"Unc' Henry's," as Caspey calls it, seems to be a cabin set at least somewhat away from the other cabins around the Sartoris plantation house. It is close enough to cultivated land for the cotton house to be nearby, but perhaps even closer to the woods. In any, case "back of Unc' Henry's" is where Caspey, Isom, Bayard and Narcissa spend a night hunting possum (292).
Owned, apparently, or at least run by one of the black tenant farmers on the Sartoris land, "a sort of patriarch," the mill sits "beside a spring on the edge of the woods" (289). In use in the South from as early as the 18th century, this kind of mill works by crushing stalks of sugar cane into a pulp from which molasses is made as a sweetener. The "motive power" of this process was typically provided by a horse or, as at this mill, a mule, whose movement around and around in a circle drove the crusher.
The possum hunting episode in Flags in the Dust begins "back of Unc' Henry's," to quote Caspey (292). Readers see Henry's dog, but not Henry, but his place seems to be a cabin set at least somewhat away from the other cabins around the Sartoris plantation house. It is close enough to cultivated land for a cotton house to be nearby, but perhaps even closer to the woods.
Owned, apparently, or at least run by one of the black tenant farmers on the Sartoris land in Flags in the Dust, this mill sits "beside a spring on the edge of the woods" (289). In use in the South from as early as the 18th century, this kind of mill crushes stalks of sugar cane into a pulp from which molasses is made as a sweetener. Its "motive power" was typically provided by a horse or, as at this mill, a mule, whose movement around and around in a circle drove the stone that did the crushing.
