Mattie Cook, the novel's narrator and principle protagonist, begins the novel as a young and somewhat inexperienced girl. She is quickly thrust into a world full of adversity where fever rages through her home city and kills one in ten people. In addition, food becomes scarce, crime runs rampant, money is unavailable, and family members either die or vanish. Mattie is not alone in her catastrophic misfortune - all around her, she sees the dead and dying, and she meets numerous newly orphaned children only a few years younger than she.
Given this situation it would be expected that a young girl would either give up or, perhaps, consign her fate into the hands of others. At first, of course, Mattie does allow her mother and grandfather to largely dictate her course of action......
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