"So I heard." She smiled. "He talked to Mr. Garner about it. Are you already expecting?""No, ma'am.""Well, you will be. You know that, don't you?""Yes, ma'am.""Halle's nice, Sethe. He'll be good to you.""But I mean we want to get married.""You just said so. And I said all right.""Is there a wedding?"Mrs. Garner put down her cooking spoon. Laughing a little, she touched Sethe on the head, saying,"You are one sweet child." And then no more.
Sethe made a dress on the sly and Halle hung his hitching rope from a nail on the wall of her cabin.
And there on top of a mattress on top of the dirt floor of the cabin they coupled for the third time,the first two having been in the tiny cornfield Mr. Garner kept because it was a crop animals coulduse as well as humans. Both Halle and Sethe were under the impression that they were hidden.Scrunched down among the stalks they couldn't see anything, including the corn tops waving overtheir heads and visible to everyone else.
Sethe smiled at her and Halle's stupidity. Even the crowsknew and came to look. Uncrossing her ankles, she managed not to laugh aloud.
The jump, thought Paul D, from a calf to a girl wasn't all that mighty. Not the leap Halle believedit would be. And taking her in the corn rather than her quarters, a yard away from the cabins of theothers who had lost out, was a gesture of tenderness. Halle wanted privacy for her and got publicdisplay. Who could miss a ripple in a cornfield on a quiet cloudless day? He, Sixo and both of thePauls sat under Brother pouring water from a gourd over their heads, and through eyes streamingwith well water, they watched the confusion of tassels in the field below. It had been hard, hard,hard sitting there erect as dogs, watching corn stalks dance at noon. The water running over theirheads made it worse.
Paul D sighed and turned over. Sethe took the opportunity afforded by his movement to shift aswell. Looking at Paul D's back, she remembered that some of the corn stalks broke, folded downover Halle's back, and among the things her fingers clutched were husk and cornsilk hair.
How loose the silk. How jailed down the juice.