True Grit 11

11.  “Rooster cut the rope with his dirk knife and the mule breathes easy again. The grateful beast wandered off shaking his head about.... “Call that a sport, do you?” said he. They were two mighty surprised boys.” 114

The first glance at Rooster’s present and past shows that he is a bad man. He has shot over twenty men in four years and he really enjoys his whiskey and gun. But Mattie isn’t so quick to judge, and finds him to be a truly good person in the end. Portis slowly makes the reader realize this with Rooster’s small acts of kindness. This quote is just one small example of his compassion, although the more obvious example is when he rescues Mattie by running her back to town when she is bitten by a rattle snake. With this, Portis is making the point that almost everyone has human compassion in them, even those who seem a little rough on the outside.