“After my friend had disappeared in the darkness, I stood and stared at the empty alley. A strange feeling came over me. At first I thought I was lonely or sad, but I realized that wasn’t it at all. The feeling was a wonderful one.”

An adult Billy slowly opens the channel to the past in this excerpt. He sets the reader up for the poignant feelings of love, triumph, and loss that will follow through the novel. He calls the dog “friend,” foreshadowing his attachment to his dogs.

“The country was new and sparsely settled. The land we lived on was Cherokee land, allotted to my mother because of the Cherokee blood that flowed in her veins. It lay in a strip from the foothills of the mountains to the banks of the Illinois River in northeastern Oklahoma.”

This passage gives some history and context to the setting. It also introduces the tension between the native ways and the ways of the white man and “progress.” Later, Papa reveals his disbelief in the old legends, although Old Dan and Little Ann ultimately help teach him respect for the land’s memory.

“I remembered a passage from the Bible my mother had read to us: ‘God helps those who help themselves.’ I thought of the words. I mulled them over in my mind. I decided I’d ask God to help me. There on the banks of the Illinois River, in the cool shade of the tall white sycamores, I asked God to help me get two hound pups. It wasn’t much of a prayer, but it did come right from the heart.”

Rawls introduces the prominent theme of divine intervention, praying, and faith. A key point is that although Billy repeatedly appeals to God, he always works hard to do anything he can to achieve his goals all by himself.