Dan looked into his son’s face, and Rachel seemed to be right.  A thin, wan little face, that the air of the hills will brighten, he said; and he began at once to make arrangements for Joseph’s departure for a hill village, saying that the pastoral life of the hills would take his mind off Samuel, Hebrew and Babylon.  Rachel was doubtful if the shepherds would absorb Joseph’s mind as completely as his father thought.  She hoped, however, that they would.  As soon as he hears the sound of the pipe, his father answered.  A prophecy this was, for while Joseph was resting after the fatigue of the journey, he was awakened suddenly by a sound he had never heard before, and one that interested him strangely.  His nurse told him that the sound he was hearing was a shepherd’s pipe.  The shepherd plays and the flock follows, she said.  And when may I see the flock coming home with the shepherd? he asked.  To-morrow evening, she answered, and the time seemed to him to loiter, so eager was he to see the flocks returning and to watch the she-goat milked.

And in the spring as his strength came back he followed the shepherds and heard from them many stories of wolves and dogs, and from a shepherd lad, whom he had chosen as a companion, he acquired knowledge of the plumage and the cries and the habits of birds, and whither he was to seek their nests:  it had become his ambition to possess all the wild birds’ eggs, one that was easily satisfied till he came to the egg of the cuckoo, which he sought in vain, hearing of it often, now here, now there, till at last he and the shepherd lad ventured into a dangerous country in search of it and remained there till news of their absence reached Magdala and Dan set out in great alarm with an armed escort to recover his son.  He was very angry when he came upon him, but the trouble he had been put to and the ransom he had had to pay were very soon forgotten, so great was his pleasure at the strong healthy boy he brought back with him, and whose first question to Rachel was:  are there cuckoos in Magdala?—­Father doesn’t know.  His grandmother could not tell him, but she was willing to make inquiries, but before any news of the egg had been gotten the hope to possess it seemed to have drifted out of Joseph’s mind and to seem even a little foolish when he looked into his box, for many of his egg shells had been broken on the journey.  See, Granny, he said, but on second thoughts he refused to show his chipped possessions.  But thou wast once as eager to learn Hebrew, his grandmother said, and the chance words, spoken as she left the room, awakened his suspended interests.  As soon as she returned she was beset by questions, and the same evening his father had to promise that the best scribe in Galilee should be engaged to teach him:  a discussion began between Dan and Rachel as to the most notable and trustworthy, and it was followed by Joseph so eagerly that they could not help laughing; the questions he put to them regarding the different