Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

bucket, I could have kissed her, but I didn't. She took one look at the big tree and her blue eyes got as big as a guinea's egg.
        "You're crazy," she gasped, "absolutely crazy. Why, it'll take a month to cut that tree down, and all for an old coon."
        I was so busy with the fresh side pork, fried eggs, and hot biscuits, I didn't pay much attention to her. After all, she was a girl, and girls don't think like boys do.
        She raved on. "You can't possibly cut it down today, and what are you going to do when it gets dark?"
        "I'm going to keep right on chopping," I said. "I stayed with it last night, didn't I? Well, I'll stay till it's cut down. I don't care how long it takes."
        My sister got upset. She looked at me, threw back her small head, and looked up to the top of the big sycamore. "You're as crazy as a bedbug," she said. "Why, I never heard of such a thing."
        She stepped over in front of me and very seriously asked if she could look in my eyes.
        "Look in my eyes?" I said. "What do you want to do that for? I'm not sick."
        "Yes, you are, Billy," she said, "very sick. Mama said when Old Man Johnson went crazy, his eyes turned green. I want to see if yours have."
        This was too much. "If you don't get out of here," I shouted, "you're going to be red instead of green, and I mean that."
        I grabbed up a stick and started toward her. Of course, I wouldn't have hit her for anything.
        This scared her and she started for the house. I heard her saying something about an old coon as she disappeared in the underbrush.
        Down in the bottom of my lunch bucket I found a neat little package of scraps for my dogs. While they were eating I walked down to a spring and filled the bucket with cool water.
        The food did wonders for me. My strength came back. I spit on my hands and, whistling a coon hunter's tune, I started making the chips fly.
        The cut grew so big I could have laid down in it. I moved over to another side and started a new one. Once while I was taking a rest, Old Dan came over to inspect my work. He hopped up in the cut and sniffed around.
        "You had better get out of there," I said. "If that tree takes a notion to fall, it'll mash you flatter than a tadpole's tail."
        With a "no care" look on his friendly face, he gave me a hurry-up signal with a wag of his tail.
        Little Ann had dug a bed in a pile of dead leaves. She looked as if she were asleep but I knew she wasn't. Every time I stopped swinging the ax, she would raise her head and look at me.

IX
        
        BY LATE EVENING THE HAPPY TUNE I HAD BEEN WHISTLING was forgotten. My back throbbed like a stone bruise. The muscles in my legs and arms started quivering and jerking. I couldn't gulp enough air to cool the burning heat in my lungs. My strength was gone. I could go no further.
        I sat down and called my dogs to me. With tears in my eyes, I told them that I just couldn't cut the big tree down.
        I was trying hard to make them understand when I heard someone coming. It was Grandpa in his buggy.
        I'm sure no one in the world can understand a young boy like his grandfather can. He drove up with a twinkle in his eyes and a smile on his whiskery old face.
        "Hello! How are you gettin* along?" he boomed.
        "Not,so good, Grandpa," I said. "I don't think I can cut it down. It's just too big. I guess I'll have to give up."
        "Give up!" Grandpa barked. "Now I don't want to hear you say that. No, sir, that's the last thing I want to hear. Don't ever start anything you can't finish."
        "I don't want to give up, Grandpa," I said, "but it's just too big and my strength's gone. I'm give out."
        "Course you are," he said. "You've been going at it wrong. To do work like that a fellow needs plenty of rest and food in his stomach."
        "How am I going to get that, Grandpa?" I asked. "I can't