The Hamlet

Ratliff comes across Will Varner, and the two discuss Flem’s appointment as store clerk. Will asks Ratliff what he knows about Ab Snopes, but Ratliff demurs, saying that he hasn’t seen Ab in eight years and rarely saw him for the fifteen years before that. He tells Varner that Ab isn’t naturally mean, just “soured.” Ratliff expresses his concern that Jody has gotten in over his head by dealing with the Snopes family.

The townspeople of Jefferson are shocked that Jody has hired a white clerk for the store. Ratliff tells the people gathered around the Varners’ store the ills that he knows have befallen Ab in business, including past allegiance to the Sartoris family (another big name in Yoknapatawpha County). He believes these misfortunes have affected Ab’s outlook on the world. Ratliff’s story includes an incident in which Ab was taken advantage of in the horse-trading business, although Ratliff says that it was “Miz” Snopes, Ab’s first wife, who was the real horse trader in the family. Ratliff, who grew up with Ab and was friends with him when he was horse trading, tells of how “Miz” Snopes and Ab worked as a team to trade horses.

Ratliff tells how Ab Snopes was tricked out of the horse-trading business by a very successful horse trader and scammer named Pat Stamper. Pat managed to trick Ab into losing his one good mule and the milk separator he had bought for his wife. His wife had to go in person to bargain for the return of the separator. Ratliff says that Ab wasn’t curdled yet then.

Ratliff comes upon the house that Snopes is renting. He realizes that Snopes is trying to get out from under the legacy of Pat Stamper, and that he is doing so through force. Ab has two of Varner’s mules working his fields. Though he asks Ratliff harshly what he is doing there, Ratliff remains pleasant. Ratliff expresses his hope that Ab will settle down on the farm, offering him a drink and commenting on how well Flem is doing working in Varner’s store. Ratliff heads back into town, noting that Ab did not invite him to come back to visit again.

Flem has been settling into his new position as the Varners’ store clerk. The townspeople have been coming to the store just to see him, trying to get the measure of Flem. Even people who generally didn’t go to the Varners’ store come to see Flem. The men who hang around the store, including Ratliff, can discern little about Flem and his relationship with Jody Varner. At the end of Flem’s first week in the store, Will Varner finally arrives to meet him. The next day, Ratliff leaves Jefferson, breaking his usual sewing machine selling route and ending up in Tennessee.

Ratliff overextends himself selling sewing machines on credit and must scramble to collect the money he owes to the wholesaler. He succeeds, returning to town months later having made a profit. He finds that Jefferson has become accustomed to Flem’s presence as the clerk in the Varner’s store, and that Jody has begun showing up at the store less and less. Flem is far more exacting about money than the Varners, leading to tension. Flem moves into the village, and the Varners turn up at the store less and less. When the cotton is coming in from the fields, Jody finally turns back up at the store, and people notice that he seems less comfortable there than before.

Time continues to pass, and the Snopeses continue to rent from the Varners while Flem continues to run the store. The town begins to be filled with more and more Snopeses, with two Snopeses taking over the lease of the blacksmith shop despite not having blacksmithing experience. Eck Snopes, the new town blacksmith, moves into the same boarding house that Flem has been staying in. Over the next year, he marries the daughter of that house and has a child, and Flem builds a new blacksmith shop for him out of his own money. Jody is upset by the encroachment of the Snopes family.

Ratliff, having been sick and away from town, returns to Frenchman’s Bend after a year. He is greeted happily by some of the men from town, who tell him that even more members of the Snopes family have joined the town’s population. Ratliff is told that I.O. Snopes will be taking over teaching the school after the previous teacher mysteriously left town. Ratliff, shocked, remarks on how the Varners are being pushed out, but he predicts that it will take Flem a while longer to get Will Varner’s house. It is revealed that Flem is now lending money from the store.

As Ratliff greets members of the town, he thinks that if he were Will Varner he would have made sure some of the business dealings he was engaged in with the Snopeses were in their name. Checking at the registrar’s office, he finds this is the case. As Ratliff rides on to the outskirts of town, he sees an old mailbox painted with a new name: MINKSNOPES. He turns down the lane and goes to the house, claiming to the woman and man he meets there that someone named Snopes asked him to sell them a sewing machine. He convinces the man to buy a sewing machine from him while the woman complains about how selfish Flem is. The man, Mink Snopes, pays Ratliff with an IOU note from Flem. The next day, Ratliff goes to Varner’s store and tells Jody and Flem that he plans to get out of the sewing machine business and buy a herd of goats. Ratliff intentionally waits to go buy the goats so that Flem will have bought them first. After Flem has bought them, Ratliff goes to trade the IOU note for the goats.

It is clear to the inhabitants of Frenchman’s Bend that Flem has taken Jody’s place as the heir to Will Varner’s store. Flem is allowed to collect rents, which Jody never was, and now gives orders to Jody. Flem also has taken over the use of Jody’s horse and is now the one who rides around town with Will Varner. Ratliff observes a confrontation between Flem and a farmer named Houston. Will Varner foreclosed on some of Houston’s land, and it has now been rented to more members of the Snopes family.