The winter cold was almost gone. A chill lingered, and I didn't like it but I knew the warm air was coming soon.
Cleopas and Little Joses, his eldest, who was still small, and Little Justus, a little older and very clever, though he was Simon's younger son, did the plastering of the mikvah with the waterproof plaster that we knew how to mix up from what we could get from the villages here. And soon the pool was white and ready for water from the cistern. There was a tiny drain in the bottom of the mikvah through which some water would be passing out at all times, and this would make it living water which the Law required for purification.
"It's living water because of that tiny drain?" Little Salome asked. "That makes it like the stream?"
"Yes," said Cleopas, her father. "The water moves. It's living. Enough."
The afternoon we finished refilling the pool we all gathered around it. It was bright and clear but cold. In the light of the lamps, it looked very fine.
Joseph and I rebuilt the frames for all the vines against the house and along the front of the courtyard, handling the green vines as carefully as we could so as not to break them too much. Some were lost and it was bad, but most of the vines were saved, and we tied up the thick parts with new rope.
James had set to work repairing the benches, taking what was good of some and putting it with what was good of others, to make a few that were sound.
Neighbors came to talk at the courtyard wall, men of few words who were on their way to work in the fields, or women who could stay for a while, with their market baskets, mostly the friends of Old Sarah, but seldom women as old as she was, and other boys came to help. James soon had a friend named Levi, who was kin to us, son of our cousins who owned farmland and rich olive groves, and Little Salome, near the end of the first few days, had a flock of little girls her own age to bring into the house for whispering and squealing and gathering together.
The women had more work to do than they ever had in Alexandria where they could buy fresh bread and even pottage and vegetables every day. Here they were up early to bake the bread and no one brought the water here. They had to go to the spring outside the village and bring it back. And on top of that they were cleaning the upstairs rooms for which we had no use as yet, and scrubbing the benches as soon as James was finished with them, and mopping the courtyard, and sweeping the dirt floors inside.
The dirt floors were no different than those in Alexandria except that they were beaten harder and there wasn't so much dust. And the rugs here were much better, thicker and softer. When we lay down for the evening meal, with rugs and cushions, we felt good.
Finally, the Sabbath was upon us. It came so quick. But the women were ready, with all the food prepared ahead of time, and it was a feast of dried fish that had been plumped in wine and then roasted, together with dates, nuts I'd never tasted before, and fresh fruit from the farmland around us, as well as plenty of olives and other splendid things.
All this was set out, and then the Sabbath lamp was lighted to welcome the Sabbath into the house. This was the duty of my mother, and she spoke the prayer in a soft voice as she put the wick to the lamp.
We said our prayers of thanksgiving for our safe homecoming, and began our study, all together, singing, and talking and happy that it was our first Sabbath in our home.
I thought of what Joseph had said to Philo, as we studied. The Sabbath makes scholars of us all. It made philosophers of us all. I didn't know for sure what a philosopher was, but I'd heard the word before - and I connected it with scholars and those who studied the Law. The Teacher in Alexandria once said Philo was a philosopher. Yes.
And now we were all scholars and philosophers - in this big room, all dusted and clean, with everyone fresh from washing, going deep into the mikvah and putting on fresh clean clothes afterwards, all this before the sunset, and Joseph reading by the lamplight, and the smell of the pure beaten olive oil of the lamp so sweet.
Why, we even had scrolls, like Philo did, though not as many, no, not as many. But some, and how many I didn't know for sure, because they came from chests in the house for which Joseph and Old Sarah kept the keys.
And even some scrolls were hidden, buried down in the tunnel, to which we children hadn't been allowed yet to go. If the house should be raided by the bandits, if it should burn, and it made me shiver to think of it, these scrolls would be saved.
Understand, I wanted to see the tunnel! But the men said that the tunnel needed repairing and no little ones were to go down there.
Now, Joseph had taken out and laid down some scrolls before the Sabbath began. Some of these were very old and cracking at the edges. But all were good.
"And now, we don't read from the Greek anymore," Joseph said, looking all around him, taking us all in. "We read only the Hebrew here in the Holy Land, and do I have to tell anyone why?"
We all laughed.
"But what shall I do with the book we love so much, which is in the Greek?" He held up the scroll. We knew it was The Book of Jonah. We clapped, and begged for him to read it.
He laughed. He loved nothing better than to have us gathered around him to listen, and we hadn't had a chance for this for so long.
"Tell me what I should do," he said. "Read it to you in the Greek, or tell it to you in our tongue."
Again we clapped our hands, all of us so happy. We loved the way Joseph told the story of Jonah. And he had never really read it in the Greek without putting down the book and telling most of it because he loved it so much.
At once, he went into the story with spirit - the Lord called the Prophet Jonah, the Lord told him to preach to Nineveh, "that great city!" said Joseph, and we all said it with him. But what did Jonah do? He tried to run from the Lord. Can anyone run from the Lord?
Down to the sea, he went and onto a ship to a foreign land. But a great storm overtook the little vessel. And all the Gentiles prayed to their gods to save them, but on raged the rain and the thunder and the dark clouds.
Then came the storm at sea, and the men cast lots to see the one who was the cause of it and the lot fell on Jonah, and where was Jonah? Fast asleep in the bottom of the ship. " 'What are you doing, Stranger, snoring in the bottom of this ship?' " Joseph said as he put on the face of the angry Captain. We laughed and clapped as he went on.
"And what did Jonah? Why, he told them he feared the Lord God of All Creation, and that they should cast him into the sea because he had run from the Lord and the Lord was angry, but did they do it, no. They rowed hard to bring the ship to land and - ?"
We all cried, "The great storm went on."