Three Mile Bridge (Location Key)

The "three-mile bridge" undoubtedly gets its name because it's three miles from Jefferson ("Fool about a Horse," 124; The Hamlet, 39). It plays exactly the same role in both the story and the story as it's retold in the novel. Faulkner wrote the short story about a hapless farmer named Pap about half a decade before he decided, while writing The Hamlet, to make it part of the backstory of Ab Snopes. While the map coordinates we assign this bridge keep it three miles away from town in both texts, we have to move it from the road Pap takes in "Fool" to the different road Ab Snopes takes in the novel - Pap lives in Frenchman's Bend; at that point in his life Ab definitely does not. Faulkner of course had no trouble moving the bridge, or the creek is crosses.