Submitted by scott.t.chancel... on Thu, 2014-06-26 13:16
The road that runs southeast from Jefferson to Frenchman's Bend is frequently traveled in the fictions. It is variously named the "southeast road" (The Town, 4), the "Jefferson high road" (Hamlet, 390), and even the "Valley road" ("Shall Not Perish," 106) - though elsewhere the "valley road" is the one that runs north from Jefferson (Flags in the Dust, 132).
Submitted by scott.t.chancel... on Thu, 2014-06-26 13:08
Mr. and Mrs. Killegrew have a place near the Grier farm. And unlike the Griers, they can afford to own a radio, which has to be played loudly because of Mrs. Killegrew's deafness. In the evenings, the narrator and his brother, Pete, stand outside the parlor window and listen to radio coverage of World War II.
Submitted by scott.t.chancel... on Thu, 2014-06-26 11:54
The narrator refers to the place where he lives with his Maw and Pap and older brother Pete as "this little shirttail of a farm" (84). According to the story "Shall Not Perish," published a year after "Two Soldiers," the Grier family has owned its seventy acres for at least several generations. Pap gave Pete ten of those acres as a high school graduation present, and by early December Pete has his plot properly "busted out and bedded for the winter" with vetch (82).
Submitted by rlcoleman@usout... on Thu, 2014-06-26 11:26
Buck Turpin is probably a merchant or businessman in Jefferson. He owns the lot in which the traveling show that performs in town over the Easter weekend sets up its tent, being paid $10 for that.
