Sheep | O. S. Card

When Zeforah and her sisters were younger, it used to take three of them at least to move the stone cap off the well. Now any but Kethurah could do it alone, if they had to, and if sheer stubbornness could move rock, Kethurah could probably open the well without using her hands.

Still, though she was fully grown now, Zeforah didn't enjoy moving the capstone. Despite the calluses on her hands, it was rough work, and she often scraped herself till her fingers bled. But that was why she insisted on moving the stone herself, and without help. No reason for the others to get scraped up before the had to. Soon enough, Father would bow to the inevitable and find some miserable specimen of masculinity for her to marry. A few sheep for a dowry. Standards were low in this clan of Midianites. There were so few women that Zeforah could almost pass for beauty. But no matter how few men there were, not a one of them could pass for a wit.

And when Zeforah said things like this, Father always said, "Well, who's telling you to get married? It'll cost me a ram and several ewes, and after the wedding I'll have one less daughter to help me."

"One less mouth to feed," someone else would say - usually Sarah. And Keturah would leap to Zeforah's defense until there was a pile of sisters on the rug fighting with each other like a swarm of bees. In vain did Zeforah explainn to Keturah that those smart remarks of Sarah's meant nothing. "Why get upselt when it doesn't bother me?" To which Keturah would reply "That's why." Neither of them seemed able to get the other two comprehend what she was talking about.

It was an odd combination - Zeforah, the eldest, and, as her constant companion, Keturah, the youngest, a sweet ten-year-old who had a mouth that could provoke an angel to rage, Zeforah was sure of it. Hadn't she spent Keturah's entire life getting her out of trouble with the other girls? And yet it wasn't because Keturah meant to be provocative. She just had a way of saying exactly the thing that would get a rise out of Hamar or Sarah, and then Zeforah would have to intervene. "Try to curb your tongue around the prickly ones," Zeforah insisted, "so they won't kill you. It would confuse Father terribly, old as he is, if he had to learn to count to some number other than seven."

"Then does it mean that you'll never marry?" asked Keturah.

"I didn't say that."

"Then Father will have to learn to count to six, after your husband takes you away."

"My plan is to take my husband away from wherever he was and get him to start working with me as a Shephard."

"It won't be the same." said Keturah.

To which Zeforah has no reassuring answer. When she married, there would be a seperate household, and Keturah wouldn't find Zeforah so ready to talk to her. Especially iff she were to be married to someone from another clan, which Father kept threatening to do whenever Zeforah argued with him.

Marriage. Zeforah refuse to think any more about it today. Instead she put her energy into moving the capstone off the well and drawing up water for the sheep. The other girls where keeping the flock nearby, not that it took much effort. Even sheep were clever enough to know when they were thirsty and to realise that only water would satisfy them.

But not clever enough to line up nicely and take turns. It could be quite a job making sure each animal got plenty to drink. As Zeforah and her sisters threaded their way among the jostling sheep, Keturah began to chatter. "Sheep are stupid!"

"It took you this long to realise it?" said Sarah.

"Well, if sheep are stupid, then lambs must be stupider because they have to grow up to be sheep, right?" said Keturah, oblivious to Sarah's snideness.

Hanar started talking in baby talk tiio a lamb which was not really a baby anymore. "Does this poor little lambkin need to cry now? Did mean old Keturah hurt his little feelings?"

"Am I the only one who's insulted by this?" said Keturah, addressing the others as iff she were trying to make a point at a village council.

"Hamar's just making a joke," said Zeforah.

"Not Hamar, who's listening to her?" said Keturah. "I mean Father."

The others were baffled now. " When did Father insult anybody?" Zeforah asked.

"Today, when I left! Every day! Every morning, every night! He calls us his little lambs."

The other burst out laughing. "He's always done that," said Hamar.

" But why?" said Keturah. " Sheep are stupid, smelly, filthy, clumsy -"

" Oh," said Sarah, " that part only started after you were born."

"What does Father mean?" Keturah insisted.

Zeforah didn't answer, though she had had precisely this conversation with Father many years ago and knew what his response would be. She wanted to hear what the others would come up with.

"Look at Zeforah being wise," said Sarah. "She thinks she knows the right answer and wants to make fools of ourselves before she makes a speech out of it."

As always, Sarah found exactly the thing to say that would leave Zeforah completely flummoxed.

"Well, am I right or what?" said Sarah.

"I really do want to know what you think", said Zeforah.

"Come on," said Sarah. " Here, I'll help you start: 'Father says....' Now you go on from there."

Keturah, who had endured Sarah's sneers as if she didn't hear them, now sprang hotly to Zeforah's defense. "If Zeforah tells us what Father says it's because she sees us forgetting the rules. And because she's too modest to speak as if the ideas came from her."

"Someone has a little disciple," said Hamar.

"Water the sheep," said Zeforah. "I didn't ask the questions and I didn't offer any answers, so I don't know why we're arguing about the way I boss you all around since I haven't even gotten started."

"All I want," said Keturah, " is to know why Father calls us sheep!"

"Because Father like sheep!" Hamar said. ;And Father likes them because he doesn't come out here and watch them every day, he sits home in the shade copying those scrolls, over and over again. So for him sheep are just something he shears and occasionally butchers or sells. The stink of them isn't in his nose all the time."

Zeforah, already stung, kept her silence despite how angry she was at Hamara's diatribe. Besides, Hamar was looking at her, waiting for a retort, which made it almost fun to smile benignly and say nothing.

"He doesn't shear us," said Keturah. "He doesn't butcher us either."

"But he'd sell us off one by one, if he could only find a taker for Zeforah," said Sarah sweetly.

"A blind man whose first three wives are all old," suggested Asa. "Because Zeforah is so handy with the chores."

"Another bird chirps," said Hamar.

"Don't tell me you're criticizing Asa because she doesn't talk as much as you, Hamar," said Zeforah.

"Nobody talks as much as Hamar," said Sarah.

"Except you," said Asa.

"All right, who taught the younger ones to talk!" Said Sarah. "Why can't they be more like - sheep!"

"I didn't say a thing," said Dinah.

"You never do," said Hamar. "You don't think of anything to say until you're falling asleep at night. I hear you murmuring all the clever things you didn't think of during the day."

"Enough," said Zeforah.

"Watch out, everybody!" cried Sarah. "Here it comes! 'Father says....'"

Zeforah had to bite her lip to keep from saying what she had been about to say. For it did, indeed, begin with "Father says."

"I wish I were as smart as Zeforah," said Hamar, her voice drippingly sweet. "She always knows just how much is enough."

And then, as always, when Zeforah was just on the verge of losing her temper, she felt something give way inside her and the anger just flowed away.She looked at her sisters, saw that Hamar was cross and Sarah never really felt in good health, so that every day was hard for her, and the younger girls were trying to decide whether being grown up meant acting like Hamar or acting like Zeforah and - and Zeforah loved them anyway. It was better sometimes to be alone than to be with them, true enough, but with a job like this, watering the sheep, it took all their hands, and iff being snippy was how they entertained themselves, Zeforah could endure it.

"Oh, look. Now Zeforah is going to be sweet," said Hamar nastily.

Zeforah only smiled and looked away. Looked, in fact, for Keturah, who was angrily - but silently - untangling a bramble bush from a lamb's wool. "You see how the sheep follow each other along a path," said Zeforah.

"I think a lesson is coming!" cried Sarah.

Keturah was listening, though.

"Father wants is to follow him that way. He steps here, so ..."

"So I step there," said Keturah.
And at the sound of Keturah's voice, the others fell silent, for they did, in fact, love their baby sister and didn't want to make her feel bad. Zeforah sometimes envied Keturah the comfort of being youngest. Everyone had held her as a baby and loved her; nobody had ever felt that way towards Zeforah, except Mother, and she was gone.

"How can I follow Father on the path of life?" said Keturah earnestly. "He's a man, a reader of books, a leader, a ruler, a judge, and I'm only a girl and the best I can be is - "

"Is a daughter of God," said Zeforah. " Father can teach you, but he can't save you if you don't keep the commandments yourself. It's between you and God. Between me and God."

Keturah smiled and turned away.

"Was that wrong?" asked Zeforah.

"It's just - all the commandments have to do with how we treat other people."

"Not all of them," said Zeforah.

"But the hard ones," said Keturah. "It's between me and God, but what God wants me to do is not pitch a stone at some village boy when he makes a crude remark. So at that moment, it's between me and that boy."

"What does she think she is, a prophet?" asked Sarah. But her mockery was affectionate, and Keturah laughed.

"Oh, I was being deep?" Asked Keturah.

"You sounded like Father, that's all," said Asa. "Always thinking about things the next layer deeper. You should have been a boy, except that would have ruined everything."

They all looked at her in surprise. "Having a brother would ruin everything?" said Keturah.

"He'd be the boss of everything, then, even if he was the youngest, wouldn't he? Because someday he'd be the owner of Father's flocks, and we wouldn't. So it wouldn't be just the sisters."

"Maybe that would be better," grumbled Hamar. But nobody agreed, not even her. And the thought of how a brother would have changed things - happiness for Mother and Father, but a loss for the sisters - made them solemn and, for a while at least, less grumpy with each other.

The sun beat down, and the sheep drank as the sisters took turns drawing from the well.

[ Excerpt of 'Chapter 6: Sheep' from 'Stone Tables' by Orson Scott Card (2000) ]