The "platoon" of veterans that Percy Grimm organizes to preserve the peace in Jefferson uses the office where he works as a command post, orderly room and, for much of the time, a place to play poker while they are not patrolling the streets around the Square (453). The narrative calls it a "cotton office" (455), which mostly likely means it is involved in buying and selling rather than growing the staple crop of Yoknapatawpha.
In Light in August Percy Grimm works in a "cotton office" (455), which mostly likely means it is involved in buying and selling rather than growing the staple crop of Yoknapatawpha. But in the novel we never see it except as the command post for the "platoon" of veterans that Grimm organizes to preserve the peace in Jefferson - and the place where the men play poker while they are not patrolling the streets around the Square (453).
When this man "comes along" the sidewalk outside the closed Mottson drugstore, Jason asks him if there's a "drugstore open anywhere" and when "the northbound train" runs (312).
Earl Van Dorn was an historical figure, a Confederate general whose successful attack on U.S. Grant's military supplies at Holly Springs, Mississippi (December 20, 1862), was adapted in the novel to Jefferson, where it becomes the event in which Reverend Hightower's grandfather is killed.
Jason mentions this "Chinese missionary" whom the rich Jefferson merchant "bought" for "five thousand dollars a year," in order to ease his conscience (194). The reference is ambiguous enough to possibly mean the missionary himself is 'Chinese' or perhaps Chinese-American, but it is more likely that this man is white, an American on a religious mission to China.
As part of his fictional alibi, Jason invents this "sister" of the fictional "showman" who borrows his car; her equally invented husband is supposedly involved with "some town woman" (258).
To refute his niece's accusation that he has been following her, Jason invents a story about the "showman" who borrows his car to chase after his "sister's husband" (258).
