Christmas is our most important holiday, and its literature is correspondingly rich. Yet until now no adequate bundle of Christmas treasures in poetry and prose has found its way onto the Internet for Winter, Christmas, the birth of Christ, Santa Claus, and so much more..Joseph, Son of David
Joseph, the worker in wood, wrought dizzily through the heavy heat of the June day, working by the side of a fire which he had built to heat water so that he might soak the wood and bend it upon the spokes for the felly of the wheel. It was back-breaking work, and the dry heat entered into his bones so that his head swam and his arms refused their strength. But so he had toiled all the years of his life, a man hewing to the line, severe upon himself, ever giving more than the measure for which he was paid. It was no new thing that he should labor to the point of utter weariness. Hard, unstinted toil had been his uncomplained portion all the days of his life.
This man was the son of kings and a king, of right. The havoc of time had robbed him of his birthright and of all the things that should have come with his blood-of all things save an honored name and the great, brave spirit of David his father. The irony of life which gave him the blood and the spirit of a king and with these in his heart forced him to hew other men’s wood for the barest needs of living had ever cut deep into his heart. In his youth he had rebelled and chafed in spirit that the blood of David should be thus demeaned on the earth. And there had not been wanting foolish men who harried the soul of the young man with talk and with unspoken jibes.
But these things had never been able to embitter the sturdy heart of the man who walked straight with God. Nor was it poverty, or labor, or the consciousness of the injustice of the world that now weakened his spirit and robbed his frame of its strength. There was a deeper trouble that touched the very fiber of his being and made his heart to bleed inwardly, in silence.
Mary, the light of his eyes, the maiden whom he loved with a tenderness passing the love of all other men, had been gone from the village these three months now. She had gone secretly, without even a word for him. She was his promised wife, and it was his right to have known whither she went, and why. But there was no blame in his heart for her, as though she had thought but lightly of him. Her guardians could only tell him that she had gone to her kin in Judea. They could give him no more reason than he himself could conjecture.
He knew that Mary had done nothing in ungentleness; the reason for her going must have been one that compelled without question. Something beyond endurance must have troubled the maiden to drive her to this secret flight. He had been minded to follow, to protect her if there were need, and to bring her back. But he had not ventured to do so, though it would have been his right. There was that about Mary which he had never understood, something in her of which he stood always in tender awe.
His heart was wearied and troubled sick as he bent his back to his task. But now, as he lifted his eyes a little, his soul leaped up into them; for there was Mary climbing the hill from the great roadway. He could not be mistaken; there was none other like to her in the entire world!
He would have rushed down to greet her as she came opposite his place, but something, in the look she gave him or in the wearied hesitation of her walk, told him that she did not wish to talk and kept him standing hurt and silent by his wheel. So Mary passed by to her house.
In the evening he would seek her out and she would tell him of this thing which had troubled her.
He found her sitting in the gloaming by her house and softly spoke her name, saying:
“Mary, Mary, how is it with thee? And how was it I should not know this thing that troubled thee?”
But the girl, rising in panic, looked up at him with startled, frightened eyes. Then she burst into tears and fled away from him into the house.
Now Joseph was dumbfounded and more sorely troubled than ever. He thought to follow her into the house, to get an understanding of the unusual conduct; for he was sure that only some deep and terrible fear could have made Mary deal thus with him. But he did not follow. He turned and went sadly back across the ridge of the village to his own house.
