Yusuf had looked after the sheep all day long,and when evening came he played his flute and to its sweet music led the sheep to the sheepfold.

As soon as his big brother came to watch the sheep,Yusuf started home,his bag and ground and little stomach quite empty.He was so hungry! Coming to an apple tree he decided to climb it and pick a few of its juicy red apples.

Until the setting sun filled the sky with golden clouds,Yusuf sat in the tree eating the delicious fruit. He munched great slow bites,and watched the beautiful skies. At length the last lingering color faded,and darkness came.As Yusuf was to slip down out the tree to go home,two men came along.They stopped under the tree, talking.When Yusuf heard what they were saying, he was so frightened that he nearly fell from his branch; but he held tight,trembling-and tried not even to breath,so that the men would not hear him.

"The rich trader,Selim,will soon go back along this road,"said one of the men.

"Yes'" the other replied,"and if we wait for him where the three roads run together, we can easily stop him, even though he is riding in his automobile. We can take his car and ride on, and when we reach the city we can sell automobile and watch and rings and goon to some other place."

"Or," said the first robber,"we go down to the sea and take a boat.Nobody will find us if we do that, and we cancome back later when everything has quieted down".

"We can settle that afterwards," said the second robber."First we must plan exactly how we shall rob him."

"Hush!" said the first. "Not so lud! Someone may pass by and hear you"

The other lowered his voice and soon they were whispering together.

But Yusuf had heard enough.

He waited a long while after they left before he climbed down and ran home.Bursting into the house, he told his father and his Uncle Salim all he had heard.

"Did you hear the robbers say they would wait for me where the three roads run together" asked Uncle Selim .

"Yes, my uncle," answered Yusuf.

"Well, we will surprise them!" laughed Uncle Selim.

"O my sons!" cried Yusuf's grandfather.

"Do not go there at all! Go by some other road, or go in the daytime."

But Uncle Selim was not afraid.

"No," he said. "There have been several robberies lately  around the village, and these are probably the fellows who are causing the mischief. We must try to catch them,so that justice may be done."

Uncle selim and Yusuf's brother Mitrie went out to see some neighbors and tell them about the plan to catch the bandits.

Just before it was quite dark, Yusuf left his house and went quietly, slipping along where the shadows were darkest on the road, until he reached the point where it joined two other roads.There he climbed a great tree that spred its branches over the way, and he crawled out on a limb.

What a long time he had to wait ! He heard little birds stirring in their nests, and he heard an owl hoot near by.Then an idea came to him that turned him so cold with fright that he nearly dropped from the limb.Suppose the thieves should decied to climb that tree!

While he tried to keep his teeth from chattering, he heard a noise. The neighbors to whom Uncle Selim had talked were hiding Themselves in the bushes on either side of the road, just a little behind the place where the robbers would attack.

Then everything was quiet for a long,long time.To Yusuf and the neighbors it seemed like hours. But perhaps it was not really so long as it seemed.

When finally he heard two men talking very softly under his tree, Yusuf heart jumped. He knew these were the robbers! Silently they moved away from the tree a few steps, and then they came back.

"This will make the best place'" one of the robbers said."Yusuf hide behind this tree,and i will hide behind the big rock on the other side of the road."

They did just as Uncle Selim had said they would do! Again everything was quiet.Yusuf was so afraid he might sneeze that he hardly breathed.

But soon the car came,with Mitrie on the front seat by Uncle Selilm.It was not running fast,for the road was rocky and steep.

Just as it reached the trees,the robbers jumped out.They sprang on the running boards,and pressed pistols into Uncle Selim's and Mitrie's sides.

"Come out of there!" they commanded.

Uncle selim and mitrie stepped out of the car with their hands high in the air.

When Yusuf saw the thieves holding their pistols so close to Uncle Selim and Mitrie,he almost forgot to do what he was supposed to do next.But he remembered that Uncle Selim had told him not to be afraid,for by this time the neighbors' pistols would be aimed at the thieves.

He swallowed hard, puckered his lips, and made a strange noise. It was supposed to sound like the hoot of and owl,but it did not sound very owl-like.Uncle Selim had known that the men would be nervous and frightened,and that any sudden noise would frighten them even more.At Yusuf's queer hoot both men looked up, just for a second.

In that second Uncle Selim and Mitrie jumped back and knocked the pistole from the robbers' hands.

"Hands up!" cried the neighbors from the bushes and Yusuf's father, rising up from the back of the car.

Then Mitrie and Uncle Selim and Yusuf's father and the neighbors closed in on the thieves, and before Yusuf could see what was happening, both the astonished men were tied up with good strong rope.

When Yusuf scrambled down from his tree, everyone said he had done well, although they laughed at the funny noise he had made which had turned out so little like an owl's. Yusuf was not frightened now, and so he hooted four or five times to shgow that he could sound like an owl when he was not so excited.

The robbers were sent to the village,and it happened that they were the very men who had been doing so much stealing.

But that was not all!

Uncle Selim was so pleased that he said that Yusuf might come with him on his next trip, and that he would take him to the city, and perhaps out over the great desert.

"He is such a brave boy," said Uncle Selim, "he would not be frightened even if a band of robbers should attack our carvan!"

And Yusuf felt very proud and happy.  

T

Yusuf lived in the land of Syria between Turkey and Aabis.His work was to watch the sheep in the fields.He was out under the blue sky all day,and at evening he drove the sheep into the sheepfold,which was a pen built of great stones piled in a circle around the mouth of a big cave.

He took with him a ground filled with milk and a little kidskin bag filled with bread,olives,ra isins,cheese,and figs.In girdle he carried a club to scare off animals that might come to attack his sheep.He was not wearing his sheepskin cloak,for the weather was still mild.

However,there was one thing he always took with him in any kind of weather.It was his flute.He loved to play his little reed flute,and with its sweet music to call his sheep to him.He loved to invent new tunes.While his sheep grazed,he would lie in the grass on a hilltop,playing a soft little melody to himself as he watched the white clouds float across the heavens above him.

Two big strong dogs went with Yusuf to warn him of the approach of thieves and to help take care of the sheep by driving wild beasts away.

Whenever a sheep grazed too far from the herd,Yusuf took a sling shot made of camel's hair and put a little stone in it. Then he threw the stone so far that it would drop in front of the straying sheep and frighten it a little.Almost always the sheep came back to the herd at once.

When Yusuf wanted to lead his sheep to a new field,all he had to do was whistle to his two dogs and begin playing on his flute. The sheep and dogs then followed him to the new pasture.

My best friend called me today, crying hysterically and screaming.  I was in a panic because I immediately thought it was her mother, who is in a hospital suffering from cancer.  She said it wasn't her mother, that her jeep was broken into again.   This is the second time in two months.  Her window was bashed in, glass everywhere, nothing taken because the stereo was gone from the previous break in.  This was not what she needed.  She is a teacher in a not so good area of the city and needless to say, being single, on a teacher's salary, just doesn't have the extra income to keep fixing her car.  She was so frustrated.  She has been extremely stressed lately, from dealing with her ill mother - the fear of losing her like she lost her father last year to cancer, dealing with her own medical problems, and now another car break in.  What is up with people these days?  Do they have to stoop so low to break into people's cars and steal? And repeatedly?! Enough is enough!  These teachers don't make much... they work hard, try to do the best they can and this is what you give them?!!  It isn't right, it isn't fair!   Leave her alone!  She is a good person, trying to teach. That is what she wants to do, teach children, be there for her mom and help her get better and try to get her life together and have some sort of normalcy.  Why do people have to be so evil?!  Why can't people think about how this affects the victim?  Think about what they might be going through, that maybe this is something to just push them over the edge.  My friend is at her wits end and doesn't know if she can still teach there where she doesn't feel safe.  The principle has no answers.  No help.  No security.  What is she to do?  It isn't right.  They should be able to park their cars and know that it will be ok while they are in the school teaching those children.  What does she do?  I know God has the last word. He is the judge.  Know that.  Know that stealing is against His word.  It is wrong.  You will be punished.  It isn't worth it and you are hurting someone in the process.  Your actions have concequenses!