THE ROD THAT BLOSSOMED
IVORY BOYNTON had taken the horse and gone to the village on an errand, a rare thing for him to do after dark, so Rod was thinking, as he sat in the living-room learning his Sunday-School lesson on the same evening that the men were gossiping at the brick store. His aunt had required him, from the time when he was proficient enough to do so, to read at least a part of a chapter in the Bible every night. Beginning with Genesis he had reached Leviticus and had made up his mind that the Bible was a much more difficult book than "Scottish Chiefs," not withstanding the fact that Ivory helped him over most of the hard places. At the present juncture he was vastly interested in the subject of "rods" as unfolded in the book of Exodus, which was being studied by his Sunday-School class. What added to the excitement was the fact that his uncle's Christian name, Aaron, kept appearing in the chronicle, as frequently as that of the great lawgiver Moses himself; and there were many verses about the wonder-working rods of Moses and Aaron that had a strange effect upon the boy's ear, when he read them aloud, as he loved to do whenever he was left alone for a time. When his aunt was in the room his instinct kept him from doing this, for the mere mention of the name of Aaron, he feared, might sadden his aunt and provoke in her that dangerous vein of reminiscence that made Ivory so anxious.
"It kind o' makes me nervous to be named 'Rod,' Aunt Boynton," s aid the boy, looking up from the Bible. "All the rods in these Exodus chapters do such dreadful things! They become serpents, and one of them swallows up all the others: and Moses smites the waters with a rod and they become blood, and the people can't drink the water and the fish die! Then they stretch a rod across the streams and ponds and bring a plague of frogs over the land, with swarms of flies and horrible insects."
"That was to show God's power to Pharaoh, and melt his hard heart to obedience and reverence," explained Mrs. Boynton, who had known the Bible from cover to cover in her youth and could still give chapter and verse for hundreds of her favorite passages.
"It took an awful lot of melting, Pharaoh's heart!" exclaimed the boy. "Pharaoh must have been worse than Deacon Baxter! I wonder if they ever tried to make him good by being kind to him! I've read and read, but I can't find they used anything on him but plagues and famines and boils and pestilences and thunder and hail and fire!--Have I got a middle name, Aunt Boynton, for I d on't like Rod very much?"
"I never heard that you had a middle name; you must ask Ivory," s aid his aunt abstractedly.
"Did my father name me Rod, or my mother?'
"I don't really know; perhaps it was your mother, but don't ask questions, please."
"I forgot, Aunt Boynton! Yes, I think perhaps my mother named me.
Mothers 'most always name their babies, don't they? My mother wasn't like you; she looked just like the picture of Pocahontas in my History. She never knew about these Bible rods, I guess."
"When you go a little further you will find pleasanter things about rods," said his aunt, knitting, knitting, intensely, as was her habit, and talking as if her mind were a thousand miles away.
"You know they were just little branches of trees, and it was only God's power that made them wonderful in any way."
"Oh! I thought they were like the singing-teacher's stick he keeps time with."
"No; if you look at your Concordance you'll finds it gives you a chapter in Numbers where there's something beautiful about rods.
I have forgotten the place; it has been many years since I looked at it. Find it and read it aloud to me." The boy searched his Concordance and readily found the reference in the seventeenth chapter of Numbers.
"Stand near me and read," said Mrs. Boynton. "I like to hear the Bible read aloud!"
Rodman took his Bible and read, slowly and haltingly, but with clearness and understanding:
1. AND THE LORD SPAKE UNTO MOSES, SAYING.
2. SPEAK UNTO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, AND TAKE OF EVERY ONE OF THEM A ROD ACCORDING TO THE HOUSE OF THEIR FATHERS, OF ALL THEIR PRINCES ACCORDING TO THE HOUSE OF THEIR FATHERS TWELVE RODS:
WRITE THOU EVERY MAN'S NAME UPON HIS ROD.
Through the boy's mind there darted the flash of a thought, a sad thought. He himself was a Rod on whom no man's name seemed to be written, orphan that he was, with no knowledge of his parents!
Suddenly he hesitated, for he had caught sight of the name of Aaron in the verse that he was about to read, and did not wish to pronounce it in his aunt's hearing.
"This chapter is most too hard for me to read out loud, Aunt Boynton," he stammered. " Can I study it by myself and read it to Ivory first?"
"Go on, go on, you read very sweetly; I can not remember what comes and I wish to hear it."
The boy continued, but without raising his eyes from the Bible.
3. AND THOU SHALT WRITE AARON'S NAME UPON THE ROD OF LEVI: FOR
ONE ROD SHALL BE FOR THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF THEIR FATHERS.
4. AND THOU SHALT LAY THEM UP IN THE TABERNACLE OF THE
CONGREGATION BEFORE THE TESTIMONY, WHERE I WILL MEET WITH YOU.
5. AND IT SHALL COME TO PASS THAT THE MAN'S ROD, WHOM I SHALL CHOOSE, SHALL BLOSSOM: AND I WILL MAKE TO CEASE FROM ME THE MURMURINGS OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, WHEREBY THEY MURMUR AGAINST YOU.
Rodman had read on, absorbed in the story and the picture it presented to his imagination. He liked the idea of all the princes having a rod according to the house of their fathers; he liked to think of the little branches being laid on the altar in the tabernacle, and above all he thought of the longing of each of the princes to have his own rod chosen for the blossoming.
6. AND MOSES SPOKE UNTO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, AND EVERY ONE OF THEIR PRINCES GAVE HIM A ROD A PIECE, FOR EACH PRINCE ONE, ACCORDING TO THEIR FATHER'S HOUSES, EVEN TWELVE RODS; AND THE ROD OF AARON WAS AMONG THEIR RODS.
Oh! how the boy hoped that Aaron's branch would be the one chosen to blossom! He felt that his aunt would be pleased, too; but he read on steadily, with eyes that glowed and breath that came and went in a very palpitation of interest.
