Part 4
From hearth to heap: Edward lands in the town dump, buried under coffee grounds and eggshells, breathing stench instead of sea air. In the dark he hears Pellegrina’s warthog tale in his memory and begins to understand it. Rescue comes on four legs — a dog named Lucy digs him out and carries him to her master, Bull, a gentle giant of a hobo. Bull looks the battered rabbit over, names him Malone, and makes him one of the family. So begins Edward’s longest schooling: riding the rails in rattling boxcars, sharing campfires with the wandering men of the road. Around those fires, Edward discovers his work: the men murmur the names of the people they miss — wives, children, mothers — into his listening china ears, and the rabbit who once loved no one becomes the keeper of a hundred loves. Year after tattered year it goes, until one night a railroad man’s boot delivers a cruel jolt — and Edward is kicked from the moving train, away from Bull and Lucy, alone again beside the rails.
| Section | What you will practice |
|---|---|
| Vocabulary | Words of the road: heap, stench, hobo, freight, boxcar, murmur… |
| Literary Elements | Repetition in the plot, the chorus of minor characters, and symbol |
| Cross-Curricular | Who the hoboes of the Great Depression were, and how the rails carried them |
| Ch. | What happens |
|---|---|
| 13 | The Dump — buried in garbage, Edward finally begins to understand Pellegrina’s tale. |
| 14 | Lucy and Bull — a dog digs him out; a gentle hobo names him Malone and takes him in. |
| 15 | The Campfires — boxcars and firelight; lonely men murmur the names of their missing loved ones to the listening rabbit. |
| 16 | The Boot — a railroad man kicks Edward from the moving train — alone again beside the rails. |
ⓘ The vocabulary words in this list are selected to help you understand and complete this workbook. Some may not appear verbatim in the original novel.
- A railroad man’s boot sends Edward from the train.
- Bull names him Malone and takes him in.
- Campfire men murmur loved ones’ names to Malone.
- Edward lies buried in the town dump.
- Lucy digs the rabbit out of the garbage.
Think back over the road years. A rabbit under eggshells finally hears an old story clearly. A dog’s nose finds him; a giant’s hands mend him into a family. Firelight, boxcars, and a parade of worn faces, each leaning close to whisper a name they cannot stop missing. Seasons of it — until iron rails and one indifferent boot scatter the family down the line, and the keeper of names lies alone in the gravel, still holding every one.
In the 1930s, America fell into the hard years called the Great Depression: banks failed, farms dried out, and millions of jobs simply vanished. With nothing to hold them, hundreds of thousands of people — mostly men, but women and children too — took to the railroads, slipping into the empty boxcars of freight trains to cross the country in search of labor: harvests to pick, wood to cut, any honest day's work. They called themselves hoboes — traveling workers. They insisted on the difference between a hobo, who wanders and works, and a bum, who only wanders. The road had its own civilization. Near the rail yards, camps the men called jungles offered a fire, a shared cooking pot, and unwritten rules: contribute what you can, harm no one, leave the camp clean. Hoboes even kept a written language of chalk marks — a signal scratched on a fence might mean 'kind woman lives here' or 'bad dog.' It was a hard life wrapped in real fellowship — and around its fires, strangers grew into companions, expert at one another's sorrows.
“That fellowship is why a silent listener was treasured at the fires.”
This writing task is optional and is not part of your auto-graded score. The feedback below checks only the basics — length, spelling, and grammar — not whether your ideas are right or wrong. It is meant for classroom discussion and creative practice, so feel free to use your imagination!
Writing Task — Part 4 “The Name I Would Say”
At the campfires, each man says the name he misses most. If you sat in that circle, whose name would you say, and what one story about them would you tell the fire? Write it the way the road men would — simply, and from the heart. Write at least 40 words.
No right or wrong — close the screen and tell someone nearby what happened in this part. Can’t find anyone? Tell yourself out loud. The moment you teach it, you truly understand it.
Part 4 Complete!
You finished Chapters 13–16 of The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.
Here are your auto-graded results:
The best last step is to teach it. In your own words, explain what happened — retell a favorite scene, teach a character’s big choice, or sum up the main idea for a parent, friend, or classmate. When you can teach it clearly, you truly own it.
Independent study guide by Garden Heights. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Kate DiCamillo. Contains original analysis only; no text from the novel is reproduced. Reference text: This workbook follows Kate DiCamillo’s classic text (the standard Puffin edition sold worldwide). Revised 2023 UK editions change some wording and may not match the vocabulary studied here.