Read Rachel and Leah (Women of Genesis) for Free Online Page A

her, even though she made it clear she had nothing but contempt for his stupid acrobatics and races and clowning. She refused even to remember his name.
    Only when he spoke to her did she realize that she had quickened her pace and had led the flock at least a hundred paces ahead of Old Jaw and the boys.
    “I’m not hurrying,” she called back. “You’re just slow.”
    “Doesn’t do any good to hurry!” shouted Old Jaw. “We don’t water the flock in the heat of the day!”
    “It isn’t summer yet,” said Rachel. “It won’t hurt them!”
    “Well, if you get there ahead of us, who’s going to get the cover off the well?” shouted Old Jaw.
    The boys whooped at that. “Rachel’s going to get the dogs to do it!” said one.
    “She’s going to give it her prettiest smile and it will open up for her by itself!” shouted another.
    Rachel detested boys. They were all despicable. Why the Lord had bothered to make them, Rachel couldn’t guess. They were created in the image of God. But couldn’t he have gone all the way and given them some wits, too?
    So she forged ahead even faster, to put their jeers behind her.
    And when their voices fell away, she was aware that there was another voice that had been with her for some time, perhaps since they had set out that morning. It was the man’s voice, and it was murmuring, or perhaps chanting, and the one phrase that kept emerging in rhythm with her steps was “to the well.”
    By now, she had convinced herself that Father was right and the voice came out of her own imagination. She knew she was heading for the well, so the voice was chanting about it, pushing her along. She wished it would go away. After all, she wasn’t sitting around staring off into space. Why would the voice bother her now?
    She followed the pace it set, however, walking so quickly that the sheep seemed to catch some kind of excitement from her. They became noisier, bleating more often, and the dogs yipped and snapped more than usual, until as they crested the last hill and started down into the little vale where the well was, she was almost running.
    I don’t want to be late, she thought.
    Or had the voice said that?
    There were already quite a few sheep in the valley, two separate flocks, but down at the bottom end, almost to where it debouched from the hills. She didn’t recognize the shepherds, but that was no surprise—she knew all the major herdsmen in the area, but this close to Haran, the great houses would tend to send boys and new men … and their daughters.
    Still, strangers meant that they might not know who she was, and that she was under the protection of a great house. There might be some danger here. How far behind her were Old Jaw and the boys? Not that they would be much in the way of protectors, but they could convincingly invoke Father’s name and reputation. No one would dare to lift a hand against the flocks of Laban, still less against his daughter.
    The last thing she should do, she knew, was to show timidity. So she continued at the same pace until her flock was gathered around the well and the troughs.
    One of the strange shepherds called out to her. “It’s the heat of the day!”
    She ignored him.
    “You going to lift off the cover yourself?” The others thought this was very funny.
    But of course it was not funny. She was still too small to lift or even slide the heavy stone that covered the mouth of the well. So she sat on top of it, her back to the strangers, while her sheep milled around the well and tried to lap water from the wet spots in the troughs.
    Some of the men in the nearer herd soon began to speculate loudly upon why she had been in such a hurry to get to the well, and what it was she actually intended to do; and asthe men began to get more and more amused at their own wit, their speculations became more and more obnoxious. What was keeping Old Jaw and the boys?
    Why doesn’t the voice come
now
and tell me what to do?
    Then, suddenly, the