Blacksmith Shop at McCaslin-Edmonds Place (Location Key)

Like the cabin that Sam Fathers lives in before he moves out to the big woods, the "plantation blacksmith-shop" where he works for different white families is one of the locations that Faulkner moves around to suit his changing imaginative project (160). Initially, in "A Justice," it's on the Compson farm, but for the hunting stories he wrote Faulkner first attenuates Sam's connection to the white world (the family he works for in "The Old People" is not named), then in Go Down, Moses shifts that connection to the McCaslins, and this blacksmith shop comes with him each time. This Location is the final place the shop ends up, on the grounds of the McCaslin-Edmonds plantation. In it Sam "sharpens plow-points and mends tools and even does rough carpenter-work" (160), but it generally doesn't see much activity. (Sam's 'Blacksmith Shop' has two other entries in the index.)