Beloved Chapter 16

The same day that Baby Suggs had her premonition of death, Schoolteacher, the man in charge of Sweet Home and the master who owned Sethe and her children, came to 124 to take them back to Kentucky. Sethe went crazy and grabbed Denver, Buglar, Howard, and crawling-already? girl and ran to the woodshed. She sawed crawling-already? girl's head off, wounded Buglar and Howard, and was swinging Denver through the air to crush her head when Stamp Paid, an ex-slave and Underground Railroad agent, stopped her. Schoolteacher and the men with him left empty-handed; Sethe was useless because she was obviously crazy, and her children were worth nothing to him because they were hurt. Sethe was taken to jail covered in her baby's blood, nursing Denver with blood and milk. Baby Suggs cared for the boys, and the neighbors who saw Sethe leaving the house still considered her a little too proud even in that humbling moment.

Topic Tracking: Loss 9