The nephew, the one who had nursed her while his brother held her down, didn't know he wasshaking. His uncle had warned him against that kind of confusion, but the warning didn't seem tobe taking. What she go and do that for? On account of a beating? Hell, he'd been beat a milliontimes and he was white. Once it hurt so bad and made him so mad he'd smashed the well bucket.
Another time he took it out on Samson — a few tossed rocks was all. But no beating ever madehim... I mean no way he could have... What she go and do that for? And that is what he asked thesheriff, who was standing there, amazed like the rest of them, but not shaking. He was swallowinghard, over and over again. "What she want to go and do that for?"The sheriff turned, then said to the other three, "You all better go on. Look like your business isover. Mine's started now." Schoolteacher beat his hat against his thigh and spit before leaving thewoodshed. Nephew and the catcher backed out with him. They didn't look at the woman in thepepper plants with the flower in her hat. And they didn't look at the seven or so faces that hadedged closer in spite of the catcher's rifle warning. Enough nigger eyes for now. Little nigger-boyeyes open in sawdust; little nigger-girl eyes staring between the wet fingers that held her face soher head wouldn't fall off; little nigger-baby eyes crinkling up to cry in the arms of the old niggerwhose own eyes were nothing but slivers looking down at his feet. But the worst ones were thoseof the nigger woman who looked like she didn't have any. Since the whites in them haddisappeared and since they were as black as her skin, she looked blind.
They unhitched from schoolteacher's horse the borrowed mule that was to carry the fugitivewoman back to where she belonged, and tied it to the fence. Then, with the sun straight up overtheir heads, they trotted off, leaving the sheriff behind among the damnedest bunch of coons they'dever seen. All testimony to the results of a little so-called freedom imposed on people who neededevery care and guidance in the world to keep them from the cannibal life they preferred.
The sheriff wanted to back out too. To stand in the sunlight outside of that place meant for housingwood, coal, kerosene — fuel for cold Ohio winters, which he thought of now, while resisting theurge to run into the August sunlight. Not because he was afraid. Not at all. He was just cold. Andhe didn't want to touch anything. The baby in the old man's arms was crying, and the woman's eyeswith no whites were gazing straight ahead. They all might have remained that way, frozen tillThursday, except one of the boys on the floor sighed. As if he were sunk in the pleasure of a deepsweet sleep, he sighed the sigh that flung the sheriff into action.
"I'll have to take you in. No trouble now. You've done enough to last you. Come on now."She did not move.
"You come quiet, hear, and I won't have to tie you up." She stayed still and he had made up hismind to go near her and some kind of way bind her wet red hands when a shadow behind him inthe doorway made him turn. The nigger with the flower in her hat entered.
Baby Suggs noticed who breathed and who did not and went straight to the boys lying in the dirt.
The old man moved to the woman gazing and said, "Sethe. You take my armload and gimme yours."She turned to him, and glancing at the baby he was holding, made a low sound in her throat asthough she'd made a mistake, left the salt out of the bread or something.
"I'm going out here and send for a wagon," the sheriff said and got into the sunlight at last.
But neither Stamp Paid nor Baby Suggs could make her put her crawling-already? girl down. Outof the shed, back in the house, she held on. Baby Suggs had got the boys inside and was bathingtheir heads, rubbing their hands, lifting their lids, whispering, "Beg your pardon, I beg yourpardon," the whole time. She bound their wounds and made them breathe camphor before turningher attention to Sethe. She took the crying baby from Stamp Paid and carried it on her shoulder fora full two minutes, then stood in front of its mother. "It's time to nurse your youngest," she said.
Sethe reached up for the baby without letting the dead one go. Baby Suggs shook her head. "One ata time," she said and traded the living for the dead, which she carried into the keeping room. Whenshe came back, Sethe was aiming a bloody nipple into the baby's mouth. Baby Suggs slammed herfist on the table and shouted, "Clean up! Clean yourself up!"They fought then. Like rivals over the heart of the loved, they fought. Each struggling for thenursing child. Baby Suggs lost when she slipped in a red puddle and fell. So Denver took hermother's milk right along with the blood of her sister. And that's the way they were when thesheriff returned, having commandeered a neighbor's cart, and ordered Stamp to drive it.
Outside a throng, now, of black faces stopped murmuring. Holding the living child, Sethe walkedpast them in their silence and hers. She climbed into the cart, her profile knife-clean against acheery blue sky. A profile that shocked them with its clarity. Was her head a bit too high? Herback a little too straight? Probably. Otherwise the singing would have begun at once, the momentshe appeared in the doorway of the house on Bluestone Road. Some cape of sound would havequickly been wrapped around her, like arms to hold and steady her on the way. As it was, theywaited till the cart turned about, headed west to town. And then no words. Humming. No words atall.
Baby Suggs meant to run, skip down the porch steps after the cart, screaming, No. No. Don't lether take that last one too. She meant to. Had started to, but when she got up from the floor andreached the yard the cart was gone and a wagon was rolling up. A red-haired boy and a yellow-haired girl jumped down and ran through the crowd towa............