Denver heard mumbling and looked to the left. She stood when she saw them. They grouped,murmuring and whispering, but did not step foot in the yard. Denver waved. A few waved backbut came no closer. Denver sat back down wondering what was going on. A woman dropped to herknees. Half of the others did likewise. Denver saw lowered heads, but could not hear the leadprayer — only the earnest syllables of agreement that backed it: Yes, yes, yes, oh yes. Hear me.

　　Hear me. Do it, Maker, do it. Yes. Among those not on their knees, who stood holding 124 in afixed glare, was Ella, trying to see through the walls, behind the door, to what was really in there.

　　Was it true the dead daughter come back? Or a pretend? Was it whipping Sethe? Ella had beenbeaten every way but down. She remembered the bottom teeth she had lost to the brake and thescars from the bell were thick as rope around her waist. She had delivered, but would not nurse, ahairy white thing, fathered by "the lowest yet." It lived five days never making a sound. The ideaof that pup coming back to whip her too set her jaw working, and then Ella hollered.

　　Instantly the kneelers and the standers joined her. They stopped praying and took a step back to the beginning. In the beginning there were no words. In the beginning was the sound, and they allknew what that sound sounded like.

　　Edward Bodwin drove a cart down Bluestone Road. It displeased him a bit because he preferredhis figure astride Princess. Curved over his own hands, holding the reins made him look the age hewas. But he had promised his sister a detour to pick up a new girl. He didn't have to think about theway — he was headed for the house he was born in. Perhaps it was his destination that turned histhoughts to time — the way it dripped or ran. He had not seen the house for thirty years. Not thebutternut in front, the stream at the rear nor the block house in between. Not even the meadowacross the road. Very few of the interior details did he remember because he was three years oldwhen his family moved into town. But he did remember that the cooking was done behind thehouse, the well was forbidden to play near, and that women died there: his mother, grandmother,an aunt and an older sister before he was born. The men (his father and grandfather) moved withhimself and his baby sister to Court Street sixty-seven years ago. The land, of course, eighty acresof it on both sides of Bluestone, was the central thing, but he felt something sweeter and deeperabout the house which is why he rented it for a little something if he could get it, but it didn'ttrouble him to get no rent at all since the tenants at least kept it from the disrepair totalabandonment would permit.

　　There was a time when he buried things there. Precious things he wanted to protect. As a childevery item he owned was available and accountable to his family. Privacy was an adult indulgence,but when he got to be one, he seemed not to need it.

　　The horse trotted along and Edward Bodwin cooled his beautiful mustache with his breath. It wasgenerally agreed upon by the women in the Society that, except for his hands, it was the mostattractive feature he had. Dark, velvety, its beauty was enhanced by his strong clean-shaven chin.

　　But his hair was white, like his sister's — and had been since he was a young man. It made him themost visible and memorable person at every gathering, and cartoonists had fastened onto thetheatricality of his white hair and big black mustache whenever they depicted local politicalantagonism. Twenty years ago when the Society was at its height in opposing slavery, it was asthough his coloring was itself the heart of the matter. The "bleached nigger" was what his enemiescalled him, and on a trip to Arkansas, some Mississippi rivermen, enraged by the Negro boatmenthey competed with, had caught him and shoe-blackened his face and his hair. Those heady dayswere gone now; what remained was the sludge of ill will; dashed hopes and difficulties beyondrepair. A tranquil Republic?

　　Well, not in his lifetime.

　　Even the weather was getting to be too much for him. He was either too hot or freezing, and thisday was a blister. He pressed his hat down to keep the sun from his neck, where heatstroke was areal possibility. Such thoughts of mortality were not new to him (he was over seventy now), butthey still had the power to annoy. As he drew closer to the old homestead, the place that continuedto surface in his dreams, he was even more aware of the way time moved. Measured by the warshe had live............