Steinbeck's 4 Highlights

1. "Now when you get up there, just grab tight with your knees and keep your hands away from the saddle, and if you get throwed, don't let that stop you. No matter how good a man is, there's always a horse can pitch him. You just climb up again before he gets to feeling smart about it. Pretty soon, he won't throw you no more, and pretty soon he can't throw you no more. That's the way to do it."

I like how Steinbeck makes Billy Buck so insightful, as if he had faced the challenge of "getting throwed" a million times. And Billy Buck is so confident at how he tells Jody what to do. I have a question. Does Steinbeck know that what what Billy Buck says is true?

2. "Then he lay on his back in the grass and looked up at the dumpling summer clouds. By closing one eye and destroying all perspective, he brought them down within reach so he could put up his fingers and stroke them. He helped the gentle wind down the sky. It seemed to him that they went faster for his help. One fat white cloud he helped to clear the mountain rims and pressed it firmly out of sight."

In this paragraph I find it interesting that Jody wants to help the clouds instead of hurt them like he usually does to animals like mutilating the buzzard, killing the bird with the slingshot, throwing the stone at the cat, and making Doubletree Mutt get this nose snapped in the rat trap. When Steinbeck says, "by closing one eye and destroying all perspective," it made me want to try it. (It works!)

3. "The damp ground chilled his bare feet. At the cypress tree the roosting turkeys chattered a little in alarm, and the two good dogs responded to their duty and came charging out, barking to frighten away the coyotes they thought were prowling under the tree."

I like how the dogs did not just come running out, they came "charging out, barking". I also like how the "roosting turkeys chattered". I can just imagine the scene in the dark. It's easy to put myself in Jody's place and say "the damp ground chilled my bare feet".

4. "He heard the dull rushing sound that space and silence make. He heard one of the dogs, out in the doghouse, scratching a flee and bumping his elbow against the floor with every stroke."

Until reading this, I never realized that space and silence made a sound. I love how Steinbeck describes the dogs "elbow" bumping the floor. I never thought that dogs had elbows.

Jacob