Chapter 7
When the boy comes home from looking for his father, Sounder meets him in the road. Still, Sounder never barks. They hear about an accident involving a dynamite blast in a quarry where some convicts are working, but the boy's father is not one of the dead or injured. The boy's search for his father takes many years, and even though his mother tells him she wishes he wouldn't go looking, she always wraps him a sandwich for the journey. One day the boy sees a group of convicts whitewashing rocks. The boy stands against a fence, watching, but one of the guards smashes the boy's fingers with a crowbar. The guard laughs, but the boy refuses to move. The guard yells at him and starts throwing scraps of iron at him. It reminds the boy of David and Goliath and the stone that hit Goliath in the forehead.
On the way home, the boy sees a man dumping books into the trash. He picks it up and reads a story called "Cruelty." The boy reads aloud, thrilled to have his first book. Still walking, he passes a school, sees a cistern, and goes to wash the blood out of his hands. The bell rings and school is over for the day, and the children all burst outside. They see him and begin asking questions. One of the teachers, an older man, comes outside and helps the boy wash his fingers. The teacher invites the boy to his house, and they begin talking about the teacher's plants. Then the teacher tells the boy about the book the boy found in the trash. The teacher heats some water and asks the boy to talk about himself. The boy tells the teacher about his father and Sounder.