Summer of the Monkeys — Chapter 18

About This Passage

Rawls captures the boyhood wonder of a first train through sound-by-sound and sight-by-sight sensory layering: first the distant whistle, then the silent visual bend of the track, then the held breath, then the clicking rails, then the trembling ground, and finally the bell, the smoke, and the engine arriving all at once. This is narrative discipline — the reader experiences the train the way Jay Berry experiences it, arriving piece by piece until the whole machine bursts around the bend. Notice the short sentences in the middle ('I waited and watched') — they hold the reader's breath alongside the boy. This is how a first-time wonder is rendered without saying the word 'wonder' once.

Narration Prompt

Retell Chapter 18 in five parts. Part one: Mama, Daisy, and Grandma leave for the big-city hospital by train, and Jay Berry tries to cook beans, potatoes, and gravy — and ends up with beans crawling out of the pot, potatoes filling the house with smoke, and gravy that will not pour. Part two: six long, lonely weeks pass; the chickens stop laying, Sally Gooden stops giving milk, the well goes dry, Papa mopes around silently, Grandpa is grumpy in the store, and Jay Berry dreams nightly of the little mare he gave up. Part three: Jay Berry walks to Daisy's hillside playhouse, tends her flowers, rewraps her grapevine cross, kneels, and prays to the Old Man of the Mountains to send his family home. Part four: the very next day, Grandpa drives up at dusk with a letter — Mama and Daisy are coming home on the noon train tomorrow. Part five: at the depot, Daisy steps off the train with no limp at all, hugs Jay Berry with arms like 'steel bands,' whispers 'I won't ever forget what you did for me,' and kisses him in front of everyone. Mama brings Daisy's old crutch home to hang on the wall of their house as a reminder to be thankful.

Discussion Questions

1. Jay Berry said he thought it would be 'fun' with no one around but him and Papa — no orders, no one telling him what to do. Then the text shows the fun lasting only a little while before loneliness settles in. What does this reversal tell us about what Jay Berry (and the reader) learns about being alone?
2. The chapter shows the whole farm drooping while Mama and Daisy are gone — the chickens stop laying, Sally Gooden's milk slows, the well goes dry, Papa is silent, Grandpa is grumpy, even Rowdy loses his bounce. Why do you think Rawls makes EVERYTHING around Jay Berry seem sad, not just Jay Berry himself?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide