Where the Red Fern Grows

by Wilson Rawls

He asked me where I got the money. “I worked and saved it,” I said. “It takes a long time to save forty dollars,” he said. “Yes,” I said. “It took me two years.” “Two years!” he exclaimed. I saw an outraged look come over the marshal’s face. Reaching up, he pushed his hat back. He glanced up and down the street. I heard him mutter, “There’s not a one in that bunch with that kind of grit.”

I looked up again to the names carved in the tree. Yes, it was all there like a large puzzle. Piece by piece, each fit perfectly until the puzzle was complete. It could not have happened without the help of an unseen power.

After Papa had pulled the nails, he lifted the coon’s paw from the hole. There, clamped firmly in it, was the bright piece of tin. In a low voice Papa said, “Well, I’ll be darned. All he had to do was open it up and he was free, but he wouldn’t do it. Your grandfather was right.”

How often do we do that with things that we need to hold loosely?

“Man!” Mama exclaimed. “Why, he’s still just a little boy.” “You can’t keep him a little boy always,” Papa said. “He’s got to grow up some day.” “I know,” Mama said, “but I don’t like it, not at all, and I can’t help worrying.”

“You know, Billy,” he said, “about this tree-chopping of yours, I think it’s all right. In fact, I think it would be a good thing if all young boys had to cut down a big tree like that once in their life. It does something for them. It gives them determination and will power. That’s a good thing for a man to have. It goes a long way in his life.

Do you think God heard my prayer? Do you think He helped me?” Papa looked at the ground and scratched his head. In a sober voice, he said, “I don’t know, Billy. I’m afraid I can’t answer that. You must remember the big sycamore was the tallest tree in the bottoms. Maybe it was up there high enough to catch the wind where the others couldn’t. No, I’m afraid I can’t help you there. You’ll have to decide for yourself.” It wasn’t hard for me to decide. I was firmly convinced that I had been helped.

Looking to the mountains around us, I saw that the mysterious artist who comes at night had paid us a visit. I wondered how he could paint so many different colors in one night; red, wine, yellow, and rust.

“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’s a shame that people all over the world can’t have that kind of love in their hearts,” he said. “There would be no wars, slaughter, or murder; no greed or selfishness. It would be the kind of world that God wants us to have—a wonderful world.”

I laid her head in my lap and with tear-filled eyes gazed up into the heavens. In a choking voice, I asked, “Why did they have to die? Why must I hurt so? What have I done wrong?” I heard a noise behind me. It was my mother. She sat down and put her arm around me. “You’ve done no wrong, Billy,” she said. “I know this seems terrible and I know how it hurts, but at one time or another, everyone suffers. Even the Good Lord suffered while He was here on earth.”