In the farm lives an old widow, Dona Benta (“Mrs. Benta”), and her two grandchildren, a girl, Lúcia, referred only by her nickname Narizinho (roughly “Little Nose”, because of her turned-up nose), and her cousin boy, Pedrinho (“Little Pete”); the servant and cook, a black woman named Nastácia (“Anastacia”), and two talking puppets, the rag doll Emília (animated by some of Doctor Snail’s “Talking Pills” she somehow “ingested”) and an aristocratic and learned puppet made of corncob Visconde de Sabugosa (roughly “Viscount of Corncob”) (“sabugo” means corncob in Portuguese, “Sabugosa” is a parody of the Count de Sabugosa). Viscount always wears a top hat. The farm is home to various animals, including the fat pig Rabicó (“Short-Tail”), the intelligent donkey Conselheiro (“Advisor”), and a rhinoceros called Quindim (named after quindim, a Brazilian dessert), who fled from a circus and was kept hidden by the children.
