Did you know my dad enterted one of them great plantations and rubbed dung all over one of their rugs?" "No Sarty, you ain't tell me anything like that."

"That's cause the day he died I never looked back. I decided that my momma, my aunt, my brothers, my dad, they were all part of the past and I was headed towards the future."

"Weren't you scared of being on your own? You were only ten."

"Well, the owner of the plantation, De Spain, felt bad for killin my dad for startin the fire, and decided to pay for me to go stay at one of his servant's quarters. It was there I spent the next couple years learnin to read and write and became obsessed wth trains."

"Ha, I remember. The first time I met you, you was playing with a minitature toy train in school."

"Yeah, we were 13 ronud that time and I though you were the prettiest girl in town. Funny how we got married at 16. You sure were svelte back then."

"I'm svelte now Sarty, lean like a grasshopper."

"More like a pig..."

"What did you say Sarty De Spain?"

"Nothin. Anyway, I saw my mom the other day."

"How is she farin?"

"She's alright. De Spain gave her a job cleaning the house with that black butler. My aunt worked in the house too and my brother got up to no good stealing from local stores."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah, ma told me he was upset over what had happened that night when I was ten and decided to leave home too. Tried sharecroppin like pa. Wasn't successful though and stole to cover his
"A lawyer?"

"Yeah, the kind me and pap had to deal with when he was 'ccused of burnin barns. He never did pay those ten buschels of corn...but we all did."

Sarty took off his shoes and clothes and got ready for bed.

Works Cited

Byres, TJ. Sharecropping and Sharecroppers. London: F. Cass, 1983. Print.

Comprone, Joseph. "Literature and the Writing Process: A Pedagogical Reading of William Faulkner's "Barn Burning." Jstor.org. College Literature, n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2013.

Faulkner, William. "Barn Burning." Lake-Sumter Community College | Home. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2013.

Priddy, Anna, and Harold Bloom. Bloom's How to Write About William Faulkner. New York: Bloom's Literary Criticism, 2010. Print.