“Little Joe was still behind him. Eli could feel it. He wanted to look back, but he couldnt. The tears were too close. If he were Fancy, hed turn around and kick and buck and moo and do just about a...”

“Milkers dont spend half as long with their mothers." Eli spread his chore coat over Little Joe. "Not more than a few weeks. Sometimes one day. Maybe not even ... If you were a peeper, itd be even w...”

“They got a manure machine in there, Keller said. He went up to the barn and peeked through a hole between tow boards. On wheels. Its fun to ride sometimes, when you dont care how you smell.”

“Pa never told stories like Grandpa. Or treated the barn like family. Eli knew how Grandpas own pa had built the barn by hand, hauling bluestone for the foundation behind a stubborn ox with horns as...”

“They got a manure machine in there,” Keller said. He went up to the barn and peeked through a hole between tow boards. “On wheels. It’s fun to ride sometimes, when you don’t care how you smell.”

“Even the Middle Ages, which condemned and punished animals in due form, was in this way much closer to them than we are. They held them to be guilty: which was a way of honoring them. We take them ...”

“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”

“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened.”