“He is life, John thought—not death. He will never be death. Whenever I turn around and need him, Grandpa will be there.”

John is in the denial stage of grief, shown by how he doesn’t understand that his grandfather could be dying when he seems perfectly fine. John is at the start of his character arc here, and these lines foreshadow his own transformation throughout the text. These lines could also be interpreted as a Biblical allusion to the way Jesus is depicted as triumphing over death through faith. John’s faith in and love for his grandfather keeps him alive even after his physical death.

“Once he was out of the house in the dark of the morning he could use his mind to make things all right. It was still a cold clear morning, he was still going to milk the cows and clean the barn and feed and water the stock, still going to smell and feel the heat of the barn.”

The barn and his chores offer something constant and comfortable to John, and he uses these daily habits as a shield against painful, uncomfortable things he doesn’t want to deal with. Paulsen uses multiple sensory details in this description to show how strongly John uses his surroundings to protect himself.

“During the week, the school bus came before chores were finished and John had to leave the farm then. He always felt as if he were missing something. Now that it was Sunday he did not have to leave and so he could work morning chores all the way to done. That’s how his grandfather always talked about work—you didn’t just work so many hours or days. You worked a job to done. All the way to done. No matter how long it took.”

This passage is one of many where John recalls a lesson his grandfather has instilled in him. John prefers the farm to school because it fits with his idea of working a task until it is complete. School, unlike farm work, requires only a certain number of hours per day, whether a lesson was finished or not. The farm offers freedom from the constraints of time and offers a sense of closure with a project.