"The Chase" by Annie Dillard is a chapter from her autobiography An American Childhood. In this chapter, it is winter and Dillard is seven years old. She is hanging out with a group of boys who are slightly older in a yard near a neighborhood street waiting for cars at which they throw snowballs. Most of the cars they pelt with snowballs keep driving. However, one car, a black Buick, stops abruptly when a snowball hits its windshield and the driver gets out and starts chasing the kids. The kids split up, and the driver follows Dillard and a boy named Mikey. Dillard keeps thinking that the driver will give up, but he chases them for block after block until he catches and admonishes them.

To be able to understand paragraphs 12 and 13, it is important to put them in context of something that Dillard says earlier in the chapter. She starts "The Chase" by describing the thrill she gets playing football with the boys. She explains that football cannot be played halfheartedly or you get hurt. The only way to tackle your opponent and win is to throw yourself wholeheartedly into it with great courage. Your success depends on giving it everything you have.

In paragraph 12, Dillard describes the elaborate route that she and Mikey take to elude their pursuer. They go beneath trees, through hedges, down steps, across a driveway, through a backyard, between houses, down an alley, and up a hill.

In paragraph 13, Dillard describes the persistence of their pursuer. He chases them silently despite the neighborhood maze and all of its obstacles. Dillard keeps thinking that he will quit, but she finally comes to the realization that the angry driver is throwing himself into the chase the same way that she throws herself into playing football. She writes:

This ordinary adult evidently knew what I thought only children who trained at football knew: that you have to fling yourself at what you're doing, you have to point yourself, forget yourself, aim, dive.

These two paragraphs are crucial to an understanding of how the man manages to catch the children and why Dillard, in the end, says that if the driver had killed her she "would have died happy." The wholehearted thrill of the chase made it a joyous experience even though she and Mikey got caught.