Old Yeller Study Guide

The narrator is introduced to the reader in the first person, and he in turn introduces Old Yeller right away. The narrator tells of how they named Old Yeller and how he remembers how he strayed to their log cabin on Birdsong Creek. The next sentence summarizes the plot when the narrator says, "He made me so mad at first that I wanted to kill him. Then later, when I had to kill him, it was like having to shoot some of my own folks." The setting is Birdsong Creek in the hill country of Texas during the time after the Civil War. In the late 1860s, the narrator's father and other settlers from the area known as Salt Licks, pooled together their steers and drove them horseback to Abilene, Kansas for cash money. The narrator's father believes that the new country is a good one and with everythi... (read more)