Has anyone read the book where the red fern grows?

If anyone has read the book could you tell me what the notes should be for chapters 7 through 11 i need them for school and forgot the book at home

Has anyone read the book where the red fern grows?
Now Billy wants to start training his dogs. He needs a raccoon hide. He goes to his grandfather for help. His grandfather shows him how to make a trap that lures a coon into reaching for a bright shiny object. When the coon lifts his paw out of the hole with the shiny object, it gets stuck on some angled nails. Billy tries this, but for days he doesn't catch a coon. His papa reassures him, saying he just has to wait for his scent to wear off the traps. Finally, a coon is caught, and father and son kill it together.

Using the hide, Billy trains his hounds. He drags the coon over a certain path, and then the hounds have to track the hide by smelling its scent. By the time raccoon season starts in the fall, they are ready. On the first night, his dogs tree a coon in the biggest tree imaginable. Billy has always admired the "big tree" of the bottoms; it is gigantic, so he decides he won't be able to cut it down. But when they see his intent, his dogs pout. He becomes determined to cut it down, because he told his dogs that if they could tree a coon he would take care of the rest. His dogs are counting on him. His father finds him in the morning, and has food brought to him. That evening, his grandfather shows him how to make a scarecrow, to keep the coon in the tree so he can go home and eat dinner.

The next morning, he finds that Old Dan has been guarding the tree all night long. He is very proud of him but resents Little Ann until he sees two little impressions in the leaves, and realizes that they took turns guarding the tree over the night. His heart swells. Later in the day, he gets blisters. He is heartbroken, because he thinks he will have to stop. He says a prayer, however, and then the wind finally pushes the tree down. His dogs kill the raccoon, and they proudly head for home. When he gets home, he asks his papa if they think God answered his prayer and pushed over the tree with the wind.

Commentary

Billy trains his dogs very carefully. He teaches them all kinds of tricks. He goes to his grandfather's store and learns tricks from other coon hunters who gather there. He is able to devote a great deal of time to training them, and they are very young when he begins to teach them. In part, this explains why the dogs are such good hunters by the end of the novel.

On the other hand, the dogs are simply remarkable. The way they take turns guarding the tree is one of the first signs in the novel of how well they communicate and work as a team. The two hounds seem to care deeply for each other. Also, they seem incredibly determined to "tree" the coon and to kill it. When Billy decides he can't cut down the big sycamore, they whine. This is a sign of a good hunting dog. A good hunting dog is always eager to hunt and is never satisfied until the hunt has reached its successful conclusion.

Although they do not figure prominently in the main adventures of the novel, Billy's mama and sisters play an important role. They worry about Billy when he goes hunting and they cringe at violence. This contrasts with Billy's quiet bravery. Of course, it might also be called sexist. It reinforces stereotypes; but at the same time, it is probably an accurate reflection of gender roles as they were practiced in the time and place of the novel, and it certainly makes Billy seem more heroic.







Billy's mama makes him a coonskin cap out of his first hide. He goes coon hunting almost every night. His coons become smarter and smarter. His grandfather says that coonskin prices are going up, because there is a fad for coonskin coats in the New England states. Meanwhile, Billy's papa relieves him of his chores, so Billy can hunt all he wants. Billy goes to his grandfather's store and sells his skins and gives the money to his father.

Sometimes, coons try to trick his dogs and Old Dan gets into trouble. One night, as they are hunting, Billy loses track of his dogs. Finally, Little Ann comes to him, looking worried. She whines, and sniffs at an embankment. Billy is bewildered, until he realizes that she is sniffing at a small muskrat hole. He bends down, and can hear Old Dan inside. He has to run home to get a shovel to dig the muddy dog out.

Another night, Billy finds Old Dan has climbed a tree. The skunk is higher up in the ground, and Little Ann is barking down below. Billy sees that his dog climbed up through a hollow in the trunk. He climbs up and pushes the dog down, but Old Dan immediately climbs back up. Billy again has to force him to go down and then jump down and hold him.

One night, Little Ann gets into trouble. The first snow has come, and Billy knows that coons sometimes play deadly tricks on hounds in snow and ice. When he no longer hears the bark of Little Ann, his blood freezes. He finds her way out on the river. She has fallen through the ice and is barely hanging on to some ice. Billy thinks it is hopeless. He sits down and prays for a miracle. Then his lantern, which he pushed out onto the ice with a stick, makes a noise. Its handle has fallen down. Billy realizes he can curve the lantern handle into a hook and fish Little Ann out of the river with a long stick. He saves her. When he goes home, he thinks about the lantern handle that fell as he prayed. He asks his mother if all prayers are answered. She thinks it is very sweet that he has asked such a question.

Commentary

This section of the novel establishes Billy's coon hunting routine. Although only exceptional hunts where one of the hounds is almost hurt are discussed, we learn about how the process usually works. We see how Billy learns to follow the chase with his ears, understanding what is happening even if he can't see it. We see how his dogs have become more experienced. When we learn that he is in the habit of going to the store and swapping stories with other coon-hunters, we are not surprised. When we learn that his hounds are getting reputations for being skilled hunting dogs, we are not surprised. We have seen evidence of their skill in action.

The theme of religion continues. Billy said a prayer when he wanted dogs, and he got them. He said a prayer when he got blisters on his hands and thought he could never chop down the big sycamore tree, but then the wind blew it over. And when Little Ann was about to freeze to death, the lantern handle clanged down while he was praying for a miracle, giving him the idea to make a hook. Later he lets the lantern sit in his room, handle up, but the handle never falls down as it did when he was praying. The little boy becomes convinced that his prayers are being answered.











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