shoulder and goes for water to the spring, which is outside the
village half way up the hill.

If we are expecting to be called to breakfast, we shall be
disappointed. There is no regular morning meal, although everyone
helps himself to a bite or two of bread from the bread basket in the
corner of the room. By and by father and the older boys take the ox
and the ass from the shed just back of the one-roomed house (we are
lucky if the animals were not kept all night in the house itself) and
start for the field. And the women also have their day's work before
them in the house. First of all, there is a bag of wheat to be ground
into flour.


HOME TASKS

In the desert the wheat or barley, when they had it, was merely
pounded between two rough stones such as could be picked up anywhere.
The flour, or meal, which was made in this way was not very good.
Here in Canaan, each house had a rude stone hand-mill for grinding
grain. It consists of a large lower stone with a saddle-shaped hollow
on the upper side. The upper stone is somewhat like a large, very
heavy rolling pin. The grain is poured into the hollow and the upper
stone is rolled back and forth over it while the flour gradually sifts
out over the sides on to the cloth which is spread on the ground
underneath the mill. It is a monotonous task, and very often two
people work it together, one feeding in the grain and the other
turning the millstone. This is pleasanter, as each worker is "company"
for the other. Perhaps our hostess will let us roll the millstone for
her while she feeds in the grain and sweeps up the flour from the