The Yearling Chapter 14 Summary

  • Home again, and it's back to work on the farm. Penny realizes all their hogs have been gone for a long time—they roam free, but always come back at night.
  • He figures the Forresters must have trapped them, and decides to take Jody to see. Great.
  • They follow the hog tracks, and see hoof marks and some corn after a few miles—and then, a hog trap. Yep, it was the Forresters, alright.
  • They steel themselves to go confront them, when out of the blue, a rattlesnake bites Penny!
  • He starts stumbling back towards home but stops to shoot a passing doe.
  • Jody thinks he's lost it, but Penny takes out her organs and pressing them to his bite so they can draw some of the poison out. (Heads up: we're pretty sure this doesn't actually work.)
  • Penny sends Jody to get help from the Forresters while he heads back home.
  • As he's leaving, he sees the doe had a fawn. Bing-Bing! Big Neon Sign!
  • He runs to the Forresters, yelling for Fodder-wing, but Lem tells him he's sick and can't come out.
  • He tells Lem and the other Forresters about his Pa, and they agree to help, saying they'd even help a dog who'd been bitten by a snake.
  • They're pretty mean about it, saying he'll probably die.
  • They ride off to help and get Doc Wilson, and Jody starts running home.
  • It starts pouring, and there are creepy animals prowling through the trees around him. Jody starts sobbing, worried that his Pa is already dead.
  • Finally he makes it home. The Forresters and Doc Wilson are all there, and his Pa is still alive, but just barely.
  • Jody realizes that he needs his Pa around to feel safe, and then cries for the fawn, whose mother is now dead.