RUPERT
| Rupert was a wizard beyond comparison when he snuggled himself behind his workbench and with whittling tools in hand and a piece of fine wood generated an article until now unseen. He'd been creating and selling his wares for over sixty five years and now that he was an octogenarian time weighed heavily on his aging shoulders. His emaciated looking face supported a huge snow-white beard and mustache giving him the appearance of a skinny Santa Claus and a head covered with silver-white hair added dignity to his appearance. His earthly body was old and wrinkled and a look into his sapphirine eyes was as close to looking into the past as one could get. In his latter years most of the time spent in the workshop was with his head bowed in peaceful slumber as sonorous sounds escaped from his mouth or with his mind reminiscing about hundreds of wooden objects he had created in days long past. In the early years of his unique accomplishments he had traveled from the virgin rain forests of Brazil, to purchase a section of a dwarf palm, to Siberia where he acquired a large piece of sweet smelling Siberian Cedar. The special color and odor of the wood needed to finish a commissioned project. One of his many trips had taken him to Israel where he purchased,for almost nothing, an old dead olive tree. According to the written history of this wooden marvel it was on a road that led from Nazareth to Afula and was historically recorded to be over two thousand years old. In its early years a great holy man had walked past the tree on several different occasions. Sometimes he rested beneath its branches to shelter himself from the incandescent sun, blowing sand, or an occasional rain shower. For some reason, unknown to him, Rupert had stowed the ancient olive tree in one of the back rooms of his overloaded workshop. It was not until he was well past three score and ten years of age that a driving urge descended upon him and dictated his every waking moment be spent designing images that appeared to him when he was in the early misty stages between awareness and slumber. Each sculpture was purposefully and expertly contrived to complete a specific task and fill a single heart to over flowing with impassioned love. He noticed something unusual about the exceedingly dry expired old tree the moment his knife blade touched it. Though it was parched, tough, twisted, and exhibited an extraordinary number of knots, when he held it in his slightly arthritic hands and began whittling the wood was nearly as soft and light as balsa. Each carved creation appeared as if by divine intervention. Every piece of the grand old tree big enough to carve became a rare object that would find its way into some other person's heart; with one exception. Rupert had painstakingly carved and saved for himself a small cross bearing the weight of a dying Savior. The expression on the face of the tiny Jesus was one of pain and at the same time one of compassion. It was one in being with all his carvings and gave Rupert an insight into his other masterpieces. To him each item from the old tree was a magnum opus, yet most adults passed them by to purchase his other novel units and never seemed to notice their uniqueness. It was mostly the children that were mesmerized by the miniature carvings and once a specific item was touched they knew they had to own it.
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