Doane's Mill has a transient population of men and women. A few of them, including Lucas Burch, are "young bachelors" (6), but there are also "perhaps five families" living there and working "in the mill or for it" when Lena comes to live with McKinley and his family (4). One of these people is the "foreman" who serves as Lucas Burch's pretext for abandoning Lena Grove in Doane's Mill; another may be this foreman's "cousin," or he may be a figment of Burch's imagination (19).
