For the Temple | Page 3

it without bruising them. But, long ere the
basket was filled she would tire of the work and, setting it on the
ground, run back into the house.
"And so you think you are helping, Mary," John said, laughing, when
the girl returned for the fourth time, with an empty basket.
"Helping, John! Of course I am--ever so much. Helping you, and
helping them at the house, and carrying empty baskets. I consider
myself the most active of the party."

"Active, certainly, Mary! but if you do not help them, in stringing and
hanging the figs, more than you help me, I think you might as well
leave it alone."
"Fie, John! That is most ungrateful, after my standing here like a statue,
with the basket on my head, ready for you to lay the figs in."
"That is all very fine!" John laughed; "but before the basket is half full,
away you go; and I have to get down the ladder, and bring up the
basket and fix it firmly, and that without shaking the figs; whereas, had
you left it alone, altogether, I could have brought up the empty basket
and fixed it close by my hand, without any trouble at all."
"You are an ungrateful boy, and you know how bad it is to be
ungrateful! And after my making myself so hot, too!" Miriam said.
"My face is as red as fire, and that is all the thanks I get. Very well,
then, I shall go into the house, and leave you to your own bad
reflections."
"You need not do that, Mary. You can sit down in the shade there, and
watch us at work; and eat figs, and get yourself cool, all at the same
time. The sun will be down in another half hour, and then I shall be free
to amuse you."
"Amuse me, indeed!" the girl said indignantly, as she sat down on the
bank to which John had pointed. "You mean that I shall amuse you;
that is what it generally comes to. If it wasn't for me I am sure, very
often, there would not be a word said when we are out together."
"Perhaps that is true," John agreed; "but you see, there is so much to
think about."
"And so you choose the time when you are with me to think! Thank
you, John! You had better think, at present," and, rising from the seat
she had just taken, she walked back to the house again, regardless of
John's explanations and shouts.
Old Isaac chuckled, on his tree close by.

"They are ever too sharp for us, in words, John. The damsel is younger
than you, by full two years; and yet she can always put you in the
wrong, with her tongue."
"She puts meanings to my words which I never thought of," John said,
"and is angered, or pretends to be--for I never know which it is--at
things which she has coined out of her own mind, for they had no place
in mine."
"Boys' wits are always slower than girls'," the old man said. "A girl has
more fancy, in her little finger, than a boy in his whole body. Your
cousin laughs at you, because she sees that you take it all seriously; and
wonders, in her mind, how it is her thoughts run ahead of yours. But I
love the damsel, and so do all in the house for, if she be a little
wayward at times, she is bright and loving, and has cheered the house
since she came here.
"Your father is not a man of many words; and Martha, as becomes her
age, is staid and quiet, though she is no enemy of mirth and
cheerfulness; but the loss of all her children, save you, has saddened
her, and I think she must often have pined that she had not a girl; and
she has brightened much since the damsel came here, three years ago.
"But the sun is sinking, and my basket is full. There will be enough for
the maids to go on with, in the morning, until we can supply them with
more."
John's basket was not full, but he was well content to stop and,
descending their ladders, the three returned to the house.
Simon of Gadez--for that was the name of his farm, and the little
fishing village close by, on the shore--was a prosperous and well-to-do
man. His land, like that of all around him, had come down from father
to son, through long generations; for the law by which all mortgages
were cleared off, every seven years, prevented those who might be
disposed to idleness and extravagance from ruining themselves, and
their children. Every man dwelt upon the land which, as eldest son, he