“The Fire and the Hearth†and “The Bear†are two longer stories in this collection of short stories. They, together, tell the composite history of the McCaslin family. It also tells about the descendents of Carothers McCaslin and the residents of the plantation he had established.
As the novel takes its course, the complete histories get revealed. Pieces of information keep appearing in successive stories to clarify, complete, and sometimes controvert the information given in the previous stories. However, each of the stories in the book has its own plot. They are independent of the other stories.