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Where-the-Red-Fern-Grows-Lit Chart 47
Course: Wika Kultura (FIL 289)
100 Documents
Students shared 100 documents in this course
University: Phinma-republican College
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CHAPTER 18
Just before dawn, the storm settles into a fine snow. The
“hellish night” is over at last. Billy climbs out of the gully and he
listens for the sounds of his dogs’ bawls—instead, he hears
someone whooping. It is the sound of the other men from camp
looking for the group. Soon, the search party arrives at the
gully. The men tell Grandpa that there’s a doctor back at camp
who’ll patch his ankle right up. One of the men asks where the
dogs are—Billy explains that they are probably with a treed
raccoon somewhere. The men marvel at the dogs’ devotion and
they remind Billy that he needs this raccoon to take the cup.
To Billy, Dan and Ann’s outstanding devotion to keeping their prey
treed is nothing special—it’s simply the way they are and always
have been. To the judges and other hunters, however, it’s clear that
Billy’s dogs are special and that their devotion signifies something
much deeper than pure hunting prowess.
Another man from camp, Mr. Benson, approaches and
announces that he has found Billy’s hounds—they are “frozen
solid” and they’re covered in white ice at the base of a tree
nearby. Billy passes out on the spot. When he comes to, the
man apologizes for frightening Billy—he explains that the dogs
are alive, just covered in snow. While a few of the men make a
stretcher and bring Grandpa back to camp, Mr. Benson and
another man named Mr. Kyle follow Papa and Billy toward the
hounds. As the group approaches the tree, Billy can see that
Ann and Dan have been walking in circles around the tree all
night. He begins crying and runs toward the dogs.
Billy fears that his dogs are dead, and unable to take the emotional
gut punch, he faints on the spot. When Billy realizes that his dogs
are alive—and simply so devoted to the hunt that they’ve grown
covered in snow as they’ve waited out the night—he is relieved and
full of an intense amount of gratitude and love for his dogs’ devotion
to him.
Benson and Kyle build a fire and help warm the dogs near its
glow. Mr. Kyle declares that the kind of loyalty Billy’s dogs have
shown him represents “the deepest kind of love.” Mr. Kyle
suggests that if people were as good to one another as dogs are
to their owners, mankind would be able to live in “the kind of
world that God wants [people] to have.”
Mr. Kyle’s suggestion that dogs can teach humanity many important
lessons about the role of love, loyalty, and goodness is one of the
book’s central tenets. Through the lessons of a dog’s love, Rawls
suggests, humans can understand what it is to live a life suffused
with the grace and generosity that God “wants [people] to have” and
to embody.
Once the dogs are thawed out, Papa shoots his gun to scare the
raccoon from the tree. Dan and Ann dispatch the raccoon.
Together, the group sets out for camp once again. Billy brings
his dogs to Grandpa—Grandpa cries happy tears as he coos
over Dan and Ann and he congratulates them on a job well
done. A doctor comes into the tent and tells Grandpa that it’s
time to head for town—but Grandpa insists he’s not going
anywhere until he’s seen Billy win his golden cup.
Grandpa is determined to see the competition through to the very
end in spite of his injuries. He is overwhelmed with pride and joy on
behalf of Billy, Dan, and Ann—through the three of them, he, too,
has been able to see his wildest raccoon-hunting dreams come true.
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