The Yearling Chapter 8 Summary

  • Jody gets home and sees a big deer hide stretched on the wall of their smoke-house.
  • He's all mad that his Pa went hunting without him, until Penny explains that the deer was just standing in his path on the way home.
  • Jody thinks about his mixed feelings towards hunting - how he loves the chase, but feels awful when the animal is killed. And then when it's been butchered and cooked, how he can't wait to eat it. We feel you, Jody.
  • Speaking of which, Ma's cooking venison right now, so Jody rushes to do his chores and then comes to the table.
  • He remarks, "I'm so hongry, my belly thinks my throat is cut" (8.57). Huh?
  • Apparently, that's a rude thing to say.
  • Ma and Pa get mad at him, and when he tells them he learned it at the Forresters', it upsets Ma even more.
  • Jody defends them, but Ma won't have it. They're too hungry—or maybe hangry, in this case—to argue for long, though.