Page:Domestic Life in Palestine.pdf/72

Rh and then said, "Good-bye," or rather, "God be with you," to Miriam. The elder woman led me back across the court, pointing to a kitchen on one side, and to the well filled store-room on the other. She drew her long white vail across the lower part of her face, as we entered the workshop. She kissed my brother's hands, and then served us with coffee and preserves. Our servants now arrived with the horses, and we left the workshop of the Bethlehem carver. His parting words, "The peace of God be with you, O my protector;" and the answer which my brother gave, "God's blessing be upon you and upon your house," reminded me of the salutations exchanged by Boaz and the reapers, long ago, in one of the fields at the foot of the hill we were descending, where we could see oxen treading out the corn on the numerous thrashing-floors.

We approached the particular spot which local tradition connects with the names of Ruth and Boaz; but it was enough for me that they had met somewhere in that broad and fertile valley, and that the town of Bethlehem, though changed, was the very town in which Ruth rejoiced over her first-born son; where the sorrows of Naomi were turned into joy, and "the women, her neighbors, rejoiced with her." We stood in the midst of little groups of men, women, and children. Some were attending to the mules