Nat Beauchamp Wilkins

When Lucas Beauchamp looks at at his daughter Nat, he sees someone who is "small, thin as a lath, young . . . too young to be married and face all the troubles that married people had to get through" (222). Nat is young, seventeen years old, but whether she is married either at the beginning or by the end of the story is by no means certain. Her troubles include her desire to coerce her father into paying for the repairs she wants to George Wilkins' cabin, and either getting married or pretending to be married is her strategy for accomplishing that. What most readers see in Nat is a young woman who is able to hold her own as a schemer against her father, a wife who is determined to get what she deserves, and a shrewd bargainer who ultimately can't overcome her circumstances - though her "troubles" remain an occasion for comedy.