IN THE DARK
"Mother, is it sunrise yet?"
"No, Naomi, it but nears the end of the Third Watch."
"Mother, does the lamp still burn?"
"Yes, child, as always, on the table. Lie still, Naomi, and try to
sleep. Thou hast a journey before thee to-day."
"Aye," said the little girl, turning restlessly on her quilt. "I know,
to the Pool of Bethesda. Perhaps I shall come home with opened eyes,
Mother. Perhaps I shall see when I come home to-day. Dost thou believe
that the Angel of the Pool will open mine eyes?"
"Yea, child, I do believe," answered her mother earnestly. "Thou shalt
see again. I hope it with all my heart."
"And then I shall help thee once more about the house," said Naomi
hopefully, "and learn my lesson every day, and care for baby Jonas when
thou art busy. Then I shall run and wait upon my father as of old, and
he will place his hand upon my head and say, 'Naomi, thou art as quick
and light upon thy feet as a young hart or doe.' That he cannot say now
and speak the truth. But this very day it may be I shall have my sight
again."
And with this hope to comfort her, Naomi lay quietly down upon her bed
and let her thoughts go back to her last trip to Jerusalem and its sad
homecoming.
She remembered the long ride in the jolting bullock cart, which Jacob
guided as carefully as he knew how in order to spare Naomi's aching head
and throbbing eyeballs.
For the night's rest had not cured Naomi. She had awakened with swollen
eyelids that were so heavy she could not hold them up, and sharp little
stabs of pain had caused her to moan and twist in the arms of kind Aunt
Miriam who held her tenderly on the long homeward ride.
Then came days and nights of pain, and a visit from one of the great
doctors of Palestine who ordered poultices of earth mixed with the
saliva of one who had been long fasting. And when Naomi could no longer
bear the heavy weight of this remedy upon her tortured eyes, he kindly
changed the poultice to one of owl's brains, as being not only more
comfortable but a trifle quicker in its action.
At last the day arrived when Naomi was free from pain, but when also,
alas! as she raised her head weakly and looked about, she did not see
the familiar room with its carved chest and gay cushions and little
table pushed against the wall, she did not see the loving anxious faces
of her father and mother and Ezra, but only a black curtain dotted with
blacker stars that danced and winked and danced again.
"I cannot see thee! Where art thou, Mother? Is it night? How black it
is! Oh, am I blind?"
And Naomi clung fast to her father and mother as if they must save her
from this dreadful fate.
"Blind!" thought her mother, remembering with a shudder the numberless
figures that stretched pitiful hands by the Bethlehem roadside. "My
little Naomi, blind?"
"An amulet will cure her," said worried Samuel stoutly. "Be not
downhearted, my little maid. Thy father will buy for thee an amulet that
will open those brown eyes of thine wider than ever before."
So Naomi wore about her neck for weeks a small three-cornered bag, in
which was sewn a scrap of parchment taken from a religious book, written
after certain rules and with a diagram so mysterious that not even
Samuel could understand it.
And how were the contents of this little three-cornered bag to restore
Naomi's eyesight? Why, by charming away the wicked spirit who had cast
an evil eye upon her. Or perhaps Naomi had chanced to rub her eyes upon
waking before she had washed her hands. Being unclean, the devil present
had slipped from her fingers into her eyes, and now must be charmed out
again by the holy words about her neck.
Not a thought that Naomi, daily handling sick little Three Legs, might
have caught the malady that first darkened the vision of the poor little
animal, and then caused the frail life to flicker out altogether.
Naomi missed her pet sorely, but its death was only one more grief added
to the burden that overshadowed all her days.
She could no longer play in the garden. Her well, begun so happily, was
neglected, though not forgotten, and little Jonas was the leader now,
guiding her faltering steps with such good-will that Naomi forgave him
when he led her straight into the orange-tree or neglected to warn her
that the myrtle bush was in her path.
Her friends Rachel and Rebekah had deserted her, for at the first
mention of the evil eye they had looked askance, and now they never came
to play nor to entertain her with their talk.
Little lame Enoch proved a faithful friend, and Naomi felt comfortable
with him as a playmate, for he, too, suffered from a handicap and yet
was cheerful and gay notwithstanding. He knew a host of stories told him
by his old grandmother, and the long hours slipped away quickly while
their little tongues chattered, though their hands and feet were
pathetically still.
But of all the comfort Naomi knew, apart from the love of her father and
mother, the companionship of Ezra was the greatest. He amused her, he
waited upon her, he revived her drooping spirits with his own high hopes
and plans for her.
"Thou shalt see again, Naomi," he would declare confidently. "All the
cures have not been tried yet. Thou art _not_ like the beggars by the
roadside. Say not that again, or I will dip thee some day in the well
behind the myrtle bush that thou wilt be digging ere long. Most of the
wayside beggars are old men with not an eyeball left, whilst thou,
Naomi, art young, and thine eyes from without look as clear and strong
as mine. Wait until my father has taken thee to the Pool of Bethesda!
Have patience, Naomi! Thou shalt see again!"
The Bethesda Pool lay in Jerusalem on the Temple mount, a stone's throw
from the Sheep Gate of the Court of the Gentiles, where Naomi had
lingered before the sheep-pens on the afternoon that now seemed so far
away.
Perhaps in these days we should say that the great pool contained a
mineral spring, but in Naomi's time it was not doubted that an angel had
wrought the cures that were told far and wide of this "well of healing."
About it were always clustered the sick, the lame, the halt, and the
blind, in the belief that when the angel troubled the waters the first
to dip himself therein would be healed.
So Samuel the weaver purposed to take Naomi thither, and, even while
the little girl lay thinking long, long thoughts and wishing for
daybreak, the moments slipped by, the Fourth Watch or Morning came, and
Naomi's mother rose to prepare the meal so the travelers might have an
early start.
A stout little donkey, borrowed from the khan stable, carried Naomi and
her father briskly over the familiar Jerusalem highway. The little girl
remembered how happy she had been on her journey with Aunt Miriam and
how all the world had seemed gay that morning. Then she recalled the
"tap, tap, tap" of the blind men on the road, and she hid her face in
her father's cloak and trembled.
"O that the Angel of the Pool may open my eyes!" prayed Naomi. "O that
the Angel of the Pool may open my eyes!"
The Pool of Bethesda was a pretty spot. About it had been built five
porches, and in their shelter lay the sick and the withered, the lame
and the blind, waiting for a chance to push their way in the moment the
waters began to move.
When Naomi and her father arrived, the pool lay still in the sunlight,
so Samuel established himself close to the edge with his arm about
Naomi, and fell into conversation with a professional letter-writer who
sat, bearded and grave, with ink-horn fastened at his side.
"Thy little maid has felt the hand of the Lord?" queried the
letter-writer, looking compassionately at Naomi who stood picking with
nervous fingers at her father's sleeve.
Samuel nodded sadly. In a few words he told the story of Naomi's
trouble.
"She is indeed grievously afflicted," observed the letter-writer,
shaking his gray head and uttering a sigh. "And my friend here, whom I
come to lift into the pool, has lain helpless upon his bed for eight and
twenty years. O that the Messiah would come! 'Then the eyes of the blind
shall be opened and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall
the lame man leap as a hart and the tongue of the dumb shall sing.'"
"Think you the Messiah will come shortly?" inquired Samuel.
This was a burning question of the day. The desire for the coming of the
Kingdom of God was a flame that was consuming the Jewish nation.
The letter-writer tapped his forehead thoughtfully with a brown
forefinger.
"Thou knowest the saying of the Pharisees, that if all Israel could keep
the Law perfectly for a single day, Messiah would come. As for me, I
long with a mighty longing to see Israel restored, to be delivered from
our enemies, and to have our sins forgiven."
Naomi stirred restlessly. What did all this talk of a Messiah mean to
her? Well enough for the grown folk to look forward to the coming of a
Saviour. As for her, all she asked of all the world was that the Angel
of the Bethesda Pool might come with healing in his wings and lay his
cool fingers upon her closed eyes and open them again.
"Perhaps I shall see Mother's face to-night," she thought. "And Ezra
will be at the village gate waiting for me. He promised. And I am to
wave my girdle at the first turn in the road if my eyes are opened. O
Angel of the Pool, remember me, Naomi! Remember me here in the dark!"
Naomi's father, who had never taken his eyes from the pool, leaned
forward.
"It moves, Naomi," he whispered. "The Angel comes, although we see him
not. Be ready, for I must act quickly."
The surface of the pool began to heave and swell, and at the precise
moment that the water boiled up, Samuel bent over with Naomi in his arms
and dipped her head under the water once, twice, three times!
Dripping, sputtering, and crying, Naomi was placed upon her feet, while
her father endeavored to wipe away the water that ran down into her neck
and stained her little robe.
"Dost thou see, Naomi?" asked Samuel with a tremble in his voice. "Open
thine eyes and look! Dost thou see, my little pomegranate?"
If the Angel of the Pool failed them, where should he turn for help?
Naomi obediently opened her brown eyes and stared, sightless as ever,
into her father's face.
The Angel of the Pool had failed them!