Sounder: Chapters IV–VII

The leaves make a poultice that draws out the poison and heals the wound with a hard brown scab.

That’s why creatures head for the swampland around the big water when the mange hits. Wet leaves heals better.

On the road, the boy felt afraid. He had been to the town at Christmastime before. Not on Christmas Day, but a few days before, to help his father carry mistletoe and bunches of bittersweet berries that his father sold by the wall in front of the courthouse or on the corner by the bank.

And sometimes, when it was getting late and they still had trimmings to sell, his father would go to the back door of houses along the street and say “Ma’am, would you need some trimmin’s?” and hold up the biggest sprig of mistletoe left in his grain sack.

The horse doctor had been trying to vaccinate the bull in the neck, but the rope through the ring in the bull’s nose didn’t keep the bull from tossing his head from side to side, knocking the horse doctor against the side of the chute.

But when the horse doctor stuck the bull in the neck, he lunged backward, set his front feet with his whole weight against the chain, and choked himself to death before one of the farm hands could jab him with a pitchfork and make him slacken the chain.

He practiced saying them all over and over to get the quiver and the quiet spells out of his voice because his mother had said, “Whatever you do, child, act perkish and don’t grieve your father.”

But the boy was full of mixed hate and pity now, and it addled him.

He started to light the lantern to look more, but his mother said, “Hang it back, child. Ain’t no use to fret yourself. Eat your supper, you must be famished.”

He started to light the lantern to look more, but his mother said, “Hang it back, child. Ain’t no use to fret yourself. Eat your supper, you must be famished.”

He heard the damper squeak in the stovepipe as she adjusted it.

The stub of an ear stuck out on one side, and there was no eye on that side, only a dark socket with a splinter of bone showing above it.

The town and the jail seemed to become more remote and the distance greater as each day passed.

Another would sneer “You wouldn’t know your old man if you saw him, he’s been gone so long. You sure you know who your pa is, kid?”

When the boy came home after each long trip in search of his father, the crippled coon hound would hobble far down the road to meet him, wag his tail, stand on his hind legs, and paw the boy with his good front paw.

The other children, except for the littlest, could fetch and tote too, but they didn’t like to go by themselves.

She seemed to understand the compulsion that started him on each long, fruitless journey with new hope.

She seemed to understand the compulsion that started him on each long, fruitless journey with new hope.

His arms swung in apelike gyrations of glee, and he held another piece of iron in one hand and his cap in the other.

His arms swung in apelike gyrations of glee, and he held another piece of iron in one hand and his cap in the other.

His laughter had burst the button from his tieless shirt collar, and a white strip outlined his gaunt neck.

Feeling defeat in the midst of his glee because the boy had not run but stood still and defiant, sucking the blood from his bruised fingers, the guard stopped laughing and yelled at him, “That’ll show you, boy! Git! And git fast!”

I have often heard it said that cowardice is the mother of cruelty, and I have found by experience that malicious and inhuman animosity and fierceness are usually accompanied by weakness.

I have often heard it said that cowardice is the mother of cruelty, and I have found by experience that malicious and inhuman animosity and fierceness are usually accompanied by weakness.

I have often heard it said that cowardice is the mother of cruelty, and I have found by experience that malicious and inhuman animosity and fierceness are usually accompanied by weakness.

No one jeered at him or noticed him because he had crossed the street and was walking close up against the hedge on the other side.

A rusty tin pipe ran from the corner of the roof down to the cistern where the children were playing.

Just when he reached the cistern, a wild commotion of barking burst from under the floor of the school.

And the pig, hearing a familiar call from the corner of the lot, had come grunting from his sanctuary and gone in the direction of the call.

In his many journeyings among strangers the boy had learned to sniff out danger and spot orneriness quickly.