Six or seven Negroes were walking up the road toward the house: two boys from the slavecatcher's left and some women from his right. He motioned them still with his rifle and they stoodwhere they were. The nephew came back from peeping inside the house, and after touching his lipsfor silence, pointed his thumb to say that what they were looking for was round back. The slavecatcher dismounted then and joined the others. Schoolteacher and the nephew moved to the left ofthe house; himself and the sheriff to the right. A crazy old nigger was standing in the woodpilewith an ax. You could tell he was crazy right off because he was grunting — making low, catnoises like. About twelve yards beyond that nigger was another one — a woman with a flower inher hat. Crazy too, probably, because she too was standing stock-still — but fanning her hands asthough pushing cobwebs out of her way. Both, however, were staring at the same place — a shed.
Nephew walked over to the old nigger boy and took the ax from him. Then all four started towardthe shed. Inside, two boys bled in the sawdust and dirt at the feet of a nigger woman holding ablood-soaked child to her chest with one hand and an infant by the heels in the other. She did notlook at them; she simply swung the baby toward the wall planks, missed and tried to connect asecond time, when out of nowheremin the ticking time the men spent staring at what there was tostare the old nigger boy, still mewing, ran through the door behind them and snatched the babyfrom the arch of its mother's swing.
Right off it was clear, to schoolteacher especially, that therewas nothing there to claim. The three (now four — because she'd had the one coming when shecut) pickaninnies they had hoped were alive and well enough to take back to Kentucky, take backand raise properly to do the work Sweet Home desperately needed, were not. Two were lyingopen-eyed in sawdust; a third pumped blood down the dress of the main one — the womanschoolteacher bragged about, the one he said made fine ink, damn good soup, pressed his collarsthe way he liked besides having at least ten breeding years left. But now she'd gone wild, due tothe mishandling of the nephew who'd overbeat her and made her cut and run. Schoolteacher hadchastised that nephew, telling him to think — just think — what would his own horse do if youbeat it beyond the point of education. Or Chipper, or Samson. Suppose you beat the hounds pastthat point thataway. Never again could you trust them in the woods or anywhere else. You'd befeeding them maybe, holding out apiece of rabbit in your hand, and the animal would revert —bite your hand clean off. So he punished that nephew by not letting him come on the hunt. Madehim stay there, feed stock, feed himself, feed Lillian, tend crops. See how he liked it; see whathappened when you overbear creatures God had given you the responsibility of — the trouble itwas, and the loss. The whole lot was lost now. Five. He could claim the baby struggling in thearms of the mewing old man, but who'd tend her? Because the woman — something was wrongwith her. She was looking at him now, and if his other nephew could see that look he would learnthe lesson for sure: you just can't mishandle creatures and expect success.