Mottstown|Mottson Railroad Station (Location Key)
The tracks that run through Jefferson go south to the seat of the county next to Yoknapatawpha, the town that Faulkner sometimes spells 'Mottston' and sometimes 'Mottstown.' The modern electric sign at the train station says "Mottson" in The Sound and the Fury when Jason Compson drives there on Easter morning, expecting to capture his niece and recover the money she took from his room before running away with a man from the carnival or circus that has traveled overnight by train to Mottson (311). Standing on a siding are the "show cars," "two gaudily painted pullmans" with a few drying clothes hanging out the windows (308). The station is deserted on an Easter Sunday morning. His niece is not there. This station is also the place in Light in August where the Hineses catch the "two a.m." train to Jefferson (359), and in The Town where Gavin Stevens changes trains to "catch the express from Memphis to New York," though in this novel the place is called "Mottstown junction" (107). (In Faulkner's other Yoknapatawpha fictions, this change would occur north of Yoknapatawpha, in the town he calls "Memphis Junction.") Mottstown may also be the town "in the next county" where, according to this novel, Flem and Eula marry (6), though this is a variant like the alternative spellings of Mottstown, since in the other fictions that mention Flem and Eula's marriage the event happens in Jefferson.
Linked Locations
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