Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

Where the Red Fern Grows is a children's novel written by Wilson Rawls about a boy who buys and trains two Redbone Coonhound hunting dogs. The book Where the Red Fern Grows is a popular choice for early middle school reading classes, with a reading level appropriate to grades 4 and up.
Before leaving work one afternoon, Billy Colman spots a Redbone coonhound in a fight with neighborhood dogs. Billy chases the other dogs and helps the hound recover from its wounds. When the dog is feeling stronger again, Billy realizes he must set it free, knowing that the hound will find its way home. This event makes Billy revisit his past, and the two coonhounds he had taken care of when he was a boy in the Ozarks.
Growing up in the Ozarks with his parents and three younger sisters, Billy wants to own a pair of Red Bone coonhounds but his parents tell him that the family cannot afford coonhounds. One day Billy finds an article in a sportsman magazine offering a pair of Red Bone coonhounds in Kentucky for $25 each. Billy decides to earn the money himself. For two years, he works many different jobs, and manages to save $50. His grandfather writes to the kennel and finds out that the dogs have dropped in price by $5 each. He sends for two Redbone hound puppies.
The mail does not deliver packages, and so the puppies have to be sent to the depot at Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Billy travels on his own by walking to the depot in Tahlequah and gets his puppies. (Summary by Wikipedia)