== Ages of Main Characters == 

 Mattie Ross is certainly 14 years old. She says so (twice) on the novel's first page. 

 Rooster Cogburn is "about forty years of age", according to Mattie (p41). In the late spring of 1903, Cole Younger "reckoned (Rooster's) age at sixty-eight years" (p222), and Mattie used this estimate for Rooster's headstone: "1835 - 1903" (p223). This would make Cogburn about 42 in 1877, the likely year of the adventure, so he is much younger than portrayed in the film versions. 

 LaBoeuf's age can be determined quite precisely. Mattie says he is "around thirty years of age" (p68), but in describing his service in the Civil War LaBoeuf says: "I went in the army on my fifteenth birthday and saw the last six months of the war" (p155). This means that he enlisted and turned 15 in October 1864, and that he was born in October 1849, so he is 28 in the late fall of 1877. This is consistent with Mattie's statement on the novel's last page that, in the fall of 1928: "I judge (LaBoeuf) is in his seventies now, and nearer eighty than seventy." He turned 79 in October 1928, if he was still extant. 

 All page references are from the hardback 1968 Book Club Edition.