Finished: The Yearling (Rawlings). Loved this Pulitzer Prize winning book! Of course, it's pretty much a given that when a book is named after an animal, that animal will probably not be alive by the end of the book. :-( That's how it was with The Yearling, but oh my, the story that led up to it was told so well! It was fascinating to read the story of young Jody Baxter who was growing up right here off the St. John's River in central Florida, near where I live. Rawlings' descriptions of the vegetation, trees, swamps, animals...were all so real. In what I assume to be the late 1800's, Jody Baxter is growing up on a patch of scrubby farmland with his mother and father, Ora and Penny (an old nickname of his father's). He's a 12 year old only child, and he's very close to his father. He learns all the ways of making a living in the wild, hunting, farming, tracking, etc. His father is truly an upstanding person of high moral character and only hunts those things necessary for the family to eat, and doesn't hunt for sport. He tries to hunt only male deer and not females so he won't leave any young ones motherless. Jody, loves his strict mother, and his more forgiving father, who knows what it's like to be a twelve year old boy with wanderlust for the land. Jody also longs for a pet of his own, and one day when his father is bit by a rattlesnake, his dream comes true in a roundabout way. His father immediately shoots a doe and cuts out her liver, then cuts his own arm, and uses the deer liver to suck out as much poison as he can! Sadly, the doe had just given birth and a baby fawn is laying near. Jody's main concern is to get his father back to the farm and get a doctor there. Luckily, Penny survives, but he's down and out for quite awhile. One of the rough-and-tumble neighbors, Buck Forrester, comes to the farm for over a week and does all the manual labor that Penny usually does. Meanwhile, Jody remembers the fawn and goes back to find it in the forest. Of course, the fawn, named Flag by Jody's best friend, Fodder-wing Forrester, becomes Jody's constant, inseparable companion. He is even allowed in the house, much to his mother's dismay, and sleeps with Jody in his room. The story moves on with all the ups and downs of the two families trying to make their living off the land. There's the tracking, and finally the killing, of the mean old bear, Slewfoot, who has killed the Baxter and Forrester livestock for years. There's the hunting of the wolves, who also come to attack the animals. There's the surviving of what seems to me was probably a hurricane, which devastates the surroundings, ruins the crops, and kills all kinds of wild animals. And, there's the sad death of Fodder-wing. Fodder-wing had been born a bit deformed, and took ill in his youth, and died. Both families were, of course, shaken. Then, just as I think I'm going to get through the whole story with Flag still alive and kicking, the reality sets in. Nearly a year has passed since Jody rescued Flag, and Flag adores Jody, and vice versa. However, Flag is now a yearling and likes to run off into the woods for a bit, always coming home. He's too big to stay in the house now, because when he does, he gets into everything, knocking precious food all about, etc. After Jody and Penny spend long, grueling hours planting the peas and corn, when the first little heads of the corn plants start to pop up, one night, Flag gets into the corn field and eats most of the corn!! Ma is beside herself and wants to get rid of the fawn then and there. Penny instructs Jody to work day and night to build a fence around the corn field as high as he can reach. Unfortunately, Penny has just pulled what appears to be a hernia, and has taken to bed. Jody replants all the corn by himself and gets to work on the fence...but it is of no use. Flag jumps the fence and once again destroys a large portion of the corn. Jody is devastated when his father tells him that he'll have to kill Flag. He would never be able to run him off, because Flag knows where "home" is. They can't tie Flag up at night, because he struggles so much that he starts to hurt himself. And, mostly, they can't afford to lose their livelihood and the food for their bellies because of the deer. Jody is heartbroken and can't bring himself to obey his father. As Flag once again gets into the garden, Jody's mother comes out the door with a gun and shoots the yearling. She's not a good shot, though, and only wounds him. In such a sad scene, Penny tells Jody that he simply must be a man and go put Flag out of his misery. Jody does as he's told, his last look into Flag's eyes being one of trust, yet confusion. :-( After killing Flag, Jody attempts to run away and is gone for several days, where he ends up nearly starving to death. After at first hating his parents, and especially his father, who he feels like betrayed him, he comes to see what going hungry would be like and he resignedly heads for home. His mother has gone to trade some chickens for more corn seed with the Forresters, but his father is there and so happy to see him. He thought for sure something had happened to him. He tells Jody that he's no longer a yearling himself, but a man, and Jody hugs and forgives his father. It's such a sad, sad tale. I do love Penny Baxter though. Throughout the whole book he says and does such wise things, and diffuses many hot situations. I think I'll put a few of my favorite quotes below.

Here's one from Penny: "Ain't it a treat, to have a woman [who] reads your mind and then agrees with it."

Love that! :-)

Another from Grandma Hutto, a neighbor and friend: "A woman has got to love a bad man once or twice in her life, to be thankful for a good one."

And, again from Grandma Hutto when her son Oliver is home from his seafaring life after many months, but is off visiting friends instead of at home: "I miss Oliver worse," she said, "when he's here, and away from me, than when he's at sea."

I kind of know that feeling she's talking about! When one of my kids was home from college, I wanted to be with them as much time as possible while they were home. :-)

Anyway, there were alot more, but those are the ones I wrote down. Loved the book!