The next morning, the boy did not come. Food poisoning, thought the old man. That sandwich. And he was angry, because he could not concentrate on the sheaf of corn he was carving. Fool boy. Even when he was not there, he could manage to make a nuisance of himself.
Then after lunch he came, his hair wet from swimming. “Didn’t Jesus have any girl ancestors?” he asked, not wasting time on “Hello”.
“Well, of course he did!”
“But they aren’t allowed to climb in the Jesse tree, right?”
“Of course they are… in fact this sheaf of corn I’m carving right now…” The old man broke off as soon as he realized his mistake, but it was too late. He was obliged to tell the story of Ruth.
Ruth was a Moabite, born in Moab, brought up with a Moabite religion. But when she married a foreigner – an Israelite living in her country – she found that she liked the thoughts in his head, the beliefs in his heart. She began to say her prayers to the God of the Israelites. Even when her husband died, Ruth did not fall back into her Moabite ways. Her greatest friend in the world was now her mother-in-law, Naomi.
Naturally, Naomi was heartbroken: her son was dead and she was marooned, penniless, in a foreign land. “I must go back home to my own people,” she told Ruth. “I can’t stay here with nothing to live on.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Ruth.
“But you were born here in Moab! Your people will look after you! You don’t want to be burdened with me!”
Gently Ruth took hold of the old woman’s hand and laid it against her own cheek. “Wherever you go, I shall go. Your people will be my people and your God my God.”
So Ruth and Naomi made the long journey to Bethlehem – two women without a man to keep them fed, sheltered, safe. They had no land to farm, no flocks to tend. In those days, life for a widow was harder than hard, and Ruth had two mouths to feed, not just one.
It was harvest time in the fields. Ruth went with the other women to glean – to pick up the ears of barley left behind by the reapers as they hacked down the crop. The spiky stubble pricked her ankles and hands; her back ached. The other women shunned her, this foreign woman, this Moabite beauty. For every grain of corn she picked up, Ruth let a tear fall.
That was when Boaz saw her; the owner of the field. He was a good, kind man. He asked about the foreign beauty weeping amid his corn – and he liked what he heard. A remarkable girl, indeed, to leave home for the sake of her mother-in-law. Boaz called her over. “When you rest,” he said, “feel free to sit down with my reapers.” And he made sure that the reapers were not unkind to her and that they let plenty of grain fall as they hacked their way through the corn. Ruth told Naomi all about it when she got home that evening. And Naomi began to think what could be done.
Naomi may have had no money to share with her daughter-in-law, but she did have the wisdom of age. “I am distantly related to Boaz; he’s a good man… Ruth, I want you to do exactly as I tell you…” And of course Ruth did, though the advice was astounding… and more than a little frightening.
Later, Boaz went to work on the threshing floor, pounding the ears of corn with a leather flail until they jumped like crickets. The air around him was soon smoky with dust. Threshing is exhausting work, and no sooner had Boaz eaten his supper than he curled up alongside the threshing floor and rested his head on a bale of straw. His greying hair was greyer still with corn dust, his mind busy with business and prayers. He dozed.
When he stirred, the midnight threshing floor was pitch black but for the merest moonlight. To his dismay, Boaz felt a warm weight resting across his ankles – “Who’s there?” – and sat bolt upright, only to find the Moabite girl lying across his feet. Boaz blushed, and so did Ruth, though the dark hid their blushes. Her breath shook with fear, but she spoke the words Naomi had told her.
“I am Ruth, your handmaid. You are a kinsman of mine. Let me creep under your cloak and be safe.”
Boaz did better. He married Ruth, and gave her and her mother-in-law a comfortable home and a place where they belonged. There were whispers among the gossips, of course. Boaz betrothed? Boaz married? And to a foreigner? But God himself had whispered in Boaz’s ear. God, who had once made Eve as a helpmate for Adam, had brought to Bethlehem a wife of such courage and devotion, of such beauty and selflessness, that she would make his town immeasurably richer. The gossips were soon won round. On the day Ruth gave birth to Boaz’s son, they brought flowers and little presents and broad sunny smiles.
“What was the baby called?”
The carpenter pinched the bridge of his nose with finger and thumb. “You make me weary with your everlasting questions. Let me see now. Obed. The child’s name was Obed.”
“And what are you going to carve for him?”
The carpenter waved his chisel irritably. “Obed’s not important. He just grew up to be the father of Jesse and the grandfather of –”
“At last! Jesse!” exclaimed the boy loudly, and set the church ringing. “Jesse of the Jesse tree!” The boy padded away down the church aisle. His hair was dry now. At the door he turned and called, “Obed was important, I bet! To Ruth and Boaz, I bet!”
“I didn’t mean –” said the old man, but the church door banged, and he was alone. He went back to his work, but found himself saying (as if the boy were still there), “I didn’t mean he wasn’t important. I only meant that Obed doesn’t have a story – written down – in the Bible. That’s all I meant.” And he carved a little O above the sheaf of corn – O for Obed. It was only as big as a grain of corn or a teardrop. No one would know it was there, except him. But it made him feel better, knowing he had not left out Obed altogether.