The setting of this chapter opens on a cool note—cool weather, a cool wind, and Edna Finch’s Mellow House, the town’s ice cream parlor—in stark contrast to the ending of the previous chapter, when Plum died in the flames of a kerosene fire, in the heat of Eva’s flames of love.
Nel Wright and Sula Peace have become friends, a friendship that will last throughout their lifetimes. In one another, the girls discover their other half; they seem mystically tied to each other’s thoughts and feelings. Nel comes from an orderly, tidy home; Sula, from disorder and chaos. Nel’s mother is custard-colored; Sula’s is sooty. Nel’s lighter skin is likened to wet sandpaper; Sula’s skin is heavy and brown.
Three events presented in this chapter bond the two girls. When a gang of white, threatening Irish boys confronts Sula and Ned on the girls’ way home from school, Sula defiantly cuts off the tip of her forefinger, unnerving the boys and dispersing them. Later in the chapter, the two girls metaphorically explore their inner kindling of early adolescent sexuality by stripping twigs of their bark, peeling out the exposed pulpy center, and then rhythmically digging into the earth with them to create wide, deep holes, which they fill with collected debris and then cover with dirt. Immediately following this scene, a young black boy named Chicken Little joins the girls, and Nel watches as Sula playfully swings Chicken Little around in a wide circle until her hands slip, letting the boy’s small body sail through the air and into the river. Chicken Little disappears under the water and drowns.
When Sula sees Shadrack, the mentally unstable war veteran who founded National Suicide Day, on the river’s far bank, she runs to his house, hoping to find out if he saw Chicken Little drown. Once she comes face to face with Shadrack, however, she is too frightened of him to say anything. Shadrack’s only comment to Sula is the cryptic-like word “Always,” which prompts Sula to flee Shadrack’s house and seek comfort in Nel’s embrace.
Telling no one what really happened to Chicken Little, Nel and Sula sit through Chicken Little’s funeral.
