But when the
fruit is getting ripe, watchmen are appointed to guard the grove and
prevent a single olive from being touched even by the person who has a
right to the tree.'--You do not look as if you would like
that, Malcolm."
[Illustration: OLIVE TREE.--GATHERING THE FRUIT.]
"Indeed I wouldn't!" replied the boy. "I rather think I'd take my own
olives whenever I wanted 'em."
"Not if you lived where all were agreed on this point, as they seem to
be in Palestine.--'Days pass on, and the autumn is at hand before the
governor of the district issues the wished-for proclamation; then the
watchmen are removed. Immediately the scene becomes a most animated one.
The grove is alive with an eager throng of men, women and children
shaking down the precious fruit. It is, however, scarcely possible to
bring every berry down, nor would it seem desirable, since after this
great harvest comes the gleaning-time, when the poor, who have no olive
trees, are permitted to come into the grove and shake down what
is left.'"
"Isn't there something about that in the Bible, Miss Harson?" asked
Clara.
"Yes; it is in the book of the prophet Isaiah, 'Yet gleaning grapes
shall be left in it, as the shaking of an olive tree, two or three
berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost
fruitful branches thereof, saith the Lord God of Israel[8].' This is a
prophecy about God's people, but the Jews were told by God to leave
something, when they were harvesting, for the poor to glean.
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