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It seemed so hopeless from the beginning that it’s a miracle I didn’t give up. But all of us must have something or someone to be proud of, and Doodle had become mine. I did not know then that pride is a wonderful, terrible thing, a seed that bears two vines, life and death.

In this quote, the narrator reflects on pride’s complex nature. He recalls being proud of Doodle, but that the pride he felt was a “wonderful, terrible thing.” He uses figurative language to explain how pride can lead to life but also to death. Pride is a complex emotion in the story, one that ultimately leads to Doodle’s death. Brother wants Doodle to walk because he wants a playmate he doesn’t have to drag around in a cart. He wants to be proud of his brother, but mostly he wants to be proud of himself and have others feel the same, and it is this same pride that leads to the story’s tragic conclusion.

“What are you crying for?” asked Daddy, but I couldn’t answer. They did not know that I did it for myself; that pride, whose slave I was, spoke to me louder than all their voices; and that Doodle walked only because I was ashamed of having a crippled brother.

When the family discovers that it was Brother who helped Doodle learn to walk, they run and hug him and thank him. Brother cries, but not out of joy for his brother. He cries because of his own pride and the knowledge that he helped Doodle for his own selfish aims. He calls himself a “slave” to his own pride, suggesting he is powerless against it, which foretells the cruel treatment he ultimately shows Doodle in the story’s final scene.

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