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Copywork
About This Passage
This passage is chosen because Rawls is quietly staging the scene of a turning point — the prayer has been answered, but neither character knows it yet. The flickering fireflies, the eerie owl, and the baying hound gather the whole farm into a kind of hush that is about to be broken. Rawls uses sound as architecture here; every small noise prepares the reader's ear for the distant jingling of harnesses that will change everything.
Papa and I were sitting on the porch of our home in the twilight of evening. Rowdy was lying at my side. Thousands of lightning bugs had just started their flickering dance. They looked like tiny flas...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell Chapter 18 in four to six sentences, moving from the family's parting at the buckboard through Jay Berry's cooking disaster, the six lonesome weeks, his prayer at Daisy's cross, and the train arrival that reveals Daisy's healed leg. Include the detail about the crutch being hung on the wall.
Discussion Questions
- When Jay Berry's beans crawl out of the pot and his potatoes burn and smoke, Papa laughs and says, 'I was afraid of that.' What does the text suggest about Papa's decision to let Jay Berry try cooking anyway, even though he expected failure? Cite at least one line from the exchange before cooking began that hints at Papa's reasoning.
- Rawls tells us the chickens lay half as many eggs, Sally Gooden's milk dries up, and the well is going dry. The text presents these as real farm events, but they happen at the same moment Jay Berry says he is 'lonesome.' What is Rawls doing by pairing the farm's decline with the family's sadness, and why might he let Papa dismiss it as seasonal change?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Shining unsteadily, with quick flashes of light that go on and off — the lightning bugs make a 'flickering dance' at twilight.
Item 2
Strange and unsettling in a way that suggests something mysterious, as with the screech owl's 'eerie twitter' in the red oaks.
Item 3
The long, deep, drawn-out barking of a hound — across the river an old hound is 'baying in his deep voice.'
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Critical Thinking
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