Chapter
Three
WHEN she had seen Lazarus's good color and heard his weak but clear words, Martha bounded down the stairs with a new found supply of energy, rushed through the main floor of the house into the cooking area, and almost knocked Naomi off her feet.
"He's better, isn't he?" the old woman smiled as she asked.
Martha flew past her and out the back entrance, into the small courtyard, and over to the men's sleeping quarters. While running, she shouted back over her shoulder, "Yes, much better! You'll be happy to know, old dear, I am sending Joseph to fetch Jesus." Naomi clasped her hands together and blessed the Lord for answering her prayers.
It was not seemly that she go inside the men's quarters; so Martha urgently knocked, opened the door, barely stuck her head inside, and softly called, "Joseph!"
Samuel, Joseph's father, had tended the sheep and goat herds, and as Joseph grew into manhood, his father taught him the skills of shepherding.
Joseph was four years older than Martha and had never married. After the death of his father and Master Josiah, Martha made Joseph the head overseer for the flocks and fields. He served the Josiah Ben Jochanan family well, and Martha paid his wages affectionately, generously, and as if he were kinfolk.
When he thought he heard her voice in the yard, he appeared almost at once while pulling on his outer tunic.
Joseph's first anxious questions were of Lazarus. Hurriedly Martha told him of Lazarus's new turn for the better. As she was explaining her request that he find Jesus, someone tugged her sleeve.
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"Mistress Martha?"
She turned to look down into the young, alert face of Aaron.
"What is it, my boy?" she asked impatiently.
"If it is runners you want to go get Jesus, we would like to go."
The pride and confidence ringing in his voice was rare in such a young servant, and Martha marveled at it.
"Who is 'we'?" she questioned.
"Oh, Jude and I," and he straightened his shoulders as he said it.
"Jude and Aaron. I might have known," Martha said with a grin playing around the corners of her mouth.
Both Aaron and Jude, now about ten years old, had been orphaned earlier, and though they were not related, you could hardly have one without the other.
Naomi had timidly brought the thin, spindle-legged Jude into the household. Mary had made a promise to a dying young mother on the outskirts of Bethany one day, and Aaron had solemnly clung to her hand as she brought him home.
For five years now the boys had lived in the servant's quarters, and in the midst of accomplishing Martha's small tasks, eating Naomi's good food, and developing under Joseph's fatherly hand, the boys flourished and became brothers.
"We talked yesterday," Aaron said earnestly, "and we hoped that if you wanted to send for the Master, you would let us go." As if to ensure his argument, he added, "We would be faster than Claudius's horse!"
Martha thought his choice of man and horse was excellent. She had always felt Claudius was very different from any Roman soldier she had ever known. He was a centurion who, unlike others, seemed to have a God-fearing soul and no one, she knew, had a horse like his. It was powerful and magnificent, since it was bred from Libyan stock. Claudius was frequently approached by a buyer eager to purchase the horse, but more often he was offered money for bets to race him.
Martha could not remember exactly when she had first met Claudius, but usually when Jesus was visiting them, Claudius would ride into the main courtyard on the bay-colored horse
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with the clearly marked star on its forehead. He would stay listening intently to everything Jesus taught. Martha always included him in the evening meal, although she knew having a Roman to dinner was not socially acceptable, and there were many disturbed eyebrows raised among her neighbors. The servant boys, however, loved Claudius's visits and made frantic scrambles to see who would get to water and feed the great stallion.
"Apparently," Martha leaned down toward Aaron, "you are on good terms with Claudius's horse?"
His face beamed his triumphal answer, and she suspected that "watering the horse" really meant "riding" him to the trough.
"Good!" she said, "because both you and Jude had better be just as fast and durable!" She shook her finger at him, and he responded with a smile to match the twinkle in her eyes. Privately she wished somewhat grimly that Claudius and his horse were standing before her instead.
"Yes, Mistress Martha. I'll get Jude."
As he disappeared through the inner curtained doorway, she called to him, "When you're ready, come to the house."
Joseph was not convinced as he listened to her conversation with Aaron; so he questioned, "Mistress Martha, in view of the difficulty in finding Jesus, are you sure they should go? I will go myself. The task needs a man."
"No," she smiled. "I really want you here, dear Joseph." As she rubbed at the fatigue in her eyes, she said, "Jesus should not be too hard to find as I know the general area where he's teaching. The thing that does concern me is the ugly rumors of death threats against him which are circulating out of Jerusalem. Jesus may not want to journey this way, but certainly that will not hinder the boys."
"But," countered Joseph, "the roads are so dangerous — filled with cutthroats and thieves. I fear for their safety."
Martha shook her head. "Oh, I think they will be swift enough, and two runners are safer than one. Now, do not fret about them as I want you to stay here. Besides, if my brother continues to improve as he has done this morning. I'll want you
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to help me take him outside or up on the roof for a little while. Remember," she continued, "the boys' love for the Master and their enthusiasm for some new adventure will have a way of making their feet exceedingly swift.
She was anxious to get back to her duties, so Martha left and said as she went, "You'll see, Joseph, they will find Jesus. In no time at all they will all come, and Jesus will be here!"
"I hope so, Mistress, I hope so," he said, not quite sure if he believed his own words.
Most of the servant girls were still sleeping, trying to catch up on several nights' wakefulness, but Naomi was too excited to sit down, much less sleep.
By the time Martha reached the cooking area, Naomi had stirred the sleepy fires in the bake ovens and had awakened them into bright coals. She was already elbow deep in bread dough when she stopped to look over at Martha.
"I am sending Aaron and Jude instead of Joseph. I don't know how long it will take the boys to find Jesus," Martha said as she sat down on a low stool. "Do we have any bread or cakes to give them as they run?"
Naomi nodded affirmatively, pulled her hands out of the big puffy gloves of dough, and said, "I've no bread, but I do have some cracknel cakes and plenty of dried apricots and figs."
After she dusted the last of the flour off her hands and arms, Naomi took several small grain cakes from a wooden cupboard, broke them apart, poured a little honey on each side, and stacked them neatly back together again. She selected the plumpest dried fruit from a woven basket tray and tied the whole thing up in a tidy satchel. The stiffness in her hands, Martha noticed, made her pace very slow, but the importance of the mission gave her great determination.
She finished tying it all up just as the boys came breathlessly through the door.
"Here," said Martha as she handed the satchel to Aaron. "This is to tide you over until you find Jesus." Then, smiling, she said, "Even Claudius's horse would need some grain for this task."
Holding the satchel and juggling it up and down like he was
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weighing the contents, Aaron looked at Naomi, smiled a shy smile, and said, "Thank you very much. We shall enjoy every bit of it!"
Then, serious all at once, he turned to Martha and said, "Shall we go straight to the temple in the city to find him?"
"No, I have heard that the Master is in the Perea area across the Jordan River and to the north. I understand he is teaching and preaching in those small cities up there. Since he attracts so much attention, it should not be too difficult a task to find him. However, if you have to ask someone if he has been to his village, do it with caution. He has his enemies. Please remember, haste is most important." The boys nodded soberly, their dark eyes dancing with the danger of their mission.
"Then," Martha continued, bending down to their eye level, "when you find him, give him this exact message. Say, 'Master, our mistress, Martha, needs you in Bethany. Please come as quickly as you can.' "
She paused, straightened up a bit, and, frowning, said, "No, no, not that. Just tell him simply, 'Master, the one you love is sick.' " She made both of them repeat the message to her and was pleased that they were as solemn as if they were taking a holy oath.
Those words will be enough, she thought. Jesus will know, and he will leave instantly for the love of Lazarus. Even though he knows the danger, he will come straight to Bethany.
"Now, be off with you," Martha said. Giving the boys a playful swat, she hurried with them as they left the back entrance. Then down through the side gardens, past the inner courtyard well, and to the main iron gates in the outer wall, which closed off the street, she half ran behind them. At the gate she touched both their shoulders and said, "The Lord go with you, my sons, and may He grant you the speed of fleeting deer." Or Claudius's horse, whichever is faster, please, Lord, she thought. They ran down the steep street, their sandals loudly clattering over the stones in the early hush of dawn, and she watched until even the sound was gone.
For some time Martha stood leaning against the gates just breathing in the warm peace of the morning. Nobody was about,
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and only a few early birds were chattering together. In fact, except for once, when she thought she heard Mary's voice calling her, the morning was as still and lovely as she had ever seen. She savored it deeply.
For a moment she considered going back to the house and resuming her duties, but the day was so beautiful, and she was so in need of a change of pace after the frantic past two days that she decided to walk downhill to her father's olive grove.
All the way down the street she reasoned that nothing was pressing. She was tired, and she felt she could well afford the luxury of not bestirring herself for a few moments. She didn't even bother to call Naomi. Martha simply pulled her shawl over her head and leisurely strolled down the hill, turned at the bottom to another steep hill, and quickly reached the wall surrounding the trees.
Josiah, her father, a man of practicality and intelligence, also had been blessed with a creative imagination. Their house, his business in Jerusalem, and this grove were all extraordinary feats to his credit.
Martha entered the grove through a small break in the stone dike wall and climbed back up the terraced hillside to the highest row of olive trees.
This is no ordinary grove, she thought and smiled. It was so much more. Even the stone walls which kept the land from slipping and sliding down the hill in the rainy season were planted with various vines and flowers. They were popping up here and there along the top. The olive trees themselves were healthy, fruitful, and, Martha thought, the most graceful of all trees except for willows. The crop was about five months away, but the trees were heavy with the feathery blossoms, and she knew the harvest would be extra special.
Between the trees, her father had planted rows and clumps of many different species of flowers. It was a splendid grove-garden. More Mary's place than mine, acknowledged Martha, but this morning it did not matter. Lazarus was better — or was he? Deep down on some hidden crossroad of her mind she remembered how, sometimes, a very sick person would suddenly sit up, take in nourishment, and his family would rejoice — only
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to watch in disbelief as he died that night or a day later.
"It is not good for me to dwell on these thoughts," she said abruptly, but bits and pieces of her memories clung stubbornly to her inner parts. Ignoring her deep feelings, she rationalized, "No, he is better — much better." But a part of her stood away from herself and said, "Why do you deceive yourself when you know better?"
The day is a day of beauty, the garden flowers are bursting into the spring air with a rainbow of colors, and I am determined to let nothing spoil the majestic peace this place gives to me, Martha said to herself. She absolutely gulped in the fresh, flower-scented air, and nothing had ever felt so good. He is better, she said over and over to herself. Still a part of her resisted the knowledge.
She made her way farther up to the corner on the upper hill and came to the tiny hut her father had built as a storage room for his tools. The hillside was watered by a small reservoir, and nearby was one of her father's ingenious clay pipes which supplied just the right amount of water. Martha sat on a low bench outside the hut and remembered all the times this grove-garden had been a playground for Mary and her. In fact, she remembered it was at this very spot, so many years ago, she had discovered her very own gift — her gift of healing from Jehovah.
Martha looked down at the clay pipe and a faint "ah, ha" broke into the morning.
It was that very pipe with its little trickle of water. Right here is where my gift of healing all started, she thought. How old was I? she stirred her memories. Ah, yes, I must have been ten, and Mary just five. We played a game that day of hide and seek in this grove, she remembered.
Mary had impishly run up the hill to hide behind the hut. She fell into a small grassy area between some bushes and the pipe and flattened herself against the ground to escape Martha's sharp eyes. Mary told her later that she was shivering with excitement as Martha came up the hill. But just as Martha had reached the hut, Mary spotted a plant by the watering pipe, and abruptly the game lost its significance.
"Martha... over here!" Mary had called. She jumped up,
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giving her place away. "Come here and look... quickly," she urged. She was almost in tears as she parted the grass and showed Martha the plant.
Martha, breathless from the hurried climb, fearing a snake or some poisonous insect, laughed aloud with relief when she saw the plant.
"It's not funny," Mary's bottom lip formed a small pout, and her eyebrows pulled into a frown. "Someone has stepped on that plant. I can't remember what Father called it, but it has very special purple flowers on it. Now it's all broke. Will the plant die?" Mary's sensitive eyes and heart were full of concern as she questioned her sister.
Martha stopped her laughing smile when she saw how serious Mary was taking all this and said soberly, "Well, let me see if I can help."
Martha remembered her sentence about the plant that day was the first time she had actually put those words into the open, but it was not the last time, by any means. "Let me see if I can help" became her motto, her personal creed, and eventually her ultimate goal. It had all started in this grove-garden by the clap pipe, so long ago.
Martha recollected that she had laid down in the grass to get a better look at the plant. Instinctively, she pinched off a few of the most shriveled, yellowing stems, found a little piece of olive branch, and stirred the ground all around the plant. Then, cupping her hand by the pipe, she caught some water and carefully soaked the ground. After she had sent Mary to find a straight, short stick, she went into the hut for some strips of cloth. Mary finally found the right stick, "sturdy and tall enough," and Martha cautiously pushed it into the ground beside the main stem. Then she gently tied up the wilting plant with the strips of cloth.
"There, now," she said as she rinsed off her hands. "We'll come back and water it each day to see if it will grow again, little sister."
Mary's large blue eyes sparkled with obvious faith and confidence in Martha's ability.
Not more than three days later Mary's faith was confirmed.
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She swooped into the inner courtyard, panting from her run and called, "Martha, Martha, come see it! It's beautiful. It's not going to die. You saved it! You saved it!"
Together the two little girls, picking up their skirts so they could move faster, dashed out the main gate, down one street, turned the corner, flew down another street to the break in the stone wall, and finally bounded up the hill to the pipe.
Breathlessly, Martha agreed, "It is a beautiful plant." By examining it closely, she saw the tiny new beginnings of one new leaf, and she flushed with a quiet pride. Her serious side would not allow herself to get overly jubilant, but Mary, on the other hand, had never known any such limitations; so off she ran to tell their father of Martha's gift. As Martha remembered it, Mary had told the whole village of Bethany that day.
She smiled at the clay pipe and this garden which held so many memories.
Martha could not bring to mind anything which suggested that she had used her gift of healing often after the plant that day. But two years later, when she was twelve, unexpectedly she picked up the gift again. It was almost as if her healing talents had been a buried treasure chest of gold and then suddenly were uncovered, unearthed, and ready to be spent.
On that day so long ago, her father had come home from his shop in Jerusalem and was getting the evening report from Joseph's father, Samuel, about the sheep herds and the terraced farmlands. It was a conversation which he savored slowly each night like a man rolling a good wine over his tongue. Martha always stood close, so she would not miss any detail.
Her father had not begun as a farmer or sheep breeder. His expertise and source of wealth came from an exclusive and expensive shop which he owned in partnership with his brother and was located over the hill in the best trade-shop area of Jerusalem.
Between her father and her Uncle Tobias, they had built a handsome business dealing with imported artifacts and luxury household goods.
Martha loved to examine the new items in his shop, and once
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in a while she and her sister were allowed to come and spend the afternoon. Naomi would bring them. Martha would solemnly gaze at the wondrous things, and Mary, as usual, would squeal with delight over anything that had birds or flowers on it.
They both enjoyed looking at their own reflections in the highly polished brass pieces. Martha loved examining the fine filigreed lamps and lamp stands, while Mary was always drawn to the fine selection of alabaster boxes and candlesticks. The shop boasted such wondrous things as bedsteads carved out of wood and inlaid with tortoiseshell or ivory (once they had one inlaid with real gold), multicolored woven rugs from distant seaports, exquisite works of art, cashmeres and silks, and even small heating braziers beautifully fashioned out of bronze. Their house in Bethany held many similar treasures, but always there was some new and exotic prize in the shop, and both girls liked the idea of being the first to see it.
Her father saw the shop only as a convenient means to an end. His first love, after Rachel and his children, Martha knew, was not his shop or his buying trips to other countries, or all the interesting merchants with whom he dealt. But his real love was the land, the sheep, and especially the natural beauty of the hills of Bethany.
As soon as her father had made enough money, he couldn't move his family out of the noisy, bustling city of Jerusalem fast enough.
He bought the choicest spot in all of Bethany, up on a high vantage point with a view of the city. Their home had been built to the eye-popping surprise of the townspeople. When it was finished, Josiah and Rachel filled it with artistic furnishings. Their pallets had carved wooden bedsteads. How that caused talk. Martha laughed with the memory. There were handwoven tapestries for the walls, thick, richly colored carpets for some areas, and even low tables inlaid with other woods and ivory. Martha's favorite table, which stood at one end of the great hall by a couch, had a highly polished wooden top and was inlaid with ivory. The ivory design was fashioned by a skilled artist to look exactly like grapes hanging from a vine in a vineyard.
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All their possessions produced many months of entertainment for the villagers as they gossiped and discussed the great house on the hill.
Each day Martha's father worked in the city, took the short walk home to Bethany at night, and then questioned Bethany's farmers and shepherds alike about the land and the lovely hills. He kept questioning the shepherds until he found Samuel, the son-of-the-son in a long line of shepherds, who had no flocks of his own, but worked for a hard-driving man in the next valley.
Martha recalled that on the same day her father hired Samuel, he acquired Joseph, the son, and two plots of land. One acreage spilled over two hills and was suitable for farming; the other was the grove she now sat in.
As her father's business continued to be blessed by Jehovah, Josiah took on more land. Soon he was well known for his expansive wheat and barley fields. But his real fame sprang not from his ability to direct the tilling of the soil, but of his expertise in breeding and raising sheep. His herds had grown, and no one could match the choice mutton and tender cuts of lamb or the subtly tinted wool which Josiah and Samuel achieved by crossbreeding.
Martha's reflections were interrupted by some deep stirring of joy, and, surprising herself, she said aloud, "Lazarus is better — really better." Then her thoughts returned to the memories of her healing gifts.
Martha, on that day years ago when she was twelve, had listened eagerly as her father, Samuel, and Joseph talked about a sick lamb. The lamb was special since it was sired by his best ram and born of his finest ewe. Joseph was telling her father how many different things they had used in trying to turn the fate around for the lamb, but even his father had been unable to suggest something. Nothing seemed to work in curing the ailing lamb. The men nodded in disappointment.
"I thought this offspring would be near perfect," her father had said sadly.
Martha had listened for as long as she could stand it, but after she heard "the lamb is so very ill" a third time, she gently broke
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in with, "Father, where are the sheep grazing; I mean the herd with this sick lamb?"
"Over yonder," her father said, making a vague gesture with his hands towards the east.
"No, I mean where exactly. I'd like to go see the lamb. Maybe, Father, I could help." She did not see Joseph's annoyed look, but she did hear his low, guttural pronouncement of "How could you help?" He blurted it out before he could stop himself. Samuel burned a scornful look in his son's direction.
"Perhaps not at all," Josiah answered for her. "But that Martha cares and would like to go help pleases me." His answer to Joseph filled her with warmth, an she knew her cheeks were flushed and reddened in response.
Turning to Samuel and Joseph directly, he said, "The men of the village think my pride is my shop, my fields and my herds, but this is not so. Standing before me, and two others in the house, are my real delights. They are fields of pride, my herds of love, and because of them, I love life deeply and am a proud man."
Samuel nodded, but Joseph almost melted in mortification. He had not meant to demean the master's daughter; so he hurriedly explained, "Master, all I meant was ... well, even my father, experienced in such matters had nothing to offer. How could a mere girl help?" Instantly he knew he had been foolish in his choice of the word mere. This time Josiah's look silenced him.
Her father sat down on a stone bench in the courtyard and said directly to Martha, "My daughter, the eastern slopes are not too far, and there are a few hours of daylight left. You really would like to see if you can help, wouldn't you?"
"Oh, yes, Father!" she fairly shouted.
Josiah looked at Joseph and said, "You will go with her," Joseph's yes was resigned, but without hostility.
That her father believed in her, though she was barely out of childhood, touched Martha deeply. In fact, she laughed as she remembered it, she was so thrilled about permission to go that she had been unable, for a change, to say anything. Leaving them in the courtyard, she ran off to get her things together.
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With some help from Naomi, she filled a small goatskin bag with yellow olive oil, took various herbs from her small pottery jars, and carefully wrapped the blend in a linen towel. Naomi found a clean cloth which could be used as a poultice or a plaster if it was needed, and with that Martha was ready. She was a picture of precision.
When she finished and came into the cooking area, Joseph just stared at her. He found himself somewhere between marveling at her confidence and scoffing at her lack of experience. When she caught his skeptical look, she stated, "Everything in its time and place, Joseph. That is as my father has taught me. We must hurry, but we must not forget something and leave too hastily. The lamb's life may depend on our thoroughness."
Joseph was only sixteen at the time, and he had never understood women anyway; so Martha especially puzzled him. She was only twelve and always seemed to know what she was doing. Worse than that, she rarely made a mistake or ran out of energy. Yet decidedly so, he had admitted privately to one of the undershepherds that she would make a good working wife, even if she did make him edgy at the back of his neck.
The two of them set off late that afternoon and found the clusters of woolly animals with one of the shepherds holding the ailing lamb.
She could not remember exactly what she had done with the lamb, only that she and Joseph had brought it home, and because of Jehovah's gift to her, she had patiently turned the apathetic bag of bones into a fat, energetic nuisance. Everyone, she smiled with the memory, was annoyed with the antics of the cured lamb, except her father. Whenever he saw the mischievous, woolly body, he would catch Martha's eye and solemnly wink, remembering her part. The news of her success with the lamb would have never spread outside the household, but as usual, Mary told everybody.
As she sat in the grove, Martha chuckled and recalled, "That sister of mine told just everybody!"
Martha remembered that slowly at first, but within a year, she began to show up wherever there was an illness. By the time she was thirteen, she had made the acquaintanceship of Mahalath,
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Bethany's formidable midwife. Her desire to learn and her caring heart had helped her to brave the moment when she asked Mahalath if she could join her when the next baby was about to be born. Martha remembered the terror in her heart when the large, old woman had turned to her and spit out contemptuously, "You want to come with me to fill your eyes and head with gory sights so you can gossip about it later?"
"Oh, no, respected Mahalath," Martha answered. She was terrified, but she went on firmly. "I want to help with the suffering of others, and I want to learn from you." Before all of this had really penetrated the woman's inner places, Martha added, "I want you to be my teacher."
"Teacher?" Mahalath repeated the word carefully and bent down for a closer look at Martha. "I believe you mean it," she stated. "But you are forgetting who you are, girl!" the old woman said, scowling. "It is not proper for a daughter from the distinguished house of Josiah Ben Jochanan to dirty her hands with a midwife's business."
Martha's shoulders snapped straight, and she seemed to grow taller. Clearly she stated, "I am not in the least concerned with my social standing, and it matters not to me whether the villagers condemn or approve of me. I will not be bound to live by foolish traditions. I have a gift for healing, and I mean to learn about it and use it in all ways possible.
Mahalath sucked in her breath so it whistled between the space in her two front teeth, and, peering down at Martha, she exclaimed, "Such a rare one, you are! I can see you are set in your thinking; so we shall see, Martha. You be ready, waiting, and we shall see." She went off waggling her head from side to side in wonderment.
Martha called to mind that she had almost exploded with joy at the thought of learning from the midwife. Then, to her surprised delight, it was only a week or so later when a small boy from a neighboring house stood at the front gate and yelled, "Mistress Martha shall come with me as Mahalath is ready to teach." And ready she was, mused Martha.
Her father hadn't been nearly so ready. It had taken Mary to convince him.
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"It's just not done," Josiah said. His indignation showed only by the agitated way he tugged on his beard.
"The Mahalaths of this world were born to be midwives. It is right and good for them, but it is not for my daughter. We are a distinguished family. Her dignity and reputation will be put into questionable repute if she pursues this...."
He would have gone further with his stern rationale, but Mary put everything into its proper place. Her blue eyes were sparkling, wide open yet serious, and Martha thought Mary even looked more beautiful.
"For some daughters, my father, you are right. It would put their character in a questionable, even objectionable position, but our Martha has a gift. Even from our childhood Jehovah has blessed her with a special talent for healing. Remember the plants she restored and, of course, remember the ailing lamb she rescued? Why shouldn't she learn from Mahalath? Perhaps Jehovah has given her a gift for healing people and babies as well as plants and animals."
Mary finished, and Josiah meekly shook his head and nodded yes. Then smiling at Mary, he said in a voice loud enough for Martha to hear, "What you're really saying is that this old man must not tamper with the mysterious ways of God even if he comes from a distinguished family."
"Something like that, my father," she murmured quietly.
So, in the end, Josiah gave Martha his blessing, and even went so far as to tell Mahalath to "teach Martha appropriately and thoroughly."
Mahalath took the charge seriously. No part of Martha's training was too obscure or too difficult. Every subject concerning childbirth was carefully covered. It was as if old Mahalath had looked for a pupil all her life so she could leave her village of Bethany and the surrounding countryside in capable hands. But she'd found no one to take her place — until Martha.
Eagerly she spent many hours with the young girl, teaching her about the Hebrew value of having children. Once, when she was telling Martha how wonderful it was to possess children, she quoted, "... like the olive plants round about thy table: Behold that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord."
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Interrupting her, Martha had asked, "Why have you no 'olive branches,' my teacher?" Her dark eyes were serious and grave the question.
It was as if Martha had scraped a sensitive, festering wound, and the old woman caught her breath up in the hurt of it.
"I have this many olive branches," she said defiantly, holding up four fingers. Then, dropping her voice, she explained. "But as they came, God took them and replanted them in heaven with Him."
Abruptly, without any more explanation, Mahalath plunged into a whole set of rules for the woman with child.
Martha listened carefully to Mahalath as she sternly taught. "The expectant mother is not to take hot baths for fear of miscarrying. She is to develop the proper eating habits. She must avoid salt foods and fat." Martha's training went on and on. Mahalath had the list of herbs and other magical remedies to help and ease the time of confinement. She had rules to prevent miscarriage, potions for barrenness, and even advice for those having too many children.
It was all a heady and marvelous learning time, and each subject was covered long before Martha ever got to go with Mahalath to see an actual birthing. But by the time the old midwife allowed Martha to witness the big event, Martha was very ready.
Her brown eyes were wide open with an exciting amazement, and her admiration for the woman knew no bounds. She watched Mahalath ease the young mother from terrified, screaming anguish into a tearful, yet calm endurance. Then, a few hours later, she saw Mahalath catch the tiny bluish white infant in her ready hands.
In the quick time it took to see that the baby was a boy, he had lost his dead look, turned rosy pink, and finally his skin glowed a deep red.
His first cry was a cry of victory and a joyous salutation to the three women. Since he carried on a steady stream of cries, Mahalath pronounced him a "healthy olive branch." In her fiercely dedicated way, she washed him down and rubbed him with salt to prepare him for his wrapping in swaddling clothes.
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Martha had not been too much help that day, for the chills stirred up and down her back and rendered her quite useless.
As Martha thought back over those days of learning, she guessed that the reason so many babies lived when Mahalath had been present at their births was possibly because of Mahalath's own deeply felt losses and her powerful desire to keep as many "olive branches" here on earth. She had been the best midwife anywhere, and now Martha knew the reason.
"Mahalath is gone now," Martha said aloud, and the words saddened her.
She sat in the garden realizing
and appreciating the medical legacy the old teacher had left her. How
funny, she reminisced, I still get the same chills after all these
years whenever a baby slips into my hands. She sat pondering the times
she had been Bethany's midwife and vividly remembered the moments when she
had held aloft, for the mother to see, the precious, wet, squalling olive
branch. How special she had felt standing there holding God's gift of life!
Suddenly Martha's warm memories were jarringly disturbed. It
was as if her thoughts were being invaded by a loudly buzzing bee. She raised
her head, listened, and heard another sound. The buzzing was louder and coming
closer.
She could see a woman's figure running toward her through the trees. "Martha, Martha!" Her name was being called frantically. Now there were more bees, and their insistent droning was almost deafening.
Stiff with fear, Martha got up and began to run toward the approaching girl. She forced herself to go faster and commanded her rigid legs to move. Now, running and stumbling, she came through the trees, their low branches scratching her face, and she headed toward the figure. It was Leah.
Before Martha reached the girl, the bees stopped their buzzing. Her mind became suddenly still.
Then, from somewhere deep inside the marrow of her bones, Martha felt them — a hundred furious bees. Their stings burned steadily into her flesh, and she knew, even before she was told, it was too late.
Lazarus was dead. online books christian books
