“And to her school children – her Ragged-school children!” interrupted Lucius with animation. “We’ve let them see our magic-lantern for three Christmases running, and if the children are not tired of the slides of lions, bears, and peacocks, I’m sure that I am; besides, I smashed half the slides by accident last winter. A model of the Tabernacle would be something quite new to please the ragged scholars, and Aunt Theodora would draw so many good lessons from it.”
“And could we not do with the model what we did with the magic-lantern,” suggested Dora, “make of it a little exhibition, letting aunt’s friends come and see it for sixpenny tickets, and so collect a little money to help on the Ragged-school?”
“That would be so nice!” cried Amy.
“That would be famous!” exclaimed little blue-eyed Elsie, clapping her hands.
“Let’s set to work this minute!” said Lucius, and he rapped the table with his knife.
Dora threw the doll’s apron into her work-box, eager to have some employment more worthy of the clever fingers of a young lady of more than eleven years of age.
Mrs. Temple smiled at the impetuosity of her children. “I must repeat, let us consider first,” she observed. “Possibly not one amongst you has any idea of the amount of labor and patience required to complete a model of the Tabernacle which was made by the children of Israel.”
“Of course our Tabernacle would be much smaller than the real one was,” remarked Dora.
“Supposing that we made it on the scale of one inch to two cubits, I wonder what its length would be?” said Mrs. Temple. “Just bring me the Bible. Lucius, I will turn over to the description of the Tabernacle, which we will find in the Book of Exodus.”
“I do not know what a cubit is,” said Elsie, while her brother ran for the Bible.
“Don’t you remember what mamma told us when we were reading about the size of the Ark?” said Agnes. “A cubit is the length of a man’s arm from the elbow to the end of his middle-finger, just about half of one of our yards.”
“Eighteen inches, or, as some think twenty,” observed Mrs. Temple, as she opened the Bible which Lucius had just placed on the table before her.
“Let’s count a cubit as exactly half a yard, mamma,” said Lucius, “and then one inch’s length in the model would go for a yard’s length in the real Tabernacle. If we reckon thus, how long would our model need to be?”
“The outer court of the Tabernacle was one hundred cubits long by fifty broad,” replied Mrs. Temple; “that, in such a model as we propose making, would be a length of four feet and two inches, by a breadth of two feet and one inch.”
“Just large enough to stand comfortably on this side table!” cried Lucius. “There will be room enough on this table, and I’ll clear it of the books, work-box, and flower-jar in a twinkling.”
“Stop a minute, my boy!” laughed his mother, as Lucius appeared to be on the point of sweeping everything off, including the green cloth cover; “we have not even decided on whether this model should be made at all; and if we do begin one, months may pass before we shall need that table on which to set it up.”
“O, do, do let us make a model!” again the young Temples cried out.
“I’m ready to undertake every bit of the wood-work,” added Lucius, impatient to use his sharp knife on better work than that of spoiling a desk.
“First hear what you will have to undertake,” said his more cautious and practical mother. “The mere outer court has sixty pillars.”
“Sixty pillars!” re-echoed the five.
“Besides four more pillars for the Tabernacle itself,” continued the lady, “and forty-eight boards of wood, to be covered all over with gold.”
“How large would each board have to be?” asked Lucius, more gravely.
“Each five inches long, and three quarters of an inch broad,” answered his mother.
“And quite thin, I suppose,” said the young carpenter, looking thoughtfully at the blade of his knife which was to accomplish such a long, difficult piece of work.
“We could get gold-leaf for the gilding, mamma,” suggested the intelligent Dora, “and pasteboard instead of wood; pasteboard would look quite as neat, and need not to be cut up into boards.”
“Oh, it’s not the gilding, nor the cutting up the planks neither, whether they be made of pasteboard or wood, that puzzles me!” cried her brother; “but think of sixty-four pillars! How on earth could I cut out so many slender little rods with my knife!”
“Thick wire might be used for the pillars just as well as pasteboard for the planks,” said Agnes; “when covered with gold-leaf they would look just the same as if” – The sentence was interrupted by another fit of coughing; it was clear that poor Agnes was at present little fitted to join in the conversation.
II.
The Tabernacle
“THERE is a picture of the Tabernacle in your Bible, mamma; that will help us in arranging what is to be done; and you will decide on which of us should do each portion of the work,” said Dora.
Mrs. Temple turned over the leaves till she came to the picture.
“Here you see a long open court,” she observed, “enclosed by pillars supporting curtains of fine linen, fastened to them by loops of silver. I shall supply the linen for these curtains, and I think that my gentle Amy, who sews so nicely, may make them. This work will require only neatness and patience, and my little dove has both.”
“Ah, mamma! but the silver loops – how could I make them?” suggested Amy, who had very little self-confidence.
“I have a reel of silver thread up-stairs in my box,” said her mother; “you will make the tiny loops for the curtains of that.”
“And I will manage the sixty-four pillars!” cried Lucius; “it was no bad notion to make them of wire. But they must be fixed into something hard, to keep them upright in their places.”
“I was thinking of that,” said his mother; “we shall need a wooden frame, rather more than four feet by two, to support the model; and into this frame holes must be drilled to receive the sixty-four wires.”
“I must borrow the carpenter’s tools,” observed Lucius; “I can’t do all that with my knife. I see that I have a long, difficult job before me.”
“Do you give it up?” cried little Elsie, looking up archly into the face of her brother.
“Not I!” said the schoolboy proudly. “The harder the work, the more glorious is success!”
“What are those objects in the court of the Tabernacle?” asked Amy, who had been thoughtfully examining the picture.
“That large square object with grating on the top, from which smoke is rising, is the Altar of burnt-offering,” said the lady. “Through the grating the ashes of animals that had been slain as sacrifices fell into a cavity below. The projections which you see at the four corners are called the horns of the altar, of which you read in various parts of the Bible.”
“Was it not an Altar of burnt-offering that Elijah made on Mount Carmel,” asked Dora, “when he cut the dead bullock in pieces and prayed to the Lord till fire was sent down from heaven?”
“Yes,” answered her mother, “but that altar was not like the one in the picture. Elijah built his up quickly; it was merely formed of twelve stones. The altar made by the Israelites in the desert was framed of wood, and covered with brass. It was nearly eight feet square, and was reached, not by steps, but by a sloping bank of earth.”
“And