“I wish that we’d a Tabernacle to make here,” exclaimed Lucius, whose
restless fingers again opened his dangerous plaything.
Mrs. Temple raised her hand to her brow: a thought had just occurred to
her mind. “We might possibly manage to make a model of the Tabernacle,”
she said, after a moment’s reflection.
“Ah, yes! I’d do all the carving part—all the hard part,” cried Lucius,
eagerly.
“Do, do let us make a model!” exclaimed his sisters.
“It would be a long work—a difficult work; I am not sure whether we
could succeed in accomplishing it,” said Mrs. Temple. “And after all
our labor, if we did manage to make a fair model, to what use could we
put it? We had better consider all these matters before we begin what
must be a tedious and might prove an unprofitable work.”
“Ah, a model would be of great use, mamma!” cried Dora. “At
Christmas-time, when this tiresome infection is over, and we go to our
aunt at Chester, we could show it to all her friends.”
“And to her school children—her Ragged-school children!” interrupted
Lucius with animation. “We’ve let them see our magic-lantern for three
Christmases running, and if the children are not tired of the slides of
lions, bears, and peacocks, I’m sure that I am; besides, I smashed half
the slides by accident last winter. A model of the Tabernacle would be
something quite new to please the ragged scholars, and Aunt Theodora
would draw so many good lessons from it.”
“And could we not do with the model what we did with the
magic-lantern,” suggested Dora, “make of it a little exhibition,
letting aunt’s friends come and see it for sixpenny tickets, and so
collect a little money to help on the Ragged-school?”
“That would be so nice!” cried Amy.
“That would be famous!” exclaimed little blue-eyed Elsie, clapping her
hands.
“Let’s set to work this minute!” said Lucius, and he rapped the table
with his knife.
Dora threw the doll’s apron into her work-box, eager to have some
employment more worthy of the clever fingers of a young lady of more
than eleven years of age.
Mrs. Temple smiled at the impetuosity of her children. “I must repeat,
let us consider first,” she observed. “Possibly not one amongst you has
any idea of the amount of labor and patience required to complete a
model of the Tabernacle which was made by the children of Israel.”
“Of course our Tabernacle would be much smaller than the real one was,”
remarked Dora.
“Supposing that we made it on the scale of one inch to two cubits, I
wonder what its length would be?” said Mrs. Temple. “Just bring me the
Bible. Lucius, I will turn over to the description of the Tabernacle,
which we will find in the Book of Exodus.”
“I do not know what a cubit is,” said Elsie, while her brother ran for
the Bible.
“Don’t you remember what mamma told us when we were reading about the
size of the Ark?” said Agnes. “A cubit is the length of a man’s arm
from the elbow to the end of his middle-finger, just about half of one
of our yards.”
“Eighteen inches, or, as some think twenty,” observed Mrs. Temple, as
she opened the Bible which Lucius had just placed on the table before
her.
“Let’s count a cubit as exactly half a yard, mamma,” said Lucius, “and
then one inch’s length in the model would go for a yard’s length in the
real Tabernacle. If we reckon thus, how long would our model need to
be?”
“The outer court of the Tabernacle was one hundred cubits long by fifty
broad,” replied Mrs. Temple; “that, in such a model as we propose
making, would be a length of four feet and two inches, by a breadth of
two feet and one inch.”
“Just large enough to stand comfortably on this side table!” cried
Lucius. “There will be room enough on this table, and I’ll clear it of
the books, work-box, and flower-jar in a twinkling.”
“Stop a minute, my boy!” laughed his mother, as Lucius appeared to
be on the point of sweeping everything off, including the green cloth
cover; “we have not even decided on whether this model should be made
at all; and if we do begin one, months may pass before we shall need
that table on which to set it up.”
“O, do, do let us make a model!” again the young Temples cried out.
“I’m ready to undertake every bit of the wood-work,” added Lucius,
impatient to use his sharp knife on better work than that of spoiling a
desk.
“First hear what you will have to undertake,” said his more cautious
and practical mother. “The mere outer court has sixty pillars.”
“Sixty pillars!” re-echoed the five.
“Besides four more pillars for the Tabernacle itself,” continued the
lady, “and forty-eight boards of wood, to be covered all over with
gold.”
“How large would each board have to be?” asked Lucius, more gravely.
“Each five inches long, and three quarters of an inch broad,” answered
his mother.
“And quite thin, I suppose,” said the young carpenter, looking
thoughtfully at the blade of his knife which was to accomplish such a
long, difficult piece of work.
“We could get gold-leaf for the gilding, mamma,” suggested the
intelligent Dora, “and pasteboard instead of wood; pasteboard would
look quite as neat, and need not to be cut up into boards.”
“Oh, it’s not the gilding, nor the cutting up the planks neither,
whether they be made of pasteboard or wood, that puzzles me!” cried her
brother; “but think of sixty-four pillars! How on earth could I cut out
so many slender little rods with my knife!”
“Thick wire might be used for the pillars just as well as pasteboard
for the planks,” said Agnes; “when covered with gold-leaf they would
look just the same as if”— The sentence was interrupted by another fit
of coughing; it was clear that poor Agnes was at present little fitted
to join in the conversation.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]