back to it. True, he had no friends there now; but what matter of that?
Ah, yes, he was old, and the roll-call of his kindred showed him pitiful
gaps. His mother! Ruth! But he had Naomi still. Naomi! He spoke her name
aloud, softly, tenderly, caressingly, as if his wrinkled hand were on
her hair. Then recovering himself, he laughed to think that he could be
so childish.

Near to sunset he came upon a dooar, a tent village, in a waste place.
It was pitched in a wide circle, and opened inwards. The animals were
picketed in the centre, where children and dogs were playing, and the
voices of men and women came from inside the tents. Fires were burning
under kettles swung from triangles, and sight of this reminded Israel
that he had not eaten since the previous day. "I must have food," he
thought, "though I do not feel hungry." So he stopped, and the wandering
Arabs hailed him. "Markababikum!" they cried from where they sat within.

"You are very welcome! Welcome to our lofty land!" Their land was the
world.

Israel went into one of the tents, and sat down to a dish of boiled
beans and black bread. It was very sweet. A man was eating beside him; a
woman, half dressed, and with face uncovered, was suckling a child while
she worked a loom which was fastened to the tent's two upright poles.
Some fowls were nestling for the night under the tent wing, and a young
girl was by turns churning milk by tossing it in a goat's-skin and
baking cakes on a fire of dried thistles crackling in a hole over three
stones. All were laughing together, and Israel laughed along with them.

"On a long journey, brother?" said the man.