"The Partridge Festival" Summary

Calhoun, twenty-three-years-old, arrives to visit his two great-aunts and finds them seated on the front porch of their unpainted house, looking out over terraces crowded with red and white azaleas. Aunt Bessie calls him their baby and Aunt Mattie, who is deaf, shouts her delight at his interest in the Partridge Festival, particularly since his great-grandfather had started the custom. A Kangaroo court is held to accuse a man named Singleton of not buying an Azalea Festival Badge.

For punishment, he is locked in an outdoor privy as a joke and ten days later, he storms into the courthouse with a gun and shoots six people, missing the mayor. The great-aunts talk about the incident and Calhoun is shown the miniature of his great-grandfather as usual, and gives it a preemptory glance. He almost discloses he is...