Who’s Who
Edwards is, this is your cast list. I read the whole book, so everything here comes from the text, and I’ll point to the chapters.
There are five Ingallses, one dog, three horses, a handful of neighbors, and one named Osage leader. Some late chapters are mentioned, so there are light spoilers.
Laura
Laura is the girl the book follows, the middle Ingalls daughter. She is curious about everything, and in chapter one Pa promises her a papoose, which she keeps asking to see. Pa calls her half-pint, and flutterbudget.
She is also not always good. In chapter one, when Ma tells her not to complain, Laura stops out loud but keeps complaining inside. In chapter fourteen she wishes Mary wouldn’t always be so good. And in chapter eleven she nearly lets Jack loose after Pa said not to.
She is the one who notices things: stars that seem to sing in chapter four, a tunnel in the grass in chapter five, and the black eyes of a baby in a basket in chapter twenty-four.
Mary
Mary is older, and she is the good one. In chapter four she never speaks with her mouth full. She is almost eight in chapter twenty-one. She has golden curls, where Laura has straight brown hair.
Mary is cautious. She doesn’t like fords, in chapter two. And in chapter eleven the book says Mary never could move when she was frightened. But in chapter fifteen, when the family has fever, it’s Mary asking for a drink of water that sends Laura crawling across the floor.
Pa
Pa is Charles Ingalls. He wants a country where the wild animals live without being afraid, and that is why they go west. He is the family’s builder, hunter and fiddler.
By my count he is named seven hundred fifty times, more than anyone else. He says all’s well that ends well, and he is usually cheerful. Laura sees him angry in chapter twenty-five, when his eyes are like blue fire.
Pa has a view of Native people that is more careful than Ma’s. He wants to be on good terms. He says so in chapter eleven, after the two men come into the house. But in chapter eighteen he also tells Laura plainly that the government will move the Indians, so that settlers like them can take the land.
Ma
Ma is Caroline. She is firm, practical and quiet. In chapter one a single word, Laura, is enough to stop a complaint. She washes, bakes, sews, and gets hurt in chapter five without complaint.
She is also the one who says most openly in chapter four that she doesn’t like Indians, and who is afraid of them in chapter eleven. She still feeds them, because she was afraid not to.
Ma has her own firmness with Pa too. In chapter twelve she begs him not to go down the well, and when he does she turns the windlass herself.
Baby Carrie
Carrie is the baby, the smallest Ingalls. She rarely speaks. She mostly sleeps in the wagon, claps at the fiddle, cries in the night of the war cries, and is given the beads Mary and Laura find in chapter fourteen.
Jack
Jack is the brindle bulldog with a stump of a tail. He is a character in his own right. He gets lost at the creek in chapter two, and comes back in chapter three with green eyes in the dark.
He lies beside the sick family in chapter fifteen. And he is chained for much of the second half, because he hates Indians and Pa is afraid for him. The book tells us Jack thinks the Indian trail is Pa’s.
Pet, Patty and Bunny
Pet and Patty are the mustangs, named by Mary and Laura in chapter one. Bunny is Pet’s colt, born the night the stable is finished, in chapter seven. Pa says it is a little mule, and Laura says it looks like a jack rabbit.
Mr. Edwards
Mr. Edwards is a lean, tall neighbor. He tells Laura he is a wildcat from Tennessee, and he does a dance to Pa’s fiddle in chapter five. In chapter nineteen he walks to Independence and swims a flooded creek so the girls get Christmas.
He says goodbye to the family in chapter twenty-five, and Laura thanks him one last time for Santa Claus. The book never gives him a first name.
The Scotts
Mr. Scott is short, stout and sunburned. He helps dig the well and faints in it in chapter twelve. Mrs. Scott nurses the family through the fever in chapter fifteen. In chapter seventeen, though, she says that the only good Indian is a dead Indian.
Doctor Tan
Doctor Tan is a doctor who works with the Indians. The book says Laura had never seen a Black man before, and it describes him mostly by his skin, which I come back to in the parents guide. He finds the family sick in chapter fifteen and treats them. Jack, who hates strangers, goes to meet him and begs him in.
Soldat du Chene
Soldat du Chene is the one Native person named in the book, as far as I found. He is an Osage man. In chapter eighteen he speaks to Pa in what Pa guesses is French, and Laura notices the eagle feathers in his hair, though the book doesn’t name him until chapter twenty-three.
In chapters twenty-three and twenty-four, Pa learns that he argued the other tribes out of attacking the settlers. Pa salutes him when he rides past.
The Ones You Only Hear About
Some people never get names. Pa meets two bachelors who share one house, eight feet wide, with each man sleeping on his own farm. He meets a family from Iowa sick with fever by the creek, and a cowboy herd drives by in chapter thirteen.
They matter, because they show how crowded the prairie is getting. The first thing the book says is that Pa left the Big Woods because there were too many people. Then he finds neighbors, bachelors, cowboys, and a whole creek of settlers.
Mary and Laura Side by Side
If you want to tell the girls apart, think of it as Mary being still and Laura being quick. Mary hops hopscotch only because Laura coaxes her, in chapter twenty-one. Laura runs toward danger and then turns back, in chapter eleven, and runs again.
At the end of chapter fourteen Laura still wants her beads, and the book tells us she was naughty enough to want them. That honesty is the best thing about her.
The Takeaway
So who is the book about? Laura at the center, and Pa and Ma as the two adults making choices. Jack and the mustangs get more page time than Carrie. And the neighbors, Mr. Edwards, the Scotts and Doctor Tan, are the people who help.
If you want the full story, the summary has every chapter. Who is your favorite? Tell me in the comments, and thanks for watching.
