# The Middle Five — Character guide

> Key figures in The Middle Five by Francis La Flesche.

- [Me](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_middle_five_se/characters/me.md): He moves among the Middle Five as observer, confidant, and occasional wrestling coach, close enough to every quarrel to feel its weight. When Jim carries Gideon's challenge to Warren, the narrator reads the trap instantl
- [Brush](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_middle_five_se/characters/brush.md): Brush belongs to the tight knot of boys who share desks, secrets, and schemes at the mission school. He is the one who hurls a paper ball at sleepy Warren, grabs an enormous tin pan to chase the bee swarm, and coaches Sh
- [Graybeard](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_middle_five_se/characters/graybeard.md): Graybeard presides over lessons, meals, and punishments with a gravity the boys both mock and dread. He can doze through a recitation, then spring to life when bees swarm, organizing pans, mirrors, and rope with startlin
- [Lester](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_middle_five_se/characters/lester.md): Lester sits close in the circle of boys, quick to point out how a beam ought to run and quicker to insist Warren cannot back down from Gideon's challenge. He warns his brother to remember the waist-and-chin counter, then
- [Edwin M. Stanton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_middle_five_se/characters/edwin_m_stanton.md): Edwin moves through the schoolroom with the authority of a boy who has seen more than he says, whether warning Jim off little Bob or explaining that Aleck's laugh died with his father. He teases Lester into climbing the 
- [William T. Sherman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_middle_five_se/characters/william_t_sherman.md): Sherman earns the admiration of girls and the rivalry of gangs when he pulls Job from the water and shouts him back to life. But the same day's forbidden words—picked up from the Agency teamster—bring him before Graybear
- [Jim](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_middle_five_se/characters/jim.md): Jim drifts through the schoolyard excluded from the gangs, using gossip as his weapon of choice. He carries a challenge from Gid to Warren knowing exactly how the proud boy will answer, then needles little Bob until Edwi
- [Alexander](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_middle_five_se/characters/alexander.md): Since the Sioux killed his father, Aleck has stopped laughing, and the boys say he is saving it for a reckoning. As leader of the Big Seven, he approaches the Middle Five with an offer to share a secret ritual, speaking 
- [Frank La Flesche](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_middle_five_se/characters/frank_la_flesche.md): Frank arrives at the Presbyterian boarding school sobbing for his mother, comforted by a big boy who hands him a wooden dog and promises friendship. His first supper, prayer, and headlong tumble down a dark stairway mark
- [Joseph](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_middle_five_se/characters/joseph.md): Brought to the mission by a weeping grandmother nearing her end, Joe is named without ceremony and grows up soft in a school that punishes softness. He becomes the butt of every trick, howling at a hard look and shrinkin
- [Gid](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_middle_five_se/characters/gid.md): Gid never appears in the scene himself, only in Jim's tale of a boast made at the spring, yet his name is enough to set the boys against each other. Edwin warns that Gid doesn't fight fair, and the gang debates whether W
- [Little Bob](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_middle_five_se/characters/little_bob.md): Bob sits with Frank under the walnut tree, watching a sling being cut from an old shoe and darting off to fetch rusty nails and pebbles in record time. When Jim points a warty finger at him and hisses, Bob buries his fac
- [Joel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_middle_five_se/characters/joel.md): Joel — called the Big Seven, or simply the Seven — heads the older Omaha boys at the mission school, a faction with its own secrets and its own code. He breaks school rules without flinching, addressing the younger Five 
- [Abraham Lincoln](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_middle_five_se/characters/abraham_lincoln.md): The U.S. president, referenced or appearing as a historical figure in the narrative.
- [Little Tail](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_middle_five_se/characters/little_tail.md): An Omaha boy, likely a younger student at the mission.
- [George Washington](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_middle_five_se/characters/george_washington.md): The first U.S. president, mentioned as a historical figure by the boys.
- [Poor Joe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_middle_five_se/characters/poor_joe.md): An Omaha boy, possibly distinct from Joe, who is pitied by others.
- [Robert Brown](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_middle_five_se/characters/robert_brown.md): A person mentioned, possibly a teacher or outsider at the mission.
- [Ga-imʻ-ba-zhe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_middle_five_se/characters/ga_im_ba_zhe.md): An Omaha person, possibly a tribal member or elder referenced.
- [Eve](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_middle_five_se/characters/eve.md): A biblical figure mentioned in the mission's religious instruction.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_middle_five_se/characters