The Hammon and the Beans (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Américo Parédes
- First Published: 1963
- Type of Plot: Social realism
- Time of Work: The 1920's
- Setting: Jonesville-on-the-Grande, a fictitious Texas town
- Principal Characters: The narrator, His father, His mother, Chonita, Dr. Zapata
- Genres: Social realism, Short fiction
- Subjects: North America or North Americans, United States or Americans, Revolutions, 1920’s, Poverty or poor people, West, U.S., Alcoholism or alcoholics, Substance abuse, American Revolution, Death or dying, Soldiers, Malaria, Texas, Fortresses
- Locales: Texas
The Story
The narrator recalls his boyhood during the 1920's, when he was growing up in Jonesville-on-the-Grande, a small town on the Texas side of the Rio Grande.
The boy lives a block away from Fort Jones in his grandfather's large frame house, where his mother complains about pigeons in the eaves bringing fleas. The town regulates its activities by the trumpet and cannon signals emanating from the fort, where soldiers have been stationed since border troubles ten or so years earlier.
In the evenings, children gather by the fence outside the fort to watch the...
[The entire page is 1351 words long]
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