Where the Red Fern Grows

by Wilson Rawls

Our home was in a beautiful valley far back in the rugged Ozarks.

He told me how hard times were, and that it looked like a man couldn’t get a fair price for anything he raised. Some of the farmers had quit farming and were cutting railroad ties so they could feed their families.

I’d finally grown up to be a man. I was going to help Papa with the farm.

Tahlequah,

city in Cherokee County, Oklahoma located at the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. It is part of the Green Country region of Oklahoma and was established as a capital of the 19th-century Cherokee Nation in 1839, as part of the new settlement in Indian Territory after the Cherokee Native Americans were forced west from the American Southeast on the Trail of Tears.

a haircutting over at Tom Rolland’s place,

I’ll just keep praying and some day the good Lord may answer my prayer.”

If a man’s word isn’t any good, he’s no good himself.”

I’m sure no one in the world can understand a young boy like his grandfather can.

“I heard there was a fad back in the New England states. Seems like everyone is going crazy over coonskin coats.

Once in a while when I got too far off the beaten path, he would come around and cram a bar of soap in my pocket.

I have no idea what this means.

The Pritchards were a large family that lived upriver about five miles. As in most small country communities, there is one family that no one likes.

There are people like the Pritchards all through the hills. They live in little worlds of their own and are all alone. They don’t like to have outsiders interfere.”

“Men,” said Mr. Kyle, “people have been trying to understand dogs ever since the beginning of time. One never knows what they’ll do. You can read every day where a dog saved the life of a drowning child, or lay down his life for his master. Some people call this loyalty. I don’t. I may be wrong, but I call it love—the deepest kind of love.”

It was the devil cat of the Ozarks, the mountain lion.

He only has two loves—you and hunting. That’s all he knows.”

“Billy, you’re always doing things by yourself,” Mama said. “That’s not right. Everyone needs help some time in his life.”