Unnamed People of Yoknapatawpha 4

The group from the county that attends Granny's funeral in both "Vendee" and The Unvanquished consists of both blacks and whites. The whites are "hill people" as opposed to townspeople; the "hill men with crockersacks tied over their heads" to shelter them from the rain are contrasted with the "town men with umbrellas" (98, 156). In a passage added to the novel, most of the blacks are described as having returned to Yoknapatawpha after following the Union Army to seek freedom (155). Despite their poverty, or perhaps because of it, Bayard's narrative in both texts treats these folk with more sympathy than the better-dressed people from town, and he admires their willingness to give back the mules Granny got for them in order to help him and Ringo in the quest to avenge her death. Bayard notes that from these people "we could have raised a cavalry regiment" for that purpose: "with cotton bagging and flour sacking for uniforms and hoes and axes for arms" (102, 164).