A Shiloh Christmas Read Online Free PDF

“You know what? Dad’s writing a story for the newspaper about the oldest residents in Tyler County, and he interviewed a man who knew Judd Travers’s dad.”
    â€œYeah?” I say. “What’d he know about him?”
    â€œSays he kept to himself, same as Judd, and was as mean as a junkyard dog,” David tells me. “Every one of his kids ran off as soon as they had the chance. All except Judd. He was the youngest, I guess.”
    â€œWhy’d they run off?” I ask.
    â€œThis man said Travers beat and cursed his kids. ToldDad he was about the most hated man around. Whole place was a dump. Old cars and tires and rusty lawn mowers so you could hardly see the ground. Nobody wanted to live next to that, and there wasn’t a single person who liked him.”
    Including Judd, I’m thinking.
    David’s getting sleepy now, I can tell. Beginning to talk slower.
    â€œDad won’t put any of this . . . in his story, of course. And then their place burned down . . . and finally Judd got a trailer . . . of . . . his own. . . .” His voice trails off, and he’s breathing deep.
    How come Judd stayed? I wonder. Why was he left to take the beatings and cursing all by himself?
    Just another why to add to my list, I guess. But if all a kid remembers is a dad telling him what a worthless, no-account boy he is, don’t he grow up thinking everyone else looks at him the same way? And wouldn’t it make him angry . . . and sad and scared and about every other kind of hurtful feeling there could be?
    There’s a whole lot about Judd Travers I don’t know.

four
    I’ D STARTED HELPING OUT AT John Collins Animal Clinic last summer, ’cause I love animals and I want to be a veterinarian someday. Takes a ton of money to be a vet, I know—once you get through college, there’s even more college. But if that can’t happen, I’d like to be a veterinarian’s assistant. This takes training too, but I can learn a lot just being a volunteer sometimes on Saturday mornings.
    Dad drives me there on his way to work. Dr. Collins’s clinic is attached to his house, and I’m early, so I just sit out on the steps, till he comes over and unlocks the door.
    â€œDidn’t think you’d be around much once school began,” Dr. Collins says, big old smile on his face. He is one tall man—six foot four. Big head. Big ears. Big hands.
    â€œI’ll come whenever I can,” I tell him. He did a good job treating a skin disease Shiloh had last June and I like him a lot.
    â€œWell, I sure won’t say no to that,” Dr. Collins says. “You know what to do, so I’ll go back and finish my coffee. Be with you in a while.”
    I pull on the gray cotton “kennel suit”—shirt and pants like the scrubs a surgeon wears. These have JCAC embroidered on the pocket—John Collins Animal Clinic. First thing I do is open the door to the dog run, let out the dogs that are spending the weekend here while their owners are away. The two setters, the spaniel, and the retriever go lickety-split along the fence, jumping around on each other and yipping, so glad to be out and stretch their legs a little. While they’re tumbling around out there, I change the towels at the bottom of their kennels and refill their water bowls.
    The spaniel comes in once and looks up at me, waiting for breakfast. “Not yet,” I tell him. “Go finish the conversation with your buddies.”
    Then I concentrate on the patients. Talk to ’em real gentle. Dr. Collins hangs a little sign on the cage of any animal likely to bite, and I don’t mess with those. Every animal has his name on a card above the latch.
    â€œHow you doin’ today, General?” I say to a bulldogwho had a leg amputated. He’ll go home today if there’s no infection, I expect. I give him a good