Free Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls Page A

a switch and wear you to a frazzle."
        This hurt my feelings and I really did get tuned up. "Everyone's mad at me," I said, "and I haven't done anything but catch the biggest coon on the river."
        Mama came over. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to be cross, but you did scare me. I thought a rattlesnake had bitten you."
        "Now that that's all settled," Papa said, "we had better go get that coon." Looking at Mama, he said, "Why don't you and the girls go with us. I don't think it'll take long."
        Mama looked at me, smiled, and turned to the girls. "Would you like to go?" she asked.
        Their only answer was a lot of squealing and jumping up and down.
        On the way, Mama noticed some blood on my shirt. She stopped me and started looking me over.
        "Where did that come from?" she asked. "Did that coon bite you?"
        "No, Mama," I said. "I didn't get close enough for him to bite me."
        With a worried look on her face, she jerked out my shirt. "You don't seem to be scratched anywhere," she said.
        "Maybe this is where it came from," Papa said.
        He reached down and picked up my boy pup. His little black nose was split wide open and was bleeding.
        I saw a relieved look come over Mama's face.
        Looking at me, she started shaking her head. "I don't know," she said. "I just don't know."
        "Did that coon get hold of this pup?" Papa asked.
        "He sure did, Papa," I said, "but it wasn't the coon's fault. If it hadn't been for Little Ann, he'd have eaten him up."
        I told how my dogs had tied into the coon.
        Papa laughed as he fondled my pup. "This dog is going to be a coon hound," he said, "and I mean a good one."
        The coon started squalling as soon as we came in sight.
        "My goodness," Mama said, "you wouldn't think anything so small would be so vicious."
        Papa picked up a club. "Now everybody stand back out of the way," he said. "This won't take long."
        My pups were wanting to get to the coon so badly that they were hard to hold. I had to squeeze them up tight to keep them from jumping right out of my arms.
        My sisters, with eyes as big as blue marbles, got behind Mama and peeked around her.
        Papa whacked the coon a good one across the head. He let out a loud squall, growled, and showed his teeth. He tried hard to get to Papa but the trap held him.
        The girls buried their faces in Mama's dress and started bawling. Mama turned her back on the fight. I heard her say, "I wish we hadn't come. Poor thing."
        Papa whacked him again and it was all over.
        It was too much for Mama and the girls. They left. I heard the tall cane rattling as they ran for the house.
        After the coon was killed, I walked over. Papa was trying to get the coon's paw from the trap. He couldn't do it. Taking a pair of pliers from his pocket, he said, "It's a good thing I had these along or we would have had to cut his foot off."
        After Papa had pulled the nails, he lifted the coon's paw from the hole. There, clamped firmly in it, was the bright piece of tin.
        In a low voice Papa said, "Well, I'll be darned. All he had to do was open it up and he was free, but he wouldn't do it. Your grandfather was right."
        A sorrowful look came over Papa's face as he ran his fingers through the soft, yellow hair. "Billy," he said, "I want you to take a hammer and pull the nails from every one of those traps. It's summertime now and their fur isn't any good. Besides, I don't think this is very sportsmanlike. The coon doesn't have a chance. It's all right this time. You needed this one, but from now on I want you to catch them with your dogs. That way they have a fifty-fifty chance."
        "I will, Papa," I said. "That's what I intended to do."
        While we were skinning the coon, Papa asked me when I was going to start training my dogs.
        "I don't know,"