Compson Inset: Patterson's House in The Sound and the Fury (Location)

For at least some of the time the Compson children are growing up, their Uncle Maury is having an affair of some kind with Mrs. Patterson, the married woman who lives next door. The first memory that appears in Benjy's section is of him and Caddie carrying a note from their uncle to her just before Christmas, 1903; they cross the frozen "branch" (or creek) and walk through "the brown, rattling flowers" in the Pattersons' garden that lies alongside their house. Later Maury sends Benjy with notes by himself; on the occasion Benjy recalls doing that, it is not winter and Mr. Patterson is working in the garden ("chopping in the green flowers," 13). He sees the note and scares Benjy by the way he grabs it before his wife can get it.