Jabbo Gatewood is the son of Uncle Noon Gatewood, a blacksmith. In a sign of social change, he becomes an automobile mechanic: "Jabbo was the best mechanic in the county and although he still got drunk and into jail as much as ever, he never stayed longer than just overnight anymore because somebody with an automobile always needed him to pay his fine by morning" (71).
Although his soubriquet labels Uncle Noon Gatewood according to the demeaning conventions of Jim Crow culture, he is one of the few Negro businessmen who appear in the fictions. He is the "big and yellow" owner of a "blacksmith shop on the edge of town": "he had a warped knee that just seemed to fit exactly into the break of a horse's forearm and pastern; he would pick up a horse's hind leg and set the foot inside the knee and reach out with one hand and take hold of the nearest post" (68).
Chick's father - Charles Mallison, Sr. - owns the town livery stable. He notes that because so "many of my customers use horses and mules for a living," it would be bad for his business if he owned an automobile (65).
These men are described as Jefferson's "storekeepers and doctors and lawyers and mayors and such as that"; their "quiet and peaceful" suppers are disturbed by the sound of Manfred De Spain's car when he passes by the Mallison house (62).
McCaslin Edmonds is the cousin of Ike McCaslin and the father of Roth, though elsewhere he is the father of Zachary (who in turn in Roth's father). He plays a much larger role in Go Down, Moses than in this novel; his family takes over Ike's property after he abdicates responsibility for it.
Lucius Hogganbeck's father, Boon, had worked for the McCaslin, Edmonds, and De Spain families as "huntsman-doghandler-manFriday back in the time of Major de Spain's old hunting camp" (61). He is a major character in Faukner's last novel, The Reivers, and probably best known as the man who killed Old Ben in "The Bear."
Roth Edmonds had employed Lucius Hogganbeck's father, Boon, and may have signed the note that enabled Lucius Hogganbeck to buy his Model T Ford. Also known as Carothers Edmonds, this man plays a major role in Go Down, Moses (1942).
Lucius Hogganbeck borrowed money "to buy a Model T Ford and set up in the jitney passenger-hauling business . . . and Mr de Spain and Lucius would race each other. Lucius would charge his passengers a nickel a head to ride in the race, though Mr de Spain carried his free" (61). (In The Reivers it turns out that he is the son of Boon Hogganbeck, but there is no hint of that in this novel.)
A friend of Chick Mallison, John Wesley is among the five boys who go rabbit hunting on a winter day at Harrykin Creek. In an elaborate series of dares, he trades a dollar he owes Aleck Sander for being shot in the back, although it's said that since Ab Snopes has already done this, Aleck Sander isn't getting a fair trade because "John Wesley knew what to expect" (57-58).
