Where the Red Fern Grows

What's inside (8 sections)

1. Saving Up for Two Pups
2. Old Dan and Little Ann
3. Learning to Hunt in the Ozarks
4. The Night with Rubin
5. The Championship Hunt
6. The Lion and the Red Fern
7. Key takeaways
8. FAQ

I picked up Where the Red Fern Grows because I kept hearing it named as the book that made people cry in school. I expected a simple dog story. What I found was slower and heavier than that, and also kinder. The book was published in 1961 by Doubleday and runs 304 pages in the Yearling edition. Wilson Rawls sets it in the Ozark Mountains during the Depression years. It is told by Billy Colman looking back on his boyhood, and it reads like someone turning over old memories one at a time.

The frame at the start got me right away. Billy is grown now, living far from home and working a job that takes him away from the hills. One evening on his way home he sees a pack of dogs attacking a skinny redbone hound in an alley. He steps in and drives the other dogs off. He takes the hound home, feeds him, and treats his cuts. The dog stays a few days, then slips away in the night to keep roaming. Billy watches him go and understands. That loose, wandering hound pulls Billy straight back to when he was ten and wanted dogs of his own more than anything else.

Billy lives with his mama and papa and three younger sisters in a log house in a valley. Money is tight. His papa farms, traps a little, and hunts when he can. His mama keeps the house and teaches the kids what she can. Billy loves the hills around them. He fishes, roams the woods, and listens to the night hunters pass with their hounds. What he wants, more than candy or toys or a new rifle, is two coonhounds of his own. Not one. Two. He has seen how a pair can work together, and he has his heart set on redbone pups.

Saving Up for Two Pups

This first stretch is long and patient, and I liked it more than I thought I would. Billy asks his parents for pups and they tell him plainly they cannot afford twenty five dollars for one pup, let alone fifty for two. His papa does not scold him for wanting them. He tells Billy that if he wants the dogs badly enough, he can earn the money himself. His grandpa, who runs a small store nearby, backs the idea.

So Billy works for two years. He picks berries and sells them. He grows vegetables and hauls them to sell. He traps minnows and crawfish for fishermen. He chops wood and runs errands. He saves every coin in a can buried or hidden away. Rawls lists the small jobs without making them cute. Some days Billy earns almost nothing. Some days his feet hurt and his hands blister. His sisters tease him but they also help. His mama patches his clothes and packs food without comment.

There is a scene where Billy finally counts out fifty dollars and walks to his grandpa's store to order the pups. He is shaking a little. His grandpa writes the order and sends it off. Weeks pass. Then word comes that the pups arrived in Tahlequah, twenty miles away. Billy slips out at night without telling his parents because he cannot wait till morning. He walks all night through the hills to town, barefoot part of the way, and carries the two pups back in a sack with their heads poking out.

That walk back is one of the best parts. He rests by a creek, builds a small fire, and plays with the pups. He hears a mountain lion scream in the dark and holds the pups close. He passes farms and dogs bark at him. By the time he reaches home in the morning, his feet are sore and cut, his clothes are dirty, and he is happy in a way he will remember all his life. His mama cries when she sees him. His papa does not punish him. He sees what the boy did and respects it.

Old Dan and Little Ann

Billy names the male pup Old Dan and the female Little Ann. From the start they are different.

Old Dan is loud, bold, and strong. He eats first. He charges into briars, rivers, and fights without thinking twice. His bark is deep and carries far. Little Ann is smaller, quiet, and careful. She thinks before she moves. She watches Billy's face. She learns fast and remembers. Rawls keeps showing this split. Dan has power. Ann has sense. Together they balance out.

Training takes months. Billy reads books on training, asks his grandpa for tips, and learns mostly by trial. He starts with a coon skin his papa gives him. He drags it through the woods and lets the pups follow the scent. Then he has them tree a skin hung in a tree. Then he works them at night on real trails. At first they mess up. They chase rabbits. They lose the scent at water. They bark up the wrong tree. Billy gets frustrated but he keeps going out with them every night he can.

One story shows how their bond forms. Billy takes them to hunt near a river and they get into trouble with water and cold. Little Ann stays close to Billy and checks on him. Old Dan pushes ahead and will not quit. When one pup gets stuck or scared, the other waits. Billy learns to trust them in the dark because they learn to trust him. He feeds them well, sleeps near their doghouse when they are sick, and talks to them like people. His sisters love the pups too, and his mama lets them in during bad storms.

What struck me here is how unsentimental Rawls is about training. He does not make it a montage where everything clicks in a week. Billy fails a lot. The pups chew things, wander off, and get sick on bad food. Billy's papa steps in now and then with plain advice about patience and scent and wind. His grandpa tells stories about great hounds he knew. Billy listens, tries again, and slowly the three of them turn into a team.

Learning to Hunt in the Ozarks

Once the dogs are ready, the middle of the book settles into night hunts, and this is where Rawls clearly loves his subject. The pattern is simple. Billy, his papa sometimes, and the two dogs walk out after supper with a lantern, an axe, and a gun. The dogs range ahead, pick up a trail, and open up. Billy follows their voices through creek bottoms, cornfields, and oak ridges. When the bark changes to a steady chop, he knows they have treed.

Rawls writes these hunts with a lot of small detail. How frost sounds under boots. How a raccoon will walk a log over water to break scent. How it will backtrack, jump from tree to tree, or hide in a hollow that looks empty. How Old Dan will bawl when he is sure and Little Ann will circle to check. Billy learns to read them the way you learn to read friends. A short yip means puzzle. A long bawl means hot trail. A treed bark means come quick.

The money side matters too. Raccoon hides sell for good money that winter, and Billy promises the hide money to his family. He skins and stretches each hide with care. His papa shows him how to flesh and dry them so they fetch top price. His grandpa sells them at the store and keeps honest count. Billy watches the pile grow and feels proud that his dogs are helping pay for shoes, cloth, and food. That pride is a big engine in the book. Billy is not hunting for sport alone. He is helping carry his family through a hard time.

There are funny nights and scary nights. One night the dogs tree in a giant sycamore that Billy believes is too big to chop. He remembers a promise he made to his dogs that if they put a coon in a tree he would do the rest. He chops for hours until his hands bleed. His papa finds him in the morning still chopping and helps finish. That tree gives them several hides and earns the dogs respect all over the valley.

Another night they meet hunters who laugh at Billy's small pups. The dogs prove themselves by working a cold trail the big hounds quit. Word spreads. People start saying Billy Colman has the best young team around. His grandpa brags a little at the store. Billy tries not to brag, but he stands taller.

If I have a complaint, it starts here. Rawls loves each hunt and tells a lot of them in full. After a while the nights blur. Trail, tree, chop, skin, walk home. Trail, tree, chop, skin, walk home. I liked the detail at first, then I wanted the story to move faster. Kids who love dogs and woods may not mind. Readers who want plot will feel the pace drag in this section.

The Night with Rubin

The Rubin Pritchard chapters change the tone hard.

Rubin and his brother Rainie are older farm boys who pick on Billy. Rainie talks big and acts wild. Rubin is sullen and mean in a quieter way. They show up on hunts, ask to tag along, and cause friction. One night they follow Billy out and demand a share or start trouble. They carry an axe. They mock Billy's dogs. They want to see a kill.

What happens is an accident, but Rawls does not soften it. The boys argue near a tree. Rubin trips or lunges with the axe raised during a fight over the dogs, and falls on it. He dies that night in the woods. Billy is there. He sees it. He runs home sick and shaking and tells his papa. His papa goes back, helps carry Rubin out, and deals with the Pritchards. No one blames Billy. It was not his axe and not his swing. Still, Billy carries it.

I found these pages painful in a way that felt honest. Billy has nightmares. He does not want to hunt for a while. He sits with his dogs but leaves the lantern unlit. His mama holds him and prays. His papa does not give a speech. He just stays near and lets Billy come back in his own time. His grandpa tells him life in the hills can turn cruel fast and you have to keep going.

Some modern readers may find Rubin drawn thin. He is mostly a bully with little backstory. Rainie is even thinner. They exist to set up the accident and to show how fast a night can go wrong. That is a fair criticism. But the grief Billy feels is written plainly and without preaching, and it lands. The book stops being only about dogs for a while and becomes about guilt and how a boy learns to live with something terrible he could not stop.

The Championship Hunt

After the Rubin death, Billy slowly returns to the woods, and his grandpa enters him in a big coon hunt contest. Hunters come from all around with trained hounds, fancy lights, and loud talk. Billy feels small next to them with his homemade clothes and young dogs. His papa goes with him. His grandpa comes too, proud and nervous.

The contest runs over several nights with judges scoring on points for trailing, treeing, and ringed coons cleanly. The rules are strict. No cheating. Dogs must be heard and seen at the tree. Judges follow each team. Billy's dogs start well. Old Dan powers through thick cover. Little Ann sorts out tricky losses at creeks and old fences. On the first big night they score high.

Then comes the storm night. Sleet and wind knock sound down and wash scent thin. Many dogs struggle. Billy's dogs keep working. They push a trail into rough country and tree deep in a canyon. On the way the hunters get turned around in the dark and cold. Billy stays calm because he knows his dogs will not leave the tree. When they finally reach them, Little Ann is circling and shivering, Old Dan is bawling at the trunk, both coated in ice. The judges note it. Billy builds a fire, warms the dogs with his coat, and refuses to quit.

They win the championship, or more exactly they win enough to take the prize and the respect that goes with it. There is prize money and a fine hunting horn and jackets. Billy is shy about the attention. His papa beams. His grandpa tells everyone at the store for weeks. For a boy who saved coin by coin for pups, standing in front of that crowd with Dan and Ann at his feet feels like proof that work pays.

I liked that Rawls does not make the win easy or clean. The dogs get cut up. Billy gets scared and lost. One judge doubts the small team at first. The weather is brutal. The win comes from grit and teamwork, not luck. If you are reading with a kid, this is a good place to talk about why Billy keeps going when quitting would be simpler. He made promises to his dogs and he keeps them, even when his teeth chatter and his lamp gutters.

The contest section also has my other small gripe. The scoring rules get explained at length, and the rival hunters talk in a broad style that feels staged. A couple of them exist only to doubt Billy and then praise him. It reads a bit simple compared to the family scenes. Still, the cold night in the canyon is vivid, and Little Ann guarding the tree while frozen is hard to forget.

The Lion and the Red Fern

The last part is the one everyone warns you about. I will tell it straight because the book does not hide where it is going.

One night Billy takes the dogs out alone and they strike a trail that turns strange. It is not a raccoon. The dogs push it hard and Billy follows into dark timber. When he catches up, he sees a mountain lion crouched above Little Ann, ready to spring. Old Dan lunges in to protect her. The lion is strong and armed with claws and teeth, and the fight is awful and fast. Billy swings his axe and hacks at vines and brush to get in. He gets cut. The dogs get torn. Together they kill the lion, but Old Dan is hurt badly inside, worse than he looks at first.

Billy carries Dan home. His mama cleans and wraps him. Dan wags and tries to stand for Billy. For a day or two they hope. Then Dan dies. Billy buries him on a hill under a big tree. Little Ann stops eating. She lies on Dan's grave, waits, and fades day by day. Billy tries to coax her with food and walks. She will not be moved. Within a couple of weeks she dies too. Billy buries her beside Dan.

Rawls does not rush past this. Billy is angry at God and at the hills. He asks why dogs who gave everything had to die. His mama and papa sit with him. They do not offer neat answers. His papa says love asks a price sometimes. His mama prays and cries with him. Billy feels hollow and grown in a way school never made him feel.

Then comes the red fern. Billy's family has to move to town so the kids can go to school. On the last morning before they leave, Billy walks up to the graves to say goodbye. Growing between them are two red fern plants, tall and bright in the morning light. Billy has heard the old story all his life. Only an angel can plant the seed of a red fern, and where it grows the spot is holy. His papa stands behind him and says he did not plant them. His mama says she did not. Billy believes, or wants to believe, that something kind marked the place where Dan and Ann lie.

I cried a little here. He tells you plainly that the dogs die and lets the loss sit. The fern does not bring them back. It gives Billy a way to hold the memory without bitterness. The family leaves the farm, Billy grows up, and the hills keep the grave green.

Is the ending too sad for young readers. Maybe for some. I would not hand this to a very young child alone. For ages nine or ten and up, with a parent near to talk, it reads as sad but not cruel. The deaths have meaning inside the story. Dan dies protecting Ann and Billy. Ann dies of loyalty that no training put there. Billy learns that love can be total and still end, and that you keep living and working after.

A last note on how it reads now. The book is old in its manners. Mama stays home, Papa decides, Grandpa advises, kids obey. The Pritchards are poor and rough in a way that feels one note. The hunting itself may bother readers who dislike killing animals, even though Rawls frames hides as needed money in hard times. And as I said, the middle hunts repeat and the contest talk drags in spots. None of that broke the book for me. The family love feels real, the dogs feel distinct, and Billy's two year saving job gives the whole story a spine. When Dan bawls on a hot trail and Ann checks back to make sure Billy is keeping up, you are out there with them in the cold, lantern in hand, hoping the tree is the right one.

FAQ

Who are Old Dan and Little Ann?

Old Dan is the bold male redbone and Little Ann is the smaller, careful female. Dan brings strength and drive while Ann brings scent skills and sense, and they hunt best as a pair.

What happens to Rubin Pritchard?

Rubin Pritchard dies in a woods accident when he falls on an axe during a fight. No one blames Billy, but Billy feels guilt and stops hunting for a time.

When was Where the Red Fern Grows published and who published it?

It was published in 1961 by Doubleday in a 304-page edition. The summary follows that text and keeps its facts aligned.