"Religious you lived, father Sheremiah, and
religious you put on a White Shirt." Then Aben spoke of the sight he had
seen.
The old man opened his lips, counseling: "Hish, hish, boys. Break you
trenches in Penlan, Dan. Poor bad are farms without water. More than
everything is water." He died, and his sons washed him and clothed him
in a White Shirt of the dead, and clipped off his long beard, which
ceasing to grow, shall not entwine his legs and feet and his arms and
hands on the Day of Rising; and they bowed their heads in Sion for the
full year.
Dan and Aben lived in harmony. They were not as brothers, but as
strangers; neighborly and at peace. They married wives, by whom they had
children, and they sat in the Big Seat in Sion. They mowed their hay and
reaped their corn at separate periods, so that one could help the other;
if one needed the loan of anything he would borrow it from his brother;
if one's heifer strayed into the pasture of the other, the other would
say: "The Big Man will make the old grass grow." On the Sabbath they and
their children walked as in procession to Sion.
In accordance with his father's word, Dan dug ditches in Penlan; and
against the barnyard--which is at the forehead of his house--water
sprang up, and he caused it to run over his water-wheel into his pond.
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