Reverend and Mrs. Hightower travel to his new ministry in Jefferson by train. As he "watches the fleeing countryside" outside the "car window," he talks excitedly about his grandfather's Civil War raid on the town (482). The landscape is described as "similar to that where he was born" (482), though when the train nears Jefferson the train slows down to move through "the dingy purlieus" (485).
An enigmatic figure. He is mentioned by the "old negro woman" whom Joe Brown asks to take a message to the Sheriff for him (433-34). She refuses, citing the case of this man as her reason: "I done had one nigger that thought he knowed a sheriff well enough to go and visit with him. He aint never come back, neither" (434).
The phrase "Grand Jury" suggests "something" "secret" and "of a hidden and unsleeping and omnipotent eye" to Percy Grimm's platoon of peace-keepers (456). In the narrative the "Grand Jury" that is empaneled to consider the charges against Joe Christmas does remain mysterious. The narrator, for example, says that "the Grand Jury . . .
"Them," "they" - these are the only terms that that Anse uses to describe the people who come to his house and use "the law" to "talk me out of" Darl (37, 36). The most likely explanation of this event is the Selective Service Act of 1917, which required men between the ages of 21 and 31 to register for the draft (in 1918, it was expanded to include men between 18 and 21). That would mean Darl has been drafted and "they" are agents of the federal government.
