Back at Susan Byrd’s house, Milkman asks about his grandfather, Jake, hopeful that she can tell him more about his family history. After discovering the source of the rhyme the children sing, he is hungry for more tales about his father’s history, and she is happy to indulge him. Susan explains that Sing ran away with Jake and a group of runaway slaves who were headed for Boston; by accident, they wound up in Pennsylvania. Jake, she explains, was one of Solomon’s children.

On the subject of Solomon, Susan launches into a story about Solomon’s wife, Ryna. One day, Solomon flew to Africa, leaving her and their twenty-one children behind. Ryna, mad with grief, surrendered Jake, their youngest child, to Heddy Byrd, an Indian woman who raised him alongside her children, Sing and Crowell. When Sing and Jake ran away, Heddy was devastated by the loss of her daughter and adopted son, leaving her alone with Crowell, her youngest son and, later, Susan’s father. 

Milkman listens, rapt, as she unravels the history of his family with which he was entirely unfamiliar. The tales of his grandparents and great-grandparents awe him, contributing further to the burgeoning sense of self and roots that Milkman is developing.