MacCallum|McCallum Place in "The Tall Men" (Location)

The McCallums live in a "two-story house" (46). Although the narrator calls it a "rambling and paintless sprawl" (46), it suggests stability, strength and continuity with the past. The "first story of this house" dates back to the years immediately after the Civil War, when the family patriarch returned from fighting in Virginia and built it out of logs for his new wife and their large family (54). It is approached through a "stout paintless gate in a picket fence" (46), the front porch is "a stout paintless gallery running across the log front" (47), the bedroom has "a bare unpainted floor" and "old-fashioned furniture" (49) - even without the help of paint, inside and out the wood remains sturdy. The second (newer) story is never described. The larger farm includes pastures that were formerly cotton fields, a cotton gin and shed where the cotton that was grown in the past is stored, and a family burial ground.