what's left. how you been girl, besides barefoot?
devil's confusion. he lets me look good long as i feel bad.
'bout eighteen years, i figure.
and i swear i been walking every one of them. mind if i join you?
no, uh, uh. can't baby feet. a whole more tramping they got to do yet.
well, long enough to see baby suggs, you. where is she?
aw no. when?
was it hard? i hope she didn't die hard.
that's some of what i came for. the rest is you.
the truth be known, i go anywhere these days. anywhere they let me sit down.
porch is fine. cool out here. sit with me.
so baby suggs is gone. somehow never thought death would find her.
we managed well enough without meeting it.
you know i would. but i don't know any more about what happened to halle now than i did then.
you must think he's still alive.
what did baby suggs think?
when she say halle went?
you had that baby, did you? damn, never thought you'd make it. running off pregnant.
all by yourself too.
then she helped herself, god bless her.
you don't sound too steady in the offer.
my house. i like the sound of that.
you got company?
good god! what kind of evil you got in there?
i thought you said she died soft as cream.
she didn't live?
the boys too?
well, probably best. if a negro boy got legs he ought to use them. sit down too long, somebody figure out a way to tie them up.  you by yourself then?
no man? and that's all right by you?
got that right.
good morning miss denver. it's a pleasure.
garner, baby. paul d. garner.
glad to get a look at you. last time i saw your mama, you were pushing out the front of her dress. she's a fine looking young lady, sethe. fine looking. got her daddy's sweet face.
knew him. knew him well.
if that's all right with you, that is?
we met. but sad, your mama said. not evil.
what then?
reminds me of that headless bride back behind sweet home. remember that sethe? used to roam them woods regular.
now, now, she got it right there, sethe.
don't go to no trouble on my account.
if he don't object to me i don't object to him.
leave her be, sethe. i'm a stranger to her.
what she talking about 'nobody speaks to you'?
leave off, sethe. it's hard for a young girl living in a haunted place. that can't be easy.
i'm a grown man with nothing new left to see or do and i'm telling you it' ain't easy. maybe you oughta move.
sethe!
you going to tell me it's all right with this child half out of her mind.
what tree, sethe?
what tree on your back? i don't see nothing growing on your back.
who told you that?
i don't follow.
we was talking about a tree, sethe.
the loft?
they used cowhide on you?
they beat you and you was pregnant?
aw lord, girl.
god damn it! hush up! leave this place alone! get the hell outta here!
you want to fight, come on! god damn it! she got enough without you! she got enough!
sure you don't want me to help clean up?
sethe. i was thinking of looking for work around here. what do you think?
hogs is fine.
i don't need much, sethe. eat, sleep, sing a little when it strikes me. i don't ask for more to. to live somewhere.
your girl denver. seems she's of a different mind.
dangerous to love anything that much, sethe. best thing is to love everything just a little bit. that way, when it breaks or runs off or gets taken, well maybe you'd have a little love left over for the next one.
that's the whole point. i'm not asking you to choose. just want to know if there's some space for me. want to know if it's more than "you can stay", "it's fine". more like, "i want you here paul".
how are they?
what about inside?
sethe, if i'm here with you, with denver, you can go anywhere you want. jump, if you want to, 'cause i'll catch you. go as far inside as you need - i'll hold your ankles. make sure you get back out. i'm not saying this because i need a place to stay. i told you, i'm a walking man, but i been heading in this direction for seven years. when i got here and sat out there on the porch, waiting for you, well, i knew it wasn't the place i was heading toward. it was you. we can make a life girl. a life.
leave it to me. see how it goes. no promises, if you don't want to make any. just see how it goes, all right?
you willing to leave it to me?
some?. well okay. some.
two pennies and an insult well spent in my opinion to see the spectacle of whitefolks making a spectacle of themselves.
mind if i take a sip?
those shoes look brand new.
beloved. you use a last name, beloved?
miss. miss, you want to lay down?
look at her feet? they're not walking feet. more like she rode from somewhere all the way here.
sounds like the croup.
could have the cholera.
you gonna just feed her, from now on?
but don't she have a home? some place to go?
she breathe like she can eat, she could blow this whole house down. and all those sweets.
but that's just it. she don't seem sick. something funny about her.
acts sick, sounds sick but she don't look sick. good skin, bright hands and strong as a bull.
that's what i mean. can't walk but i passed by baby sugg's room this morning and saw her lifting the rocker with one hand.
don't tell me. ask denver. she was right there.
what?
sethe.
any more beans?
well, as long as we're all asking questions, getting to know each other.  why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
you be surprised what you start remembering once you start talking.
ain't you got no brothers or sisters?
you been here five weeks, we still don't know nothing bout you.
what was you looking for when you came here?
somebody tell you about this place?
how'd you come? who brought you?
you had new shoes. if you walked so long why don't your shoes show it?
i want to know! where'd you get them shoes and that dress you had on?
i don't understand what the hold is. it's clear why she holds onto you, but i just can't see why you holding on to her.
we was just starting to feel a little like a family ourselves.
i can't place it. it's a feeling in me.
i know every bit of that, sethe. i wasn't born yesterday and i never mistreated a woman in my life!
one? not two.
what halle ever do to you? halle stood by you. he never left you.
i don't know but it wasn't you. that's a fact.
you don't know that.
he couldn't get out of the loft, i expect.
the one over your head.  the one in the barn.
you told me. the day i came here. you said they stole your milk. i never knew what messed halle up. that was it, i guess. i seen him the day after you left. says where you been halle? all he says to me was "the loft". i asked him what he meant not going with you but he never answers me. but i knew was something broke him. not one of them years of saturdays, sundays and nighttime extra never touched him. but whatever he saw go on in the barn that day broke him like a twig.
a man ain't a goddamn ax, sethe. chopping, hacking, busting every goddamn minute of the day. things get to him. things he can't chop down cause they inside him. the last time i saw him, i knew he was broken for good.
nothing.
i couldn't.
i tried to kill brandywine - man schoolteacher sold me to. don't know what possessed me. me and about 45 other prisoners were being walked from kentucky to virginia. then on to georgia. two places i don't ever want to see again.
i didn't mean to tell you that.
i can't take it back but i can leave it alone.
let's do that. let's leave it alone now.
sethe, don't do this.
guess she's feeling better, huh?
where else would i be on a sunday off?
why don't you come on in here?
i don't hear nobody.
what you gonna cook?
oh yeah.
yeah.
i'm right here baby.
we don't talk about that.
lots of places. i don't remember them all. don't remember much about anything.
well not me. what's gone is gone. no good come from bringing it back.
mmmm. what?.
damn. i'm sorry honey.
what do you want in here?
when good people take you in and treat you good, you ought to try to be good back. you don't. sethe loves you. much as her own daughter. you know that.
then what you come in here for?
ever since you come here - feel like i got a new devil to face.
ain't no chains on me no more. i don't have to do nothing. now, go back in that house and go to bed.
no. ain't no chains on me.
ain't no chains on me.
beloved.
look here sethe. you ain't gonna like what i got to say but i got to say it. see, it's not the. a man can't. what i mean is, it ain't really me. see, it ain't weakness, the kind of weakness i can fight, that girl is doing it. i know you think i never liked her nohow, still don't, but she is doing it to me anyway. fixing me, sethe, she's fixed me and i can't break it.
i took off early.
in a way of speaking.
no, no. they got plenty of work with them pigs. more they can handle. i just.  you ain't gonna like what i'm about to say, sethe.
i want you pregnant, sethe. would you do that for me?
think about it.
where i been? sitting down!?
then give'em to me.
i sure would like to give it a try. need a willing partner though.
ain't just a job reason to sing. other things a man's got to look forward to that a job just a way to spend your day til the good times arrive.
more than that. when a man can make plans then a man can make good times happen.
better then gold, my friend. me and my woman's planning on starting a family.
new life. born free, hear! now if that don't define a good tine, i don't know what does.
what you talkin? nobody owns us no more. nobody gonna own my children neither.
free country. no matter what anybody says.
you knew baby suggs?
yes sir. me and my brothers and her son.
sethe told me she died soft as cream.
why is that?
know what?
who is it?
sethe? nah, that ain't her mouth. i can see where you might think it around the eyes but that there ain't her mouth. besides, why would some black woman's picture be in the paper?
your love is too thick, sethe.
didn't work though, did it?
how? your boys gone, you don't know where. one girl dead, the other can't go farther than the yard. how did it work?
maybe there's worse.
what you did was wrong, sethe.
there could have been a way. some other way.
you got two feet, sethe. not four!
you can set aside supper for me.  might be late getting back.
you got any more newspaper in that pocket for me, just a waste of time. ain't interested.
if it's hard for you, might kill me dead.
for what?
well i. i did get offered one place but i just wanted to be off by myself a spell.
just me.
oh yeah. i got big plans.
you remember your price, stamp?
i did. down to the cent.$900. always wondered though what mrs. garner got for my brother paul f. must of been more than nine hundred dollars cause she use that money for sweet home for almost two years. but then they hung my other brother paul a. up on a tree so i guess he wasn't worth the same. i wonder what was baby suggs worth? and halle? i wasn't surprised when i found out they tracked down sethe all the way to cincinatti. her price must have been higher than all of us - her being property that reproduced itself without cost. a breeder.
oh but we got to. how we gonna know our price in the future? how are children's children's children gonna know what they cost? who's gonna tell them? what are they gonna pay for us, if we free?
they'll know. they'll know as soon as they born. cause it's inside us,stamp. it'll be inside them. we'll pass it down. schoolteacher didn't just change the outside, he changed the mind. and the blood. and what it carries. and what it's worth.
there was a rooster named mister down at sweet home. last time i saw halle, with that butter all over his face and me with an iron bit in my mouth, i saw mister - sitting on a tub. he loved that tub. like king on a throne. he was a hateful thing. bloody and evil. but he was better than me. mister was allowed to be and stay what he was. even if you cooked him you'd be cooking a rooster named mister. but wasn't no way i'd ever be paul d. again. schoolteacher changed me. was never no beating under mr. garner. schoolteacher changed that. why wouldn't a man run from that? why wouldn't a man not work, kill, starve, pull out his own heart to stop feeling 'stead of feeling that? and it strikes me, it's got to be cause we were something else. and that something was less than a chicken sitting in the sun on a tub.
i don't want to know.
what yard? when who-
jesus.
you don't know what i think.
leave off.
stamp, leave off i said! i knew her when she was a girl. she scares me and i knew her when she was a girl.
she scares me. i scare me. and that girl in her house scares me.
don't know. just shot up one day from a stump.
tell me something, stamp. tell me this one thing. how much is a nigger supposed to take?
why? why? why? why? why?
well, is it now? how you getting along?
you on your way home?
they treating you right over at the bodwins?
your mother all right?
you think i should stop by? think she'd welcome it?
that girl. you know, beloved.
she gone like they say?
you think she sure 'nough your sister?
well, if you want my opinion.
you grown.
well, good luck with the job.
i will.
sethe?
aw, sethe.
yeah. look bad?
devil's confusion. what's this i hear about you not getting out of bed? i saw denver. she tell you?
you got to get up from here, girl.
don't you die on me!! this is baby suggs quilt. is that what you planning!?
look - denver be here in the day. i be here in the night. i'm a take care of you, you hear? starting now.
what, baby?
aw, girl. don't cry. me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. we need some kind of tomorrow.
you your best thing, sethe. you are.