68 pages • 2 hours read
Wilson RawlsWhere the Red Fern Grows
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1961A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary
Every day, Billy runs into Grandpa’s store to see if there’s word from Kentucky. Finally, it arrives. The kennels still breed dogs; in fact, their price has dropped five dollars in the past two years. The dogs will arrive at a town 20 miles away called Tahlequah. Grandpa advises Billy to hitch a ride to go collect them.
Billy knows he needs to tell his family about the hounds, but he can’t bring himself to do it. He knows he needs to wait for his dogs, but he can’t bring himself to do that, either. He packs a small satchel of food in one of his mother’s flour sacks and heads off in the middle of the night to go get them himself.
In his bare feet, Billy travels 20 miles through the woods to Tahlequah. It is the first time he’s been in a city this big, and Billy feels intimidated. He sees a marshal for the first time, and is fearful of the man and his gun, though the man ignores Billy. For the first time in his life, Billy sees his reflection in a mirror. He realizes how odd he must look to the city folk. People snicker at his appearance.
To make up for leaving home without telling his family, Billy uses the leftover money to buy his father new overalls, fabric for his mother, and candy for his sisters. When the shopkeeper tries to sell him shoes, Billy insists he doesn’t need any.
On his way to the depot, Billy passes a school with kids his age on the playground. He doesn’t know what a school is, or even what a slide is. One of the children asks him what school he goes to and where he lives. When Billy answered that he’s homeschooled back in the hills, the children start chanting “Hillbilly!” at him. The bell rings, and they go inside, leaving Billy sad and confused. He tries to go down the slide but slips and hurts himself. A woman nearby laughs. Billy can’t understand why everyone in the town is constantly laughing at him.
Chapter 5 Summary
After finally getting up the nerve to go into the depot, a kindly stationmaster who knows Billy’s father leads Billy to the crate that’s holding his puppies.
When he first sees his hounds, Billy feels overcome with emotion. “I knelt down and gathered them in my arms. I buried my face between their wiggling bodies and cried. The stationmaster, sensing something more than just two dogs and a boy, waited in silence” (37).
As he proudly leaves the depot with his pups on his back, Billy’s long-awaited happy day turns nightmarish. Seeing a barefooted boy with puppies in a sack send the townsfolk into gales of laughter. As he walks, more people gather to jeer at him.
A group of boys his age surround him, taunting. One yanks on the ear of the female puppy, sending Billy over the edge. He puts his pups down and fights bravely and well until he’s overwhelmed, face down in the street. The marshal intervenes, getting all the boys off Billy and helping him up. When he hears how long it took Billy to save up to buy the hounds himself and how far he’s walked to claim them, the marshal is clearly impressed, muttering how none of the town’s kids have that kind of grit. He insists on buying Billy a soda before he leaves. Billy feels better after enjoying his first soda pop ever and sharing the company of his new friend.
Billy heads off on his trek homeward, finding a cave to spend the night in. He builds a fire and a bed and feeds the puppies, observing the differences in their personalities. The boy pup is much larger than the girl. He is adventurous, bravely exploring the mouth of the cave. The girl pup is smaller (likely the runt of the litter), smarter, more cautious, and surer of herself, Billy notes. A perfect combination.
Billy is awaked in the middle of the night by a mountain lion’s scream. The boy pup howls back at it, and Billy stokes the fire big enough to keep the lion at bay, although it circles them all night.
Chapter 6 Summary
The next day, Billy and his pups travel the rest of the way home. They stop at the fishermen’s campsite where Billy had first found the sportsman’s magazine. Watching the hounds play, Billy thinks about what to name them. Carved into a tree is a heart with “Dan” and “Ann” inside. This inspires him to name them Old Dan and Little Ann. Billy stays a long time at the campsite, meditating gratefully on how perfectly everything has fallen into place.
When Billy finally walks through the door of his home, his parents greet him warmly and with great relief. He weeps, apologizing for not telling them where he was going. He gives everyone their gifts, and they forgive him. Billy feels a deep sense of satisfaction at being able to give to his family.
Billy tells about his journey, learning the cave he’d slept in is Robber’s Cave. Papa tells him a mountain lion won’t bother a person unless it’s cornered or injured. Billy describes his negative experiences in town, stating that he’d never want to live there. Papa urges him to think about town differently, expressing the hope that they will save enough money to move there one day and get the children proper educations and exposure to new people and places.
Mama says she prays every night to bring her children into town: “I don’t want you children to grow up without an education, not even knowing what a bottle of soda pop is, or ever seeing the inside of a schoolhouse” (52). Billy describes the schoolhouse, learning the slide was a fire escape.
The next day, Billy’s sisters help him build a doghouse. Papa helps him craft rough leather collars. Billy carves their names into the leather just like the name on the hound’s collar in the first chapter.
That night, Billy sits with his mother and shares his metaphysical interpretation of the events leading up to getting his hounds: “With a smile on her face, she asked, ‘Do you believe God heard your prayer and helped you?’ ‘Yes, Mama,’ I said. ‘I know He did and I’ll always be thankful’” (53).
Chapters 4-6 Analysis
These chapters take the action away from home for the first time, exploring the contrast between city life and Billy’s life in the hills. They follow a miniature hero’s journey, as Billy sets out alone to get his hounds, encounters obstacles along the way, and returns home triumphant and changed.
After deciding he can’t wait any longer, Billy sets out alone into the unknown. He finds the town easily enough, but many townsfolk have unkind receptions of him. This is a series of profound firsts for Billy: first time he goes to a town, first time he’s an outsider, first time he sees his own reflection, first time he sees his hounds. It is also full of more childlike firsts: first time he sees a school, first time he slides down a fire escape, first time he drinks a soda pop. Billy’s town experience is in harsh contrast to his life in the hills. He feels more endangered in “civilized” society than alone in the wilderness.
Although town is rough for him, Billy makes some comforting connections there as well: first, with the train depot man knows his father and helps him get his hounds, then with the marshal who rescues him from the bullies.
The moment when he finally meets his hounds is a touching one. Billy instantly loves his hounds and sees them as more than dogs immediately. He lovingly observes their different personalities.
Billy encounters more challenges on his way back home. Camping in Robber’s Cave, of a mountain lion stalks Billy night. This scene and Billy’s conversations with his father later foreshadow interactions Billy and the hounds will have with Robber’s Cave and with a mountain lion.
When Billy finally returns home, he sees his house and family in a different light. He always has a grateful conscience, but Billy’s gratitude overflows when his family welcomes him back so compassionately and lovingly. His conversation with his mother about God’s influence on his life drives home this gratitude and develops the theme of prayer and faith.
