He was not, however, afraid of her laughing:  women had no sense of the Word of God, he muttered.  There were nests in the trees, but he kept himself from looking, lest a nest might inspire him to climb for it.  But nobody could climb trees with several quires of Scriptures under his arm.  He would lose his grip and fall, or else the Scriptures would fall, and if a thief happened to be going by it would be easy for him to pick up the quires and away with them before it would be possible for Joseph to slide down the tree and raise a hue and cry.

The lanes through which his way took him were frequented by boys, ball-players every one of them, and at this time ball-playing was a passion with Joseph and he would steal away whenever he got a chance and spend a whole day in an alley with a number of little ragamuffins.  And if he were to meet the tribe, which was as likely as not at the next turning, he must tell them that he was going to school and dared not stop.  But they would jeer at him.  He might give them his ball and in return they might not mock at him.  He walked very quietly, hoping to pass unobserved, but a boy was looking over the cactus hedge and called to him, asking if he had brought a ball with him, for they had lost theirs.  He threw his ball to him.  But aren’t you coming to play with us?  Not to-day, Joseph answered.  I’m on my way to school.  Well, to-morrow?  Not to-morrow.  I may not play truant from learning, Joseph answered sententiously, walking away, leaving his former playmates staring after him without a word in their mouths.  But by the next day they had recovered their speech and cried out:  the fishmonger’s son is going by to his lessons and dare not play at ball.  Azariah would whip him if he did.  One a little bolder than the rest dangled a piece of rope in his face saying:  this is what you’d get if you stayed with us.  He was moved to run after the boy and cuff him, but the quires under his arms restrained him and he passed on, keeping a dignified silence.  Soon thou’lt be reading to us in the synagogues! was the last jeer cried after him that day, but for many a day he caught sight of a face grinning at him through the hedge, and the way to his lessons became hateful.

As he showed no sign of anger, the persecution grew wearisome to the persecutors, and soon after he discovered another way to Azariah.  But this way was beset with women, whose sex impelled a yearning for this tall lithe boy with the gazelle-like eyes.  Joseph was more inclined to the welcome of the Greek poets and sculptors who stopped their mules and leaning from high saddles spoke to him, for he was now beginning to speak Greek and it was pleasant to avail himself of the advantages of the road to chatter his Greek and to acquire new turns of phrases.  Why not? since it seemed to be the wish of these men to instruct him.  My very model! a bearded man cried out one morning, and stopping his mule he bent from the saddle towards Joseph and asked him many questions.