Two from Galilee by Marjorie Holmes Read Free Book Online

sights high. Now me, I wouldn't care to compete with either Reb Levi or Reb Saul in this matter. It would only mean further humiliation for this family and for you. Come on now, stop brooding and wasting your time." Playfully he jabbed the outraged flesh of his son. "You're a strapping youth and fair in the eyes of all the maids."
    "Yes, and estimable in the eyes of their parents," said his wife.
    "Choose someone else, it won't be hard," Jacob went on. "Take Leah, her cousin. She's been mooning after you. Just say the word and we'll ask."
    Joseph could bear it no longer. Blindly, scarcely knowing what he was doing, he had flung off his leather apron and run out into the streets . . . Abner. The thought of that cold
thin necked creature ever laying his skeletal hands on Mary filled Joseph with such revulsion that he almost retched. As for Cleophas. He caught up a rock and hurled it savagely over a precipice.
    The handsome face taunted him. The heavy-lidded eyes, the seductive, gaily jeering mouth. Again Joseph heard the remark that Cleophas had made about Mary one Sabbath on the way to the synagogue. It had set Joseph at his throat. One minute friends, the next murderous enemies, they had rolled in the dust, dressed though they were in their best garments, battering each other. Then, panting, both were on their feet. And Cleophas, with an expression more of surprise than anger, was staring at the blood that spurted from his splendid purpling nose.
    "Just look what you've done to my robe," he'd scolded, grinning. "Now I'll have to go home and change." He glanced about, alert for his reputation. "Fortunately nobody saw us. And for her sake I won't speak of this if you won't."
    "For her sake!" Joseph had cried, furious. "What of the vile thing you said about her?"
    "Oh, that. Come now, don't tell me you haven't thought of her that way yourself?" Suave even in his dishevelment, he had mopped his face with the skirt of his striped linen robe. "Or is it milk that flows in your veins instead of good red blood?" Cleophas laughed again richly, flinging out his hands—"Of which I seem to have no lack!"
    "What you lack is a decent tongue."
    "True, true," Cleophas admitted cheerfully. "My tongue has been colored, no doubt, by the talk I hear in the ports of Tyre and Sidon. But I assure you I meant no offense either to you or to our pure and beautiful Mary." He had even slapped a jaunty hand on Joseph's taut shoulder. "And now let's go before the gossips come along and ruin all of us."
    His rival's casualness only increased Joseph's indignation. From that day the mere thought of the merchant's son had been enough to make his fists clench. And now it was he, even he, his mother said, who was about to seek Mary's hand.
    In his frenzy Joseph had paced the fields and forests, scarcely knowing where he went. But in late afternoon, thirsty and spent, he had flung himself down under a terebinth tree and slept. And when he awoke it had been with a curious sense of release. The sun was setting, laying a banner of flaming orange across the sky. Overhead a hawk was lazily wheeling. He could smell the dry toasty wheat that rustled just beyond the fence, and the rich black earth beneath his head. He could hear the crunch and rattle of stones as farmers trudged the roads that led home, sickles over their shoulders. His tongue was dry, his bones stiff, but the feverish thirst with which he had dropped to the ground was gone. One hand over his eyes, he lay staring into the vast blueness, now turning to lavender, and considering his lot.
    His parents were right. He was in no position to compete with anyone. To press his cause would only result in failure and humiliation for his family, and distress to Mary's. For several years, in crisp, firm little ways, Hannah had been making her attitude plain. She never returned his mother's offerings in kind —cakes or flowers or wild honey. She managed to hasten her children off when they would have lingered to