This story by Robert Penn Warren is set in rural Tennessee during the 1930s. A nine-year-old boy is affected for life when a menacing-looking tramp with a large switchblade in his pocket, carrying a mysterious newspaper-wrapped package, visits his family farm. Although the surly man is not dressed for farm work, the boy’s mother offers him food and some odd jobs. The tramp is clearly unhappy about the work she offers, and shows no gratitude when the boy’s father pays him and orders him off the property. Themes include innocence, identity, man (farming) vs. nature, poverty, dignity and father-son relationships.
The story ends with an enigma. As the boy follows the tramp off the farm, the man threatens him: ‘Stop following me. You don’t stop following me and I cut yore throat, you little son-of-a-bitch. Thirty-five years later the boy (now a man) writes: But I did follow him, all the years. Many reviewers have puzzled over the meaning of this line and, with no general consensus, interpretation is left to the reader.
The stranger’s visit and other events of the day shatter the impressionable boy’s ordered view of the world. The tramp (down on his luck, lost, mean and bitter but still a human being) symbolizes the cut-throat world of city living. The aftermath of the storm, the gathering at the bridge, and the boy’s experience at Dellie’s cabin bring into focus the unpredictability of farm life and the exploitative nature of southern farming practices at the time.
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