The Sign of the Beaver

Summary

The Sign of the Beaver takes place in the Maine woods in 1768. Matt Hallowell, twelve years old and about to turn thirteen, has helped his father clear land and build a log cabin on a new claim. In midsummer his father walks back to Quincy, Massachusetts, to fetch Matt's mother, his sister Sarah, and a baby expected soon, leaving Matt to guard the cabin and tend the corn. He leaves Matt his rifle and the watch that had belonged to Matt's grandfather, and expects to return in six or seven weeks. Matt's troubles begin almost at once. A rough drifter named Ben shares his supper, tells tales of fighting the Indians, and slips away in the night with Matt's rifle. A bear breaks into the cabin and ruins the stores of flour and molasses. Trying to rob a bee tree for honey, Matt is stung by a swarm and flees into a pond, where an old Native man, Saknis, pulls him out and treats his swollen stings. Saknis proposes a bargain: his grandson Attean will bring Matt game, and in return Matt will teach Attean to read the white man's marks, so that the beaver people will not be tricked out of their hunting grounds by treaties they cannot read. The lessons go badly at first: when Matt reads aloud from Robinson Crusoe, the proud Attean has no patience for a story in which a native man kneels as servant to a white one. Slowly the teaching turns around. Attean shows Matt how to make a fishhook and snares, how to find his way by blazes and the marks that show which clan may hunt a stretch of forest, and why a beaver-clan hunter must not take an animal from a turtle-clan trap. When a mother bear charges, the boys face her together and kill her. Saknis invites Matt to a feast in the village, where he meets Attean's grandmother, who hates white men, and his sister Marie. Matt learns that Attean's mother was killed by white bounty hunters and his father went after them and never returned. The grandmother's coldness thaws after Matt helps free Attean's dog from a steel trap. Attean goes into the forest alone to seek his manitou and comes back a man, with a rifle of his own. As autumn comes, the beaver people prepare to move west, away from the spreading settlements, and Saknis invites Matt to come with them as Attean's brother. Matt declines because his family may still come. At parting Attean leaves Matt his dog, Matt gives Attean his grandfather's watch, and Attean calls him brother. Alone through the first snows, Matt lives by what he was taught. In December his family finally arrives by sled: they had all been sick with typhus, and the new baby had died. His father tells Matt he has done a grown man's job. Houghton Mifflin published the novel in 1983; it won a 1984 Newbery Honor.

Plot or Argument

• Left alone (Chapters 1-3)

  Matt's father leaves for Massachusetts with instructions, the rifle and the grandfather's watch; Matt manages the cabin and corn on his own, until Ben the drifter visits and steals the rifle.

• The bear and the bees (Chapters 4-5)

  A bear ransacks the cabin's food; Matt tries to take honey from a bee tree, is badly stung, and is rescued from the pond by Saknis and Attean.

• The bargain (Chapters 6-9)

  Saknis asks Matt to teach Attean to read in exchange for meat; the reading lessons from Robinson Crusoe falter on Attean's pride and his objections to the story.

• Lessons in the woods (Chapters 10-14)

  Attean teaches Matt snares, fishhooks and the clan marks on trees, including the sign of the beaver; the boys find a fox in a turtle-clan trap and later kill a charging she-bear together.

• The village (Chapters 15-18)

  Matt attends a feast at the beaver people's village, meets Attean's grandmother and sister Marie, hears how Attean's mother died, and helps free Attean's dog from a steel trap.

• Attean's manitou (Chapters 19-20)

  Attean goes into the forest alone to seek his spirit guide and returns with the marks of a grown hunter.

• The invitation and the parting (Chapters 21-22)

  Saknis invites Matt to travel north and west with the beaver people; Matt chooses to wait for his family, and the boys exchange gifts and farewells.

• Winter and reunion (Chapters 23-25)

  Matt prepares for winter alone with the dog; his family arrives through the snow, delayed by typhus and grieving a dead infant, and his father praises what he has done.

Characters

• Matt Hallowell, protagonist

  Twelve-going-on-thirteen settler's son from Quincy, Massachusetts, left to guard a new cabin in the Maine woods.

• Attean, Matt's friend and teacher

  Proud boy of the beaver people, Saknis's grandson, who learns to read from Matt and teaches him the forest.

• Saknis, Attean's grandfather

  Wise old leader of the beaver people who rescues Matt and proposes the bargain of meat for reading lessons.

• Matt's father, settler

  Quiet, steady man who builds the cabin and goes back to Massachusetts for the family.

• Ben, drifter

  Rough wanderer who boasts of fighting the Indians and steals Matt's rifle.

• Attean's grandmother, village elder

  Embittered by her daughter's murder, she distrusts Matt until he helps save Attean's dog.

• Marie, Attean's sister

  Young girl of the village who befriends Matt and helps free the dog.

• Matt's mother and Sarah, family

  Matt's mother and younger sister, who arrive in winter after surviving typhus.

Lessons

• A teacher who becomes a student

  Matt agrees to teach Attean to read and assumes that makes him the one who knows things. In the woods, Attean knows far more, and Matt survives only because he learns to listen. The novel shows that real friendship begins when each person is willing to be taught by the other.

  • What does Matt teach Attean, and what does Attean teach Matt? Which lessons kept Matt alive?
  • Why was it hard for Matt to admit that Attean knew more than he did?
  • When did the two boys stop being teacher and student and start being friends?

• Keeping a promise to wait

  Matt's father told him to stay with the cabin, and Matt does, even when the weeks stretch into months and Saknis offers him a home with the beaver people. His faithfulness to his family's plan, through fear and loneliness, is the backbone of the story.

  • Why did Matt say no when Saknis invited him to go with the beaver people?
  • Was it hard for Matt to keep believing his family would come? What helped him?
  • Have you ever had to wait a long time for someone you love? How did you keep hoping?

• Seeing a story from the other side

  When Matt reads Robinson Crusoe aloud, Attean refuses to admire the hero and is angry at how Friday is treated. Matt begins to understand that the same events can look very different to someone from another people, and his respect for Attean grows from that discovery.

  • Why did Attean dislike the story of Robinson Crusoe and Friday?
  • How did Matt change the way he read the book to Attean after that?
  • Why does it matter to hear how someone else sees a story you already know?

• Growing up is earned

  Attean becomes a man by going alone into the forest to seek his manitou; Matt becomes one by keeping the cabin through a winter alone. Each boy grows up through a trial suited to his own people, and each honors the other's.

  • How did Attean show he had become a man when he came back from the forest?
  • What did Matt's father mean when he said Matt had done a grown man's job?
  • What hard things help a boy or girl grow up today?

Context

In 1768 the woods of Maine belonged to the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and English families were pushing north and east onto new land after the end of the French and Indian War in 1763. The Wabanaki peoples of the region, including the Penobscot, had been reduced by war and epidemic disease, and many treaties had been signed by men who could not read the English documents. The novel leaves Attean's nation unnamed and calls his band the beaver people after the clan sign marked on their hunting grounds. Ben's boast that the Indians had been killed off by war and sickness, and Saknis's wish that Attean learn to read treaties, both point to that history.

Composition

Speare found the seed of the story in the history of Milo, Maine: Theophilus Sargent, son of the town's first settler, was left to guard the family's new clearing while his father went back for the others, and a Penobscot band helped him through the season. Speare transposed the events to the fictional Matt Hallowell, wrote the book in her seventies, and Houghton Mifflin published it in February 1983. Later printings include an introduction by the Abenaki writer Joseph Bruchac.

Reception

The novel received a 1984 Newbery Honor, the first Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction (1984), and a Christopher Award, and it has remained in print as a common choice for upper-elementary and middle-school readers. It was adapted as the 1997 television film Keeping the Promise.

Comparisons

• robinson-crusoe

  Matt reads Defoe's novel aloud to Attean, and Speare's story answers it: here the castaway survives only because a native boy teaches him, and the two meet as equals instead of master and servant.

• my-side-of-the-mountain

  Sam Gribley and Matt both live alone in northeastern woods, make snares and hooks, and face a winter; Sam chooses solitude, while Matt is left alone and is rescued from it by friendship.

• the-courage-of-sarah-noble

  Sarah is also left in a new settlement while her father fetches the family, and she too is befriended by Native children and learns to keep up her courage while she waits.

• the-bronze-bow

  In Speare's earlier novel Daniel learns to see a Roman soldier as a person; Matt learns to see Attean and his grandmother not as the Indians of Ben's tales but as people with their own grief and law.

• little-house-in-the-big-woods

  Both show frontier families in the northern forest living by smoking meat, trapping and storing food for winter, and both place a bear at the center of a memorable episode.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The things Matt's father leaves him at the start, the rifle and the grandfather's watch, and what happens to each of them by the end.
• Every skill Attean shows Matt, from the fishhook to the blazes on trees. Notice when Matt uses each one later on his own.
• The reading lessons with Robinson Crusoe and how Attean reacts to Friday.
• Attean's grandmother: how she treats Matt at first, and what changes her.
• How Matt marks time while he waits, and how his hope changes as the weeks pass.

Key terms and names

The sign of the beaver

The mark cut on trees to show that a stretch of forest is the hunting ground of the beaver clan, Attean's people. Matt learns to read these marks as Attean learns to read letters.

Manitou

A spirit guide that Attean goes alone into the forest to seek. Finding it is his test of becoming a man.

Robinson Crusoe

The book Matt uses to teach Attean to read: the story of a shipwrecked man alone on an island and his servant Friday.

Snare

A loop trap for catching small animals that Attean teaches Matt to set, so that he can get meat without a gun.

Blaze

A cut mark on a tree trunk that shows the way through the forest. Attean also teaches Matt to see subtler trail signs.

Treaty

A written agreement about land. Saknis wants Attean to read so that his people will know what they are signing.

Typhus

A dangerous fever that sickened Matt's family in Massachusetts and kept them from coming until winter.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension Why did Matt's father leave him alone at the cabin, and how long did he say he would be gone?
2. Comprehension How did Matt lose his rifle, and how did he get meat afterward?
3. Comprehension What bargain did Saknis make with Matt after he saved him from the bees?
4. Interpretation At first Attean scorns Matt and his reading lessons. What happens to make the two boys friends?
5. Interpretation Why did Attean's grandmother dislike Matt, and why did she change her mind?
6. Interpretation Matt gave Attean his grandfather's watch, and Attean gave Matt his dog. Why were those gifts so precious?
7. Big Question Matt could have gone with the beaver people and been Attean's brother. Do you think he made the right choice by staying to wait for his family? Why?

Faith Connections

• Proverbs 27:17 (Scripture)

  As iron sharpens iron, one friend sharpens another. Matt and Attean each make the other wiser and stronger, by reading lessons on one side and forest lessons on the other.

• Psalm 27:14 (Scripture)

  The psalmist tells the faithful to wait and be of good courage. Matt's long wait at the cabin through fall and into snow is a picture of patient, courageous waiting.

• Genesis 2:15 (Scripture)

  God set Adam in the garden to work it and keep it. Matt is set to keep his family's clearing and corn, and the novel shows how much work and care that charge requires.

• Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (Great Conversation)

  Crusoe survives his island largely by his own work and his salvage from the wreck. Matt, reading the same book, survives only because Attean teaches him, so Speare quietly corrects Crusoe's picture of a man who needs no one.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Matt believes that a settler with a rifle and a book has everything he needs in the wilderness. But he loses the rifle, the bear spoils his food, and the bees nearly drown him, while Attean, without a book, knows how to live in the forest. Each boy has knowledge the other lacks, and both are humbled. Therefore survival and growing up depend on learning humbly from others, even from those one first looks down on.

Rhetorical device: parallelism. Attean's solitary search for his manitou (Chapters 19-20) is set beside Matt's solitary winter (Chapters 23-25), so that two boys of different peoples pass a matching test of manhood.

Debate: Resolved: Matt should have gone with the beaver people.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Show how Matt changes between the day Ben steals his rifle and the day his father returns, using at least three of the skills Attean taught him.

Comparison with Robinson Crusoe: Compare how Robinson Crusoe and Matt Hallowell survive alone in the wild. Who helps each of them, and how does each treat the native person who helps him?

Medical Lens

Medicine in the novel is the medicine of the frontier, where help is far away and families care for their own. Matt's bee stings, which swell his face and body, are treated by Saknis with forest remedies rather than by any physician. The family's long delay is caused by typhus, the louse-borne fever that ran through crowded eighteenth-century households and ships, and the new baby's death in infancy reflects the high infant mortality of the period; Speare reports both quietly through Matt's mother at the reunion. Attean's grandmother's lasting hostility after her daughter's murder is shown as grief and anger rather than illness. Matt's worry about food through the coming winter, and the smoking, drying and storing he learns from Attean, give the book its concern with nutrition and survival.

• Chapter 5

  Matt is stung by a swarm at the bee tree, plunges into the pond, and wakes in his cabin with Saknis and Attean tending his swollen stings.

  Pain Nursing Caregiving
• Chapter 17

  Attean tells Matt how his mother was killed and his father went after the killers and did not return; his grandmother's bitterness is explained.

  Grief
• Chapters 23-24

  Matt lays in meat, fish and firewood, and makes mittens and a cap from skins, to last a winter alone.

  Starvation Nutrition
• Chapter 25

  The family arrives and explains the delay: all were sick with typhus, and the baby born in Massachusetts has died.

  Fever Infection Childbirth Maternal Grief

Creative Prompts

• Fiction

  Write the night Attean spent alone in the forest waiting for his manitou, told by Attean himself.

• Dialogue

  Write the conversation at the reunion in which Matt tells his mother and Sarah about Attean, Saknis and the dog.

• Classroom

  Make a field guide of everything Attean teaches Matt: the fishhook, the snare, the trail blazes, the clan marks. Draw each one and explain how Matt used it in the winter.

• Essay

  Matt and Attean each read Robinson Crusoe differently. Explain how, and why Matt starts to tell the story in his own words instead of reading it straight.

Further Reading

• The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Elizabeth George Speare

  Speare's 1959 Newbery Medal novel of seventeenth-century Connecticut.

• The Bronze Bow, Elizabeth George Speare

• Calico Captive, Elizabeth George Speare

  Speare's 1957 novel of a New England girl taken captive to Montreal during the French and Indian War.

• Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe

  The book Matt reads aloud to Attean.