used to play in the streets of Goshen. But he had died of the plague. Many young children had died of the plague that year. Father said he thought it was God’s way of sparing them from the visitation of God’s wonders and signs on Egypt that were to come. At least that’s what Father said now. Beulah couldn’t remember how he had explained the tragedy while it was happening in Egypt.
The front flap of the tent rustled. Beulah looked past the dead fire pit beside her bed to the little square of sky the open tent door revealed. Beneath it, Zillah’s dark hair, tangled and full of wisps, shone in the moonlight as she leaned her head in. “Can I come in?”
“Sure,” Beulah said. Zillah was a distant cousin and her best friend. She wore ribbons to hold her flowing hair back. It was snarly and sticky from her running around all day outside. Beulah’s hair had no ribbon. It fanned around her face on the pillow. Her body lay spectre-thin and pale underneath some old worn animal skins.
“We are pulling up stakes at noon tomorrow,” Zillah said, hurriedly and breathlessly as usual, her merry words tumbling out. “So I will have some time to visit you in the morning. But I came now, too, because that song is so sad and melancholy.”
“Sad, but true. Why is the gathering going so late?”
“I don’t know.”
Zillah sat next to Beulah’s bed and put her hand into Beulah’s. Their hands were the same size, but one was strong and tanned from playing and helping all day traveling through the wilderness. The other was tremulous and weak from day after day lying in bed or being pulled behind a beast of burden.
Zillah’s excitement was feverish, “The sky, Beulah, the colors—you have to come out with me in the morning and we’ll count the shades of blue.”
“I will feel too weak tomorrow. I know I will.” The dissolution of her strength was daily more insidious.
Zillah patted her friend’s frail and insubstantial arm. “Well, we can just sit here and talk, too.” She lowered her voice, “What do you think of the manna?”
“The manna?”
“Yes, there are some who are talking about it.”
“What would they be saying?” Beulah scanned her friend with kindred eyes and then looked over at the empty manna jar in the corner. They had eaten some in the morning and then had the rest for supper. Her mother gathered it in the morning, and put it in the jar. It tasted wholesome to Beulah, but sweet, too, like honey. She loved the manna. She had heard in a sermon once about the manna that God fed them with in the wilderness. It was manna to humble them, and to examine them and test them, and to do them good in the end.
“People are sick of it.”
“How could anyone get sick of manna?” Beulah shook her head. She leaned back tiredly into the bed. The heat, almost like a kind of glamour, hung immanent around her. Her fingers picked at threads holding together the animal skins that covered her. Then they fell away weakly.
“Well, in Egypt we had a variety of food,” Zillah said. Her voice sounded soft and blurry to Beulah.
Beulah thought about that. It was true, there had been cucumbers and lots of flesh in Egypt. She said, “But manna is good for you. It’s enough. And it is a picture of God’s Word of grace. Sweet and new every morning.”
“It is?”
“Yes, don’t you remember when we named it? When we first saw it we said, ‘mah-na’—‘what is it?’ and so it got called ‘manna.’ You should go see if there are any crumbs left in that jar on the shelf over there. Mother sometimes saves the very last of the day’s manna to give to us before bed.”
Zillah got some manna, and the two girls ate, savoring its sweetness, listening to the psalm being sung outside the tent in the distant night where stars paved the firmament. It was a new song, a song by Miriam, which she had written after they had crossed the Red Sea.
When the song was over, the two girls began to sing, “The Lord is my strength and my song. He also has become my salvation.” It carried beyond the tent, beyond the tents of the thousands of others, beyond the boundless horizon of sand, above, to the expanse, dark and unspotted.
2.
The voice of a man came to Beulah as she drifted out of sleep the next morning as the sun crept over the camp outside. The voice came from just on the other side of the skin of the tent next to her head.
The man’s persuasive accent was soft, friendly and diffuse. He was saying, “Let’s meet tonight. We’re going to start journeying at noon today, and we will travel all day. We should stop at sundown, as usual. Let’s meet then.”
“Where?” another voice answered. This voice was deeper, and sounded precise and suspicious, but it held a fascinating elegance.
“How about right here? The people who travel in this tent are always gone. There’s nobody there, they’re too busy. And they have this extra animal skin hanging here to keep this spot shaded.”
Beulah shifted stealthily in her bed on the other side of the tent skins. She noticed a little tear in the skin where the sewing of the skins had come loose. She reached out and pulled the tear back. Now she could see the two men talking. The man with the deeper voice was saying, “Yes, let’s do that.” He had wispy black hair and a full black beard with a little bit of gray in it. He looked older than her father.
Beulah looked at the other man, the one with the soft and friendly voice. He was much younger, and not very tall. He wore a braided belt, and his sandals were freshly made. His garb was that of the Levites, but showed gold filings in it that told of wealth. His face was handsome, as if a covering of beauty had been drawn on it. “Moses is proud.” The younger man’s voice was as if it dropped manna. “He has lifted himself up above the congregation.”
The deeper voice of the adder-eyed man with the long black beard was muffled, but Beulah could still make out the words, “Yes, he shouldn’t be in charge. Let’s go back now, though; we wouldn’t want to be missed.”
“Right,” said the man who wore the garb of the Levites. “Or to miss anything.”
Then the older man, with the long black beard, stopped, and grabbed the sleeve of the kind-looking Levite. “Can I be part of the inner circle next time?”
The Levite’s mouth twitched. The eyes of the hard-faced older man glittered. He clutched the Levite’s arm convulsively, then let go. The Levite let his arm drop placidly to his side as each man turned away from the other.
Beulah felt drawn to the Levite’s atmosphere of purity. She beheld absorbedly as the two men left the shade outside her tent. They each went a different way. The man with the black beard went over toward a large tent facing east. It was a big tent, Beulah could see; even from this distance she could tell. She knew that some very wealthy and important people tented there. They had many children, but the children were older. One of the youngest was friends with Beulah’s older brother, Jubal. Beulah couldn’t remember his name. But Jubal liked to go visit there because there was always plenty to do, and young people to visit. Much of the work of herding cattle was hired out with the people who tented over there, because the people were so wealthy.
The other man, the younger one, the Levite with the voice steeped in honeyed friendliness, was going toward the tabernacle. It was a very large
