At The Foot of the Rainbow by Gene Stratton-Porter is about two friends and the importance of honesty and thinking about others before yourself.
This story is about Dannie Macnoun, an Irishman and Jimmie Malone his best friend. They are "The Ratcatchers of the Wabash River".
Jimmie is very self-concerned and wants to take everything away that Dannie wants, because Dannie is always satisfied and Jimmie wants to be. Dannie always worried about Jimmie, because he is not a Christian, and his needs. Dannie makes sure he picks up the slack for Jimmie and gets him out of trouble.
When they were young, Dannie and Jimmie liked the same girl. Dannie, who is a Christian, always trusting in Jimmie and believing what Jimmie says, asked him if he would tell Mary that he loved her. Mary also loved Dannie, but Jimmie lied to them and told Dannie that Mary didn't love him or want to marry him, that she wanted to marry Mary. And he told Mary that Dannie wasn't going to marry. So Jimmie married Mary and Dannie was heartbroken, but was still a dutiful friend.
Jimmie is a drunk. And does not treat Mary very good. He doesn't abuse her, he just doesn't treat her the way a husband should.
He spends all the extra money at Casey's bar. Every night he goes to Casey's, and Dannie would go to bring him home at the end of the night. He always trys to protect Mary from Jimmie's stupid choices. He still loved Mary.
One night at Casey's, Jimmie met a man from Boston named Reuben O'Khyam. He is a tailor and has a very nice pleated coat. Jimmie offers to buy him a drink, but Mr. O'Khyam declines. This angered Jimmie. Then he invited Mr. O'Khyam to go on a coon hunt with him and he was to shoot the first coon. On the hunt Jimmie did some very mean things to Mr. O'Khyam and ruined his pleated coat. Well they caught the coon and headed back to Casey's, during the hunt, Dannie had helped Mr. O'Khyam and was very nice to him. At Casey's, Mr. O'Khyam found out he had been set up and they had hunted Mrs. Casey's pet coon. Mr. O'Khyam was very upset and challenged Jimmie to a fight. But Dannie intervened ands prevented Jimmie from killing Mr. O'Khyam.
Winter passed, spring came, Jimmie and Dannie had a bet going on that one of them was going to catch "The Black Bass of the Wabash". But Dannie made sure all the chores were done on both farms, so that they could go fish.
By the end of the summer, neither of them had caught the bass. One day Dannie was in town and got the mail for the Malone's and there was a box for Jimmie from Mr. O'Khyam. Dannie raced home with excitement.
Jimmie opened the box. Dannie thought that is was a cane. As Jimmie was assembling the item, he was being very sarcastic about what it could be because he knew what it was and no one else did. It was a steel fishing rod. Mary and Dannie finally get was it was after it had been assembled. Jimmie is very selfish with it, he won’t let even let Dannie hold it. Now Dannie is feeling very bad, because he was the only one who had shown kindness to Mr. O’Khyam. And because his whole life he had given everything to Jimmie. And now Jimmie starting bragging about how he would catch the Black Bass. Mary didn’t think it was very fair to Dannie, because he would have to use his old one and when they made the bet they were both equal. Mary wished with all her heart that Dannie would catch the Black Bass.
They went out the next day to fish. They fished all day, but got nothing. Then towards the evening, they finally both caught something at the same time and their lines had become entangled. They argued about who should cut the lines, then they fell into the water and started fighting. Jimmie punched Dannie in the face. Jimmie tried to goat Dannie to punch him, but Dannie wouldn’t. Then to try again he said, "That time you sent me to Mary for you, I lied to her and married her myself." Dannie jumped at him and caught him by the throat. Jimmie tried to get him off, but he couldn’t. Then Jimmie said that he just lied to make him mad. Dannie released him and asked if it was true. Now about this time Mary had come to see how everything was going. She had seen everything that had just happened and she knew the truth. She tried yelling, but nothing came out. Then she fainted. Jimmie kept telling Dannie that he had just lied to him and finally Dannie believed him.
Then they remembered why they were fighting and went to shore and pulled the lines in. On one line was the Black Bass and on the other one there was a giant catfish. Dannie decided that he would cut his line and on his line was the Black Bass. Dannie let him go and returned to his cabin.
When he arrived, he couldn’t find Mary and figured that she had gone to her sisters’ in town. He did all the chores and still no one came home. He went to the Dolan’s and found Mary there. He was informed that Mary would never return to live with Jimmie again. So Dannie went to Casey’s to find Jimmie and was told not to worry about him. So he figured he was hiding in the back room. He waited to see if he would come out until 3am, but he never did. Then he went to the Dolan’s and all the lights were out, so he figured he Mary had changed her mind and gone back home. When he got home he was so tired and fell right asleep.
When he woke up, he did all the chores. He was in the barn doing some chores and found Jimmie face down frozen in the muck. He thought Jimmie was dead. He cut his clothes from the muck and carried him to the house and sent for the doctor and Mary. Jimmie had caught double pneumonia and he had a bad heart from drinking so much. There was nothing to be done.
Jimmie called for the priest, and confessed his sins to him. The priest told Jimmie that he needed to tell Dannie, so he called Dannie in. Jimmie said two words, "Mary and Yours". Then Jimmie died.
Dannie felt responsible for his death, because he didn’t go after him. Dannie sold some of the stock and grain and made a bank account for Mary. Mary was living with her sister in town. And again Dannie was taking care of both farms.
After awhile Mary wanted to go home and be Dannie’s wife. But Dannie had put Mary out of his mind, because he felt responsible for Jimmie and he felt he could not betray his friend by marrying his wife.
One day Mary saw that Dannie was going to the mill and would be gone all day. So the Dolan’s and she cleaned and redecorated both cabins. Mary was beside herself. Dannie came home and still wasn’t thinking about Mary.
Mary was very hurt, she didn’t understand, so she went to the priest. They figured out the Jimmie had not told Dannie the truth. The next day the priest found Dannie at Jimmie’s grave. The priest could not bring himself to tell Dannie, because of the love that he had for Jimmie. But instead he told him that Jimmie must have meant that he wanted Dannie to marry Mary. Dannie ran home as fast as he could to tell Mary.
Mary didn’t understand what had happened, so she went to the priest. The priest told her, "The greatest thing in the world is self-sacrifice. The pot at the end of the Rainbow is now running over with pure gold of pure contentment, but had you and I done such a dreadful thing as to destroy the confidence of a good man in his friend, your heart could never know such joy as it knows now in this sacrifice of yours and no such blessed shining light could illuminate your face. But you did not tell him either, Mary Malone."
I really liked this book. It has a good storyline. Mrs. Porter always writes something great. I would encourage you to read this book.
As Always,
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