Stable on McCaslin-Edmonds Place (Location Key)

"Stable" may imply horses for most people, but in "A Point of Law," "Gold Is Not Always" and Go Down, Moses the stable on Roth Edmonds' plantation mainly houses mules (218). Edmonds clearly owns the stable, and in the second two texts Faulkner makes it clear that Edmonds also owns the mules stabled inside it. In the magazine version of "Point of Law," however, it is possible that his tenants own their own livestock: the narrative calls the mule with which Lucas works the corn and cotton fields "his" (218), and the "fat middle-aged mare" that George harnesses in the stable is identified as "Lucas'" (223). George also has a mule that is housed in the stable. In cultural and economic terms the distinction is a major one. A 'tenant farmer' owns his own lifestock, and usually contracts to give a landlord a quarter to a third of his crop for the use of the land. A 'sharecropper' has to use the landlord's livestock and tools as well as his land, and has to pay a greater share of the crop at the end of the harvest. Faulkner, however, seems to use the terms interchangeably, so it may not matter to him whether Lucas or George own any of the animals in Edmonds' stable.