Skylark

Caleb, Anna’s younger brother, is a sensitive, curious, and deeply emotional boy who embodies a sense of childlike wonder and hope. Caleb’s youthful innocence allows him to see the world with an open heart. Despite the hardships of the drought, he maintains an optimistic outlook. His constant affirmations that it will rain and his creation of a rain gauge highlight his childlike hope that the land will heal and that his family will stay together. His connection to Sarah is immediate and intense, and he worries that she will leave them and return to Maine. His anxiety reflects his deep fear of abandonment as a result of his mother’s death.

Unlike Anna and the adults, Caleb openly reacts to the changes around him. He is more vocal about his fears, expressing his concerns about the drought and Sarah leaving them. His sensitivity represents the family’s vulnerability and helplessness in the face of the natural world. His emotional turmoil reflects the Witting family’s struggle to survive on the prairie. When he writes Sarah’s name in the dirt, it represents his longing for stability and permanence and his hope that she will stay with them, maintaining the security of their family unit. He initially sees their journey to Maine as an adventure, as the new environment and experiences temporarily distract him from the sorrow of leaving his home. However, Caleb’s eventual homesickness and melancholy emphasize the emotional toll that this journey ultimately takes on him, reinforcing the theme of The Importance of Family and Home. The challenges the children face strengthen Anna and Caleb’s sibling bond, and Caleb’s questions and concerns express the anxieties that both children feel.

Sarah is Jacob’s strong-willed, responsible, and loving wife. In the previous novel in the series, she comes to the prairie after responding to Jacob’s newspaper advertisement for a wife. In this novel, she faces the devastating drought on the prairie as well as the emotional turmoil of leaving her home. Sarah feels stuck between her past and present, her responsibilities and desires, and her longing for security and adventure. She is a practical, capable woman who is unafraid of arduous work, which makes her well-suited for life on the prairie. As the drought worsens, Sarah initially maintains a sense of normalcy and hope. She actively supports Jacob and the children, and she shows resilience in her decision to stay on the farm despite Maggie and others leaving. This reflects her determination to endure, but her protestations reveal her naivete about the hardships that come with life on the prairie.

While Sarah embraces her life with the Wittings, her unspoken actions reveal that she still feels a deep connection to her home in Maine. Her aunts’ letters evoke vivid memories of the sea, rain, and lush greenery, which are a stark contrast with the prairie’s harsh drought. Sarah’s decision to omit parts of the letters reveals an inner conflict as she desires to protect her new family from feelings of inadequacy and shield herself from her own longing. Sarah’s love for both places mirrors her internal struggle as she is both a prairie wife and an independent woman who loves the sea. Her return to Maine is not simply an escape from hardship but a way of rediscovering a part of herself. She acknowledges, “I’ve come back to what I knew first” (49), suggesting that while she loves the prairie, she still connects closely to Maine.

While Sarah has embraced her role as Anna and Caleb’s stepmother, she also yearns for a child of her own. She longingly watches Maggie with her new baby and observes motherhood all around her in the cycles of nature. Though she never voices this desire, Anna perceives her emotions through her interactions with Maggie and Tom. This unspoken longing adds another layer of complexity to Sarah’s character, highlighting both her deep love for the family she has and her longing for more. By the novel’s end, Sarah returns to the prairie, pregnant with Jacob’s child and fervently committed to rooting herself on the land and calling it home. She declares, “I’m Sarah Witting now” (59). Sarah chooses life on the prairie with her family, and she does so with a complete understanding of what she is giving up. She returns not out of obligation but out of love and commitment to the life she has built, underscoring The Importance of Family and Home.