"The Messiah, Naomi," said Ezra slowly, "will do what the prophet Isaiah promised of him. Never fear. He will open the eyes of the blind and unstop the ears of the deaf. He will make the lame man leap and the dumb man sing for joy. When he cometh, we shall all see the salvation of the Lord and our sins shall be forgiven us. All Israel shall rejoice. Aye, even stout Solomon also," added Ezra grimly. "The Kingdom of God will come, and the Messiah will rule in righteousness, and he shall put our enemies to flight. No longer then will we pay tribute to the Emperor Caesar Augustus at Rome. No longer will we tolerate the wicked King Herod in our city of Jerusalem. And the Roman eagle that hangs above our Temple gates will be torn down and trampled under foot." Ezra spoke warmly. He had been well taught in school and synagogue, and had listened carefully to his father and his friends as they talked in the market-place and elsewhere. "Oh, I would that the Messiah would come quickly," said Naomi wistfully. "And if he can make me see, he can make lame Enoch straight. I would that Enoch's old grandmother had not died and that he had not gone so far away to live as Jericho. I miss him." "Think now of this new numbering of all the world," went on Ezra, whose heart burned within him at the wrongs of his nation. "Every man must travel to the town whence his family sprang, whether he live near or far and whether or no he be rich enough to stand a journey. And why? Because the Emperor at Rome has ordered so. I stood in the market-place when the Roman heralds with their trumpets summoned all Bethlehem thither, and told of this new enrollment and of the taxing to follow. I saw the black looks and heard the muttering, but did any man speak out? Nay--afeard of the short sword the Roman soldier carries. Oh, aye, I am afeard of it myself," admitted Ezra indulgently; "but when the Messiah cometh things will not be so." "Mother says that many have already traveled to Bethlehem to be enrolled," said Naomi, "and that we shall have a houseful when the caravan from Nazareth comes in. I would fain be a help to her just now and not a trouble, but I can do nothing at all, nothing, only keep out of the way." And the tears rolled down poor Naomi's cheeks. "Do not cry," said Ezra pitifully, and with a patience wonderful in a boy of his years. "We all love thee, Naomi, better than if thou hadst the sharp sight of an eagle. Come, greedy one," he went on, pulling at Michmash's bridle. "Wilt thou eat all night? Come!" They stood upon a hill that looked toward the north, and as Ezra waited for lazy little Michmash to finish his mouthful, his eye caught a line of tiny black figures perhaps a mile away from Bethlehem village. "The caravan from Nazareth, I verily believe!" he exclaimed. "Hold fast, Naomi, and I will take thee down to the gate. There I will tell thee all the sights as they come in."