The Hamlet

Ike Snopes, a cousin of Flem’s who has an intellectual disability, is looked after by Mrs. Littlejohn. He becomes fascinated by Houston’s cow. He sneaks into Houston’s field, hoping to ride and befriend the cow. Ike is driven off by Houston and begins to just lie in the grass listening to the cow. One early morning he sees fire in the field near the cow, and he sneaks past Mrs. Littlejohn rescue her, getting attacked by Houston’s horse in the process. Ike travels with the cow briefly, proclaiming his love for her, but Houston finds them. He sends the cow home and ineffectually tries to dissuade Ike from his pursuit of the cow, eventually getting him to go home as well.

Ike delays going home, looking for a coin under a bridge. When he reaches the field the cow is in, he decides to go into Houston’s stable to bridle and saddle the cow. Houston is away at the Varners’ store. Ike and the cow are five miles away by the time he returns. The cow, uncomfortable, keeps trying to return to her barn but Ike urges her onward. Finding another barn that night, Ike steals food for the cow. He shares the feed with her and then finds a stream for them to drink from. The next, day they continue the journey. It begins to rain that afternoon, and Ike and the cow lie down together.

Houston, a widower without children, has been putting off milking the cow, a task that his Black farmhand usually handles. When he finally gets home, he is slightly drunk, but he realizes that the cow is missing. Seeing Ike’s footprints, he realizes what has happened and is angered. Houston rides off on his horse to follow Ike’s trail, stopping to water his horse at Mrs. Littlejohn’s house. He promises to send Ike home.

Meanwhile, the owner of the barn that Ike stole the feed from has discovered the theft and is enraged. Screaming at his family, he begins to relentlessly follow Ike and the cow’s trail. Even when it seems impossible, he is determined, driven on by his anger. Both he and Houston have underestimated the driving force of Ike’s passion for the cow. Eventually however, he finds Ike and the cow. At that point his rage has died down. Houston comes and leads the cow and Ike back home, where he tells Mrs. Littlejohn she can keep the cow as long as he never has to see it again. She insists upon paying him with the money that Ike has inherited from his grandmother.

As Houston makes his way home, he sees Ratliff at the peep show run by Lump Snopes. Ratliff confesses that he is cursing them all for allowing it. He leaves and comes upon Mrs. Littlejohn, telling her that he can’t understand what Lump is up to—as he isn’t charging admission. He confesses that he might just want to feel more righteous than the Snopeses so that he can sleep at night. Ratliff decides to tell the other Snopeses about the peep show, hoping that they can stop it by making them concerned about how this will affect their prospects in town, possibly keeping them from getting jobs they felt assured of. Ratliff also tells the Snopes family members to do something about Ike’s relationship with the cow.

That afternoon, Ratliff walks in on the Snopes family meeting at the Varners’ store. The preacher Brother Whitfield is there, and they are determined to get the cow away from Ike. Whitfield believes they can do this by buying the cow and then killing it. I.O., Eck, and Mink Snopes are frustrated at having to pay for a cow they plan to kill. Still, they commit to the plan to protect their reputations.

Houston’s backstory is told, focusing on his relationship with his late wife, Lucy. They knew each other their whole lives but were married for only six months before she died. Houston then mourned her in black for four years. They had attended the same school, though Houston only started school at 14. Craving freedom, he resented the structured nature of the school room and how behind he was in his lessons. Lucy was the one to try to push him through school, and he fell in love with her immediately. Still, he resented school and failed the first year. Exiled from school, he believed he had escaped her and the loss of freedom that came with his love for her, but she failed her examinations on purpose to keep him in her life.

Houston tried to fail the next year as well by turning in every assignment and test blank, but Lucy somehow got a hold of them and filled them out for him. At the end of the year, Houston had departed the community to escape his feelings for her. He spent the next 12 years travelling the southwest, taking on different jobs and even living with a former prostitute for seven years. Houston’s father died and left him his farm, and three years later Houston returned to Mississippi. He spent another year hiding in his father’s house, barely interacting with anyone, before he finally married Lucy. He bought a stallion and borrowed money from Will Varner to build a house closer to the road. They moved in, and six months later Lucy was killed by Houston’s stallion. Houston then killed the stallion in revenge and spent the next four years mourning her. In the present, Houston is shot and killed while riding on his horse.

Mink Snopes is the one who has shot and killed Houston, angry over the loss of his horse. He quickly hides Houston’s body and rushes home before dark. His wife, seeing him with the shotgun, says that she is going to leave him as she promised she would if he left the house with the gun. Mink slaps her, and she takes the children and leaves. While cleaning his gun, Mink hears Houston’s hound begin to howl with grief. Going out into the dark, Mink follows the hound’s noises till he finds the dog near Houston’s body. Mink then hides Houston’s body better, putting it into the base of an old oak tree. Mink spends the next few days living in a haze, waking up at night and sleeping during the day. Eventually Lump sends for him, but he does not move. Instead he goes out and shoots Houston’s hound, then throws his gun away.

Mink feels the second killing has restored some sense of order to him. He reads a note from Lump saying Mink’s wife left some money at the store for him. When he arrives at the store, Lump tells him he should have left town days before and that the sheriff is looking for him, having found the gun. Lump says he directed suspicion away from Mink by framing a Black farmhand for having lost the gun. Lump plans to go and frighten the Black farmhand by threatening a lynching, which he believes will lead the sheriff to arrest him for the murder, clearing Mink’s name. Mink says he didn’t run, because he has no money, shocking Lump, as he knows Houston carried $50 on him always. Mink goes to see his wife, who is staying at the Varners’ house. He thinks of when he first met her in a lumber camp, where she was the owner’s daughter. He was frustrated by her having sex with other men, but they still married.

At the Varners’, Mink’s wife runs to him, cursing that he didn’t leave town the night she left him. She gives him some money, which she has acquired from Will Varner in exchange for sex. Accompanied by a cousin, Mink goes back to Houston’s body to retrieve the $50 he had on him. On his way, he feels he has lost all hope. He and his cousin play a game of checkers, betting with the as yet unretrieved $50. They argue over who will get the money. Mink knocks his cousin out to go retrieve the money for himself. Panicking, he struggles to find the oak where he hid Houston’s body. Before he can find it, his cousin regains consciousness and finds him. They find the oak, but Houston’s dog, having survived the gunshot, attacks. Mink fights it off with an axe. The sheriff shows up with a deputy, and Mink is arrested and brought to the jail in Jefferson to await trial and likely execution.

Mink Snopes remains in jail, receiving daily visits from his wife and children, who have been staying with Ratliff and his sister. Eventually Mink’s wife finds a job in a boarding house, but Ratliff allows her and the children to continue to stay. He helps her save up her money, and they and Mink wait for Flem to return as winter sets in. Eventually Eula and her baby, a girl, return to town but without Flem. Though Mink hopes for Flem to save him, Ratliff is sure that Flem will stay away from town until after Mink is hanged. Ratliff visits the blacksmith, Eck Snopes, and it is confirmed that they bought and killed Ike’s cow. Eck bought Ike a toy cow to take its place.