by Jeff Guinn
My parents guessed they wouldn’t live long enough to see me grow up, and they were right. They died peacefully during the year I was nine—my father first and my mother a few months later. I loved them very much and grieved over their loss. I believed in heaven and felt they’d gone to live with Jesus, but I wished they could have gone on living with me. All these centuries later I remember them very well. As long as people are remembered by someone, they’re never completely gone. My parents were generous people, and I’m sure that somewhere they’ve enjoyed watching their son go on to such an unexpected—and long—career.
It was arranged that I would be put in the care of guardians, the priests of the local church. There were five of them, all very busy most days traveling from our village to other smaller towns. These trips could be long ones. Often, there could be forty miles or more of desert between one place and the next. By choice these priests were poor, giving up nice clothes and good food for the privilege of serving others. They didn’t even have oxcarts or donkeys to take them where they wanted to go. They walked. I admired them, but I didn’t think much of all that walking.
I stayed at the inn where I’d lived with my parents. The priests had papers from my father allowing them to spend the money I inherited as they saw fit. Therefore, they paid the staff of the inn a little extra to make sure I received all my meals and got my clothes washed when they were sufficiently dirty, which usually meant once every few weeks. Lots of sand blew through the air and there were no washing machines. Clothes were washed in big pots of boiling water, and it was a chore to haul buckets of water from the river back to the inn. I didn’t mind my clothes staying dirty awhile, since I was always the one told to go fill the buckets.
My life stayed the same for several more years, but as I grew older I noticed that some people in Patara weren’t as well-off as I was. It didn’t seem right that I ate two or three good meals every day when some of the poorer families were lucky to have a little bread, and perhaps even went hungry once in a while. I found I couldn’t enjoy my nice clothes when neighbors had to wear rags. I talked about it with the priests, and they all agreed I was right to feel uncomfortable. But they said I would have to decide for myself how to deal with those feelings.
There was one priest in particular named Phillip. His job was to take care of the church’s goats and chickens. He looked rather like a goat himself, right down to his scraggly little white chin-beard. I helped Phillip with the animals sometimes, and he was someone whose opinion I especially respected.
Lycia and the Mediterranean Sea
“How can I stop feeling guilty about having so many things when my neighbors have nothing?” I asked him one day. We’d just fed the goats and were standing alongside their smelly stall.
“The answer is already in your heart, Nicholas,” he replied, tugging at his beard. “You’ve heard the words of Jesus. The richest men in heaven will be the ones who gave away the most during their time on Earth.”
I knew he meant I should give away most of my things, such as my warm clothes to those wearing rags, my good food to those who were hungry, and so forth. I was willing to do it, but even simple generosity had its problems, the most important of which was other people’s pride. Adults would feel ashamed if it became known they’d accepted charity from a twelve-year-old boy. I said good-bye to Phillip and went back to the inn to think about it some more.
That night I was sitting in the inn’s dining hall, still feeling troubled. I’d had my usual nice supper of bread and cheese and fat juicy olives, washing it all down with lots of fresh goat’s milk. By this time, most of the guests had been fed and were back in their rooms. A few men from my village were sitting in front of the fireplace talking about Shem, another citizen of Patara who’d once been rich, only to fall on hard times. He’d made some money selling camels and then invested the money in two freight ships. Sometime later, the ships were caught in a storm and sank. Shem’s fortune sank with them. Now he went from house to house in Patara asking to mend fishing nets for whatever anyone wanted to pay him. His wife had died years earlier, and he was trying to raise three daughters all by himself. And that was really Shem’s problem, these men were saying.
“All three girls of marriage age, and no money for even one dowry,” one of the men remarked. “It’s sadder still because each has a young man who wants to marry her. I think the oldest daughter’s fifteen, too.”
One of the other men made a clucking noise with his tongue. “Fifteen! Another few years and it’ll be much too late for her to ever marry. Oh, well, it makes no difference. Shem will never be able to put aside money for their dowries in a hundred years.”
I should explain here that back then people got married at much younger ages. Girls as young as twelve or thirteen were considered ready to be brides. Boys could wait a little longer, maybe until they were fifteen or sixteen. Shem’s daughters were fifteen, thirteen, and twelve, meaning all three were old enough to be married.
But the dowry custom complicated things. When a man married a woman, he had to support her for the rest of her life, so the bride’s father was expected to give his daughter’s new husband some money to help pay these future expenses. I thought the idea was silly when I first heard it, and still do. It was just another way in those unenlightened days that women were treated as though they weren’t as good as men.
So these poor girls all had suitors who wanted to marry them, but custom wouldn’t allow those marriages to take place as long as Shem didn’t have money for dowries. Then I had a wonderful idea. I had money, even if Shem didn’t. I could give him enough money for each girl to have a fine dowry and be able to marry her suitor. That would make the daughters happy. Since Shem wouldn’t have to support them anymore, it might mean he wouldn’t have to work as hard mending nets. Then everyone would be pleased, most of all me, because I would have done something generous and shared my wealth.
I went back up to my room and pulled out the small sack of silver coins I kept under my bedding. If necessary, I could have gone to any one of several people in town who were keeping some of the money my parents had left for me, but when I spilled the coins out on my bed I saw I really had plenty for the dowries—twelve coins in all. Four silver coins per daughter would be just right.
But how could I give the girls the money without shaming their father? If I walked up to Shem’s door and told him what I was doing, he would surely feel humiliated. And if I just left the sack of coins on his doorstep, some passerby might steal it.
The next day I went back to talk a little more to Phillip, the priest. This time he was gathering eggs and asked me to help him. We went from hen to hen, chatting all the while. As we walked, I performed some handstands, and then balanced myself on the log fence surrounding the chicken coops. As a boy, I wasn’t as heavy as I am now.
“I see you’re athletic besides being so clever, Nicholas,” Phillip said. “You say you don’t want to embarrass Shem. Well, do you think you can climb a ladder? His house has lots of windows, and everyone opens all their shutters at night so cool breezes can blow through them.”
Phillip
Phillip never actually told me I should sneak into Shem’s house and leave the money, but his meaning was clear. It sounded like an adventure, and I set out to give my secret gifts that very night.
I waited until well after dark, when everyone in the village was asleep. We all got up very early, often before dawn, so we never stayed up too late at night. I wore my darkest robes and carried a small ladder borrowed from the workers’ shed down the street, and moments after leaving the inn I was standing outside Shem’s house.
Although he was poor, Shem and his daughters still lived in the house he had built when he was rich. It was just one story tall, but the walls were higher than those of most houses, rising almost twice as high as my head. The windows were up high, too, closer to the roof than to the floor. This was because heat and light were provided by fires, and as the smoke rose toward the ceiling it w
as supposed to waft out the open windows. Often, though, the winds blew in off the desert and the smoke just came back into the houses, making people’s eyes water. Chimneys weren’t invented yet.
I listened outside the house for a few moments. No one inside was making a sound. I guessed the house would have three rooms, one a big family room where meals were prepared and eaten, a bedroom for the three girls, and a bedroom for their father. I intended to leave the silver coins in Shem’s room, but as I stood outside his house I began to wonder whether—when he woke in the morning and found the coins—he ’d know they were for his daughters’ dowries. A better plan would be to leave the coins in the room where the daughters slept. If they really had suitors who wanted to marry them, they’d know how the money should be spent.
My next problem was finding out which room belonged to the girls. The only way to find out was to look. I leaned my ladder against a wall close to the nearest window and climbed up. The shutters were half open. I peeked inside. It was very dark in there. There wasn’t any fire lit, at least in that room, although I could hear the sound of someone snoring. Was it Shem or one of his daughters? I poked my head farther inside the room. Just then the desert wind gusted and the heavy wooden shutter was blown hard against my head. There was a loud thud as shutter and skull came together. I yelped with pain, waking up the snorer, who turned out to be Shem “Who’s there?” he barked. “If you’re a thief, I have a stick!”
I had no desire to meet Shem’s stick. My head hurt enough already. Forgetting I was on a ladder, I pulled back from the window, toppled over into the street, and landed on a pile of straw. Pigs had spent time in that straw, and had deposited fragrant souvenirs. Dizzy from the knock on the head and smelly from pig droppings, I staggered to my feet, grabbed my ladder, and hurried back toward the inn. Shem was making a fearful uproar inside his house, screaming to his daughters to wake up and help him catch the thief. Startled, they began screaming, too.
As I ran, I heard behind me the sound of doors being thrown open and the voices of Shem’s neighbors calling to ask him what had happened. Luckily, I was able to put the ladder away, creep back to my room, and slip into my night robes without anyone seeing me. I lay awake until almost dawn, my head throbbing and my nose offended by the way I smelled.
As soon as I could, without attracting notice, I went out into the early morning to fetch a bucket of water so I could wash off most of the odor. Over breakfast at the inn I heard people talking about how brave Shem had been to fight off six thieves who’d tried to break into his home. It put me in a poor mood.
When I’d finished eating, I went back to talk to Phillip. I didn’t have to tell him what had happened. With no television or other way to hear world news, local tales were our main entertainment. Gossip spread fast.
“I hear a dozen burglars tried to break into old Shem’s house last night,” Phillip laughed. “He had a stick handy, I’m told, and beat some of them badly, although none so severely that they couldn’t run away afterward. Did the noise wake you, by any chance?”
“I hit my head on a shutter and fell off the ladder into a pile of pig-fouled hay,” I replied sourly. “I think this marks the end of my gift-giving.”
To my surprise, Phillip’s face reddened with anger. He started to say something, caught himself, turned redder, and finally said quietly, “You’ve suffered enough, have you? The pain of a fall into some dirty hay was so awful, you’ve forgotten the pain of Shem and his daughters? These feelings you’ve described to me, your pity for those with less than you and how you’d like to do good things for others, were lost at the same time you lost your balance on that ladder?”
“Not really,” I protested. “I still feel sad for Shem’s family, and for anyone else in need. It’s just that I’m apparently not very good at giving presents. Look what a mess I made of it last night.”
Phillip looked at me for a long moment, then said thoughtfully, “Do you recall the story of the three kings who traveled far to give gifts to the baby Jesus?”
I did; it was a favorite tale of mine. Apparently, three royal persons—or magicians, or astronomers, depending on who told the story—saw a bright star in the sky and knew they should follow it to where a special baby would be. They brought presents for this unknown infant—precious things such as gold and spices. They had to go a long way, riding camels for the most part. Eventually, they found Jesus, presented their gifts, and then went back to wherever it was that they came from.
“Of course I remember the three kings,” I said to Phillip. “Why do you ask?”
“Did the kings have an easy time finding the Christ-child?” he replied. “Did they give up when they weren’t successful in giving him their gifts on the first night of their journey?”
“Shem’s daughters aren’t the baby Jesus,” I said sulkily.
“And you’re not a king, either,” Phillip responded, his words trapping me neatly.
“Your point is made,” I conceded. “I’ll try again tonight.”
Actually, it was four nights before I could try again. It took that long before Shem and some of the other men of the village stopped lying in wait in the night shadows, watching to see if the band of thieves would again try to rob Shem’s house, or perhaps another house in Patara. Every time I sneaked out of the inn, I quickly caught glimpses of people hiding behind donkey stalls and low fences. And each night I went back to my bed thinking, “That’s enough. I won’t try again tomorrow night.” But I did, and finally on the fourth night no one was lying in wait for the thieves’ return.
I got my ladder and quietly walked to Shem’s house. I leaned the ladder by another high window and climbed up. I peeked through the open shutter and knew instantly that I had picked the right room this time. There was a low fire burning in the grate, and in its dim light I could see the shadows of three figures sleeping on rumpled bedding.
A new problem presented itself. It was a short drop down to the floor, perhaps six feet. I could do it easily, but once inside, how would I get back out again? The door to the street would undoubtedly be latched, and, anyway, it was in old Shem’s room. I had no intention of waking him up and giving him a real chance to beat a presumed burglar with his stick.
The only thing to do was balance on the windowsill, draw up the ladder and place it inside the room. Then I could climb down, leave the coins, climb to the windowsill, pull up the ladder, lean it back out into the street, and climb down.
The first part of this plan worked admirably. My ladder was made of lashed-together wood, and I made little noise pulling it up from the street, easing it over the windowsill and then down into the girls’ room. As soon as it touched the floor, I swung myself about and climbed down inside the house.
But just as I stepped away from the ladder, one of the sleeping girls began to moan from a bad dream. It was Sara, Shem’s youngest daughter. As Sara whimpered, both her older sisters, Celina and Ruth, began to toss about, too. I worried either might awaken, get up to comfort Sara, and see me standing there. I froze where I stood, scarcely daring to breathe. After a few moments Sara seemed to settle back into a deeper sleep. I counted to fifty, then cautiously reached inside my robe for the pouch of coins. It was my intention to leave four coins under each girl’s pillow; after all, my parents had often left little presents under my pillow when I was asleep.
I tiptoed toward Sara and was just reaching toward her pillow with four coins in my hand, when she again began to twitch and whimper. I jumped back and tripped over my own feet. I fought to recover my balance and nearly fell into the fire. Fortunately, I missed the flames and instead fell on the hard dirt floor. There was a soft thump as my head bounced off the floor. I expected the thump to wake the girls and their father, too, and briefly thought my head hadn’t yet received all the punishment it was going to get. Fortunately for me, Shem didn’t come rushing from his room. None of the girls woke up, either.
Still, it had been too close a call. I wanted to leave the coins behind an
d make my escape.
I was afraid to come near the girls again. My luck couldn’t hold up much longer. Looking around the room, I noticed each had left her daytime clothes hanging on a line strung from one wall peg to a peg on an opposite wall. This was a custom in my country; quite often robes—made dusty during the day—were rinsed out, then hung up to dry during the night.
The idea came to me that I might leave coins in each girl’s daytime robe, provided I could find pockets in them. But the room was too poorly lit to see the robes clearly. If I had to fumble around with them looking for pockets, I might knock down the whole clothesline and wake everybody up for certain. I had no sister or other female relative; I wasn’t quite sure where pockets were on girls’ robes.
But alongside the robes on the clothesline were three pairs of rough wool stockings. Everyone wore these during certain times of the year, sometimes to keep out the cold and other times to avoid burns on our bare legs when the desert winds blew sand about in hard, scratchy clouds. The stockings were obviously sturdy. Within seconds, I’d put four silver coins in each pair—two coins in each stocking. The girls couldn’t help but discover the money when they woke in the morning and started to dress.
Thrilled to have given my gifts, I inched back across the room, grabbed my ladder, and leaned it back up toward the window. I clambered up, balanced on the sill, and pulled up the ladder. As I leaned it back from the windowsill to the street, Sara again began gasping. This time she woke herself up, and her sisters, too. All three sat up, and as they did I hurried a bit too much and the ladder clacked against the windowsill. I just caught a quick glimpse of their pale, startled faces looking up at me before I scurried over the sill and down the ladder, and began hurrying back toward the inn. I expected to hear screams behind me, but it remained quiet. I returned the ladder to the shed, sneaked back to my room, and then lay in my bed awake until dawn, feeling happier than I could ever remember. There’s nothing better than giving gifts, I thought over and over.
