George Wilkins' Cabin (Location Key)

Like Lucas Beauchamp, George Wilkins lives in a tenant house on Roth Edmonds' plantation. To hear his wife Nat tell it in "A Point of Law," Wilkins' house is in very bad shape: she calls it "dat house whar de back porch is done already fall off of" and complains that because there is no stove and no well, she has to cook in the chimney and walk half a mile for water (220). To hear Nat tell it in Go Down, Moses, where the short story is interpolated into "The Fire and the Hearth," is to notice how Faulkner regularizes some of her dialect, but also to appreciate again why she is reluctant to live in the cabin with George: "and go to live in a house whar the whole back porch is done already fell off," and so on (67). Much of the narrative in both texts revolves around Nat's desire for George to fix the place up, at her father Lucas Beauchamp's expense; it does not seem as if the landlord has any obligation to do so. In "A Point of Law," only the "gate" at this cabin is mentioned (233).