On the road we wuz travelin' the child Jesus no doubt often passed in play with other children or at work. I wonder how he felt as he stood amongst his playmates and if a shadow of what wuz to come rested on his young heart? I spoze so, for he wuz only twelve when he reasoned with the wise doctors.
There is one fountain that supplies the town and always has, and we see stately dark-eyed wimmen carryin' tall jars of water on their heads (how under the sun they ever do it is a mystery to me; I should spill every drop), but they seem to carry 'em easy enough. Children often ran along at their sides. And I knew that in this place the young child Jesus must often have come with his mother after water.
Stood right here where we stood! what emotions I had as I thought on't. Dorothy and Robert looked reverently about them and dipped their hands in the clear water just as Joseph and Mary might when they wuz young and couldn't look into the futer.
Miss Meechim said she had a tract to home that dealt on this spot and wished she had brought it, she would have liked to read it here on the spot.
Arvilly said she wuz glad enough to see that they had plenty of good, pure water here and didn't have to depend on anything stronger.
And Josiah said in his opinion the water would make crackin' good coffee, and he wished he had a good cup and a dozen or so of my nut-cakes.
We visited a carpenter shop which wuz, I spoze, about like the shop of Joseph, lots of different tools on shelves and nails on the side on't, some like Jonesville shops.
But carpenter there has a different meaning from what it has in Jonesville, it means different kinds of work, carving, making furniture, plows, shovels, as well as buildin' houses. In some such a shop as this our Lord worked with achin' back and blistered hands no doubt, for He worked faithful and stiddy when He wuz subject to his father, Joseph. I suppose his dress wuz much like other Jewish peasantry save in one thing he wore, and this wuz the seamless garment, suggestive, I spoze, of wholeness, holiness. As I thought on't I instinctively murmured these words of our poet:
"The healing of that seamless dress Is by our beds of pain, We feel it in life's care and stress-- And we are strong again."