Chapter 2, Part 3 Summary

A week later Mattie takes a Greyhound bus to her friend Etta in Asheville, North Carolina. She thinks only of the feel of summer, the taste of sugar cane and the smell of wild herbs. She will name her son, when he is born five months later, Basil.

Mattie's friend Etta is a wild spirit all her own. She loves handsome men and moves from one to the other as she likes. She is planning to move soon to Harlem, and tries to talk Mattie into going with her. Mattie warns Etta she will not find what she is looking for moving from town to town. Mattie is content with Basil and will stay put with what God gave her.

Mattie stays on in the boardinghouse room. She works at a bookbindery on the assembly line. She barely makes ends meet...