"She says Wednesday, you hear? Baby? Baby?"
She took the shoes from him — high-topped and muddy — saying, "I beg your pardon. Lord, I beg your pardon. I sure do." Out of sight, the cartcreaked on down Bluestone Road. Nobody in it spoke. The wagon rock had put the baby to sleep. The hot sun dried Sethe's dress, stiff, like rigor morris.
THAT AIN'T her mouth.
Anybody who didn't know her, or maybe somebody who just got a glimpse of her through thepeephole at the restaurant, might think it was hers, but Paul D knew better. Oh well, a littlesomething around the forehead — a quietness — that kind of reminded you of her. But there wasno way you could take that for her mouth and he said so. Told Stamp Paid, who was watching him carefully.
"I don't know, man. Don't look like it to me. I know Sethe's mouth and this ain't it." He smoothedthe clipping with his fingers and peered at it, not at all disturbed. From the solemn air with whichStamp had unfolded the paper, the tenderness in the old man's fingers as he stroked its creases andflattened it out, first on his knees, then on the split top of the piling, Paul D knew that it ought tomess him up. That whatever was written on it should shake him.