Certain Poor Shepherds by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

Author:Elizabeth Marshall Thomas [Thomas, Elizabeth Marshall]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7636-8036-7
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Published: 2015-11-11T16:00:00+00:00

She saw an infant, and to her surprise, it looked like a human infant. It was resting on hay, fast asleep with its hands curled, just like the infants born to her master and his wife. But the scent was not the same, far from it, and she immediately understood that whatever was in the trough was not a human being, no matter what it looked like. Even so, it had to do with humans. One of them had given birth to it. But from the storm power that hung about the trough, from the electric feeling in her skin so strong as to be almost painful, Lila knew that the infant was more closely akin to the angels than to the people, and most closely akin to the star.

For a long time, Lila watched the little creature, noticing its lips move and its eyelids flutter as if it dreamed of nursing. Any infant would do the same, being too young to dream of anything else. The sight of it, so delicate and tender, made Lila’s heart go soft. And although she was just a dog who could never hope to understand everything, she understood one thing very clearly. Despite the mighty storm forces and the overwhelming star odor that surrounded the trough, the creature inside it was helpless.

Why, then, were people begging from it? Lila couldn’t tell what they wanted, but clearly they wanted something. Their need made Lila uneasy. She knew that human beings didn’t detect most sounds or odors but were very quick to detect frailty. This put the little creature in danger. Even if it was not exactly one of them, the human beings should be looking for ways to take care of it, not asking it to take care of them. It was too young to be put to use.

Her mind’s eye saw her own four puppies. She remembered their warm skin, their tightly closed ears and eyes, their tiny puffs of breath. Shortly after their birth, she had gone, on her master’s orders, to bring in his sheep, trusting her master and his wife to safeguard her puppies. But the two humans had not protected them. Inexplicably, they had put her puppies into a deep bowl of water. Lila had come home to find their tiny bodies cold and wet and still, thrown out on the bare ground not far from her master’s house. Desperately, she had nudged them and licked them, trying to warm them and wake them, but she had come too late. They were gone.

Lila also thought of her young sheep, alone and unprotected. Soon the day would end. Lila knew that Ima was wise and brave, but she also knew that a goat could not hold her own against the wolves and wild cats who might visit the vineyard to see what moved there after dark.

Made anxious by the thought of helpless creatures needing care, Lila looked once again at the sleeping infant in the trough. Then she quietly left the stable and went out into the afternoon sun.

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