The Digital Yoknapatawpha Project

When the Grier boy arrives at the place in Memphis where "folks join the Army" (9) - i.e. the Memphis recruiting station - he sees "two fellers standing . . . and some more folks there, I reckon . . . It seems to me I remember some more folks there" (94). The iteration seems Faulkner's way of suggesting how many young men are responding to their country's need in a time of war.

This is the first soldier that the Grier boy speaks to in Memphis. He is wearing an "arrerhead on his sleeve" (94), so he is possibly a member of the 36th Infantry Division ("Arrowhead"), which was activated on November 25, 1940.

The narrator is amazed at the number of people he sees in Memphis: the "folks from ever'where" and the "rushing cars and shoving folks" are clearly the most people that he has ever seen (93).

The narrator notes that "more folks" arrive at the Jefferson bus depot and buy tickets for the bus to Memphis (92).

Mrs. Grier refers to her mother, whose son was wounded in France, as she responds to Pete's news that he is joining the Army. Mrs. Grier shares her mother's sentiment that she cannot understand why sons go to war.

Maw Grier's brother, Marsh fought and was wounded in World War I. For Mrs. Grier, her brother's decision to enlist in 1917 makes it possible to appreciate why "Pete's got to go" to the new war. For Mr. Grier, however, Marsh's "actual wound on the battlefields of France" means the family has already contributed "enough" to U.S. war efforts (85).

The younger of two Jefferson women who take charge of the young Grier boy and help him get to Memphis. She may simply be a concerned member of the community (the "fur coat" she wears suggests a lady rather than a public employee, 91) but she does carry a "hand satchel" with papers in it, and tells the boy "we must have a case history for our files" (91).

The older of the "two ladies in fur coats" whom Mr. Foote summons to help with the Grier boy (90). She may be a social worker, like the younger woman, or as is more likely, just a caring member of the community. Her family name is one of the oldest in Yoknapatawpha. Because the is wearing a "fur coat" and is apparently married, we assume she is not Miss Habersham, the impoverished "spinster of seventy" in Intruder in the Dust (92) and elsewhere.

The ticket salesman in the Jefferson bus depot gives the Grier boy "a ticket out of my own pocket," considering the gesture something of a civic matter (92). He seems understandably anxious to get rid of the boy, who pulls a knife on him earlier. The boy notes that "he could move quicker than any grown man I ever see" (90).

The boy narrator calls him "the Law" (89). The employee at the bus depot calls him "Mr. Foote" (89). He's probably the marshal in Jefferson. He finds the boy alone at dawn in the empty town square, takes him to the depot, and turns him over to the town's informal social service system - "two ladies in fur coats" (90).