- Billy: Grandpa says, in New England, everyone's going crazy over coon skin coats
- Father: That right?
- Billy: So we should be gettin' a good price.
- Father: I'll tell you what. I'll let you have one whole wall of that smokehouse if you think you and them dogs can cover it.
- Billy: It's not hardly big enough, is it?
- Billy: I couldn't come home, mama. My dogs had a coon up this tree.
- Grandpa: Well, he sure picked a big sycamore.
- Billy: Biggest one in the whole river bottom.
- Grandpa: That's all right. The bigger they come, the harder they fall.
- Father: Well, there's no sense chopping down a tree like this, just for one coon. Come on, Billy, we gotta go.
- Billy: I can't, papa.
- Father: Why not?
- Billy: I made a bargain with my dogs. I told them if they'd put one up a tree, I'd do the rest. They did their part, it's up to me to do mine.
- Mother: Well you're quitting, and that's that, so come on. Let's go. Billy, do I have to whip you on top of all the punishment you already brought on yourself? Do I?
- Billy: Yes, ma'am.
- Father: A man can't keep his word, Jenny, he's not much good. Especially to himself.
- Grandpa: I say amen to that, Jenny.
- Father: [after discovering the red fern at the grave of Billy's dogs] Perhaps it's God's way of explaining to Billy about his dogs.