Rifle (Symbol)
A rifle is a symbol of power. Jeff’s mother, “small, frightened, and pretty,” was standing “on the rock porch” with “two rough-looking whiskery strangers” who carried sawed-off “Enfield muskets.” The young man quickly understood that they were bushwhackers who came to take away what little the Busseys had. “With a start,” he thought of “the family rifle but remembered it was standing unloaded in the corner of the house.” “Trembling with helplessness,” he “wished he had a rifle” right then. One couldn’t feel safe those day if he was unarmed. They could kill you in your own house, stealing everything they could find.
Ring (allegory)
Ring is an allegory of loyalty. Ring was “half shepherd and half greyhound.” He had “big shoulder muscles” and “white ring around his neck.” “Although the dog weighted almost ninety pounds now,” Jeff recalled “how six years ago” he had brought him home “in his coat pocket.” Jeff and Ring were “such good friends” that Jeff couldn’t “wrestle with other boys at the three-month district school” without Ring “taking his part.” When Jeff went to war, “the faithful dog” kept trying to follow him. Even rocks that Jeff had thrown at him to scare him home failed to work. “Picking up the rocks in his mouth,” Ring brought them dutifully to Jeff, “laid them” at Jeff’s feet, and “looked up, tail waggling, waiting for Jeff to pet him.” That huge dog had even a bigger heart that was full of love and adoration for Jeff. They had to lock him in the barn so that Jeff could walk away.
Protecting a family (motif)
Of course, Jeff wanted to be a war hero. Like any other boy of his age, he had been brought up on the stories about the Mexican war; what was more, his own father used to be a soldier and took part in the most ferocious battles. That was enough to predetermine Jeff’s desire to go to the war. He was “sick and tired” of the Missourians who were not going to leave the Bussey family alone. He was “tired of fighting ‘em” with “just a hay sickle.” Jeff was going to go to “Fort Leavenworth” to “join the volunteers,” for he had obligations to fulfill and a family to protect.
