Out of the Dust Compassion and Forgiveness Quotes

If you recall, Mr. Noble and Mr. Romney are the guys who were archival rivals in the rabbit wars. Evidently, the harsh conditions of the land have the ability to tear apart friendships as well as lives.

While hard times often inspire greed, Ma demonstrates here that it's not all bad. She knows that compared to others, her family is well off and chooses to have compassion for those in need, even if it means her own family being less comfortable.

Even before her death, Ma sets an example for Billie Jo of how to show patience and compassion to others. Rather than pick a fight with Daddy after he rejects her idea for the pond, she spends the negative energy doing something positive for her family so she can forgive him and move on.

One of the reasons Billie Jo resents being blamed for the accident is that she feels it was actually Daddy's fault—although she threw the pail, he was the one who left it by the stove to begin with. Just as the women cleaning her house point a finger at Billie Jo, she copes with the tragedy by pointing it right back at him.

Miss Freeland opening her classroom up to a family of total strangers in need of shelter is one of the book's great acts of compassion, showing the sacrifice many people made during the Depression to improve the wellbeing of others.

When the funeral procession gets stuck in the book's worst dust storm, a woman opens her home to the entire crowd. That takes a lot of selflessness—just imagine having twenty or thirty dusty, dirty people into your home, spur of the moment. Her act of compassion, though, perhaps saves them from emotionally falling apart in the storm's dark circumstances.

The disappearance of the man Billie Jo meets on the train (and her biscuits) carries some ambiguity. Regardless of his intentions though, Billie Jo feels moved to return his family picture to his wife and let her know he's okay. It could be that she's thinking of the wild boy who came to her family's farm and how concerned Ma seemed to be for his mother. The act of kindness will keep his wife from concern about her husband's whereabouts.

Billie Jo leaving home kind of gives her dad a wakeup call about how bad things have been going since Ma died. As he reaches out to her on their way home from the train station, they begin to bridge the blame between them with forgiveness.

The process of forgiveness often involves letting other people into your life, much the way Billie Jo must learn to accept Louise as part of Daddy's life.