not wait. The 
 moment he was free of his burden, he turned 
 and ran down the hill towards the Colony. He 
 knew his way home, and, once there, he went 
 quietly into his stable, as if nothing had happened. 
 
 Meanwhile the boys jumped up, ran up the hill 
 after the donkey, but no donkey was to be seen, 
 and they could not make out where it had dis- 
 appeared ! 
 
 Some of them said : * Perhaps he sank into the 
 sand/ for they had heard of such things happen- 
 ing in certain parts. 
 
 Suddenly Dan exclaimed : ' Look, Moses, there 
 is our donkey ! ' 
 
 They all looked and saw a black speck hurrying
 
 THE ORANGES 39 
 
 towards the Colony. Then they knew that the 
 donkey had gone home. ' What is to be done ? ' 
 said Moses. ' Perhaps, as we had so much 
 trouble with the donkey, we shall get back more 
 quickly walking/ 
 
 So they decided to walk ; but, as it was so 
 sandy, they could not walk very fast. That did 
 not matter to them, for they were busy talking 
 about what they would do when they got to 
 Jaffa, and how they would spend their time. 
 They could not go back in the heat of the day, 
 so they would have leisure to stroll about and 
 look round and perhaps there might be some 
 waggon going up to the Colony, in which they 
 could ride back. 
 
 They walked along very cheerfully, up and 
 down the sandy hills, only it was getting hot. 
 Suddenly they heard little bells tinkling and they 
 knew what that meant : there were Arabs and 
 camels coming their way. 
 
 " What shall we do ? ' exclaimed Samson, 
 getting a trifle pale. 
 
 ' Let us walk on/ said Dan. 
 
 ' What if they are robbers, and not simply a 
 caravan ? ' said Moses. 
 
 They stood looking at one another. Mean- 
 while the sound came nearer and nearer. ' I 
 tell you what/ said Moses, ' let us go behind that 
 sandy mound, and lie down flat and cover our-
 
 40 THE ORANGES 
 
 selves with sand. Then, if they pass by on the 
 other side, they will not see us at all, and if they 
 pass by here, and we lie flat and covered over, 
 they will not notice us either/ 
 
 ' A very good idea/ they said ; and they all 
 rushed and hid behind the mound. After lying 
 covered up for a short while to them it seemed 
 hours they lifted themselves up one at a time, 
 and looked over the mound. All was quiet, and 
 no one was to be seen. So they got up and set 
 off again. 
 
 ' Now was I not right ? ' said Moses ; ' they 
 were simply Arabs with their caravans/ 
 
 ' How could you tell ? ' said Dan. 
 
 ' How ? By the sound of the bells on the 
 camels' necks, and the Arabs singing. For if 
 they were robbers they would not sing, and their 
 camels would not have bells, as they would need 
 to go silently/ 
 
 ' He is right/ said Dan to Samson ; ' he is 
 getting as wise as our Abraham/ 
 
 Moses was pleased. He knew that the boys 
 would tell the others about it. 
 
 After a while one of the boys said : ' It is 
 getting very hot ; let us sit down and rest 
 awhile/ 
 
 'What would be the good of resting in the 
 burning sun ? ' said another ; ' let us go on ! ' 
 
 ' But I am hungry and thirsty,' said Samson.
 
 THE ORANGES 41 
 
 ' Well, let us go near that green spot we see 
 there near the marshes, where there is high grass 
 and bushes. There we can sit down and rest, 
 and drink our milk/ 
 
 Suddenly they heard the galloping of horses. 
 They looked round and saw from a distance that 
 a group of Arabs were galloping towards them 
 with guns over their shoulders. 
 
 ' Oh, oh ! ' Samson cried out, ' we are lost 
 they arc coming to kill us, or to sell us into 
 slavery/ 
 
 ' Stop that noise/ said Moses, who was afraid, 
 too, but would not show it. ' Let us run quickly 
 and hide behind that tall grass, and, if they have 
 not noticed us, they will pass us by/ 
 
 * No, no/ said Samson ; * we are lost ! ' 
 
 ' Come ! come ! ' said Moses and Dan. But he 
 would not move. So they took hold of him and 
 dragged him along, and told him that, if he would 
 not start and run with them, they would leave 
 him alone. They did not really mean to do this, 
 but they wanted to frighten him. So he ran with 
 them, and they hid behind the bushes in the high 
 grass. None too soon, for the Arabs came 
 nearer and jumped off their horses. 
 
 ' We are lost ; they are looking for us/ repeated 
 Samson, shaking with terror. Moses put his 
 hand over Samson's mouth lest he should scream 
 or talk.
 
 42 THE ORANGES 
 
 Meanwhile the horsemen went here and there, 
 as if they were looking for something. Then one 
 called to the others : ' Come here ! ' and the others 
 went up to him. They were coming nearer and 
 nearer. 
 
 ' Oh, my God, help us, help us ! ' whispered 
 Moses and Dan. Then they started saying the 
 Shema, and other prayers. Moses still kept his 
 hand on Samson's mouth. They thought their 
 last moment had come. 
 
 But it seemed that the Arab had simply called 
 the others to come up to a certain spot where the 
 grass was high, so that they might rest there from 
 the heat. Unfortunately, the spot happened to 
 be near where the boys were hidden. They took 
 off their guns, and lay about resting and eating. 
 
 The boys saw that they had not noticed them ; 
 but what if they should see them ? They would 
 surely kill them, for they saw some of the men's 
 faces and they looked like robbers, and they 
 could not catch what they were saying one to 
 another. All the time they were in deadly fear, 
 too, of Samson suddenly giving a shriek. How 
 long it lasted they had no notion : it might have 
 been minutes or hours, but it seemed days. 
 
 At length the Arabs jumped onto their horses 
 and galloped off. For some time the boys were 
 still too frightened to move ; but at last Moses 
 got up and said to Dan and Samson : ' Let us
 
 MOSES STILL KEPT HIS HAND ON SAMSON S MOUTH 
 
 CJ*W Life} 
 
 [Face p. 4 2
 
 THE ORANGES 43 
 
 walk on quickly, for I heard them say that it 
 would take them only twenty minutes to be in 
 Jaffa/ But Samson was quite upset : he cried 
 and would not move ; he said he was not going, for 
 they would be sure to meet more Arabs. 
 
 ' Cannot God take care of us, who took care 
 of us now ? ' cried the others. ' Was it your 
 wisdom that saved us ? What if we had sat 
 down to eat, or if they had noticed us before we 
 came to the marshes, and had nowhere to hide ? ' 
 
 ' You are right/ said Dan ; ' do you remember 
 the tale of Reb Akiba, how, in his travels, he had 
 with him a lamp, a cock, and a donkey, and how 
 a storm extinguished the lamp, and a wild animal 
 killed the cock, and the lion carried off the ass 
 and it turned out the best for him in the end ? 
 You see God has shown us the same mercy. 
 If our donkey had not ran away, we could not 
 have hidden here, for the donkey would have made 
 a noise and we should have been detected. If 
 God wants to protect, He turns misfortunes into 
 blessings/ 
 
 ' Do you hear, Samson ? ' said Moses ; ' don't 
 be afraid, and let us move on/ 
 
 Samson felt rebuked and ashamed, so he stood 
 up and went with them. 
 
 Now it happened that the boys, being still 
 rather dazed from their fright, did not notice the 
 way by which they had come into the marshes,
 
 44 THE ORANGES 
 
 and, walking on, they took the wrong road, for 
 the sand-hills looked all alike. So they walked 
 on and on, and thought they were Hearing Jaffa. 
 They took the food out of their little bundles and 
 ate walking, not to lose time. 
 
 The heat was great, for it was already past mid- 
 day, and they were very thirsty. But they had 
 by now emptied their milk-bottles and nowhere 
 could they get a drink. After they had walked 
 some time, Dan said : ' It does not seem to me 
 like the road to Jaffa, for I distinctly remember 
 the way, and we should have been there by now/ 
 They stopped and looked at one another. Then 
 Samson started to cry : ' Oh, what will happen 
 if we took the wrong road ? We shall get lost 
 in the desert, for there is no way out of it.' 
 
 Samson's howling was like a whip to Moses 
 and Dan. They felt bad enough as it was, but 
 to see the biggest among them behaving like a 
 baby made them wild, and Moses said : ' I wish 
 the Arabs had you it would be a good riddance/ 
 
 ' I know,' he whimpered, * that you do not 
 want me.' 
 
 ' Be quiet, you silly ! ' exclaimed Dan ; ' are we 
 not feeling as bad as you ? A nice man you \vill 
 make, you coward ! They ought to make you 
 the watchman of the Colony for the future. If 
 you saw anyone riding, you would go and hide 
 in the barn.'
 
 THE OEANGES 45 
 
 Samson did not answer, but kept on whimper- 
 ing. 
 
 ' Come, let us retrace our steps,' said Moses. 
 ' Perhaps we shall find some path which will lead 
 us back into the right road/ 
 
 So they turned back. Then they saw an Arab 
 on a donkey, singing to himself, as Arabs generally 
 do when they travel. They decided to go up and 
 ask him the way, for he looked harmless. 
 
 They went up to him and asked how far they 
 were from Jaffa. He told them they were on the 
 wrong road. If they turned to the right, it would 
 take them about an hour to get there. Then he 
 asked them if they were Judean boys from 
 Petack Tikvah. They told him they were, and 
 he said that his own village was near their home. 
 The boys were delighted to have met him, for he 
 seemed like a friend. They only wished that 
 they could go home with him, but that was not 
 to be thought of, for what would all the other boys 
 says ? They would not even believe what had 
 happened to thorn. 
 
 So they walked on, and an hour later they 
 began to see some green cactus-hedges. Then 
 they knew that they were near Jaffa. But they 
 felt so tired and thirsty that every step was an 
 effort. What annoyed them most, however, was 
 that Samson kept grumbling and saying he might 
 as well have been killed by the Arabs, for he was
 
 46 THE ORANGES 
 
 dying of thirst, and could not go any further. 
 
 ' Cheer up ! ' said Moses. ' Can you see those 
 green hedges ? Well, there is sure to be some 
 prickly pears on them. We can pick some and 
 eat them. That will quench our thirst/ 
 
 This hope cheered them, and they walked on 
 faster. 
 
 At last they came to the green hedges, and 
 managed with a stick to knock down a few 
 prickly pears. Now a new trouble beset them. 
 They had the pears, but they could not eat them 
 unless the skin were off, for it is full of tiny hairs 
 like fine needles, and they had no knife with 
 which to peel them. 
 
 ' Oh dear, dear/ said Samson ; ' trouble seems 
 to follow us everywhere ! ' 
 
 ' I daresay it will/ said Dan, ' so long as you 
 are with us. For our Rabbi says that " What 
 thou seekest, that thou shalt find/' and, as you 
 are always fearing trouble, it comes your way/ 
 
 Samson was going to answer sharply and 
 something unpleasant would certainly have come 
 out of it, when Moses exclaimed : ' There, boys, 
 I have found a nail in my pocket. We can cut 
 the skin through with it and peel the pears/ 
 
 They did so, quenched their thirst, and were 
 refreshed. At first they thought of staying here 
 to rest, but then they decided it would be better 
 to rest in town.
 
 THE OKANGES 47 
 
 ' Why go to town ? ' said Dan ; ' let us go into 
 one of the orchards here, buy some oranges, and 
 then go back after a rest. It would save us a 
 good step/ 
 
 ' All right/ said Moses. So they went up to 
 an orchard and were going to knock at the door 
 in the wall, when they heard awful shrieks within. 
 They peeped through the large keyhole and they 
 saw a black man bound to a tree, with his hands 
 tied over his head, while an Arab was lashing him 
 with a whip. They did not wait to see more, but 
 rushed away. 
 
 Further on, they came to another orchard, and, 
 looking through, they only saw a mule, with its 
 eyes covered, going round and round a well to 
 draw water for the gardens. So they decided to 
 go in ; but no sooner had they stepped inside than 
 two large dogs rushed on Moses and Samson. 
 
 Samson's screams brought out the master, and 
 he called the dogs off, but Samson's clothes were 
 all torn and his leg was bitten. Moses had some 
 severe scratches too. The Arab to whom the 
 orchard belonged told them not to be frightened, 
 and he said the dogs would not have bitten Sam- 
 son if he had not screamed. He took them 
 inside, washed Samson's wound and tied it up. 
 Then he asked the boys what they wanted. 
 
 The boys told him that they came to buy 
 some oranges for a sick friend. He told them to
 
 48 THE ORANGES 
 
 sit down and rest ; he would give them a basket- 
 ful, and meanwhile he called out to his wife, and 
 told her to give them some food and drink. She 
 gave them water to wash their hands and feet, 
 for the Biblical custom is still kept up among the 
 Arabs, and then brought them a meal. 
 
 After they had eaten, the boys remained sitting 
 under the shade of the orange trees. It seemed 
 to them paradise, after what they had gone 
 through in the heat and the sand. They were 
 so tired that they fell asleep ; and, when the Arab 
 came back with the basket of oranges, he would 
 not wake them, seeing how tired they were. 
 
 After an hour or so they w^oke with a start, and 
 saw that the sun was already beginning to set. 
 So they thanked the Arab for his hospitality and 
 wanted to pay him for the fruit. But he would 
 not take any money ; he said he was pleased to 
 give the ailing Judean boys some of his oranges, 
 and that, if they wanted more, they should come 
 and tell him. They thanked him and said they 
 would send him some of their grapes from the 
 vineyard. He saw them off a little way and put 
 the basket on a stick, so that two of the boys 
 should be able to carry it between them. And 
 then he said : ' May Allah see you safely home ! ' 
 
 So the boys started home, full of gladness, 
 thanking God that He had kept them safe, and 
 thinking of the pleasure Abraham would have,
 
 THE ORANGES 49 
 
 for there were in that basket over 50 beautiful 
 oranges. They were a little disappointed that 
 they had not succeeded in going to Jaffa to 
 enjoy the sights, as they had arranged, for it 
 would have been a great pleasure to have been 
 able to tell the boys what they had seen. How- 
 ever, they had enough to tell them as it w^as. 
 Meanwhile the sun was setting, but it was a moon- 
 light evening, so they did not mind much, and 
 only hoped they would meet no brigands. 
 
 The greatest trouble was still with Samson. 
 His leg was painful from the dog's bite, arid he 
 could not walk fast, so they all had to walk slowly. 
 They had already gone half way when Samson 
 sat down on the sand, and said he could not go 
 a step further, as his leg was too bad. Now here 
 they were in a fix, for what was to be done ? 
 They could not stay here all night, for they might 
 perhaps be killed by the Bedouin. Yet to leave 
 Samson was out of the question. Moses at last 
 struck on something. 
 
 ' You know what, Dan,' he said ; ' let us take 
 the oranges out of the basket, put as many as we 
 can into our handkerchiefs and pockets, then put 
 the basket on our back and make a seat with it. 
 It has two handles. Let Samson sit on it, and we 
 will put the stick through the handles and carry 
 him as our fore-fathers carried the grapes when 
 they returned from Canaan.' 
 
 P
 
 50 THE ORANGES 
 
 ' That is not a bad plan/ said Dan. 
 
 ' But I am not a bundle of grapes/ said Samson. 
 ' What will they say when they see me entering 
 the Colony like this ? ' 
 
 ' I don't know why God sent such fools into the 
 world/ said Moses. ' Did you ever hear anything 
 like it ? Here we are offering to carry such a 
 heavy lump as he is, and he does not even say ' 
 Thank you, but is thinking how he will look and 
 what others will say ! I really do not know 
 why you were named Samson. Your namesake 
 would turn in his grave if he could hear you, 
 for you have not a morsel of his courage you are 
 even afraid of a dog or a donkey, let alone a lion, 
 and have none of his sense, although in some 
 things he was very foolish, or else he would not 
 have been led astray by Delilah/ 
 
 ' If you had ever been bitten by a dog, you 
 would have more sympathy for otters who have/ 
 said Samson. 
 
 ' Do you think, you silly, if we had no sym- 
 pathy, we would take all this trouble to carry you, 
 for we feel very tired now/ said Dan. 
 
 So Samson was quiet, and they started making 
 him a seat. When it was finished, he sat on it, 
 and they started off, but every few minutes they 
 had to stop so their progress was very slow. At 
 last they got so tired that they could not go a step 
 further,
 
 THE OKANGES 51 
 
 ' God help us ! ' said Moses. ' I don't know 
 how we are to get home/ 
 
 ' I wish I never had left it/ said Samson. 
 ' Nice fun we have had nothing but fear and 
 misfortune since we set out this morning ! * 
 
 ' I wish to Heaven you ha'd never come with 
 us/ cried the others. ' You were ready enough 
 for the fun, and I don't believe that you would 
 have taken the trouble to go for the oranges, if 
 it were not for the thought of the pleasure you 
 would have had from it/ 
 
 ' Oh, don't let us quarrel/ said Moses, ' when 
 we are so tired. Let us sit here, and rest a little 
 and offer up a prayer that God should send us 
 help, and let us say a few Psalms/ 
 
 Now to return to the boys' parents. After 
 sunset, all went in to supper. But Moses, Dan, 
 and Samson were not to be found. Their sisters 
 went round to make inquiries, but they could 
 hear nothing. The other boys knew all about it, 
 but they did not want to say anything, as they 
 thought every moment the missing three would 
 be forthcoming. 
 
 After sunset, some of the boys went up to the 
 hill that was beyond the Colony, to look out for 
 them. But there was not a sign of them any- 
 where, It was already getting dark and they
 
 52 THE ORANGES 
 
 began to be frightened, too, lest their comrades 
 should have met with an accident. 
 
 Presently the parents of the boys became so 
 anxious that Joseph at last decided to tell the 
 truth. So he went to the boys' parents and told 
 them. They were terribly upset. The mothers 
 began to cry and to wring their hands, saying 
 they were sure that the boys had been killed 
 by the Arabs, or kidnapped and would be sold 
 as slaves. All the Colony was in a commotion, 
 for everyone was friendly to the others and shared 
 their joys and sorrows, and within a few minutes 
 horses were saddled and about a dozen men went 
 out to look for the boys, all in different directions. 
 They arranged that whoever found them should 
 whistle three times to let the others know : as 
 the air is very clear and calm in Palestine, any 
 sound is carried for miles. 
 
 It was a bright moonlight night. The men rode 
 on, and every now and then some of them called 
 out the boys names. Meanwhile, Moses and Dan 
 were quietly praying to God to help and guard 
 them, and Samson joined in too, crying bitterly. 
 He said it was the pain in his leg that made him 
 weep, but Moses said it was fear. Suddenly 
 Samson cried out : ' Do you hear, Moses, the 
 galloping of horses ? Oh, they are robbers ! 
 Now we are done for ! There is nowhere to hide, 
 they will surely kill us ! '
 
 THE ORANGES 53 
 
 ' Stop that noise, will you ? ' cried Dan, giving 
 Samson a pinch, for he heard it too, and felt 
 afraid. But suddenly he heard his name called 
 and cried out : ' We are saved it is our master ! ' 
 And they all three started shouting. In a few 
 minutes Dan's father and the master rode up. 
 They jumped off their horses and began to ques- 
 tion the boys. Moses told them all. Dan's 
 father took Samson in front of him. They then 
 whistled to the rest, while two others each put a 
 boy on the horse behind him, and rode home. 
 The remainder of the riders came up with them, 
 and the fathers felt that they would like to give 
 the boys a good whipping, for the anxiety they 
 had caused them. But the mothers, seeing their 
 boys safe, forgot everything, hugged them to their 
 hearts, and said the boys were sufficiently pun- 
 ished with all they had experienced that day. 
 And after all, it was for the good of a neighbour 
 that they had gone. 
 
 So they were given a hot supper, and sent to 
 bed, while Samson had the satisfaction of seeing 
 how all felt for him, and sympathized with him, 
 for they said he went to do a good deed, and 
 Moses and Dan never told anyone of their elders 
 of the trouble he had given them. 
 
 Next morning the three boys were allowed to 
 stay away from school, for the master thought 
 that they needed a rest after what they had gone 
 through.
 
 54 THE ORANGES 
 
 So Moses and Dan, and Samson with his bad 
 leg tied up and limping, went to Abraham's house 
 to give him the oranges. They decided to carry 
 them in the basket with the stick through the 
 handles, just like the spies in a picture they had 
 seen. And when they saw Abraham begin to 
 suck an orange, and how he enjoyed it, they felt 
 they were fully repaid for their trouble. 
 
 They longed to tell him all their adventures and 
 the bother with Samson, but they had decided to 
 wait till he was quite well again and could take 
 terrible things more lightly. 
 
 So they sat and told him about the donkey 
 and the Arab from the village close by, and the 
 kind man who owned the beautiful orange garden, 
 and allowed him to fancy it had been a day of 
 unclouded pleasure, except for the dog which 
 had bitten Samson by mistake.
 
 THE LAST WAGGON LOAD
 
 THE LAST WAGGON LOAD 
 
 IT was the in-gathering of the harvest. School 
 only lasted half the day, and all the evening 
 the boys worked in the fields, tying up the 
 sheaves of corn. I say they " worked," but 
 to them it was the best fun in the world, for 
 they threw the sheaves at one another, and 
 every boy raced his comrades, trying to out-do 
 them by tying more sheaves than anyone else. 
 And when a waggon had to be loaded, a few boys 
 were put on it to arrange the sheaves as they 
 were thrown up by fathers and brothers, and 
 to jump about on them and press them down. 
 They got wildly excited, up there on the top of 
 the load ; and, when the waggon began to move, 
 it was not uncommon for somebody to fall off 
 and lie crying with a broken head till he was 
 picked up and bandaged and made a little fuss 
 over. 
 
 This evening, the very last waggon-load of all 
 was to be brought home to the owner's barn, 
 and the girls were coming out to meet it. After- 
 wards there was to be a dance and a beautiful 
 supper. Of course the boys were to have a 
 share in everything as a reward for their in- 
 dustry. 
 
 57
 
 58 
 
 The sheaves were being piled up on the waggon, 
 and Moses and two or three others were dancing 
 on the top. 
 
 " Jump hard/' called Abraham, from below 5 
 looking every inch a harvester with his great 
 straw hat and his shirt-sleeves rolled up. ' Press 
 it down well ! There are plenty more sheaves to 
 come/ 
 
 Moses gave a great jump, and the next mo- 
 ment nothing was to be seen but sheaves falling 
 out of the waggon one after the other, and a 
 waving of legs and arms. Twenty boys and 
 twenty bundles seemed to be rolling to the 
 ground at once. Nobody was hurt, however 
 except Moses. But that was just the most un- 
 fortunate thing that could have happened. This 
 is why. The boys had all begged their sisters 
 to make them little blue-and-white flags, in the 
 Jewish colours, with a Shield of David sewn on 
 to them, and they were going to enter the Colony 
 sitting on the waggons (of which really three or 
 four would come in together), waving these 
 flags and singing some Psalms 145 to 150 
 which they had learnt by heart, to a joyful old 
 Jewish melody. And Moses, who had a fine 
 voice, was to be the solo that is, to sing bits by 
 himself, the others then joining in. 
 
 And now there he lay, with a badly bruised 
 leg ; and the others we re so upset by the spoiling
 
 THE LAST WAGGON LOAD 59 
 
 of their cherished plan, that they were as cross 
 as cross could be, and told Moses it was all owing 
 to his carelessness that he had fallen and hurt 
 his leg. Tears came into his eyes. After all 
 the weeks of practising, and all the looking for- 
 ward to this happy day why, there were nights 
 when he had hardly slept for thinking of it 
 he was not to sing at all ! And his* leg was very 
 sore. The tears overflowed, and ran down his 
 cheeks into the stubble. 
 
 Then the others felt that they were acting 
 very unkindly, and Abraham said : ' Poor, 
 Moses ! Don't cry ! We did not really mean it 
 of course you couldn't help it, and what is done, 
 is done. One of you go and call his father, and 
 we will take him home.' 
 
 The boys, still rather cross, and thinking they 
 were going to miss some of the fun, began to 
 grumble. But, of course, they would have done 
 what Abraham told them in the end, for they 
 never deserted a companion in his distress. 
 Just then, however, Moses' father came up with 
 two or three younger men, and heard what had 
 happened. He was going to take Moses and 
 carry him to his mother, when Moses said : 
 ' Father, listen, I worked very hard and helped 
 you a lot with the sheaves.' 
 
 ' You did so, my son,' said his father, ' and 
 you will be a good Colonist and help to take
 
 60 
 
 away the reproach of our people that we cannot, 
 as some declare, do agricultural work/ 
 
 ' And look here, boys/ said one of the young 
 men, ' if the trouble is about the singing, we will 
 all help you. Let us hear the tune of the Psalms 
 the words we know and we will walk along- 
 side you and sing, too. And we will call the 
 other young fellows to join us ; they will soon 
 catch the melody. In that way there will be 
 fifty voices instead of twenty, and many of the 
 young men can sing very well/ 
 
 Moses smiled for all his pain, and said : ' Thank 
 you, thank you ! ' He felt as if he could never 
 say ' Thank you ' often enough, because now 
 he knew the boys would forgive him for falling 
 of! the waggon. 
 
 ' You are a brave boy/ said his father, ' and 
 you must think that God has chosen you to suffer 
 in a good cause/ 
 
 So Moses was lifted on to the waggon and laid 
 down on the sheaves, and Abraham and Dan 
 sat beside him and held his hand. After what 
 his father had said, Moses was now a hero in their 
 eyes they almost envied him what had happened. 
 
 As they drew near the Colony, all the boys 
 sisters, with their girl-friends, came out to meet 
 them in their Sabbath dresses, mostly simple 
 white muslin, in which every big and little girl 
 looks her best. They had made themselves
 
 THE LAST WAGGON LOAD 61 
 
 wreaths of poppies and marigolds, and what 
 more beautiful ornaments could they wear ? 
 Those who had a flower-garden had picked roses 
 and put them in their hair, and the little girls 
 had their Sabbath ribbons in their long, thick 
 plaits. Some of the girls carried trays with 
 cooling drinks, and cakes and biscuits for the 
 hungry ones, and every face wore a smile. The 
 older men and their wives stood in the door- 
 ways, and they also smiled happily to see the 
 loaded waggons coming in from the fields. 
 
 When they heard the singing of the young 
 harvesters, the tears of joy came into their eyes. 
 Most of the older folk could remember the day 
 when the first field was sown, and the early 
 days of struggle and trouble came back to their 
 minds. Now waggon-loads of corn were coming 
 in, and their sons and little grandsons were bring- 
 ing it home with song. 
 
 ' Truly, truly/ whispered the old folk to them- 
 selves, ' he that goeth forth on his way weeping, 
 bearing the good seed, shall come again with 
 joy, carrying the sheaves ! ' 
 
 ' After all,' said Moses' father that night, ' it 
 happened for the best ! Instead of only the little 
 boys singing and praising God for the harvest, 
 all the young fellows of the Colony were singing 
 too, and it was such a Harvest Time as 'perhaps 
 never was in Palestine since the days of old/
 
 THE GARDENERS
 
 THE GARDENERS 
 
 LEAH had been with her father to the German 
 Colony, to have some flour ground there in the 
 mill, and had come home full of excitement and 
 plans. 
 
 ' It is perfectly lovely there, girls/ she said 
 to her friends, Sarah, Miriam, and the others. 
 ' They have flowers in all their gardens ; there 
 is honeysuckle climbing up the porches ; and 
 there are roses and other creepers besides ; and 
 they have boxes witfli mignonette and geraniums. 
 I asked for some seeds, and they were very kind 
 and gave me all these.' So saying, Leah un- 
 folded a paper in which were smaller parcels 
 with a different kind of seed in each. ' Plenty 
 for all of us ! Let us plant them at once ! ' 
 
 The other girls liked the idea immensely. 
 They found some wooden boxes, old cans and 
 even some old saucepans ; filled them with 
 mould ; and planted the seeds. While they were 
 thus busy, Abraham, who was Leah's brother, 
 and one or two other boys, came along, and 
 stood watching them. 
 
 ' What do you want, boys ? ' said Miriam. 
 65 E
 
 66 THE GARDENERS 
 
 ' Why, nothing/ answered they ; ' we were 
 just watching you/ Now the girls were always 
 suspicious of the boys, specially when they were 
 very quiet, but it was difficult to see what they 
 could be up to just then, so Miriam only said : 
 ' Well, will you fetch us some water ? because 
 the seeds must be watered as soon as they are 
 put in/ 
 
 ' What seeds are these ? ' asked Joseph. 
 
 * Carnation seeds/ said Leah, proudly. 
 
 ' And mine/ said Sarah, ' are geranium seeds/ 
 
 ' And in my saucepan/ said little Judith, 
 * there will come up mignonette ! ' 
 
 ' Well/ said Abraham, ' we will get you some 
 water ; but, if we help you this time, you must 
 help us another/ And off the boys went. 
 
 ' All the same/ said Miriam, with a sigh, as 
 she smoothed the top of her mould, ' I wish the 
 boys had not come in just this moment I don't 
 trust them/ 
 
 ' They soon find out when something new is 
 going on/ said Judith ; ' but they can't stand 
 our prying on them.' Leah was reminded of 
 the adventure of the melon, and smiled. Un- 
 fortunately, Abraham also was thinking of that 
 unlucky day ; and, as they went to get the 
 water, he said to his companions : ' I have 
 thought of an excellent plan for paying out 
 Leah for eating the heart of that melon. You
 
 67 
 
 remember what an unfair advantage she took 
 of us ? We could not help ourselves at all. 
 But now she will have a surprise, for instead of 
 carnations coming up in her box, there will be 
 potatoes/ 
 
 ' But how ? But how ? ' exclaimed the others, 
 looking at Abraham as if they thought he were 
 a magician who could make potatoes grow out 
 of carnation seeds. 
 
 ' It is very easy/ said Abraham. ' To-night, 
 when they are all in bed and the moon is up, I 
 will take out the flower seeds, and put in half-a- 
 dozen small potatoes, such as my father keeps 
 for seed. The girls will never guess till the 
 potatoes bloom, for Fm sure they don't know 
 that a carnation plant looks any different from 
 a potato/ 
 
 The boys shouted and slapped their legs with 
 delight, and Moses said : ' We can all do the 
 same/ for boys are thoughtless creatures, and 
 rarely realise the effect of what they do till it 
 is too late. Neither Abraham nor any other 
 of the party understood how intensely the girls 
 were looking forward to their flowers, and what 
 a pleasure they were going to spoil. 
 
 ' So you can/ said Abraham ; ' but I would 
 rather you let it alone, because this is an account 
 I have to settle with Leah, and one or other of 
 you might be caught at it, and then the whole
 
 68 THE GARDENERS 
 
 thing would be wrong.' The others were a little 
 disappointed, but they felt that Abraham was 
 right. 
 
 A few weeks had passed. Every morning the 
 girls had hurried to look at the flower-boxes, 
 which were set out in the garden, and were now 
 rewarded by seeing little rows of green sprouts ; 
 but they all took more interest in Leah's garden 
 than in their own, because of the beautiful 
 carnations of which they had heard so much. 
 Leah was going to take a bunch to the teacher 
 at the school, and each of her friends was to 
 have one to wear pinned to her dress. 
 
 It was curious that the leaves should be so 
 like potato leaves, but it was of no consequence 
 the flowers were the thing ! And when the 
 flowers began to show, they seemed to be a pretty 
 shade of mauve ; and, though Leah could not 
 remember any carnations of that colour, she 
 thought they would, no doubt, be very choice 
 when they came out. 
 
 ' They have no smell/ said Judith, kneeling 
 beside them, and putting her little nose to the 
 bud ' at least, no nice smell.' 
 
 ' And the leaves are so large/ said Miriam, 
 ' and so very like potato-leaves. Let us go and 
 look at the potatoes in the vegetable garden, 
 and compare/ 
 
 They went and looked at the potato-patch,
 
 THE GARDENERS 69 
 
 and they could see no difference between the 
 leaves there and those in the flower-box, so they 
 went to Leah's mother and asked her what she 
 thought. She advised them to wait a week and 
 see what would happen. At the end of the week 
 the flowers, which were no more like the car- 
 nations Leah had admired so much in the Ger- 
 man Colony than before, fell off, and nothing 
 remained but the large, dark green leaves. 
 
 Then the girls pulled up the plants, and lo ! 
 at the roots were a lot of very tiny little potatoes. 
 Leah gave one look, and then flung down the 
 plant she was holding, rushed upstairs, and threw 
 herself on to her bed in a passion of tears. She 
 was still lying there and sobbing when Abraham 
 came in from Cheder. His mother told him 
 what had happened, and said that whoever had 
 played such an unkind trick on his sister had 
 acted very cruelly. She then told him to go and 
 call Leah to come to dinner. 
 
 Abraham went slowly up to her room, and 
 when she sat up on the bed, sobbing out that she 
 could not eat any dinner, for her heart was 
 broken, and when he saw her swollen eyes and 
 knew it was all his doing, he felt very much 
 ashamed of himself for, even though the boys 
 tease their sisters, they love them all the time. 
 
 His mother asked no questions. Abraham 
 ate his dinner quickly, then he went to his own
 
 70 THE GARDENERS 
 
 corner, emptied out his money-box, ran to the 
 stable, led out a donkey, jumped on to its back, 
 and made it trot its fastest to the German Colony 
 where Leah had got the seeds. 
 
 Here he went to a Colonist with a garden, and 
 asked him to sell him some carnations and geran- 
 iums. At first the Colonist said he had none 
 to sell ; but, when he saw that Abraham was 
 really in trouble, he let him have as much as he 
 could comfortably carry. 
 
 Abraham rode joyfully home, although he did 
 not like the idea of having to tell Leah that it 
 was he who had put the potato -seeds into her 
 flower-box. Indeed, he wondered at first whether 
 he could somehow avoid telling her the whole 
 story, but he thought : ' If I don't say it was I, 
 Leah will suspect some other boy unjustly. 
 And it says : "He who rules his spirit is greater 
 than he who takes a city/' So I must conquer 
 my pride and tell the whole truth.' 
 
 Abraham kept to his resolve : he told Leah, 
 and he told his parents, and they all forgave him, 
 because they saw that he was really repentant 
 and had done all he could to make up for his 
 unkind action.
 
 THE SCHOOL
 
 THE SCHOOL 
 
 ONE day after Cheder, Abraham said to the 
 other boys : ' Come out after supper to the 
 haystack and hear the great news ! ' 
 
 1 Tell it now, tell it us now ! ' cried the boys, 
 pressing round him. Abraham said he could 
 not stop then, as it was his turn to help the Arab 
 boy to water the cattle and drive them home, 
 and after that, he would have to go to synagogue 
 with his father. In those days, even much 
 younger boys, quite little ones, went sometimes 
 two and three times a day to pray with their 
 father or their elder brother. 
 
 ' After supper, after supper ! ' he repeated 
 and ran off. 
 
 All the boys worried their mother that evening 
 to give them supper early, and the poor mothers, 
 who were busy and tired enough as it was, got 
 rather cross and said they supposed that all 
 this hurry was to be of! to some mischief. This 
 frightened the boys a bit, lest mother should 
 send them out to fetch water, or to dig up pota- 
 toes, so they thought it best to sit quiet and say 
 no more. In due time, however, they assembled 
 at the haystack and sat down in a ring round 
 Abraham to hear the great news. Abraham 
 was in no hurry to part with it. 
 
 73
 
 74 THE [SCHOOL 
 
 ' No/ said he, ' don't be so impatient. Where 
 is Joseph ? I don't see him . . . ' 
 
 ' Here, here ! ' cried Joseph. ' At your elbow ! 
 Begin, begin ! ' 
 
 ' Wait a minute, boys ! I hear someone run- 
 ning look, it is Chaim the Dunce, late as ever 
 we had nearly forgotten him. Well, how will 
 he like it, I wonder ? ' 
 
 ' Here, Chaim,' called out the boys, ' make 
 haste and sit down ; you have had time to eat 
 two suppers. Now, Abraham, out with it, 
 quick/ 
 
 ' Well, boys/ said Abraham, ' you all know 
 the new building at the end of the Choveve 
 Tzion Street ? ' 
 
 ' Of course, of course ! ' 
 
 ' Well, I heard rny father say at dinner that 
 it will be a school for us ; that we shall have 
 masters, like the boys in Europe, to teach us 
 French, Hebrew, Arabic, and all sorts of other 
 things. We shall still learn with the teacher, but 
 not all day as we do now it will not be a Cheder 
 it will be a school/ 
 
 Hardly had Abraham closed his mouth, when 
 the rest jumped up and began hopping and 
 dancing about like mad. ' A school ! A school ! ' 
 they shouted ; ' we are to have a school ! ' 
 
 ' Don't make fools of yourselves/ said Abra- 
 ham ; ' sit down again and let us talk. Why
 
 THE SCHOOL 75 
 
 should we not have a school ? My sister told 
 me that in Europe there is a school in every 
 village it's nothing new. And you know there 
 is one in Jerusalem, anyhow, for the girls/ 
 
 ' Oh, w >n't it be nice ? ' cried one ; ' they 
 have benches in a school for only two to sit on ; 
 one isn't jammed up together as in Cheder/ 
 
 ' How should you know ? ' asked Moses. 
 ' Have you ever been to school ? ' 
 
 ' I wonder/ said Chaim, the Dunce, ' if they 
 whip you in a school ' 
 
 ' and if they pull your ears as our teacher 
 
 does,' said Joseph, stroking his own, with a 
 compassionate face. 
 
 ' How could you get on with your lessons if 
 you were never whipped ? ' asked Levi. This 
 was a question no one cared to answer. 
 
 ' Let us each ask our big brothers and sisters/ 
 said Abraham, ' what they do to you in a school, 
 and this time to-morrow we will tell each other 
 what we have heard/ 
 
 The boys had no night to speak of for excite- 
 ment, and were up early next morning, so as to 
 catch their elder brothers and sisters before they 
 started work, and find out what happened to 
 them in school in Russia. Now the older people 
 thought this a fine opportunity to tease the 
 younger ones, and, when the boys met again 
 that evening, there was less enthusiasm for the
 
 76 THE SCHOOL 
 
 school than the evening before. One of them had 
 heard that at a school, when you do not know 
 your lesson, you are made to stand in a corner 
 and hold up a large slate, on which is written, 
 ' PUNISHMENT FOR LAZINESS/ and each pupil, 
 as he leaves the room, gives the dunce a slap 
 in the face, the unhappy one himself not being 
 allowed to go home to dinner. 
 
 Another time, it appeared, he might be kept 
 in the class-room all day and all night to copy 
 out his lesson one hundred times. A boy who 
 talked in class, or played pranks, had to stand 
 with his hands tied behind him for twelve hours. 
 Somebody said he did not believe all this, but 
 he was told to hold his tongue, as he knew 
 nothing about it. 
 
 ' If it is all true/ said Joseph, ' I think I would 
 rather stay at Cheder and have my ears pulled 
 by the teacher/ 
 
 ' Not I/ said Moses ; ' I want to learn every- 
 thing there is to know, and be a very clever, 
 great man I shall not mind what they do to 
 me/ 
 
 ' I know who will have all the punishments 
 one after the other/ said Chaim, ' and that is 
 Abraham, for he is the worst of us all, only he 
 always manages to get off. But in a school he 
 
 wo ' Chaim was going to say ' won't' 
 
 but the others all went for him at once, shouting :
 
 THE SCHOOL 77 
 
 ' If you tell tales of Abraham, we will make it 
 so hot for you that the master's punishments 
 will be nothing to compare with ours. How 
 many times more would you have been beaten 
 if Abraham had not begged you off ? How 
 many times 
 
 ' Never mind, boys/ said Abraham ; ' I can 
 take my own part, and why should we have to 
 be punished at all ? If we are good and pay 
 attention and do our best to know our lessons, 
 all will be well. And we shall still be able to 
 have fun after school-hours. Besides, we don't 
 want people to say that Petach Tikvah is a place 
 of ignoramuses. Let Petach Tikvah take the 
 lead ! ' 
 
 ' Petach Tikvah takes the lead ! ' cried the 
 other boys with one voice. And this was a motto 
 among them till another came into fashion, and 
 right well they lived up to it. 
 
 A week passed, and then, one day, Moses 
 rushed up to a group of boys and panted out : 
 ' The teachers are coming this evening ! A room 
 is being prepared for one next door to us ! ' 
 
 ' What ? Teachers ? ' cried the others ; ' will 
 there be more than one ? ' 
 
 * Why, of course/ said Moses, who till then 
 had never thought of more than one himself ; 
 ' think of all the different things we have to 
 learn ! I believe a lady teacher is coming, too/
 
 78 THE SCHOOL 
 
 ' Go on ! ' cried the boys. ' Whatever for ? ' 
 
 ' For the girls, you sillies.' 
 
 ' What/ they all screamed out, ' girls ? are 
 the girls going to school also ? ' 
 
 ' Won't that be fun ? ' said Joseph. ' I hope 
 they sit next to me : I shall tie their plaits to- 
 gether/ 
 
 ' You just drop that/ said Abraham, severely. 
 ' Do you want to stand twelve hours with your 
 hands tied behind your back ? ' 
 
 Then they all fell to wondering what the 
 teachers would be like, and resolved not to go 
 to bed that night before the waggon had come 
 from Jaffa. But the teachers did not arrive 
 either that night or the next not till the eve of 
 the opening of the school. 
 
 That night hardly a child in the Colony slept. 
 The bigger children lay awake because they 
 were going to school the little ones, because 
 they hoped to the last to be allowed to go too. 
 
 When morning came, the elder children put 
 on their Sabbath suits and frocks, as it was the 
 opening day, and the girls plaited bright ribbons 
 into their hair and buttoned on a neat apron, 
 quite new, which they had made for the occasion, 
 for the girls, unlike the boys, had been told weeks 
 before about going to school and had been sewing 
 as they had never sewed before. 
 
 Some children were still finishing breakfast
 
 THE SCHOOL 79 
 
 when they heard the school bell. Up they 
 jumped and off they all rushed. The little ones, 
 who saw themselves left behind, cried bitterly. 
 They cried every morning for some days, when 
 the bell rang and the others ran off to school 
 without them, but after a while their tears dried 
 more quickly and they became reconciled to 
 things as they were. 
 
 When the boys and girls reached the school, 
 the principal master came out to meet them, 
 made them all go in quietly, and took their names 
 down in a book. Then lessons commenced as in 
 any other school, but to these children the whole 
 thing was quite new, and it was at least an hour 
 before they could settle down and attend to 
 what the teachers were saying. 
 
 When they came out of school at dinner-time, 
 their minds and hearts were so full that they 
 could say very little to each other, just then. 
 They did not feel like themselves they felt 
 like quite different people as if something won- 
 derful and very good had happened to them 
 and they were starting on a new life. But when 
 their parents began to question them, then they 
 found their tongues, and could not say enough 
 in praise of the new master of the school and the 
 lessons. 
 
 Now you will know, without my telling you, 
 that novelty wears off everything ; and, when
 
 80 THE SCHOOL 
 
 you hear that our boys and girls did not always 
 find school quite as delightful as the first day, 
 you will not be surprised. Sometimes the new 
 lessons seemed hard, and sometimes there had 
 to be punishment, but none of the dreadful things 
 were done to them that were foretold by their 
 brothers and sisters. There was no pulling of 
 ears, either, for the new teachers knew better 
 than to do anything that might injure a child 
 for its whole life. 
 
 The girls had to work hardest, because, while 
 the boys had nothing much to do after school- 
 hours, they had to help their mothers, and to 
 do their home-lessons when they were already 
 tired out. However, they were so pleased to 
 be learning something more than to say their 
 prayers and to .'ead Hebrew, and so determined 
 not to be out-done by the boys, that their teacher 
 was delighted with them, and they made rapid 
 progress. 
 
 The boys improved in health, because the new 
 school-house was much more airy than the 
 Cheder ; and they were also less restless and 
 mischievous at home, because their minds had 
 been more interested and occupied, and the 
 masters would send them out for a run in between 
 two lessons, instead of scolding them for fidgetting. 
 
 But they had plenty of enterprise left, as 
 some of these stories will shew.
 
 THE PLANTING OF THE TREES
 
 SCHOOL broke up early that day for some reason, 
 and the teacher of the Talmud Torah was away, 
 so the boys had some extra free time. They had 
 just decided to go to the fields and get the Arab 
 shepherds to let them play on their pipes, when 
 Abraham came along and said : ' Father has just 
 got some young fruit-trees from Mikveh Israel 
 and they have to be planted at once, and I've 
 got to help. It will take some days/ 
 
 The other boys felt very gloomy at the idea of 
 having no Abraham for several days, because, as 
 you know, there was no one like him for getting 
 them all into mischief and out of it again. But 
 the teachers had talked to them so nicely about 
 being better boys and taking their share in 
 cultivating and beautifying Palestine, that they 
 said : ' Well, let us all do a little work to the glory 
 of God and of our land, and help Abraham plant 
 the trees.' 
 
 Abraham was very pleased to think the others 
 were not going to desert him. They went home 
 for their shovels and met in the orchard of Abra- 
 ham's father, who was there digging a large deep 
 hole. When he saw it was deep enough, he put 
 in the little tree, and the boys shovelled in the 
 earth about its roots, and then jumped and
 
 84 THE PLANTING OF TREES 
 
 stamped upon it to press it down, so that the tree 
 should stand firmly. Then he took a piece of 
 twine and measured space after space, and shewed 
 every boy where he was to dig a hole. 
 
 As there were about twenty boys and the 
 ground was fairly soft and light, it did not take so 
 very long to dig twenty holes, and Abraham's 
 father dug two or three in the time. 
 
 When it came to the last few trees, he called 
 Abraham and said : ' Now, my son, choose one 
 of these trees for your own and plant it on one 
 side, so that you may remember which it is. 
 If you see the leaves worm-eaten, water it and 
 spray it with some stuff I will give you. If you 
 see it growing crooked, tie it to a firm straight 
 stick. Will you take care of your tree, Abraham, 
 if you have it for your very own ? ' 
 
 * Oh yes, father ! ' cried Abraham ; ' I shall 
 watch you and see what you do to your trees and 
 do the same to mine.' 
 
 ' That is right/ said the father ; ' and when- 
 ever you feel tempted to do a mean or bad action, 
 come and look at your tree, see how it grows and 
 buds, just as God meant it to do ; think of the 
 sweet, juicy fruit it will have by-and-by. And 
 when you see it covered with pink blossom (it is 
 an apricot) remember that your soul is a more 
 beautiful thing even than your tree ! God made 
 them both, and, just as the tree gives pleasure
 
 85 
 
 to all who see it, so can you. And, just as the 
 tree needs to be watched and watered and kept 
 free of grubs and insects, so must the soul be 
 tended and taught how to grow, and guarded 
 from selfish thoughts and bad tempers and ugly 
 crooked habits. Do you understand me, Abra- 
 ham ? ' 
 
 ' I do, father ! And, please, I would like to 
 have two trees side by side. One I will take care 
 of and the other I will neglect, and when I have 
 behaved badly I will come and look at the ugly 
 tree and say, " Abraham, that is you yourself ! " ' 
 
 The other boys, who were all listening very 
 attentively, laughed. 
 
 ' I am afraid/ said his father, smiling, * that 
 the trees are too precious for one of them to be 
 intentionally spoilt, if we can help it. But if you 
 look about, you will see many another plant that 
 could not grow nicely because it came up in a dark 
 corner, and when you do ask yourself : " Is it the 
 plant's fault ? " No, it is not. It was sown in 
 poor soil, so that the root found no food, and a 
 plant wants food and air and sunshine, just as a 
 soul needs love and teaching and happiness. 
 The poor plant struggled. Its little roots sought 
 all round in the stony ground, but they found 
 nothing, as hungry grubs came and ate what little 
 there was. It tried to grow tall and reach the 
 sunshine, but it was too weak and it withered
 
 86 THtf PLANTING OF T&EES 
 
 away. It tried to put out a few green leaves, like 
 the other plants, but caterpillars came and nibbled 
 them off. Then the poor plant could do no more, 
 and could never have pink flowers or juicy fruit, 
 so it just gave up and remained poor and ugly 
 and useless. And it is just the same with the soul. 
 So remember, Abraham, and all of you boys, 
 when you come across a soul that is mean and 
 ugly and has no flowers or fruit to show, ask your- 
 selves : " Was it all the soul's fault ? ''' Maybe 
 there was no one to tend it, to give it the sunshine 
 of love, to see that it grew straight, to keep away 
 the grubs from its root and the caterpillars from 
 its leaves. Pity that soul and never think : "I 
 am better than you ! " 
 
 Abraham felt very glad to think all the boys 
 should see what a good wise father he had, who 
 could teach them such a beautiful lesson standing 
 in an orchard ; and all the boys resolved at once 
 to be kinder to Chaim the dunce, who was not 
 only stupid at lessons, but not quite as nice to 
 them as he might be. 
 
 Perhaps he also was a little tree which had not 
 been taught to grow straight, and perhaps, if 
 they all lent a hand, something could still be 
 done. They resolved to talk it over with Abra- 
 ham at the next opportunity, and then Abraham 
 planted his tree, and they all went to home and 
 supper, tired, but very happy.
 
 THE RESCUE 
 
 OR 
 
 ONE GOOD TURN DESERVES ANOTHER

 
 THE RESCUE 
 
 OR 
 
 ONE GOOD TURN DESERVES ANOTHER 
 
 TOWARDS sunset one day, when the boys went 
 to drive the cattle home from the fields for milk- 
 ing, they saw some Arabs' cattle grazing in 
 Joseph's father's field. 
 
 The Arabs had a habit of often turning their 
 cattle into the Judeans' fields, even into the 
 wheat-fields. This did a great deal of harm, as 
 a good deal was spoilt by the oxen and asses 
 treading down the wheat, as well as eating it. 
 They usually chose a Friday afternoon ; as they 
 knew the Judeans went home earlier to prepare 
 for the Sabbath. 
 
 When the boys saw the Arab cattle in the 
 field, David said to Nathan and the others : ' You 
 drive our cattle home, and I will try and drive 
 some of their cattle into Joseph's father's barn, 
 and he will keep them there, till the Arabs come 
 and pay the fine for the damage done.' 
 
 No sooner did David attempt to drive them in 
 than he was suddenly knocked on the head 
 insensible with a heavy stick that the Arabs 
 usually carry. 
 
 When he came to himself, he was in a dark 
 place with his hands tied. He realised at once 
 that the Arabs had taken him, and he felt very 
 frightened, for he thought they surely meant to 
 kill him. The Arabs, however, had no idea of 
 
 89
 
 90 THE RESCUE 
 
 killing him, or doing him any harm, but they 
 meant to keep him prisoner till the Judean 
 Colonists paid a good ransom for him, and thus 
 they hoped to be revenged for the fines they had 
 often had to pay when they let their cattle into 
 the Judeans' fields. 
 
 Meanwhile Nathan and the other boys drove 
 their cattle home ; and, as he was late and Sab- 
 bath nearly in, he was not ready, and he got a 
 good scolding from his mother. This upset him 
 so much that he forgot all about David ; but, 
 when he returned from Shul and had eaten the 
 Sabbath meal, Nathan felt he could not sleep hap- 
 pily until he had been to see whether David had 
 succeeded in driving the Arab's cattle to the barn. 
 
 He found David's family very worried as he 
 had not returned home as usual, and this in- 
 creased when they heard from Nathan what he 
 had meant to do with the Arabs' cattle. David's 
 mother felt sure he was killed, and, being very 
 delicate, the shock made her faint. His father 
 rushed out to tell some neighbours what had hap- 
 pened to David, and in a few minutes there was 
 quite a commotion. Nathan was asked if he had 
 seen an Arab with the cattle, but he said he had not. 
 
 In a short time a party of men and boys started 
 out for the Arab village, to see if they could get 
 any news of David, as such a thing had never 
 happened before.
 
 THE RESCUE 91 
 
 When they got near the village, the dogs all 
 started barking furiously, and the noise brought 
 the Arabs out with their guns, for they thought 
 the Bedouin must be attacking them, as they 
 sometimes did. But when they saw the men 
 were Judeans, they became friendly, and asked 
 what they wanted ; and, after enquiries had been 
 made, they replied that they had not seen any 
 of their boys. 
 
 The Colonists then asked to be taken to the 
 Sheik of the village ; and they told him their 
 reason for coming. ' My brothers/ said he, ' do 
 you think we are robbers ? God forbid ! If 
 such a thing happened in my village, I would 
 punish the culprit severely. To prove I am your 
 friend, I will send out a few of our Arabs to help 
 you search for the lad, for maybe the Bedouin 
 have captured him/ 
 
 David's father and his friends were very down- 
 hearted, for they felt what the Sheik had said 
 was very likely true, and what would make the 
 search harder and longer was that it was the 
 Sabbath, and they could not ride or carry guns 
 on that day. They divided themselves into 
 three parties, and each party went a different 
 way. They promised the Arabs a good reward 
 if David was found. 
 
 The Sheik was a cunning man, and was really 
 trying to deceive the Judeans ; and, when they
 
 2 THE &ESCUE 
 
 had started on tlieir search, he bade the Arabs 
 who really had captured David to take him and 
 hide him some distance from the village, so that 
 some of the Arabs he had sent with the Judeans 
 might find him, and say that the Bedouin had 
 captured him and that they would give him up 
 only for a large ransom. Thus ransom-money 
 would come to the village, as well as the money 
 the Judeans had promised to pay the Arabs who 
 went in the search-parties. 
 
 All this time poor David was lying and crying 
 silently in a dark place, not knowing his friends 
 had been in the village asking for him. So he 
 was terribly frightened when he felt himself 
 suddenly lifted up, and, as he thought, carried 
 out to be killed. Instead, the Arab jumped on 
 a horse and put him in front of him and tied a 
 cloth over his mouth, so that he could not call 
 out, and off they started at a gallop with a few 
 other Arabs. David's feelings can better be imag- 
 ined than described ; but he had the inherited pluck 
 of his nation and in his helplessness trusted in God. 
 
 At last, after what seemed to be a very long 
 ride, they came to a hut and put him in, untied 
 the rag from his face, and gave him some water 
 to drink ; and they then told him to lie quiet on 
 some straw in the corner of the hut ; for they 
 had no wish to be really unkind to the boy, but 
 only wanted the money from the Judeans.
 
 THE RESCUE 93 
 
 They themselves guarded the hut, with guns 
 on their knees, to shoot any one who came along 
 who did not belong to them ; and they kept them- 
 selves awake by talking of what they hoped would 
 be done when they gained the ransom money. 
 
 There is an old saying that ' There's many a 
 slip 'twixt the cup and the lip/ and now we shall 
 see how David was rewarded for some past kind- 
 ness of his and his boy-friends to a young Arab 
 called Abdul. He was in the party the Sheik 
 had sent David with. He almost worshipped his 
 young Judean friends, and was determined to do 
 his very best to save David and yet be careful 
 not to betray his own people. So, after a little 
 thought, he returned quietly to the village and 
 got a spirited young pony and also a good strong 
 rope. He then came back near to the hut in 
 which David was lying, having first tied his pony 
 not far off to a young tree growing in the ruin 
 of what was supposed to be the tomb of some 
 holy man. 
 
 As it became lighter, he went up to the Arabs 
 who were guarding the hut, and taking out 
 some dates and bread that he had brought, he 
 offered to share his food with them. Knowing 
 he belonged to the village, they gladly accepted. 
 Then Abdul said : ' Let me guard the hut with 
 your gun, while you all have a sleep, and, if I hear 
 anyone coining, I will waken you/ The Arabs
 
 94 THE RESCUE 
 
 were very thankful for this chance of a little sleep, 
 for there might later in the day be an order sent 
 from the Sheik to travel further on. 
 
 When Abdul saw the Arabs were fast asleep, 
 he went into the hut, gently touched David, and 
 whispered that he meant to try and save him, 
 but, to do so, David must be very quiet and 
 cautious. We can imagine David's delight and 
 thankfulness when he recognised Abdul, and 
 eagerly listened to his plans. He first untied 
 the knots in the rope that bound his hands but 
 left the rope loosely on in case some of the Arabs 
 came in ; then he told him to continue lying 
 quietly all that day. When night came on again 
 and it was quite dark before the moon rose, he 
 was to get up very cautiously and go to the old 
 ruined tomb where Abdul had tied the pony. 
 He was to untie it and ride straight ahead, until 
 he came to the Ogei River, from where he could 
 easily find his way to the Colony. As soon as he 
 got near the Colony, he was to leave the pony 
 free, and it would return to the village fold, as it 
 was accustomed to do. After he had got home 
 safely, Abdul begged him not to mention to any- 
 one how he had helped him to escape, for, if he 
 did, the Arabs might hear of it, and would be so 
 furious that they would kill him. 
 
 No words can describe David's joy, for the 
 whole thing was so wonderful to him that it was
 
 THE RESCUE 95 
 
 difficult for him to believe that he could escape. 
 Every moment of that day seemed years to him, 
 and he thought the sun would never set. But 
 at last night came on, and some Arabs came in to 
 see how their prisoner was faring. Seeing him 
 lying quietly, they thought he was asleep and 
 went out quite contented, feeling the boy was safe. 
 
 At last the first glimmer of the moon appeared 
 and David knew that it was near midnight, so he 
 loosened the knots of the rope and slipped his 
 hands through then gently crawled out of the 
 hut. He could almost hear his heart beating 
 with the fear that he might disturb the sleeping 
 Arabs ; but the sand around kept his footsteps 
 from being heard, and, when he got a little way 
 off he began to race for his life, and did not stop 
 till he came to the ruined tomb. 
 
 There he found the pony, as Abdul had pro- 
 mised. He jumped onto its bare back and 
 galloped towards the river. When quite near, he 
 suddenly heard the noise of galloping horses. 
 ' Oh, my God, save me ! ' he quietly said to him- 
 self, for he felt the Arabs had found out that he 
 had escaped and were pursuing him. There was 
 nowhere for him to hide what was he to do ? 
 so near home and yet so helpless ! (he was only 
 about half-an-hour's walk from the edge of the 
 Colony). His faith, however, did not fail him, 
 and he kept a brave heart. Then suddenly he
 
 96 THE RESCUE 
 
 thought he would free the pony, so that the Arabs, 
 seeing it galloping homewards in the darkness of 
 the night (for luckily the moon was hidden by 
 the clouds), might think he was riding it and 
 try to recapture him. 
 
 He was right in his calculations, for no sooner 
 did they hear the pony galloping in a different 
 direction than they seemed to stop for a moment 
 as if to decide what to do, and then off they went 
 after it. Then he started at once to race home ; 
 on the way he met some of the rescue-party, and 
 great was their joy when his parents saw him alive. 
 
 The elders determined that no such risks should 
 be run again, and so they agreed that it would be 
 wise that all the boys over a certain age should 
 be taught how to handle and use a gun or a pistol ; 
 but only the most trustworthy and careful boys 
 were given them. The younger and more care- 
 less boys were never allowed to interfere with the 
 Arabs' cattle unless a boy with a gun or a pistol 
 was with them. 
 
 Like most lawless, ignorant people, the Arabs 
 after this had a wholesome dread of interfering 
 with the Judean boys, knowing they were well 
 able to defend themselves. Thus, through the 
 gratitude of an Arab boy for kindnesses received 
 by him in the past, David escaped the cunning old 
 Sheik and his tribe, who did not even gain the 
 money they had hoped to gain.
 
 THE EYE EPIDEMIC 
 
 G
 
 THE EYE EPIDEMIC 
 
 THERE was an epidemic of eye-disease in the 
 Colony, and in nearly every house one or two 
 of the family had bad eyes. Although the 
 attack did not often last more than a day or 
 two, it was always accompanied by great pain. 
 
 What troubled the boys most was that the 
 epidemic came just at a time when they might 
 enjoy themselves to their hearts' content. The 
 oranges and lemons were ripe, and what fun 
 it was shaking the trees and watching the beauti- 
 ful balls of golden fruit fall to the ground ! What 
 fun it was, too, when one of the boys got up on 
 a ladder to pick the fruit and some of the others 
 drew the ladder away and left him hanging to a 
 branch ! What shouts of laughter there would be ! 
 
 So thought Abraham, Joseph, Dan, and Alek 
 as they lay or sat in darkened rooms some of 
 them writhing in pain. Fortunate were those 
 who only had one eye bad. They used to help 
 the others who had both eyes bad, and often 
 visited them. 
 
 Alek, Dan, and Joseph were able to go to see 
 Abraham, who had both eyes very sore, so sore, 
 
 99 '
 
 100 THE EYE EPIDEMIC 
 
 that near his home they could hear him crying. 
 When they went in, they found him running up 
 and down the room, like a caged lion, owing to 
 the pain. 
 
 ' Don't cry/ said Joseph ; ' for if you do you 
 will only make the inflammation worse/ 
 
 ' Oh, you don't know how painful it is/ said 
 Abraham. 
 
 ' Don't I ? ' said Joseph ; ' both my eyes 
 yesterday were nearly as bad as yours, but my 
 mother put wet tea-leaves, tied up in a rag, on 
 my eyes, every half hour, and this, by degrees, 
 took the pain away/ 
 
 ' Mother ! mother ! Quick ! quick ! ' shouted 
 Abraham, on hearing this. His mother rushed 
 in, wondering what had happened. * Joseph 
 says his mother put wet tea-leaves on his eyes 
 and they took the pain away. Do put some on 
 mine/ 
 
 ' No need to shout so loud/ said his mother, 
 ' and frighten the life out of me, you young 
 scamp/ 
 
 Although she spoke sharply to her boy, she 
 went off quickly to get the tea-leaves, for she 
 knew from experience what the pain was. Then 
 she came back and made him lie down quietly, 
 and tied a poultice of wet tea-leaves over his 
 eyes ; and in a little while the pain was less. 
 
 But Abraham was not as grateful as he ought
 
 THE ORANGE STRUCK HIM, SPLASHING ALL OVER HIS BEARD 
 
 Child Life] 
 
 [Face P. 100
 
 THE EYE EPIDEMIC 101 
 
 to have been, and grumbled that he could not go 
 out with the others. 
 
 Dan said : * Have patience/ 
 
 ' Oh, it's all very well for you to talk of having 
 patience/ said Abraham. ' You have only one 
 eye bad just wait till you have two/ 
 
 A quarrel was just starting between the two 
 boys, for both were quick-tempered, when Chaini 
 the Dunce rushed in and told Abraham that the 
 doctor had just arrived, that he was going to 
 stay an hour in the Colony, and that if anyone 
 wanted to see him he must hurry up to the 
 dispensary at once. Now the doctor came only 
 once a week, and if they missed him they all 
 knew they must bear the pain for another week 
 unless Dame Nature stepped in, as she generally 
 did, and cured the patient by some very simple 
 means of her own. 
 
 Even for those who had only one eye bad the 
 walk to the dispensary was very painful owing 
 to the sunshine, which made them feel they must 
 keep both eyes shut while going. 
 
 ' What can we do ? * said Dan. 
 
 ' I have a plan/ said Chaim, who, though very 
 stupid when he first came to the Colony, was 
 growing quite sharp through contact with the 
 other boys. 
 
 ' Whatever can Chaim's plan be ? ' they all 
 exclaimed, with laughter.
 
 102 THE EYE EPIDEMIC 
 
 ' Why,' said Cliaim, ' each of you tie his hand- 
 kerchief to my belt and hold on to the other end, 
 and then we can all go together/ 
 
 ' Well thought/ said Joseph, teasingly ; ' only 
 Chaim can think of such plans/ 
 
 ' It is not so bad a plan as you think/ said 
 Abraham ; ' but I would say, let's take two 
 ropes and tie one end on to Chaim's waistbelt, 
 and we will each hold on to the rope, one after 
 the other, and let him lead us. I saw in a picture 
 once that thev do this when men are climbing 
 
 / 
 
 mountains.' 
 
 Chaim then ran into the barn and brought out 
 two ropes and did as Abraham had suggested ; 
 and some of the girls who had sore eyes joined, 
 too, in holding on to the ropes. As they walked 
 along, they found it was not quite so easy as they 
 at first thought, for one or two tripped over each 
 other ; then another in mischief would give a 
 sharp pull at the rope and make the others slip. 
 Some of the older ones, seeing them walk along, 
 cried out : ' Bravo Chaim, you are a fine leader. 
 A fool for once leading the wise. Never mind, 
 it's a very good thought, Chaim/ 
 
 At last they arrived at the dispensary ; the 
 doctor came out ; and, when he saw how they 
 had all come, he burst out laughing, and said : 
 ' Here, at least, it is not the blind leading the 
 blind. Clever boy, Chaim ; go along and bring
 
 THE EYE EPIDEMIC 103 
 
 all to me in the same way. It will save time, 
 for I am very busy to-day and shall have to 
 leave soon/ 
 
 Chaim was simply delighted that he thought 
 of this plan, and received such praise, and the 
 boys could not help being thankful to him for 
 his timely help ; for they wanted to get cured 
 quickly, so as to be able to go into the orchards 
 and pull and pack the oranges. Therefore they 
 willingly laid their heads on the doctor's knee, 
 while he pencilled the edges of their eyelids. 
 It was very painful and brought tears to their 
 eyes, but they did not mind, so long as they got 
 better. 
 
 Meanwhile Chaim brought another batch of 
 boys and girls, and then took back those that 
 the doctor had attended to. 
 
 In a few days they were all well enough to go 
 into the orchard, and the fun and the joy began. 
 When they came across ripe juicy oranges, they 
 put them by for Chaim, because they felt how 
 much they owed him for his thoughtfulness ; 
 and they decided, too, to be kinder to him in 
 future. 
 
 After the young people had picked the oranges 
 and taken them into the cellar, the packing was 
 started and they were allowed to help and 
 they just loved taking the golden fruit and care- 
 fully wrapping each orange in tissue paper
 
 104 THE EYE EPIDEMIC 
 
 before they were packed in cases to be sent 
 abroad, generally to Europe. Whenever they 
 came across an orange too ripe to be packed, 
 they were allowed to eat it, if their elders thought 
 it could be spared. 
 
 This was not enough for them, and they could 
 not resist teasing someone. So, when the elders 
 had left the cellar for a few minutes, they began 
 to play ball with the oranges, throwing them 
 at one another. Just as Dan was throwing a 
 soft orange at Abraham, a man happened to 
 come in, and, by mistake, it struck him, splash- 
 ing all over his beard. He looked so very funny 
 that all the boys began laughing and could not 
 stop. This made him very angry, and he asked 
 who had thrown the orange : when no one 
 answered, he grew still more angry. As a matter 
 of fact, only Joseph saw who had thrown it, 
 and he would not tell on Dan. 
 
 The man then thought they must all be in 
 the conspiracy against him ; so he did not say 
 much, but went out and broke a branch off a 
 tree near by and called to another man, telling him 
 how outrageously the boys had behaved to him. 
 
 He then locked the cellar door, and ordered 
 them to confess. As none of them did, he laid 
 them in turn across his knees, and gave each a 
 sound whipping. 
 
 Joseph bravely bore his whipping rather than
 
 THE EYE EPIDEMIC 105 
 
 tell on Dan, and even Dan told the boys, after 
 lie had had his whipping, that for the life of him 
 he could not say why he had not confessed 
 that he had thrown the orange ; and he added, 
 sorrowfully : ' You know that sometimes the 
 Evil Spirit, or Satan, gets hold of us, and takes 
 our will away, and prevents us doing what we 
 know is right/ 
 
 ' Yes, that is so/ said the others ; ' we feel 
 the same sometimes, too. In fact, it seems as 
 if Satan has been busy with us all, and prevent- 
 ing us from enjoying the orange season. First 
 with bad eyes ; and now Reb Shniuel will tell 
 everyone of our behaviour, and no one will let 
 us help them to pack oranges again/ 
 
 ' I don't care/ said Alek. ' Let's all come 
 into our orchard and shake down the fruit, for 
 there's plenty there yet/ 
 
 The parents meanwhile had heard of the 
 boys' behaviour, and things did not turn out 
 as they wanted during the rest of that orange 
 season, for each boy was kept in his own home 
 and made to do plenty of work in packing and 
 in other ways, without, any fun or play ; and 
 they sometimes felt so tired that they were 
 thankful, that season, to see the last of the 
 oranges, and felt they would never again care 
 either to gather them, or pack them, or even 
 to eat them.
 
 106 THE EYE EPIDEMIC 
 
 Boys' memories, however, are rather short, 
 and no doubt when the oranges were ripe the 
 next year, they were as eager about helping ; 
 but they had learnt a good lesson, and deter- 
 mined in the future to work steadily while at 
 work, and play well when at play, and not mix 
 the two up together.
 
 THE MELON
 
 THE MELON 
 
 THE boys had been very mischievous for some 
 time past, and had played so many pranks that 
 Reb Chaim declared : ' The next boys caught 
 in mischief will be whipped outside the syna- 
 gogue for all to see/ This was very sobering. 
 
 Abraham assembled his fellow-pupils on Sab- 
 bath afternoon, and said : ' Look here, boys, 
 we shall have to be careful, and for the next 
 few weeks keep very quiet and not be seen or 
 heard, till they forget how bad we were ; and 
 then we can begin again by degrees/ 
 
 ' But meantime/ said Moses, dolefully, ' what- 
 ever shall we do with ourselves out of Cheder ? ' 
 
 ' I wish/ said Joseph, ' we hadn't been quite 
 so bad. If we had been only a little bad, we 
 could have gone on much longer/ 
 
 ' Well/ said Abraham, ' we were very bad 
 indeed, and we must take the consequences. 
 But we shall find a way to have a little fun, all 
 the same. I will think of something before 
 next Sabbath. And meantime we must all be 
 as good as we know how/ 
 
 109
 
 110 THE MELON 
 
 The other boys had complete confidence in 
 Abraham. During that next week, whenever 
 they saw him staring fixedly at the teacher in 
 Cheder, or walking along by himself out-of-doors, 
 they whispered one to another : ' He is thinking 
 of something to do ! ' And they were quite sure 
 that he would find it ; nor were they mistaken. 
 
 Late next night, the great silver moon of 
 Palestine saw the figure of a little boy with a tin 
 can slip out of one of the houses and run lightly 
 into the gardens attached. ' The howling of 
 the wilderness ' was heard all round, for the 
 jackals and foxes were barking and whining on 
 the outskirts of the Colony ; but for what had 
 the boy brought the tin can, if not to beat on it 
 with a stick to frighten them off ? He beat his 
 can, and was answered from the distance by an 
 Arab watchman, who beat on his, and who 
 shouted to keep the foxes out of the vine-yards. 
 
 The boy ran through the garden till he came 
 to the melon-patch, where he went more slowly 
 and looking carefully about him. 
 
 The Arab boy, Achmet, who was supposed 
 to guard the melon-patch, lay fast asleep in the 
 moonlight with his can and his stick beside him. 
 The next minute, however, as luck would have 
 it, he opened his eyes, and, seeing the little 
 Jewish boy, made a bound forward and seized 
 hold of him.
 
 THE MELON 111 
 
 ' What are you doing here ? ' he asked. ' I'll 
 tell your father/ 
 
 ' It's no business of yours/ said Abraham, 
 for it was he ; ' let me go, Achmet it's my own 
 father's garden, and I can do as I please in it.' 
 
 ' You are up to some mischief,' persisted 
 Achmet, who knew Abraham well, keeping 
 hold of him with his strong hands. 
 
 ' Look here, Achmet,' said Abraham, ' if I 
 make you a nice present, will you help me to 
 do what I want ? ' 
 
 The idea of a present was very tempting to 
 Achmet, who was a boy himself, and very poor, 
 with next to nothing of his own. 
 
 ' What will you give me ? ' he asked, but 
 without letting Abraham go ; and then he 
 caught sight of a pocket-knife in his captive's 
 hand, and said : ' If you give me that knife, 
 I'll do it,' 
 
 ' I'll buy you one like it next time father takes 
 me to Jaffa,' said Abraham, to whom it seemed 
 easier to part with his pocket-money than with 
 his knife, which he loved. 
 
 1 No,' said Achmet, ' I want the knife in your 
 hand. Give it me now and I will help you.' 
 
 ' And you won't tell ? ' 
 
 ' I won't tell.' 
 
 Abraham gave a sigh : ' Well, take the knife ; 
 here it is and now, listen , , . '
 
 112 THE MELON 
 
 Next morning, Sabbath, when the boys saw 
 Abraham in Shul, they knew by his face that 
 all was well : he had found something to do, 
 and, no doubt, for that very afternoon. Abra- 
 ham's fair little face was always lovely, but, 
 when he had some mischief in hand, it was like 
 an angel's, because he felt so happy. Strangers 
 were taken in by it without Abraham having 
 any wish to deceive them, but his father felt a 
 bit suspicious that Sabbath morning, and kept 
 him closely to his prayer-book, signing to the 
 other boys to stand away. 
 
 As they left the synagogue, however, Abraham 
 whispered to one of them : ' At the haystack 
 after dinner/ The word went round in no time, 
 and that afternoon, when parents were reading 
 and dozing, and big sisters sitting together in 
 the garden, the boys crept out, one by one, and 
 made their way separately to the haystack in 
 question. 
 
 In the stack was a sort of hollow, from which 
 hay had been taken out, and in the cave sat 
 Abraham waiting for the boys. 
 
 ' Well, well ? ' asked the boys, impatiently ; 
 ' what is it ? ' 
 
 ' Two of you help me/ said Abraham, ' to 
 pull out this sack/ 
 
 A sack, with a great round thing inside, was 
 dragged from under the haystack and opened,
 
 THE MELON 113 
 
 and, behold ! there appeared a gigantic green 
 melon of the very finest quality. The boys 
 shouted with glee. 
 
 ' From my father's garden/ explained Abraham, 
 ' but it cost me dear ' ; and he told them of his 
 night's adventure, as we already know it, and how 
 Achmet had helped him to select the melon and 
 to hide it under the hay. ' And now, who has a 
 knife to cut it up ? ' 
 
 No one had a knife, so a boy was despatched 
 home to get one. He took every precaution 
 not to be seen, but someone spied him running 
 away again towards the hay-stack, and just as 
 a few slices had been cut out of the melon, which 
 was of a most lovely pink inside and full of juice, 
 there was a rustle, and a head looked in at the 
 cave's entrance. Horror ! It was a girl. 
 
 ' What are you up to ? ' she said. ' I shall 
 tell father/ Two or three pairs of hands caught 
 hold of her skirt. 
 
 ' No you won't ! ' cried the boys ; ' you 
 daren't ! ' 
 
 ' Dare I not ? What can you do to me ? ' 
 
 The boys felt there were fifty things they 
 could do to her, but at that moment they could 
 not think of one. 
 
 1 Leah,' they begged, ( don't tell ! Sit down 
 and you shall have a share of the melon.' 
 
 ' Give me the heart,' said Leah, ' and I won't 
 
 H
 
 114 THE MELON 
 
 teH/ Now the heart of a melon is the sweetest, 
 the softest, and the juiciest part. The boys 
 were very angry. 
 
 ' Greedy thing ! ' they said ; ' who ever heard 
 the like ? Only a girl would be so mean/ 
 
 ' You can choose/ said Leah. ' Either I have 
 the heart, or I tell/ 
 
 What could they do ? They gave her the 
 heart, and she ate it and went away. The boys 
 were very vexed, but the melon was delicious 
 all the same, and they felt at first as if they 
 could go on eating it for ever. Presently, how- 
 ever, a boy was asked if he would have another 
 slice, and he said : ' No more for me, thank you/ 
 
 Then Abraham remarked : ' We must eat it 
 all, because it will be as much as we can manage 
 to keep the rind out of the way till Sabbath is 
 over, when we can bury it/ 
 
 So they kept on at it, eating more slowly, and 
 some of them getting a little pale, till it was 
 at last finished. Then they tried to get up to 
 go home, but they could not rise still less walk. 
 
 ' We will stay here a little longer/ they said, 
 ' and we shall be all right presently/ 
 
 But in a short time they began to feel pains 
 inside them, and these got worse, till they rolled 
 about and moaned aloud. 
 
 They would have liked to put all the blame on 
 Abraham, but poor Abraham was just as ill as
 
 THE MELON 115 
 
 they were, and besides they had all been quite 
 ready to praise him and to eat the melon which 
 he had provided for them, and for which he 
 had sacrificed his precious knife, so how could 
 they now turn against him, and call him names ? 
 As they had enjoyed themselves together, so 
 they must now suffer together, and even if they 
 felt very ill, and as if they could never look at a 
 melon again their life long, at least their good 
 fellowship would be unbroken, and they would 
 not have to think as meanly of themselves as 
 they thought of Leah.
 
 THE FIGS
 
 THE FIGS 
 
 IT was a half-holiday, and the boys were wonder- 
 ing how best to spend it. There was plenty of 
 work for them to do in the fields, but, as they 
 had already been asked to do it, it had no attrac- 
 tion for them, so they had to think of something 
 else. 
 
 Ever since they started going to school, they 
 had tried to behave better and to give less trouble 
 ' For we go to school/ said Abraham, ' to 
 improve ourselves, and so we should not behave 
 like the Arabs.' The only thing they allowed 
 themselves now, except when their spirits got the 
 upper hand of their good resolves, was to tease 
 the girls. Indeed, if anything, they teased them 
 more than ever, partly because the girls, to whom 
 study was a newer and more delightful thing 
 than to the boys and who consequently made 
 more rapid progress, used to show off before them, 
 talking in Hebrew and French, and making fun of 
 their brothers \vhen the latter could not under- 
 stand them. 
 
 This made the boys very wild, and, as they 
 could not fight the girls, they played tricks on 
 them whenever they got a chance. 
 
 119
 
 120 THE FIGS 
 
 They were still devising what to do with them- 
 selves that afternoon, when Abraham's mother 
 called him into the house, for the boys were sitting 
 not far away in the shade of the barn ; and in a 
 few minutes he came rushing back, saying : 
 ' Boys, we shall have a jolly day ! Mother has 
 just told me to go with Leah to the Arab village 
 to buy some eggs and fowls, and, as Leah is 
 inviting the other girls, it will be splendid, for we 
 shall have them quite in our power/ 
 
 ' We ? ' asked the others ; ' are all of us to go 
 with you ? ' 
 
 ' Of course/ said Abraham. ' But you must 
 go up the road, past the vineyards, and then sit 
 down quietly till you see me and the girls coming. 
 If they see us all starting off together, they will 
 think we are up to some mischief and refuse to 
 come/ 
 
 In about ten minutes' time the girls set off, six 
 of them, riding two-by-two on a donkey, Abra- 
 ham and another boy with them on foot. Pre- 
 sently they came upon the other boys lolling on 
 the grass. 
 
 ' Come along with us, boys/ called the girls ; 
 ' we are going to the Arab village to buy eggs/ 
 
 ' Come along ! ' echoed Abraham ; ' what are 
 you lazy things doing there, on such a fine day ? ' 
 
 The boys nudged each other, got up, and 
 joined the party, walking along quietly, and only
 
 THE FIGS 121 
 
 calling out now and again to an Arab at work in 
 the fields, for nearly all the peasants round about 
 were known to them and were quite friendly. 
 
 When they had reached the village, and while 
 their sisters were buying the fowls, eggs, and 
 cheese for their mothers, the boys foregathered 
 with the young Arabs, and practised shooting 
 with a bow-and-arrow and riding on goats, 
 which is a very difficult art indeed, because a 
 goat's back is very narrow, and he is very slip- 
 pery, and very sudden in his movements but 
 it can be done. Presently all too soon ! the 
 girls re-appeared with laden baskets, and were 
 helped onto the donkeys to ride home. Of the 
 two girls on the first donkey, one held the reins 
 and the other a basket of eggs. The second pair 
 of girls had the fowls with their legs tied together, 
 while the two girls on the third donkey had 
 another basket of eggs and one of ripe green and 
 purple figs fresh from the tree. The boys had by 
 now forgotten about paying off the girls ; but, 
 at the sight of these delicious figs, they suddenly 
 felt very thirsty and asked to have some. 
 
 The girls told them that they must wait till 
 they got home and then ask their mothers. This 
 put up the boys' temper, and one of them gave 
 the fig donkey a slash with a twig he had in his 
 hand. 
 
 The donkey started to trot, and the girls began
 
 122 THE [FIGS 
 
 to cry out and scold, for the next minute the two 
 other donkeys began trotting too, and the girls 
 could not stop them, because their hands were 
 taken up, all but one pair, with the baskets and 
 the live fowls. Besides, you can no more stop a 
 donkey that is determined to trot than you can 
 make him trot, when he is resolved to walk. The 
 boys got excited, ran after the donkeys laughing, 
 and the boy with the twig went on hitting the 
 third donkey, till at last the donkey kicked and 
 threw both the girls and the baskets into the 
 road, which was happily sandy and soft. The 
 first minute the boys were frightened, but, as soon 
 as they saw the girls were not hurt and only 
 messed all over with the smashed eggs, they 
 laughed more than ever and made a dash for the 
 figs, which had rolled out of the basket, each 
 boy securing at least one. The girls picked 
 themselves up and, being full of sense, told one 
 another, that it was no use grumbling or crying, 
 they must just lead the donkeys home with what 
 was left, adding in a whisper : ' We will say 
 nothing much at home, but to-morrow we will all 
 go and tell the master, because the boys will mind 
 that more than they would anything else. If 
 we all go, it won't be so much like telling tales, 
 besides which, we won't mention any boy by 
 name, and we will ask the master to speak to the 
 whole class, without trying to find out who
 
 THE tfIGS 123 
 
 began it ; they were really one as bad as another/ 
 
 While the girls whispered together, the boys 
 secretly untied the legs of the fowls, and then 
 called out : ' Look, look, your fowls are running 
 away ! ' 
 
 The girls started off in pursuit, and then Abra- 
 ham said : ' Boys, we must help to catch them, 
 for if they get into the wheat we shall never find 
 them again, and I don't want my mother to have 
 the loss/ 
 
 So the girls never knew till long after how the 
 fowls got loose, for, when they saw the boys 
 helping to catch them, they concluded that the 
 peasant woman had tied them up badly. 
 
 After that they set off again for home, but the 
 boys disappeared before they got to the houses, 
 and only turned up at nightfall, when they hoped 
 their parents would be too tired to take them in 
 hand. And not only were they not whipped, but 
 their parents never said a word about it, not even 
 next morning. The fact was, the girls had taken 
 their mothers into their confidence and said : 
 ' We don't want to see the boys beaten, but we 
 do think they should have a severe lesson, and 
 we will see they get it leave it to us ! ' 
 
 The boys began to feel a bit uncomfortable. 
 How could the whole thing have blown over so 
 quickly ? Why had the girls apparently not 
 said how it was the eggs were broken, and why
 
 124 THE FIGS 
 
 the fig basket was all but empty, when so many 
 figs had been paid for ? But there was not much 
 time for puzzling the bell rang and all set off 
 for the school. 
 
 Here the mystery was solved. When the 
 pupils had taken their seats, the master stood 
 up with a note in his hand and a graver face than 
 he had ever shewn before. It was not merely 
 grave, it was dark with sadness and displeasure. 
 
 ' Boys/ he said, ' I have here a note which tells 
 me what I had never expected to hear. I will 
 mention no names, and indeed no names have 
 been mentioned to me, but I know that I have 
 before me a number of Jewish boys, children of 
 our Colony of Petach Tikvah, who have been 
 guilty of three grave sins : Unkindness to their 
 sisters, cruelty to animals, and the destruction 
 of the property of others. What is to be the 
 future of our Colony, what is to be the future of 
 our Country, if the children to whom we entrust 
 it disobey the Mosaic law and the teachings of 
 our sages ? :f Thou shalt love thy neighbour as 
 thyself," said the Torah. " Let the honour of 
 thy neighbour be as dear to thee as thine own/* 
 say the Kabbis. Which of these two precepts 
 were you Judean boys thinking of yesterday ? 
 Which of the two were you trying to obey ? ' 
 
 Here the teacher paused and looked steadily 
 at the boys, who all hung their heads and blushed.
 
 THE FIGS 125 
 
 The teacher went on in the same tone, speaking 
 slowly and keeping his gaze fixed on the boys : 
 ' Your neighbour's honour was not very dear to 
 you, when you sent your sisters home in the state 
 in which I saw them, as it happened, from my 
 window, without knowing the reason. That was 
 not the sort of home-coming to which they had 
 looked forward, when they started so happily 
 in the afternoon/ 
 
 Here the master accidentally, perhaps, looked 
 at Abraham, who went all colours. ' And you 
 were cruel to the donkey, which you hit until it 
 kicked and upset the girls. The Mosaic law 
 teaches kindness to the animals who serve us : 
 they are to rest on the Sabbath together with us, 
 the ox is not to be muzzled while threshing, but 
 to have a mouthful of corn now and again. And 
 in the Talmud we are told that a man should feed 
 his animals before he sits down to his own supper. 
 Was not the angel angry with Balaam for beating 
 his ass ? And what do we find in Proverbs ? 
 Are we not told that the good man is kind to his 
 beast, but the wicked is cruel ? Have you not 
 been told of the Eabbi who was struck blind for 
 not protecting the hunted fawn that leapt to him 
 for protection, and only cured of his blindness by 
 saving a calf from the butcher's knife ? Should 
 not a Jewish child, therefore, be kind to all God's 
 creatures can he say he has never been taught ?
 
 126 THE FIGS 
 
 And what about those broken eggs ? Were they 
 yours to break ? And even had they been, have 
 you, has any of us, the right to waste what is 
 given us for food ? As it was, they belonged 
 to someone else.' 
 
 The master stopped, and still the class sat 
 silent with downcast looks. Then one, two, 
 three, four, five boys, Abraham and Moses among 
 them, got up and went straight to their master. 
 
 ' Master/ they said, ' we see now that we acted 
 very wrongly. We did not mean any harm ; we 
 just wanted to have a bit of fun, only we never 
 seem to know when to stop till the harm is done. 
 What are we to do now ? ' 
 
 ' What would have been done in Moses' 
 day ? ' asked the teacher. 
 
 ' If anyone stole or caused a loss/ said Abra- 
 ham, ' he had to pay to make up for it. So I will 
 give all I have saved to pay for the eggs and the 
 figs/ 
 
 * Oh, the figs too ? ' asked the teacher. 
 
 ' Why, yes/ said Abraham, ' that was what 
 made us so cross ; we were so thirsty and they 
 would not give us a taste of the figs/ 
 
 ' I know/ said the teacher ; ' then did you all 
 scramble for the figs while the girls were picking 
 themselves up ? ' 
 
 The boys blushed again, but they said : ' We 
 will all give our savings, and we will ask the girls'
 
 THE FIGS 127 
 
 forgiveness, and promise not to torment them 
 again, and we will never ill-treat an animal ; and, 
 if we see anyone else doing so, we will stop them/ 
 The master then shook hands with all the five, 
 and said : ' That is right ; I know now that you 
 five were the ringleaders, but I know also that 
 you are not afraid to own up, and that you are 
 ready to make reparation and a good resolve for 
 the future. I feel much happier again, and so, 
 I am sure, do you. God alone can see " the end 
 of a thing in its beginning/' but you may always 
 be quite sure that, if the beginning of a " bit of 
 fun " is bad, so will the end of it be too. And now 
 to lessons ! * 
 
 PRINTED AT THE DtyoNSHiRp PRESS, TORQUAY, ENGLAND.
 
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