Old Yeller Book

I can only conclude that there must be something terribly wrong with me, that I would embark on a third reading of Old Yeller.

It's madness. It's the only explanation.

I just felt as though my 10-year-old was ready. And she was. I guess I felt ready again, too.

So we took on this 117 page classic from 1956, together, even though it had broken my heart twice before.

I was wondering if this daughter would consider the language dated, but, no, she took it all in stride. She was surprisingly unfazed that Pa had once had to kill a Comanche, Ma had to skin a deer, and Travis had to shoot several small animals. It was life in the 1800s, in the wild frontier that was Texas, and times weren't what they are now.

And, yet, when we got to the first of the two pivotal parts of the heart-breaking plot, she jumped up and shouted, "WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME LISTEN TO THIS?"

I asked her, "Would you like me to stop?"

She sat back down and answered, "No."

When we got to the second sad part of the story, I collapsed in deep sobs, but I still heard her little voice say, "Mom, it's like Charlotte's Web all over again. Do you want me to read?"

I pulled myself together and we finished the last part, the part that's so soul crushing, you almost can't get through it. But, like life, you prevail.

In the end, we were holding each other by the forearms, foreheads pressed together, shaking and sobbing. When we stopped crying, I asked her, "Do you wish I hadn't read it to you?

She paused, then answered, "Yes. No. I don't know."

I worried I'd made a bad decision as a mother. Asked her, "How many stars would you give it?"

She looked up at me like I was an idiot and said, "Five stars. OBVIOUSLY."

"Now the thing to do," [Papa] went on, "is to try to forget it and go on being a man."
"How?" I asked. "How can you forget a thing like that?"

He studied me for a moment, then shook his head. "I guess I don't quite mean that," he said. "It's not a thing you can forget. What I mean is, things like that happen. They may seem mighty cruel and unfair, but that's how life is part of the time. But that isn't the only way life is. A part of the time, it's mighty good. And a man can't afford to waste all the good part, worrying about the bad parts. That makes it all bad. . . You understand?"