The Courage of Sarah Noble

Summary

The Courage of Sarah Noble tells, in eleven short chapters, how eight-year-old Sarah Noble went with her father, John Noble, into the Connecticut wilderness in 1707 to build a house for their family. The rest of the Nobles stay behind in Massachusetts. When Sarah leaves, her mother fastens a warm cloak around her and tells her to keep up her courage, words Sarah repeats to herself all through the book. In the first chapter she lies awake in the forest beside her father and his musket, listening to an owl, a fox and a wolf. They spend a night at a small settlement with Mistress Robinson and her children, who frighten Sarah with stories that Indians will carry her off, while the girl Abigail envies her cloak. Riding on with their horse, Thomas, Sarah decks herself and the horse with flowers, and at last they come down a long hill to their own land, where they camp in a shelter built against a cave while the log house goes up. Left alone there by day, Sarah reads her Bible aloud, the story of the boy Samuel, and looks up to find Indian children all around her. Soon she is teaching them English words and they are showing her where the berries grow; she names two of them Small John and Mary. Their father, whom John Noble calls Tall John, helps raise the house. When it is finished, Sarah's father goes back for the family and leaves her with Tall John's household. She learns to weave a basket, wears deerskin and moccasins, says her prayers each night, and lies awake through one night of fear over rumors of raiders from the north. At last Tall John carries her across the river to the log house, where her mother waits with the baby, Mabel, who has learned to walk. Published by Scribner's in 1954 with drawings by Leonard Weisgard, the book was named a Newbery Honor Book.

Top Lessons

• Brave while afraid

  Sarah is frightened by wolves, by the Robinson children's tales and by being left behind, and she never stops being afraid. What she does is keep going: naming the sounds in the dark, staying at her post, and saying her mother's words to herself. The book teaches that courage is a choice made in the middle of fear.

• Neighbors who did not speak the same language

  Sarah expects enemies and finds friends. The Indian children learn English words from her and lead her to berries; Tall John helps build the house and calls her his daughter. Kindness crosses the barrier of language long before words do.

• A small girl doing a woman's work

  Sarah goes because she is needed: someone must cook for her father while he builds. She makes corn cakes, keeps the camp and looks after him, and her father says she keeps him from being afraid. Responsibility given to a child, and taken seriously, helps her grow.

• Prayer far from home

  Sarah reads her Bible in the empty camp and prays each night, even in Tall John's house, for her family and for the people caring for her. Her faith goes with her into the woods like her cloak.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

No medical content of note. The book concerns a child's fear and how she manages it, and its account of naming night sounds to calm herself is a homely picture of a child's coping rather than a medical episode.