Little Joe Read Online Free PDF

goods straightaway.”
    Eli knew cows had four stomachs, but he wasn’t exactly sure why.
    “Know how it knows?” Grandpa smiled. “’Cause Little Joe’s sucking, not tearing up mouthfuls of grass. That’s why if a calf don’t nurse, you got to feed it through a baby bottle. Lapping up milk from a bucket won’t get it to grow. Remember Old Gert and her last heifers? They were twins, and we fed Annabelle with a rubber lamb nipple, she was such a tiny thing.”
    Eli wondered where Annabelle was now.
    Little Joe poked his head up, then licked his wet lips, making a smacking sound.
    “Fancy’s milk is all he needs right now. Once Little Joe starts grazing, nature’ll see to it he chews the cud for hours, burping it up from the other stomachs till it’s tender enough to be food.”
    Little Joe had nursed out. He gave Spider a sniff, then let her lick his milky muzzle.
    The sun strengthened, and Eli could see the air move around Little Joe’s moist whiskers. Dusty bits of grain floated past them and would soon settle over anything that didn’t move, coating the barn with a powdery film.
    “Nature sure made Little Joe a fine bull calf,” Grandpa said. He pulled out a copy of the
Angus Journal
he’d rolled up in his back pocket. “Turn to page ten,” he told Eli.
    There was Apple Wood, standing in a field somewhere looking meaty and thick in the brisket, too. The advertisement said he had plenty of dimension and was more than just a numbers bull. That “his progeny exhibit flawless phenotype with show-winning appeal.”
    All Eli knew was that Apple Wood had a shiny gold ring through his nose and the calluses on his dewclaws were big as crab apples. Apple Wood’s eyes were real tiny, too. Eli figured the bull could barely see through all that flesh and didn’t know he had a nose ring, anyhow. Theback of his black neck puffed out so thick, it was as if Tater, or a farm dog just like him, had climbed up and wrapped around Apple Wood’s shoulders.
    “Folks around here know all about his offspring.” Grandpa swept his hand alongside Little Joe’s back. “How most of them have just the right amount of marbling on their tops—and around the rib.”
    Little Joe yawned as Grandpa’s fingers felt his rib cage. “We’ll have buyers looking before Little Joe gets to the fair, I suspect.”
    Grandpa took the magazine and placed the picture of Apple Wood against Little Joe’s girth. “Don’t he look like him already, some?”
    Little Joe licked the picture, then tried to grab the glossy ends with his tongue.
    But Eli was focused on the folds in Little Joe’s neck. Apple Wood didn’t have folds; he had muscle. Little Joe didn’t have any muscles to speak of and was no wider than Eli, except in the shoulders. His ears still looked silly, too, not cocked forward like Apple Wood’s, but fuzzy as Hannah’s slippers. And his switch wasn’t even a real-looking switch yet. It hadn’t reached anywhere near his hock.
    “I mean, there’s great possibility in that brisket, son, once you see past all that wrinkly flesh,” Grandpa said.
    Little Joe wandered over to the automatic waterer. A gush of water squirted into his eyes, so he pulled back his head, then stomped and mooed.
    “See the skin?” Grandpa bent down and took hold of a fleshy fold. “He’ll grow into it. That’s why there’s so much of it.”
    Little Joe flicked his ears and showed Grandpa the whites of his eyes. Then he shook his head and sneezed until Grandpa let go. “Course, growing gets pretty uncomfortable. And it itches. That’s why he sneezes and scratches an awful lot.”
    Eli watched Little Joe take a pee and remembered how itchy his own ankles got last year, when he’d grown at least two inches.
    “He’s going through a red stage now, with his coat,” Grandpa said. “Every Angus—at least the good ones—always go through one. But he’s already square and walks easy. Look how long he is, too, how level his topline is. Just like