How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Two years ago bulldozers had come to make a cut at the top of Sarah's Mountain. They began uprooting trees and pushing subsoil in a huge pile to get at the coal. As the pile grew enormous, so had M.C.'s fear of it. He had nightmares in which the heap came tumbling down. Over and over again, it buried his family on the side of the mountain. (1.100)
Bulldozers will definitely change your home, especially if your home is a mountain. No wonder M.C. has nightmares about the spoil heap that the bulldozers create. They're bringing change to Sarah's Mountain, and not the good kind—at least not for a family that lives off of nature the way the Higgins do.
Quote #2
Only a few miles from the Ohio River, they were in country where once—no more than ten years ago—there had been elk and deer. It was still deep country where people liked nothing better than the quiet of staying close to home. Boys M.C.'s age endured school in the steel town of Harenton. Awkward, with twitching hands and no pine needles to touch or branches to hang from. In class, tongue-tied, they thought themselves stupid. Their teachers thought them slow. They endured it all. Until time to go home, to live again, ingenious in the woods. (1.150)
Even though M.C.'s referring to other boys, it's clear that these boys are just like M.C. (or M.C. is just like these boys, as the case may be). Home is exactly where their heart is and no wonder. "Home" isn't just a house, after all, it's the wilderness, a place they can roam freely and be "ingenious." They aren't stuck inside a room or a house all day, bored.
Quote #3
"Daddy?" he said, "you taken a look up there, at the spoil heap behind us?"
"Way behind us," Jones said, easily and without a pause. He was looking off at the hills he loved and at the river holding light at the end of the day. He was thinking about his wife, his Banina, who would not have had time yet to concern herself with coming home. But in another hour or so, she would think about it. She would say to herself, It's time! No clock was needed to show her. From where she was across-river, she could look away to these hills. She might even be able to see M.C.'s needle of a pole. No, not likely. But maybe a sparkle, maybe a piercing flash in the corner of her eye. She would have to smile and come on home. Jones sighed contentedly. (3.31-32)
No wonder Jones can't take M.C.'s news about the sliding spoil heap seriously. Jones is in love… with his wife. Look at the way Jones's thoughts go from the view of the hills to Banina and what he imagines Banina might be thinking and feeling on her way home. That's what makes him happy and content: to have a home with Banina in it. Anything that disturbs that feeling—like, say, a sliding spoil heap—would be a serious buzz kill, and maybe that's just something Jones can't handle.