Deeper and more painful than his belated concern for Denver or Sethe, scorching his soul like asilver dollar in a fool's pocket, was the memory of Baby Suggs — the mountain to his sky. It wasthe memory of her and the honor that was her due that made him walk straight-necked into theyard of 124, although he heard its voices from the road.

　　He had stepped foot in this house only once after the Misery (which is what he called Sethe's roughresponse to the Fugitive Bill) and that was to carry Baby Suggs, holy, out of it. When he pickedher up in his arms, she looked to him like a gift, and he took the pleasure she would have knowingshe didn't have to grind her hipbone anymore — that at last somebody carried bar. Had she waitedjust a little she would have seen the end of the War, its short, flashy results. They could havecelebrated together; gone to hear the great sermons preached on the occasion. As it was, he wentalone from house to joyous house drinking what was offered. But she hadn't waited and heattended her funeral more put out with her than bereaved. Sethe and her daughter were dry-eyed onthat occasion. Sethe had no instructions except "Take her to the Clearing," which he tried to do,but was prevented by some rule the whites had invented about where the dead should rest. BabySuggs went down next to the baby with its throat cut — a neighborliness that Stamp wasn't surehad Baby Suggs' approval.

　　The setting-up was held in the yard because nobody besides himself would enter 124 — an injurySethe answered with another by refusing to attend the service Reverend Pike presided over. Shewent instead to the gravesite, whose silence she competed with as she stood there not joining in thehymns the others sang with all their hearts. That insult spawned another by the mourners: back inthe yard of 124, they ate the food they brought and did not touch Sethe's, who did not touch theirsand forbade Denver to. So Baby Suggs, holy, having devoted her freed life to harmony, was buriedamid a regular dance of pride, fear, condemnation and spite. Just about everybody in town waslonging for Sethe to come on difficult times. Her outrageous claims, her self-sufficiency seemed todemand it, and Stamp Paid, who had not felt a trickle of meanness his whole adult life, wondered ifsome of the "pride goeth before a fall" expectations of the townsfolk had rubbed off on him anyhow — which would explain why he had not considered Sethe's feelings or Denver's needswhen he showed Paul D the clipping.

　　He hadn't the vaguest notion of what he would do or say ............