"Yeah." Paul D smiled with her. "Must have been five of them perched up there, and at least fiftyhens."
"Mister, too?"
"Not right off. But I hadn't took twenty steps before I seen him. He come down off the fence postthere and sat on the tub."
"He loved that tub," said Sethe, thinking, No, there is no stopping now.
"Didn't he? Like a throne. Was me took him out the shell, you know. He'd a died if it hadn't beenfor me. The hen had walked on off with all the hatched peeps trailing behind her. There was thisone egg left. Looked like a blank, but then I saw it move so I tapped it open and here come Mister,bad feet and all. I watched that son a bitch grow up and whup everything in the yard."
"He always was hateful," Sethe said.
"Yeah, he was hateful all right. Bloody too, and evil. Crooked feet flapping. Comb as big as myhand and some kind of red. He sat right there on the tub looking at me. I swear he smiled. My headwas full of what I'd seen of Halle a while back. I wasn't even thinking about the bit. Just Halle andbefore him Sixo, but when I saw Mister I knew it was me too. Not just them, me too. One crazy,one sold, one missing, one burnt and me licking iron with my hands crossed behind me. The last ofthe Sweet Home men.
"Mister, he looked so... free. Better than me. Stronger, tougher. Son a bitch couldn't even get outthe shell by hisself but he was still king and I was..." Paul D stopped and squeezed his left handwith his right. He held it that way long enough for it and the world to quiet down and let him goon.
"Mister was allowed to be and stay what he was. But I wasn't allowed to be and stay what I was. Even if you cooked him you'd be cooking a rooster named Mister. But wasn't no way I'd ever bePaul D again, living or dead. Schoolteacher changed me. I was something else and that somethingwas less than a chicken sitting in the sun on a tub."
Sethe put her hand on his knee and rubbed.