Chapter 1 Summary

The book opens on a beautiful April afternoon. Jody is supposed to hoe and weed the corn while his father is away, but he decides to go in search of a bee tree full of honey. Jody leans his hoe against the fence and walks far beyond the rows of corn, moving south through the black jack. Two of their dogs attempt to follow him, but he sends them back home. The family's third dog, Julia, has followed Jody's father into town.

As he walks, Jody muses on his strained relationship with Old Julia. The two of them grew up together, his father has explained, and Julia still remembers how Jody accidentally hurt her while playing roughly in his younger years. He thinks about Grandma Hutto's white dog that can do tricks, and he longs to have an animal of his own that...