At a tug on his arm, Jesse woke.

"Father, should we?" David asked.

Jesse ben Obed rolled over and came up on one elbow. "Need me to carry you to the latrine?" he asked groggily.

"No, Father, I'm fine. Did you hear the innkeeper?"

The shoemaker looked around the dim courtyard. The innkeeper stood at the gate, turning back to the newcomers just outside, shaking his head.

"What did he say?"

"Asking if anyone would make room for two more."

Sleep beckoned. How Jesse wanted to say, "No," and sink back into slumber. Tempting, so tempting.

He heard the teasing note in David's voice. "You're always telling me, Father, to live up to the name I was given. What would King David have done?"

"He would have made room, no matter how tired." He smiled in the dark. King David himself could not have been more generous than his own crippled son. Jesse gathered their few belongings, piled them against the courtyard wall, then crossed to the gate just as the innkeeper was barring it against the night.

The innkeeper called the late-comers back. Gratitude rang in their voices -- a man with a young wife. Jesse led the couple between other sleepers to his own allotted strip of ground.

David had wriggled as far to one side as he could, pulling his limp legs and Jesse's blankets with him. The shoemaker helped the newcomers settle down. The wife stifled a groan.

Jesse nearly groaned, too. Not only had he given up most of his spot, it looked like he would be giving up his night's sleep as well. The woman was in labor.

"Is there any way we can help?" David asked.

"Tell me a story?" the wife asked. "Keep my mind off the pain."

Jesse's son told of King David trapped in a cave. "That was before he was king," the boy explained. "David and his men were hiding from wicked King Saul. They had already laid down to sleep in the cave when Saul and his men chose the same place to shelter for the night."

"Wrapped in blankets, on the ground," murmured the husband. "We're in good company, wife," he said.

"He was my ancestor," David said with pride in his voice.

"Mine, as well," the husband said. "And my wife's."

David laughed at himself. "Of course! Everyone here must be of his line, coming home to his city to be counted." He told story after story about the great-hearted king until the woman's pain grew to a peak.

Of the other poor travelers lodging in the courtyard, two women rose to help the young wife. Jesse scooped up his son, bedding and all, and moved to the only bare ground -- in front of the gate. They had just fallen asleep when once again a shaking woke him. Someone knocking on the gate.

Jesse picked up David and edged aside as the innkeeper grumpily opened. Not travelers. Shepherds come down from the hills. Come to see the baby.

"How did they know?" David asked.

Jesse carried him, trailing after the shepherds. The women were tidying up. Soon there would be room for the two of them to settle down again -- after the visitors left.

By now, everyone was awake, listening to the amazing account of angels singing praises in the night.

At last the shepherds left.

"May I sleep next to our new friends?" David asked.

Jesse arranged the bedding to his son's wishes. The remaining hours of darkness passed in a silence rich with marvel. When morning came, Jesse found David already sitting up, staring at his feet and, with a huge grin on his face, wiggling his toes.

See a few more Christmas tales at the end of this anthology