This young black was Hoake McCarron's sole companion growing up. Many of Faulkner's wealthier white men had Negro companions and personal servants as boys; the way this kind of relationship plays out in The Hamlet is atypical, to say the least. When the boys are 6-8 years old, Hoake "conquers the negro with his fists in a fair fight" (150). Later he "pays the negro" at a fixed rate "for the privilege of whipping [him] . . . with a miniature riding crop" (151).
In The Hamlet Will Varner mentions that his "mammy" once heard an old woman explain that the way a pregnant woman can make sure she has a girl is to "show her belly to the full moon" (339). "Mammy" often implies a black woman, but in this case it seems more likely that Will is talking about his own mother. (The word occurs in a passage thick with his rural vernacular: "I mind me when" "done married and moved," "passel of boys," etc.; 339.)
This is "the merchant" in The Hamlet from whom Houston bought furniture on an installment plan for his new life with his new wife - though the character is unstable: a paragraph later the narrative refers to "the installment people" who don't want "to take the furniture back," as Houston requests, after that new wife dies (239). Presumably the merchant and the people are essentially the same.
In The Hamlet there are always groups of men hanging around Frenchman's Bend's more public spaces, like Varner's various businesses or Mrs. Littlejohn's boarding house. Some members appear somewhat individualized, such as with the "man with the peach spray" (343) who discusses the horse auction and its consequences with a "second" and a "third" among the group at Varner's store, although each remains virtually indistinct, members of a communal group who interact with well-defined characters like Varner, Ratliff, Quick, Bookwright, Freeman and the various Snopeses.
As Mink is being driven to jail in The Hamlet, they pass the Whiteleaf store. When the men who had been "squatting and spitting on the gallery stand suddenly up," the deputy sheriff remarks that "There are folks here too that act willing to believe their name is Houston for maybe ten or fifteen minutes anyway" (283).
These men are sitting on the store porch when Ab and Ratliff drive past in The Hamlet; they may have been the ones who told Ab that "Pat Stamper was in Jefferson that day" (38).
While eating lunch in Jefferson, in The Hamlet, Ratliff tells these "three or four listeners" (75) about the operation he underwent in a Memphis hospital.
On Eck's first day alone in the blacksmith shop in The Hamlet, this man brings in his "wagon with a broken hound" for repair (72). The "hound" in question is part of the wagon's frame, rather than a dog.
