Shiloh Season Read Online Free PDF Page A

dear life. Swing swoops down toward the ground and way up in the air on the other side.
    "Wheee!" yells David.
    I should be having a good time, but I keep thinkin' about what David and me are going to do later.
    He don't have any sisters or brothers, so he thinks Dara Lynn and Becky are cute. And they put on such a show of cuteness it almost makes your stomach sick.
    Becky's got to sing the ABC song for him, only she always forgets what comes after the "L-M-N-O-P," so she starts all over again. Then Dara Lynn's got to get in the act, and after she shows David Howard all her scabs and bruises, she asks him jokes:
    "How do you keep a bull from charging?" she says, grinning.
    "I don't know," says David.
    "Take away his credit card!" Dara Lynn shrieks. She don't even know what a credit card is.
    At supper, Ma's got apple dumplings for dessert, and we pour milk over them while they're still warm. David runs his finger around the bottom of his dish when he's done to get every last bit.
    "What are you two boys planning to do this evening?" Ma asks as she clears the table.
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    "Fool around outside," I tell her.
    I don't have to ask David Howard what he wants to do. David's got it all worked out in his head like a detective story, I can tell. And soon as we close the screen, he turns to me and asks, "How long will it take to get to Judd Travers's?"
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    Five
    I figure when David Howard grows up, he'll be an explorer, a detective, or a spy.
    Whenever there's a game where you have to crawl under a bush or slide on your belly or hide in a tree, that's what David wants to play. And because we have a lot more places to hide on our land than he does on his, that's why David Howard likes to come to our house.
    Dad's reading Becky a story and Dara Lynn's helping Ma with the dishes. Only reason I got excused was I got a guest, and you can be sure Dara Lynn'll see to it that I have to do 'em two nights in a row.
    "Takes about twenty, twenty-five minutes to walk to
    Judd's from here," I tell David.
    "Okay. We'll need a canteen, a map, and a pair of binoculars," says David, his voice low.
    "A map?" I say. "David, all we're doing is crossing the bridge and walking along the road till we get to Judd's."
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    "Not the way we're going!" says David. "How are you going to spy on someone if they see you come walking right up the road?"
    So to please David Howard, I take the back of a used envelope and make a map of the bridge, the old Shiloh schoolhouse, and the road where Judd lives, plus the small private cemetery back in the trees behind someone's house.
    David's brought his own canteen and his ma's field glasses, and I tell him if we don't set off right soon, Dara Lynn'll have all the dishes wiped and be begging to go with us.
    We don't have to worry about Shiloh, though. Shiloh trots along beside us as we go down the driveway, but when we turn right instead of left, he pauses, not too sure, then lags ten feet behind us all the way to the bridge.
    We stop to look at the pothole in the road. Been there since last spring. Must be seven inches deep, and three feet around.
    "Wow!" says David Howard. "Looks like a sinkhole, Marty! I'll bet there's a cave under there, and the roof's falling in."
    So of course we have to crawl down the bank and poke around in the weeds and bushes to see if there's a hidden entrance to an unexplored cave that nobody knows about. Every so often you read of someone discovering a new cave. Maybe his foot drops down in it when he's out hiking through a meadow, or his dog falls in and folks hear it whining. If we found a cave here under the road, with passages and waterfalls and stuff, we decide we'd name it the Howard-Preston Caverns.
    We waste a good half hour of daylight lookin' for a cave that isn't there, and then climb back up to cross the bridge.
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    Shiloh won't go, though. Makes this pitiful-sounding whine in his throat.. He tucks his tail between his legs and slinks off toward our driveway again. It hurts me to see