Go Down, Moses "The Fire and the Hearth" Summary

PART ONE

Section 1

• Another story starts with a protagonist "he" who remains unnamed for another five pages or so. This is important because we also don't know whether this man's black or white.
• As the story unfolds, we find out that "he" turns out to be Lucas Beauchamp, who turns out to be one of the now grown children of Tomey's Turl and Tennie Beauchamp.
• Since we gave you that spoiler, we can call Lucas by his proper name now, instead of referring to him as "he" as the narrator keeps doing for a few more pages.
• So on this particular night Lucas is out to dismantle and hide his illegal still for making whiskey. Why would a man go through such trouble after a successful career as a moonshiner?
• Well, Lucas knows that his daughter's boyfriend, George Wilkins, plans to set up his own still and that would be competition.
• If he hides his own still, he can safely report George Wilkins to the cops.
• On his way to his still, Lucas reminisces about how he got to where he is. These are his thoughts:
• He's sixty-seven years old. He has a lot of money in the bank.
• He's probably richer than Carothers "Roth" Edmonds, the white farmer he works for.
• Lucas has nothing personal against George Wilkins. It's just that the young guy isn't sticking to farming the land Edmonds has given him, and instead is trying to set up a still.
• He doesn't want to let his daughter marry George.
• One should know better than mess with Lucas. He's run a successful still for twenty years.
• But George Wilkins is a fool and will get caught sooner or later. And then for the next ten years, the cops will be monitoring every inch of the Edmonds farm.
• Lucas knows the field like the back of his hand. He doesn't own the land, but he's been cultivating it for the past forty-five years.
• He's also a McCaslin descendant, even though in the world's eyes he descended not from McCaslins, but from McCaslin slaves.
• Remember Tomey's Turl, and how Mr. Hubert calls him "white half-McCaslin?"
• Well, if Tomey's Turl is indeed half-McCaslin, then Lucas, Turl's son, is also a McCaslin.
• Just keep that in mind, and stay tuned for more information on the McCaslin family tree.
• Lucas reaches the place he was looking for: a mound called an Indian mound.
• He remembers how five or six years ago, he watched some white people digging here.
• It's almost midnight. He unloads his still, digging a hole into an overhang to hide the machine.
• The overhang caves in and collapses onto the still. Something falls on his face. He thinks the old ancestors might be admonishing him.
• He realizes it's the fragment of an earthenware vessel, in which he finds a single gold coin.
• He starts to crawl around in the earth to look for more coins.
• He hasn't found anything else by dawn. He decides to come back to search some more.
• He realizes that this means George Wilkins is off the hook, since turning him in would mean cops crawling around the plantation, and maybe finding the treasure first.
• Lucas thinks this must be the money that Buck and Buddy buried almost a hundred years ago.
• Just as he sets back home, he hears someone running away.
• He can't see who it is, but recognizes his daughter Nat's footprint in the mud.
• She's been spying on him, probably on behalf of George Wilkins.
• He thinks, that's it, George Wilkins must go.

Section 2

• Lucas is at home, finishing supper as his wife and daughter watch him.
• He says he's going down the road and gets ready to leave. His wife yells at him: what on earth is he doing at this time of the night?
• He leaves. He thinks he would be planting his cotton now if it weren't for that George Wilkins. He's sorry to give up farming, but he'll be rich once he finds the treasure. He thinks about how the conversation with Roth Edmonds will go.
• He'll tell Edmonds he's old enough to retire.
• Edmonds will probably tell Lucas that he can't stay if he's not farming. Lucas will offer him rent.
• Lucas also keeps thinking about how that morning he wanted to go to the sheriff and report George Wilkins himself, but then he decided the report had to come from Edmonds.
• The sheriff wouldn't listen to an African American man.
• Lucas goes to Edmonds's house. Edmonds has all the trappings of modernity: electricity, a tractor and an automobile, a garage.
• Lucas thinks all these trappings are not manly at all. He himself is a real man, just like McCaslin "Cass" Edmonds, Roth's grandfather, was a real man.
• Cass and his son Zack wouldn't have tolerated all these modern conveniences.
• Lucas thinks that it's paradoxical that Cass and himself should both be the real men here.
• Then Lucas thinks back to when he tried to kill Zack forty-three years ago with a razor.
• Wait, what?
• But no, sounds like we'll have to wait for that story.
• Lucas is at Roth Edmonds's house and knocks on his door. He thinks about that time forty-three years ago when he knocked on that same door.
• Zack Edmonds's wife was pregnant and about to deliver during a flood and they couldn't get a doctor.
• Lucas's wife Molly, who was still nursing their first child, had to deliver Zack Edmonds's child. But the mother wasn't doing well, so Lucas risked drowning to go fetch a doctor.
• By the time Lucas came back with a doctor, Zack's wife had already died, and Molly had moved to Zack Edmonds's house to nurse both babies.
• With his wife at the white man's house, Lucas started living alone in his own house, trying to keep alive the fire they had lit in the hearth on their wedding day.
• Six months later, furious, he went to Zack Edmonds to demand his wife back.
• Later that day, his wife seemed to be home. She left him a pan of biscuit and milk on the fence.
• But Lucas was still really upset and decided to kill Zack Edmonds with a razor as a matter of manly pride.
• He went home to find that Molly had brought Zack Edmonds's son home with her.
• She said she'd take the baby back. He said Edmonds would have to come and ask for his baby.
• Early in the morning, he took a razor and headed over to the Edmonds house.
• He went into Zack Edmonds's room and stood over him until the man woke up.
• We can't do justice to Faulkner's amazing play-by-play breakdown of the action here, so be sure to check it out (2.2.28-47).
• But we'll give you a quick recap: Zack pulls out a pistol, Lucas grabs it out of his hand, turns the cylinder until he knows there will be a bullet no matter which direction the cylinder turns, holds it to Zack's side and pulls the trigger while pushing Zack out of the way. The gun misfires.
• Lucas went home, contemplating what just happened. We guess Zack did some contemplating of his own.
• Lucas knew he'd have been lynched for sure, but was ready to risk it for honor's sake.
• At home, his wife got ready to leave for Zack Edmonds's house for the day with the two children. They talked for a second, and he let her go.
• End of recollection.

Section 3

• So back to the present day story. Still remember it? Lucas is off to tell Zack's now grown son Roth about George Wilkins's still.
• Lucas tells Roth about it, and Roth telephones the sheriff, and doesn't miss this opportunity to tell Lucas to go plant his field. Just to show he's the boss.
• Lucas goes home, exhausted. He suddenly remembers that he forgot to tell Roth about his decision to quit farming.
• He thinks maybe it's just as well. The guy kind of liked to farm and would miss it.
• He notices his daughter's gone, but he just goes to sleep. It's 11pm, Lucas. Do you know where your children are?
• Right at dawn, his wife wakes him up screaming.
• She runs outside and shows him George Wilkins's still and a huge amount of whiskey in various bottles sitting right there in their backyard.
• Lucas yells at her to get the axe, but before they can do anything, the sheriff and a deputy show up.
• Two hours later, Lucas, Wilkins and Edmonds are all at the federal courthouse in Jefferson, trying to sort out what happened.
• In the courthouse, it becomes apparent that Nat and George told the cops that the still belonged to Lucas.
• When the whole situation's revealed, though, they don't sound evil, just clever.
• All they want is to get married. If Lucas doesn't let them get married, George won't be Lucas's kin, so he can testify against Lucas and his moonshine business.
• If Lucas lets them get married, then George cannot testify against Lucas, and Lucas will be saved. See? Brilliant.
• They all get into Edmonds's car and go home.
• Lucas brings up the idea of marriage, but Edmonds cuts him off saying the court wouldn't let them get a marriage license this late in the game.
• Lucas goes off to plant his field. At night, he comes home and pulls George Wilkins aside.
• He asks Wilkins what on earth he was thinking when he dumped his still behind Lucas's house.
• George confesses that he and Nat did what they did to get Lucas to let them marry.
• After some tears shed by Nat, Lucas decides he'll let them get married.
• Nat jumps at the opportunity to get a few more things out of her dad: a cook-stove and a new back porch for their house.
• Three weeks later, the big day comes.
• They go to the courthouse, and both Lucas and Roth are shocked to discover that George and Nat have been married since November of the previous year. Kids these days…
• They cross the courthouse to see the judge about the case of the whiskey still.
• The judge looks at their papers and realizes there's nothing to be done: these people are all kin, and therefore can't testify against one another.
• The judge asks for the whiskey to be poured out and the still to be demolished.
• Case closed.

Section 4

• A week passes, George is never around, never working. Lucas starts to get impatient with him.
• Nat comes home to cry to her mother and father about George and how he hasn't started fixing anything at home with the money her father gave them.
• Nat tells them that George spent it all.
• Lucas walks to George's house and asks George where "it" is. "It" turns out to be a new still.
• George says he hid it where the first one used to be; he spent all the house repair money on it.
• George asks Lucas what he should tell Nat about the money, and Lucas says he won't give no man advice about his wife.
• The two of them seem to have come to an understanding.

PART TWO

Section 1

• Lucas and a salesman are walking to the commissary. Lucas tells the man to wait outside.
• Lucas has tried to convince Roth Edmonds to give him $300 to buy a metal detector from this salesman so he can look for the buried treasure on the plantation.
• Three guesses if Roth agreed to give him the money. Correct.
• The salesman's angry with Lucas because he had to come all the way from Memphis and got the machine sent down from Saint Louis without any down payment and is now having to wait to get his money.
• Lucas tries to buy time by saying he'll get the money that night, but meanwhile, they should look for the treasure and split it if they find it.
• George, as it turns out, is lurking outside the commissary, listening in.
• He chimes in: he says two white men dug up twenty-two grand three years ago, maybe more.
• Lucas quickly hushes him (he might be really hushing him, or he might be pretending to be hushing him).
• Lucas might be trying to trick the salesman into wanting to search for the treasure.
• When they get in the car, Lucas says he'll swap the salesman a mule for the machine, and when they find the money that night, he'll buy the mule back for $300.
• The man asks him if the mule is actually Lucas's. Lucas says yes, and the man agrees to the deal.

Section 2

• That evening, Roth Edmonds discovers his mule is missing.
• Edmonds gets his flashlight and pistol, gets on a mare, and takes Dan and Oscar with him.
• They follow the tracks of the mule. There are a man's footprints next to those of the mule.
• Dan and Oscar know who they belong to, but won't tell Edmonds, who's beyond furious.
• Two hours later, they're at the creek and see a light ahead of them.
• Edmonds and Dan go to the light.
• Dan tells Edmonds that Lucas has been digging around the Indian mound since last spring when he found one gold piece.
• Edmonds really loses it at this point.
• He confronts Lucas, George and the salesman.
• He tells Lucas that if the mule isn't in her stall by sunup, he'll call the sheriff.
• The salesman says to Lucas if he moves the mule from her current place, he'll call the sheriff.
• Edmonds says that Lucas and the salesman can settle that issue and leaves.
• By daybreak, they still haven't found the treasure. Lucas and the salesman start to argue.
• Lucas asks him for another night and the salesman responds that another night will cost him $25.
• Lucas decides to send George into town to withdraw $50 in silver dollars.
• You can see where this is going.
• By dusk, the salesman's back. Lucas says that this time, they're going to search for the money elsewhere.
• He says that he read the papers more carefully this time, and it turns out that he was mistaken the first time around. The treasure is divided and buried in two separate spots. Mm-hmm.
• They go to the new location, an orchard, and start searching.
• The machine goes crazy. They dig up a rusted can filled with silver dollars.
• Silver dollars? What a surprise.
• The salesman asks where the rest of the money's supposed to be, but Lucas says he's done for the night and wants to go home.
• The two men immediately start to bargain.
• The salesman says he'll give Lucas 10% of everything they find, but Lucas asks for 50%, the mule, and piece of paper saying the machine is his.
• The man asks how much people supposedly found there before, and Lucas says about $22,000. The man seems convinced.
• He goes back to his car and gives Lucas the bill of sale for the machine.
• Lucas then asks for half of the $50, as well, but the man laughs and just goes back to the orchard to keep searching for the rest of the money.
• Lucas tells George to take the mule back to Roth Edwards.
• Lucas is a smart, smart man.

Section 3

• Lucas goes into the commissary. Apparently, Roth asked Lucas to come see him two days ago, but Lucas had to rest for two days and couldn't come.
• It turns out that the salesman's still in the orchard, digging for the money. It's been quite a few days since they found the silver dollars.
• The man's been renting the machine from Lucas at a rate of $25 a day.
• Lucas says the man will never find the treasure because it's actually buried somewhere else.
• Upon hearing this, Edmonds lectures Lucas about his lack of morals, tells him to leave his house and never come back again.

PART THREE

Section 1

• Molly goes to see Edmonds. She's shrunk so much with age that Edmonds doesn't recognize her at first.
• He thinks of how he used to visit her with her favorite candy once a month and talk to her. She's the only mother he's ever known.
• They start to talk:
• Molly wants a divorce because Lucas has become obsessed with the buried money.
• Edmonds tries to talk her out of it. Where would she go? How would she live?
• He says Lucas will have to stop anyway when the cotton crop comes in.
• Molly's worried that he'll actually find the money and this would be sinful because you shouldn't take anything from God's earth.
• Edmonds says he could have told her how to solve the problem if she was younger.
• She could take the metal detector herself and stay out every night looking for the coins.
• That would show Lucas how foolish the whole thing is. But she's too old for the heavy machine.
• Molly still wants a divorce, and goes home.
• Edmonds thinks about how Lucas is related to old Carothers McCaslin through the male line and is only two generations away from the man, whereas Edmonds himself is descended from the female line and five generations away.
• Here, the narrator starts to give the family background of the McCaslins, from Roth's perspective. This is what we learn:
• There used to be three Beauchamp siblings: James, Fonsiba and Lucas, children of Tomey's Turl and Tennie Beauchamp.
• Fonsiba married and left for Arkansas.
• James ran away and crossed the Ohio River before he came of age. His white kin never heard of him again.
• Lucas remained. He didn't have to; he had plenty of money to leave.
• Old Carothers bequeathed money to his son Turl, to be given to him when he became of age.
• After Theophilus and Amodeus (Buck and Buddy) died, McCaslin Edmonds got the land because Buck's son Isaac relinquished it.
• Tomey's Turl never asked for his legacy. He died.
• Isaac found Fonsiba and gave her one third of the legacy.
• When Lucas turned twenty-one, he went to see Isaac and asked him for his and James's share of their grandfathers' inheritance.
• With that money, Lucas could have left, but he didn't leave. He stayed and married Molly, a town woman.
• McCaslin Edmonds died, his son married, and Roth Edmonds was born.
• Roth was raised by Lucas's wife, Molly, and Molly's house became a second home for Roth.
• Roth was used to sleeping with his foster-brother Henry, Molly and Lucas's son.
• One day, the "old curse of his fathers" came upon him. He and Henry were seven years old.
• At night, Molly sent them to bed as usual, but Roth declared that he was going home.
• Henry followed him, as he'd usually have done. Roth walked so fast that Henry could barely keep up with him.
• At home, Roth waited until Henry lay down on the pallet on the floor, where they'd usually sleep together. Roth then moved to the bed instead.
• Henry asked him if he was going to sleep up there, and Roth said yes.
• Henry tried to join him there, but Roth said no.
• The next morning, Henry was gone. Roth didn't go to Henry's house for a month.
• A month later, he felt remorseful and went to Molly's house. He told Molly that he'd eat supper with them that night.
• Molly cooked him chicken and served it to him. Neither Lucas nor Henry would eat with him.
• The narrator says, "So he entered his heritage. He ate its bitter fruit."
• When Roth realized that Lucas wouldn't call his father "Mister Zack" like the rest of the black men, but instead "Mr. Edmonds," he decided to question his father about it.
• His father said that they grew up together, like Roth and Henry and that's the reason.
• Roth sensed that something happened between his father and Lucas that Roth didn't know about.
• When he was older, he concluded that the "something" must have been about a woman, and a black woman, in fact.
• When Zack Edmonds died, Roth inherited the farm.
• Roth now sends Isaac money each month as his father and grandfather had done.
• Lucas continues to farm the land in the same fashion old Carothers must have done, refusing to use any new technologies.
• Edmonds thinks that now, after all this, Lucas is trying to break up his home.
• He reflects on how Lucas's face is a perfect composite of all the Confederate soldiers who fought in the Civil War, and all of the descendants of that land. He's seeing his "white blood."
• Roth probably knows that Lucas feels that plantation should have been his, as a descendant from the male McCaslin line.

Section 2

• At night, Edmonds goes over to Lucas's house to have a talk.
• Lucas says that he wants a divorce, too, and asks what it's going to cost him.
• They start to argue about his buried treasure obsession.
• Lucas thinks it's none of Roth's business but says he'll have to harvest cotton soon and will be treasure hunting only two nights a week.
• Molly says it's too late and she wants a divorce.
• Edmonds tells Lucas that his father lay down in peace, and Lucas should think about wanting the same thing for himself and not breaking up his family.
• This gets Lucas—he says he'll give the machine to George.
• Molly says that would be the worst outcome of all.
• Edmonds says to Lucas that he's not getting a divorce. He orders him to bring the machine to him.
• Lucas doesn't come the next day with the machine.
• Oscar arrives with his Sunday clothes and says Aunt Molly's been missing since yesterday.
• Edmonds and Oscar go out to join Lucas, George, Nat and Dan to search for Molly.
• By noon, they find her somewhere near the creek, lying face down in the mud, holding onto the heavy metal detector.
• She's not dead, thankfully, and they rush her back home.
• The day of the divorce comes, after the cotton's all been harvested and the frost has fallen.
• Edmonds, Lucas and Molly go to the courthouse. Edmonds tells Lucas to wait outside.
• Edmonds takes Molly with him to the Chancellor. She can barely stand up on her own.
• The Chancellor asks a few questions to Edmonds. He's about to about to approve Molly's divorce request when Lucas pushes everyone out of the way and comes up to the Chancellor. The clerk yells at Lucas, calls him a "n*****," and tells him to take his hat off.
• Lucas takes off his hat and says to the Chancellor that he changed his mind, they don't want a divorce, and that Edmonds knows what he means.
• Edmonds doesn't, but he plays along.
• The Chancellor asks Edmonds if they indeed want to withdraw the bill. Edmonds says yes.
• They leave the office. Molly can barely walk.
• Lucas tells them to wait, and then goes across the town square to get Molly's favorite candy.

Section 3

• That night, Edmonds is eating supper by himself. Lucas drops by to talk to him.
• Lucas has brought the machine with him and tells Edmonds to get rid of it.
• Edmonds says he'll put it in the attic and that Lucas can use it again next spring when Aunt Molly's forgotten about the whole thing.
• But Lucas says that he never wants to see it again, and that Edmonds should sell it if he can.
• He says that the Book says man has three score and ten years on this earth; if he asks for what he wants he'll get what's due him if he starts soon enough.
• But, he says, he just waited too long to start.
• He still believes that the money's there, but it's not for him to find.