T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S the two boys alone. The wife’s name was Naomi and she raised the boys up to be young men, and after a time these young men met two young women that they liked very much and one day these two young men and the young women did something that lots of our young men and women do. What do you think it was? Yes, they got mar ried and were very happy indeed, and Naomi too was very happy as she vis ited these two homes, but in a little while the two young men died, and Naomi, their mother, was left alone with the two young women, the wives of her boys. Now Naomi heard there was plenty of food in the land where they used to live, and she wanted to go back to the old home again. When the day came for her to start back, the two young women started back with her, and after they had traveled a little dis tance along the road Naomi told the two young women it would be best for them to tell her good-bye and go back each to her mother’s house. One of the girls kissed Naomi good-bye and went back to her home, but the other, whose name was Ruth, would not leave her. Now this is the part of our story we can see in the picture. Can you see the young woman going down the road? She is the one who had just said good-bye to Naomi and is going back home. The other young woman we see clinging to Naomi is Ruth, and she is saying some thing to Naomi. Now you be real quiet and I will tell you what Ruth is saying to Naomi. They are wonderful words and so full of love. “Where thou goest I will go, and where thou livest, I will live; thy friends shall be my friends, and thy God, my God.” Ruth loved Naomi, and she was willing to leave her home and friends to go with Naomi and help and comfort her. Naomi’s heart was sad because she had lost her hus band and her two sons, and there was no one to take care of her. Ruth said she was young and strong, and Naomi
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was old and sad, and that she would go with her and take care of her as long as they both lived. What a fine young woman Ruth was, and we can learn a fine lesson from her. There are so many old people all around us today-, and sick people, and O how much joy and hap piness we can bring into their lives by being kind to them and helping them in every way we can. So Ruth and Naomi traveled on together, walking many miles, over hills and across plains, in all kinds of weather, and sleeping un der the stars at night, until they came to the little town of Bethlehem, where Naomi used to live. Ruth found a little” house for her and Naomi to live in, and after she had made Naomi comfortable, she .went out in the wheat and barley fields. There the men had sickles, and cut the grain down, and the women gathered it into bundles. Poor people sometimes walked after the women and picked up what they dropped. So Ruth followed them picking up the long, yel low stalks with the barley in the top of it. It was hard work bending over in the hot sun, but she thought of poor sad Naomi, who was hungry, and then Ruth did not mind if she was tired and hot, she worked on gladly. When the owner of the field came to see how the reapers were getting along, he asked one of the reapers who she was, and the reaper told the owner her family and friends lived in a far country, but that (Concluded on ' age 419)
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