“I WISH I had asked you last evening to tell us more about 'parched corn,' Aunt Edith," said May, as she shut the last of her lesson-books and carried her little stool to her favorite corner, beside her aunt's chair.
“It is not too late to ask now," said her aunt. "I fancy it is only green corn roasted whole, but I should like to see whether Dr. Thomson tells us anything about it, if you will fetch 'The Land and the Book,' Charley. I remember," she continued, as she turned over the leaves, "when your papa and I were much younger than you children are now, we tried to make some parched corn of our own by holding some ears of wheat, which we had gathered, over the flame of a candle. I cannot say that our experiment produced anything very palatable, only a few grains, black as soot, with no flavor but that of smoke, which we ate, trying to make believe we liked, them, but feeling very guilty all the time, for we knew we had no right to play with fire! Ah, here is something about corn; yes, parched corn. Now, Charley, will you read this aloud while I finish my work, and then we will have a talk about anything you like till bed-time.”
“Oh, thank you, Aunt Edith," said May. "We shall have more than an hour's talk. How glad I am we finished our lessons in good time!”
“Now let us hear what our book says; begin at page 648, Charley.”
Charley read: "'Harvest is the time for parched corn. It is made thus:-A quantity of the best ears, not too ripe, are plucked, with the stalks attached. These are tied into small parcels, a blazing fire is kindled with dry grass and thorn-bushes, and the corn-heads are held in it until the chaff is mostly burned off. The grain is thus sufficiently roasted to be eaten, and it is a favorite article all over the country. When traveling in harvest time my muleteers have very often thus prepared parched corn in the evenings after the tent has been pitched. Nor is the gathering of these green ears for parching ever regarded as stealing. After it has been roasted it is rubbed out in the hand, and eaten as there is occasion. This parched corn is often referred to in the Bible. So, also, I have often seen my muleteers, as we passed along the wheat-fields, pluck off ears, rub them in their hands, and, eat the grains, unroasted, just as the disciples are said to have done.”
“Fancy people eating parched corn now just as they did when Ruth was alive," said Charley, as he shut the book; "it is just as you said last night, Auntie-the customs in Palestine have not changed.”
“So the disciples were only doing what anyone might do if he were hungry, when they plucked the ears of corn, and ate them as they went through the fields," said May-"not stealing the corn. Well, roasting corn without even the trouble of grinding must be very convenient for people on a journey or living in tents, but I should not care for that kind of bread every day.”
“Aunt Edith," said Charley, "that must have been a strange kind of corn which Pharaoh saw in his dream-seven ears upon one stalk!”
“You must remember, Charley, that Egypt has always been a wonderfully rich corn country; even now, when the crops in Palestine are scanty, the people go to Egypt to buy corn, just as they did so long ago, when Jacob ‘heard that there was corn in Egypt,’ and said to his sons, ‘Go, buy us a little food.’ Travelers tell us that stalks of wheat, such as the king dreamed of, are still to be seen here and there.”
“How much I should like to see such a beautiful stalk," said May, "I should like," said her aunt, "to show you a curious drawing, copied from a picture found upon the tomb of one of the kings of Egypt. You see the men are reaping the corn with hooks not unlike those we use now. I have also seen a very interesting picture of a granary, which was probably just such a place as that in which Joseph stored the produce of the seven years of plenty.”
“I should like best of all to go to Egypt, and see those very old tombs with their pictures, for myself," said Charley. “Pictures always make things so plain; you can just fancy how they looked, no matter how long ago-but it is a very ugly picture, isn't it?”
“I fancy you would consider most of these very old pictures curious rather than pretty," said his aunt: "but I think," she continued, "May was going to tell us something.”
“I was only thinking that Joseph had a dream about corn, as well as Pharaoh," said May. "I suppose God must have sent him the dream, because it all came so true, and his brothers did bow down to him just as their sheaves had bowed to his, although they were so jealous and angry when he told what he had dreamed.”
“How little did his brethren think, as Joseph told them his dream, and thoughts of envy and hatred arose in their hearts, that the day would ever come when they should be so filled with the spirit of Cain, the first murderer, as to tear off his coat of many colors, and rid themselves of his presence-for the company of one who feared God was an unwelcome restraint upon them-by selling him as a slave. How carefully should we guard against the first jealous thought, dear children.”
“It must have seemed very hard to Joseph, after he had traveled so far and spent such a long time in looking for his brothers, that they should set upon him so before he had time to speak to them," said Charley. "Yes, indeed; but as we read the story, Charley, and notice his meek silence in the presence of those to whom he came with a message of love, yet who gave him only hatred in return, we are reminded of One greater than Joseph, of whom it is written, that He ‘came unto His own, and His own received Him not.’”
“You mean the Lord Jesus, I know," said May, "for He was ‘sold by those who should have loved Him.’ How very kind Joseph was to his brothers at last, when he said, ‘I am your brother whom you sold into Egypt. Do not be grieved or angry with yourselves, for it was not you that sent me here, but God’; and yet it must have made them, dreadfully sorry to be forgiven so.”
“Do you remember, May," said Charley, "that large picture we saw last year of Ruth gleaning among the corn? Papa said it was drawn on the spot, in a field near Bethlehem, and that there are beautiful corn fields there now, and the women and children still go gleaning after the reapers, or sit by the roadside beating out the grain from what they have gathered.”
“Bethlehem means ‘house of bread,’ Charley," said his aunt, "a name showing how fruitful the country where it is situated must have been in the earliest times, and full of significance to us, when we remember that He who said, ‘I am the bread of life,’ was born there.”
“Bethlehem is only six miles from Jerusalem. I remember the man who explained the Panorama said it was. We saw a very pretty Picture of it, Aunt Edith; the houses looked so white, with dark trees behind."
“Those dark trees were olives, May. Travelers tell us that Bethlehem is now a small town of one long street, situated amid groves of olive, fig, and vine, and in the valleys around the ridge on which it stands are-
“‘The harvest-fields of Bethlehem
So beauteous to behold.
The nodding ear and the rustling stem,
And the wavy sea of gold.’”
"It must have been very strange and lonely for Ruth, all by herself among the other gleaners," said May; "I am sure she must have been glad when Boaz came to see his corn fields, and she heard him speak so kindly to the men, and say, ‘The Lord be with you,’ and the reapers answer, ‘The Lord bless thee.’ See, I have found all about it in the second chapter of the Book of Ruth. Fancy one of the books of the Bible being called after a poor girl who came to glean! But where was the Land of Moab, Aunt Edith?”
“It lies along the eastern shore of the Dead Sea; it was once very fertile and populous-but very little is known of it now. The story of Ruth, the Moabite widow, who left her own country and came to put her trust under the wings of the God of Israel, is very beautiful; her simplicity and truthfulness of character, as well as her loving devotion to Naomi, may teach us many a useful lesson.”
“How pleased she must have been when she came back in the evening with such a load of barley. But, Aunt Edith, how much is an ephah, and how could she carry anything heavy in her veil?”
“An ephah contained a very large quantity of corn, May, but not too large to be carried in the piece of cotton cloth of which Ruth's veil was probably made. Dr. Thomson says he has seen the countrywomen carry home the corn they have gleaned in their veils.”
“How very interesting; I should like to go to Bethlehem!”
“Do you remember, May,” said Charley, "how much we read about Bethlehem in the time of David. It was when he was keeping his father's sheep there that he was sent to his brothers to the camp with the parched corn and the ten loaves, and saw the mighty giant come into the valley and cry, ‘Give me a man, that we may fight together?’”
“Dr. Thomson tells us," said their aunt, "that the valley of Elah, the scene of David's great victory, is now filled with fields of corn; and through the valley runs a torrent, the bed of which, when dry in summer, is seen to be covered with round pebbles-”
“Oh!" Aunt Edith, interrupted May, eagerly, "that must be the very brook out of which he chose the five smooth stones!”
“It is thought very likely that this stream, fringed with acacias, may be the same," said her aunt; "but Charley was just going to say something, I think.”
“I only wanted to ask you whether oxen are still used for threshing corn in Palestine?”
“The most common way of threshing is by means of a broad slab, on which the driver stands, while horses or oxen draw it over the threshing-floor; but in some places no machine of any kind is used,-the animals are merely driven or ridden round and round the threshingfloor until the grain is beaten out by the trampling of their feet. The command given long ago to the Jews not to muzzle the ox which trod out their corn is still obeyed, for travelers tell us they have seen the oxen munching the corn as they patiently walk round and round the floor. I will show you a picture of threshing as it is now done in India.”
“When the Israelites were in the Wilderness they had no trouble in sowing or reaping or threshing-they only just got up early and gathered the bread from heaven," said May.
“And when they came to Canaan they found the old corn of the land ready for them," said Charley.
“Aunt Edith," continued May, thoughtfully, "when Jesus told his disciples to say, ‘Give us this day our daily bread,’ He knew it was what they wanted more than anything else; we can do without ever so many things, but not without bread. Do you know, I saw a poor woman the other day, who said when she got up in the morning she cried because she knew she had not a bit of bread to give her children? Mamma gave her half-a-crown to go and buy some. I thought if the Lord Jesus had been here He might have made some bread for that poor woman.”
“Perhaps he put it into mother's heart to help her, May.”
“I think Charley is right," said their aunt. "There is just time," she continued, "for me to tell you of a poor man who once lived in England, but afterward went far away as a missionary. He used to tell the story himself, and I will give it in his own words. ‘We were very, very poor,’ he said, ‘and one winter's morning there was only a piece of bread as large as my hand to be divided between us all-and there were nine of us, with the baby. Well, I looked round, and it seemed as if there was nothing that could be sold, so I just knelt down and asked God to make that piece of bread enough for us all.”
“Oh, Aunt Edith, did the poor man expect to see the bit of bread grow larger?”
“Listen, May, and I will tell you: ‘I did not expect,’ he said, in telling the story, ‘that any change would come over the bread, but I did expect that it would be enough for us, for I had asked God to make it enough. Then I divided the bread, and God did make it enough. We were all satisfied, and felt no more hunger.’”
“I think that is a beautiful story," said May; "as beautiful as the story of Elijah and the ravens. But I hope that poor man soon got some work so that he might earn bread for his children.”
“I cannot tell you more of his history to night," said Aunt Edith, "for we have already talked too long; your eyes tell me a tale, my little maid; we must say good-night at once, or you will be late to-morrow morning, and then what will papa say?”