Because of Winn-Dixie

by Kate DiCamillo

“I know it,” I said. “I know I don’t need a dog. But this dog needs me.

What Gloria Dump picked for me to grow was a tree. Or she said it was a tree. To me, it looked more like a plant. She had me dig a hole for it and put it in the ground and pat the dirt around it tight, like it was a baby and I was tucking it into bed. “What kind of tree is it?” I asked Gloria Dump. “It’s a wait-and-see tree,” she said. “What’s that mean?” “It means you got to wait for it to grow up before you know what it is.”

And then he crept up on the couch with us in this funny way he has, where he gets on the couch an inch at a time, kind of sliding himself onto it, looking off in a different direction, like it’s all happening by accident, like he doesn’t intend to get on the couch, but all of a sudden, there he is.

“Some of them I would’ve done anyway, with alcohol or without it. Before I learned.” “Learned what?” “Learned what is the most important thing.” “What’s that?” I asked her. “It’s different for everyone,” she said. “You find out on your own. But in the meantime, you got to remember, you can’t always judge people by the things they done. You got to judge them by what they are doing now.

Winn-Dixie yawned real big and lay down on his side, with a thump and a sigh. I swear he knew that phrase: “Now there’s a story.” And he knew it meant we weren’t going anywhere real soon.

Miss Franny looked around the library and then she whispered, “Men and boys always want to fight. They are always looking for a reason to go to war. It is the saddest thing. They have this abiding notion that war is fun. And no history lesson will convince them differently.

“Other people’s tragedies should not be the subject of idle conversation. There was no reason for me to tell you.”

lonely. Sometimes, it seemed like everybody in the world was lonely.

“Do you think everybody misses somebody? Like I miss my mama?” “Mmmm-hmmm,” said Gloria. She closed her eyes. “I believe, sometimes, that the whole world has an aching heart.”