In his hypothetical account of Flem's return to Frenchman's Bend in 1927, Gavin mentions the members of the church there, but only in the context of Mrs. Varner's authoritarian control of the "terrified congregation" and the "ministers" whom she "selects and chooses and hires" herself - she "fires them too when they don't suit her" (306). Still according to Gavin, one of these ministers was plowing "a cotton field" when she passed by in her buggy and noticed him: she ordered him "to go home and bathe and change his clothes" before she "ordained" him herself (306).
