Chapter 48

    Something he said, maybe, or something he didn't say woke me. I sat up like somebody hit me, andyou woke up too and commenced to cry. I rocked you some, but there wasn't much room, so Istepped outside the door to walk you. Up and down I went. Up and down. Everything dark butlamplight in the top window of the house. She must've been up still. I couldn't get out of my headthe thing that woke me up: "While the boys is small." That's what he said and it snapped meawake. They tagged after me the whole day weeding, milking, getting firewood. For now. Fornow.

　　That's when we should have begun to plan. But we didn't. I don't know what we thought — butgetting away was a money thing to us. Buy out. Running was nowhere on our minds. All of us?

　　Some? Where to? How to go? It was Sixo who brought it up, finally, after Paul F. Mrs. Garner¹ soldhim, trying to keep things up. Already she lived two years off his price. But it ran out, I guess, soshe wrote schoolteacher to come take over. Four Sweet Home men and she still believed sheneeded her brother-in-law and two boys 'cause people said she shouldn't be alone out there withnothing but Negroes. So he came with a big hat and spectacles and a coach box full of paper.

　　Talking soft and watching hard. He beat Paul A. Not hard and not long, but it was the first timeanyone had, because Mr. Garner disallowed² it. Next time I saw him he had company in theprettiest trees you ever saw. Sixo started watching the sky. He was the only one who crept at nightand Halle said that's how he learned about the train.

　　"That way." Halle was pointing over the stable. "Where he took my ma'am. Sixo say freedom isthat way. A whole train is going and if we can get there, don't need to be no buyout.""Train? What's that?" I asked him.

　　They stopped talking in front of me then. Even Halle. But they whispered among themselves andSixo watched the sky. Not the high part, the low part where it touched the trees. You could tell hismind was gone from Sweet Home.

　　The plan was a good one, but when it came time, I was big with Denver. So we changed it a little.

　　A little. Just enough to butter Halle's face, so Paul D tells me, and make Sixo laugh at last. But Igot you out, baby. And the boys too. When the signal for the train come, you all was the only onesready. I couldn't find Halle or nobody. I didn't know Sixo was burned up and Paul D dressed in acollar you wouldn't believe. Not till later. So I sent you all to the wagon³ with the woman whowaited in the corn. Ha ha. No notebook for my babies and no measuring string neither. What I hadto get through later I got through because of you. Passed right by those boys hanging in the trees.

　　One had Paul A's shirt on but not his feet or his head. I walked right on by because only me hadyour milk, and God do what He would, I was going to get it to you. You remember that, don't you;that I did? That when I got here I had milk enough for all?

　　One more curve in the road, and Sethe could see her chimney; it wasn't lonely-looking anymore.

　　The ribbon of smoke was from a fire that warmed a body returned to her — just like it never wentaway, never needed a headstone. And the heart that beat inside it had not for a single momentstopped in her hands.

　　She opened the door, walked in and locked it tight behind her. The day Stamp Paid saw the twobacks through the window and then hurried down the steps, he believed the undecipherablelanguage clamoring around the house was the mumbling⁴ of the black and angry dead. Very fewhad died in bed, like Baby Suggs, and none that he knew of, including Baby, had lived a livablelife. Even the educated colored: the long-school people, the doctors, the teachers, the paper-writersand businessmen had a hard row to hoe. In addition to having to use their heads to get ahead, theyhad the weight of the whole race sitting there. You needed two heads for that. Whitepeoplebelieved that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle. Swift unnavigable waters,swinging screaming baboons⁶, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white blood. In a way, he thought, they were right. The more coloredpeople spent their strength trying to convincethem how gentle they were, how clever and loving, how human, the more they used themselves upto persuade whites of something Negroes believed could not be questioned, the deeper and moretangled the jungle grew inside. But it wasn't the jungle blacks brought with them to this place fromthe other (livable) place. It was the jungle whitefolks planted in them. And it grew. It spread. In,through and after life, it spread, until it invaded the whites who had made it. Touched them everyone. Changed and altered them. Made them bloody⁷, silly, worse than even they wanted to be, soscared were they of the jungle they had made. The screaming baboon⁵ lived under their own whiteskin; the red gums were their own. Meantime, the secret spread of this new kind of whitefolks'

　　jungle was hidden, silent, except once in a while when you could hear its mumbling in places like124.

　　Stamp Paid abandoned his efforts to see about Sethe, after the pain of knocking and not gainingentrance, and when he did, 124 was left to its own devices. When Sethe locked the door, thewomen inside were free at last to be what they liked, see whatever they saw and say whatever wason their minds.

1 garner   

v.收藏；取得

参考例句：

• He has garnered extensive support for his proposals.他的提议得到了广泛的支持。
• Squirrels garner nuts for the winter.松鼠为过冬储存松果。

2 disallowed   

v.不承认（某事物）有效( disallow的过去式和过去分词 )；不接受；不准；驳回

参考例句：

• The judge disallowed that evidence. 法官驳回那项证据。 来自辞典例句
• Her claim was disallowed on the ground(s) that she had not paid her premium. 她要求赔款遭到拒绝，原因是她事先没有交纳保险费。 来自辞典例句

3 wagon   

n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车

参考例句：

• We have to fork the hay into the wagon.我们得把干草用叉子挑进马车里去。
• The muddy road bemired the wagon.马车陷入了泥泞的道路。

4 mumbling   

含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• I could hear him mumbling to himself. 我听到他在喃喃自语。
• He was still mumbling something about hospitals at the end of the party when he slipped on a piece of ice and broke his left leg. 宴会结束时，他仍在咕哝着医院里的事。说着说着，他在一块冰上滑倒，跌断了左腿。

5 baboon   

n.狒狒

参考例句：

• A baboon is a large monkey that lives in Africa.狒狒是一种生活在非洲的大猴子。
• As long as the baboon holds on to what it wants,it's trapped.只要狒狒紧抓住想要的东西不放手，它就会被牢牢困住。

6 baboons   

n.狒狒( baboon的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Baboons could break branches and leaders. 狒狒会折断侧枝和顶梢。 来自辞典例句
• And as nonprimates, they provoke fewer ethical and safety-related concerns than chimps or baboons. 而且作为非灵长类，就不会产生像用黑猩猩或狒狒那样的伦理和安全方面的顾虑。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 医学的第四次革命

7 bloody   

adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染

参考例句：

• He got a bloody nose in the fight.他在打斗中被打得鼻子流血。
• He is a bloody fool.他是一个十足的笨蛋。