d poured into skins. The youngsters would come home
with their legs and shirts all stained and spotted red.

=Olive orchards.=--Almost every Canaanite farm had a few olive trees
or a small olive orchard. The olives were prized for the oil which was
squeezed from them. This oil was used as we use butter, with bread and
in cooking. It was also burned in lamps. In fact, it was their chief
fuel for lighting purposes.

The olive press was a large stone with a hollow in the top. From the
bottom of the hollow, a hole was drilled through to the outside of the
stone. Across the hollow swung a wooden beam, one end riveted to a
tree or another stone, and the other end carrying weights. The ripe
olives were shaken from the trees, and basket full after basket full
poured into the hollow stone. Then the weighted beam would be laid
across the top, with flat stones under it, fitting down into the
hollow over the olives. The oil, trickling out below, was strained and
stored in jars.

HARD WORK AND BRIGHT HOPES

Most of these different kinds of crops called for an immense amount of
hard work and drudgery. Think of the weariness of the reapers,
swinging their sickles in the wheat or barley all day long under the
hot Syrian sun. Think of the winnowers, tossing the grain into the
wind. Think of the aching backs of the plower and the sower. Of course
there were happy hours, also. It was great fun to ride home behind the
oxen, on a cart packed full and pressed down with golden sheaves. The
time of treading out the grapes was a festival of laughter,
love-making, and song. And in the rainy season, after a year of
plentiful harvests, when the granaries and cellars were well stored,
there must have been many happy days of quiet rest and play in Hebrew
homes.

But most of all, what cheered them on was the hope of better days to
come, when their children at least, or their children's children,
would not have to toil quite so hard or so long each day, and when the
danger of famine and starvation would not loom up quite so grimly as
in the old days in the desert when one summer of drought might mean
death for all. Here in Canaan, they thought, we will surely be happy
by and by.

STUDY TOPICS

1. Explain the following Scripture passages, in the light of the
customs described in this chapter: Isaiah 63. 2; Deuteronomy 25. 4;
Matthew 3. 12.

2. Psalm 23. 1 draws a great lesson about God from the experiences of
shepherd life. What lesson