124 was loud. stamp paid could hear it even from the road. he walked toward the householding his head as high as possible so nobody looking could call him a sneak, although hisworried mind made him feel like one. ever since he showed that newspaper clipping to paul d andlearned that he'd moved out of 124 that very day, stamp felt uneasy. having wrestled with thequestion of whether or not to tell a man about his woman, and having convinced himself that heshould, he then began to worry about sethe. had he stopped the one shot she had of the happinessa good man could bring her? was she vexed by the loss, the free and unasked-for revival of gossipby the man who had helped her cross the river and who was her friend as well as baby suggs'?
"i'm too old," he thought, "for clear thinking. i'm too old and i seen too much." he had insisted onprivacy during the revelation at the slaughter yard — now he wondered whom he was protecting.
paul d was the only one in town who didn't know. how did information that had been in thenewspaper become a secret that needed to be whispered in a pig yard? a secret from whom? sethe,that's who. he'd gone behind her back, like a sneak. but sneaking was his job — his life; thoughalways for a clear and holy purpose. before the war all he did was sneak: runaways into hiddenplaces, secret information to public places. underneath his legal vegetables were the contrabandhumans that he ferried across the river. even the pigs he worked in the spring served his purposes.
whole families lived on the bones and guts he distributed to them. he wrote their letters and readto them the ones they received. he knew who had dropsy and who needed stovewood; whichchildren had a gift and which needed correction. he knew the secrets of the ohio river and itsbanks; empty houses and full; the best dancers, the worst speakers, those with beautiful voices andthose who could not carry a tune. there was nothing interesting between his legs, but heremembered when there had been — when that drive drove the driven — and that was why heconsidered long and hard before opening his wooden box and searching for the eighteen-year-oldclipping to show paul d as proof.
afterward — not before — he considered sethe's feelings in the matter. and it was the lateness ofthis consideration that made him feel so bad. maybe he should have left it alone; maybe sethe would have gotten around to telling him herself; maybe he was not the high minded soldier ofchrist he thought he was, but an ordinary, plain meddler who had interrupted something goingalong just fine for the sake of truth and forewarning, things he set much store by. now 124 wasback like it was before paul d came to town — worrying sethe and denver with a pack of hauntshe could hear from the road. even if sethe could deal with the return of the spirit, stamp didn'tbelieve her daughter could. denver needed somebody normal in her life. by luck he had been thereat her very birth almost — before she knew she was alive — and it made him partial to her. it wasseeing her, alive, don't you know, and looking healthy four weeks later that pleased him so muchhe gathered all he could carry of the best blackberries in the county and stuck two in her mouthfirst, before he presented the difficult harvest to baby suggs. to this day he believed his berries(which sparked the feast and the wood chopping that followed) were the reason denver was stillalive. had he not been there, chopping firewood, sethe would have spread her baby brains on theplanking. maybe he should have thought of denver, if not sethe, before he gave paul d the newsthat ran him off, the one normal somebody in the girl's life since baby suggs died. and right therewas the thorn.
