They arrived on the evening of the second day, to the warm welcome of the four that had stayed behind. The old priest was lodged in the new cabin and the next morning was given a grand tour of the site, with Jonathan at his side and the six youths filing behind. He was fully impressed with the place and declared that it was well worth a pilgrimage. On a bench before the spring the two men sat down a long while, the disciples at their feet, discussing plans for building more cabins to live in, to receive visitors and house a school, along with the workshop for the bibles. The old man grew warm to all these plans and promised his active patronage. He regretted that he’d no longer the strength to wield an ax and help in building the foundations of such a village.
Over the next few weeks this old man would rise at dawn and slowly lead the young ones up the hill where Jonathan would join them in a prayer service. They’d dip a large cup into the pool of the spring, and each take a sip of its cool waters at the end of the ceremony. Then the others would head down the hill to work on two smaller cabins for housing. It was summer and they wanted to be done before the cooler season arrived, to make life comfortable.
But the old priest spent his mornings sitting by the spring in meditation. Later he would putter about, tending the lawn, gathering up the fallen leaves and twigs with his feeble hands. In the afternoons he’d come down to help with gardening or simply sit at the outdoor table and watch the young ones work. He said the freshness of the place seemed to be improving his health, or perhaps it was the waters from the spring. He was eager to send out a few of his aged friends, to test this theory.
He stayed on for the span of a month. In this time a second cabin rose slowly from the ground. Jonathan had once shown him his own cabin, but not the cellar. In their talks he’d often come close, but always backed off from mentioning any of his other plans. The only thing he did do apart from the others at this time was to scrape off the paint from the pieces of crystal he’d brought, simply to see their beautiful transparency.
When the old priest regretted one day that he had brought no gift to honor the shrine, Jonathan told him of the cut glass he’d brought from the temple cellars. He suggested that some pieces, nicely arranged in the tiny clefts and nooks of the rock wall behind the spring, might make a pretty sight and pass for a gift. The priest asked to see the baubles and was taken with the idea as soon as he saw them. This happened a few days before he planned to return. He spent hours setting each crystal into the fissures of the rock and the result was quite beautiful. When this was done he lifted a silver chain from his neck, long ago deprived of its cross, and hung this too as an offering to the waters.
He returned to town accompanied by Peter and Paul, along with the pack animals. Jonathan asked him to hold back any more visitors for three moons, so that he could finish the cabins and his first bibles. Then he’d set out on his own pilgrimage to inform the world of his project. The old man fully agreed with this plan and told Jonathan he’d want for nothing his town could supply. They parted the dearest of friends.
When Paul and Peter came back five days later with another load of supplies, they all worked hard at completing the two cabins that would be their homes. The first, long cabin they turned into a workshop, with tables and benches and props for learning and practicing new skills. When the classroom was ready Jonathan instituted a new practice; school for two hours each morning. He used a wooden board and white chalk and taught them to copy on their wax tablets not only the modern hieroglyphs, but the old alphabet and the sounds each letter represented.
They seemed to enjoy these daily lessons. Jonathan did his best to vary the task of copying and repeating with little lectures in natural history and geography, accompanied by crude maps, which they would also copy. He found their minds pretty near void but eager to learn and retentive of almost all he said. He wondered if there was some connection between these two states.
It happened by chance at this time that the cloud cover that whitened the skies partially dissipated for a period of three days, revealing the blue of a bygone era and strange fleets of fluffy clouds sailing those altitudes like majestic ships. On the morning of this development Sarah had lingered at the shrine and was tidying up, when she came running down the hill at full speed and calling to the others. She talked of a sight she couldn’t describe and urged them all to come and see.
In several spots behind the spring sunbeams were striking the rock face and the crystals, casting little spectrums of color against the white face of the rock, wherever the glass formed a prism. The paint they’d religiously applied formed a perfect screen for these tiny rainbows. Jonathan came up last and wasn’t about to diffuse their wonder. He acted as surprised as they were and like them accounted it some sort of miracle, or message from the skies. The colors were pure and bright and the youths couldn’t seem to get their eyes close enough to drink them in. The sunbeams also played upon the water, reflecting off the glass. The pool in turn mirrored the blue sky and the clouds, embellishing its own beauty immensely.
After they offered up prayers for this divine show, they talked and conjectured as gaily as the sunbeams played. Jonathan watched and was quietly amused, finally quieting them with the news that in his youth the sun often played such tricks of color, that the old days were full of such light and he would show them pictures as proof of what he spoke.
He went back to his cellar alone and carefully cut out five more of the colored prints from his farming book. Then he went down the hill and distributed these to his followers, giving Mary the one she’d seen on his desk.
"This is what our world looked like in former times," he told them, "and what it may return to fairly soon. You’ll each keep your picture and learn the names of the colors and be ready when the change comes."
They were as surprised at what he said as with the pictures themselves and looked up at him and then back at the objects in their hands with equal wonder. All their lives they had no notion of personal property. The Church owned everything, even them. It could revoke their lives as easily as it could their identity cards and they were taught to submit to such control as a civic duty. But this new idea, though it had to be explained, didn’t take long to carve for itself a permanent home in their minds.
"Since you’ll need some place to keep your new possession," Jonathan went on, "we’ll build six wooden chests, and carve your names upon them. You can keep these at the foot of your beds, and put other things in them later, that you’ll make."
They spent the next few days fashioning these boxes, each with a hinged lid. With the new letters they’d learned Jonathan taught them to carve their own names. Paul grew so enthused at this business that he worked day and night to cover his own chest with all sorts of figures and patterns, rows of hieroglyphs and shapes and letters. His chest turned out so beautiful that Jonathan suggested to the others that they let Paul decorate their boxes also, at their direction. He would be the official woodcarver of the group. This plan worked out to everyone's satisfaction. Afterwards Jonathan set Paul to work carving all sorts of other boxes and cases, and even the posts to their beds and the doors to their cabins. In the corner of each work Jonathan let Paul carve his own name, in tiny letters.
Jonathan had good reason to be pleased with Paul's new-found talent. He wanted all of his disciples to become artisans of some sort. He realized that this was the best promoter of individuality, a pride in one's work that gave one a reason to affix a name to it.
"What was the purpose of a name if one had no outlet in which to declare it?" he thought. "All these things fit together. There's no use for a name in a world without art, no use for individuals. But once one of them crops up, the other half follows.
