Mr. Garner laughed. "Nothing to be scared of, Jenny. Just keep your same ways, you'll be all right."She covered her mouth to keep from laughing too loud.
"These people I'm taking you to will give you what help you need. Name of Bodwin. A brotherand a sister. Scots. I been knowing them for twenty years or more."Baby Suggs thought it was a good time to ask him something she had long wanted to know.
"Mr. Garner," she said, "why you all call me Jenny?"'"Cause that what's on your sales ticket, gal. Ain't that your name? What you call yourself?""Nothings" she said. "I don't call myself nothing."Mr. Garner went red with laughter. "When I took you out of Carolina, Whitlow called you Jennyand Jenny Whitlow is what his bill said. Didn't he call you Jenny?""No, sir. If he did I didn't hear it.""What did you answer to?""Anything, but Suggs is what my husband name.""You got married, Jenny? I didn't know it.""Manner of speaking.""You know where he is, this husband?""No, sir.""Is that Halle's daddy?""No, sir.""why you call him Suggs, then? His bill of sale says Whitlow too, just like yours.""Suggs is my name, sir. From my husband. He didn't call me Jenny.""What he call you?"
"Baby.""Well," said Mr. Garner, going pink again, "if I was you I'd stick to Jenny Whitlow. Mrs. BabySuggs ain't no name for a freed Negro."Maybe not, she thought, but Baby Suggs was all she had left of the "husband" she claimed. Aserious, melancholy man who taught her how to make shoes. The two of them made a pact: whichever one got a chance to run would take it; together if possible, alone if not, and no lookingback. He got his chance, and since she never heard otherwise she believed he made it. Now howcould he find or hear tell of her if she was calling herself some bill-of-sale name? She couldn't getover the city. More people than Carolina and enough whitefolks to stop the breath. Two-storybuildings everywhere, and walkways made of perfectly cut slats of wood. Roads wide as Garner'swhole house.
"This is a city of water," said Mr. Garner. "Everything travels by water and what the rivers can'tcarry the canals take. A queen of a city, Jenny. Everything you ever dreamed of, they make it righthere. Iron stoves, buttons, ships, shirts, hairbrushes, paint, steam engines, books. A sewer systemmake your eyes bug out. Oh, this is a city, all right. If you have to live in a city — this is it."The Bodwins lived right in the center of a street full of houses and trees. Mr. Garner leaped out andtied his horse to a solid iron post.