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The Sign of the Beaver
In Chapter 16, Attean's village is having a feast, and he invites Matt to attend. Pleased that he will have an opportunity to savor bear meat, Matt consents to accompany Attean back to his...
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The Sign of the Beaver
In exchange for teaching Attean how to read, Matt learns some important survival skills from his Indian counterpart. The first thing Attean teaches Matt is how to hunt rabbits. In Chapter 9, Attean...
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The Sign of the Beaver
When invited by Saknis and Attean to join them on the hunt, Matt is initially ecstatic. If he joins them on the hunt, he will not need to spend the long winter by himself. However, Matt soon...
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The Sign of the Beaver
Matt won Attean's respect in a very unexpected way. When Attean invited Matt to leave with his tribe, Matt refused. Even though both Saknis and Attean reiterated their joint desire to have Matt...
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The Sign of the Beaver
In Chapter 11, Matt comes across a beaver dam on an outing with Attean. When Matt steps closer to take a look at what Attean calls a "beaver wigwam," he is shocked to hear the sound of a rifle...
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The Sign of the Beaver
In Chapter 8, the one thing that makes Matt change his approach to teaching Attean is that his original method fails to interest the Indian boy. Matt initially begins the English lessons by...
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The Sign of the Beaver
Matt and his father moved to Maine from Massachusetts alone, leaving behind Matt’s pregnant mother and sister. After preparing a home and land for the family, Matt’s father left alone to return...
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The Sign of the Beaver
In Chapter One, Matt remembers how he helped his father cut down spruce trees to build their log cabin. He is especially proud when he recalls his efforts to haul, square, and notch the trees for...
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The Sign of the Beaver
Matt has been left alone at his family's cabin in the Maine wilderness while his father returns to Massachusetts for his mother, sister and new baby sibling. Saknis, a Native American Indian who...
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The Sign of the Beaver
Though the author does not give us an exact amount of time that has passed, we know that Matt has endured the loss of his rifle from a stranger to whom Matt extended kindness and shelter....
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The Sign of the Beaver
After disappearing for longer than usual, Attean reappeared at Matt's home. At first Matt was excited to see his friend but then realized that Attean had something serious on his mind. Attean then...
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The Sign of the Beaver
"The Sign of the Beaver" takes place in 1769 in Maine. It is during this time in Colonial America that conflict between the British and colonists begins to escalate. The French and Indian War had...
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The Sign of the Beaver
The manitou was a right of passage for the Indian boys of Attean's tribe. An Indian boy would go out into the wilderness to live, utilizing his survival skills and patiently waiting for his...
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The Sign of the Beaver
While it is true that Attean's grandmother despises the "white man," she decides to treat Matt's hand after he hurts it trying to free a dog from a trap. There are several factors that worked...
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The Sign of the Beaver
In the story, Matt is stung by bees when he attempts to pry off a piece of honeycomb from a tree hole. Sensing that their nest may be in danger, the angry bees attack Matt mercilessly. For his...
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The Sign of the Beaver
In chapter 19, Matt is invited to Attean’s village by Attean’s grandmother. She was impressed that Matt, a white boy, would save a Native American’s dog. On this trip to the village, as...
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The Sign of the Beaver
Matt had just two books in the cabin with him. He and his father had moved to the wilderness to build a cabin for the family. There had not been room for anything more than the necessities and a...
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The Sign of the Beaver
Attean says that Matt moves quickly, like an Indian, to save them when they are confronted with a mother bear and her cub. This is very meaningful to Matt. Throughout approximately the first half...
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The Sign of the Beaver
Matt sees the Indian village for the first time after he and Attean manage to kill a bear together. He is invited for a feast of the bear meat at Attean's village. The invitation might not have...
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The Sign of the Beaver
As in most stories, there are minor problems and also the main conflicts of the story. The minor problems Matt faced in the cabin right away are worth mentioning before getting to the first major...
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The Sign of the Beaver
Matt mistook Attean for a stranger the day he came to invite Matt to the feast at the village. Previously, Matt and Attean had been out hunting when Matt killed a rabbit. As they walked through the...
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The Sign of the Beaver
First, in chapter six, Matt wanted to repay Saknis for his care and provisions while taking care of him. The problem he faced was he had nothing to give Saknis but a book that the Indians could not...
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The Sign of the Beaver
Basically, Matt made notches on a stick so that he could keep track of time. Matt's father had advised Matt to make seven notches on each stick and to begin looking for the rest of his family when...
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The Sign of the Beaver
Matt's day of fun at the Indian village after he saved Attean's dog from a trap, left him feeling as if he was finally accepted by Attean and his tribe. His grandmother was impressed he had saved...
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The Sign of the Beaver
Matt played a key role in killing the bear that was the reason for the feast. As Matt and Attean walked through the wilderness, Matt carried a rabbit he had killed. When the bear charged them, Matt...
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The Sign of the Beaver
When a stranger requests to spend the night at the cabin alone with Matt, he is justifiably uneasy. The thought crosses his mind to stay awake to protect the cabin and the family heirloom gun that...
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The Sign of the Beaver
Prior to Chapter 19, when Matt attended a feast at the Indian village after helping Attean kill a bear, Attean's grandmother was not happy with his presence. Attean's grandmother hated the white...
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The Sign of the Beaver
There are two instances in The Sign of the Beaver when Matt is startled by Attean's very different appearance. One was a happy moment and the change was mostly physical. The other was not a...
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The Sign of the Beaver
By chapter three Matt has been alone at the cabin for some time. He has learned to adapt to his situation and become somewhat comfortable with his solitude. Though survival will be difficult, he...
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The Sign of the Beaver
In The Sign of the Beaver, the main character, Matt, is visited by a beaver trapper by the name of Ben. Ben, a large and imposing figure, invites himself to dinner and Matt feels obliged to feed...
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The Sign of the Beaver
Before Matt's father left for Massachusetts to pick up Matt's younger sister and pregnant mother, he gave him two special items that would later play a part in the story. Because Matt would be...
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The Sign of the Beaver
Matt's mother had insisted on traveling to Maine because she didn't want to miss spending Christmas together with Matt. More than anything, she wanted to make sure that Matt didn't have to spend...
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The Sign of the Beaver
The first time Matt went to the Indian village was shortly after he and Attean killed the bear. The village was having a feast to celebrate the bear kill. Saknis gave Attean permission to invite...
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The Sign of the Beaver
The quiet bothers Matt because he has no one to talk to and to keep company with. In Chapter 2, Matt is a little downcast after his father leaves for Massachusetts. The only way he can keep busy is...
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The Sign of the Beaver
The difference between the signs was that one was more readily visible to the human eye than the other. While Matt's father carved deliberate symbols onto tree trunks to mark his way, Attean's...
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The Sign of the Beaver
Although Attean does learn some English words from Matt, he never becomes fully fluent in reading English. In Chapter 22, Attean invites Matt to go with his people when they leave for new hunting...
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The Sign of the Beaver
In chapters 13 to 15, the relationship between Matt and Attean begins to change. Up until this point, Attean has mostly been a reluctant recipient of Matt’s reading lessons at the request of...
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The Sign of the Beaver
The Sign of the Beaver revolves around the unexpected friendship between Matt, a young white settler living alone in the wilderness while his father returns to pick up his mother, and Attean, a...
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The Sign of the Beaver
In The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare, young Matt is left to watch over the family cabin in Maine while his father returns to Massachusetts for the rest of their family. Matt's life...
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The Sign of the Beaver
The deal or agreement that Matt and Saknis came to was precipitated by the encounter they had when Matt was injured. After disturbing a beehive looking for honey to eat, he fell from a tree into a...
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The Sign of the Beaver
Matt thought that Robinson Crusoe lived like a king on the island because the tools the latter was able to salvage from his sinking ship improved his outlook for survival and made life more...
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The Sign of the Beaver
Attean lived in a typical Indian village about an hour's walk from Matt's cabin, through the wilderness and just across the river. When Matt visited he went through a gateway, on the other side of...
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The Sign of the Beaver
The Sign of the Beaver is told from the point of view of a narrator who speaks through the voice of just one character. This means that the novel is told from the third person limited point of...
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The Sign of the Beaver
As Matt and Attean moved on from the student and teacher roles forced on them by Attean's grandfather, a friendship formed. At first, they had to be together so that Attean would learn English from...
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The Sign of the Beaver
Attean's nameless dog looked particularly worn and bedraggled as described by the author. Though Attean made fun of the dog, it was clear that he cared very much for him. The dog, in turn, refused...
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The Sign of the Beaver
Though the only thing Attean is to give Matt in return for teaching him how to read is food, the two begin to spend time together in the wilderness, where Attean teaches Matt Indian ways of...
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The Sign of the Beaver
Matt attempted to harvest some honey from a beehive in a tree to supplement the provisions a bear ruined at the cabin. In doing so, he disturbed the hive and fell into the river, covered in bee...
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The Sign of the Beaver
In Chapter Five, Matt desperately wants some honey, but he remembers that his father had warned him to stay away from the bee tree before he left. Although he realizes that bees are 'better left...
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The Sign of the Beaver
After Attean and Saknis left the area to find a new location for the Indian village, Matt was all alone. It was winter, so much of the time he was inside. While he waited out the cold and his...
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The Sign of the Beaver
In the beginning of the story, Matt and Attean are forced into a relationship when Attean's grandfather, Saknis, makes a deal with Matt. He is to teach Attean the English language in return for the...