"No; not that I know of," I replied. "Tell me more about Christ, the Savior," urged Joseph, "Did he visit any other people than the Jews? What does your book say about that?" "He remained in and about Jerusalem," I replied, "As far as I can learn - but, I remembered reading something about that. Let me see if I can find it." I turned over the leaves of my Bible and in the tenth chapter of St. John, I read: `And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.'
A light seemed to break upon me as I read, "Why," I said, "I remember you telling me that the savior has visited you also; you must be that `other sheep' of which he speaks.
"In a way; yes," replied Joseph, "but he explained to us that he had visited, before he had come to us, ‘other sheep’ which were not on the land about Jerusalem. Is there not a body of land distant and apart from the land of Jerusalem?"
"There is the American continent," I explained, but thought it was improbable that the savior should have visited it. I had never heard of it; besides when the continent had been discovered by the Europeans, the only inhabitants in America was the wild and savage Indian.
( Note by ‘Branton’: This sounds very similar to the subject of a book written by L. Taylor Hansen, titled - HE WALKED THE AMERICAS )
"Indians," repeated Joseph, "and they were dark and wild and savage?"
"Yes."
"The very ones -- the very ones," he exclaimed as if a great problem had been solved. Then after a pause he said: "Wonderful, wonderful, every part of the earth has been visited by the Son of God, to every part has been delivered the glorious message, that none may be left without excuse."
The sun is now shining in every window of the house as it circles above the summer sky. Rachel is here with me. She tiptoed into my room, thinking I was asleep. She carried two small baskets, one containing flowers and the other berries. The berries were covered with leaves so that I could not see them at first.
She stopped in the doorway when she saw me. I was not asleep, so I spied her through my half-closed eyes. Rachel is no longer a child. She no longer allows me to place my arm around her and draw her close to my book. In the budding maidenhood period she is expanding like a flower before the continuous northern sun, the most beautiful flower, it seems to me, in all this northern land.
When Rachel discovered that I was not sleeping, she came into the room and placed the baskets before me on the table. What she would have done a year or two ago would have been to creep slyly up, cover my eyes with her hands and say, "Guess what I have got?"
But now she sits demurely at the proper distance. She is a young lady and I am a man, not so young - but not so old either.
"Well, now, what have you here, Rachel?" I began, as I peeped under the leaves.
She did not reply, as she could see I was fast on the way to find out for myself.
"Berries! - E-m-aren't they fine!" I began to eat.
"You were going to tell me about Queen Esther," she said.
"Queen Esther - oh, yes," I remembered I had promised her the story. That was before I had read it in the Bible; but after I had read it, I did not think so much of it, and I did not want to tell it to this young girl.
"I'll tell you some nicer stories," I said, "about your namesake, Rachel, and about Ruth."
"Oh, I know about them," she replied.
"Then, let me see, I'll tell you about the big world from which I came."
I could see she was somewhat disappointed, but she said, "all right," or something to that effect.
I told her about the big ships on the big oceans; of the railroads, of the electric lights; of the newspapers and magazines; of the big cities full of people. I tried to tell her how the "fine" ladies were dressed - she was deeply interested in my crude descriptions. I told her of the changing styles and frivolous fashions, at which she laughed merrily.
"Come, here, Rachel," I commanded. "Don't sit over there, as if you were afraid of me. Are you?"
"Afraid of you? Oh, no."
She arose, came sedated towards the table. How tall she was, and how graceful, how beautiful! She was another Rebecca at the well. Her shining hair was coiled about her shapely head. Her red lips curved into a smile as she stood with hesitancy, not knowing what I would ask of her next. I did not know either.
What was it that so stirred my heart? The heart that I thought long since dead to any feeling of love for women! Was the former passion to be loosed again, with its sweet joy and its terrible pain. Had I not escaped from that behind the walls of ice? It seemed not.
"If I take the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost parts of the earth, thou art there." David, her brother, happened in the doorway. What a strong, fine young fellow he had become. I love him and he loves me. We have become inseparable. In my endeavor to bring some of the inventions and conveniences of the modern world to these people, he has been my efficient assistant.