Unnamed Farmers and Negro Servants

In Absalom!, after Rosa Coldfield returns to her house in Jefferson in 1866, "the town - farmers passing, negro servants going to work in white kitchens" - see her raiding the neighbors' gardens "before sunup" (138). "The town" is often a kind of character in the Yoknapatawpha fictions, but the way this passage identifies the town with "farmers" (who are from the country) and "servants" (who are not white) is exceptional.