The officers sent their men to Bethlehem, and all the little boys they could find there were put to death. No matter who they were they had to die. It did not take the soldiers very long. In a few hours they were back in Jerusalem. Herod breathed more easily. _That's a good thing_, he thought. _If every little boy in Bethlehem is dead, the Messiah must be dead along with the rest._ Herod did not know that the baby whom he feared was gone from Bethlehem before the soldiers got there. While the fathers and mothers of Bethlehem were crying because their little ones were dead, Joseph and Mary and Jesus were safely on their way to Egypt. Herod did not live long enough to find out his mistake. After he died, the little family in Egypt learned that it was safe to go home again. But this time they did not go back to Bethlehem. They went straight to the town of Nazareth in Galilee, where Joseph had worked before Jesus was born. There they settled down as though nothing unusual had happened. In Galilee nobody knew that anything strange had happened at all. Nobody there had heard of the shepherds and the Wise Men, and nobody knew what Simeon had said in the Temple. Nobody knew why it was that so many babies in Bethlehem had been murdered. Nobody in Nazareth thought that the Messiah had come. [Illustration] In Nazareth people only said, "I hear the carpenter has a son." When Jesus began to walk perhaps they said, "Joseph's son is strong for his age." And later they said, "The carpenter's lad is doing well at school." But there were more interesting things to talk about in Nazareth than the carpenter's family. There was the Messiah to talk about. "When will he come?" the people asked each other. Nobody in Nazareth had heard the angels sing. [Illustration] 3. Growing When boys in Nazareth were about six years old, it was time for them to go to school. No girls were there, for the girls stayed home with their mothers. But every day except the Sabbath, the boys went to the school and sat on the floor with their legs crossed, and there the teacher taught them many things that every Jewish boy would need to know. He taught them their A B C's in the Hebrew language. Instead of A, he showed them how to make a mark like this: [Hebrew: a]. Instead of B, they learned to make this letter: [Hebrew: b]; and so on, through all the alphabet. Then when they knew their letters, they could learn to read. And every Jewish boy had first of all to read the Scriptures. The teacher taught them what was in the Scriptures. Over and over they said their lessons aloud, talking all at once, until they knew everything they were supposed to know by heart. The teacher taught them psalms which had been sung for many years in the Temple of Jerusalem.