1
The main trouble with goats is that they’ll eat just about anything. Did you know that? There are lots of other troubles with goats, but that’s the main one—and the one that got my brother Travis into trouble at Christmas.
Travis, if you remember, is the softhearted brother who is crazy about animals, so crazy that he’s never met an animal he doesn’t want to lug home right away. Even when the poor struggling animal wants no part of this plan. Believe me, there are plenty of wild animals out there that don’t appreciate being scooped up and dragged home by an eleven-year-old boy. Sometimes our barn looks like a regular zoo. Sometimes he tries to smuggle the unhappy creatures into his bedroom, and Mother just about has a fit when she finds out. (It’s a good thing we live in Texas instead of Africa—we’d have monkeys swinging from the curtains, and lion cubs under the bed, and pink flamingos in the sink. It would all be a dreadful mess; trust me. But let’s get back to goats.)
Our little town of Fentress has a Christmas pageant every year with a Nativity scene. The local men build a sort of shed, and our neighbors dress in costumes as Joseph and Mary and the angels and the three wise men and the shepherds. Over the years, my six brothers have played different parts, and this year it was Travis’s turn to play one of the shepherds. My older brother Lamar—a real pill—was playing one of the wise men. That was a joke if ever I’d heard one. I hadn’t been asked to play anything, which was fine by me. It’s usually pretty cold, and you have to stand there for a couple of hours, so they use a rubber doll to play the part of baby Jesus. There are usually a few sheep and a cow and a horse and sometimes a donkey. Travis and I always hope for a camel, but we have no idea where to find one.
When I don’t know what to do about something, I go to Granddaddy. He knows everything about everything. I found him in the library surrounded by his vast collection of books and bones, feathers and fossils, dried plants and bottled beasts.
“Granddaddy,” I said, “we need a camel. Where can I find one?”
“An interesting question,” he said, looking up from his reading. “Do you need a one-humped camel from Africa or a two-humped camel from Asia?”
“I think either would do, really. Is it true their humps are full of water?”
“A common misconception. The humps are actually full of stored fat so the beasts can go for many days without food. But as you can see, I do not have a single member of the Camelidae family in my collection. Why do you require one?”
“We need a camel for the Christmas manger scene.”
“Ah. Well, since you ask, there were actually camels in Texas before the War.” By this he meant the War Between the States.
“Really?” I’d had no idea. Maybe we’d run into a camel on one of our many Nature Rambles.
“The army imported dozens of the beasts fifty years ago to haul supplies between military posts across the Southwest. In fact, they were settled near Kerrville, not that far from here.”
“Gosh,” I said. “Are they still alive?”
“There may be a few left wandering about in far-west Texas, but it’s unlikely.”
“What happened to them?”
“They worked well in the desert, thrifty beasts and hardy. But they spooked the horses and the mules, and their drivers found them to be bad-tempered and evil-smelling. It’s a shame. They were eventually sold off or turned loose in the wild to fend for themselves.”
“That’s all very interesting, but I guess it means no camel for us.”
“Sadly not. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must finish my study of the blind salamander recently discovered in the San Marcos Springs.”
“Wait, it’s truly blind?”
“Indeed. After living for millions of years in total darkness, it has slowly lost the use of its eyes.”
I pondered this. “What does it live on? How does it hunt?”
“Fittingly, it lives on tiny shrimp that are also blind. It hunts them by sensing the vibrations of their movement in the water.”
Blind salamanders chasing blind shrimp. Imagine swimming after your dinner in pitch darkness. The world is full of marvelous things.
I kissed him on the cheek and ran out to the barn, where I found Travis holding Bunny, his enormous fluffy white rabbit. They were something to behold: Bunny’s fur had grown thick for winter, and he overflowed Travis’s arms—a huge rabbit cuddled by a small boy.
“Any luck with a camel?” he said.
“No, but there actually used to be army camels in Texas.” I told him what I’d learned.
“But that doesn’t help us,” he said.
“That’s true.”
He thought for a moment and said, “I have an idea. I think we can make a camel.”
“Travis Tate,” I said, “you’ve lost your mind. What on earth are you talking about?”
He pointed at King Arthur, one of our big plow horses, dozing calmly in his stall. “We could make some kind of hump and stick it on Arthur. He’s about the right size, don’t you think?”
“Yes, but…”
“Do you have a better idea?” Travis said.
“No, but…”
Since I couldn’t come up with anything better, we spent all afternoon making a “hump” for Arthur, which turned out to be a much bigger job than we’d expected. First, we had to find a bunch of burlap sacks, and then we had to rip them apart, and then we had to find a bunch of twine. Then we sewed the sacks together in a sort of hump-like shape, stuffed it with hay, and hoisted it over Arthur’s back. He barely even noticed.
We stepped back to admire our work. And you know what? Arthur looked exactly like a plow horse with a huge, misshapen bag of hay plopped on his back. We stood in silence for a long time. Finally, I said, “You know, Travis, he doesn’t really—”
“I know,” he said, looking very glum. “You don’t have to say it.”
“Cheer up,” I said. “It was a good idea. Or at least it was an idea, and it was the only one we had, and you do have to work with what you’ve got. And not every Christmas scene has to have a camel. We’ll still have a cow and a horse and some sheep, and you’re playing the shepherd, so that will be fine.”
But I turned out to be wrong about that. There was an unexpected shortage of sheep in our town that month. There were, however, plenty of goats.
One of our neighbors, Mr. Morgan, had bought a new herd of goats and had a bunch of extra kids running around (the goat kind, not the human kind). He was willing to lend them to the cause of the pageant.
Our shepherd complained some about that. “The Bible says that shepherds watched over their flock by night,” Travis said. “That means sheep, not goats. I’m going to look kind of silly watching goats.”
“You’re going to look sillier watching nothing at all,” I said. “Come on, let’s get some goats.”
We found a couple of old collars and some rope and went to Mr. Morgan’s. He took us to a field where a dozen kids milled around, maa-ing and nudging us for food. Their cries sounded much like a human baby calling for its mother. They were of many colors and patterns with splotches of white and black and rusty brown all over them, and were really very cute, with alert faces and floppy ears and upright tails. Their pupils were rectangular rather than round, which made them look full of mischief and, well, a little eerie.
“Which ones do you want?” Mr. Morgan said. “It makes no never mind to me.” A handsome brown-and-white male nibbled on Travis’s bootlaces.
“Sir, what’s this one’s name?” said Travis.
“Name? Son, they don’t have names. That one there is Number Seven.”
Travis patted the goat and scratched behind his ears. Number Seven seemed to like this and gently butted my brother’s leg. I noticed the goat had horns. Not very big ones, true, but still, they counted as horns.
“Okay,” said Travis, “we’ll take this one. And how about that female over there? The one that looks like she’s wearing a hat.”
Mr. Morgan waded into the herd and brought us another kid. She was all white except for a patch of black over her forehead and one eye. It did indeed look as if she was wearing a hat tilted at a rakish angle.
“This here is Number Eleven,” said Mr. Morgan. “Is that enough, or do you want some more?”
“How many can we have?” said Travis. If left to his own devices, he’d have taken the whole bunch home.
“Two will be fine,” I said quickly.
“But I’m supposed to be watching a flock,” said Travis.
“Two is definitely a flock,” I said, “or at least pretty close.”
“A flock means a bunch,” he said. “Two is not a bunch.”
“Two is plenty, Travis.”
Mr. Morgan said, “Son, maybe you should listen to your sister. These goats are a handful. Now, you feed them good and bring them back to me in good shape, all right?”
“We will, Mr. Morgan.”
We slipped the collars over their heads and, oh, how they hated that. They panicked and jumped and thrashed like hooked fish. This was clearly not going to work.
“Here you go,” said Mr. Morgan, slipping their collars off and lifting them into our arms. “They’re not used to wearing a collar. It’s easier if you just carry them home. You can do that, right?”
We could. Barely. Twenty minutes later, we staggered into our barn and put the goats in a small pen. They looked at us with curiosity. Number Seven nuzzled Travis.
Travis caught his breath and said, “You know, Callie, they are awful cute.” Uh-oh. I knew what was coming.
“When this is all over, I wonder if we could—”
“Absolutely not.”
“But you don’t know what I was going to say.”
“I do know what you were going to say. I absolutely do.”
Number Seven licked Travis’s hand, which did not help the situation. Travis stared at him thoughtfully. “At least I could give him a proper name, don’t you think?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Everybody needs a name. You can’t go through life without a name.”
“You absolutely can. Do you name the birds flying overhead? No, you do not. Do you name the bees buzzing in the hive? No, you do not.”
“This is different. How’d you like to be called by a number?”
“If I were a goat, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t care, and neither would you.”
“It just doesn’t seem right.” He studied the male. “I’m going to call this one … Buster.” Buster maa-ed in what sounded like approval.
“Travis, really?”
“And I’m going to call the one with the hat … let’s see … Hattie.”
There was no stopping the boy. I sighed heavily, something I do a lot when it comes to Travis and animals. Buster and Hattie looked hungry, so we fed them each a handful of oats, which they inhaled, sniffing around for the last little flake. Then I heard Mother calling me from the back porch.
“Calpurnia,” she cried, “it’s time for your practice!”
“Drat.” The piano in the parlor awaited me for the next half hour. “Travis, look, you have to get them used to the collars. You work on that while I’m gone, okay?”
“Okay.”
I ran inside and did battle with the piano while Mother darned socks and mended shirts on the sofa behind me. Although I couldn’t see her, I swear I could feel her wince every time I hit a sour note. I watched the clock and sprang to my feet a half hour later, to the relief of all.
“Well,” I said, “that’s it for today. I’ll be out in the barn. We have to get the shepherd and his flock ready.”
“It’s odd,” Mother said. “You practice the piano every day, and you have a lesson every week, but you never seem to improve very much. I don’t understand it.”
“Me neither,” I said, which was a lie. The reason I never improved is that my heart wasn’t in it. I just didn’t care. I’d much rather have spent my time with Granddaddy on Nature Rambles, or rowing with him down the river, or digging up fossils and arrowheads together. But I knew this wouldn’t sit well with Mother.
Trying hard not to sound too eager, I said, “Maybe I could give up the piano?”
She frowned. “Certainly not. Perhaps if you applied yourself more.” Playing the piano was part of her goal of making a proper young lady of me. Fat chance of that. Then she said these terrible words: “We may have to double your practice time in order to see some progress.” A cold shudder ran through me. (And guess what? After that, it turned out my playing got quite a bit better. Funny how that happens.)
I ran back to the barn and found Travis brushing each collarless goat in turn. They looked very happy.
“What are you doing? I said. “Put those collars on right now.”
“They don’t like it.”
“Too bad.”
We cornered them in the small pen and wrestled the collars onto them. Once again they acted like we were torturing them.
“Quick,” I said, “more oats.” And it worked—it turns out that all it took to calm them down was another handful of oats. And another. And another.
“Keep them distracted with food,” I said.
“They sure do eat a lot,” Travis said. “Well, they’re growing kids.”
They did eat a lot, and not just food. They nibbled on our hands, and Travis’s sleeve, and my pinafore. At one point I made the mistake of turning my back on them to check their water trough.
“Uh, Callie?” said Travis.
“What?”
“Hattie’s eating your braid.”
“What?” I whipped around and was pulled up short—the end of my braid was halfway down Hattie’s gullet. I tugged on it and she tugged back.
“Don’t just stand there,” I yelled at Travis. “Help me!”
Together we managed to retrieve my hair, now covered with goat slime. But my ribbon was gone for good.
“Yuck,” I said.
We turned in time to see Buster swallowing a piece of sack.
“Oh no,” Travis said, “they’ll get sick. Should we take them to the vet? Mr. Morgan’s going to be so mad.”
“No need to worry,” I said. “I’ve heard that goats have cast-iron stomachs.”
But just in case, we sat watch over them for the rest of the afternoon. They were fine. In fact, they were so perfectly fine that they kept snuffling around for the next thing to eat. We took off their collars and moved them to the outside pen with the huge live oak.
Text copyright © 2021 by Jacqueline Kelly
Illustrations copyright © 2021 by Jennifer L. Meyer
