Chapter 3: I Find Gribley's Farm

Sam says goodbye to Bill the next morning, who says he'll see Sam that night and will keep the back door open if he returns. Sam catches rides into Delhi, the town near the Gribley farm. He goes to the town library to find out where the farm is located, and is helped by the librarian Miss Turner, who lets him in before the library officially opens and finds the information he needs. Miss Turner is the only person who believes Sam when he says he will live on his great-grandfather's farm, and as Sam leaves the library she tells him there are books there that can hep him if he gets stuck.

With the map Miss Turner gave him, Sam is able to locate the Gribley farm, finding the boundary fence to the property. He considers going back to the library to tell Miss Turner, as his Dad asked him to tell someone at Delhi if he did indeed find the place. Though Dad was kidding, he may come after Sam had been gone for a while. However, Sam does not return to the library and instead catches a catfish and cooks it on a fire. That night he writes a letter to Bill then realize he doesn't know his last name. Sam enjoys his first fire and finds this night quite different from the first one.

Notes:
Sam again relies on proper preparation when he seeks the Gribley farm, seeking the aid of the local library to get a map of the property.

Chapter 4: I Find Many Useful Plants

Sam wakes the next morning and sees a great many birds, which he surmises to be the warbler migration. He recalls reading that what animals eat should be safe for humans. However, when he sees several birds eating at a maple tree and finds nothing to his taste, he decides to go fishing instead. The fish aren't biting, however, so instead he picks mussels; instead of bringing them back to camp, he realizes he sets a fire by the stream to cook and eat the food he gathered. Afterwards, he explored the Gribley farm and maps out where potential food sources can be found. Seeking out shelter, he encounters a very large, very old tree and gets an idea.

Notes:
Sam's decision to eat the mussels at the stream instead of bringing them to camp show how he's slowly changing his thinking. He no longer is concerned about a single place that can be his home; rather, all of the wilderness can be comfortable for him, given the right situation.

Chapter 5: The Old, Old Tree

Sam knows that people will be wandering across his territory once summer started, and that he had to have a home hidden from such people or else he risks being brought back to his family in the city. He investigates the large tree and sees the heart of it is rotting away. He proceeds to dig out the rot and then uses the ax he brought to chop out more space for himself. However, he does not think and grows tired from his work at homebuilding without having food to sustain himself. When he goes to refresh himself in a pool of water, he finds a patch of dogtooth violets to eat as a salad, then follows a crow to steal some eggs as another part of his lunch. He boils the eggs with a leaf, and in doing so realizes he could set a fire in the hole in the old tree to help carve out even more space.

This plan made him realize he needed a water source to douse a potential fire, and he finds a small spring near the hemlock tree. He also finds crayfish in the spring and sets them aside for a future meal. He also realizes that he needs a bucket to carry the water to the tree, but that such "citified" thinking wasn't necessary. Instead, he can smother the fire with dirt if need be. Days passed as he made his home, and he carved a notch in an aspen pole for every day.

Notes:
The difficulty of giving up "citified" ways of thinking are highlighted by the whole water / bucket dilemma. However, while some habits from civilization can be broken ' and they are stressed accordingly at the start of the book ' other related assumptions and ways of thinking are much more difficult to jettison.