43 pages • 1 hour read
Jean Craighead GeorgeOn the Far Side of the Mountain
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1990A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 8-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 8 Summary: “Zella Makes Sense”
Sam heads to Bando’s cabin, telling himself that once he figures out where Alice is going, he will feel better and will go home to do chores. He finds Bando working on his Adirondack furniture and explains that Alice ran away. He asks to see Bando’s maps, and as they study them using a compass, Bando plots Alice’s direction on the map and hypothesizes that she is heading to the Helderberg Mountains, where a pair of goshawks (birds of prey) are nesting on the Helderberg Escarpment. Zella, also in the cabin, notes the many waterfalls on the way to the Helderbergs and mentions Alice’s interest in camping next to them. Bando doubts that Alice could climb waterfalls with her pig, Crystal, in tow, and both Bando and Sam lament the destruction that pigs cause. Zella, however, sees things differently. She knows Alice’s pig is smart enough to dig up bulbs and tubers and find water, and Sam realizes Zella is right, for just like Sam’s intuitive relationship with Frightful, Alice is able to communicate with Crystal well enough to convey her desire to find waterfalls.
Because Sam knows that Alice is heading south, he and Bando deduce that she is likely headed toward Peaks Brook, where she can walk downstream on easy terrain before heading east toward the closest waterfall. At first, Sam does not want to follow Alice; he feels he should respect her decision to go out on her own. Bando, however, argues that they should both follow her just to keep an eye on her, as she is known for getting herself into trouble. Zella must leave for work, but she offers her condolences to Sam regarding Frightful and says that she knows Leon Longbridge to be a good man who will make sure that Frightful is given good care. Bando gathers the supplies he will need for the journey, and Sam already has what he needs—a few food items, fishing line, sling, flint, and steel. Bando and Sam set out on their hike, starting from Alice’s sun compass.
Chapter 9 Summary: “I Learn to Think Like a Pig”
Bando and Sam predict that Alice is following the Delaware River to a waterfall and set out toward the river. They pause at midday to catch fish and eat edible plants and continue on after lunch to eventually discover pig tracks and Alice’s footprints. They follow Crystal’s tracks toward the nearest waterfall, pausing to fish and gather apples for dinner. Sam spots Alice’s camp under an oak tree despite her efforts to make the area look untouched, and he finds a half-eaten snake that Crystal killed. Realizing they must think like a pig in their tracking, they stop to cook their dinner and camp for the night. Sam starts thinking about Frightful, and Bando tells him about the university’s barn in which peregrine falcons are housed, reassuring Sam that Frightful will be in a safe place, and Sam is able to fall asleep thinking of Frightful having young.
Chapter 10 Summary: “Bando Finds Some Old Adirondack Furniture”
Sam and Bando continue walking in the morning and come to a farm with a corn crop. They deduce that Alice and Crystal must have visited the farm, since they saw corncobs near the brook. They also find another homemade compass of Alice’s and learn that she is headed east. Guessing that she is likely going to Manorkill Falls, they follow her heading for another 10 miles of nonstop walking, and after summiting a mountain, they stop for the night. In the morning, Sam makes a breakfast of daylily buds and ground hazelnuts, and they keep walking a bit more slowly, since Bando is getting sore. Bando spots a powerline they can follow, and they adjust their route to follow the easier terrain. Sam finds a patch of dug-up primroses and Jerusalem artichokes, excited at the evidence that Alice and Crystal have been this way. Bando and Sam give credit to Crystal’s nose for finding the food and take some for themselves. They then come upon evidence of a struggle and deduce that Alice must be pulling Crystal into the woods for some reason.
As they continue following the tracks, Sam realizes that Alice must be going to the house of John Burroughs, a nature writer. They also find a deer-mouse pantry that Alice also found. The deer mice remove the coatings of nuts and seeds, so they are ready to eat. Bando and Sam find a country road that they begin to follow and see signs for the Roxbury County Fair. Bando is tempted to go to the fair, but Sam thinks their best chance at catching up to Alice is continuing to Manorkill Falls. They then come upon John Burroughs’s summer home, Woodchuck Lodge. It is a National Monument, and Bando appreciates the Adirondack furniture that covers the porch. Sam makes lunch from the collected primroses and artichokes, but Bando opens a can of stew. They then spot a pathfinder’s sign that Alice made, which indicates that she is indeed headed toward Manorkill Falls.
Chapters 8-10 Analysis
As Sam and Bando follow Alice’s trail, George’s strategic use of imagery highlights the beauty of the natural world and shows the healing effects that the wilderness has on Sam’s mind; despite his grief over the loss of Frightful, walking in nature improves his mood immeasurably. George emphasizes Sam’s appreciation for the beauty of his surroundings by using personification to describe the brook, which “plays pranks” (82) as it twists and turns, providing the travelers with a solid shore to walk on before whimsically taking it away. Such descriptions show Sam respects the natural world not just as a static environment, but as a multiplex consciousness in which even inanimate things have a spirit and volition of their own. Similarly, when Sam and Bando summit a mountain, George’s sweeping descriptions of the panorama treat readers to a scenic view of the Catskill, Helderberg, and Adirondack Mountains all at once, creating a strong sense of majesty and further emphasizing Sam’s kinship with both the land and the birds of prey that soar above it. This section also serves as a practical field guide to eating in the wild, for George provides detailed descriptions of Sam’s foraging abilities and the many edible plants he cooks with along the journey. For example, he finds Labrador leaves to make tea, along with daylily buds that he dips in ground hazelnuts and steams in spicebush leaves. Additional edible plants mentioned include primroses and Jerusalem artichokes, and this focus on such pragmatic details shows the earth’s potential for producing food even in the most uncultivated areas.
As Sam and Bando relentlessly track Alice, George highlights their use of logic and observation. For each step of their journey, they must bring together many different clues, from her love for waterfalls and the general heading of the compass she left to the tell-tale tracks of her pig’s foraging along the way. This succession of discoveries corroborates Zella’s previous insights about Crystal’s use as a helper rather than a liability, and even though Sam doesn’t see Zella as much of an outdoorswoman, he gives her credit for recognizing the pig’s potential. This inner realization conveys Sam’s fundamental honesty and appreciation for both the environment and the people around him. Once Sam and Bando begin their hike, they find several signs left by both Alice and Crystal that suggest Alice may want them to follow her, and by portraying Sam and Bando as a pair of intrepid detectives on the trail of a mystery, George creates tension and suspense in the plot and heightens her readers’ curiosity as the journey progresses detail by detail.
Related Titles
By Jean Craighead George
