As they wound slowly down the steep, stony road to the
plain of Esdraelon the Boy ran ahead, making short cuts, turning
aside to find a partridge's nest among the bushes, jumping from
rock to rock like a young gazelle, or poising on the edge of some
cliff in sheer delight of his own sure-footedness.
His body was outlined against the sky; his blue eyes (like those
of his mother, who was a maid of Bethlehem) sparkled with the joy
of living; his long hair was lifted and tossed by the wind of April.
But his mother's look followed him anxiously, and her heart often
leaped in her throat.
"My son," she said, as they took their noon-meal in the valley at
the foot of dark Mount Gilboa, "you must be more careful. Your
feet might slip."
"Mother," answered the Boy, "I am truly very careful. I always
put my feet in the places that God has made for them--on the big,
strong rocks that will not roll. It is only because I am so happy
that you think I am careless."
The tents were pitched, the first night, under the walls of Bethshan,
a fortified city of the Romans.
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