Pantaloon in Black by William Faulkner - Summary

I

Rider is black and twenty-four. He is the head of a saw mill gang. He is at his wife, Mannie's, funeral, helping to fill the grave. He refuses an offer by a friend to fill it in his stead. When the grave is full he starts to go home. His aunt, who has raised him (he never knew his parents), suggests he come over to her home so he is not alone. Rider refuses.

It is hinted that it was not his wife's natural time to go yet. He crosses the woods into the lane, remembering his wife there. He goes to the house that he rents from Carothers Edmonds, the white landlord. He had fixed it up a lot, with his wife's help.

His sawmill gang, which he has been heading since the age of 15, has always been the most productive. He has always had money, even before he needed it, when he lived with his aunt. Six months before, he saw Mannie for the first time, gave up his minor gambling and drinking habits, and marries her. He bought the house. He would work five days a week, bring money home, and come home to ready dinner. Mannie would buy groceries and save the rest of the money.

The house seems empty to him. Without Mannie, none of it seems to belong to him. A dog comes, who had shown up for the first time yesterday. The presence of the dog helps Rider enter his house. The dog comes with him. Rider is filled with memories.  Suddenly the dog leaves goes to the front door. Mannie is there, but as Rider approaches she begins to fade. Rider asks her to let him go with her. He realizes how strong the will of man is to remain alive. Then she is gone.

In the dark he fills two plates up with food his aunt had brought yesterday. He calls Mannie to the table. He tries to stop breathing, perhaps in an attempt to see her again. He doesn't eat the food but sets a plate for the dog.

He starts running and the dog joins him. He reaches the mill. Only the fireman is there. The fireman offers him all of his food, which Rider wolfs down (it's the same as what he had at home but now he succeeds in eating it). The fireman encourages Rider to go home but he refuses. Other mill workers begin to arrive.

They begin working. As usual, he does not sing with the other workers. The other workers refrain from looking at him. At lunchtime his aunt's husband shows up with homemade food, and urges Rider to come home. He tries to comfort Rider but Rider gets angry at the mention of God and faith.

Rider returns to work, where he can stop inventing reasons to breathe. He lifts a supremely heavy log, and it seems as though it might fall and kill him. Everyone stops working to view the sight. But he manages the task. He leaves the mill, even as the white foreman calls for him.

At sundown he goes to a clearing in a river swamp to buy a jug of alcohol from a white man. The man, seeing Rider distraught, regrets the sale and tries to sell him a pint instead. Rider refuses to return the jug. As he walks he drinks and drinks. His aunt's husband finds him and urges him to come to his home. Rider runs from him and continues drinking, until he finds that he can no longer swallow. He stoppers the jug and goes to his aunt's house. He admits that the alcohol has not really helped him. She says that only god can help him.  Rider is angered and leaves. She refers to him by his childhood name, Spoot.

He reaches the mill just after midnight. The dog is gone, and Rider seems to remember having thrown the jug at it, but he still has the jug, and he reasons that he wouldn't have done such a mean thing. He is able to swallow again and he drinks. He goes to the tool shed, where a few mill workers, black and white, are gambling. He joins them.

Rider loses a lot of money. As the white watchman moves to roll a pair of dice, Rider seizes his hand. The watchman reaches for his pistol but before he does, Rider cuts him with a blade hung around his neck. (In a summary it says because Rider suspected him of cheating).

II

The focalizer changes to the deputy sheriff. Rider is found dead hanging from a Black schoolhouse. The sheriff tells his wife what transpired. His wife is not interested, and critical of the incompetence of the police.

The deputy in his story misinterprets Rider's post-funeral acts as celebratory rather than grief-related: the furious grave digging, showing up at work early, throwing the huge log and the drinking. He reveals that the white watchman, Birdsong, was "running crooked dice". He continues, telling how they expected him to have fled town, but instead he and Sheriff Maydew found him asleep in his back yard. He confesses but asks not to be locked up. They take him, and his aunt joins him in the police car. At the prison they turn Rider and his aunt over to Ketcham. Ketcham lock her in the cell with him, to please Birdsong's family who has a lot of political sway in the town.

Suddenly Ketcham hears yelling. He goes upstairs to the cell to investigate and sees that Rider has torn the iron cot out of the floor. As the deputy watches, Rider rips the cell door off its hinges, claiming that he wasn't trying to get away. Ketcham doesn't shoot him, because Birdsong's family deserves the "first lick at him". Ketcham beats a chain gang into overtaking Rider, which they do after much difficulty. Rider sits among the rubble of men and laughs and cries, saying "it looks like I just can't quit thinking".

William Faulkner