# Baptiste — New Hampshire character guide

> Baptiste in New Hampshire by Robert Frost.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Mrs. Baptiste

**First appearance:** 0009-wild-grapes

## Snapshot

A French-Canadian neighbor whose axe-helves and unspoken bargains teach the narrator more about knowledge than any school could.

## Who they are

Baptiste lives cast away among Yankees, anxious to be given his human rating, and he uses the curves of his axe-helves to draw the narrator inside his house and his confidence. His wife, Mrs. Baptiste, rocks a chair with as many motions as the world and speaks little English, and the household's guarded warmth becomes the poem's real subject. Baptiste's defense of keeping his children from school turns a visit over an axe into a meditation on who has the right to doubt education.

## In the story

### [The Axe-Helve](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/the-axe-helve)

Baptiste intercepts the narrator's axe, criticizes the machine-made helve, and invites him home to choose a handcrafted one. He discusses the grain and curves of good helves and defends keeping his children from school.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/new_hampshire_se/characters/baptiste
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/new_hampshire_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/new_hampshire_se/characters