Where the Red Fern Grows

Continuing in first person perspective, the tale begins. It’s told in fireside recollection by the main character, Billy Colman. It all started with a bad case of “puppy love” or “dog-wanting disease” wherein, at 10 years old, Billy became obsessed with the idea of having two coon hounds for hunting.

Billy’s childhood home is a young hunter’s paradise: a beautiful valley deep in the Ozark Mountains in northeastern Oklahoma. Billy lives with his parents and sisters. His mother has Cherokee ancestry, allotting the family to live on this stretch of Cherokee land between the mountains and the Illinois River. Billy grew up catching small animals and exploring the landscape. He is particularly fascinated with the tracks of the raccoons, or ringtail coons.

His family is poor with a humble farm. Billy’s father offers to get him one of their neighbor’s collie puppies, but Billy is insistent upon two good hounds, which don’t come cheap. To placate him, Billy’s father gifts him three steel traps.

Billy sets the traps around the house and barns, but traumatizes their barn cat, Samie, by catching him over and over. He clears out all the rats, but accidentally kills one of his mother’s prize hens, which earns him a switching. Billy’s father shows him where to set the traps for real game, like rabbits, opossums, squirrels, and skunks. He teaches Billy how to skin his game. The clever raccoons elude Billy, however. The ringtail coons spring the triggers, steal the bait, and overturn the entire traps sometimes.

Billy soon tires of his new traps and again yearns for hounds. In his suffering, one night, Billy decides to run away. He doesn’t get far, however, turning back at the sound of a timber wolf’s howl.

When hunting season starts, Billy’s agony intensifies. He hears a hound baying almost every night. His sleep and health suffer. He tries to bribe his mother into getting him hounds with a new hat with all the money he was going to earn from his furs: “That time I saw tears in her eyes. It made me feel all empty inside and I cried a little, too. By the time she was through kissing me and talking to me, I was sure I didn’t need any dogs at all” (14).

When the section finally ends, Billy’s father decides at almost 11 years old, Billy is ready to start helping him with the farm work. He thinks Billy’s depression is due to being inside up all winter, and fresh air and exercise will improve his demeanor. Billy thinks this is wonderful: “I’d finally grown up to be a man. I was going to help Papa with the farm” (15).

Billy’s dog-wanting disease doesn’t go away: “Every time I’d see a coon track down in our fields, or along the riverbanks, the old sore would get all festered up and start hurting again” (17).

Billy finds a sportsman’s magazine left behind by some fishermen near one of their fields. In it is an ad for registered redbone coon hound pups for $25 each from a kennel in Kentucky. Billy hatches a plan to earn money selling bait to fishermen, berries to customers in his grandfather’s store, and furs from his traps. For his bank, he finds an old K.C. Baking Powder can in a trash heap and scrubs it clean, hiding it in a hay bale.

Billy works his hands raw to earn money. He catches minnows and crawfish and sells them along with vegetables and roasting ears to fishermen. He picks bucketfuls of berries to sell in his grandfather’s store, and his grandfather sells his hides to fur buyers passing through. He does the same thing the next summer.

Two years pass before Billy accomplishes his $50 goal. Billy cries as he counts his money from the baking powder can, overcome with gratitude: “I thought of the prayer I had said when I asked God to help me get two hound pups. I knew He had surely helped, for He had given me the heart, courage, and determination” (21).

Billy triumphantly takes his money straight to his grandfather, who had absently agreed to help him order the puppies two years ago when Billy had begun saving. Grandpa can’t believe his eyes when he sees Billy’s money. He is shocked and emotional at his grandson’s tenacity, eyes swelling with tears of pride.

He promises to write the kennel in Kentucky and see if they still breed hounds. In the meantime, he fills a big candy bag for Billy and warns him not to tell his father about his savings (as Papa has his eye on a new mule). Billy joyfully returns home, sharing his candy with his sisters.