Character guide

Daisy

major

Also known as Miss Daisy, Daisy Giggling, Daisy Um-m, Daisy Gaily, Daisy Coyly, Daisy Sobbing, Daisy Sadly, Daisy Stiffly, Daisy Taylor, Daisy Frightened, Daisy Archly, Daisy Nervously

Daisy Taylor moves through Joe Clark's store and porch as the town's most watched young woman, keenly aware of how she looks in starched voile and how quickly gossip travels. She is caught between Jim Weston's sharp-tongued guitar-playing confidence and Dave Carter's soft, happy-go-lucky dancing, drawn to whichever man makes her feel most chosen. Her fickleness is not cruelty but appetite — for finery, for admiration, for a life less stingy than the one she has. That restless wanting sets the romantic machinery of the play in motion and keeps every porch-side debate about who she'll pick simmering.

Jim

major

Also known as Jim Oh, Jim Aw, Jim Gwan, Jim Rabbit, Jim Well, Jim Nobody, Jim Lawd, Jim Table dat, Jim Weston

Jim Weston is the kind of man who plays guitar on the store porch and expects the conversation to bend his way, slightly arrogant and always ready with a retort. His rivalry with Dave Carter over Daisy Taylor sharpens every gathering, since Jim cannot stomach losing to a Baptist dancer he considers soft and slow-witted. What makes him compelling is the gap between his swagger and his need — he craves Daisy's favor as proof of his standing. His tongue and his pride drive the comedic friction that structures the play's central contest.

Dave Carter

major

Also known as Dave, Dave Aw, David, Specially Dave Carter, no Dave, Dave Baby, Dave Daisy, Dave Gal, Dave Triumphant, Dave Whyncher

Dave Carter is the easy counterweight to Jim Weston's sharpness — a dancer who moves through Joe Clark's store and porch with a loose, agreeable warmth that the town finds disarming. He is slightly dumb and slow with words, unable to trade barbs the way Jim can, yet his gentleness and his dancing give him a hold on Daisy that wit alone cannot match. His aunt Katie Carter frets over him, and the Baptist–Methodist divide colors how the community judges his chances. Dave matters because his unassuming charm makes the love contest genuinely uncertain, not a foregone conclusion.

Lige

supporting

Also known as Lige Frank, Lige Aw, Lige Continuing, Lige Thass, Lige Mosely, Lige Man, Lige Heh

Lige Mosely belongs to the chorus of men who chew sugarcane, whittle, and trade stories on Joe Clark's porch, and he is one of its sharpest observers. He needles and embellishes — remembering the mule that turned through a grocery basket's handle with the boy still aboard, sizing up Teet and Bootsie as they pass in their voile dresses. His humor is affectionate but edged, and it keeps the community's social hierarchies visible. As a wag, he shapes how the town narrates itself, making him essential to the play's texture and its sense of communal voice.

Lum Boger

supporting

Also known as Lum, Lum Aw

Lum Boger is about twenty, tall and flat-footed, and the title of town marshal sits on him awkwardly — he is more eager to be seen than to enforce anything. He belongs to the porch crowd around Joe Clark's store, where status is measured in who gets listened to, and he clearly wants his share. His youth and his show-off streak make him both comic and a little poignant, a small-town official still figuring out what power he actually holds. He adds to the play's portrait of a community where everyone performs a role, however thin the script.

Walter Thomas

supporting

Also known as Walter, Walter Yeah, Walter Aw, Walter Hey, Walter Looka, Walter Teet, Walter Winking, Walter Dave

Walter Thomas is one of the two village wags who anchor the store-porch banter, trading barbs with Lige Mosely while the men chew cane and pass around a mule's hock-bone. He is the one who says the dead mule was so skinny you could do a week's washing on his ribs, and later the one who notes that Teet used to be fat as a butterball and is now too skinny. His humor is quick, a little cruel, and deeply social — it polices who is admired and who is mocked. He gives the play its comic rhythm and its sense of a community that talks about everyone.

Frank

supporting

Also known as Frank Aw, Frank Seriously

Frank belongs to the loose brotherhood of men who chew sugarcane, whittle, and argue away Saturday afternoons on the store porch, part of the chorus that makes Eatonville's gossip feel like weather. He has no single errand in the plot so much as a function: to react, to rankle, to keep the talk moving while Jim and Dave's rivalry gathers heat around him. His presence matters because the play's comedy lives in these communal ears and tongues, and Frank is one of the ears.

Will Cody

supporting

Also known as Cody, Cody Ai, Willie, Willie Aw, ole Cody

Will Cody sits among the men on Joe Clark's porch, one of the many voices that turn a Saturday afternoon into a running vaudeville of mule lore and neighborhood scandal. He is the kind of man who knows every hock-bone in Orange County by reputation if not by sight, and who measures a story by how well it can be topped. His easy mockery and long memory help establish the play's communal rhythm, the ground against which Jim and Dave's louder contest plays out.

Mrs. Roberts

supporting

Also known as Mrs. Roberts Mist ' Clark, Mrs. Roberts Calmer, Jake Roberts, Enter Mrs. Jake Roberts, Jake

Mrs. Roberts belongs to the town's married women, the ones who parade in starched dresses past the cane-chewing men and whose opinions carry weight in the social ledger of Eatonville. Her world is domestic and watchful; she registers who is courting whom, who is dressing above their station, and whose husband is not feeding his children. She matters to the early arc as part of the female counterweight to the men's porch theater, reminding the audience that the comedy has stakes in kitchens and marriages as much as in boasting.

Joe Clark

supporting

Also known as Mayor Joe Clark, Clark, Mayor, Mayor Clark, Mr. Clark, Clark Aw gwan

Joe Clark runs the general store and post office that serve as the town's stage, and his porch is where every rumor, trade, and tall tale gets its hearing. Arrogant, ignorant, and powerful in a self-assertive way, he is a large man who mistakes volume for authority and enjoys being the one who names the week's mule. His store is the play's social engine: whoever wants to be seen, heard, or hired must pass his steps, which makes his favor and his mockery a currency the younger men cannot ignore.

Mrs. Clark

supporting

Also known as Mrs. Clark De Mayor, Mrs. Clark Somebody, Mist ' Clark

As Joe Clark's wife, she occupies the peculiar position of being married to the store, the post office, and the mayor all at once, which makes her both privileged and perpetually put-upon. Her high-pitched voice and flabby dignity are comic, but they also signal a woman alert to rank and eager to defend it. She matters to the early social texture of the play, one of the wives whose standards and grudges shape how the town judges its young men and women.

Hambo

supporting

Also known as Hambo Boy, Boy, Hambo Aw, Hambo Thass, Hambo Poor Jake

Hambo is one of the deacons and old heads who anchor Joe Clark's porch, a man whose mild 'Well, did you git any partridges?' is the straight line that sets up Joe Lindsay's joke about feathers flying off the birds. He was there for the dragging-out of Brazzle's yellow mule and remembers it as a civic occasion, which tells you how he measures history. His calm, credulous presence gives the play's comedy a floor to stand on, the community's memory made patient and slightly amused.

Lindsay

supporting

Also known as Lindsay To Hambo, Joe Lindsay, Enter Joe Lindsay, Reenter Joe Lindsay, Deacon Lindsay, Lindsay Go

Lindsay moves through Joe Clark's store as a church deacon and neighbor, trading jokes about Brazzle's contrary old mule while nursing his own grievances about stinginess and an empty stomach. He is quick to laugh at another man's troubles but quicker to name his own hunger, and his tongue turns sharp when the sisters give him the cold shoulder. His running commentary on the mule-bone and the town's feuds keeps him woven into the daily talk that sets the play's comic and social weather.

Elder Simms

supporting

Also known as Enter Elder Simms, Simms, The Mrs. Rev. Simms, Rev. Simms, Simms This sho

Elder Simms arrives in town as the Methodist congregation's fresh hope, determined to make his mark against the long-settled Baptist influence and Mayor Clark's swagger. He believes a good argument from Genesis to Revelation can win any case, and he is already dreaming of a new mayor once the dust settles. His rivalry with Clark and his hunger for a public win push him to the center of the town's escalating church-and-court feud.

Sister Lucy Taylor

supporting

Also known as Sister Taylor, Lucy, Lucy Taylor, Mrs. Taylor, Taylor, Taylor Sighing

Sister Lucy Taylor holds court on Joe Clark's porch, trading barbs with Sister Thomas about Daisy's reputation and the men who coddle the Baptist side. She is fierce about church loyalty and quick to name hypocrisy, whether it's the mayor's belly or a girl's Saturday-night walk. Her running commentary on the trial and the town's morals makes her a barometer of the Methodist-Baptist split that drives the play's early conflicts.

Sister Thomas

supporting

Also known as Enter Sister Thomas, Sister Thomas Reverend, Sister Thomas Lord, Mrs. Thomas

Sister Thomas bustles between porch gossip and her supper greens, but her mind is on the trial and the Methodist-Baptist war behind it. She sees through Clark's talk of stolen hens and knocked heads, insisting his real target is Elder Simms and the Methodist claim on the town. Her plainspoken suspicions give voice to the congregation's resentment and keep the church rivalry at the front of the story.

Hen

minor

A minor character mentioned in the narrative.

Mattie Clark

minor

Also known as Mattie, Clark, Sister Mattie

A minor character, possibly related to the mayor.

Hawk

minor

Also known as Hawk Four, Chickee, Hawk Chickee, Hawk Chickie

A minor character with a nickname.

Old Man Matt Brazzle

minor

Also known as Matt, Old Man Yeah, Brazzle, Brazzle Dis mule, Brazzle Say, Matt Brazzle Sister Roberts

An older minor character in the community.

Bootsie

minor

Also known as Bootsie Mr. Cox, Bootsie Pitts

A minor character with limited appearances.

Tony Taylor

minor

Also known as Tony, Taylor

A minor character in the community.

Voice

minor

Also known as Voice Whispering, Voice Derisively, Another Voice Well

An offstage or anonymous voice in the play.

Teets

minor

Also known as Teet, Teet Flouncing

A minor character with a few lines.

Mrs. Blunt

minor

Also known as Enter Mrs. Blunt

A minor female character.

Jack

minor

A minor character mentioned briefly.

Matilda

minor

Also known as Little Matilda

A minor child character.

Sister Jones

minor

Also known as Jones Naw, Sister Jones Naw, Sister Jones Hello, Hoyt

A church sister with minor appearances.

Mary Ella

minor

A minor female character.

Ada Lewis

minor

Also known as Ada, Lewis

A minor character with few mentions.