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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Three Lives, by Gertrude Stein
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Three Lives
+       Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena
+
+Author: Gertrude Stein
+
+Release Date: March 18, 2005 [EBook #15408]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE LIVES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by S.R.Ellison, Suzanne Shell, and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Three Lives
+
+_Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena_
+
+
+GERTRUDE STEIN
+
+
+
+
+  _Donc je suis malheureux et ce n'est ni ma faute ni celle de
+  la vie._[1]
+
+    Jules Laforgue
+
+  [Footnote 1: Therefore I am unhappy and it is neither my fault
+  nor that of life.]
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+                       page
+
+  The Good Anna          1
+  Melanctha             47
+  The Gentle Lena      142
+
+
+
+
+THE GOOD ANNA
+
+
+
+Part I
+
+
+The tradesmen of Bridgepoint learned to dread the sound of "Miss
+Mathilda", for with that name the good Anna always conquered.
+
+The strictest of the one price stores found that they could give
+things for a little less, when the good Anna had fully said that "Miss
+Mathilda" could not pay so much and that she could buy it cheaper "by
+Lindheims."
+
+Lindheims was Anna's favorite store, for there they had bargain days,
+when flour and sugar were sold for a quarter of a cent less for a
+pound, and there the heads of the departments were all her friends and
+always managed to give her the bargain prices, even on other days.
+
+Anna led an arduous and troubled life.
+
+Anna managed the whole little house for Miss Mathilda. It was a funny
+little house, one of a whole row of all the same kind that made a
+close pile like a row of dominoes that a child knocks over, for they
+were built along a street which at this point came down a steep hill.
+They were funny little houses, two stories high, with red brick fronts
+and long white steps.
+
+This one little house was always very full with Miss Mathilda, an
+under servant, stray dogs and cats and Anna's voice that scolded,
+managed, grumbled all day long.
+
+"Sallie! can't I leave you alone a minute but you must run to the door
+to see the butcher boy come down the street and there is Miss Mathilda
+calling for her shoes. Can I do everything while you go around always
+thinking about nothing at all? If I ain't after you every minute you
+would be forgetting all, the time, and I take all this pains, and when
+you come to me you was as ragged as a buzzard and as dirty as a dog.
+Go and find Miss Mathilda her shoes where you put them this morning."
+
+"Peter!",--her voice rose higher,--"Peter!",--Peter was the youngest
+and the favorite dog,--"Peter, if you don't leave Baby alone,"--Baby
+was an old, blind terrier that Anna had loved for many years,--"Peter
+if you don't leave Baby alone, I take a rawhide to you, you bad dog."
+
+The good Anna had high ideals for canine chastity and discipline. The
+three regular dogs, the three that always lived with Anna, Peter and
+old Baby, and the fluffy little Rags, who was always jumping up into
+the air just to show that he was happy, together with the transients,
+the many stray ones that Anna always kept until she found them homes,
+were all under strict orders never to be bad one with the other.
+
+A sad disgrace did once happen in the family. A little transient
+terrier for whom Anna had found a home suddenly produced a crop of
+pups. The new owners were certain that this Foxy had known no dog
+since she was in their care. The good Anna held to it stoutly that her
+Peter and her Rags were guiltless, and she made her statement with so
+much heat that Foxy's owners were at last convinced that these results
+were due to their neglect.
+
+"You bad dog," Anna said to Peter that night, "you bad dog."
+
+"Peter was the father of those pups," the good Anna explained to Miss
+Mathilda, "and they look just like him too, and poor little Foxy,
+they were so big that she could hardly have them, but Miss Mathilda, I
+would never let those people know that Peter was so bad."
+
+Periods of evil thinking came very regularly to Peter and to Rags and
+to the visitors within their gates. At such times Anna would be
+very busy and scold hard, and then too she always took great care to
+seclude the bad dogs from each other whenever she had to leave the
+house. Sometimes just to see how good it was that she had made them,
+Anna would leave the room a little while and leave them all together,
+and then she would suddenly come back. Back would slink all the
+wicked-minded dogs at the sound of her hand upon the knob, and then
+they would sit desolate in their corners like a lot of disappointed
+children whose stolen sugar has been taken from them.
+
+Innocent blind old Baby was the only one who preserved the dignity
+becoming in a dog.
+
+You see that Anna led an arduous and troubled life.
+
+The good Anna was a small, spare, german woman, at this time about
+forty years of age. Her face was worn, her cheeks were thin, her mouth
+drawn and firm, and her light blue eyes were very bright. Sometimes
+they were full of lightning and sometimes full of humor, but they were
+always sharp and clear.
+
+Her voice was a pleasant one, when she told the histories of bad Peter
+and of Baby and of little Rags. Her voice was a high and piercing one
+when she called to the teamsters and to the other wicked men, what
+she wanted that should come to them, when she saw them beat a horse or
+kick a dog. She did not belong to any society that could stop them
+and she told them so most frankly, but her strained voice and her
+glittering eyes, and her queer piercing german english first made them
+afraid and then ashamed. They all knew too, that all the policemen
+on the beat were her friends. These always respected and obeyed
+Miss Annie, as they called her, and promptly attended to all of her
+complaints.
+
+For five years Anna managed the little house for Miss Mathilda. In
+these five years there were four different under servants.
+
+The one that came first was a pretty, cheerful irish girl. Anna took
+her with a doubting mind. Lizzie was an obedient, happy servant, and
+Anna began to have a little faith. This was not for long. The pretty,
+cheerful Lizzie disappeared one day without her notice and with all
+her baggage and returned no more.
+
+This pretty, cheerful Lizzie was succeeded by a melancholy Molly.
+
+Molly was born in America, of german parents. All her people had been
+long dead or gone away. Molly had always been alone. She was a tall,
+dark, sallow, thin-haired creature, and she was always troubled with
+a cough, and she had a bad temper, and always said ugly dreadful swear
+words.
+
+Anna found all this very hard to bear, but she kept Molly a long time
+out of kindness. The kitchen was constantly a battle-ground. Anna
+scolded and Molly swore strange oaths, and then Miss Mathilda would
+shut her door hard to show that she could hear it all.
+
+At last Anna had to give it up. "Please Miss Mathilda won't you speak
+to Molly," Anna said, "I can't do a thing with her. I scold her, and
+she don't seem to hear and then she swears so that she scares me. She
+loves you Miss Mathilda, and you scold her please once."
+
+"But Anna," cried poor Miss Mathilda, "I don't want to," and that
+large, cheerful, but faint hearted woman looked all aghast at such a
+prospect. "But you must, please Miss Mathilda!" Anna said.
+
+Miss Mathilda never wanted to do any scolding. "But you must please
+Miss Mathilda," Anna said.
+
+Miss Mathilda every day put off the scolding, hoping always that Anna
+would learn to manage Molly better. It never did get better and at
+last Miss Mathilda saw that the scolding simply had to be.
+
+It was agreed between the good Anna and her Miss Mathilda that Anna
+should be away when Molly would be scolded. The next evening that it
+was Anna's evening out, Miss Mathilda faced her task and went down
+into the kitchen.
+
+Molly was sitting in the little kitchen leaning her elbows on the
+table. She was a tall, thin, sallow girl, aged twenty-three, by nature
+slatternly and careless but trained by Anna into superficial neatness.
+Her drab striped cotton dress and gray black checked apron increased
+the length and sadness of her melancholy figure. "Oh, Lord!" groaned
+Miss Mathilda to herself as she approached her.
+
+"Molly, I want to speak to you about your behaviour to Anna!", here
+Molly dropped her head still lower on her arms and began to cry.
+
+"Oh! Oh!" groaned Miss Mathilda.
+
+"It's all Miss Annie's fault, all of it," Molly said at last, in a
+trembling voice, "I do my best."
+
+"I know Anna is often hard to please," began Miss Mathilda, with a
+twinge of mischief, and then she sobered herself to her task, "but
+you must remember, Molly, she means it for your good and she is really
+very kind to you."
+
+"I don't want her kindness," Molly cried, "I wish you would tell me
+what to do, Miss Mathilda, and then I would be all right. I hate Miss
+Annie."
+
+"This will never do Molly," Miss Mathilda said sternly, in her
+deepest, firmest tones, "Anna is the head of the kitchen and you must
+either obey her or leave."
+
+"I don't want to leave you," whimpered melancholy Molly. "Well Molly
+then try and do better," answered Miss Mathilda, keeping a good stern
+front, and backing quickly from the kitchen.
+
+"Oh! Oh!" groaned Miss Mathilda, as she went back up the stairs.
+
+Miss Mathilda's attempt to make peace between the constantly
+contending women in the kitchen had no real effect. They were very
+soon as bitter as before.
+
+At last it was decided that Molly was to go away. Molly went away to
+work in a factory in the town, and she went to live with an old woman
+in the slums, a very bad old woman Anna said.
+
+Anna was never easy in her mind about the fate of Molly. Sometimes she
+would see or hear of her. Molly was not well, her cough was worse, and
+the old woman really was a bad one.
+
+After a year of this unwholesome life, Molly was completely broken
+down. Anna then again took her in charge. She brought her from her
+work and from the woman where she lived, and put her in a hospital to
+stay till she was well. She found a place for her as nursemaid to a
+little girl out in the country, and Molly was at last established and
+content.
+
+Molly had had, at first, no regular successor. In a few months it was
+going to be the summer and Miss Mathilda would be gone away, and old
+Katie would do very well to come in every day and help Anna with her
+work.
+
+Old Katy was a heavy, ugly, short and rough old german woman, with a
+strange distorted german-english all her own. Anna was worn out now
+with her attempt to make the younger generation do all that it should
+and rough old Katy never answered back, and never wanted her own
+way. No scolding or abuse could make its mark on her uncouth and aged
+peasant hide. She said her "Yes, Miss Annie," when an answer had to
+come, and that was always all that she could say.
+
+"Old Katy is just a rough old woman, Miss Mathilda," Anna said, "but
+I think I keep her here with me. She can work and she don't give me
+trouble like I had with Molly all the time."
+
+Anna always had a humorous sense from this old Katy's twisted peasant
+english, from the roughness on her tongue of buzzing s's and from the
+queer ways of her brutish servile humor. Anna could not let old Katy
+serve at table--old Katy was too coarsely made from natural earth for
+that--and so Anna had all this to do herself and that she never liked,
+but even then this simple rough old creature was pleasanter to her
+than any of the upstart young.
+
+Life went on very smoothly now in these few months before the summer
+came. Miss Mathilda every summer went away across the ocean to be gone
+for several months. When she went away this summer old Katy was so
+sorry, and on the day that Miss Mathilda went, old Katy cried hard
+for many hours. An earthy, uncouth, servile peasant creature old Katy
+surely was. She stood there on the white stone steps of the little red
+brick house, with her bony, square dull head with its thin, tanned,
+toughened skin and its sparse and kinky grizzled hair, and her strong,
+squat figure a little overmade on the right side, clothed in her blue
+striped cotton dress, all clean and always washed but rough and harsh
+to see--and she stayed there on the steps till Anna brought her in,
+blubbering, her apron to her face, and making queer guttural broken
+moans.
+
+When Miss Mathilda early in the fall came to her house again old Katy
+was not there.
+
+"I never thought old Katy would act so Miss Mathilda," Anna said,
+"when she was so sorry when you went away, and I gave her full wages
+all the summer, but they are all alike Miss Mathilda, there isn't one
+of them that's fit to trust. You know how Katy said she liked you,
+Miss Mathilda, and went on about it when you went away and then she
+was so good and worked all right until the middle of the summer, when
+I got sick, and then she went away and left me all alone and took a
+place out in the country, where they gave her some more money. She
+didn't say a word, Miss Mathilda, she just went off and left me there
+alone when I was sick after that awful hot summer that we had, and
+after all we done for her when she had no place to go, and all summer
+I gave her better things to eat than I had for myself. Miss Mathilda,
+there isn't one of them has any sense of what's the right way for a
+girl to do, not one of them."
+
+Old Katy was never heard from any more.
+
+No under servant was decided upon now for several months. Many came
+and many went, and none of them would do. At last Anna heard of
+Sallie.
+
+Sallie was the oldest girl in a family of eleven and Sallie was just
+sixteen years old. From Sallie down they came always littler and
+littler in her family, and all of them were always out at work
+excepting only the few littlest of them all.
+
+Sallie was a pretty blonde and smiling german girl, and stupid and a
+little silly. The littler they came in her family the brighter they
+all were. The brightest of them all was a little girl of ten. She did
+a good day's work washing dishes for a man and wife in a saloon, and
+she earned a fair day's wage, and then there was one littler still.
+She only worked for half the day. She did the house work for a
+bachelor doctor. She did it all, all of the housework and received
+each week her eight cents for her wage. Anna was always indignant when
+she told that story.
+
+"I think he ought to give her ten cents Miss Mathilda any way. Eight
+cents is so mean when she does all his work and she is such a bright
+little thing too, not stupid like our Sallie. Sallie would never learn
+to do a thing if I didn't scold her all the time, but Sallie is a good
+girl, and I take care and she will do all right."
+
+Sallie was a good, obedient german child. She never answered Anna
+back, no more did Peter, old Baby and little Rags and so though
+always Anna's voice was sharply raised in strong rebuke and worn
+expostulation, they were a happy family all there together in the
+kitchen.
+
+Anna was a mother now to Sallie, a good incessant german mother who
+watched and scolded hard to keep the girl from any evil step. Sallie's
+temptations and transgressions were much like those of naughty Peter
+and jolly little Rags, and Anna took the same way to keep all three
+from doing what was bad.
+
+Sallie's chief badness besides forgetting all the time and never
+washing her hands clean to serve at table, was the butcher boy.
+
+He was an unattractive youth enough, that butcher boy. Suspicion began
+to close in around Sallie that she spent the evenings when Anna was
+away, in company with this bad boy.
+
+"Sallie is such a pretty girl, Miss Mathilda," Anna said, "and she is
+so dumb and silly, and she puts on that red waist, and she crinkles
+up her hair with irons so I have to laugh, and then I tell her if she
+only washed her hands clean it would be better than all that fixing
+all the time, but you can't do a thing with the young girls nowadays
+Miss Mathilda. Sallie is a good girl but I got to watch her all the
+time."
+
+Suspicion closed in around Sallie more and more, that she spent Anna's
+evenings out with this boy sitting in the kitchen. One early morning
+Anna's voice was sharply raised.
+
+"Sallie this ain't the same banana that I brought home yesterday, for
+Miss Mathilda, for her breakfast, and you was out early in the street
+this morning, what was you doing there?"
+
+"Nothing, Miss Annie, I just went out to see, that's all and that's
+the same banana, 'deed it is Miss Annie."
+
+"Sallie, how can you say so and after all I do for you, and Miss
+Mathilda is so good to you. I never brought home no bananas yesterday
+with specks on it like that. I know better, it was that boy was here
+last night and ate it while I was away, and you was out to get another
+this morning. I don't want no lying Sallie."
+
+Sallie was stout in her defence but then she gave it up and she said
+it was the boy who snatched it as he ran away at the sound of Anna's
+key opening the outside door. "But I will never let him in again, Miss
+Annie, 'deed I won't," said Sallie.
+
+And now it was all peaceful for some weeks and then Sallie with
+fatuous simplicity began on certain evenings to resume her bright red
+waist, her bits of jewels and her crinkly hair.
+
+One pleasant evening in the early spring, Miss Mathilda was standing
+on the steps beside the open door, feeling cheerful in the pleasant,
+gentle night. Anna came down the street, returning from her evening
+out. "Don't shut the door, please, Miss Mathilda," Anna said in a low
+voice, "I don't want Sallie to know I'm home."
+
+Anna went softly through the house and reached the kitchen door. At
+the sound of her hand upon the knob there was a wild scramble and
+a bang, and then Sallie sitting there alone when Anna came into the
+room, but, alas, the butcher boy forgot his overcoat in his escape.
+
+You see that Anna led an arduous and troubled life.
+
+Anna had her troubles, too, with Miss Mathilda. "And I slave and slave
+to save the money and you go out and spend it all on foolishness,"
+the good Anna would complain when her mistress, a large and careless
+woman, would come home with a bit of porcelain, a new etching and
+sometimes even an oil painting on her arm.
+
+"But Anna," argued Miss Mathilda, "if you didn't save this money,
+don't you see I could not buy these things," and then Anna would
+soften and look pleased until she learned the price, and then wringing
+her hands, "Oh, Miss Mathilda, Miss Mathilda," she would cry, "and you
+gave all that money out for that, when you need a dress to go out in
+so bad." "Well, perhaps I will get one for myself next year, Anna,"
+Miss Mathilda would cheerfully concede. "If we live till then Miss
+Mathilda, I see that you do," Anna would then answer darkly.
+
+Anna had great pride in the knowledge and possessions of her cherished
+Miss Mathilda, but she did not like her careless way of wearing always
+her old clothes. "You can't go out to dinner in that dress, Miss
+Mathilda," she would say, standing firmly before the outside door,
+"You got to go and put on your new dress you always look so nice in."
+"But Anna, there isn't time." "Yes there is, I go up and help you fix
+it, please Miss Mathilda you can't go out to dinner in that dress and
+next year if we live till then, I make you get a new hat, too. It's a
+shame Miss Mathilda to go out like that."
+
+The poor mistress sighed and had to yield. It suited her cheerful,
+lazy temper to be always without care but sometimes it was a burden
+to endure, for so often she had it all to do again unless she made a
+rapid dash out of the door before Anna had a chance to see.
+
+Life was very easy always for this large and lazy Miss Mathilda, with
+the good Anna to watch and care for her and all her clothes and goods.
+But, alas, this world of ours is after all much what it should be and
+cheerful Miss Mathilda had her troubles too with Anna.
+
+It was pleasant that everything for one was done, but annoying often
+that what one wanted most just then, one could not have when one
+had foolishly demanded and not suggested one's desire. And then Miss
+Mathilda loved to go out on joyous, country tramps when, stretching
+free and far with cheerful comrades, over rolling hills and
+cornfields, glorious in the setting sun, and dogwood white and shining
+underneath the moon and clear stars over head, and brilliant air and
+tingling blood, it was hard to have to think of Anna's anger at the
+late return, though Miss Mathilda had begged that there might be no
+hot supper cooked that night. And then when all the happy crew of
+Miss Mathilda and her friends, tired with fullness of good health and
+burning winds and glowing sunshine in the eyes, stiffened and justly
+worn and wholly ripe for pleasant food and gentle content, were all
+come together to the little house--it was hard for all that tired crew
+who loved the good things Anna made to eat, to come to the closed
+door and wonder there if it was Anna's evening in or out, and then the
+others must wait shivering on their tired feet, while Miss Mathilda
+softened Anna's heart, or if Anna was well out, boldly ordered
+youthful Sallie to feed all the hungry lot.
+
+Such things were sometimes hard to bear and often grievously did
+Miss Mathilda feel herself a rebel with the cheerful Lizzies, the
+melancholy Mollies, the rough old Katies and the stupid Sallies.
+
+Miss Mathilda had other troubles too, with the good Anna. Miss
+Mathilda had to save her Anna from the many friends, who in the kindly
+fashion of the poor, used up her savings and then gave her promises in
+place of payments.
+
+The good Anna had many curious friends that she had found in the
+twenty years that she had lived in Bridgepoint, and Miss Mathilda
+would often have to save her from them all.
+
+
+
+Part II
+
+THE LIFE OF THE GOOD ANNA
+
+
+Anna Federner, this good Anna, was of solid lower middle-class south
+german stock.
+
+When she was seventeen years old she went to service in a bourgeois
+family, in the large city near her native town, but she did not stay
+there long. One day her mistress offered her maid--that was Anna--to
+a friend, to see her home. Anna felt herself to be a servant, not a
+maid, and so she promptly left the place.
+
+Anna had always a firm old world sense of what was the right way for a
+girl to do.
+
+No argument could bring her to sit an evening in the empty parlour,
+although the smell of paint when they were fixing up the kitchen made
+her very sick, and tired as she always was, she never would sit down
+during the long talks she held with Miss Mathilda. A girl was a girl
+and should act always like a girl, both as to giving all respect and
+as to what she had to eat.
+
+A little time after she left this service, Anna and her mother made
+the voyage to America. They came second-class, but it was for them a
+long and dreary journey. The mother was already ill with consumption.
+
+They landed in a pleasant town in the far South and there the mother
+slowly died.
+
+Anna was now alone and she made her way to Bridgepoint where an older
+half brother was already settled. This brother was a heavy, lumbering,
+good natured german man, full of the infirmity that comes of excess of
+body.
+
+He was a baker and married and fairly well to do.
+
+Anna liked her brother well enough but was never in any way dependent
+on him.
+
+When she arrived in Bridgepoint, she took service with Miss Mary
+Wadsmith.
+
+Miss Mary Wadsmith was a large, fair, helpless woman, burdened with
+the care of two young children. They had been left her by her brother
+and his wife who had died within a few months of each other.
+
+Anna soon had the household altogether in her charge.
+
+Anna found her place with large, abundant women, for such were always
+lazy, careless or all helpless, and so the burden of their lives could
+fall on Anna, and give her just content. Anna's superiors must be
+always these large helpless women, or be men, for none others could
+give themselves to be made so comfortable and free.
+
+Anna had no strong natural feeling to love children, as she had to
+love cats and dogs, and a large mistress. She never became deeply fond
+of Edgar and Jane Wadsmith. She naturally preferred the boy, for boys
+love always better to be done for and made comfortable and full of
+eating, while in the little girl she had to meet the feminine, the
+subtle opposition, showing so early always in a young girl's nature.
+
+For the summer, the Wadsmiths had a pleasant house out in the country,
+and the winter months they spent in hotel apartments in the city.
+
+Gradually it came to Anna to take the whole direction of their
+movements, to make all the decisions as to their journeyings to and
+fro, and for the arranging of the places where they were to live.
+
+Anna had been with Miss Mary for three years, when little Jane began
+to raise her strength in opposition. Jane was a neat, pleasant little
+girl, pretty and sweet with a young girl's charm, and with two blonde
+braids carefully plaited down her back.
+
+Miss Mary, like her Anna, had no strong natural feeling to love
+children, but she was fond of these two young ones of her blood, and
+yielded docilely to the stronger power in the really pleasing little
+girl. Anna always preferred the rougher handling of the boy, while
+Miss Mary found the gentle force and the sweet domination of the girl
+to please her better.
+
+In a spring when all the preparations for the moving had been made,
+Miss Mary and Jane went together to the country home, and Anna, after
+finishing up the city matters was to follow them in a few days with
+Edgar, whose vacation had not yet begun.
+
+Many times during the preparations for this summer, Jane had met Anna
+with sharp resistance, in opposition to her ways. It was simple for
+little Jane to give unpleasant orders, not from herself but from Miss
+Mary, large, docile, helpless Miss Mary Wadsmith who could never think
+out any orders to give Anna from herself.
+
+Anna's eyes grew slowly sharper, harder, and her lower teeth thrust a
+little forward and pressing strongly up, framed always more slowly the
+"Yes, Miss Jane," to the quick, "Oh Anna! Miss Mary says she wants you
+to do it so!"
+
+On the day of their migration, Miss Mary had been already put into the
+carriage. "Oh, Anna!" cried little Jane running back into the house,
+"Miss Mary says that you are to bring along the blue dressings out of
+her room and mine." Anna's body stiffened, "We never use them in the
+summer, Miss Jane," she said thickly. "Yes Anna, but Miss Mary thinks
+it would be nice, and she told me to tell you not to forget, good-by!"
+and the little girl skipped lightly down the steps into the carriage
+and they drove away.
+
+Anna stood still on the steps, her eyes hard and sharp and shining,
+and her body and her face stiff with resentment. And then she went
+into the house, giving the door a shattering slam.
+
+Anna was very hard to live with in those next three days. Even Baby,
+the new puppy, the pride of Anna's heart, a present from her friend
+the widow, Mrs. Lehntman--even this pretty little black and tan felt
+the heat of Anna's scorching flame. And Edgar, who had looked forward
+to these days, to be for him filled full of freedom and of things to
+eat--he could not rest a moment in Anna's bitter sight.
+
+On the third day, Anna and Edgar went to the Wadsmith country home.
+The blue dressings out of the two rooms remained behind.
+
+All the way, Edgar sat in front with the colored man and drove. It was
+an early spring day in the South. The fields and woods were heavy from
+the soaking rains. The horses dragged the carriage slowly over the
+long road, sticky with brown clay and rough with masses of stones
+thrown here and there to be broken and trodden into place by passing
+teams. Over and through the soaking earth was the feathery new spring
+growth of little flowers, of young leaves and of ferns. The tree tops
+were all bright with reds and yellows, with brilliant gleaming whites
+and gorgeous greens. All the lower air was full of the damp haze
+rising from heavy soaking water on the earth, mingled with a warm and
+pleasant smell from the blue smoke of the spring fires in all the open
+fields. And above all this was the clear, upper air, and the songs of
+birds and the joy of sunshine and of lengthening days.
+
+The languor and the stir, the warmth and weight and the strong feel
+of life from the deep centres of the earth that comes always with the
+early, soaking spring, when it is not answered with an active fervent
+joy, gives always anger, irritation and unrest.
+
+To Anna alone there in the carriage, drawing always nearer to the
+struggle with her mistress, the warmth, the slowness, the jolting over
+stones, the steaming from the horses, the cries of men and animals and
+birds, and the new life all round about were simply maddening. "Baby!
+if you don't lie still, I think I kill you. I can't stand it any more
+like this."
+
+At this time Anna, about twenty-seven years of age, was not yet all
+thin and worn. The sharp bony edges and corners of her head and face
+were still rounded out with flesh, but already the temper and the
+humor showed sharply in her clean blue eyes, and the thinning was
+begun about the lower jaw, that was so often strained with the upward
+pressure of resolve.
+
+To-day, alone there in the carriage, she was all stiff and yet all
+trembling with the sore effort of decision and revolt.
+
+As the carriage turned into the Wadsmith gate, little Jane ran out to
+see. She just looked at Anna's face; she did not say a word about blue
+dressings.
+
+Anna got down from the carriage with little Baby in her arms. She took
+out all the goods that she had brought and the carriage drove away.
+Anna left everything on the porch, and went in to where Miss Mary
+Wadsmith was sitting by the fire.
+
+Miss Mary was sitting in a large armchair by the fire. All the nooks
+and crannies of the chair were filled full of her soft and spreading
+body. She was dressed in a black satin morning gown, the sleeves,
+great monster things, were heavy with the mass of her soft flesh.
+She sat there always, large, helpless, gentle. She had a fair, soft,
+regular, good-looking face, with pleasant, empty, grey-blue eyes, and
+heavy sleepy lids.
+
+Behind Miss Mary was the little Jane, nervous and jerky with
+excitement as she saw Anna come into the room.
+
+"Miss Mary," Anna began. She had stopped just within the door, her
+body and her face stiff with repression, her teeth closed hard and the
+white lights flashing sharply in the pale, clean blue of her eyes.
+Her bearing was full of the strange coquetry of anger and of fear,
+the stiffness, the bridling, the suggestive movement underneath the
+rigidness of forced control, all the queer ways the passions have to
+show themselves all one.
+
+"Miss Mary," the words came slowly with thick utterance and with
+jerks, but always firm and strong. "Miss Mary, I can't stand it
+any more like this. When you tell me anything to do, I do it. I do
+everything I can and you know I work myself sick for you. The blue
+dressings in your room makes too much work to have for summer. Miss
+Jane don't know what work is. If you want to do things like that I go
+away."
+
+Anna stopped still. Her words had not the strength of meaning
+they were meant to have, but the power in the mood of Anna's soul
+frightened and awed Miss Mary through and through.
+
+Like in all large and helpless women, Miss Mary's heart beat weakly in
+the soft and helpless mass it had to govern. Little Jane's excitements
+had already tried her strength. Now she grew pale and fainted quite
+away.
+
+"Miss Mary!" cried Anna running to her mistress and supporting all her
+helpless weight back in the chair. Little Jane, distracted, flew about
+as Anna ordered, bringing smelling salts and brandy and vinegar and
+water and chafing poor Miss Mary's wrists.
+
+Miss Mary slowly opened her mild eyes. Anna sent the weeping little
+Jane out of the room. She herself managed to get Miss Mary quiet on
+the couch.
+
+There was never a word more said about blue dressings.
+
+Anna had conquered, and a few days later little Jane gave her a green
+parrot to make peace.
+
+For six more years little Jane and Anna lived in the same house. They
+were careful and respectful to each other to the end.
+
+Anna liked the parrot very well. She was fond of cats too and of
+horses, but best of all animals she loved the dog and best of all
+dogs, little Baby, the first gift from her friend, the widow Mrs.
+Lehntman.
+
+The widow Mrs. Lehntman was the romance in Anna's life.
+
+Anna met her first at the house of her half brother, the baker, who
+had known the late Mr. Lehntman, a small grocer, very well.
+
+Mrs. Lehntman had been for many years a midwife. Since her husband's
+death she had herself and two young children to support.
+
+Mrs. Lehntman was a good looking woman. She had a plump well rounded
+body, clear olive skin, bright dark eyes and crisp black curling
+hair. She was pleasant, magnetic, efficient and good. She was very
+attractive, very generous and very amiable.
+
+She was a few years older than our good Anna, who was soon entirely
+subdued by her magnetic, sympathetic charm.
+
+Mrs. Lehntman in her work loved best to deliver young girls who were
+in trouble. She would take these into her own house and care for them
+in secret, till they could guiltlessly go home or back to work, and
+then slowly pay her the money for their care. And so through this new
+friend Anna led a wider and more entertaining life, and often she used
+up her savings in helping Mrs. Lehntman through those times when she
+was giving very much more than she got.
+
+It was through Mrs. Lehntman that Anna met Dr. Shonjen who employed
+her when at last it had to be that she must go away from her Miss Mary
+Wadsmith.
+
+During the last years with her Miss Mary, Anna's health was very bad,
+as indeed it always was from that time on until the end of her strong
+life.
+
+Anna was a medium sized, thin, hard working, worrying woman.
+
+She had always had bad headaches and now they came more often and more
+wearing.
+
+Her face grew thin, more bony and more worn, her skin stained itself
+pale yellow, as it does with working sickly women, and the clear blue
+of her eyes went pale.
+
+Her back troubled her a good deal, too. She was always tired at her
+work and her temper grew more difficult and fretful.
+
+Miss Mary Wadsmith often tried to make Anna see a little to herself,
+and get a doctor, and the little Jane, now blossoming into a pretty,
+sweet young woman, did her best to make Anna do things for her good.
+Anna was stubborn always to Miss Jane, and fearful of interference
+in her ways. Miss Mary Wadsmith's mild advice she easily could always
+turn aside.
+
+Mrs. Lehntman was the only one who had any power over Anna. She
+induced her to let Dr. Shonjen take her in his care.
+
+No one but a Dr. Shonjen could have brought a good and german Anna
+first to stop her work and then submit herself to operation, but he
+knew so well how to deal with german and poor people. Cheery, jovial,
+hearty, full of jokes that made much fun and yet were full of simple
+common sense and reasoning courage, he could persuade even a good Anna
+to do things that were for her own good.
+
+Edgar had now been for some years away from home, first at a school
+and then at work to prepare himself to be a civil engineer. Miss Mary
+and Jane promised to take a trip for all the time that Anna was away,
+and so there would be no need for Anna's work, nor for a new girl to
+take Anna's place.
+
+Anna's mind was thus a little set at rest. She gave herself to Mrs.
+Lehntman and the doctor to do what they thought best to make her well
+and strong.
+
+Anna endured the operation very well, and was patient, almost docile,
+in the slow recovery of her working strength. But when she was once
+more at work for her Miss Mary Wadsmith, all the good effect of these
+several months of rest were soon worked and worried well away.
+
+For all the rest of her strong working life Anna was never really
+well. She had bad headaches all the time and she was always thin and
+worn.
+
+She worked away her appetite, her health and strength, and always for
+the sake of those who begged her not to work so hard. To her thinking,
+in her stubborn, faithful, german soul, this was the right way for a
+girl to do.
+
+Anna's life with Miss Mary Wadsmith was now drawing to an end.
+
+Miss Jane, now altogether a young lady, had come out into the world.
+Soon she would become engaged and then be married, and then perhaps
+Miss Mary Wadsmith would make her home with her.
+
+In such a household Anna was certain that she would never take a
+place. Miss Jane was always careful and respectful and very good to
+Anna, but never could Anna be a girl in a household where Miss Jane
+would be the head. This much was very certain in her mind, and so
+these last two years with her Miss Mary were not as happy as before.
+
+The change came very soon.
+
+Miss Jane became engaged and in a few months was to marry a man from
+out of town, from Curden, an hour's railway ride from Bridgepoint.
+
+Poor Miss Mary Wadsmith did not know the strong resolve Anna had made
+to live apart from her when this new household should be formed. Anna
+found it very hard to speak to her Miss Mary of this change.
+
+The preparations for the wedding went on day and night.
+
+Anna worked and sewed hard to make it all go well.
+
+Miss Mary was much fluttered, but content and happy with Anna to make
+everything so easy for them all.
+
+Anna worked so all the time to drown her sorrow and her conscience
+too, for somehow it was not right to leave Miss Mary so. But what else
+could she do? She could not live as her Miss Mary's girl, in a house
+where Miss Jane would be the head.
+
+The wedding day grew always nearer. At last it came and passed.
+
+The young people went on their wedding trip, and Anna and Miss Mary
+were left behind to pack up all the things.
+
+Even yet poor Anna had not had the strength to tell Miss Mary her
+resolve, but now it had to be.
+
+Anna every spare minute ran to her friend Mrs. Lehntman for comfort
+and advice. She begged her friend to be with her when she told the
+news to Miss Mary.
+
+Perhaps if Mrs. Lehntman had not been in Bridgepoint, Anna would have
+tried to live in the new house. Mrs. Lehntman did not urge her to this
+thing nor even give her this advice, but feeling for Mrs. Lehntman as
+she did made even faithful Anna not quite so strong in her dependence
+on Miss Mary's need as she would otherwise have been.
+
+Remember, Mrs. Lehntman was the romance in Anna's life.
+
+All the packing was now done and in a few days Miss Mary was to go to
+the new house, where the young people were ready for her coming.
+
+At last Anna had to speak.
+
+Mrs. Lehntman agreed to go with her and help to make the matter clear
+to poor Miss Mary.
+
+The two women came together to Miss Mary Wadsmith sitting placid by
+the fire in the empty living room. Miss Mary had seen Mrs. Lehntman
+many times before, and so her coming in with Anna raised no suspicion
+in her mind.
+
+It was very hard for the two women to begin.
+
+It must be very gently done, this telling to Miss Mary of the change.
+She must not be shocked by suddenness or with excitement.
+
+Anna was all stiff, and inside all a quiver with shame, anxiety
+and grief. Even courageous Mrs. Lehntman, efficient, impulsive and
+complacent as she was and not deeply concerned in the event, felt
+awkward, abashed and almost guilty in that large, mild, helpless
+presence. And at her side to make her feel the power of it all, was
+the intense conviction of poor Anna, struggling to be unfeeling, self
+righteous and suppressed.
+
+"Miss Mary"--with Anna when things had to come they came always sharp
+and short--"Miss Mary, Mrs. Lehntman has come here with me, so I can
+tell you about not staying with you there in Curden. Of course I go
+help you to get settled and then I think I come back and stay right
+here in Bridgepoint. You know my brother he is here and all his
+family, and I think it would be not right to go away from them so far,
+and you know you don't want me now so much Miss Mary when you are all
+together there in Curden."
+
+Miss Mary Wadsmith was puzzled. She did not understand what Anna meant
+by what she said.
+
+"Why Anna of course you can come to see your brother whenever you
+like to, and I will always pay your fare. I thought you understood all
+about that, and we will be very glad to have your nieces come to stay
+with you as often as they like. There will always be room enough in a
+big house like Mr. Goldthwaite's."
+
+It was now for Mrs. Lehntman to begin her work.
+
+"Miss Wadsmith does not understand just what you mean Anna," she
+began. "Miss Wadsmith, Anna feels how good and kind you are, and she
+talks about it all the time, and what you do for her in every way you
+can, and she is very grateful and never would want to go away from
+you, only she thinks it would be better now that Mrs. Goldthwaite
+has this big new house and will want to manage it in her own way,
+she thinks perhaps it would be better if Mrs. Goldthwaite had all new
+servants with her to begin with, and not a girl like Anna who knew her
+when she was a little girl. That is what Anna feels about it now, and
+she asked me and I said to her that I thought it would be better for
+you all and you knew she liked you so much and that you were so good
+to her, and you would understand how she thought it would be better
+in the new house if she stayed on here in Bridgepoint, anyway for a
+little while until Mrs. Goldthwaite was used to her new house. Isn't
+that it Anna that you wanted Miss Wadsmith to know?"
+
+"Oh Anna," Miss Mary Wadsmith said it slowly and in a grieved tone of
+surprise that was very hard for the good Anna to endure, "Oh Anna,
+I didn't think that you would ever want to leave me after all these
+years."
+
+"Miss Mary!" it came in one tense jerky burst, "Miss Mary it's only
+working under Miss Jane now would make me leave you so. I know how
+good you are and I work myself sick for you and for Mr. Edgar and for
+Miss Jane too, only Miss Jane she will want everything different from
+like the way we always did, and you know Miss Mary I can't have Miss
+Jane watching at me all the time, and every minute something new. Miss
+Mary, it would be very bad and Miss Jane don't really want me to come
+with you to the new house, I know that all the time. Please Miss Mary
+don't feel bad about it or think I ever want to go away from you if I
+could do things right for you the way they ought to be."
+
+Poor Miss Mary. Struggling was not a thing for her to do. Anna would
+surely yield if she would struggle, but struggling was too much work
+and too much worry for peaceful Miss Mary to endure. If Anna would do
+so she must. Poor Miss Mary Wadsmith sighed, looked wistfully at Anna
+and then gave it up.
+
+"You must do as you think best Anna," she said at last letting all of
+her soft self sink back into the chair. "I am very sorry and so I am
+sure will be Miss Jane when she hears what you have thought it best to
+do. It was very good of Mrs. Lehntman to come with you and I am sure
+she does it for your good. I suppose you want to go out a little now.
+Come back in an hour Anna and help me go to bed." Miss Mary closed her
+eyes and rested still and placid by the fire.
+
+The two women went away.
+
+This was the end of Anna's service with Miss Mary Wadsmith, and soon
+her new life taking care of Dr. Shonjen was begun.
+
+Keeping house for a jovial bachelor doctor gave new elements of
+understanding to Anna's maiden german mind. Her habits were as firm
+fixed as before, but it always was with Anna that things that had been
+done once with her enjoyment and consent could always happen any
+time again, such as her getting up at any hour of the night to make
+a supper and cook hot chops and chicken fry for Dr. Shonjen and his
+bachelor friends.
+
+Anna loved to work for men, for they could eat so much and with such
+joy. And when they were warm and full, they were content, and let her
+do whatever she thought best. Not that Anna's conscience ever slept,
+for neither with interference or without would she strain less to keep
+on saving every cent and working every hour of the day. But truly she
+loved it best when she could scold. Now it was not only other girls
+and the colored man, and dogs, and cats, and horses and her parrot,
+but her cheery master, jolly Dr. Shonjen, whom she could guide and
+constantly rebuke to his own good.
+
+The doctor really loved her scoldings as she loved his wickednesses
+and his merry joking ways.
+
+These days were happy days with Anna.
+
+Her freakish humor now first showed itself, her sense of fun in
+the queer ways that people had, that made her later find delight in
+brutish servile Katy, in Sally's silly ways and in the badness of
+Peter and of Rags. She loved to make sport with the skeletons the
+doctor had, to make them move and make strange noises till the negro
+boy shook in his shoes and his eyes rolled white in his agony of fear.
+
+Then Anna would tell these histories to her doctor. Her worn, thin,
+lined, determined face would form for itself new and humorous creases,
+and her pale blue eyes would kindle with humour and with joy as her
+doctor burst into his hearty laugh. And the good Anna full of the
+coquetry of pleasing would bridle with her angular, thin, spinster
+body, straining her stories and herself to please.
+
+These early days with jovial Dr. Shonjen were very happy days with the
+good Anna.
+
+All of Anna's spare hours in these early days she spent with her
+friend, the widow Mrs. Lehntman. Mrs. Lehntman lived with her two
+children in a small house in the same part of the town as Dr. Shonjen.
+The older of these two children was a girl named Julia and was now
+about thirteen years of age. This Julia Lehntman was an unattractive
+girl enough, harsh featured, dull and stubborn as had been her heavy
+german father. Mrs. Lehntman did not trouble much with her, but gave
+her always all she wanted that she had, and let the girl do as she
+liked. This was not from indifference or dislike on the part of Mrs.
+Lehntman, it was just her usual way.
+
+Her second child was a boy, two years younger than his sister, a
+bright, pleasant, cheery fellow, who too, did what he liked with his
+money and his time. All this was so with Mrs. Lehntman because she
+had so much in her head and in her house that clamoured for her
+concentration and her time.
+
+This slackness and neglect in the running of the house, and the
+indifference in this mother for the training of her young was very
+hard for our good Anna to endure. Of course she did her best to scold,
+to save for Mrs. Lehntman, and to put things in their place the way
+they ought to be.
+
+Even in the early days when Anna was first won by the glamour of
+Mrs. Lehntman's brilliancy and charm, she had been uneasy in Mrs.
+Lehntman's house with a need of putting things to rights. Now that the
+two children growing up were of more importance in the house, and now
+that long acquaintance had brushed the dazzle out of Anna's eyes, she
+began to struggle to make things go here as she thought was right.
+
+She watched and scolded hard these days to make young Julia do the way
+she should. Not that Julia Lehntman was pleasant in the good Anna's
+sight, but it must never be that a young girl growing up should have
+no one to make her learn to do things right.
+
+The boy was easier to scold, for scoldings never sank in very deep,
+and indeed he liked them very well for they brought with them new
+things to eat, and lively teasing, and good jokes.
+
+Julia, the girl, grew very sullen with it all, and very often won her
+point, for after all Miss Annie was no relative of hers and had no
+business coming there and making trouble all the time. Appealing to
+the mother was no use. It was wonderful how Mrs. Lehntman could listen
+and not hear, could answer and yet not decide, could say and do what
+she was asked and yet leave things as they were before.
+
+One day it got almost too bad for even Anna's friendship to bear out.
+
+"Well, Julia, is your mamma out?" Anna asked, one Sunday summer
+afternoon, as she came into the Lehntman house.
+
+Anna looked very well this day. She was always careful in her dress
+and sparing of new clothes. She made herself always fulfill her own
+ideal of how a girl should look when she took her Sundays out. Anna
+knew so well the kind of ugliness appropriate to each rank in life.
+
+It was interesting to see how when she bought things for Miss Wadsmith
+and later for her cherished Miss Mathilda and always entirely from her
+own taste and often as cheaply as she bought things for her friends
+or for herself, that on the one hand she chose the things having the
+right air for a member of the upper class, and for the others always
+the things having the awkward ugliness that we call Dutch. She knew
+the best thing in each kind, and she never in the course of her strong
+life compromised her sense of what was the right thing for a girl to
+wear.
+
+On this bright summer Sunday afternoon she came to the Lehntmans',
+much dressed up in her new, brick red, silk waist trimmed with broad
+black beaded braid, a dark cloth skirt and a new stiff, shiny, black
+straw hat, trimmed with colored ribbons and a bird. She had on new
+gloves, and a feather boa about her neck.
+
+Her spare, thin, awkward body and her worn, pale yellow face though
+lit up now with the pleasant summer sun made a queer discord with the
+brightness of her clothes.
+
+She came to the Lehntman house, where she had not been for several
+days, and opening the door that is always left unlatched in the houses
+of the lower middle class in the pleasant cities of the South, she
+found Julia in the family sitting-room alone.
+
+"Well, Julia, where is your mamma?" Anna asked. "Ma is out but come
+in, Miss Annie, and look at our new brother." "What you talk so
+foolish for Julia," said Anna sitting down. "I ain't talkin' foolish,
+Miss Annie. Didn't you know mamma has just adopted a cute, nice little
+baby boy?" "You talk so crazy, Julia, you ought to know better than
+to say such things." Julia turned sullen. "All right Miss Annie,
+you don't need to believe what I say, but the little baby is in the
+kitchen and ma will tell you herself when she comes in."
+
+It sounded most fantastic, but Julia had an air of truth and Mrs.
+Lehntman was capable of doing stranger things. Anna was disturbed.
+"What you mean Julia," she said. "I don't mean nothin' Miss Annie,
+you don't believe the baby is in there, well you can go and see it for
+yourself."
+
+Anna went into the kitchen. A baby was there all right enough, and a
+lusty little boy he seemed. He was very tight asleep in a basket that
+stood in the corner by the open door.
+
+"You mean your mamma is just letting him stay here a little while,"
+Anna said to Julia who had followed her into the kitchen to see Miss
+Annie get real mad. "No that ain't it Miss Annie. The mother was that
+girl, Lily that came from Bishop's place out in the country, and she
+don't want no children, and ma liked the little boy so much, she said
+she'd keep him here and adopt him for her own child."
+
+Anna, for once, was fairly dumb with astonishment and rage. The front
+door slammed.
+
+"There's ma now," cried Julia in an uneasy triumph, for she was not
+quite certain in her mind which side of the question she was on.
+"There's ma now, and you can ask her for yourself if I ain't told you
+true."
+
+Mrs. Lehntman came into the kitchen where they were. She was bland,
+impersonal and pleasant, as it was her wont to be. Still to-day,
+through this her usual manner that gave her such success in her
+practice as a midwife, there shone an uneasy consciousness of guilt,
+for like all who had to do with the good Anna, Mrs. Lehntman dreaded
+her firm character, her vigorous judgments and the bitter fervour of
+her tongue.
+
+It had been plain to see in the six years these women were together,
+how Anna gradually had come to lead. Not really lead, of course, for
+Mrs. Lehntman never could be led, she was so very devious in her ways;
+but Anna had come to have direction whenever she could learn what Mrs.
+Lehntman meant to do before the deed was done. Now it was hard to
+tell which would win out. Mrs. Lehntman had her unhearing mind and her
+happy way of giving a pleasant well diffused attention, and then she
+had it on her side that, after all, this thing was already done.
+
+Anna was, as usual, determined for the right. She was stiff and pale
+with her anger and her fear, and nervous, and all a tremble as was her
+usual way when a bitter fight was near.
+
+Mrs. Lehntman was easy and pleasant as she came into the room. Anna
+was stiff and silent and very white.
+
+"We haven't seen you for a long time, Anna," Mrs. Lehntman cordially
+began. "I was just gettin' worried thinking you was sick. My! but it's
+a hot day to-day. Come into the sittin'-room, Anna, and Julia will
+make us some ice tea."
+
+Anna followed Mrs. Lehntman into the other room in a stiff silence,
+and when there she did not, as invited, take a chair.
+
+As always with Anna when a thing had to come it came very short and
+sharp. She found it hard to breathe just now, and every word came with
+a jerk.
+
+"Mrs. Lehntman, it ain't true what Julia said about your taking that
+Lily's boy to keep. I told Julia when she told me she was crazy to
+talk so."
+
+Anna's real excitements stopped her breath, and made her words come
+sharp and with a jerk. Mrs. Lehntman's feelings spread her breath, and
+made her words come slow, but more pleasant and more easy even than
+before.
+
+"Why Anna," she began, "don't you see Lily couldn't keep her boy for
+she is working at the Bishops' now, and he is such a cute dear little
+chap, and you know how fond I am of little fellers, and I thought it
+would be nice for Julia and for Willie to have a little brother. You
+know Julia always loves to play with babies, and I have to be away
+so much, and Willie he is running in the streets every minute all the
+time, and you see a baby would be sort of nice company for Julia,
+and you know you are always saying Anna, Julia should not be on the
+streets so much and the baby will be so good to keep her in."
+
+Anna was every minute paler with indignation and with heat.
+
+"Mrs. Lehntman, I don't see what business it is for you to take
+another baby for your own, when you can't do what's right by Julia and
+Willie you got here already. There's Julia, nobody tells her a thing
+when I ain't here, and who is going to tell her now how to do things
+for that baby? She ain't got no sense what's the right way to do with
+children, and you out all the time, and you ain't got no time for your
+own neither, and now you want to be takin' up with strangers. I know
+you was careless, Mrs. Lehntman, but I didn't think that you could
+do this so. No, Mrs. Lehntman, it ain't your duty to take up with no
+others, when you got two children of your own, that got to get along
+just any way they can, and you know you ain't got any too much money
+all the time, and you are all so careless here and spend it all the
+time, and Julia and Willie growin' big. It ain't right, Mrs. Lehntman,
+to do so."
+
+This was as bad as it could be. Anna had never spoken her mind so to
+her friend before. Now it was too harsh for Mrs. Lehntman to allow
+herself to really hear. If she really took the meaning in these words
+she could never ask Anna to come into her house again, and she
+liked Anna very well, and was used to depend on her savings and her
+strength. And then too Mrs. Lehntman could not really take in harsh
+ideas. She was too well diffused to catch the feel of any sharp firm
+edge.
+
+Now she managed to understand all this in a way that made it easy for
+her to say, "Why, Anna, I think you feel too bad about seeing what the
+children are doing every minute in the day. Julia and Willie are real
+good, and they play with all the nicest children in the square. If
+you had some, all your own, Anna, you'd see it don't do no harm to let
+them do a little as they like, and Julia likes this baby so, and sweet
+dear little boy, it would be so kind of bad to send him to a 'sylum
+now, you know it would Anna, when you like children so yourself,
+and are so good to my Willie all the time. No indeed Anna, it's easy
+enough to say I should send this poor, cute little boy to a 'sylum
+when I could keep him here so nice, but you know Anna, you wouldn't
+like to do it yourself, now you really know you wouldn't, Anna, though
+you talk to me so hard.--My, it's hot to-day, what you doin' with that
+ice tea in there Julia, when Miss Annie is waiting all this time for
+her drink?"
+
+Julia brought in the ice tea. She was so excited with the talk she had
+been hearing from the kitchen, that she slopped it on the plate out of
+the glasses a good deal. But she was safe, for Anna felt this trouble
+so deep down that she did not even see those awkward, bony hands,
+adorned today with a new ring, those stupid, foolish hands that always
+did things the wrong way.
+
+"Here Miss Annie," Julia said, "Here, Miss Annie, is your glass of
+tea, I know you like it good and strong."
+
+"No, Julia, I don't want no ice tea here. Your mamma ain't able to
+afford now using her money upon ice tea for her friends. It ain't
+right she should now any more. I go out now to see Mrs. Drehten. She
+does all she can, and she is sick now working so hard taking care of
+her own children. I go there now. Good by Mrs. Lehntman, I hope you
+don't get no bad luck doin' what it ain't right for you to do."
+
+"My, Miss Annie is real mad now," Julia said, as the house shook, as
+the good Anna shut the outside door with a concentrated shattering
+slam.
+
+It was some months now that Anna had been intimate with Mrs. Drehten.
+
+Mrs. Drehten had had a tumor and had come to Dr. Shonjen to be
+treated. During the course of her visits there, she and Anna had
+learned to like each other very well. There was no fever in this
+friendship, it was just the interchange of two hard working, worrying
+women, the one large and motherly, with the pleasant, patient, soft,
+worn, tolerant face, that comes with a german husband to obey, and
+seven solid girls and boys to bear and rear, and the other was our
+good Anna with her spinster body, her firm jaw, her humorous, light,
+clean eyes and her lined, worn, thin, pale yellow face.
+
+Mrs. Drehten lived a patient, homely, hard-working life. Her husband
+an honest, decent man enough, was a brewer, and somewhat given to over
+drinking, and so he was often surly and stingy and unpleasant.
+
+The family of seven children was made up of four stalwart, cheery,
+filial sons, and three hard working obedient simple daughters.
+
+It was a family life the good Anna very much approved and also she
+was much liked by them all. With a german woman's feeling for the
+masterhood in men, she was docile to the surly father and rarely
+rubbed him the wrong way. To the large, worn, patient, sickly mother
+she was a sympathetic listener, wise in council and most efficient in
+her help. The young ones too, liked her very well. The sons teased her
+all the time and roared with boisterous pleasure when she gave them
+back sharp hits. The girls were all so good that her scoldings here
+were only in the shape of good advice, sweetened with new trimmings
+for their hats, and ribbons, and sometimes on their birthdays, bits of
+jewels.
+
+It was here that Anna came for comfort after her grievous stroke at
+her friend the widow, Mrs. Lehntman. Not that Anna would tell Mrs.
+Drehten of this trouble. She could never lay bare the wound that came
+to her through this idealised affection. Her affair with Mrs. Lehntman
+was too sacred and too grievous ever to be told. But here in this
+large household, in busy movement and variety in strife, she could
+silence the uneasiness and pain of her own wound.
+
+The Drehtens lived out in the country in one of the wooden, ugly
+houses that lie in groups outside of our large cities.
+
+The father and the sons all had their work here making beer, and the
+mother and her girls scoured and sewed and cooked.
+
+On Sundays they were all washed very clean, and smelling of kitchen
+soap. The sons, in their Sunday clothes, loafed around the house or in
+the village, and on special days went on picnics with their girls. The
+daughters in their awkward, colored finery went to church most of the
+day and then walking with their friends.
+
+They always came together for their supper, where Anna always was most
+welcome, the jolly Sunday evening supper that german people love.
+Here Anna and the boys gave it to each other in sharp hits and hearty
+boisterous laughter, the girls made things for them to eat, and waited
+on them all, the mother loved all her children all the time, and
+the father joined in with his occasional unpleasant word that made a
+bitter feeling but which they had all learned to pass as if it were
+not said.
+
+It was to the comfort of this house that Anna came that Sunday summer
+afternoon, after she had left Mrs. Lehntman and her careless ways.
+
+The Drehten house was open all about. No one was there but Mrs.
+Drehten resting in her rocking chair, out in the pleasant, scented,
+summer air.
+
+Anna had had a hot walk from the cars.
+
+She went into the kitchen for a cooling drink, and then came out and
+sat down on the steps near Mrs. Drehten.
+
+Anna's anger had changed. A sadness had come to her. Now with the
+patient, friendly, gentle mother talk of Mrs. Drehten, this sadness
+changed to resignation and to rest.
+
+As the evening came on the young ones dropped in one by one. Soon the
+merry Sunday evening supper was begun.
+
+It had not been all comfort for our Anna, these months of knowing
+Mrs. Drehten. It had made trouble for her with the family of her half
+brother, the fat baker.
+
+Her half brother, the fat baker, was a queer kind of a man. He was a
+huge, unwieldy creature, all puffed out all over, and no longer able
+to walk much, with his enormous body and the big, swollen, bursted
+veins in his great legs. He did not try to walk much now. He sat
+around his place, leaning on his great thick stick, and watching his
+workmen at their work.
+
+On holidays, and sometimes of a Sunday, he went out in his bakery
+wagon. He went then to each customer he had and gave them each a
+large, sweet, raisined loaf of caky bread. At every house with many
+groans and gasps he would descend his heavy weight out of the wagon,
+his good featured, black haired, flat, good natured face shining with
+oily perspiration, with pride in labor and with generous kindness.
+Up each stoop he hobbled with the help of his big stick, and into the
+nearest chair in the kitchen or in the parlour, as the fashion of the
+house demanded, and there he sat and puffed, and then presented to the
+mistress or the cook the raisined german loaf his boy supplied him.
+
+Anna had never been a customer of his. She had always lived in another
+part of the town, but he never left her out in these bakery progresses
+of his, and always with his own hand he gave her her festive loaf.
+
+Anna liked her half brother well enough. She never knew him really
+well, for he rarely talked at all and least of all to women, but
+he seemed to her, honest, and good and kind, and he never tried to
+interfere in Anna's ways. And then Anna liked the loaves of raisined
+bread, for in the summer she and the second girl could live on them,
+and not be buying bread with the household money all the time.
+
+But things were not so simple with our Anna, with the other members of
+her half brother's house.
+
+Her half brother's family was made up of himself, his wife, and their
+two daughters.
+
+Anna never liked her brother's wife.
+
+The youngest of the two daughters was named after her aunt Anna.
+
+Anna never liked her half brother's wife. This woman had been very
+good to Anna, never interfering in her ways, always glad to see her
+and to make her visits pleasant, but she had not found favour in our
+good Anna's sight.
+
+Anna had too, no real affection for her nieces. She never scolded
+them or tried to guide them for their good. Anna never criticised or
+interfered in the running of her half brother's house.
+
+Mrs. Federner was a good looking, prosperous woman, a little harsh and
+cold within her soul perhaps, but trying always to be pleasant, good
+and kind. Her daughters were well trained, quiet, obedient, well
+dressed girls, and yet our good Anna loved them not, nor their mother,
+nor any of their ways.
+
+It was in this house that Anna had first met her friend, the widow,
+Mrs. Lehntman.
+
+The Federners had never seemed to feel it wrong in Anna, her devotion
+to this friend and her care of her and of her children. Mrs. Lehntman
+and Anna and her feelings were all somehow too big for their attack.
+But Mrs. Federner had the mind and tongue that blacken things. Not
+really to blacken black, of course, but just to roughen and to rub on
+a little smut. She could somehow make even the face of the Almighty
+seem pimply and a little coarse, and so she always did this with her
+friends, though not with the intent to interfere.
+
+This was really true with Mrs. Lehntman that Mrs. Federner did not
+mean to interfere, but Anna's friendship with the Drehtens was a very
+different matter.
+
+Why should Mrs. Drehten, that poor common working wife of a man who
+worked for others in a brewery and who always drank too much, and was
+not like a thrifty, decent german man, why should that Mrs. Drehten
+and her ugly, awkward daughters be getting presents from her husband's
+sister all the time, and her husband always so good to Anna, and one
+of the girls having her name too, and those Drehtens all strangers to
+her and never going to come to any good? It was not right for Anna to
+do so.
+
+Mrs. Federner knew better than to say such things straight out to her
+husband's fiery, stubborn sister, but she lost no chance to let Anna
+feel and see what they all thought.
+
+It was easy to blacken all the Drehtens, their poverty, the husband's
+drinking, the four big sons carrying on and always lazy, the awkward,
+ugly daughters dressing up with Anna's help and trying to look so
+fine, and the poor, weak, hard-working sickly mother, so easy to
+degrade with large dosings of contemptuous pity.
+
+Anna could not do much with these attacks for Mrs. Federner always
+ended with, "And you so good to them Anna all the time. I don't see
+how they could get along at all if you didn't help them all the time,
+but you are so good Anna, and got such a feeling heart, just like your
+brother, that you give anything away you got to anybody that will ask
+you for it, and that's shameless enough to take it when they ain't no
+relatives of yours. Poor Mrs. Drehten, she is a good woman. Poor thing
+it must be awful hard for her to have to take things from strangers
+all the time, and her husband spending it on drink. I was saying to
+Mrs. Lehntman, Anna, only yesterday, how I never was so sorry for any
+one as Mrs. Drehten, and how good it was for you to help them all the
+time."
+
+All this meant a gold watch and chain to her god daughter for her
+birthday, the next month, and a new silk umbrella for the elder
+sister. Poor Anna, and she did not love them very much, these
+relatives of hers, and they were the only kin she had.
+
+Mrs. Lehntman never joined in, in these attacks. Mrs. Lehntman was
+diffuse and careless in her ways, but she never worked such things for
+her own ends, and she was too sure of Anna to be jealous of her other
+friends.
+
+All this time Anna was leading her happy life with Dr. Shonjen.
+She had every day her busy time. She cooked and saved and sewed and
+scrubbed and scolded. And every night she had her happy time, in
+seeing her Doctor like the fine things she bought so cheap and cooked
+so good for him to eat. And then he would listen and laugh so loud, as
+she told him stories of what had happened on that day.
+
+The Doctor, too, liked it better all the time and several times in
+these five years he had of his own motion raised her wages.
+
+Anna was content with what she had and grateful for all her doctor did
+for her.
+
+So Anna's serving and her giving life went on, each with its varied
+pleasures and its pains.
+
+The adopting of the little boy did not put an end to Anna's friendship
+for the widow Mrs. Lehntman. Neither the good Anna nor the careless
+Mrs. Lehntman would give each other up excepting for the gravest
+cause.
+
+Mrs. Lehntman was the only romance Anna ever knew. A certain magnetic
+brilliancy in person and in manner made Mrs. Lehntman a woman other
+women loved. Then, too, she was generous and good and honest, though
+she was so careless always in her ways. And then she trusted Anna and
+liked her better than any of her other friends, and Anna always felt
+this very much.
+
+No, Anna could not give up Mrs. Lehntman, and soon she was busier than
+before making Julia do things right for little Johnny.
+
+And now new schemes were working strong in Mrs. Lehntman's head, and
+Anna must listen to her plans and help her make them work.
+
+Mrs. Lehntman always loved best in her work to deliver young girls who
+were in trouble. She would keep these in her house until they could go
+to their homes or to their work, and slowly pay her back the money for
+their care.
+
+Anna had always helped her friend to do this thing, for like all the
+good women of the decent poor, she felt it hard that girls should
+not be helped, not girls that were really bad of course, these she
+condemned and hated in her heart and with her tongue, but honest,
+decent, good, hard working, foolish girls who were in trouble.
+
+For such as these Anna always liked to give her money and her
+strength.
+
+Now Mrs. Lehntman thought that it would pay to take a big house for
+herself to take in girls and to do everything in a big way.
+
+Anna did not like this plan.
+
+Anna was never daring in her ways. Save and you will have the money
+you have saved, was all that she could know.
+
+Not that the good Anna had it so.
+
+She saved and saved and always saved, and then here and there, to this
+friend and to that, to one in her trouble and to the other in her joy,
+in sickness, death, and weddings, or to make young people happy, it
+always went, the hard earned money she had saved.
+
+Anna could not clearly see how Mrs. Lehntman could make a big house
+pay. In the small house where she had these girls, it did not pay, and
+in a big house there was so much more that she would spend.
+
+Such things were hard for the good Anna to very clearly see. One day
+she came into the Lehntman house. "Anna," Mrs. Lehntman said, "you
+know that nice big house on the next corner that we saw to rent. I
+took it for a year just yesterday. I paid a little down you know so I
+could have it sure all right and now you fix it up just like you want.
+I let you do just what you like with it."
+
+Anna knew that it was now too late. However, "But Mrs. Lehntman you
+said you would not take another house, you said so just last week. Oh,
+Mrs. Lehntman I didn't think that you would do this so!"
+
+Anna knew so well it was too late.
+
+"I know, Anna, but it was such a good house, just right you know and
+someone else was there to see, and you know you said it suited very
+well, and if I didn't take it the others said they would, and I wanted
+to ask you only there wasn't time, and really Anna, I don't need much
+help, it will go so well I know. I just need a little to begin and
+to fix up with and that's all Anna that I need, and I know it will go
+awful well. You wait Anna and you'll see, and I let you fix it up just
+like you want, and you will make it look so nice, you got such sense
+in all these things. It will be a good place. You see Anna if I ain't
+right in what I say."
+
+Of course Anna gave the money for this thing though she could not
+believe that it was best. No, it was very bad. Mrs. Lehntman could
+never make it pay and it would cost so much to keep. But what could
+our poor Anna do? Remember Mrs. Lehntman was the only romance Anna
+ever knew.
+
+Anna's strength in her control of what was done in Mrs. Lehntman's
+house, was not now what it had been before that Lily's little Johnny
+came. That thing had been for Anna a defeat. There had been no
+fighting to a finish but Mrs. Lehntman had very surely won.
+
+Mrs. Lehntman needed Anna just as much as Anna needed Mrs. Lehntman,
+but Mrs. Lehntman was more ready to risk Anna's loss, and so the good
+Anna grew always weaker in her power to control.
+
+In friendship, power always has its downward curve. One's strength to
+manage rises always higher until there comes a time one does not win,
+and though one may not really lose, still from the time that victory
+is not sure, one's power slowly ceases to be strong. It is only in a
+close tie such as marriage, that influence can mount and grow always
+stronger with the years and never meet with a decline. It can only
+happen so when there is no way to escape.
+
+Friendship goes by favour. There is always danger of a break or of a
+stronger power coming in between. Influence can only be a steady march
+when one can surely never break away.
+
+Anna wanted Mrs. Lehntman very much and Mrs. Lehntman needed Anna, but
+there were always other ways to do and if Anna had once given up she
+might do so again, so why should Mrs. Lehntman have real fear?
+
+No, while the good Anna did not come to open fight she had been
+stronger. Now Mrs. Lehntman could always hold out longer. She knew
+too, that Anna had a feeling heart. Anna could never stop doing all
+she could for any one that really needed help. Poor Anna had no power
+to say no.
+
+And then, too, Mrs. Lehntman was the only romance Anna ever knew.
+Romance is the ideal in one's life and it is very lonely living with
+it lost.
+
+So the good Anna gave all her savings for this place, although she
+knew that this was not the right way for her friend to do.
+
+For some time now they were all very busy fixing up the house. It
+swallowed all Anna's savings fixing up this house, for when Anna once
+began to make it nice, she could not leave it be until it was as good
+as for the purpose it should be.
+
+Somehow it was Anna now that really took the interest in the house.
+Mrs. Lehntman, now the thing was done seemed very lifeless, without
+interest in the house, uneasy in her mind and restless in her ways,
+and more diffuse even than before in her attention. She was good and
+kind to all the people in her house, and let them do whatever they
+thought best.
+
+Anna did not fail to see that Mrs. Lehntman had something on her mind
+that was all new. What was it that disturbed Mrs. Lehntman so? She
+kept on saying it was all in Anna's head. She had no trouble now at
+all. Everybody was so good and it was all so nice in the new house.
+But surely there was something here that was all wrong.
+
+Anna heard a good deal of all this from her half brother's wife, the
+hard speaking Mrs. Federner.
+
+Through the fog of dust and work and furnishing in the new house, and
+through the disturbed mind of Mrs. Lehntman, and with the dark hints
+of Mrs. Federner, there loomed up to Anna's sight a man, a new doctor
+that Mrs. Lehntman knew.
+
+Anna had never met the man but she heard of him very often now. Not
+from her friend, the widow Mrs. Lehntman. Anna knew that Mrs. Lehntman
+made of him a mystery that Anna had not the strength just then to
+vigorously break down.
+
+Mrs. Federner gave always dark suggestions and unpleasant hints. Even
+good Mrs. Drehten talked of it.
+
+Mrs. Lehntman never spoke of the new doctor more than she could help.
+This was most mysterious and unpleasant and very hard for our good
+Anna to endure.
+
+Anna's troubles came all of them at once.
+
+Here in Mrs. Lehntman's house loomed up dismal and forbidding, a
+mysterious, perhaps an evil man. In Dr. Shonjen's house were beginning
+signs of interest in the doctor in a woman.
+
+This, too, Mrs. Federner often told to the poor Anna. The doctor
+surely would be married soon, he liked so much now to go to Mr.
+Weingartner's house where there was a daughter who loved Doctor,
+everybody knew.
+
+In these days the living room in her half brother's house was Anna's
+torture chamber. And worst of all there was so much reason for her
+half sister's words. The Doctor certainly did look like marriage and
+Mrs. Lehntman acted very queer.
+
+Poor Anna. Dark were these days and much she had to suffer.
+
+The Doctor's trouble came to a head the first. It was true Doctor was
+engaged and to be married soon. He told Anna so himself.
+
+What was the good Anna now to do? Dr. Shonjen wanted her of course to
+stay. Anna was so sad with all these troubles. She knew here in the
+Doctor's house it would be bad when he was married, but she had not
+the strength now to be firm and go away. She said at last that she
+would try and stay.
+
+Doctor got married now very soon. Anna made the house all beautiful
+and clean and she really hoped that she might stay. But this was not
+for long.
+
+Mrs. Shonjen was a proud, unpleasant woman. She wanted constant
+service and attention and never even a thank you to a servant. Soon
+all Doctor's old people went away. Anna went to Doctor and explained.
+She told him what all the servants thought of his new wife. Anna bade
+him a sad farewell and went away.
+
+Anna was now most uncertain what to do. She could go to Curden to her
+Miss Mary Wadsmith who always wrote how much she needed Anna, but Anna
+still dreaded Miss Jane's interfering ways. Then too, she could not
+yet go away from Bridgepoint and from Mrs. Lehntman, unpleasant as it
+always was now over there.
+
+Through one of Doctor's friends Anna heard of Miss Mathilda. Anna was
+very doubtful about working for a Miss Mathilda. She did not think it
+would be good working for a woman anymore. She had found it very good
+with Miss Mary but she did not think that many women would be so.
+
+Most women were interfering in their ways.
+
+Anna heard that Miss Mathilda was a great big woman, not so big
+perhaps as her Miss Mary, still she was big, and the good Anna liked
+them better so. She did not like them thin and small and active and
+always looking in and always prying.
+
+Anna could not make up her mind what was the best thing now for her
+to do. She could sew and this way make a living, but she did not like
+such business very well.
+
+Mrs. Lehntman urged the place with Miss Mathilda. She was sure Anna
+would find it better so. The good Anna did not know.
+
+"Well Anna," Mrs. Lehntman said, "I tell you what we do. I go with you
+to that woman that tells fortunes, perhaps she tell us something that
+will show us what is the best way for you now to do."
+
+It was very bad to go to a woman who tells fortunes. Anna was of
+strong South German Catholic religion and the german priests in the
+churches always said that it was very bad to do things so. But what
+else now could the good Anna do? She was so mixed and bothered in her
+mind, and troubled with this life that was all wrong, though she did
+try so hard to do the best she knew. "All right, Mrs. Lehntman," Anna
+said at last, "I think I go there now with you."
+
+This woman who told fortunes was a medium. She had a house in the
+lower quarter of the town. Mrs. Lehntman and the good Anna went to
+her.
+
+The medium opened the door for them herself. She was a loose made,
+dusty, dowdy woman with a persuading, conscious and embracing manner
+and very greasy hair.
+
+The woman let them come into the house.
+
+The street door opened straight into the parlor, as is the way in the
+small houses of the south. The parlor had a thick and flowered carpet
+on the floor. The room was full of dirty things all made by hand. Some
+hung upon the wall, some were on the seats and over backs of chairs
+and some on tables and on those what-nots that poor people love. And
+everywhere were little things that break. Many of these little things
+were broken and the place was stuffy and not clean.
+
+No medium uses her parlor for her work. It is always in her eating
+room that she has her trances.
+
+The eating room in all these houses is the living room in winter. It
+has a round table in the centre covered with a decorated woolen cloth,
+that has soaked in the grease of many dinners, for though it should be
+always taken off, it is easier to spread the cloth upon it than change
+it for the blanket deadener that one owns. The upholstered chairs are
+dark and worn, and dirty. The carpet has grown dingy with the food
+that's fallen from the table, the dirt that's scraped from off the
+shoes, and the dust that settles with the ages. The sombre greenish
+colored paper on the walls has been smoked a dismal dirty grey, and
+all pervading is the smell of soup made out of onions and fat chunks
+of meat.
+
+The medium brought Mrs. Lehntman and our Anna into this eating room,
+after she had found out what it was they wanted. They all three sat
+around the table and then the medium went into her trance.
+
+The medium first closed her eyes and then they opened very wide and
+lifeless. She took a number of deep breaths, choked several times and
+swallowed very hard. She waved her hand back every now and then, and
+she began to speak in a monotonous slow, even tone.
+
+"I see--I see--don't crowd so on me,--I see--I see--too many
+forms--don't crowd so on me--I see--I see--you are thinking of
+something--you don't know whether you want to do it now. I see--I
+see--don't crowd so on me--I see--I see--you are not sure,--I see--I
+see--a house with trees around it,--it is dark--it is evening--I
+see--I see--you go in the house--I see--I see you come out--it will
+be all right--you go and do it--do what you are not certain about--it
+will come out all right--it is best and you should do it now."
+
+She stopped, she made deep gulps, her eyes rolled back into her head,
+she swallowed hard and then she was her former dingy and bland self
+again.
+
+"Did you get what you wanted that the spirit should tell you?" the
+woman asked. Mrs. Lehntman answered yes, it was just what her
+friend had wanted so bad to know. Anna was uneasy in this house with
+superstition, with fear of her good priest, and with disgust at all
+the dirt and grease, but she was most content for now she knew what it
+was best for her to do.
+
+Anna paid the woman for her work and then they came away.
+
+"There Anna didn't I tell you how it would all be? You see the spirit
+says so too. You must take the place with Miss Mathilda, that is what
+I told you was the best thing for you to do. We go out and see her
+where she lives to-night. Ain't you glad, Anna, that I took you to
+this place, so you know now what you will do?"
+
+Mrs. Lehntman and Anna went that evening to see Miss Mathilda. Miss
+Mathilda was staying with a friend who lived in a house that did have
+trees about. Miss Mathilda was not there herself to talk with Anna.
+
+If it had not been that it was evening, and so dark, and that this
+house had trees all round about, and that Anna found herself going in
+and coming out just as the woman that day said that she would do, had
+it not all been just as the medium said, the good Anna would never
+have taken the place with Miss Mathilda.
+
+Anna did not see Miss Mathilda and she did not like the friend who
+acted in her place.
+
+This friend was a dark, sweet, gentle little mother woman, very easy
+to be pleased in her own work and very good to servants, but she felt
+that acting for her young friend, the careless Miss Mathilda, she must
+be very careful to examine well and see that all was right and that
+Anna would surely do the best she knew. She asked Anna all about her
+ways and her intentions and how much she would spend, and how often
+she went out and whether she could wash and cook and sew.
+
+The good Anna set her teeth fast to endure and would hardly answer
+anything at all. Mrs. Lehntman made it all go fairly well.
+
+The good Anna was all worked up with her resentment, and Miss
+Mathilda's friend did not think that she would do.
+
+However, Miss Mathilda was willing to begin and as for Anna, she knew
+that the medium said it must be so. Mrs. Lehntman, too, was sure, and
+said she knew that this was the best thing for Anna now to do. So Anna
+sent word at last to Miss Mathilda, that if she wanted her, she would
+try if it would do.
+
+So Anna began a new life taking care of Miss Mathilda.
+
+Anna fixed up the little red brick house where Miss Mathilda was going
+to live and made it very pleasant, clean and nice. She brought over
+her dog, Baby, and her parrot. She hired Lizzie for a second girl to
+be with her and soon they were all content. All except the parrot, for
+Miss Mathilda did not like its scream. Baby was all right but not the
+parrot. But then Anna never really loved the parrot, and so she gave
+it to the Drehten girls to keep.
+
+Before Anna could really rest content with Miss Mathilda, she had to
+tell her good german priest what it was that she had done, and how
+very bad it was that she had been and how she would never do so again.
+
+Anna really did believe with all her might. It was her fortune never
+to live with people who had any faith, but then that never worried
+Anna. She prayed for them always as she should, and she was very sure
+that they were good. The doctor loved to tease her with his doubts and
+Miss Mathilda liked to do so too, but with the tolerant spirit of her
+church, Anna never thought that such things were bad for them to do.
+
+Anna found it hard to always know just why it was that things went
+wrong. Sometimes her glasses broke and then she knew that she had not
+done her duty by the church, just in the way that she should do.
+
+Sometimes she was so hard at work that she would not go to mass.
+Something always happened then. Anna's temper grew irritable and her
+ways uncertain and distraught. Everybody suffered and then her glasses
+broke. That was always very bad because they cost so much to fix.
+Still in a way it always ended Anna's troubles, because she knew then
+that all this was because she had been bad. As long as she could scold
+it might be just the bad ways of all the thoughtless careless world,
+but when her glasses broke that made it clear. That meant that it was
+she herself who had been bad.
+
+No, it was no use for Anna not to do the way she should, for things
+always then went wrong and finally cost money to make whole, and this
+was the hardest thing for the good Anna to endure.
+
+Anna almost always did her duty. She made confession and her mission
+whenever it was right. Of course she did not tell the father when
+she deceived people for their good, or when she wanted them to give
+something for a little less.
+
+When Anna told such histories to her doctor and later to her cherished
+Miss Mathilda, her eyes were always full of humor and enjoyment as she
+explained that she had said it so, and now she would not have to tell
+the father for she had not really made a sin.
+
+But going to a fortune teller Anna knew was really bad. That had to be
+told to the father just as it was and penance had then to be done.
+
+Anna did this and now her new life was well begun, making Miss
+Mathilda and the rest do just the way they should.
+
+Yes, taking care of Miss Mathilda were the happiest days of all the
+good Anna's strong hard working life.
+
+With Miss Mathilda Anna did it all. The clothes, the house, the hats,
+what she should wear and when and what was always best for her to do.
+There was nothing Miss Mathilda would not let Anna manage, and only be
+too glad if she would do.
+
+Anna scolded and cooked and sewed and saved so well, that Miss
+Mathilda had so much to spend, that it kept Anna still busier scolding
+all the time about the things she bought, that made so much work for
+Anna and the other girl to do. But for all the scolding, Anna was
+proud almost to bursting of her cherished Miss Mathilda with all her
+knowledge and her great possessions, and the good Anna was always
+telling of it all to everybody that she knew.
+
+Yes these were the happiest days of all her life with Anna, even
+though with her friends there were great sorrows. But these sorrows
+did not hurt the good Anna now, as they had done in the years that
+went before.
+
+Miss Mathilda was not a romance in the good Anna's life, but Anna gave
+her so much strong affection that it almost filled her life as full.
+
+It was well for the good Anna that her life with Miss Mathilda was so
+happy, for now in these days, Mrs. Lehntman went altogether bad. The
+doctor she had learned to know, was too certainly an evil as well as
+a mysterious man, and he had power over the widow and midwife, Mrs.
+Lehntman.
+
+Anna never saw Mrs. Lehntman at all now any more.
+
+Mrs. Lehntman had borrowed some more money and had given Anna a note
+then for it all, and after that Anna never saw her any more. Anna now
+stopped altogether going to the Lehntmans'. Julia, the tall, gawky,
+good, blonde, stupid daughter, came often to see Anna, but she could
+tell little of her mother.
+
+It certainly did look very much as if Mrs. Lehntman had now gone
+altogether bad. This was a great grief to the good Anna, but not so
+great a grief as it would have been had not Miss Mathilda meant so
+much to her now.
+
+Mrs. Lehntman went from bad to worse. The doctor, the mysterious and
+evil man, got into trouble doing things that were not right to do.
+
+Mrs. Lehntman was mixed up in this affair.
+
+It was just as bad as it could be, but they managed, both the doctor
+and Mrs. Lehntman, finally to come out safe.
+
+Everybody was so sorry about Mrs. Lehntman. She had been really a good
+woman before she met this doctor, and even now she certainly had not
+been really bad.
+
+For several years now Anna never even saw her friend.
+
+But Anna always found new people to befriend, people who, in the
+kindly fashion of the poor, used up her savings and then gave promises
+in place of payments. Anna never really thought that these people
+would be good, but when they did not do the way they should, and when
+they did not pay her back the money she had loaned, and never seemed
+the better for her care, then Anna would grow bitter with the world.
+
+No, none of them had any sense of what was the right way for them to
+do. So Anna would repeat in her despair.
+
+The poor are generous with their things. They give always what they
+have, but with them to give or to receive brings with it no feeling
+that they owe the giver for the gift.
+
+Even a thrifty german Anna was ready to give all that she had saved,
+and so not be sure that she would have enough to take care of herself
+if she fell sick, or for old age, when she could not work. Save and
+you will have the money you have saved was true only for the day of
+saving, even for a thrifty german Anna. There was no certain way to
+have it for old age, for the taking care of what is saved can never be
+relied on, for it must always be in strangers' hands in a bank or in
+investments by a friend.
+
+And so when any day one might need life and help from others of the
+working poor, there was no way a woman who had a little saved could
+say them no.
+
+So the good Anna gave her all to friends and strangers, to children,
+dogs and cats, to anything that asked or seemed to need her care.
+
+It was in this way that Anna came to help the barber and his wife who
+lived around the corner, and who somehow could never make ends meet.
+They worked hard, were thrifty, had no vices, but the barber was one
+of them who never can make money. Whoever owed him money did not pay.
+Whenever he had a chance at a good job he fell sick and could not
+take it. It was never his own fault that he had trouble, but he never
+seemed to make things come out right.
+
+His wife was a blonde, thin, pale, german little woman, who bore her
+children very hard, and worked too soon, and then till she was sick.
+She too, always had things that went wrong.
+
+They both needed constant help and patience, and the good Anna gave
+both to them all the time.
+
+Another woman who needed help from the good Anna, was one who was in
+trouble from being good to others.
+
+This woman's husband's brother, who was very good, worked in a shop
+where there was a Bohemian, who was getting sick with consumption.
+This man got so much worse he could not do his work, but he was not
+so sick that he could stay in a hospital. So this woman had him living
+there with her. He was not a nice man, nor was he thankful for all the
+woman did for him. He was cross to her two children and made a great
+mess always in her house. The doctor said he must have many things to
+eat, and the woman and the brother of the husband got them for him.
+
+There was no friendship, no affection, no liking even for the man
+this woman cared for, no claim of common country or of kin, but in the
+kindly fashion of the poor this woman gave her all and made her house
+a nasty place, and for a man who was not even grateful for the gift.
+
+Then, of course, the woman herself got into trouble. Her husband's
+brother was now married. Her husband lost his job. She did not have
+the money for the rent. It was the good Anna's savings that were
+handy.
+
+So it went on. Sometimes a little girl, sometimes a big one was in
+trouble and Anna heard of them and helped them to find places.
+
+Stray dogs and cats Anna always kept until she found them homes. She
+was always careful to learn whether these people would be good to
+animals.
+
+Out of the whole collection of stray creatures, it was the young Peter
+and the jolly little Rags, Anna could not find it in her heart to
+part with. These became part of the household of the good Anna's Miss
+Mathilda.
+
+Peter was a very useless creature, a foolish, silly, cherished,
+coward male. It was wild to see him rush up and down in the back yard,
+barking and bouncing at the wall, when there was some dog out beyond,
+but when the very littlest one there was got inside of the fence and
+only looked at Peter, Peter would retire to his Anna and blot himself
+out between her skirts.
+
+When Peter was left downstairs alone, he howled. "I am all alone," he
+wailed, and then the good Anna would have to come and fetch him up.
+Once when Anna stayed a few nights in a house not far away, she had to
+carry Peter all the way, for Peter was afraid when he found himself on
+the street outside his house. Peter was a good sized creature and he
+sat there and he howled, and the good Anna carried him all the way
+in her own arms. He was a coward was this Peter, but he had kindly,
+gentle eyes and a pretty collie head, and his fur was very thick and
+white and nice when he was washed. And then Peter never strayed away,
+and he looked out of his nice eyes and he liked it when you rubbed
+him down, and he forgot you when you went away, and he barked whenever
+there was any noise.
+
+When he was a little pup he had one night been put into the yard and
+that was all of his origin she knew. The good Anna loved him well and
+spoiled him as a good german mother always does her son.
+
+Little Rags was very different in his nature. He was a lively creature
+made out of ends of things, all fluffy and dust color, and he was
+always bounding up into the air and darting all about over and then
+under silly Peter and often straight into solemn fat, blind, sleepy
+Baby, and then in a wild rush after some stray cat.
+
+Rags was a pleasant, jolly little fellow. The good Anna liked him
+very well, but never with her strength as she loved her good looking
+coward, foolish young man, Peter.
+
+Baby was the dog of her past life and she held Anna with old ties of
+past affection. Peter was the spoiled, good looking young man, of her
+middle age, and Rags was always something of a toy. She liked him but
+he never struck in very deep. Rags had strayed in somehow one day and
+then when no home for him was quickly found, he had just stayed right
+there.
+
+It was a very happy family there all together in the kitchen, the good
+Anna and Sally and old Baby and young Peter and the jolly little Rags.
+
+The parrot had passed out of Anna's life. She had really never loved
+the parrot and now she hardly thought to ask for him, even when she
+visited the Drehtens.
+
+Mrs. Drehten was the friend Anna always went to, for her Sundays. She
+did not get advice from Mrs. Drehten as she used to from the widow,
+Mrs. Lehntman, for Mrs. Drehten was a mild, worn, unaggressive
+nature that never cared to influence or to lead. But they could mourn
+together for the world these two worn, working german women, for its
+sadness and its wicked ways of doing. Mrs. Drehten knew so well what
+one could suffer.
+
+Things did not go well in these days with the Drehtens. The children
+were all good, but the father with his temper and his spending kept
+everything from being what it should.
+
+Poor Mrs. Drehten still had trouble with her tumor. She could hardly
+do any work now any more. Mrs. Drehten was a large, worn, patient
+german woman, with a soft face, lined, yellow brown in color and the
+look that comes from a german husband to obey, and many solid girls
+and boys to bear and rear, and from being always on one's feet and
+never having any troubles cured.
+
+Mrs. Drehten was always getting worse, and now the doctor thought it
+would be best to take the tumor out.
+
+It was no longer Dr. Shonjen who treated Mrs. Drehten. They all went
+now to a good old german doctor they all knew.
+
+"You see, Miss Mathilda," Anna said, "All the old german patients
+don't go no more now to Doctor. I stayed with him just so long as
+I could stand it, but now he is moved away up town too far for poor
+people, and his wife, she holds her head up so and always is spending
+so much money just for show, and so he can't take right care of us
+poor people any more. Poor man, he has got always to be thinking about
+making money now. I am awful sorry about Doctor, Miss Mathilda, but
+he neglected Mrs. Drehten shameful when she had her trouble, so now I
+never see him any more. Doctor Herman is a good, plain, german doctor
+and he would never do things so, and Miss Mathilda, Mrs. Drehten is
+coming in to-morrow to see you before she goes to the hospital for her
+operation. She could not go comfortable till she had seen you first to
+see what you would say."
+
+All Anna's friends reverenced the good Anna's cherished Miss Mathilda.
+How could they not do so and still remain friends with the good Anna?
+Miss Mathilda rarely really saw them but they were always sending
+flowers and words of admiration through her Anna. Every now and then
+Anna would bring one of them to Miss Mathilda for advice.
+
+It is wonderful how poor people love to take advice from people who
+are friendly and above them, from people who read in books and who are
+good.
+
+Miss Mathilda saw Mrs. Drehten and told her she was glad that she was
+going to the hospital for operation for that surely would be best, and
+so good Mrs. Drehten's mind was set at rest.
+
+Mrs. Drehten's tumor came out very well. Mrs. Drehten was afterwards
+never really well, but she could do her work a little better, and be
+on her feet and yet not get so tired.
+
+And so Anna's life went on, taking care of Miss Mathilda and all her
+clothes and goods, and being good to every one that asked or seemed to
+need her help.
+
+Now, slowly, Anna began to make it up with Mrs. Lehntman. They could
+never be as they had been before. Mrs, Lehntman could never be again
+the romance in the good Anna's life, but they could be friends again,
+and Anna could help all the Lehntmans in their need. This slowly came
+about.
+
+Mrs. Lehntman had now left the evil and mysterious man who had been
+the cause of all her trouble. She had given up, too, the new big
+house that she had taken. Since her trouble her practice had been
+very quiet. Still she managed to do fairly well. She began to talk of
+paying the good Anna. This, however, had not gotten very far.
+
+Anna saw Mrs. Lehntman a good deal now. Mrs. Lehntman's crisp, black,
+curly hair had gotten streaked with gray. Her dark, full, good looking
+face had lost its firm outline, gone flabby and a little worn. She had
+grown stouter and her clothes did not look very nice. She was as bland
+as ever in her ways, and as diffuse as always in her attention, but
+through it all there was uneasiness and fear and uncertainty lest some
+danger might be near.
+
+She never said a word of her past life to the good Anna, but it was
+very plain to see that her experience had not left her easy, nor yet
+altogether free.
+
+It had been hard for this good woman, for Mrs. Lehntman was really a
+good woman, it had been a very hard thing for this german woman to do
+what everybody knew and thought was wrong. Mrs. Lehntman was strong
+and she had courage, but it had been very hard to bear. Even the
+good Anna did not speak to her with freedom. There always remained a
+mystery and a depression in Mrs. Lehntman's affair.
+
+And now the blonde, foolish, awkward daughter, Julia was in trouble.
+During the years the mother gave her no attention, Julia kept company
+with a young fellow who was a clerk somewhere in a store down in the
+city. He was a decent, dull young fellow, who did not make much money
+and could never save it for he had an old mother he supported. He
+and Julia had been keeping company for several years and now it was
+needful that they should be married. But then how could they marry?
+He did not make enough to start them and to keep on supporting his old
+mother too. Julia was not used to working much and she said, and she
+was stubborn, that she would not live with Charley's dirty, cross, old
+mother. Mrs. Lehntman had no money. She was just beginning to get on
+her feet. It was of course, the good Anna's savings that were handy.
+
+However it paid Anna to bring about this marriage, paid her in
+scoldings and in managing the dull, long, awkward Julia, and her good,
+patient, stupid Charley. Anna loved to buy things cheap, and fix up a
+new place.
+
+Julia and Charley were soon married and things went pretty well with
+them. Anna did not approve their slack, expensive ways of doing.
+
+"No Miss Mathilda," she would say, "The young people nowadays have no
+sense for saving and putting money by so they will have something to
+use when they need it. There's Julia and her Charley. I went in there
+the other day, Miss Mathilda, and they had a new table with a marble
+top and on it they had a grand new plush album. 'Where you get that
+album?' I asked Julia. 'Oh, Charley he gave it to me for my birthday,'
+she said, and I asked her if it was paid for and she said not all
+yet but it would be soon. Now I ask you what business have they Miss
+Mathilda, when they ain't paid for anything they got already, what
+business have they to be buying new things for her birthdays. Julia
+she don't do no work, she just sits around and thinks how she can
+spend the money, and Charley he never puts one cent by. I never see
+anything like the people nowadays Miss Mathilda, they don't seem to
+have any sense of being careful about money. Julia and Charley when
+they have any children they won't have nothing to bring them up with
+right. I said that to Julia, Miss Mathilda, when she showed me those
+silly things that Charley bought her, and she just said in her silly,
+giggling way, perhaps they won't have any children. I told her she
+ought to be ashamed of talking so, but I don't know, Miss Mathilda,
+the young people nowadays have no sense at all of what's the right
+way for them to do, and perhaps its better if they don't have any
+children, and then Miss Mathilda you know there is Mrs. Lehntman. You
+know she regular adopted little Johnny just so she could pay out some
+more money just as if she didn't have trouble enough taking care of
+her own children. No Miss Mathilda, I never see how people can do
+things so. People don't seem to have no sense of right or wrong or
+anything these days Miss Mathilda, they are just careless and thinking
+always of themselves and how they can always have a happy time. No,
+Miss Mathilda I don't see how people can go on and do things so."
+
+The good Anna could not understand the careless and bad ways of all
+the world and always she grew bitter with it all. No, not one of them
+had any sense of what was the right way for them to do.
+
+Anna's past life was now drawing to an end. Her old blind dog, Baby,
+was sick and like to die. Baby had been the first gift from her friend
+the widow, Mrs. Lehntman in the old days when Anna had been with Miss
+Mary Wadsmith, and when these two women had first come together.
+
+Through all the years of change, Baby had stayed with the good Anna,
+growing old and fat and blind and lazy. Baby had been active and a
+ratter when she was young, but that was so long ago it was forgotten,
+and for many years now Baby had wanted only her warm basket and her
+dinner.
+
+Anna in her active life found need of others, of Peter and the funny
+little Rags, but always Baby was the eldest and held her with the ties
+of old affection. Anna was harsh when the young ones tried to keep
+poor Baby out and use her basket. Baby had been blind now for some
+years as dogs get, when they are no longer active. She got weak and
+fat and breathless and she could not even stand long any more. Anna
+had always to see that she got her dinner and that the young active
+ones did not deprive her.
+
+Baby did not die with a real sickness. She just got older and more
+blind and coughed and then more quiet, and then slowly one bright
+summer's day she died.
+
+There is nothing more dreary than old age in animals. Somehow it is
+all wrong that they should have grey hair and withered skin, and blind
+old eyes, and decayed and useless teeth. An old man or an old woman
+almost always has some tie that seems to bind them to the younger,
+realer life. They have children or the remembrance of old duties, but
+a dog that's old and so cut off from all its world of struggle, is
+like a dreary, deathless Struldbrug, the dreary dragger on of death
+through life.
+
+And so one day old Baby died. It was dreary, more than sad, for the
+good Anna. She did not want the poor old beast to linger with its
+weary age, and blind old eyes and dismal shaking cough, but this death
+left Anna very empty. She had the foolish young man Peter, and the
+jolly little Rags for comfort, but Baby had been the only one that
+could remember.
+
+The good Anna wanted a real graveyard for her Baby, but this could not
+be in a Christian country, and so Anna all alone took her old friend
+done up in decent wrappings and put her into the ground in some quiet
+place that Anna knew of.
+
+The good Anna did not weep for poor old Baby. Nay, she had not time
+even to feel lonely, for with the good Anna it was sorrow upon sorrow.
+She was now no longer to keep house for Miss Mathilda.
+
+When Anna had first come to Miss Mathilda she had known that it might
+only be for a few years, for Miss Mathilda was given to much wandering
+and often changed her home, and found new places where she went to
+live. The good Anna did not then think much about this, for when she
+first went to Miss Mathilda she had not thought that she would like
+it and so she had not worried about staying. Then in those happy years
+that they had been together, Anna had made herself forget it. This
+last year when she knew that it was coming she had tried hard to think
+it would not happen.
+
+"We won't talk about it now Miss Mathilda, perhaps we all be dead by
+then," she would say when Miss Mathilda tried to talk it over. Or, "If
+we live till then Miss Mathilda, perhaps you will be staying on right
+here."
+
+No, the good Anna could not talk as if this thing were real, it was
+too weary to be once more left with strangers.
+
+Both the good Anna and her cherished Miss Mathilda tried hard to think
+that this would not really happen. Anna made missions and all kinds of
+things to keep her Miss Mathilda and Miss Mathilda thought out all the
+ways to see if the good Anna could not go with her, but neither the
+missions nor the plans had much success. Miss Mathilda would go, and
+she was going far away to a new country where Anna could not live, for
+she would be too lonesome.
+
+There was nothing that these two could do but part. Perhaps we all be
+dead by then, the good Anna would repeat, but even that did not really
+happen. If we all live till then Miss Mathilda, came out truer. They
+all did live till then, all except poor old blind Baby, and they
+simply had to part.
+
+Poor Anna and poor Miss Mathilda. They could not look at each other
+that last day. Anna could not keep herself busy working. She just went
+in and out and sometimes scolded.
+
+Anna could not make up her mind what she should do now for her future.
+She said that she would for a while keep this little red brick house
+that they had lived in. Perhaps she might just take in a few boarders.
+She did not know, she would write about it later and tell it all to
+Miss Mathilda.
+
+The dreary day dragged out and then all was ready and Miss Mathilda
+left to take her train. Anna stood strained and pale and dry eyed
+on the white stone steps of the little red brick house that they had
+lived in. The last thing Miss Mathilda heard was the good Anna bidding
+foolish Peter say good bye and be sure to remember Miss Mathilda.
+
+
+
+Part III
+
+THE DEATH OF THE GOOD ANNA
+
+
+Every one who had known of Miss Mathilda wanted the good Anna now to
+take a place with them, for they all knew how well Anna could take
+care of people and all their clothes and goods. Anna too could always
+go to Curden to Miss Mary Wadsmith, but none of all these ways seemed
+very good to Anna.
+
+It was not now any longer that she wanted to stay near Mrs. Lehntman.
+There was no one now that made anything important, but Anna was
+certain that she did not want to take a place where she would be
+under some new people. No one could ever be for Anna as had been her
+cherished Miss Mathilda. No one could ever again so freely let her do
+it all. It would be better Anna thought in her strong strained weary
+body, it would be better just to keep on there in the little red
+brick house that was all furnished, and make a living taking in some
+boarders. Miss Mathilda had let her have the things, so it would not
+cost any money to begin. She could perhaps manage to live on so. She
+could do all the work and do everything as she thought best, and she
+was too weary with the changes to do more than she just had to, to
+keep living. So she stayed on in the house where they had lived, and
+she found some men, she would not take in women, who took her rooms
+and who were her boarders.
+
+Things soon with Anna began to be less dreary. She was very popular
+with her few boarders. They loved her scoldings and the good things
+she made for them to eat. They made good jokes and laughed loud and
+always did whatever Anna wanted, and soon the good Anna got so that
+she liked it very well. Not that she did not always long for Miss
+Mathilda. She hoped and waited and was very certain that sometime,
+in one year or in another Miss Mathilda would come back, and then of
+course would want her, and then she could take all good care of her
+again.
+
+Anna kept all Miss Mathilda's things in the best order. The boarders
+were well scolded if they ever made a scratch on Miss Mathilda's
+table.
+
+Some of the boarders were hearty good south german fellows and Anna
+always made them go to mass. One boarder was a lusty german student
+who was studying in Bridgepoint to be a doctor. He was Anna's special
+favourite and she scolded him as she used to her old doctor so that he
+always would be good. Then, too, this cheery fellow always sang when
+he was washing, and that was what Miss Mathilda always used to do.
+Anna's heart grew warm again with this young fellow who seemed to
+bring back to her everything she needed.
+
+And so Anna's life in these days was not all unhappy. She worked and
+scolded, she had her stray dogs and cats and people, who all asked and
+seemed to need her care, and she had hearty german fellows who loved
+her scoldings and ate so much of the good things that she knew so well
+the way to make.
+
+No, the good Anna's life in these days was not all unhappy. She did
+not see her old friends much, she was too busy, but once in a great
+while she took a Sunday afternoon and went to see good Mrs. Drehten.
+
+The only trouble was that Anna hardly made a living. She charged so
+little for her board and gave her people such good things to eat, that
+she could only just make both ends meet. The good german priest to
+whom she always told her troubles tried to make her have the boarders
+pay a little higher, and Miss Mathilda always in her letters urged her
+to this thing, but the good Anna somehow could not do it. Her boarders
+were nice men but she knew they did not have much money, and then she
+could not raise on those who had been with her and she could not ask
+the new ones to pay higher, when those who were already there were
+paying just what they had paid before. So Anna let it go just as she
+had begun it. She worked and worked all day and thought all night how
+she could save, and with all the work she just managed to keep living.
+She could not make enough to lay any money by.
+
+Anna got so little money that she had all the work to do herself. She
+could not pay even the little Sally enough to keep her with her.
+
+Not having little Sally nor having any one else working with her, made
+it very hard for Anna ever to go out, for she never thought that
+it was right to leave a house all empty. Once in a great while of a
+Sunday, Sally who was now working in a factory would come and stay
+in the house for the good Anna, who would then go out and spend the
+afternoon with Mrs. Drehten.
+
+No, Anna did not see her old friends much any more. She went sometimes
+to see her half brother and his wife and her nieces, and they always
+came to her on her birthdays to give presents, and her half brother
+never left her out of his festive raisined bread giving progresses.
+But these relatives of hers had never meant very much to the good
+Anna. Anna always did her duty by them all, and she liked her half
+brother very well and the loaves of raisined bread that he supplied
+her were most welcome now, and Anna always gave her god daughter and
+her sister handsome presents, but no one in this family had ever made
+a way inside to Anna's feelings.
+
+Mrs. Lehntman she saw very rarely. It is hard to build up new on
+an old friendship when in that friendship there has been bitter
+disillusion. They did their best, both these women to be friends, but
+they were never able to again touch one another nearly. There were too
+many things between them that they could not speak of, things that
+had never been explained nor yet forgiven. The good Anna still did her
+best for foolish Julia and still every now and then saw Mrs. Lehntman,
+but this family had now lost all its real hold on Anna.
+
+Mrs. Drehten was now the best friend that Anna knew. Here there was
+never any more than the mingling of their sorrows. They talked over
+all the time the best way for Mrs. Drehten now to do; poor Mrs.
+Drehten who with her chief trouble, her bad husband, had really now no
+way that she could do. She just had to work and to be patient and to
+love her children and be very quiet. She always had a soothing mother
+influence on the good Anna who with her irritable, strained, worn-out
+body would come and sit by Mrs. Drehten and talk all her troubles
+over.
+
+Of all the friends that the good Anna had had in these twenty years
+in Bridgepoint, the good father and patient Mrs. Drehten were the
+only ones that were now near to Anna and with whom she could talk her
+troubles over.
+
+Anna worked, and thought, and saved, and scolded, and took care of all
+the boarders, and of Peter and of Rags, and all the others. There was
+never any end to Anna's effort and she grew always more tired, more
+pale yellow, and in her face more thin and worn and worried. Sometimes
+she went farther in not being well, and then she went to see Dr.
+Herman who had operated on good Mrs. Drehten.
+
+The things that Anna really needed were to rest sometimes and eat more
+so that she could get stronger, but these were the last things that
+Anna could bring herself to do. Anna could never take a rest. She must
+work hard through the summer as well as through the winter, else she
+could never make both ends meet. The doctor gave her medicines to make
+her stronger but these did not seem to do much good.
+
+Anna grew always more tired, her headaches came oftener and harder,
+and she was now almost always feeling very sick. She could not sleep
+much in the night. The dogs with their noises disturbed her and
+everything in her body seemed to pain her.
+
+The doctor and the good father tried often to make her give herself
+more care. Mrs. Drehten told her that she surely would not get well
+unless for a little while she would stop working. Anna would then
+promise to take care, to rest in bed a little longer and to eat more
+so that she would get stronger, but really how could Anna eat when she
+always did the cooking and was so tired of it all, before it was half
+ready for the table?
+
+Anna's only friendship now was with good Mrs. Drehten who was too
+gentle and too patient to make a stubborn faithful german Anna ever do
+the way she should, in the things that were for her own good.
+
+Anna grew worse all through this second winter. When the summer came
+the doctor said that she simply could not live on so. He said she must
+go to his hospital and there he would operate upon her. She would then
+be well and strong and able to work hard all next winter.
+
+Anna for some time would not listen. She could not do this so, for
+she had her house all furnished and she simply could not let it go. At
+last a woman came and said she would take care of Anna's boarders and
+then Anna said that she was prepared to go.
+
+Anna went to the hospital for her operation. Mrs. Drehten was herself
+not well but she came into the city, so that some friend would be
+with the good Anna. Together, then, they went to this place where the
+doctor had done so well by Mrs. Drehten.
+
+In a few days they had Anna ready. Then they did the operation, and
+then the good Anna with her strong, strained, worn-out body died.
+
+Mrs. Drehten sent word of her death to Miss Mathilda.
+
+"Dear Miss Mathilda," wrote Mrs. Drehten, "Miss Annie died in the
+hospital yesterday after a hard operation. She was talking about you
+and Doctor and Miss Mary Wadsmith all the time. She said she hoped
+you would take Peter and the little Rags to keep when you came back
+to America to live. I will keep them for you here Miss Mathilda. Miss
+Annie died easy, Miss Mathilda, and sent you her love."
+
+FINIS
+
+
+
+
+MELANCTHA
+
+EACH ONE AS SHE MAY
+
+
+Rose Johnson made it very hard to bring her baby to its birth.
+
+Melanctha Herbert who was Rose Johnson's friend, did everything that
+any woman could. She tended Rose, and she was patient, submissive,
+soothing, and untiring, while the sullen, childish, cowardly, black
+Rosie grumbled and fussed and howled and made herself to be an
+abomination and like a simple beast.
+
+The child though it was healthy after it was born, did not live
+long. Rose Johnson was careless and negligent and selfish, and when
+Melanctha had to leave for a few days, the baby died. Rose Johnson had
+liked the baby well enough and perhaps she just forgot it for awhile,
+anyway the child was dead and Rose and Sam her husband were very sorry
+but then these things came so often in the negro world in Bridgepoint,
+that they neither of them thought about it very long.
+
+Rose Johnson and Melanctha Herbert had been friends now for some
+years. Rose had lately married Sam Johnson a decent honest kindly
+fellow, a deck hand on a coasting steamer.
+
+Melanctha Herbert had not yet been really married.
+
+Rose Johnson was a real black, tall, well built, sullen, stupid,
+childlike, good looking negress. She laughed when she was happy and
+grumbled and was sullen with everything that troubled.
+
+Rose Johnson was a real black negress but she had been brought up
+quite like their own child by white folks.
+
+Rose laughed when she was happy but she had not the wide, abandoned
+laughter that makes the warm broad glow of negro sunshine. Rose was
+never joyous with the earth-born, boundless joy of negroes. Hers was
+just ordinary, any sort of woman laughter.
+
+Rose Johnson was careless and was lazy, but she had been brought up by
+white folks and she needed decent comfort. Her white training had
+only made for habits, not for nature. Rose had the simple, promiscuous
+immorality of the black people.
+
+Rose Johnson and Melanctha Herbert like many of the twos with women
+were a curious pair to be such friends.
+
+Melanctha Herbert was a graceful, pale yellow, intelligent, attractive
+negress. She had not been raised like Rose by white folks but then she
+had been half made with real white blood.
+
+She and Rose Johnson were both of the better sort of negroes, there,
+in Bridgepoint.
+
+"No, I ain't no common nigger," said Rose Johnson, "for I was raised
+by white folks, and Melanctha she is so bright and learned so much
+in school, she ain't no common nigger either, though she ain't got no
+husband to be married to like I am to Sam Johnson."
+
+Why did the subtle, intelligent, attractive, half white girl Melanctha
+Herbert love and do for and demean herself in service to this coarse,
+decent, sullen, ordinary, black childish Rose, and why was this
+unmoral, promiscuous, shiftless Rose married, and that's not so common
+either, to a good man of the negroes, while Melanctha with her white
+blood and attraction and her desire for a right position had not yet
+been really married.
+
+Sometimes the thought of how all her world was made, filled the
+complex, desiring Melanctha with despair. She wondered, often, how she
+could go on living when she was so blue.
+
+Melanctha told Rose one day how a woman whom she knew had killed
+herself because she was so blue. Melanctha said, sometimes, she
+thought this was the best thing for her herself to do.
+
+Rose Johnson did not see it the least bit that way.
+
+"I don't see Melanctha why you should talk like you would kill
+yourself just because you're blue. I'd never kill myself Melanctha
+just 'cause I was blue. I'd maybe kill somebody else Melanctha
+'cause I was blue, but I'd never kill myself. If I ever killed myself
+Melanctha it'd be by accident, and if I ever killed myself by accident
+Melanctha, I'd be awful sorry."
+
+Rose Johnson and Melanctha Herbert had first met, one night, at
+church. Rose Johnson did not care much for religion. She had not
+enough emotion to be really roused by a revival. Melanctha Herbert had
+not come yet to know how to use religion. She was still too complex
+with desire. However, the two of them in negro fashion went very often
+to the negro church, along with all their friends, and they slowly
+came to know each other very well.
+
+Rose Johnson had been raised not as a servant but quite like their own
+child by white folks. Her mother who had died when Rose was still
+a baby, had been a trusted servant in the family. Rose was a cute,
+attractive, good looking little black girl and these people had no
+children of their own and so they kept Rose in their house.
+
+As Rose grew older she drifted from her white folks back to the
+colored people, and she gradually no longer lived in the old house.
+Then it happened that these people went away to some other town to
+live, and somehow Rose stayed behind in Bridgepoint. Her white folks
+left a little money to take care of Rose, and this money she got every
+little while.
+
+Rose now in the easy fashion of the poor lived with one woman in her
+house, and then for no reason went and lived with some other woman
+in her house. All this time, too, Rose kept company, and was engaged,
+first to this colored man and then to that, and always she made sure
+she was engaged, for Rose had strong the sense of proper conduct.
+
+"No, I ain't no common nigger just to go around with any man, nor you
+Melanctha shouldn't neither," she said one day when she was telling
+the complex and less sure Melanctha what was the right way for her to
+do. "No Melanctha, I ain't no common nigger to do so, for I was raised
+by white folks. You know very well Melanctha that I'se always been
+engaged to them."
+
+And so Rose lived on, always comfortable and rather decent and very
+lazy and very well content.
+
+After she had lived some time this way, Rose thought it would be nice
+and very good in her position to get regularly really married. She had
+lately met Sam Johnson somewhere, and she liked him and she knew he
+was a good man, and then he had a place where he worked every day
+and got good wages. Sam Johnson liked Rose very well and he was quite
+ready to be married. One day they had a grand real wedding and were
+married. Then with Melanctha Herbert's help to do the sewing and the
+nicer work, they furnished comfortably a little red brick house. Sam
+then went back to his work as deck hand on a coasting steamer, and
+Rose stayed home in her house and sat and bragged to all her friends
+how nice it was to be married really to a husband.
+
+Life went on very smoothly with them all the year. Rose was lazy
+but not dirty and Sam was careful but not fussy, and then there was
+Melanctha to come in every day and help to keep things neat.
+
+When Rose's baby was coming to be born, Rose came to stay in the
+house where Melanctha Herbert lived just then, with a big good natured
+colored woman who did washing.
+
+Rose went there to stay, so that she might have the doctor from the
+hospital near by to help her have the baby, and then, too, Melanctha
+could attend to her while she was sick.
+
+Here the baby was born, and here it died, and then Rose went back to
+her house again with Sam.
+
+Melanctha Herbert had not made her life all simple like Rose Johnson.
+Melanctha had not found it easy with herself to make her wants and
+what she had, agree.
+
+Melanctha Herbert was always losing what she had in wanting all the
+things she saw. Melanctha was always being left when she was not
+leaving others.
+
+Melanctha Herbert always loved too hard and much too often. She was
+always full with mystery and subtle movements and denials and vague
+distrusts and complicated disillusions. Then Melanctha would be sudden
+and impulsive and unbounded in some faith, and then she would suffer
+and be strong in her repression.
+
+Melanctha Herbert was always seeking rest and quiet, and always she
+could only find new ways to be in trouble.
+
+Melanctha wondered often how it was she did not kill herself when she
+was so blue. Often she thought this would be really the best way for
+her to do.
+
+Melanctha Herbert had been raised to be religious, by her mother.
+Melanctha had not liked her mother very well. This mother, 'Mis'
+Herbert, as her neighbors called her, had been a sweet appearing and
+dignified and pleasant, pale yellow, colored woman. 'Mis' Herbert had
+always been a little wandering and mysterious and uncertain in her
+ways.
+
+Melanctha was pale yellow and mysterious and a little pleasant like
+her mother, but the real power in Melanctha's nature came through her
+robust and unpleasant and very unendurable black father.
+
+Melanctha's father only used to come to where Melanctha and her mother
+lived, once in a while.
+
+It was many years now that Melanctha had not heard or seen or known of
+anything her father did.
+
+Melanctha Herbert almost always hated her black father, but she loved
+very well the power in herself that came through him. And so her
+feeling was really closer to her black coarse father, than her feeling
+had ever been toward her pale yellow, sweet-appearing mother. The
+things she had in her of her mother never made her feel respect.
+
+Melanctha Herbert had not loved herself in childhood. All of her youth
+was bitter to remember.
+
+Melanctha had not loved her father and her mother and they had found
+it very troublesome to have her.
+
+Melanctha's mother and her father had been regularly married.
+Melanctha's father was a big black virile negro. He only came once
+in a while to where Melanctha and her mother lived, but always that
+pleasant, sweet-appearing, pale yellow woman, mysterious and uncertain
+and wandering in her ways, was close in sympathy and thinking to her
+big black virile husband.
+
+James Herbert was a common, decent enough, colored workman, brutal and
+rough to his one daughter, but then she was a most disturbing child to
+manage.
+
+The young Melanctha did not love her father and her mother, and she
+had a break neck courage, and a tongue that could be very nasty. Then,
+too, Melanctha went to school and was very quick in all the learning,
+and she knew very well how to use this knowledge to annoy her parents
+who knew nothing.
+
+Melanctha Herbert had always had a break neck courage. Melanctha
+always loved to be with horses; she loved to do wild things, to ride
+the horses and to break and tame them.
+
+Melanctha, when she was a little girl, had had a good chance to live
+with horses. Near where Melanctha and her mother lived was the stable
+of the Bishops, a rich family who always had fine horses.
+
+John, the Bishops' coachman, liked Melanctha very well and he always
+let her do anything she wanted with the horses. John was a decent,
+vigorous mulatto with a prosperous house and wife and children.
+Melanctha Herbert was older than any of his children. She was now a
+well grown girl of twelve and just beginning as a woman.
+
+James Herbert, Melanctha's father, knew this John, the Bishops'
+coachman very well.
+
+One day James Herbert came to where his wife and daughter lived, and
+he was furious.
+
+"Where's that Melanctha girl of yours," he said fiercely, "if she is
+to the Bishops' stables again, with that man John, I swear I kill her.
+Why don't you see to that girl better you, you're her mother."
+
+James Herbert was a powerful, loose built, hard handed, black, angry
+negro. Herbert never was a joyous negro. Even when he drank with other
+men, and he did that very, often, he was never really joyous. In the
+days when he had been most young and free and open, he had never
+had the wide abandoned laughter that gives the broad glow to negro
+sunshine.
+
+His daughter, Melanctha Herbert, later always made a hard forced
+laughter. She was only strong and sweet and in her nature when she was
+really deep in trouble, when she was fighting so with all she really
+had, that she did not use her laughter. This was always true of poor
+Melanctha who was always so certain that she hated trouble. Melanctha
+Herbert was always seeking peace and quiet, and she could always only
+find new ways to get excited.
+
+James Herbert was often a very angry negro. He was fierce and serious,
+and he was very certain that he often had good reason to be angry with
+Melanctha, who knew so well how to be nasty, and to use her learning
+with a father who knew nothing.
+
+James Herbert often drank with John, the Bishops' coachman. John in
+his good nature sometimes tried to soften Herbert's feeling toward
+Melanctha. Not that Melanctha ever complained to John of her home life
+or her father. It was never Melanctha's way, even in the midst of
+her worst trouble to complain to any one of what happened to her, but
+nevertheless somehow every one who knew Melanctha always knew how much
+she suffered. It was only while one really loved Melanctha that one
+understood how to forgive her, that she never once complained nor
+looked unhappy, and was always handsome and in spirits, and yet one
+always knew how much she suffered.
+
+The father, James Herbert, never told his troubles either, and he was
+so fierce and serious that no one ever thought of asking.
+
+'Mis' Herbert as her neighbors called her was never heard even
+to speak of her husband or her daughter. She was always pleasant,
+sweet-appearing, mysterious and uncertain, and a little wandering in
+her ways.
+
+The Herberts were a silent family with their troubles, but somehow
+every one who knew them always knew everything that happened.
+
+The morning of one day when in the evening Herbert and the coachman
+John were to meet to drink together, Melanctha had to come to the
+stable joyous and in the very best of humors. Her good friend John on
+this morning felt very firmly how good and sweet she was and how very
+much she suffered.
+
+John was a very decent colored coachman. When he thought about
+Melanctha it was as if she were the eldest of his children. Really
+he felt very strongly the power in her of a woman. John's wife always
+liked Melanctha and she always did all she could to make things
+pleasant. And Melanctha all her life loved and respected kind and good
+and considerate people. Melanctha always loved and wanted peace and
+gentleness and goodness and all her life for herself poor Melanctha
+could only find new ways to be in trouble.
+
+This evening after John and Herbert had drunk awhile together, the
+good John began to tell the father what a fine girl he had for a
+daughter. Perhaps the good John had been drinking a good deal of
+liquor, perhaps there was a gleam of something softer than the feeling
+of a friendly elder in the way John then spoke of Melanctha. There had
+been a good deal of drinking and John certainly that very morning had
+felt strongly Melanctha's power as a woman. James Herbert was always
+a fierce, suspicious, serious negro, and drinking never made him feel
+more open. He looked very black and evil as he sat and listened while
+John grew more and more admiring as he talked half to himself, half to
+the father, of the virtues and the sweetness of Melanctha.
+
+Suddenly between them there came a moment filled full with strong
+black curses, and then sharp razors flashed in the black hands, that
+held them flung backward in the negro fashion, and then for some
+minutes there was fierce slashing.
+
+John was a decent, pleasant, good natured, light brown negro, but he
+knew how to use a razor to do bloody slashing.
+
+When the two men were pulled apart by the other negroes who were in
+the room drinking, John had not been much wounded but James Herbert
+had gotten one good strong cut that went from-his right shoulder down
+across the front of his whole body. Razor fighting does not wound very
+deeply, but it makes a cut that looks most nasty, for it is so very
+bloody.
+
+Herbert was held by the other negroes until he was cleaned and
+plastered, and then he was put to bed to sleep off his drink and
+fighting.
+
+The next day he came to where his wife and daughter lived and he was
+furious.
+
+"Where's that Melanctha, of yours?" he said to his wife, when he saw
+her. "If she is to the Bishops' stables now with that yellow John, I
+swear I kill her. A nice way she is going for a decent daughter. Why
+don't you see to that girl better you, ain't you her mother!"
+
+Melanctha Herbert had always been old in all her ways and she knew
+very early how to use her power as a woman, and yet Melanctha with all
+her inborn intense wisdom was really very ignorant of evil. Melanctha
+had not yet come to understand what they meant, the things she so
+often heard around her, and which were just beginning to stir strongly
+in her.
+
+Now when her father began fiercely to assail her, she did not really
+know what it was that he was so furious to force from her. In every
+way that he could think of in his anger, he tried to make her say
+a thing she did not really know. She held out and never answered
+anything he asked her, for Melanctha had a breakneck courage and she
+just then badly hated her black father.
+
+When the excitement was all over, Melanctha began to know her power,
+the power she had so often felt stirring within her and which she now
+knew she could use to make her stronger.
+
+James Herbert did not win this fight with his daughter. After awhile
+he forgot it as he soon forgot John and the cut of his sharp razor.
+Melanctha almost forgot to hate her father, in her strong interest in
+the power she now knew she had within her.
+
+Melanctha did not care much now, any longer, to see John or his wife
+or even the fine horses. This life was too quiet and accustomed and no
+longer stirred her to any interest or excitement.
+
+Melanctha now really was beginning as a woman. She was ready, and she
+began to search in the streets and in dark corners to discover men and
+to learn their natures and their various ways of working.
+
+In these next years Melanctha learned many ways that lead to wisdom.
+She learned the ways, and dimly in the distance she saw wisdom. These
+years of learning led very straight to trouble for Melanctha, though
+in these years Melanctha never did or meant anything that was really
+wrong.
+
+Girls who are brought up with care and watching can always find
+moments to escape into the world, where they may learn the ways that
+lead to wisdom. For a girl raised like Melanctha Herbert, such escape
+was always very simple. Often she was alone, sometimes she was with a
+fellow seeker, and she strayed and stood, sometimes by railroad yards,
+sometimes on the docks or around new buildings where many men were
+working. Then when the darkness covered everything all over, she would
+begin to learn to know this man or that. She would advance, they would
+respond, and then she would withdraw a little, dimly, and always she
+did not know what it was that really held her. Sometimes she would
+almost go over, and then the strength in her of not really knowing,
+would stop the average man in his endeavor. It was a strange
+experience of ignorance and power and desire. Melanctha did not know
+what it was that she so badly wanted. She was afraid, and yet she did
+not understand that here she really was a coward.
+
+Boys had never meant much to Melanctha. They had always been too
+young to content her. Melanctha had a strong respect for any kind of
+successful power. It was this that always kept Melanctha nearer, in
+her feeling toward her virile and unendurable black father, than she
+ever was in her feeling for her pale yellow, sweet-appearing mother.
+The things she had in her of her mother, never made her feel respect.
+
+In these young days, it was only men that for Melanctha held anything
+there was of knowledge and power. It was not from men however that
+Melanctha learned to really understand this power.
+
+From the time that Melanctha was twelve until she was sixteen she
+wandered, always seeking but never more than very dimly seeing wisdom.
+All this time Melanctha went on with her school learning; she went to
+school rather longer than do most of the colored children.
+
+Melanctha's wanderings after wisdom she always had to do in secret and
+by snatches, for her mother was then still living and 'Mis' Herbert
+always did some watching, and Melanctha with all her hard courage
+dreaded that there should be much telling to her father, who came now
+quite often to where Melanctha lived with her mother.
+
+In these days Melanctha talked and stood and walked with many kinds of
+men, but she did not learn to know any of them very deeply. They all
+supposed her to have world knowledge and experience. They, believing
+that she knew all, told her nothing, and thinking that she was
+deciding with them, asked for nothing, and so though Melanctha
+wandered widely, she was really very safe with all the wandering.
+
+It was a very wonderful experience this safety of Melanctha in these
+days of her attempted learning. Melanctha herself did not feel the
+wonder, she only knew that for her it all had no real value.
+
+Melanctha all her life was very keen in her sense for real experience.
+She knew she was not getting what she so badly wanted, but with all
+her break neck courage Melanctha here was a coward, and so she could
+not learn to really understand.
+
+Melanctha liked to wander, and to stand by the railroad yard, and
+watch the men and the engines and the switches and everything that was
+busy there, working. Railroad yards are a ceaseless fascination. They
+satisfy every kind of nature. For the lazy man whose blood flows very
+slowly, it is a steady soothing world of motion which supplies him
+with the sense of a strong moving power. He need not work and yet he
+has it very deeply; he has it even better than the man who works in
+it or owns it. Then for natures that like to feel emotion without the
+trouble of having any suffering, it is very nice to get the swelling
+in the throat, and the fullness, and the heart beats, and all the
+flutter of excitement that comes as one watches the people come and
+go, and hears the engine pound and give a long drawn whistle. For a
+child watching through a hole in the fence above the yard, it is a
+wonder world of mystery and movement. The child loves all the noise,
+and then it loves the silence of the wind that comes before the full
+rush of the pounding train, that bursts out from the tunnel where it
+lost itself and all its noise in darkness, and the child loves all the
+smoke, that sometimes comes in rings, and always puffs with fire and
+blue color.
+
+For Melanctha the yard was full of the excitement of many men, and
+perhaps a free and whirling future.
+
+Melanctha came here very often and watched the men and all the things
+that were so busy working. The men always had time for, "Hullo sis,
+do you want to sit on my engine," and, "Hullo, that's a pretty lookin'
+yaller girl, do you want to come and see him cookin."
+
+All the colored porters liked Melanctha. They often told her exciting
+things that had happened; how in the West they went through big
+tunnels where there was no air to breathe, and then out and winding
+around edges of great canyons on thin high spindling trestles, and
+sometimes cars, and sometimes whole trains fell from the narrow
+bridges, and always up from the dark places death and all kinds of
+queer devils looked up and laughed in their faces. And then they would
+tell how sometimes when the train went pounding down steep slippery
+mountains, great rocks would racket and roll down around them, and
+sometimes would smash in the car and kill men; and as the porters told
+these stories their round, black, shining faces would grow solemn,
+and their color would go grey beneath the greasy black, and their eyes
+would roll white in the fear and wonder of the things they could scare
+themselves by telling.
+
+There was one, big, serious, melancholy, light brown porter who often
+told Melanctha stories, for he liked the way she had of listening with
+intelligence and sympathetic feeling, when he told how the white men
+in the far South tried to kill him because he made one of them who was
+drunk and called him a damned nigger, and who refused to pay money for
+his chair to a nigger, get off the train between stations. And then
+this porter had to give up going to that part of the Southern country,
+for all the white men swore that if he ever came there again they
+would surely kill him.
+
+Melanctha liked this serious, melancholy light brown negro very
+well, and all her life Melanctha wanted and respected gentleness
+and goodness, and this man always gave her good advice and serious
+kindness, and Melanctha felt such things very deeply, but she could
+never let them help her or affect her to change the ways that always
+made her keep herself in trouble.
+
+Melanctha spent many of the last hours of the daylight with the
+porters and with other men who worked hard, but when darkness came it
+was always different. Then Melanctha would find herself with the,
+for her, gentlemanly classes. A clerk, or a young express agent would
+begin to know her, and they would stand, or perhaps, walk a little
+while together.
+
+Melanctha always made herself escape but often it was with an effort.
+She did not know what it was that she so badly wanted, but with all
+her courage Melanctha here was a coward, and so she could not learn to
+understand.
+
+Melanctha and some man would stand in the evening and would talk
+together. Sometimes Melanctha would be with another girl and then it
+was much easier to stay or to escape, for then they could make way for
+themselves together, and by throwing words and laughter to each other,
+could keep a man from getting too strong in his attention.
+
+But when Melanctha was alone, and she was so, very often, she would
+sometimes come very near to making a long step on the road that leads
+to wisdom. Some man would learn a good deal about her in the talk,
+never altogether truly, for Melanctha all her life did not know how to
+tell a story wholly. She always, and yet not with intention, managed
+to leave out big pieces which make a story very different, for when it
+came to what had happened and what she had said and what it was that
+she had really done, Melanctha never could remember right. The man
+would sometimes come a little nearer, would detain her, would hold
+her arm or make his jokes a little clearer, and then Melanctha would
+always make herself escape. The man thinking that she really had world
+wisdom would not make his meaning clear, and believing that she was
+deciding with him he never went so fast that he could stop her when at
+last she made herself escape.
+
+And so Melanctha wandered on the edge of wisdom. "Say, Sis, why don't
+you when you come here stay a little longer?" they would all ask
+her, and they would hold her for an answer, and she would laugh,
+and sometimes she did stay longer, but always just in time she made
+herself escape.
+
+Melanctha Herbert wanted very much to know and yet she feared the
+knowledge. As she grew older she often stayed a good deal longer,
+and sometimes it was almost a balanced struggle, but she always made
+herself escape.
+
+Next to the railroad yard it was the shipping docks that Melanctha
+loved best when she wandered. Often she was alone, sometimes she was
+with some better kind of black girl, and she would stand a long time
+and watch the men working at unloading, and see the steamers do their
+coaling, and she would listen with full feeling to the yowling of the
+free swinging negroes, as they ran, with their powerful loose jointed
+bodies and their childish savage yelling, pushing, carrying, pulling
+great loads from the ships to the warehouses.
+
+The men would call out, "Say, Sis, look out or we'll come and catch
+yer," or "Hi, there, you yaller girl, come here and we'll take you
+sailin'." And then, too, Melanctha would learn to know some of the
+serious foreign sailors who told her all sorts of wonders, and a cook
+would sometimes take her and her friends over a ship and show where he
+made his messes and where the men slept, and where the shops were, and
+how everything was made by themselves, right there, on ship board.
+
+Melanctha loved to see these dark and smelly places. She always loved
+to watch and talk and listen with men who worked hard. But it was
+never from these rougher people that Melanctha tried to learn the ways
+that lead to wisdom. In the daylight she always liked to talk with
+rough men and to listen to their lives and about their work and their
+various ways of doing, but when the darkness covered everything all
+over, Melanctha would meet, and stand, and talk with a clerk or a
+young shipping agent who had seen her watching, and so it was that she
+would try to learn to understand.
+
+And then Melanctha was fond of watching men work on new buildings. She
+loved to see them hoisting, digging, sawing and stone cutting. Here,
+too, in the daylight, she always learned to know the common workmen.
+"Heh, Sis, look out or that rock will fall on you and smash you all
+up into little pieces. Do you think you would make a nice jelly?" And
+then they would all laugh and feel that their jokes were very funny.
+And "Say, you pretty yaller girl, would it scare you bad to stand up
+here on top where I be? See if you've got grit and come up here where
+I can hold you. All you got to do is to sit still on that there rock
+that they're just hoistin', and then when you get here I'll hold you
+tight, don't you be scared Sis."
+
+Sometimes Melanctha would do some of these things that had much
+danger, and always with such men, she showed her power and her break
+neck courage. Once she slipped and fell from a high place. A workman
+caught her and so she was not killed, but her left arm was badly
+broken.
+
+All the men crowded around her. They admired her boldness in doing and
+in bearing pain when her arm was broken. They all went along with
+her with great respect to the doctor, and then they took her home in
+triumph and all of them were bragging about her not squealing.
+
+James Herbert was home where his wife lived, that day. He was furious
+when he saw the workmen and Melanctha. He drove the men away with
+curses so that they were all very nearly fighting, and he would not
+let a doctor come in to attend Melanctha. "Why don't you see to that
+girl better, you, you're her mother."
+
+James Herbert did not fight things out now any more with his daughter.
+He feared her tongue, and her school learning, and the way she had
+of saying things that were very nasty to a brutal black man who
+knew nothing. And Melanctha just then hated him very badly in her
+suffering.
+
+And so this was the way Melanctha lived the four years of her
+beginning as a woman. And many things happened to Melanctha, but she
+knew very well that none of them had led her on to the right way, that
+certain way that was to lead her to world wisdom.
+
+Melanctha Herbert was sixteen when she first met Jane Harden. Jane was
+a negress, but she was so white that hardly any one could guess it.
+Jane had had a good deal of education. She had been two years at a
+colored college. She had had to leave because of her bad conduct. She
+taught Melanctha many things. She taught her how to go the ways that
+lead to wisdom.
+
+Jane Harden was at this time twenty-three years old and she had
+had much experience. She was very much attracted by Melanctha, and
+Melanctha was very proud that this Jane would let her know her.
+
+Jane Harden was not afraid to understand. Melanctha who had strong the
+sense for real experience, knew that here was a woman who had learned
+to understand.
+
+Jane Harden had many bad habits. She drank a great deal, and she
+wandered widely. She was safe though now, when she wanted to be safe,
+in this wandering.
+
+Melanctha Herbert soon always wandered with her. Melanctha tried the
+drinking and some of the other habits, but she did not find that she
+cared very much to do them. But every day she grew stronger in her
+desire to really understand.
+
+It was now no longer, even in the daylight, the rougher men that these
+two learned to know in their wanderings, and for Melanctha the better
+classes were now a little higher. It was no longer express agents
+and clerks that she learned to know, but men in business, commercial
+travelers, and even men above these, and Jane and she would talk and
+walk and laugh and escape from them all very often. It was still the
+same, the knowing of them and the always just escaping, only now for
+Melanctha somehow it was different, for though it was always the same
+thing that happened it had a different flavor, for now Melanctha was
+with a woman who had wisdom, and dimly she began to see what it was
+that she should understand.
+
+It was not from the men that Melanctha learned her wisdom. It
+was always Jane Harden herself who was making Melanctha begin to
+understand.
+
+Jane was a roughened woman. She had power and she liked to use it, she
+had much white blood and that made her see clear, she liked drinking
+and that made her reckless. Her white blood was strong in her and
+she had grit and endurance and a vital courage. She was always game,
+however much she was in trouble. She liked Melanctha Herbert for the
+things that she had like her, and then Melanctha was young, and
+she had sweetness, and a way of listening with intelligence and
+sympathetic interest, to the stories that Jane Harden often told out
+of her experience.
+
+Jane grew always fonder of Melanctha. Soon they began to wander,
+more to be together than to see men and learn their various ways of
+working. Then they began not to wander, and Melanctha would spend long
+hours with Jane in her room, sitting at her feet and listening to her
+stories, and feeling her strength and the power of her affection, and
+slowly she began to see clear before her one certain way that would be
+sure to lead to wisdom.
+
+Before the end came, the end of the two years in which Melanctha spent
+all her time when she was not at school or in her home, with Jane
+Harden, before these two years were finished, Melanctha had come to
+see very clear, and she had come to be very certain, what it is that
+gives the world its wisdom.
+
+Jane Harden always had a little money and she had a room in the lower
+part of the town. Jane had once taught in a colored school. She
+had had to leave that too on account of her bad conduct. It was her
+drinking that always made all the trouble for her, for that can never
+be really covered over.
+
+Jane's drinking was always growing worse upon her. Melanctha had tried
+to do the drinking but it had no real attraction for her.
+
+In the first year, between Jane Harden and Melanctha Herbert, Jane had
+been much the stronger. Jane loved Melanctha and she found her always
+intelligent and brave and sweet and docile, and Jane meant to, and
+before the year was over she had taught Melanctha what it is that
+gives many people in the world their wisdom.
+
+Jane had many ways in which to do this teaching. She told Melanctha
+many things. She loved Melanctha hard and made Melanctha feel it
+very deeply. She would be with other people and with men and with
+Melanctha, and she would make Melanctha understand what everybody
+wanted, and what one did with power when one had it.
+
+Melanctha sat at Jane's feet for many hours in these days and felt
+Jane's wisdom. She learned to love Jane and to have this feeling very
+deeply. She learned a little in these days to know joy, and she was
+taught too how very keenly she could suffer. It was very different
+this suffering from that Melanctha sometimes had from her mother and
+from her very unendurable black father. Then she was fighting and
+she could be strong and valiant in her suffering, but here with Jane
+Harden she was longing and she bent and pleaded with her suffering.
+
+It was a very tumultuous, very mingled year, this time for Melanctha,
+but she certainly did begin to really understand.
+
+In every way she got it from Jane Harden. There was nothing good or
+bad in doing, feeling, thinking or in talking, that Jane spared her.
+Sometimes the lesson came almost too strong for Melanctha, but
+somehow she always managed to endure it and so slowly, but always with
+increasing strength and feeling, Melanctha began to really understand.
+
+Then slowly, between them, it began to be all different. Slowly now
+between them, it was Melanctha Herbert, who was stronger. Slowly now
+they began to drift apart from one another.
+
+Melanctha Herbert never really lost her sense that it was Jane Harden
+who had taught her, but Jane did many things that Melanctha now no
+longer needed. And then, too, Melanctha never could remember right
+when it came to what she had done and what had happened. Melanctha now
+sometimes quarreled with Jane, and they no longer went about together,
+and sometimes Melanctha really forgot how much she owed to Jane
+Harden's teaching.
+
+Melanctha began now to feel that she had always had world wisdom. She
+really knew of course, that it was Jane who had taught her, but all
+that began to be covered over by the trouble between them, that was
+now always getting stronger.
+
+Jane Harden was a roughened woman. Once she had been very strong, but
+now she was weakened in all her kinds of strength by her drinking.
+Melanctha had tried the drinking but it had had no real attraction for
+her.
+
+Jane's strong and roughened nature and her drinking made it always
+harder for her to forgive Melanctha, that now Melanctha did not really
+need her any longer. Now it was Melanctha who was stronger and it was
+Jane who was dependent on her.
+
+Melanctha was now come to be about eighteen years old. She was a
+graceful, pale yellow, good looking, intelligent, attractive negress,
+a little mysterious sometimes in her ways, and always good and
+pleasant, and always ready to do things for people.
+
+Melanctha from now on saw very little of Jane Harden. Jane did not
+like that very well and sometimes she abused Melanctha, but her
+drinking soon covered everything all over.
+
+It was not in Melanctha's nature to really lose her sense for Jane
+Harden. Melanctha all her life was ready to help Jane out in any of
+her trouble, and later, when Jane really went to pieces, Melanctha
+always did all that she could to help her.
+
+But Melanctha Herbert was ready now herself to do teaching. Melanctha
+could do anything now that she wanted. Melanctha knew now what
+everybody wanted.
+
+Melanctha had learned how she might stay a little longer; she had
+learned that she must decide when she wanted really to stay longer,
+and she had learned how when she wanted to, she could escape.
+
+And so Melanctha began once more to wander. It was all now for her
+very different. It was never rougher men now that she talked to, and
+she did not care much now to know white men of the, for her, very
+better classes. It was now something realler that Melanctha wanted,
+something that would move her very deeply, something that would fill
+her fully with the wisdom that was planted now within her, and that
+she wanted badly, should really wholly fill her.
+
+Melanctha these days wandered very widely. She was always alone now
+when she wandered. Melanctha did not need help now to know, or to stay
+longer, or when she wanted, to escape.
+
+Melanctha tried a great many men, in these days before she was really
+suited. It was almost a year that she wandered and then she met with
+a young mulatto. He was a doctor who had just begun to practice. He
+would most likely do well in the future, but it was not this that
+concerned Melanctha. She found him good and strong and gentle and very
+intellectual, and all her life Melanctha liked and wanted good and
+considerate people, and then too he did not at first believe in
+Melanctha. He held off and did not know what it was that Melanctha
+wanted. Melanctha came to want him very badly. They began to know each
+other better. Things began to be very strong between them. Melanctha
+wanted him so badly that now she never wandered. She just gave herself
+to this experience.
+
+Melanctha Herbert was now, all alone, in Bridgepoint. She lived now
+with this colored woman and now with that one, and she sewed, and
+sometimes she taught a little in a colored school as substitute for
+some teacher. Melanctha had now no home nor any regular employment.
+Life was just commencing for Melanctha. She had youth and had learned
+wisdom, and she was graceful and pale yellow and very pleasant, and
+always ready to do things for people, and she was mysterious in her
+ways and that only made belief in her more fervent.
+
+During the year before she met Jefferson Campbell, Melanctha had tried
+many kinds of men but they had none of them interested Melanctha very
+deeply. She met them, she was much with them, she left them, she would
+think perhaps this next time it would be more exciting, and always
+she found that for her it all had no real meaning. She could now do
+everything she wanted, she knew now everything that everybody wanted,
+and yet it all had no excitement for her. With these men, she knew
+she could learn nothing. She wanted some one that could teach her very
+deeply and now at last she was sure that she had found him, yes she
+really had it, before she had thought to look if in this man she would
+find it.
+
+During this year 'Mis' Herbert as her neighbors called her,
+Melanctha's pale yellow mother was very sick, and in this year she
+died.
+
+Melanctha's father during these last years did not come very often to
+the house where his wife lived and Melanctha. Melanctha was not
+sure that her father was now any longer here in Bridgepoint. It
+was Melanctha who was very good now to her mother. It was always
+Melanctha's way to be good to any one in trouble.
+
+Melanctha took good care of her mother. She did everything that any
+woman could, she tended and soothed and helped her pale yellow mother,
+and she worked hard in every way to take care of her, and make her
+dying easy. But Melanctha did not in these days like her mother any
+better, and her mother never cared much for this daughter who was
+always a hard child to manage, and who had a tongue that always could
+be very nasty.
+
+Melanctha did everything that any woman could, and at last her mother
+died, and Melanctha had her buried. Melanctha's father was not heard
+from, and Melanctha in all her life after, never saw or heard or knew
+of anything that her father did.
+
+It was the young doctor, Jefferson Campbell, who helped Melanctha
+toward the end, to take care of her sick mother. Jefferson Campbell
+had often before seen Melanctha Herbert, but he had never liked her
+very well, and he had never believed that she was any good. He had
+heard something about how she wandered. He knew a little too of Jane
+Harden, and he was sure that this Melanctha Herbert, who was her
+friend and who wandered, would never come to any good.
+
+Dr. Jefferson Campbell was a serious, earnest, good young joyous
+doctor. He liked to take care of everybody and he loved his own
+colored people. He always found life very easy did Jeff Campbell, and
+everybody liked to have him with them. He was so good and sympathetic,
+and he was so earnest and so joyous. He sang when he was happy, and he
+laughed, and his was the free abandoned laughter that gives the warm
+broad glow to negro sunshine.
+
+Jeff Campbell had never yet in his life had real trouble. Jefferson's
+father was a good, kind, serious, religious man. He was a very steady,
+very intelligent, and very dignified, light brown, grey haired negro.
+He was a butler and he had worked for the Campbell family many years,
+and his father and his mother before him had been in the service of
+this family as free people.
+
+Jefferson Campbell's father and his mother had of course been
+regularly married. Jefferson's mother was a sweet, little, pale brown,
+gentle woman who reverenced and obeyed her good husband, and who
+worshipped and admired and loved hard her-good, earnest, cheery, hard
+working doctor boy who was her only child.
+
+Jeff Campbell had been raised religious by his people but religion had
+never interested Jeff very much. Jefferson was very good. He loved
+his people and he never hurt them, and he always did everything they
+wanted and that he could to please them, but he really loved best
+science and experimenting and to learn things, and he early wanted
+to be a doctor, and he was always very interested in the life of the
+colored people.
+
+The Campbell family had been very good to him and had helped him
+on with his ambition. Jefferson studied hard, he went to a colored
+college, and then he learnt to be a doctor.
+
+It was now two or three years, that he had started in to practice.
+Everybody liked Jeff Campbell, he was so strong and kindly and
+cheerful and understanding, and he laughed so with pure joy, and he
+always liked to help all his own colored people.
+
+Dr. Jeff knew all about Jane Harden. He had taken care of her in some
+of her bad trouble. He knew about Melanctha too, though until her
+mother was taken sick he had never met her. Then he was called in to
+help Melanctha to take care of her sick mother. Dr. Campbell did not
+like Melanctha's ways and he did not think that she would ever come to
+any good.
+
+Dr. Campbell had taken care of Jane Harden in some of her bad trouble.
+Jane sometimes had abused Melanctha to him. What right had that
+Melanctha Herbert who owed everything to her, Jane Harden, what
+right had a girl like that to go away to other men and leave her,
+but Melanctha Herbert never had any sense of how to act to anybody.
+Melanctha had a good mind, Jane never denied her that, but she never
+used it to do anything decent with it. But what could you expect when
+Melanctha had such a brute of a black nigger father, and Melanctha was
+always abusing her father and yet she was just like him, and really
+she admired him so much and he never had any sense of what he owed to
+anybody, and Melanctha was just like him and she was proud of it too,
+and it made Jane so tired to hear Melanctha talk all the time as if
+she wasn't. Jane Harden hated people who had good minds and didn't use
+them, and Melanctha always had that weakness, and wanting to keep in
+with people, and never really saying that she wanted to be like her
+father, and it was so silly of Melanctha to abuse her father, when she
+was so much like him and she really liked it. No, Jane Harden had no
+use for Melanctha. Oh yes, Melanctha always came around to be good to
+her. Melanctha was always sure to do that. She never really went away
+and left one. She didn't use her mind enough to do things straight out
+like that. Melanctha Herbert had a good mind, Jane never denied that
+to her, but she never wanted to see or hear about Melanctha Herbert
+any more, and she wished Melanctha wouldn't come in any more to see
+her. She didn't hate her, but she didn't want to hear about her father
+and all that talk Melanctha always made, and that just meant nothing
+to her. Jane Harden was very tired of all that now. She didn't have
+any use now any more for Melanctha, and if Dr. Campbell saw her he
+better tell her Jane didn't want to see her, and she could take her
+talk to somebody else, who was ready to believe her. And then Jane
+Harden would drop away and forget Melanctha and all her life before,
+and then she would begin to drink and so she would cover everything
+all over.
+
+Jeff Campbell heard all this very often, but it did not interest him
+very deeply. He felt no desire to know more of this Melanctha. He
+heard her, once, talking to another girl outside of the house, when
+he was paying a visit to Jane Harden. He did not see much in the talk
+that he heard her do. He did not see much in the things Jane Harden
+said when she abused Melanctha to him. He was more interested in Jane
+herself than in anything he heard about Melanctha. He knew Jane Harden
+had a good mind, and she had had power, and she could really have
+done things, and now this drinking covered everything all over. Jeff
+Campbell was always very sorry when he had to see it. Jane Harden was
+a roughened woman, and yet Jeff found a great many strong good things
+in her, that still made him like her.
+
+Jeff Campbell did everything he could for Jane Harden. He did not care
+much to hear about Melanctha. He had no feeling, much, about her. He
+did not find that he took any interest in her. Jane Harden was so much
+a stronger woman, and Jane really had had a good mind, and she had
+used it to do things with it, before this drinking business had taken
+such a hold upon her.
+
+Dr. Campbell was helping Melanctha Herbert to take care of her sick
+mother. He saw Melanctha now for long times and very often, and
+they sometimes talked a good deal together, but Melanctha never said
+anything to him about Jane Harden. She never talked to him about
+anything that was not just general matters, or about medicine, or
+to tell him funny stories. She asked him many questions and always
+listened very well to all he told her, and she always remembered
+everything she heard him say about doctoring, and she always
+remembered everything that she had learned from all the others.
+
+Jeff Campbell never found that all this talk interested him very
+deeply. He did not find that he liked Melanctha when he saw her so
+much, any better. He never found that he thought much about Melanctha.
+He never found that he believed much in her having a good mind, like
+Jane Harden. He found he liked Jane Harden always better, and that he
+wished very much that she had never begun that bad drinking.
+
+Melanctha Herbert's mother was now always getting sicker. Melanctha
+really did everything that any woman could. Melanctha's mother never
+liked her daughter any better. She never said much, did 'Mis' Herbert,
+but anybody could see that she did not think much of this daughter.
+
+Dr. Campbell now often had to stay a long time to take care of 'Mis'
+Herbert. One day 'Mis' Herbert was much sicker and Dr. Campbell
+thought that this night, she would surely die. He came back late to
+the house, as he had said he would, to sit up and watch 'Mis' Herbert,
+and to help Melanctha, if she should need anybody to be with her.
+Melanctha Herbert and Jeff Campbell sat up all that night together.
+'Mis' Herbert did not die. The next day she was a little better.
+
+This house where Melanctha had always lived with her mother was a
+little red brick, two story house. They had not much furniture to fill
+it and some of the windows were broken and not mended. Melanctha did
+not have much money to use now on the house, but with a colored woman,
+who was their neighbor and good natured and who had always helped
+them, Melanctha managed to take care of her mother and to keep the
+house fairly clean and neat.
+
+Melanctha's mother was in bed in a room upstairs, and the steps from
+below led right up into it. There were just two rooms on this upstairs
+floor. Melanctha and Dr. Campbell sat down on the steps, that night
+they watched together, so that they could hear and see Melanctha's
+mother and yet the light would be shaded, and they could sit and
+read, if they wanted to, and talk low some, and yet not disturb 'Mis'
+Herbert.
+
+Dr. Campbell was always very fond of reading. Dr. Campbell had not
+brought a book with him that night. He had just forgotten it. He had
+meant to put something in his pocket to read, so that he could amuse
+himself, while he was sitting there and watching. When he was through
+with taking care of 'Mis' Herbert, he came and sat down on the steps
+just above where Melanctha was sitting. He spoke about how he had
+forgotten to bring his book with him. Melanctha said there were some
+old papers in the house, perhaps Dr. Campbell could find something in
+them that would help pass the time for a while for him. All right,
+Dr. Campbell said, that would be better than just sitting there
+with nothing. Dr. Campbell began to read through the old papers that
+Melanctha gave him. When anything amused him in them, he read it out
+to Melanctha. Melanctha was now pretty silent, with him. Dr. Campbell
+began to feel a little, about how she responded to him. Dr. Campbell
+began to see a little that perhaps Melanctha had a good mind. Dr.
+Campbell was not sure yet that she had a good mind, but he began to
+think a little that perhaps she might have one.
+
+Jefferson Campbell always liked to talk to everybody about the things
+he worked at and about his thinking about what he could do for the
+colored people. Melanctha Herbert never thought about these things the
+way that he did. Melanctha had never said much to Dr. Campbell about
+what she thought about them. Melanctha did not feel the same as he did
+about being good and regular in life, and not having excitements
+all the time, which was the way that Jefferson Campbell wanted that
+everybody should be, so that everybody would be wise and yet be happy.
+Melanctha always had strong the sense for real experience. Melanctha
+Herbert did not think much of this way of coming to real wisdom.
+
+Dr. Campbell soon got through with his reading, in the old newspapers,
+and then somehow he began to talk along about the things he was
+always thinking. Dr. Campbell said he wanted to work so that he could
+understand what troubled people, and not to just have excitements, and
+he believed you ought to love your father and your mother and to be
+regular in all your life, and not to be always wanting new things and
+excitements, and to always know where you were, and what you wanted,
+and to always tell everything just as you meant it. That's the only
+kind of life he knew or believed in, Jeff Campbell repeated. "No I
+ain't got any use for all the time being in excitements and wanting to
+have all kinds of experience all the time. I got plenty of experience
+just living regular and quiet and with my family, and doing my work,
+and taking care of people, and trying to understand it. I don't
+believe much in this running around business and I don't want to see
+the colored people do it. I am a colored man and I ain't sorry, and I
+want to see the colored people like what is good and what I want
+them to have, and that's to live regular and work hard and understand
+things, and that's enough to keep any decent man excited." Jeff
+Campbell spoke now with some anger. Not to Melanctha, he did not think
+of her at all when he was talking. It was the life he wanted that he
+spoke to, and the way he wanted things to be with the colored people.
+
+But Melanctha Herbert had listened to him say all this. She knew he
+meant it, but it did not mean much to her, and she was sure some day
+he would find out, that it was not all, of real wisdom. Melanctha
+knew very well what it was to have real wisdom. "But how about Jane
+Harden?" said Melanctha to Jeff Campbell, "seems to me Dr. Campbell
+you find her to have something in her, and you go there very often,
+and you talk to her much more than you do to the nice girls that stay
+at home with their people, the kind you say you are really wanting. It
+don't seem to me Dr. Campbell, that what you say and what you do seem
+to have much to do with each other. And about your being so good Dr.
+Campbell," went on Melanctha, "You don't care about going to church
+much yourself, and yet you always are saying you believe so much in
+things like that, for people. It seems to me, Dr. Campbell you want
+to have a good time just like all us others, and then you just keep
+on saying that it's right to be good and you ought not to have
+excitements, and yet you really don't want to do it Dr. Campbell, no
+more than me or Jane Harden. No, Dr. Campbell, it certainly does seem
+to me you don't know very well yourself, what you mean, when you are
+talking."
+
+Jefferson had been talking right along, the way he always did when he
+got started, and now Melanctha's answer only made him talk a little
+harder. He laughed a little, too, but very low, so as not to disturb
+'Mis' Herbert who was sleeping very nicely, and he looked brightly at
+Melanctha to enjoy her, and then he settled himself down to answer.
+
+"Yes," he began, "it certainly does sound a little like I didn't
+know very well what I do mean, when you put it like that to me, Miss
+Melanctha, but that's just because you don't understand enough about
+what I meant, by what I was just saying to you. I don't say, never,
+I don't want to know all kinds of people, Miss Melanctha, and I don't
+say there ain't many kinds of people, and I don't say ever, that I
+don't find some like Jane Harden very good to know and talk to, but
+it's the strong things I like in Jane Harden, not all her excitements.
+I don't admire the bad things she does, Miss Melanctha, but Jane
+Harden is a strong woman and I always respect that in her. No I know
+you don't believe what I say, Miss Melanctha, but I mean it, and it's
+all just because you don't understand it when I say it. And as for
+religion, that just ain't my way of being good, Miss Melanctha, but
+it's a good way for many people to be good and regular in their way
+of living, and if they believe it, it helps them to be good, and if
+they're honest in it, I like to see them have it. No, what I don't
+like, Miss Melanctha, is this what I see so much with the colored
+people, their always wanting new things just to get excited."
+
+Jefferson Campbell here stopped himself in this talking. Melanctha
+Herbert did not make any answer. They both sat there very quiet.
+
+Jeff Campbell then began again on the old papers. He sat there on the
+steps just above where Melanctha was sitting, and he went on with his
+reading, and his head went moving up and down, and sometimes he was
+reading, and sometimes he was thinking about all the things he wanted
+to be doing, and then he would rub the back of his dark hand over
+his mouth, and in between he would be frowning with his thinking, and
+sometimes he would be rubbing his head hard to help his thinking. And
+Melanctha just sat still and watched the lamp burning, and sometimes
+she turned it down a little, when the wind caught it and it would
+begin to get to smoking.
+
+And so Jeff Campbell and Melanctha Herbert sat there on the steps,
+very quiet, a long time, and they didn't seem to think much, that they
+were together. They sat there so, for about an hour, and then it came
+to Jefferson very slowly and as a strong feeling that he was sitting
+there on the steps, alone, with Melanctha. He did not know if
+Melanctha Herbert was feeling very much about their being there alone
+together. Jefferson began to wonder about it a little. Slowly he felt
+that surely they must both have this feeling. It was so important that
+he knew that she must have it. They both sat there, very quiet, a long
+time.
+
+At last Jefferson began to talk about how the lamp was smelling.
+Jefferson began to explain what it is that makes a lamp get to
+smelling. Melanctha let him talk. She did not answer, and then he
+stopped in his talking. Soon Melanctha began to sit up straighter and
+then she started in to question.
+
+"About what you was just saying Dr. Campbell about living regular and
+all that, I certainly don't understand what you meant by what you was
+just saying. You ain't a bit like good people Dr. Campbell, like
+the good people you are always saying are just like you. I know good
+people Dr. Campbell, and you ain't a bit like men who are good and
+got religion. You are just as free and easy as any man can be Dr.
+Campbell, and you always like to be with Jane Harden, and she is a
+pretty bad one and you don't look down on her and you never tell her
+she is a bad one. I know you like her just like a friend Dr. Campbell,
+and so I certainly don't understand just what it is you mean by all
+that you was just saying to me. I know you mean honest Dr. Campbell,
+and I am always trying to believe you, but I can't say as I see just
+what you mean when you say you want to be good and real pious, because
+I am very certain Dr. Campbell that you ain't that kind of a man at
+all, and you ain't never ashamed to be with queer folks Dr. Campbell,
+and you seem to be thinking what you are doing is just like what you
+are always saying, and Dr. Campbell, I certainly don't just see what
+you mean by what you say."
+
+Dr. Campbell almost laughed loud enough to wake 'Mis' Herbert. He did
+enjoy the way Melanctha said these things to him. He began to feel
+very strongly about it that perhaps Melanctha really had a good mind.
+He was very free now in his laughing, but not so as to make Melanctha
+angry. He was very friendly with her in his laughing, and then he
+made his face get serious, and he rubbed his head to help him in his
+thinking.
+
+"I know Miss Melanctha" he began, "It ain't very easy for you to
+understand what I was meaning by what I was just saying to you, and
+perhaps some of the good people I like so wouldn't think very much,
+any more than you do, Miss Melanctha, about the ways I have to be
+good. But that's no matter Miss Melanctha. What I mean Miss Melanctha
+by what I was just saying to you is, that I don't, no, never, believe
+in doing things just to get excited. You see Miss Melanctha I mean the
+way so many of the colored people do it. Instead of just working hard
+and caring about their working and living regular with their families
+and saving up all their money, so they will have some to bring up
+their children better, instead of living regular and doing like that
+and getting all their new ways from just decent living, the colored
+people just keep running around and perhaps drinking and doing
+everything bad they can ever think of, and not just because they like
+all those bad things that they are always doing, but only just because
+they want to get excited. No Miss Melanctha, you see I am a colored
+man myself and I ain't sorry, and I want to see the colored people
+being good and careful and always honest and living always just
+as regular as can be, and I am sure Miss Melanctha, that that way
+everybody can have a good time, and be happy and keep right and be
+busy, and not always have to be doing bad things for new ways to get
+excited. Yes Miss Melanctha, I certainly do like everything to be
+good, and quiet, and I certainly do think that is the best way for all
+us colored people. No, Miss Melanctha too, I don't mean this except
+only just the way I say it. I ain't got any other meaning Miss
+Melanctha, and it's that what I mean when I am saying about being
+really good. It ain't Miss Melanctha to be pious and not liking every
+kind of people, and I don't say ever Miss Melanctha that when other
+kind of people come regular into your life you shouldn't want to know
+them always. What I mean Miss Melanctha by what I am always saying
+is, you shouldn't try to know everybody just to run around and get
+excited. It's that kind of way of doing that I hate so always Miss
+Melanctha, and that is so bad for all us colored people. I don't know
+as you understand now any better what I mean by what I was just saying
+to you. But you certainly do know now Miss Melanctha, that I always
+mean it what I say when I am talking."
+
+"Yes I certainly do understand you when you talk so Dr. Campbell.
+I certainly do understand now what you mean by what you was always
+saying to me. I certainly do understand Dr. Campbell that you mean you
+don't believe it's right to love anybody." "Why sure no, yes I do Miss
+Melanctha, I certainly do believe strong in loving, and in being good
+to everybody, and trying to understand what they all need, to help
+them." "Oh I know all about that way of doing Dr. Campbell, but that
+certainly ain't the kind of love I mean when I am talking. I mean
+real, strong, hot love Dr. Campbell, that makes you do anything for
+somebody that loves you." "I don't know much about that kind of
+love yet Miss Melanctha. You see it's this way with me always Miss
+Melanctha. I am always so busy with my thinking about my work I am
+doing and so I don't have time for just fooling, and then too, you see
+Miss Melanctha, I really certainly don't ever like to get excited, and
+that kind of loving hard does seem always to mean just getting all the
+time excited. That certainly is what I always think from what I see of
+them that have it bad Miss Melanctha, and that certainly would never
+suit a man like me. You see Miss Melanctha I am a very quiet kind of
+fellow, and I believe in a quiet life for all the colored people. No
+Miss Melanctha I certainly never have mixed myself up in that kind of
+trouble."
+
+"Yes I certainly do see that very clear Dr. Campbell," said Melanctha,
+"I see that's certainly what it is always made me not know right about
+you and that's certainly what it is that makes you really mean what
+you was always saying. You certainly are just too scared Dr. Campbell
+to really feel things way down in you. All you are always wanting Dr.
+Campbell, is just to talk about being good, and to play with people
+just to have a good time, and yet always to certainly keep yourself
+out of trouble. It don't seem to me Dr. Campbell that I admire that
+way to do things very much. It certainly ain't really to me being very
+good. It certainly ain't any more to me Dr. Campbell, but that you
+certainly are awful scared about really feeling things way down in
+you, and that's certainly the only way Dr. Campbell I can see that you
+can mean, by what it is that you are always saying to me."
+
+"I don't know about that Miss Melanctha, I certainly don't think I
+can't feel things very deep in me, though I do say I certainly do like
+to have things nice and quiet, but I don't see harm in keeping out of
+danger Miss Melanctha, when a man knows he certainly don't want to get
+killed in it, and I don't know anything that's more awful dangerous
+Miss Melanctha than being strong in love with somebody. I don't
+mind sickness or real trouble Miss Melanctha, and I don't want to be
+talking about what I can do in real trouble, but you know something
+about that Miss Melanctha, but I certainly don't see much in mixing up
+just to get excited, in that awful kind of danger. No Miss Melanctha
+I certainly do only know just two kinds of ways of loving. One kind of
+loving seems to me, is like one has a good quiet feeling in a family
+when one does his work, and is always living good and being regular,
+and then the other way of loving is just like having it like any
+animal that's low in the streets together, and that don't seem to me
+very good Miss Melanctha, though I don't say ever that it's not all
+right when anybody likes it, and that's all the kinds of love I know
+Miss Melanctha, and I certainly don't care very much to get mixed up
+in that kind of a way just to be in trouble."
+
+Jefferson stopped and Melanctha thought a little.
+
+"That certainly does explain to me Dr. Campbell what I been thinking
+about you this long time. I certainly did wonder how you could be so
+live, and knowing everything, and everybody, and talking so big always
+about everything, and everybody always liking you so much, and you
+always looking as if you was thinking, and yet you really was
+never knowing about anybody and certainly not being really very
+understanding. It certainly is all Dr. Campbell because you is so
+afraid you will be losing being good so easy, and it certainly do seem
+to me Dr. Campbell that it certainly don't amount to very much that
+kind of goodness."
+
+"Perhaps you are right Miss Melanctha," Jefferson answered. "I don't
+say never, perhaps you ain't right Miss Melanctha. Perhaps I ought
+to know more about such ways Miss Melanctha. Perhaps it would help me
+some, taking care of the colored people, Miss Melanctha. I don't say,
+no, never, but perhaps I could learn a whole lot about women the right
+way, if I had a real good teacher."
+
+'Mis' Herbert just then stirred a little in her sleep. Melanctha went
+up the steps to the bed to attend her. Dr. Campbell got up too and
+went to help her. 'Mis' Herbert woke up and was a little better. Now
+it was morning and Dr. Campbell gave his directions to Melanctha, and
+then left her.
+
+Melanctha Herbert all her life long, loved and wanted good, kind
+and considerate people. Jefferson Campbell was all the things that
+Melanctha had ever wanted. Jefferson was a strong, well built, good
+looking, cheery, intelligent and good mulatto. And then at first he
+had not cared to know Melanctha, and when he did begin to know her
+he had not liked her very well, and he had not thought that she would
+ever come to any good. And then Jefferson Campbell was so very gentle.
+Jefferson never did some things like other men, things that now were
+beginning to be ugly, for Melanctha. And then too Jefferson Campbell
+did not seem to know very well what it was that Melanctha really
+wanted, and all this was making Melanctha feel his power with her
+always getting stronger.
+
+Dr. Campbell came in every day to see 'Mis' Herbert. 'Mis' Herbert,
+after that night they watched together, did get a little better, but
+'Mis' Herbert was really very sick, and soon it was pretty sure that
+she would have to die. Melanctha certainly did everything, all the
+time, that any woman could. Jefferson never thought much better of
+Melanctha while she did it. It was not her being good, he wanted to
+find in her. He knew very well Jane Harden was right, when she said
+Melanctha was always being good to everybody but that that did not
+make Melanctha any better for her. Then too, 'Mis' Herbert never
+liked Melanctha any better, even on the last day of her living, and so
+Jefferson really never thought much of Melanctha's always being good
+to her mother.
+
+Jefferson and Melanctha now saw each other, very often. They now
+always liked to be with each other, and they always now had a good
+time when they talked to one another. They, mostly in their talking to
+each other, still just talked about outside things and what they were
+thinking. Except just in little moments, and not those very often,
+they never said anything about their feeling. Sometimes Melanctha
+would tease Jefferson a little just to show she had not forgotten, but
+mostly she listened to his talking, for Jefferson still always liked
+to talk along about the things he believed in. Melanctha was liking
+Jefferson Campbell better every day, and Jefferson was beginning to
+know that Melanctha certainly had a good mind, and he was beginning
+to feel a little her real sweetness. Not in her being good to 'Mis'
+Herbert, that never seemed to Jefferson to mean much in her, but there
+was a strong kind of sweetness in Melanctha's nature that Jefferson
+began now to feel when he was with her.
+
+'Mis' Herbert was now always getting sicker. One night again Dr.
+Campbell felt very certain that before it was morning she would surely
+die. Dr. Campbell said he would come back to help Melanctha watch her,
+and to do anything he could to make 'Mis' Herbert's dying more easy
+for her. Dr. Campbell came back that evening, after he was through
+with his other patients, and then he made 'Mis' Herbert easy, and
+then he came and sat down on the steps just above where Melanctha was
+sitting with the lamp, and looking very tired. Dr. Campbell was pretty
+tired too, and they both sat there very quiet.
+
+"You look awful tired to-night, Dr. Campbell," Melanctha said at last,
+with her voice low and very gentle, "Don't you want to go lie down and
+sleep a little? You're always being much too good to everybody, Dr.
+Campbell. I like to have you stay here watching to-night with me, but
+it don't seem right you ought to stay here when you got so much always
+to do for everybody. You are certainly very kind to come back, Dr.
+Campbell, but I can certainly get along to-night without you. I can
+get help next door sure if I need it. You just go 'long home to bed,
+Dr. Campbell. You certainly do look as if you need it."
+
+Jefferson was silent for some time, and always he was looking very
+gently at Melanctha.
+
+"I certainly never did think, Miss Melanctha, I would find you to be
+so sweet and thinking, with me." "Dr. Campbell" said Melanctha, still
+more gentle, "I certainly never did think that you would ever feel it
+good to like me. I certainly never did think you would want to see for
+yourself if I had sweet ways in me."
+
+They both sat there very tired, very gentle, very quiet, a long time.
+At last Melanctha in a low, even tone began to talk to Jefferson
+Campbell.
+
+"You are certainly a very good man, Dr. Campbell, I certainly do feel
+that more every day I see you. Dr. Campbell, I sure do want to be
+friends with a good man like you, now I know you. You certainly, Dr.
+Campbell, never do things like other men, that's always ugly for me.
+Tell me true, Dr. Campbell, how you feel about being always friends
+with me. I certainly do know, Dr. Campbell, you are a good man, and if
+you say you will be friends with me, you certainly never will go back
+on me, the way so many kinds of them do to every girl they ever get
+to like them. Tell me for true, Dr. Campbell, will you be friends with
+me."
+
+"Why, Miss Melanctha," said Campbell slowly, "why you see I just can't
+say that right out that way to you. Why sure you know Miss Melanctha,
+I will be very glad if it comes by and by that we are always
+friends together, but you see, Miss Melanctha, I certainly am a very
+slow-minded quiet kind of fellow though I do say quick things all the
+time to everybody, and when I certainly do want to mean it what I am
+saying to you, I can't say things like that right out to everybody
+till I know really more for certain all about you, and how I like you,
+and what I really mean to do better for you. You certainly do see what
+I mean, Miss Melanctha." "I certainly do admire you for talking honest
+to me, Jeff Campbell," said Melanctha. "Oh, I am always honest,
+Miss Melanctha. It's easy enough for me always to be honest, Miss
+Melanctha. All I got to do is always just to say right out what I am
+thinking. I certainly never have got any real reason for not saying it
+right out like that to anybody."
+
+They sat together, very silent. "I certainly do wonder, Miss
+Melanctha," at last began Jeff Campbell, "I certainly do wonder, if
+we know very right, you and me, what each other is really thinking.
+I certainly do wonder, Miss Melanctha, if we know at all really what
+each other means by what we are always saying." "That certainly do
+mean, by what you say, that you think I am a bad one, Jeff Campbell,"
+flashed out Melanctha. "Why no, Miss Melanctha, why sure I don't mean
+any thing like that at all, by what I am saying to you. You know well
+as I do, Miss Melanctha, I think better of you every day I see you,
+and I like to talk with you all the time now, Miss Melanctha, and I
+certainly do think we both like it very well when we are together,
+and it seems to me always more, you are very good and sweet always
+to everybody. It only is, I am really so slow-minded in my ways, Miss
+Melanctha, for all I talk so quick to everybody, and I don't like to
+say to you what I don't know for very sure, and I certainly don't know
+for sure I know just all what you mean by what you are always saying
+to me. And you see, Miss Melanctha, that's what makes me say what I
+was just saying to you when you asked me."
+
+"I certainly do thank you again for being honest to me, Dr. Campbell,"
+said Melanctha. "I guess I leave you now, Dr. Campbell. I think I go
+in the other room and rest a little. I leave you here, so perhaps if I
+ain't here you will maybe sleep and rest yourself a little. Good night
+now, Dr. Campbell, I call you if I need you later to help me, Dr.
+Campbell, I hope you rest well, Dr. Campbell."
+
+Jeff Campbell, when Melanctha left him, sat there and he was very
+quiet and just wondered. He did not know very well just what Melanctha
+meant by what she was always saying to him. He did not know very well
+how much he really knew about Melanctha Herbert. He wondered if he
+should go on being so much all the time with her. He began to think
+about what he should do now with her. Jefferson Campbell was a man who
+liked everybody and many people liked very much to be with him.
+Women liked him, he was so strong, and good, and understanding, and
+innocent, and firm, and gentle. Sometimes they seemed to want very
+much he should be with them. When they got so, they always had made
+Campbell very tired. Sometimes he would play a little with them,
+but he never had had any strong feeling for them. Now with Melanctha
+Herbert everything seemed different. Jefferson was not sure that he
+knew here just what he wanted. He was not sure he knew just what
+it was that Melanctha wanted. He knew if it was only play, with
+Melanctha, that he did not want to do it. But he remembered always
+how she had told him he never knew how to feel things very deeply.
+He remembered how she told him he was afraid to let himself ever know
+real feeling, and then too, most of all to him, she had told him
+he was not very understanding. That always troubled Jefferson very
+keenly, he wanted very badly to be really understanding. If Jefferson
+only knew better just what Melanctha meant by what she said. Jefferson
+always had thought he knew something about women. Now he found that
+really he knew nothing. He did not know the least bit about Melanctha.
+He did not know what it was right that he should do about it. He
+wondered if it was just a little play that they were doing. If it was
+a play he did not want to go on playing, but if it was really that he
+was not very understanding, and that with Melanctha Herbert he could
+learn to really understand, then he was very certain he did not want
+to be a coward. It was very hard for him to know what he wanted. He
+thought and thought, and always he did not seem to know any better
+what he wanted. At last he gave up this thinking. He felt sure it was
+only play with Melanctha. "No, I certainly won't go on fooling with
+her any more this way," he said at last out loud to himself, when he
+was through with this thinking. "I certainly will stop fooling, and
+begin to go on with my thinking about my work and what's the matter
+with people like 'Mis' Herbert," and Jefferson took out his book
+from his pocket, and drew near to the lamp, and began with some hard
+scientific reading.
+
+Jefferson sat there for about an hour reading, and he had really
+forgotten all about his trouble with Melanctha's meaning. Then 'Mis'
+Herbert had some trouble with her breathing. She woke up and was
+gasping. Dr. Campbell went to her and gave her something that would
+help her. Melanctha came out from the other room and did things as he
+told her. They together made 'Mis' Herbert more comfortable and easy,
+and soon she was again in her deep sleep.
+
+Dr. Campbell went back to the steps where he had been sitting.
+Melanctha came and stood a little while beside him, and then she sat
+down and watched him reading. By and by they began with their talking.
+Jeff Campbell began to feel that perhaps it was all different. Perhaps
+it was not just play, with Melanctha. Anyway he liked it very well
+that she was with him. He began to tell her about the book he was just
+reading.
+
+Melanctha was very intelligent always in her questions. Jefferson knew
+now very well that she had a good mind. They were having a very good
+time, talking there together. And then they began again to get quiet.
+
+"It certainly was very good in you to come back and talk to me Miss
+Melanctha," Jefferson said at last to her, for now he was almost
+certain, it was no game she was playing. Melanctha really was a good
+woman, and she had a good mind, and she had a real, strong sweetness,
+and she could surely really teach him. "Oh I always like to talk to
+you Dr. Campbell" said Melanctha, "And then you was only just honest
+to me, and I always like it when a man is really honest to me." Then
+they were again very silent, sitting there together, with the lamp
+between them, that was always smoking. Melanctha began to lean a
+little more toward Dr. Campbell, where he was sitting, and then
+she took his hand between her two and pressed it hard, but she said
+nothing to him. She let it go then and leaned a little nearer to him.
+Jefferson moved a little but did not do anything in answer. At last,
+"Well," said Melanctha sharply to him. "I was just thinking" began Dr.
+Campbell slowly, "I was just wondering," he was beginning to get ready
+to go on with his talking. "Don't you ever stop with your thinking
+long enough ever to have any feeling Jeff Campbell," said Melanctha a
+little sadly. "I don't know," said Jeff Campbell slowly, "I don't know
+Miss Melanctha much about that. No, I don't stop thinking much Miss
+Melanctha and if I can't ever feel without stopping thinking, I
+certainly am very much afraid Miss Melanctha that I never will do
+much with that kind of feeling. Sure you ain't worried Miss Melanctha,
+about my really not feeling very much all the time. I certainly do
+think I feel some, Miss Melanctha, even though I always do it without
+ever knowing how to stop with my thinking." "I am certainly afraid I
+don't think much of your kind of feeling Dr. Campbell." "Why I think
+you certainly are wrong Miss Melanctha I certainly do think I feel as
+much for you Miss Melanctha, as you ever feel about me, sure I do. I
+don't think you know me right when you talk like that to me. Tell
+me just straight out how much do you care about me, Miss Melanctha."
+"Care about you Jeff Campbell," said Melanctha slowly. "I certainly do
+care for you Jeff Campbell less than you are always thinking and much
+more than you are ever knowing."
+
+Jeff Campbell paused on this, and he was silent with the power of
+Melanctha's meaning. They sat there together very silent, a long time.
+"Well Jeff Campbell," said Melanctha. "Oh," said Dr. Campbell and he
+moved himself a little, and then they were very silent a long time.
+"Haven't you got nothing to say to me Jeff Campbell?" said Melanctha.
+"Why yes, what was it we were just saying about to one another. You
+see Miss Melanctha I am a very quiet, slow minded kind of fellow, and
+I am never sure I know just exactly what you mean by all that you are
+always saying to me. But I do like you very much Miss Melanctha and I
+am very sure you got very good things in you all the time. You sure
+do believe what I am saying to you Miss Melanctha." "Yes I believe it
+when you say it to me, Jeff Campbell," said Melanctha, and then she
+was silent and there was much sadness in it. "I guess I go in and
+lie down again Dr. Campbell," said Melanctha. "Don't go leave me Miss
+Melanctha," said Jeff Campbell quickly. "Why not, what you want of me
+Jeff Campbell?" said Melanctha. "Why," said Jeff Campbell slowly, "I
+just want to go on talking with you. I certainly do like talking about
+all kinds of things with you. You certainly know that all right, Miss
+Melanctha." "I guess I go lie down again and leave you here with your
+thinking," said Melanctha gently. "I certainly am very tired to night
+Dr. Campbell. Good night I hope you rest well Dr. Campbell." Melanctha
+stooped over him, where he was sitting, to say this good night, and
+then, very quick and sudden, she kissed him and then, very quick
+again, she went away and left him.
+
+Dr. Campbell sat there very quiet, with only a little thinking and
+sometimes a beginning feeling, and he was alone until it began to be
+morning, and then he went, and Melanctha helped him, and he made 'Mis'
+Herbert more easy in her dying. 'Mis' Herbert lingered on till about
+ten o'clock the next morning, and then slowly and without much
+pain she died away. Jeff Campbell staid till the last moment, with
+Melanctha, to make her mother's dying easy for her. When it was over
+he sent in the colored woman from next door to help Melanctha fix
+things, and then he went away to take care of his other patients. He
+came back very soon to Melanctha. He helped her to have a funeral for
+her mother. Melanctha then went to live with the good natured woman,
+who had been her neighbor. Melanctha still saw Jeff Campbell very
+often. Things began to be very strong between them.
+
+Melanctha now never wandered, unless she was with Jeff Campbell.
+Sometimes she and he wandered a good deal together. Jeff Campbell
+had not got over his way of talking to her all the time about all the
+things he was always thinking. Melanctha never talked much, now, when
+they were together. Sometimes Jeff Campbell teased her about her
+not talking to him. "I certainly did think Melanctha you was a great
+talker from the way Jane Harden and everybody said things to me, and
+from the way I heard you talk so much when I first met you. Tell me
+true Melanctha, why don't you talk more now to me, perhaps it is
+I talk so much I don't give you any chance to say things to me, or
+perhaps it is you hear me talk so much you don't think so much now of
+a whole lot of talking. Tell me honest Melanctha, why don't you talk
+more to me." "You know very well Jeff Campbell," said Melanctha "You
+certainly do know very well Jeff, you don't think really much, of my
+talking. You think a whole lot more about everything than I do Jeff,
+and you don't care much what I got to say about it. You know that's
+true what I am saying Jeff, if you want to be real honest, the way you
+always are when I like you so much." Jeff laughed and looked fondly
+at her. "I don't say ever I know, you ain't right, when you say things
+like that to me, Melanctha. You see you always like to be talking just
+what you think everybody wants to be hearing from you, and when you
+are like that, Melanctha, honest, I certainly don't care very much to
+hear you, but sometimes you say something that is what you are really
+thinking, and then I like a whole lot to hear you talking." Melanctha
+smiled, with her strong sweetness, on him, and she felt her power
+very deeply. "I certainly never do talk very much when I like anybody
+really, Jeff. You see, Jeff, it ain't much use to talk about what a
+woman is really feeling in her. You see all that, Jeff, better, by and
+by, when you get to really feeling. You won't be so ready then always
+with your talking. You see, Jeff, if it don't come true what I am
+saying." "I don't ever say you ain't always right, Melanctha," said
+Jeff Campbell. "Perhaps what I call my thinking ain't really so very
+understanding. I don't say, no never now any more, you ain't right,
+Melanctha, when you really say things to me. Perhaps I see it all to
+be very different when I come to really see what you mean by what you
+are always saying to me." "You is very sweet and good to me always,
+Jeff Campbell," said Melanctha. "'Deed I certainly am not good to
+you, Melanctha. Don't I bother you all the time with my talking, but
+I really do like you a whole lot, Melanctha." "And I like you, Jeff
+Campbell, and you certainly are mother, and father, and brother, and
+sister, and child and everything, always to me. I can't say much about
+how good you been to me, Jeff Campbell, I never knew any man who was
+good and didn't do things ugly, before I met you to take care of me,
+Jeff Campbell. Good-by, Jeff, come see me to-morrow, when you get
+through with your working." "Sure Melanctha, you know that already,"
+said Jeff Campbell, and then he went away and left her.
+
+These months had been an uncertain time for Jeff Campbell. He never
+knew how much he really knew about Melanctha. He saw her now for long
+times and very often. He was beginning always more and more to like
+her. But he did not seem to himself to know very much about her. He
+was beginning to feel he could almost trust the goodness in her. But
+then, always, really, he was not very sure about her. Melanctha always
+had ways that made him feel uncertain with her, and yet he was so
+near, in his feeling for her. He now never thought about all this in
+real words any more. He was always letting it fight itself out in
+him. He was now never taking any part in this fighting that was always
+going on inside him.
+
+Jeff always loved now to be with Melanctha and yet he always hated to
+go to her. Somehow he was always afraid when he was to go to her,
+and yet he had made himself very certain that here he would not be a
+coward. He never felt any of this being afraid, when he was with her.
+Then they always were very true, and near to one another. But always
+when he was going to her, Jeff would like anything that could happen
+that would keep him a little longer from her.
+
+It was a very uncertain time, all these months, for Jeff Campbell. He
+did not know very well what it was that he really wanted. He was very
+certain that he did not know very well what it was that Melanctha
+wanted. Jeff Campbell had always all his life loved to be with people,
+and he had loved all his life always to be thinking, but he was still
+only a great boy, was Jeff Campbell, and he had never before had any
+of this funny kind of feeling. Now, this evening, when he was free
+to go and see Melanctha, he talked to anybody he could find who would
+detain him, and so it was very late when at last he came to the house
+where Melanctha was waiting to receive him.
+
+Jeff came in to where Melanctha was waiting for him, and he took off
+his hat and heavy coat, and then drew up a chair and sat down by the
+fire. It was very cold that night, and Jeff sat there, and rubbed
+his hands and tried to warm them. He had only said "How do you do" to
+Melanctha, he had not yet begun to talk to her. Melanctha sat there,
+by the fire, very quiet. The heat gave a pretty pink glow to her pale
+yellow and attractive face. Melanctha sat in a low chair, her hands,
+with their long, fluttering fingers, always ready to show her strong
+feeling, were lying quiet in her lap. Melanctha was very tired with
+her waiting for Jeff Campbell. She sat there very quiet and just
+watching. Jeff was a robust, dark, healthy, cheery negro. His hands
+were firm and kindly and unimpassioned. He touched women always with
+his big hands, like a brother. He always had a warm broad glow, like
+southern sunshine. He never had anything mysterious in him. He
+was open, he was pleasant, he was cheery, and always he wanted,
+as Melanctha once had wanted, always now he too wanted really to
+understand.
+
+Jeff sat there this evening in his chair and was silent a long time,
+warming himself with the pleasant fire. He did not look at Melanctha
+who was watching. He sat there and just looked into the fire. At first
+his dark, open face was smiling, and he was rubbing the back of his
+black-brown hand over his mouth to help him in his smiling. Then he
+was thinking, and he frowned and rubbed his head hard, to help him in
+his thinking. Then he smiled again, but now his smiling was not very
+pleasant. His smile was now wavering on the edge of scorning. His
+smile changed more and more, and then he had a look as if he were
+deeply down, all disgusted. Now his face was darker, and he was bitter
+in his smiling, and he began, without looking from the fire, to talk
+to Melanctha, who was now very tense with her watching.
+
+"Melanctha Herbert", began Jeff Campbell, "I certainly after all this
+time I know you, I certainly do know little, real about you. You see,
+Melanctha, it's like this way with me"; Jeff was frowning, with his
+thinking and looking very hard into the fire, "You see it's just this
+way, with me now, Melanctha. Sometimes you seem like one kind of a
+girl to me, and sometimes you are like a girl that is all different
+to me, and the two kinds of girls is certainly very different to each
+other, and I can't see any way they seem to have much to do, to be
+together in you. They certainly don't seem to be made much like as if
+they could have anything really to do with each other. Sometimes you
+are a girl to me I certainly never would be trusting, and you got a
+laugh then so hard, it just rattles, and you got ways so bad, I can't
+believe you mean them hardly, and yet all that I just been saying is
+certainly you one way I often see you, and it's what your mother and
+Jane Harden always found you, and it's what makes me hate so, to come
+near you. And then certainly sometimes, Melanctha, you certainly is
+all a different creature, and sometimes then there comes out in you
+what is certainly a thing, like a real beauty. I certainly, Melanctha,
+never can tell just how it is that it comes so lovely. Seems to me
+when it comes it's got a real sweetness, that is more wonderful than a
+pure flower, and a gentleness, that is more tender than the sunshine,
+and a kindness, that makes one feel like summer, and then a way
+to know, that makes everything all over, and all that, and it does
+certainly seem to be real for the little while it's lasting, for the
+little while that I can surely see it, and it gives me to feel like I
+certainly had got real religion. And then when I got rich with such
+a feeling, comes all that other girl, and then that seems more likely
+that that is really you what's honest, and then I certainly do get
+awful afraid to come to you, and I certainly never do feel I could be
+very trusting with you. And then I certainly don't know anything at
+all about you, and I certainly don't know which is a real Melanctha
+Herbert, and I certainly don't feel no longer, I ever want to talk to
+you. Tell me honest, Melanctha, which is the way that is you really,
+when you are alone, and real, and all honest. Tell me, Melanctha, for
+I certainly do want to know it."
+
+Melanctha did not make him any answer, and Jeff, without looking
+at her, after a little while, went on with his talking. "And then,
+Melanctha, sometimes you certainly do seem sort of cruel, and not to
+care about people being hurt or in trouble, something so hard about
+you it makes me sometimes real nervous, sometimes somehow like
+you always, like your being, with 'Mis' Herbert. You sure did do
+everything that any woman could, Melanctha, I certainly never did see
+anybody do things any better, and yet, I don't know how to say just
+what I mean, Melanctha, but there was something awful hard about your
+feeling, so different from the way I'm always used to see good people
+feeling, and so it was the way Jane Harden and 'Mis' Herbert talked
+when they felt strong to talk about you, and yet, Melanctha, somehow
+I feel so really near to you, and you certainly have got an awful
+wonderful, strong kind of sweetness. I certainly would like to know
+for sure, Melanctha, whether I got really anything to be afraid for. I
+certainly did think once, Melanctha, I knew something about all kinds
+of women. I certainly know now really, how I don't know anything sure
+at all about you, Melanctha, though I been with you so long, and so
+many times for whole hours with you, and I like so awful much to
+be with you, and I can always say anything I am thinking to you. I
+certainly do awful wish, Melanctha, I really was more understanding. I
+certainly do that same, Melanctha."
+
+Jeff stopped now and looked harder than before into the fire. His face
+changed from his thinking back into that look that was so like as if
+he was all through and through him, disgusted with what he had been
+thinking. He sat there a long time, very quiet, and then slowly,
+somehow, it came strongly to him that Melanctha Herbert, there
+beside him, was trembling and feeling it all to be very bitter. "Why,
+Melanctha," cried Jeff Campbell, and he got up and put his arm around
+her like a brother. "I stood it just so long as I could bear it,
+Jeff," sobbed Melanctha, and then she gave herself away, to her
+misery, "I was awful ready, Jeff, to let you say anything you liked
+that gave you any pleasure. You could say all about me what you
+wanted, Jeff, and I would try to stand it, so as you would be sure to
+be liking it, Jeff, but you was too cruel to me. When you do that kind
+of seeing how much you can make a woman suffer, you ought to give her
+a little rest, once sometimes, Jeff. They can't any of us stand it so
+for always, Jeff. I certainly did stand it just as long as I could,
+so you would like it, but I,--oh Jeff, you went on too long to-night
+Jeff. I couldn't stand it not a minute longer the way you was doing
+of it, Jeff. When you want to be seeing how the way a woman is really
+made of, Jeff, you shouldn't never be so cruel, never to be thinking
+how much she can stand, the strong way you always do it, Jeff." "Why,
+Melanctha," cried Jeff Campbell, in his horror, and then he was very
+tender to her, and like a good, strong, gentle brother in his soothing
+of her, "Why Melanctha dear, I certainly don't now see what it is you
+mean by what you was just saying to me. Why Melanctha, you poor little
+girl, you certainly never did believe I ever knew I was giving you
+real suffering. Why, Melanctha, how could you ever like me if you
+thought I ever could be so like a red Indian?" "I didn't just know,
+Jeff," and Melanctha nestled to him, "I certainly never did know just
+what it was you wanted to be doing with me, but I certainly wanted
+you should do anything you liked, you wanted, to make me more
+understanding for you. I tried awful hard to stand it, Jeff, so as you
+could do anything you wanted with me." "Good Lord and Jesus Christ,
+Melanctha!" cried Jeff Campbell. "I certainly never can know anything
+about you real, Melanctha, you poor little girl," and Jeff drew her
+closer to him, "But I certainly do admire and trust you a whole lot
+now, Melanctha. I certainly do, for I certainly never did think I was
+hurting you at all, Melanctha, by the things I always been saying to
+you. Melanctha, you poor little, sweet, trembling baby now, be good,
+Melanctha. I certainly can't ever tell you how awful sorry I am to
+hurt you so, Melanctha. I do anything I can to show you how I
+never did mean to hurt you, Melanctha." "I know, I know," murmured
+Melanctha, clinging to him. "I know you are a good man, Jeff. I always
+know that, no matter how much you can hurt me." "I sure don't see how
+you can think so, Melanctha, if you certainly did think I was trying
+so hard just to hurt you." "Hush, you are only a great big boy, Jeff
+Campbell, and you don't know nothing yet about real hurting," said
+Melanctha, smiling up through her crying, at him. "You see, Jeff,
+I never knew anybody I could know real well and yet keep on always
+respecting, till I came to know you real well, Jeff." "I sure don't
+understand that very well, Melanctha. I ain't a bit better than just
+lots of others of the colored people. You certainly have been unlucky
+with the kind you met before me, that's all, Melanctha. I certainly
+ain't very good, Melanctha." "Hush, Jeff, you don't know nothing
+at all about what you are," said Melanctha. "Perhaps you are right,
+Melanctha. I don't say ever any more, you ain't right, when you say
+things to me, Melanctha," and Jefferson sighed, and then he smiled,
+and then they were quiet a long time together, and then after some
+more kindness, it was late, and then Jeff left her.
+
+Jeff Campbell, all these months, had never told his good mother
+anything about Melanctha Herbert. Somehow he always kept his seeing
+her so much now, to himself. Melanctha too had never had any of her
+other friends meet him. They always acted together, these two, as if
+their being so much together was a secret, but really there was no
+one who would have made it any harder for them. Jeff Campbell did not
+really know how it had happened that they were so secret. He did not
+know if it was what Melanctha wanted. Jeff had never spoken to her
+at all about it. It just seemed as if it were well understood between
+them that nobody should know that they were so much together. It
+was as if it were agreed between them, that they should be alone by
+themselves always, and so they would work out together what they meant
+by what they were always saying to each other.
+
+Jefferson often spoke to Melanctha about his good mother. He never
+said anything about whether Melanctha would want to meet her.
+Jefferson never quite understood why all this had happened so, in
+secret. He never really knew what it was that Melanctha really wanted.
+In all these ways he just, by his nature, did, what he sort of felt
+Melanctha wanted. And so they continued to be alone and much together,
+and now it had come to be the spring time, and now they had all
+out-doors to wander.
+
+They had many days now when they were very happy. Jeff every day found
+that he really liked Melanctha better. Now surely he was beginning to
+have real, deep feeling in him. And still he loved to talk himself out
+to Melanctha, and he loved to tell her how good it all was to him, and
+how he always loved to be with her, and to tell her always all about
+it. One day, now Jeff arranged, that Sunday they would go out and have
+a happy, long day in the bright fields, and they would be all day just
+alone together. The day before, Jeff was called in to see Jane Harden.
+
+Jane Harden was very sick almost all day and Jeff Campbell did
+everything he could to make her better. After a while Jane became more
+easy and then she began to talk to Jeff about Melanctha. Jane did not
+know how much Jeff was now seeing of Melanctha. Jane these days never
+saw Melanctha. Jane began to talk of the time when she first knew
+Melanctha. Jane began to tell how in these days Melanctha had very
+little understanding. She was young then and she had a good mind. Jane
+Harden never would say Melanctha never had a good mind, but in those
+days Melanctha certainly had not been very understanding. Jane began
+to explain to Jeff Campbell how in every way, she Jane, had taught
+Melanctha. Jane then began to explain how eager Melanctha always had
+been for all that kind of learning. Jane Harden began to tell how they
+had wandered. Jane began to tell how Melanctha once had loved her,
+Jane Harden. Jane began to tell Jeff of all the bad ways Melanctha had
+used with her. Jane began to tell all she knew of the way Melanctha
+had gone on, after she had left her. Jane began to tell all about the
+different men, white ones and blacks, Melanctha never was particular
+about things like that, Jane Harden said in passing, not that
+Melanctha was a bad one, and she had a good mind, Jane Harden never
+would say that she hadn't, but Melanctha always liked to use all the
+understanding ways that Jane had taught her, and so she wanted to know
+everything, always, that they knew how to teach her.
+
+Jane was beginning to make Jeff Campbell see much clearer. Jane Harden
+did not know what it was that she was really doing with all this
+talking. Jane did not know what Jeff was feeling. Jane was always
+honest when she was talking, and now it just happened she had started
+talking about her old times with Melanctha Herbert. Jeff understood
+very well that it was all true what Jane was saying. Jeff Campbell was
+beginning now to see very clearly. He was beginning to feel very sick
+inside him. He knew now many things Melanctha had not yet taught
+him. He felt very sick and his heart was very heavy, and Melanctha
+certainly did seem very ugly to him. Jeff was at last beginning to
+know what it was to have deep feeling. He took care a little longer of
+Jane Harden, and then he went to his other patients, and then he went
+home to his room, and he sat down and at last he had stopped thinking.
+He was very sick and his heart was very heavy in him. He was very
+tired and all the world was very dreary to him, and he knew very well
+now at last, he was really feeling. He knew it now from the way it
+hurt him. He knew very well that now at last he was beginning to
+really have understanding. The next day he had arranged to spend, long
+and happy, all alone in the spring fields with Melanctha, wandering.
+He wrote her a note and said he could not go, he had a sick patient
+and would have to stay home with him. For three days after, he made no
+sign to Melanctha. He was very sick all these days, and his heart
+was very heavy in him, and he knew very well that now at last he had
+learned what it was to have deep feeling.
+
+At last one day he got a letter from Melanctha. "I certainly don't
+rightly understand what you are doing now to me Jeff Campbell," wrote
+Melanctha Herbert. "I certainly don't rightly understand Jeff Campbell
+why you ain't all these days been near me, but I certainly do suppose
+it's just another one of the queer kind of ways you have to be good,
+and repenting of yourself all of a sudden. I certainly don't say to
+you Jeff Campbell I admire very much the way you take to be good Jeff
+Campbell. I am sorry Dr. Campbell, but I certainly am afraid I
+can't stand it no more from you the way you have been just acting. I
+certainly can't stand it any more the way you act when you have been
+as if you thought I was always good enough for anybody to have with
+them, and then you act as if I was a bad one and you always just
+despise me. I certainly am afraid Dr. Campbell I can't stand it any
+more like that. I certainly can't stand it any more the way you are
+always changing. I certainly am afraid Dr. Campbell you ain't man
+enough to deserve to have anybody care so much to be always with you.
+I certainly am awful afraid Dr. Campbell I don't ever any more want
+to really see you. Good-by Dr. Campbell I wish you always to be real
+happy."
+
+Jeff Campbell sat in his room, very quiet, a long time, after he got
+through reading this letter. He sat very still and first he was very
+angry. As if he, too, did not know very badly what it was to suffer
+keenly. As if he had not been very strong to stay with Melanctha when
+he never knew what it was that she really wanted. He knew he was very
+right to be angry, he knew he really had not been a coward. He knew
+Melanctha had done many things it was very hard for him to forgive
+her. He knew very well he had done his best to be kind, and to
+trust her, and to be loyal to her, and now;--and then Jeff suddenly
+remembered how one night Melanctha had been so strong to suffer, and
+he felt come back to him the sweetness in her, and then Jeff knew that
+really, he always forgave her, and that really, it all was that he was
+so sorry he had hurt her, and he wanted to go straight away and be a
+comfort to her. Jeff knew very well, that what Jane Harden had told
+him about Melanctha and her bad ways, had been a true story, and yet
+he wanted very badly to be with Melanctha. Perhaps she could teach
+him to really understand it better. Perhaps she could teach him how it
+could be all true, and yet how he could be right to believe in her and
+to trust her.
+
+Jeff sat down and began his answer to her. "Dear Melanctha," Jeff
+wrote to her. "I certainly don't think you got it all just right in
+the letter, I just been reading, that you just wrote me. I certainly
+don't think you are just fair or very understanding to all I have
+to suffer to keep straight on to really always to believe in you and
+trust you. I certainly don't think you always are fair to remember
+right how hard it is for a man, who thinks like I was always thinking,
+not to think you do things very bad very often. I certainly don't
+think, Melanctha, I ain't right when I was so angry when I got your
+letter to me. I know very well, Melanctha, that with you, I never have
+been a coward. I find it very hard, and I never said it any different,
+it is hard to me to be understanding, and to know really what it is
+you wanted, and what it is you are meaning by what you are always
+saying to me. I don't say ever, it ain't very hard for you to be
+standing that I ain't very quick to be following whichever way that
+you are always leading. You know very well, Melanctha, it hurts me
+very bad and way inside me when I have to hurt you, but I always got
+to be real honest with you. There ain't no other way for me to be,
+with you, and I know very well it hurts me too, a whole lot, when
+I can't follow so quick as you would have me. I don't like to be a
+coward to you, Melanctha, and I don't like to say what I ain't meaning
+to you. And if you don't want me to do things honest, Melanctha, why
+I can't ever talk to you, and you are right when you say, you never
+again want to see me, but if you got any real sense of what I always
+been feeling with you, and if you got any right sense, Melanctha, of
+how hard I been trying to think and to feel right for you, I will be
+very glad to come and see you, and to begin again with you. I don't
+say anything now, Melanctha, about how bad I been this week, since
+I saw you, Melanctha. It don't ever do any good to talk such things
+over. All I know is I do my best, Melanctha, to you, and I don't say,
+no, never, I can do any different than just to be honest and come as
+fast as I think it's right for me to be going in the ways you teach
+me to be really understanding. So don't talk any more foolishness,
+Melanctha, about my always changing. I don't change, never, and I got
+to do what I think is right and honest to me, and I never told you
+any different, and you always knew it very well that I always would do
+just so. If you like me to come and see you to-morrow, and go out with
+you, I will be very glad to, Melanctha. Let me know right away, what
+it is you want me to be doing for you, Melanctha.
+
+  Very truly yours,
+  Jefferson Campbell
+
+"Please come to me, Jeff." Melanctha wrote back for her answer. Jeff
+went very slowly to Melanctha, glad as he was, still to be going to
+her. Melanctha came, very quick, to meet him, when she saw him
+from where she had been watching for him. They went into the house
+together. They were very glad to be together. They were very good to
+one another.
+
+"I certainly did think, Melanctha, this time almost really, you never
+did want me to come to you at all any more to see you," said Jeff
+Campbell to her, when they had begun again with their talking to each
+other. "You certainly did make me think, perhaps really this time,
+Melanctha, it was all over, my being with you ever, and I was very
+mad, and very sorry, too, Melanctha."
+
+"Well you certainly was very bad to me, Jeff Campbell," said
+Melanctha, fondly.
+
+"I certainly never do say any more you ain't always right, Melanctha,"
+Jeff answered and he was very ready now with cheerful laughing, "I
+certainly never do say that any more, Melanctha, if I know it, but
+still, really, Melanctha, honest, I think perhaps I wasn't real bad to
+you any more than you just needed from me."
+
+Jeff held Melanctha in his arms and kissed her. He sighed then and was
+very silent with her. "Well, Melanctha," he said at last, with some
+more laughing, "well, Melanctha, any way you can't say ever it ain't,
+if we are ever friends good and really, you can't say, no, never, but
+that we certainly have worked right hard to get both of us together
+for it, so we shall sure deserve it then, if we can ever really get
+it." "We certainly have worked real hard, Jeff, I can't say that ain't
+all right the way you say it," said Melanctha. "I certainly never
+can deny it, Jeff, when I feel so worn with all the trouble you been
+making for me, you bad boy, Jeff," and then Melanctha smiled and then
+she sighed, and then she was very silent with him.
+
+At last Jeff was to go away. They stood there on the steps for a long
+time trying to say good-by to each other. At last Jeff made himself
+really say it. At last he made himself, that he went down the steps
+and went away.
+
+On the next Sunday they arranged, they were to have the long happy day
+of wandering that they had lost last time by Jane Harden's talking.
+Not that Melanctha Herbert had heard yet of Jane Harden's talking.
+
+Jeff saw Melanctha every day now. Jeff was a little uncertain all this
+time inside him, for he had never yet told to Melanctha what it was
+that had so nearly made him really want to leave her. Jeff knew that
+for him, it was not right he should not tell her. He knew they could
+only have real peace between them when he had been honest, and had
+really told her. On this long Sunday Jeff was certain that he would
+really tell her.
+
+They were very happy all that day in their wandering. They had taken
+things along to eat together. They sat in the bright fields and they
+were happy, they wandered in the woods and they were happy. Jeff
+always loved in this way to wander. Jeff always loved to watch
+everything as it was growing, and he loved all the colors in the trees
+and on the ground, and the little, new, bright colored bugs he found
+in the moist ground and in the grass he loved to lie on and in which
+he was always so busy searching. Jeff loved everything that moved and
+that was still, and that had color, and beauty, and real being.
+
+Jeff loved very much this day while they were wandering. He almost
+forgot that he had any trouble with him still inside him. Jeff loved
+to be there with Melanctha Herbert. She was always so sympathetic to
+him for the way she listened to everything he found and told her, the
+way she felt his joy in all this being, the way she never said she
+wanted anything different from the way they had it. It was certainly a
+busy and a happy day, this their first long day of really wandering.
+
+Later they were tired, and Melanctha sat down on the ground, and Jeff
+threw himself his full length beside her. Jeff lay there, very quiet,
+and then he pressed her hand and kissed it and murmured to her, "You
+certainly are very good to me, Melanctha." Melanctha felt it very deep
+and did not answer. Jeff lay there a long time, looking up above
+him. He was counting all the little leaves he saw above him. He was
+following all the little clouds with his eyes as they sailed past him.
+He watched all the birds that flew high beyond him, and all the time
+Jeff knew he must tell to Melanctha what it was he knew now, that
+which Jane Harden, just a week ago, had told him. He knew very well
+that for him it was certain that he had to say it. It was hard, but
+for Jeff Campbell the only way to lose it was to say it, the only way
+to know Melanctha really, was to tell her all the struggle he had
+made to know her, to tell her so she could help him to understand his
+trouble better, to help him so that never again he could have any way
+to doubt her.
+
+Jeff lay there a long time, very quiet, always looking up above him,
+and yet feeling very close now to Melanctha. At last he turned a
+little toward her, took her hands closer in his to make him feel it
+stronger, and then very slowly, for the words came very hard for him,
+slowly he began his talk to her.
+
+"Melanctha," began Jeff, very slowly, "Melanctha, it ain't right I
+shouldn't tell you why I went away last week and almost never got the
+chance again to see you. Jane Harden was sick, and I went in to take
+care of her. She began to tell everything she ever knew about you. She
+didn't know how well now I know you. I didn't tell her not to go
+on talking. I listened while she told me everything about you. I
+certainly found it very hard with what she told me. I know she was
+talking truth in everything she said about you. I knew you had been
+free in your ways, Melanctha, I knew you liked to get excitement the
+way I always hate to see the colored people take it. I didn't
+know, till I heard Jane Harden say it, you had done things so bad,
+Melanctha. When Jane Harden told me, I got very sick, Melanctha. I
+couldn't bear hardly, to think, perhaps I was just another like them
+to you, Melanctha. I was wrong not to trust you perhaps, Melanctha,
+but it did make things very ugly to me. I try to be honest to you,
+Melanctha, the way you say you really want it from me."
+
+Melanctha drew her hands from Jeff Campbell. She sat there, and there
+was deep scorn in her anger.
+
+"If you wasn't all through just selfish and nothing else, Jeff
+Campbell, you would take care you wouldn't have to tell me things like
+this, Jeff Campbell."
+
+Jeff was silent a little, and he waited before he gave his answer. It
+was not the power of Melanctha's words that held him, for, for them,
+he had his answer, it was the power of the mood that filled Melanctha,
+and for that he had no answer. At last he broke through this awe, with
+his slow fighting resolution, and he began to give his answer.
+
+"I don't say ever, Melanctha," he began, "it wouldn't have been more
+right for me to stop Jane Harden in her talking and to come to you to
+have you tell me what you were when I never knew you. I don't say it,
+no never to you, that that would not have been the right way for me
+to do, Melanctha. But I certainly am without any kind of doubting, I
+certainly do know for sure, I had a good right to know about what you
+were and your ways and your trying to use your understanding, every
+kind of way you could to get your learning. I certainly did have a
+right to know things like that about you, Melanctha. I don't say it
+ever, Melanctha, and I say it very often, I don't say ever I shouldn't
+have stopped Jane Harden in her talking and come to you and asked you
+yourself to tell me all about it, but I guess I wanted to keep myself
+from how much it would hurt me more, to have you yourself say it to
+me. Perhaps it was I wanted to keep you from having it hurt you so
+much more, having you to have to tell it to me. I don't know, I don't
+say it was to help you from being hurt most, or to help me. Perhaps I
+was a coward to let Jane Harden tell me 'stead of coming straight
+to you, to have you tell me, but I certainly am sure, Melanctha, I
+certainly had a right to know such things about you. I don't say it
+ever, ever, Melanctha, I hadn't the just right to know those things
+about you." Melanctha laughed her harsh laugh. "You needn't have been
+under no kind of worry, Jeff Campbell, about whether you should have
+asked me. You could have asked, it wouldn't have hurt nothing. I
+certainly never would have told you nothing." "I am not so sure of
+that, Melanctha," said Jeff Campbell. "I certainly do think you would
+have told me. I certainly do think I could make you feel it right to
+tell me. I certainly do think all I did wrong was to let Jane Harden
+tell me. I certainly do know I never did wrong, to learn what she told
+me. I certainly know very well, Melanctha, if I had come here to you,
+you would have told it all to me, Melanctha."
+
+He was silent, and this struggle lay there, strong, between them.
+It was a struggle, sure to be going on always between them. It was a
+struggle that was as sure always to be going on between them, as their
+minds and hearts always were to have different ways of working.
+
+At last Melanctha took his hand, leaned over him and kissed him. "I
+sure am very fond of you, Jeff Campbell," Melanctha whispered to him.
+
+Now for a little time there was not any kind of trouble between Jeff
+Campbell and Melanctha Herbert. They were always together now for long
+times, and very often. They got much joy now, both of them, from being
+all the time together.
+
+It was summer now, and they had warm sunshine to wander. It was summer
+now, and Jeff Campbell had more time to wander, for colored people
+never get sick so much in the summer. It was summer now, and there was
+a lovely silence everywhere, and all the noises, too, that they heard
+around them were lovely ones, and added to the joy, in these warm
+days, they loved so much to be together.
+
+They talked some to each other in these days, did Jeff Campbell and
+Melanctha Herbert, but always in these days their talking more and
+more was like it always is with real lovers. Jeff did not talk so
+much now about what he before always had been thinking. Sometimes Jeff
+would be, as if he was just waking from himself to be with Melanctha,
+and then he would find he had been really all the long time with her,
+and he had really never needed to be doing any thinking.
+
+It was sometimes pure joy Jeff would be talking to Melanctha, in these
+warm days he loved so much to wander with her. Sometimes Jeff would
+lose all himself in a strong feeling. Very often now, and always with
+more joy in his feeling, he would find himself, he did not know how or
+what it was he had been thinking. And Melanctha always loved very well
+to make him feel it. She always now laughed a little at him, and went
+back a little in him to his before, always thinking, and she teased
+him with his always now being so good with her in his feeling, and
+then she would so well and freely, and with her pure, strong ways of
+reaching, she would give him all the love she knew now very well, how
+much he always wanted to be sure he really had it.
+
+And Jeff took it straight now, and he loved it, and he felt, strong,
+the joy of all this being, and it swelled out full inside him, and he
+poured it all out back to her in freedom, in tender kindness, and in
+joy, and in gentle brother fondling. And Melanctha loved him for it
+always, her Jeff Campbell now, who never did things ugly, for her,
+like all the men she always knew before always had been doing to
+her. And they loved it always, more and more, together, with this new
+feeling they had now, in these long summer days so warm; they, always
+together now, just these two so dear, more and more to each other
+always, and the summer evenings when they wandered, and the noises in
+the full streets, and the music of the organs, and the dancing, and
+the warm smell of the people, and of dogs and of the horses, and
+all the joy of the strong, sweet pungent, dirty, moist, warm negro
+southern summer.
+
+Every day now, Jeff seemed to be coming nearer, to be really loving.
+Every day now, Melanctha poured it all out to him, with more freedom.
+Every day now, they seemed to be having more and more, both together,
+of this strong, right feeling. More and more every day now they seemed
+to know more really, what it was each other one was always feeling.
+More and more now every day Jeff found in himself, he felt more
+trusting. More and more every day now, he did not think anything in
+words about what he was always doing. Every day now more and more
+Melanctha would let out to Jeff her real, strong feeling.
+
+One day there had been much joy between them, more than they ever yet
+had had with their new feeling. All the day they had lost themselves
+in warm wandering. Now they were lying there and resting, with a
+green, bright, light-flecked world around them.
+
+What was it that now really happened to them? What was it that
+Melanctha did, that made everything get all ugly for them? What was it
+that Melanctha felt then, that made Jeff remember all the feeling he
+had had in him when Jane Harden told him how Melanctha had learned
+to be so very understanding? Jeff did not know how it was that it had
+happened to him. It was all green, and warm, and very lovely to him,
+and now Melanctha somehow had made it all so ugly for him. What was it
+Melanctha was now doing with him? What was it he used to be thinking
+was the right way for him and all the colored people to be always
+trying to make it right, the way they should be always living? Why was
+Melanctha Herbert now all so ugly for him?
+
+Melanctha Herbert somehow had made him feel deeply just then, what
+very more it was that she wanted from him. Jeff Campbell now felt
+in him what everybody always had needed to make them really
+understanding, to him. Jeff felt a strong disgust inside him; not for
+Melanctha herself, to him, not for himself really, in him, not for
+what it was that everybody wanted, in them; he only had disgust
+because he never could know really in him, what it was he wanted, to
+be really right in understanding, for him, he only had disgust because
+he never could know really what it was really right to him to be
+always doing, in the things he had before believed in, the things he
+before had believed in for himself and for all the colored people, the
+living regular, and the never wanting to be always having new things,
+just to keep on, always being in excitements. All the old thinking now
+came up very strong inside him. He sort of turned away then, and threw
+Melanctha from him.
+
+Jeff never, even now, knew what it was that moved him. He never, even
+now, was ever sure, he really knew what Melanctha was, when she was
+real herself, and honest. He thought he knew, and then there came to
+him some moment, just like this one, when she really woke him up to
+be strong in him. Then he really knew he could know nothing. He knew
+then, he never could know what it was she really wanted with him. He
+knew then he never could know really what it was he felt inside him.
+It was all so mixed up inside him. All he knew was he wanted very
+badly Melanctha should be there beside him, and he wanted very badly,
+too, always to throw her from him. What was it really that Melanctha
+wanted with him? What was it really, he, Jeff Campbell, wanted she
+should give him? "I certainly did think now," Jeff Campbell groaned
+inside him, "I certainly did think now I really was knowing all right,
+what I wanted. I certainly did really think now I was knowing how to
+be trusting with Melanctha. I certainly did think it was like that now
+with me sure, after all I've been through all this time with her. And
+now I certainly do know I don't know anything that's very real about
+her. Oh the good Lord help and keep me!" and Jeff groaned hard inside
+him, and he buried his face deep in the green grass underneath him,
+and Melanctha Herbert was very silent there beside him.
+
+Then Jeff turned to look and see her. She was lying very still there
+by him, and the bitter water on her face was biting. Jeff was so
+very sorry then, all over and inside him, the way he always was when
+Melanctha had been deep hurt by him. "I didn't mean to be so bad
+again to you, Melanctha, dear one," and he was very tender to her.
+"I certainly didn't never mean to go to be so bad to you, Melanctha,
+darling. I certainly don't know, Melanctha, darling, what it is makes
+me act so to you sometimes, when I certainly ain't meaning anything
+like I want to hurt you. I certainly don't mean to be so bad,
+Melanctha, only it comes so quick on me before I know what I am
+acting to you. I certainly am all sorry, hard, to be so bad to you,
+Melanctha, darling." "I suppose, Jeff," said Melanctha, very low and
+bitter, "I suppose you are always thinking, Jeff, somebody had ought
+to be ashamed with us two together, and you certainly do think you
+don't see any way to it, Jeff, for me to be feeling that way ever, so
+you certainly don't see any way to it, only to do it just so often
+for me. That certainly is the way always with you, Jeff Campbell, if
+I understand you right the way you are always acting to me. That
+certainly is right the way I am saying it to you now, Jeff Campbell.
+You certainly didn't anyway trust me now no more, did you, when you
+just acted so bad to me. I certainly am right the way I say it Jeff
+now to you. I certainly am right when I ask you for it now, to tell me
+what I ask you, about not trusting me more then again, Jeff, just like
+you never really knew me. You certainly never did trust me just then,
+Jeff, you hear me?" "Yes, Melanctha," Jeff answered slowly. Melanctha
+paused. "I guess I certainly never can forgive you this time, Jeff
+Campbell," she said firmly. Jeff paused too, and thought a little. "I
+certainly am afraid you never can no more now again, Melanctha," he
+said sadly.
+
+They lay there very quiet now a long time, each one thinking very hard
+on their own trouble. At last Jeff began again to tell Melanctha
+what it was he was always thinking with her. "I certainly do know,
+Melanctha, you certainly now don't want any more to be hearing me
+just talking, but you see, Melanctha, really, it's just like this way
+always with me. You see, Melanctha, its like this way now all the time
+with me. You remember, Melanctha, what I was once telling to you, when
+I didn't know you very long together, about how I certainly never did
+know more than just two kinds of ways of living, one way the way it is
+good to be in families and the other kind of way, like animals are all
+the time just with each other, and how I didn't ever like that last
+kind of way much for any of the colored people. You see Melanctha,
+it's like this way with me. I got a new feeling now, you been teaching
+to me, just like I told you once, just like a new religion to me,
+and I see perhaps what really loving is like, like really having
+everything together, new things, little pieces all different, like
+I always before been thinking was bad to be having, all go together
+like, to make one good big feeling. You see, Melanctha, it's certainly
+like that you make me been seeing, like I never know before any way
+there was of all kinds of loving to come together to make one way
+really truly lovely. I see that now, sometimes, the way you certainly
+been teaching me, Melanctha, really, and then I love you those times,
+Melanctha, like a real religion, and then it comes over me all sudden,
+I don't know anything real about you Melanctha, dear one, and then it
+comes over me sudden, perhaps I certainly am wrong now, thinking all
+this way so lovely, and not thinking now any more the old way I always
+before was always thinking, about what was the right way for me, to
+live regular and all the colored people, and then I think, perhaps,
+Melanctha you are really just a bad one, and I think, perhaps I
+certainly am doing it so because I just am too anxious to be just
+having all the time excitements, like I don't ever like really to be
+doing when I know it, and then I always get so bad to you, Melanctha,
+and I can't help it with myself then, never, for I want to be always
+right really in the ways, I have to do them. I certainly do very badly
+want to be right, Melanctha, the only way I know is right Melanctha
+really, and I don't know any way, Melanctha, to find out really,
+whether my old way, the way I always used to be thinking, or the new
+way, you make so like a real religion to me sometimes, Melanctha,
+which way certainly is the real right way for me to be always
+thinking, and then I certainly am awful good and sorry, Melanctha, I
+always give you so much trouble, hurting you with the bad ways I am
+acting. Can't you help me to any way, to make it all straight for me,
+Melanctha, so I know right and real what it is I should be acting. You
+see, Melanctha, I don't want always to be a coward with you, if I
+only could know certain what was the right way for me to be acting.
+I certainly am real sure, Melanctha, that would be the way I would be
+acting, if I only knew it sure for certain now, Melanctha. Can't you
+help me any way to find out real and true, Melanctha, dear one. I
+certainly do badly want to know always, the way I should be acting."
+
+"No, Jeff, dear, I certainly can't help you much in that kind of
+trouble you are always having. All I can do now, Jeff, is to just keep
+certainly with my believing you are good always, Jeff, and though you
+certainly do hurt me bad, I always got strong faith in you, Jeff, more
+in you certainly, than you seem to be having in your acting to me,
+always so bad, Jeff."
+
+"You certainly are very good to me, Melanctha, dear one," Jeff said,
+after a long, tender silence. "You certainly are very good to me,
+Melanctha, darling, and me so bad to you always, in my acting. Do you
+love me good, and right, Melanctha, always?" "Always and always,
+you be sure of that now you have me. Oh you Jeff, you always be so
+stupid." "I certainly never can say now you ain't right, when you say
+that to me so, Melanctha," Jeff answered. "Oh, Jeff dear, I love you
+always, you know that now, all right, for certain. If you don't
+know it right now, Jeff, really, I prove it to you now, for good and
+always." And they lay there a long time in their loving, and then Jeff
+began again with his happy free enjoying.
+
+"I sure am a good boy to be learning all the time the right way you
+are teaching me, Melanctha, darling," began Jeff Campbell, laughing,
+"You can't say no, never, I ain't a good scholar for you to be
+teaching now, Melanctha, and I am always so ready to come to you
+every day, and never playing hooky ever from you. You can't say ever,
+Melanctha, now can you, I ain't a real good boy to be always studying
+to be learning to be real bright, just like my teacher. You can't say
+ever to me, I ain't a good boy to you now, Melanctha." "Not near so
+good, Jeff Campbell, as such a good, patient kind of teacher, like
+me, who never teaches any ways it ain't good her scholars should be
+knowing, ought to be really having, Jeff, you hear me? I certainly
+don't think I am right for you, to be forgiving always, when you are
+so bad, and I so patient, with all this hard teaching always." "But
+you do forgive me always, sure, Melanctha, always?" "Always and
+always, you be sure Jeff, and I certainly am afraid I never can stop
+with my forgiving, you always are going to be so bad to me, and I
+always going to have to be so good with my forgiving." "Oh! Oh!" cried
+Jeff Campbell, laughing, "I ain't going to be so bad for always, sure
+I ain't, Melanctha, my own darling. And sure you do forgive me really,
+and sure you love me true and really, sure, Melanctha?" "Sure, sure,
+Jeff, boy, sure now and always, sure now you believe me, sure you
+do, Jeff, always." "I sure hope I does, with all my heart, Melanctha,
+darling." "I sure do that same, Jeff, dear boy, now you really know
+what it is to be loving, and I prove it to you now so, Jeff, you never
+can be forgetting. You see now, Jeff, good and certain, what I always
+before been saying to you, Jeff, now." "Yes, Melanctha, darling,"
+murmured Jeff, and he was very happy in it, and so the two of them now
+in the warm air of the sultry, southern, negro sunshine, lay there for
+a long time just resting.
+
+And now for a real long time there was no open trouble any more
+between Jeff Campbell and Melanctha Herbert. Then it came that Jeff
+knew he could not say out any more, what it was he wanted, he could
+not say out any more, what it was, he wanted to know about, what
+Melanctha wanted.
+
+Melanctha sometimes now, when she was tired with being all the time so
+much excited, when Jeff would talk a long time to her about what was
+right for them both to be always doing, would be, as if she gave way
+in her head, and lost herself in a bad feeling. Sometimes when they
+had been strong in their loving, and Jeff would have rise inside him
+some strange feeling, and Melanctha felt it in him as it would soon be
+coming, she would lose herself then in this bad feeling that made her
+head act as if she never knew what it was they were doing. And slowly
+now, Jeff soon always came to be feeling that his Melanctha would be
+hurt very much in her head in the ways he never liked to think of, if
+she would ever now again have to listen to his trouble, when he was
+telling about what it was he still was wanting to make things for
+himself really understanding.
+
+Now Jeff began to have always a strong feeling that Melanctha could no
+longer stand it, with all her bad suffering, to let him fight out with
+himself what was right for him to be doing. Now he felt he must not,
+when she was there with him, keep on, with this kind of fighting that
+was always going on inside him. Jeff Campbell never knew yet, what he
+thought was the right way, for himself and for all the colored people
+to be living. Jeff was coming always each time closer to be really
+understanding, but now Melanctha was so bad in her suffering with him,
+that he knew she could not any longer have him with her while he was
+always showing that he never really yet was sure what it was, the
+right way, for them to be really loving.
+
+Jeff saw now he had to go so fast, so that Melanctha never would have
+to wait any to get from him always all that she ever wanted. He never
+could be honest now, he never could be now, any more, trying to be
+really understanding, for always every moment now he felt it to be
+a strong thing in him, how very much it was Melanctha Herbert always
+suffered.
+
+Jeff did not know very well these days, what it was, was really
+happening to him. All he knew every now and then, when they were
+getting strong to get excited, the way they used to when he gave his
+feeling out so that he could be always honest, that Melanctha somehow
+never seemed to hear him, she just looked at him and looked as if
+her head hurt with him, and then Jeff had to keep himself from being
+honest, and he had to go so fast, and to do everything Melanctha ever
+wanted from him.
+
+Jeff did not like it very well these days, in his true feeling. He
+knew now very well Melanctha was not strong enough inside her to stand
+any more of his slow way of doing. And yet now he knew he was not
+honest in his feeling. Now he always had to show more to Melanctha
+than he was ever feeling. Now she made him go so fast, and he knew it
+was not real with his feeling, and yet he could not make her suffer so
+any more because he always was so slow with his feeling.
+
+It was very hard for Jeff Campbell to make all this way of doing,
+right, inside him. If Jeff Campbell could not be straight out, and
+real honest, he never could be very strong inside him. Now Melanctha,
+with her making him feel, always, how good she was and how very much
+she suffered in him, made him always go so fast then, he could not be
+strong then, to feel things out straight then inside him. Always now
+when he was with her, he was being more, than he could already yet,
+be feeling for her. Always now, with her, he had something inside him
+always holding in him, always now, with her, he was far ahead of his
+own feeling.
+
+Jeff Campbell never knew very well these days what it was that was
+going on inside him. All he knew was, he was uneasy now always to be
+with Melanctha. All he knew was, that he was always uneasy when he
+was with Melanctha, not the way he used to be from just not being very
+understanding, but now, because he never could be honest with her,
+because he was now always feeling her strong suffering, in her,
+because he knew now he was having a straight, good feeling with her,
+but she went so fast, and he was so slow to her; Jeff knew his right
+feeling never got a chance to show itself as strong, to her.
+
+All this was always getting harder for Jeff Campbell. He was very
+proud to hold himself to be strong, was Jeff Campbell. He was very
+tender not to hurt Melanctha, when he knew she would be sure to feel
+it badly in her head a long time after, he hated that he could not now
+be honest with her, he wanted to stay away to work it out all alone,
+without her, he was afraid she would feel it to suffer, if he kept
+away now from her. He was uneasy always, with her, he was uneasy when
+he thought about her, he knew now he had a good, straight, strong
+feeling of right loving for her, and yet now he never could use it to
+be good and honest with her.
+
+Jeff Campbell did not know, these days, anything he could do to
+make it better for her. He did not know anything he could do, to set
+himself really right in his acting and his thinking toward her. She
+pulled him so fast with her, and he did not dare to hurt her, and he
+could not come right, so fast, the way she always needed he should be
+doing it now, for her.
+
+These days were not very joyful ones now any more, to Jeff Campbell,
+with Melanctha. He did not think it out to himself now, in words,
+about her. He did not know enough, what was his real trouble, with
+her.
+
+Sometimes now and again with them, and with all this trouble for a
+little while well forgotten by him, Jeff, and Melanctha with him,
+would be very happy in a strong, sweet loving. Sometimes then,
+Jeff would find himself to be soaring very high in his true loving.
+Sometimes Jeff would find them, in his loving, his soul swelling out
+full inside him. Always Jeff felt now in himself, deep feeling.
+
+Always now Jeff had to go so much faster than was real with his
+feeling. Yet always Jeff knew how he had a right, strong feeling.
+Always now when Jeff was wondering, it was Melanctha he was doubting,
+in the loving. Now he would often ask her, was she real now to him, in
+her loving. He would ask her often, feeling something queer about it
+all inside him, though yet he was never really strong in his doubting,
+and always Melanctha would answer to him, "Yes Jeff, sure, you know
+it, always," and always Jeff felt a doubt now, in her loving.
+
+Always now Jeff felt in himself, deep loving. Always now he did not
+know really, if Melanctha was true in her loving.
+
+All these days Jeff was uncertain in him, and he was uneasy about
+which way he should act so as not to be wrong and put them both into
+bad trouble. Always now he was, as if he must feel deep into Melanctha
+to see if it was real loving he would find she now had in her, and
+always he would stop himself, with her, for always he was afraid now
+that he might badly hurt her.
+
+Always now he liked it better when he was detained when he had to go
+and see her. Always now he never liked to go to be with her, although
+he never wanted really, not to be always with her. Always now he
+never felt really at ease with her, even when they were good friends
+together. Always now he felt, with her, he could not be really honest
+to her. And Jeff never could be happy with her when he could not feel
+strong to tell all his feeling to her. Always now every day he found
+it harder to make the time pass, with her, and not let his feeling
+come so that he would quarrel with her.
+
+And so one evening, late, he was to go to her. He waited a little
+long, before he went to her. He was afraid, in himself, to-night, he
+would surely hurt her. He never wanted to go when he might quarrel
+with her.
+
+Melanctha sat there looking very angry, when he came in to her. Jeff
+took off his hat and coat and then sat down by the fire with her.
+
+"If you come in much later to me just now, Jeff Campbell, I certainly
+never would have seen you no more never to speak to you, 'thout your
+apologising real humble to me." "Apologising Melanctha," and Jeff
+laughed and was scornful to her, "Apologising, Melanctha, I ain't
+proud that kind of way, Melanctha, I don't mind apologising to you,
+Melanctha, all I mind, Melanctha is to be doing of things wrong, to
+you." "That's easy, to say things that way, Jeff to me. But you never
+was very proud Jeff, to be courageous to me." "I don't know about that
+Melanctha. I got courage to say some things hard, when I mean them, to
+you." "Oh, yes, Jeff, I know all about that, Jeff, to me. But I mean
+real courage, to run around and not care nothing about what happens,
+and always to be game in any kind of trouble. That's what I mean
+by real courage, to me, Jeff, if you want to know it." "Oh, yes,
+Melanctha, I know all that kind of courage. I see plenty of it all
+the time with some kinds of colored men and with some girls like you
+Melanctha, and Jane Harden. I know all about how you are always making
+a fuss to be proud because you don't holler so much when you run in to
+where you ain't got any business to be, and so you get hurt, the way
+you ought to. And then, you kind of people are very brave then, sure,
+with all your kinds of suffering, but the way I see it, going round
+with all my patients, that kind of courage makes all kind of trouble,
+for them who ain't so noble with their courage, and then they got it,
+always to be bearing it, when the end comes, to be hurt the hardest.
+It's like running around and being game to spend all your money
+always, and then a man's wife and children are the ones do all the
+starving and they don't ever get a name for being brave, and they
+don't ever want to be doing all that suffering, and they got to stand
+it and say nothing. That's the way I see it a good deal now with all
+that kind of braveness in some of the colored people. They always make
+a lot of noise to show they are so brave not to holler, when they got
+so much suffering they always bring all on themselves, just by
+doing things they got no business to be doing. I don't say, never,
+Melanctha, they ain't got good courage not to holler, but I never did
+see much in looking for that kind of trouble just to show you ain't
+going to holler. No its all right being brave every day, just living
+regular and not having new ways all the time just to get excitements,
+the way I hate to see it in all the colored people. No I don't see
+much, Melanctha, in being brave just to get it good, where you've
+got no business. I ain't ashamed Melanctha, right here to tell you, I
+ain't ashamed ever to say I ain't got no longing to be brave, just
+to go around and look for trouble." "Yes that's just like you always,
+Jeff, you never understand things right, the way you are always
+feeling in you. You ain't got no way to understand right, how it
+depends what way somebody goes to look for new things, the way it
+makes it right for them to get excited."
+
+"No Melanctha, I certainly never do say I understand much anybody's
+got a right to think they won't have real bad trouble, if they go and
+look hard where they are certain sure to find it. No Melanctha, it
+certainly does sound very pretty all this talking about danger and
+being game and never hollering, and all that way of talking, but when
+two men are just fighting, the strong man mostly gets on top with
+doing good hard pounding, and the man that's getting all that
+pounding, he mostly never likes it so far as I have been able yet to
+see it, and I don't see much difference what kind of noble way they
+are made of when they ain't got any kind of business to get together
+there to be fighting. That certainly is the only way I ever see it
+happen right, Melanctha, whenever I happen to be anywhere I can be
+looking."
+
+"That's because you never can see anything that ain't just so simple,
+Jeff, with everybody, the way you always think it. It do make all
+the difference the kind of way anybody is made to do things game Jeff
+Campbell."
+
+"Maybe Melanctha, I certainly never say no you ain't right, Melanctha.
+I just been telling it to you all straight, Melanctha, the way I
+always see it. Perhaps if you run around where you ain't got any
+business, and you stand up very straight and say, I am so brave,
+nothing can ever ever hurt me, maybe nothing will ever hurt you then
+Melanctha. I never have seen it do so. I never can say truly any
+differently to you Melanctha, but I always am ready to be learning
+from you, Melanctha. And perhaps when somebody cuts into you real
+hard, with a brick he is throwing, perhaps you never will do any
+hollering then, Melanctha. I certainly don't ever say no, Melanctha,
+to you, I only say that ain't the way yet I ever see it happen when I
+had a chance to be there looking."
+
+They sat there together, quiet by the fire, and they did not seem to
+feel very loving.
+
+"I certainly do wonder," Melanctha said dreamily, at last breaking
+into their long unloving silence. "I certainly do wonder why always it
+happens to me I care for anybody who ain't no ways good enough for me
+ever to be thinking to respect him."
+
+Jeff looked at Melanctha. Jeff got up then and walked a little up and
+down the room, and then he came back, and his face was set and dark
+and he was very quiet to her.
+
+"Oh dear, Jeff, sure, why you look so solemn now to me. Sure Jeff I
+never am meaning anything real by what I just been saying. What was I
+just been saying Jeff to you. I only certainly was just thinking how
+everything always was just happening to me."
+
+Jeff Campbell sat very still and dark, and made no answer.
+
+"Seems to me, Jeff you might be good to me a little to-night when my
+head hurts so, and I am so tired with all the hard work I have been
+doing, thinking, and I always got so many things to be a trouble to
+me, living like I do with nobody ever who can help me. Seems to me
+you might be good to me Jeff to-night, and not get angry, every little
+thing I am ever saying to you."
+
+"I certainly would not get angry ever with you, Melanctha, just
+because you say things to me. But now I certainly been thinking you
+really mean what you have been just then saying to me." "But you say
+all the time to me Jeff, you ain't no ways good enough in your loving
+to me, you certainly say to me all the time you ain't no ways good
+or understanding to me." "That certainly is what I say to you always,
+just the way I feel it to you Melanctha always, and I got it right in
+me to say it, and I have got a right in me to be very strong and feel
+it, and to be always sure to believe it, but it ain't right for you
+Melanctha to feel it. When you feel it so Melanctha, it does certainly
+make everything all wrong with our loving. It makes it so I certainly
+never can bear to have it."
+
+They sat there then a long time by the fire, very silent, and not
+loving, and never looking to each other for it. Melanctha was moving
+and twitching herself and very nervous with it. Jeff was heavy and
+sullen and dark and very serious in it.
+
+"Oh why can't you forget I said it to you Jeff now, and I certainly am
+so tired, and my head and all now with it."
+
+Jeff stirred, "All right Melanctha, don't you go make yourself sick
+now in your head, feeling so bad with it," and Jeff made himself do
+it, and he was a patient doctor again now with Melanctha when he felt
+her really having her head hurt with it. "It's all right now Melanctha
+darling, sure it is now I tell you. You just lie down now a little,
+dear one, and I sit here by the fire and just read awhile and just
+watch with you so I will be here ready, if you need me to give you
+something to help you resting." And then Jeff was a good doctor to
+her, and very sweet and tender with her, and Melanctha loved him to be
+there to help her, and then Melanctha fell asleep a little, and Jeff
+waited there beside her until he saw she was really sleeping, and then
+he went back and sat down by the fire.
+
+And Jeff tried to begin again with his thinking, and he could not
+make it come clear to himself, with all his thinking, and he felt
+everything all thick and heavy and bad, now inside him, everything
+that he could not understand right, with all the hard work he made,
+with his thinking. And then he moved himself a little, and took a book
+to forget his thinking, and then as always, he loved it when he was
+reading, and then very soon he was deep in his reading, and so he
+forgot now for a little while that he never could seem to be very
+understanding.
+
+And so Jeff forgot himself for awhile in his reading, and Melanctha
+was sleeping. And then Melanctha woke up and she was screaming. "Oh,
+Jeff, I thought you gone away for always from me. Oh, Jeff, never now
+go away no more from me. Oh, Jeff, sure, sure, always be just so good
+to me"
+
+There was a weight in Jeff Campbell from now on, always with him, that
+he could never lift out from him, to feel easy. He always was trying
+not to have it in him and he always was trying not to let Melanctha
+feel it, with him, but it was always there inside him. Now Jeff
+Campbell always was serious, and dark, and heavy, and sullen, and he
+would often sit a long time with Melanctha without moving.
+
+"You certainly never have forgiven to me, what I said to you that
+night, Jeff, now have you?" Melanctha asked him after a long silence,
+late one evening with him. "It ain't ever with me a question like
+forgiving, Melanctha, I got in me. It's just only what you are feeling
+for me, makes any difference to me. I ain't ever seen anything since
+in you, makes me think you didn't mean it right, what you said about
+not thinking now any more I was good, to make it right for you to be
+really caring so very much to love me."
+
+"I certainly never did see no man like you, Jeff. You always wanting
+to have it all clear out in words always, what everybody is always
+feeling. I certainly don't see a reason, why I should always be
+explaining to you what I mean by what I am just saying. And you ain't
+got no feeling ever for me, to ask me what I meant, by what I was
+saying when I was so tired, that night. I never know anything right I
+was saying." "But you don't ever tell me now, Melanctha, so I really
+hear you say it, you don't mean it the same way, the way you said it
+to me." "Oh Jeff, you so stupid always to me and always just bothering
+with your always asking to me. And I don't never any way remember ever
+anything I been saying to you, and I am always my head, so it hurts
+me it half kills me, and my heart jumps so, sometimes I think I die
+so when it hurts me, and I am so blue always, I think sometimes I take
+something to just kill me, and I got so much to bother thinking always
+and doing, and I got so much to worry, and all that, and then you come
+and ask me what I mean by what I was just saying to you. I certainly
+don't know, Jeff, when you ask me. Seems to me, Jeff, sometimes you
+might have some kind of a right feeling to be careful to me." "You
+ain't got no right Melanctha Herbert," flashed out Jeff through his
+dark, frowning anger, "you certainly ain't got no right always to be
+using your being hurt and being sick, and having pain, like a weapon,
+so as to make me do things it ain't never right for me to be doing for
+you. You certainly ain't got no right to be always holding your pain
+out to show me." "What do you mean by them words, Jeff Campbell." "I
+certainly do mean them just like I am saying them, Melanctha. You
+act always, like I been responsible all myself for all our loving one
+another. And if its anything anyway that ever hurts you, you act like
+as if it was me made you just begin it all with me. I ain't no coward,
+you hear me, Melanctha? I never put my trouble back on anybody,
+thinking that they made me. I certainly am right ready always,
+Melanctha, you certainly had ought to know me, to stand all my own
+trouble for me, but I tell you straight now, the way I think it
+Melanctha, I ain't going to be as if I was the reason why you wanted
+to be loving, and to be suffering so now with me." "But ain't you
+certainly ought to be feeling it so, to be right, Jeff Campbell. Did I
+ever do anything but just let you do everything you wanted to me. Did
+I ever try to make you be loving to me. Did I ever do nothing except
+just sit there ready to endure your loving with me. But I certainly
+never, Jeff Campbell, did make any kind of way as if I wanted really
+to be having you for me."
+
+Jeff stared at Melanctha. "So that's the way you say it when you are
+thinking right about it all, Melanctha. Well I certainly ain't got
+a word to say ever to you any more, Melanctha, if that's the way its
+straight out to you now, Melanctha." And Jeff almost laughed out to
+her, and he turned to take his hat and coat, and go away now forever
+from her.
+
+Melanctha dropped her head on her arms, and she trembled all over and
+inside her. Jeff stopped a little and looked very sadly at her. Jeff
+could not so quickly make it right for himself, to leave her.
+
+"Oh, I certainly shall go crazy now, I certainly know that," Melanctha
+moaned as she sat there, all fallen and miserable and weak together.
+
+Jeff came and took her in his arms, and held her. Jeff was very good
+then to her, but they neither of them felt inside all right, as they
+once did, to be together.
+
+From now on, Jeff had real torment in him.
+
+Was it true what Melanctha had said that night to him? Was it true
+that he was the one had made all this trouble for them? Was it true,
+he was the only one, who always had had wrong ways in him? Waking or
+sleeping Jeff now always had this torment going on inside him.
+
+Jeff did not know now any more, what to feel within him. He did not
+know how to begin thinking out this trouble that must always now be
+bad inside him. He just felt a confused struggle and resentment always
+in him, a knowing, no, Melanctha was not right in what she had said
+that night to him, and then a feeling, perhaps he always had been
+wrong in the way he never could be understanding. And then would come
+strong to him, a sense of the deep sweetness in Melanctha's loving and
+a hating the cold slow way he always had to feel things in him.
+
+Always Jeff knew, sure, Melanctha was wrong in what she had said that
+night to him, but always Melanctha had had deep feeling with him,
+always he was poor and slow in the only way he knew how to have any
+feeling. Jeff knew Melanctha was wrong, and yet he always had a deep
+doubt in him. What could he know, who had such slow feeling in him?
+What could he ever know, who always had to find his way with just
+thinking. What could he know, who had to be taught such a long time to
+learn about what was really loving? Jeff now always had this torment
+in him.
+
+Melanctha was now always making him feel her way, strong whenever she
+was with him. Did she go on to do it just to show him, did she do it
+so now because she was no longer loving, did she do it so because that
+was her way to make him be really loving. Jeff never did know how it
+was that it all happened so to him.
+
+Melanctha acted now the way she had said it always had been with them.
+Now it was always Jeff who had to do the asking. Now it was always
+Jeff who had to ask when would be the next time he should come to see
+her. Now always she was good and patient to him, and now always she
+was kind and loving with him, and always Jeff felt it was, that she
+was good to give him anything he ever asked or wanted, but never now
+any more for her own sake to make her happy in him. Now she did these
+things, as if it was just to please her Jeff Campbell who needed she
+should now have kindness for him. Always now he was the beggar, with
+them. Always now Melanctha gave it, not of her need, but from her
+bounty to him. Always now Jeff found it getting harder for him.
+
+Sometimes Jeff wanted to tear things away from before him, always
+now he wanted to fight things and be angry with them, and always now
+Melanctha was so patient to him.
+
+Now, deep inside him, there was always a doubt with Jeff, of
+Melanctha's loving. It was not a doubt yet to make him really
+doubting, for with that, Jeff never could be really loving, but always
+now he knew that something, and that not in him, something was wrong
+with their loving. Jeff Campbell could not know any right way to think
+out what was inside Melanctha with her loving, he could not use any
+way now to reach inside her to find if she was true in her loving, but
+now something had gone wrong between them, and now he never felt sure
+in him, the way once she had made him, that now at last he really had
+got to be understanding.
+
+Melanctha was too many for him. He was helpless to find out the way
+she really felt now for him. Often Jeff would ask her, did she really
+love him. Always she said, "Yes Jeff, sure, you know that," and now
+instead of a full sweet strong love with it, Jeff only felt a patient,
+kind endurance in it.
+
+Jeff did not know. If he was right in such a feeling, he certainly
+never any more did want to have Melanctha Herbert with him. Jeff
+Campbell hated badly to think Melanctha never would give him love,
+just for his sake, and not because she needed it herself, to be with
+him. Such a way of loving would be very hard for Jeff to be enduring.
+
+"Jeff what makes you act so funny to me. Jeff you certainly now are
+jealous to me. Sure Jeff, now I don't see ever why you be so foolish
+to look so to me." "Don't you ever think I can be jealous of anybody
+ever Melanctha, you hear me. It's just, you certainly don't ever
+understand me. It's just this way with me always now Melanctha. You
+love me, and I don't care anything what you do or what you ever been
+to anybody. You don't love me, then I don't care any more about what
+you ever do or what you ever be to anybody. But I never want you to be
+being good Melanctha to me, when it ain't your loving makes you need
+it. I certainly don't ever want to be having any of your kind of
+kindness to me. If you don't love me, I can stand it. All I never want
+to have is your being good to me from kindness. If you don't love
+me, then you and I certainly do quit right here Melanctha, all strong
+feeling, to be always living to each other. It certainly never
+is anybody I ever am thinking about when I am thinking with you
+Melanctha, darling. That's the true way I am telling you Melanctha,
+always. It's only your loving me ever gives me anything to bother me
+Melanctha, so all you got to do, if you don't really love me, is just
+certainly to say so to me. I won't bother you more then than I can
+help to keep from it Melanctha. You certainly need never to be in
+any worry, never, about me Melanctha. You just tell me straight out
+Melanctha, real, the way you feel it. I certainly can stand it all
+right, I tell you true Melanctha. And I never will care to know why or
+nothing Melanctha. Loving is just living Melanctha to me, and if you
+don't really feel it now Melanctha to me, there ain't ever nothing
+between us then Melanctha, is there? That's straight and honest just
+the way I always feel it to you now Melanctha. Oh Melanctha, darling,
+do you love me? Oh Melanctha, please, please, tell me honest, tell me,
+do you really love me?"
+
+"Oh you so stupid Jeff boy, of course I always love you. Always and
+always Jeff and I always just so good to you. Oh you so stupid Jeff
+and don't know when you got it good with me. Oh dear, Jeff I certainly
+am so tired Jeff to-night, don't you go be a bother to me. Yes I love
+you Jeff, how often you want me to tell you. Oh you so stupid Jeff,
+but yes I love you. Now I won't say it no more now tonight Jeff, you
+hear me. You just be good Jeff now to me or else I certainly get awful
+angry with you. Yes I love you, sure, Jeff, though you don't any way
+deserve it from me. Yes, yes I love you. Yes Jeff I say it till I
+certainly am very sleepy. Yes I love you now Jeff, and you certainly
+must stop asking me to tell you. Oh you great silly boy Jeff Campbell,
+sure I love you, oh you silly stupid, my own boy Jeff Campbell. Yes
+I love you and I certainly never won't say it one more time to-night
+Jeff, now you hear me."
+
+Yes Jeff Campbell heard her, and he tried hard to believe her. He did
+not really doubt her but somehow it was wrong now, the way Melanctha
+said it. Jeff always now felt baffled with Melanctha. Something, he
+knew, was not right now in her. Something in her always now was making
+stronger the torment that was tearing every minute at the joy he once
+always had had with her.
+
+Always now Jeff wondered did Melanctha love him. Always now he was
+wondering, was Melanctha right when she said, it was he had made all
+their beginning. Was Melanctha right when she said, it was he had the
+real responsibility for all the trouble they had and still were having
+now between them. If she was right, what a brute he always had been in
+his acting. If she was right, how good she had been to endure the
+pain he had made so bad so often for her. But no, surely she had made
+herself to bear it, for her own sake, not for his to make him happy.
+Surely he was not so twisted in all his long thinking. Surely he
+could remember right what it was had happened every day in their long
+loving. Surely he was not so poor a coward as Melanctha always seemed
+to be thinking. Surely, surely, and then the torment would get worse
+every minute in him.
+
+One night Jeff Campbell was lying in his bed with his thinking, and
+night after night now he could not do any sleeping for his thinking.
+Tonight suddenly he sat up in his bed, and it all came clear to him,
+and he pounded his pillow with his fist, and he almost shouted out
+alone there to him, "I ain't a brute the way Melanctha has been
+saying. Its all wrong the way I been worried thinking. We did begin
+fair, each not for the other but for ourselves, what we were wanting.
+Melanctha Herbert did it just like I did it, because she liked it bad
+enough to want to stand it. It's all wrong in me to think it any way
+except the way we really did it. I certainly don't know now whether
+she is now real and true in her loving. I ain't got any way ever to
+find out if she is real and true now always to me. All I know is I
+didn't ever make her to begin to be with me. Melanctha has got
+to stand for her own trouble, just like I got to stand for my own
+trouble. Each man has got to do it for himself when he is in real
+trouble. Melanctha, she certainly don't remember right when she says
+I made her begin and then I made her trouble. No by God, I ain't
+no coward nor a brute either ever to her. I been the way I felt
+it honest, and that certainly is all about it now between us, and
+everybody always has just got to stand for their own trouble. I
+certainly am right this time the way I see it." And Jeff lay down
+now, at last in comfort, and he slept, and he was free from his long
+doubting torment.
+
+"You know Melanctha," Jeff Campbell began, the next time he was alone
+to talk a long time to Melanctha. "You know Melanctha, sometimes I
+think a whole lot about what you like to say so much about being game
+and never doing any hollering. Seems to me Melanctha, I certainly
+don't understand right what you mean by not hollering. Seems to me
+it certainly ain't only what comes right away when one is hit, that
+counts to be brave to be bearing, but all that comes later from your
+getting sick from the shock of being hurt once in a fight, and
+all that, and all the being taken care of for years after, and the
+suffering of your family, and all that, you certainly must stand and
+not holler, to be certainly really brave the way I understand it."
+"What you mean Jeff by your talking." "I mean, seems to me really not
+to holler, is to be strong not to show you ever have been hurt. Seems
+to me, to get your head hurt from your trouble and to show it, ain't
+certainly no braver than to say, oh, oh, how bad you hurt me, please
+don't hurt me mister. It just certainly seems to me, like many people
+think themselves so game just to stand what we all of us always just
+got to be standing, and everybody stands it, and we don't certainly
+none of us like it, and yet we don't ever most of us think we are so
+much being game, just because we got to stand it."
+
+"I know what you mean now by what you are saying to me now Jeff
+Campbell. You make a fuss now to me, because I certainly just have
+stopped standing everything you like to be always doing so cruel to
+me. But that's just the way always with you Jeff Campbell, if you want
+to know it. You ain't got no kind of right feeling for all I always
+been forgiving to you." "I said it once for fun, Melanctha, but now I
+certainly do mean it, you think you got a right to go where you got
+no business, and you say, I am so brave nothing can hurt me, and then
+something, like always, it happens to hurt you, and you show your hurt
+always so everybody can see it, and you say, I am so brave nothing did
+hurt me except he certainly didn't have any right to, and see how
+bad I suffer, but you never hear me make a holler, though certainly
+anybody got any feeling, to see me suffer, would certainly never touch
+me except to take good care of me. Sometimes I certainly don't rightly
+see Melanctha, how much more game that is than just the ordinary kind
+of holler." "No, Jeff Campbell, and made the way you is you certainly
+ain't likely ever to be much more understanding." "No, Melanctha, nor
+you neither. You think always, you are the only one who ever can do
+any way to really suffer." "Well, and ain't I certainly always been
+the only person knows how to bear it. No, Jeff Campbell, I certainly
+be glad to love anybody really worthy, but I made so, I never seem
+to be able in this world to find him." "No, and your kind of way of
+thinking, you certainly Melanctha never going to any way be able ever
+to be finding of him. Can't you understand Melanctha, ever, how no man
+certainly ever really can hold your love for long times together.
+You certainly Melanctha, you ain't got down deep loyal feeling, true
+inside you, and when you ain't just that moment quick with feeling,
+then you certainly ain't ever got anything more there to keep you.
+You see Melanctha, it certainly is this way with you, it is, that
+you ain't ever got any way to remember right what you been doing, or
+anybody else that has been feeling with you. You certainly Melanctha,
+never can remember right, when it comes what you have done and what
+you think happens to you." "It certainly is all easy for you Jeff
+Campbell to be talking. You remember right, because you don't remember
+nothing till you get home with your thinking everything all over, but
+I certainly don't think much ever of that kind of way of remembering
+right, Jeff Campbell. I certainly do call it remembering right Jeff
+Campbell, to remember right just when it happens to you, so you have a
+right kind of feeling not to act the way you always been doing to me,
+and then you go home Jeff Campbell, and you begin with your thinking,
+and then it certainly is very easy for you to be good and forgiving
+with it. No, that ain't to me, the way of remembering Jeff Campbell,
+not as I can see it not to make people always suffer, waiting for you
+certainly to get to do it. Seems to me like Jeff Campbell, I never
+could feel so like a man was low and to be scorning of him, like that
+day in the summer, when you threw me off just because you got one of
+those fits of your remembering. No, Jeff Campbell, its real feeling
+every moment when its needed, that certainly does seem to me like real
+remembering. And that way, certainly, you don't never know nothing
+like what should be right Jeff Campbell. No Jeff, it's me that always
+certainly has had to bear it with you. It's always me that certainly
+has had to suffer, while you go home to remember. No you certainly
+ain't got no sense yet Jeff, what you need to make you really feeling.
+No, it certainly is me Jeff Campbell, that always has got to be
+remembering for us both, always. That's what's the true way with us
+Jeff Campbell, if you want to know what it is I am always thinking."
+"You is certainly real modest Melanctha, when you do this kind of
+talking, you sure is Melanctha," said Jeff Campbell laughing. "I
+think sometimes Melanctha I am certainly awful conceited, when I think
+sometimes I am all out doors, and I think I certainly am so bright,
+and better than most everybody I ever got anything now to do with, but
+when I hear you talk this way Melanctha, I certainly do think I am a
+real modest kind of fellow." "Modest!" said Melanctha, angry, "Modest,
+that certainly is a queer thing for you Jeff to be calling yourself
+even when you are laughing." "Well it certainly does depend a whole
+lot what you are thinking with," said Jeff Campbell. "I never did use
+to think I was so much on being real modest Melanctha, but now I know
+really I am, when I hear you talking. I see all the time there are
+many people living just as good as I am, though they are a little
+different to me. Now with you Melanctha if I understand you right what
+you are talking, you don't think that way of no other one that you are
+ever knowing." "I certainly could be real modest too, Jeff Campbell,"
+said Melanctha, "If I could meet somebody once I could keep right
+on respecting when I got so I was really knowing with them. But I
+certainly never met anybody like that yet, Jeff Campbell, if you want
+to know it." "No, Melanctha, and with the way you got of thinking,
+it certainly don't look like as if you ever will Melanctha, with your
+never remembering anything only what you just then are feeling in you,
+and you not understanding what any one else is ever feeling, if they
+don't holler just the way you are doing. No Melanctha, I certainly
+don't see any ways you are likely ever to meet one, so good as you are
+always thinking you be." "No, Jeff Campbell, it certainly ain't
+that way with me at all the way you say it. It's because I am always
+knowing what it is I am wanting, when I get it. I certainly don't
+never have to wait till I have it, and then throw away what I got in
+me, and then come back and say, that's a mistake I just been making,
+it ain't that never at all like I understood it, I want to have, bad,
+what I didn't think it was I wanted. It's that way of knowing right
+what I am wanting, makes me feel nobody can come right with me, when I
+am feeling things, Jeff Campbell. I certainly do say Jeff Campbell, I
+certainly don't think much of the way you always do it, always never
+knowing what it is you are ever really wanting and everybody always
+got to suffer. No Jeff, I don't certainly think there is much doubting
+which is better and the stronger with us two, Jeff Campbell."
+
+"As you will, Melanctha Herbert," cried Jeff Campbell, and he rose up,
+and he thundered out a black oath, and he was fierce to leave her now
+forever, and then with the same movement, he took her in his arms and
+held her.
+
+"What a silly goose boy you are, Jeff Campbell," Melanctha whispered
+to him fondly.
+
+"Oh yes," said Jeff, very dreary. "I never could keep really mad with
+anybody, not when I was a little boy and playing. I used most to cry
+sometimes, I couldn't get real mad and keep on a long time with
+it, the way everybody always did it. It's certainly no use to me
+Melanctha, I certainly can't ever keep mad with you Melanctha, my dear
+one. But don't you ever be thinking it's because I think you right
+in what you been just saying to me. I don't Melanctha really think it
+that way, honest, though I certainly can't get mad the way I ought to.
+No Melanctha, little girl, really truly, you ain't right the way you
+think it. I certainly do know that Melanctha, honest. You certainly
+don't do me right Melanctha, the way you say you are thinking.
+Good-bye Melanctha, though you certainly is my own little girl for
+always." And then they were very good a little to each other, and then
+Jeff went away for that evening, from her.
+
+Melanctha had begun now once more to wander. Melanctha did not yet
+always wander, but a little now she needed to begin to look for
+others. Now Melanctha Herbert began again to be with some of the
+better kind of black girls, and with them she sometimes wandered.
+Melanctha had not yet come again to need to be alone, when she
+wandered.
+
+Jeff Campbell did not know that Melanctha had begun again to wander.
+All Jeff knew, was that now he could not be so often with her.
+
+Jeff never knew how it had come to happen to him, but now he never
+thought to go to see Melanctha Herbert, until he had before, asked
+her if she could be going to have time then to have him with her. Then
+Melanctha would think a little, and then she would say to him, "Let me
+see Jeff, to-morrow, you was just saying to me. I certainly am awful
+busy you know Jeff just now. It certainly does seem to me this week
+Jeff, I can't anyways fix it. Sure I want to see you soon Jeff. I
+certainly Jeff got to do a little more now, I been giving so much
+time, when I had no business, just to be with you when you asked me.
+Now I guess Jeff, I certainly can't see you no more this week Jeff,
+the way I got to do things." "All right Melanctha," Jeff would answer
+and he would be very angry. "I want to come only just certainly as
+you want me now Melanctha." "Now Jeff you know I certainly can't be
+neglecting always to be with everybody just to see you. You come see
+me next week Tuesday Jeff, you hear me. I don't think Jeff I certainly
+be so busy, Tuesday." Jeff Campbell would then go away and leave her,
+and he would be hurt and very angry, for it was hard for a man with a
+great pride in himself, like Jeff Campbell, to feel himself no better
+than a beggar. And yet he always came as she said he should, on the
+day she had fixed for him, and always Jeff Campbell was not sure
+yet that he really understood what it was Melanctha wanted. Always
+Melanctha said to him, yes she loved him, sure he knew that. Always
+Melanctha said to him, she certainly did love him just the same as
+always, only sure he knew now she certainly did seem to be right busy
+with all she certainly now had to be doing.
+
+Jeff never knew what Melanctha had to do now, that made her always
+be so busy, but Jeff Campbell never cared to ask Melanctha such a
+question. Besides Jeff knew Melanctha Herbert would never, in such a
+matter, give him any kind of a real answer. Jeff did not know whether
+it was that Melanctha did not know how to give a simple answer. And
+then how could he, Jeff, know what was important to her. Jeff Campbell
+always felt strongly in him, he had no right to interfere with
+Melanctha in any practical kind of a matter. There they had always,
+never asked each other any kind of question. There they had felt
+always in each other, not any right to take care of one another. And
+Jeff Campbell now felt less than he had ever, any right to claim to
+know what Melanctha thought it right that she should do in any of her
+ways of living. All Jeff felt a right in himself to question, was her
+loving.
+
+Jeff learned every day now, more and more, how much it was that he
+could really suffer. Sometimes it hurt so in him, when he was alone,
+it would force some slow tears from him. But every day, now that Jeff
+Campbell, knew more how it could hurt him, he lost his feeling of deep
+awe that he once always had had for Melanctha's feeling. Suffering was
+not so much after all, thought Jeff Campbell, if even he could feel it
+so it hurt him. It hurt him bad, just the way he knew he once had hurt
+Melanctha, and yet he too could have it and not make any kind of a
+loud holler with it.
+
+In tender hearted natures, those that mostly never feel strong
+passion, suffering often comes to make them harder. When these do not
+know in themselves what it is to suffer, suffering is then very awful
+to them and they badly want to help everyone who ever has to suffer,
+and they have a deep reverence for anybody who knows really how to
+always surfer. But when it comes to them to really suffer, they soon
+begin to lose their fear and tenderness and wonder. Why it isn't so
+very much to suffer, when even I can bear to do it. It isn't very
+pleasant to be having all the time, to stand it, but they are not so
+much wiser after all, all the others just because they know too how to
+bear it.
+
+Passionate natures who have always made themselves, to suffer, that is
+all the kind of people who have emotions that come to them as sharp as
+a sensation, they always get more tender-hearted when they suffer, and
+it always does them good to suffer. Tender-hearted, unpassionate, and
+comfortable natures always get much harder when they suffer, for
+so they lose the fear and reverence and wonder they once had for
+everybody who ever has to suffer, for now they know themselves what it
+is to suffer and it is not so awful any longer to them when they know
+too, just as well as all the others, how to have it.
+
+And so it came in these days to Jeff Campbell. Jeff knew now always,
+way inside him, what it is to really suffer, and now every day with
+it, he knew how to understand Melanctha better. Jeff Campbell still
+loved Melanctha Herbert and he still had a real trust in her and
+he still had a little hope that some day they would once more get
+together, but slowly, every day, this hope in him would keep growing
+always weaker. They still were a good deal of time together, but now
+they never any more were really trusting with each other. In the days
+when they used to be together, Jeff had felt he did not know much what
+was inside Melanctha, but he knew very well, how very deep always was
+his trust in her; now he knew Melanctha Herbert better, but now he
+never felt a deep trust in her. Now Jeff never could be really honest
+with her. He never doubted yet, that she was steady only to him, but
+somehow he could not believe much really in Melanctha's loving.
+
+Melanctha Herbert was a little angry now when Jeff asked her, "I never
+give nobody before Jeff, ever more than one chance with me, and I
+certainly been giving you most a hundred Jeff, you hear me." "And why
+shouldn't you Melanctha, give me a million, if you really love me!"
+Jeff flashed out very angry. "I certainly don't know as you deserve
+that anyways from me, Jeff Campbell." "It ain't deserving, I am ever
+talking about to you Melanctha. Its loving, and if you are really
+loving to me you won't certainly never any ways call them chances."
+"Deed Jeff, you certainly are getting awful wise Jeff now, ain't you,
+to me." "No I ain't Melanctha, and I ain't jealous either to you. I
+just am doubting from the way you are always acting to me." "Oh yes
+Jeff, that's what they all say, the same way, when they certainly got
+jealousy all through them. You ain't got no cause to be jealous with
+me Jeff, and I am awful tired of all this talking now, you hear me."
+
+Jeff Campbell never asked Melanctha any more if she loved him. Now
+things were always getting worse between them. Now Jeff was always
+very silent with Melanctha. Now Jeff never wanted to be honest to her,
+and now Jeff never had much to say to her.
+
+Now when they were together, it was Melanctha always did most of the
+talking. Now she often had other girls there with her. Melanctha was
+always kind to Jeff Campbell but she never seemed to need to be alone
+now with him. She always treated Jeff, like her best friend, and she
+always spoke so to him and yet she never seemed now to very often want
+to see him.
+
+Every day it was getting harder for Jeff Campbell. It was as if now,
+when he had learned to really love Melanctha, she did not need any
+more to have him. Jeff began to know this very well inside him.
+
+Jeff Campbell did not know yet that Melanctha had begun again to
+wander. Jeff was not very quick to suspect Melanctha. All Jeff knew
+was, that he did not trust her to be now really loving to him.
+
+Jeff was no longer now in any doubt inside him. He knew very well now
+he really loved Melanctha. He knew now very well she was not any more
+a real religion to him. Jeff Campbell knew very well too now inside
+him, he did not really want Melanctha, now if he could no longer
+trust her, though he loved her hard and really knew now what it was to
+suffer.
+
+Every day Melanctha Herbert was less and less near to him. She always
+was very pleasant in her talk and to be with him, but somehow now it
+never was any comfort to him.
+
+Melanctha Herbert now always had a lot of friends around her. Jeff
+Campbell never wanted to be with them. Now Melanctha began to find
+it, she said it often to him, always harder to arrange to be alone now
+with him. Sometimes she would be late for him. Then Jeff always would
+try to be patient in his waiting, for Jeff Campbell knew very well how
+to remember, and he knew it was only right that he should now endure
+this from her.
+
+Then Melanctha began to manage often not to see him, and once she went
+away when she had promised to be there to meet him.
+
+Then Jeff Campbell was really filled up with his anger. Now he knew
+he could never really want her. Now he knew he never any more could
+really trust her.
+
+Jeff Campbell never knew why Melanctha had not come to meet him.
+Jeff had heard a little talking now, about how Melanctha Herbert had
+commenced once more to wander. Jeff Campbell still sometimes saw Jane
+Harden, who always needed a doctor to be often there to help her. Jane
+Harden always knew very well what happened to Melanctha. Jeff Campbell
+never would talk to Jane Harden anything about Melanctha. Jeff was
+always loyal to Melanctha. Jeff never let Jane Harden say much to him
+about Melanctha, though he never let her know that now he loved her.
+But somehow Jeff did know now about Melanctha, and he knew about some
+men that Melanctha met with Rose Johnson very often.
+
+Jeff Campbell would not let himself really doubt Melanctha, but Jeff
+began to know now very well, he did not want her. Melanctha Herbert
+did not love him ever, Jeff knew it now, the way he once had thought
+that she could feel it. Once she had been greater for him than he had
+thought he could ever know how to feel it. Now Jeff had come to where
+he could understand Melanctha Herbert. Jeff was not bitter to her
+because she could not really love him, he was bitter only that he had
+let himself have a real illusion in him. He was a little bitter too,
+that he had lost now, what he had always felt real in the world, that
+had made it for him always full of beauty, and now he had not got this
+new religion really, and he had lost what he before had to know what
+was good and had real beauty.
+
+Jeff Campbell was so angry now in him, because he had begged Melanctha
+always to be honest to him. Jeff could stand it in her not to love
+him, he could not stand it in her not to be honest to him.
+
+Jeff Campbell went home from where Melanctha had not met him, and he
+was sore and full of anger in him.
+
+Jeff Campbell could not be sure what to do, to make it right inside
+him. Surely he must be strong now and cast this loving from him,
+and yet, was he sure he now had real wisdom in him. Was he sure that
+Melanctha Herbert never had had a real deep loving for him. Was he
+sure Melanctha Herbert never had deserved a reverence from him. Always
+now Jeff had this torment in him, but always now he felt more that
+Melanctha never had real greatness for him.
+
+Jeff waited to see if Melanctha would send any word to him. Melanctha
+Herbert never sent a line to him.
+
+At last Jeff wrote his letter to Melanctha. "Dear Melanctha, I
+certainly do know you ain't been any way sick this last week when you
+never met me right the way you promised, and never sent me any word to
+say why you acted a way you certainly never could think was the right
+way you should do it to me. Jane Harden said she saw you that day and
+you went out walking with some people you like now to be with. Don't
+be misunderstanding me now any more Melanctha. I love you now because
+that's my slow way to learn what you been teaching, but I know now
+you certainly never had what seems to me real kind of feeling. I don't
+love you Melanctha any more now like a real religion, because now I
+know you are just made like all us others. I know now no man can
+ever really hold you because no man can ever be real to trust in you,
+because you mean right Melanctha, but you never can remember, and
+so you certainly never have got any way to be honest. So please you
+understand me right now Melanctha, it never is I don't know how to
+love you. I do know now how to love you, Melanctha, really. You sure
+do know that, Melanctha, in me. You certainly always can trust me. And
+so now Melanctha, I can say to you certainly real honest with you, I
+am better than you are in my right kind of feeling. And so Melanctha,
+I don't never any more want to be a trouble to you. You certainly make
+me see things Melanctha, I never any other way could be knowing. You
+been very good and patient to me, when I was certainly below you in my
+right feeling. I certainly never have been near so good and patient
+to you every any way Melanctha, I certainly know that Melanctha. But
+Melanctha, with me, it certainly is, always to be good together, two
+people certainly must be thinking each one as good as the other, to be
+really loving right Melanctha. And it certainly must never be any kind
+of feeling, of one only taking, and one only just giving, Melanctha,
+to me. I know you certainly don't really ever understand me now
+Melanctha, but that's no matter. I certainly do know what I am feeling
+now with you real Melanctha. And so good-bye now for good Melanctha. I
+say I can never ever really trust you real Melanctha, that's only just
+certainly from your way of not being ever equal in your feeling to
+anybody real, Melanctha, and your way never to know right how to
+remember. Many ways I really trust you deep Melanctha, and I certainly
+do feel deep all the good sweetness you certainly got real in you
+Melanctha. Its only just in your loving me Melanctha. You never can be
+equal to me and that way I certainly never can bear any more to have
+it. And so now Melanctha, I always be your friend, if you need me, and
+now we never see each other any more to talk to."
+
+And then Jeff Campbell thought and thought, and he could never make
+any way for him now, to see it different, and so at last he sent this
+letter to Melanctha.
+
+And now surely it was all over in Jeff Campbell. Surely now he never
+any more could know Melanctha. And yet, perhaps Melanctha really loved
+him. And then she would know how much it hurt him never any more, any
+way, to see her, and perhaps she would write a line to tell him.
+But that was a foolish way for Jeff ever to be thinking. Of course
+Melanctha never would write a word to him. It was all over now for
+always, everything between them, and Jeff felt it a real relief to
+him.
+
+For many days now Jeff Campbell only felt it as a relief in him. Jeff
+was all locked up and quiet now inside him. It was all settling down
+heavy in him, and these days when it was sinking so deep in him, it
+was only the rest and quiet of not fighting that he could really feel
+inside him. Jeff Campbell could not think now, or feel anything else
+in him. He had no beauty nor any goodness to see around him. It was a
+dull, pleasant kind of quiet he now had inside him. Jeff almost began
+to love this dull quiet in him, for it was more nearly being free for
+him than anything he had known in him since Melanctha Herbert first
+had moved him. He did not find it a real rest yet for him, he had
+not really conquered what had been working so long in him, he had not
+learned to see beauty and real goodness yet in what had happened to
+him, but it was rest even if he was sodden now all through him. Jeff
+Campbell liked it very well, not to have fighting always going on
+inside him.
+
+And so Jeff went on every day, and he was quiet, and he began again to
+watch himself in his working; and he did not see any beauty now around
+him, and it was dull and heavy always now inside him, and yet he was
+content to have gone so far in keeping steady to what he knew was the
+right way for him to come back to, to be regular, and see beauty in
+every kind of quiet way of living, the way he had always wanted it for
+himself and for all the colored people. He knew he had lost the sense
+he once had of joy all through him, but he could work, and perhaps he
+would bring some real belief back into him about the beauty that he
+could not now any more see around him.
+
+And so Jeff Campbell went on with his working, and he staid home every
+evening, and he began again with his reading, and he did not do much
+talking, and he did not seem to himself to have any kind of feeling.
+
+And one day Jeff thought perhaps he really was forgetting, one day he
+thought he could soon come back and be happy in his old way of regular
+and quiet living.
+
+Jeff Campbell had never talked to any one of what had been going on
+inside him. Jeff Campbell liked to talk and he was honest, but it
+never came out from him, anything he was ever really feeling, it
+only came out from him, what it was that he was always thinking. Jeff
+Campbell always was very proud to hide what he was really feeling.
+Always he blushed hot to think things he had been feeling. Only to
+Melanctha Herbert, had it ever come to him, to tell what it was that
+he was feeling.
+
+And so Jeff Campbell went on with this dull and sodden, heavy, quiet
+always in him, and he never seemed to be able to have any feeling.
+Only sometimes he shivered hot with shame when he remembered some
+things he once had been feeling. And then one day it all woke up, and
+was sharp in him.
+
+Dr. Campbell was just then staying long times with a sick man who
+might soon be dying. One day the sick man was resting. Dr. Campbell
+went to the window to look out a little, while he was waiting. It
+was very early now in the southern springtime. The trees were just
+beginning to get the little zigzag crinkles in them, which the young
+buds always give them. The air was soft and moist and pleasant to
+them. The earth was wet and rich and smelling for them. The birds were
+making sharp fresh noises all around them. The wind was very gentle
+and yet urgent to them. And the buds and the long earthworms, and the
+negroes, and all the kinds of children, were coming out every minute
+farther into the new spring, watery, southern sunshine.
+
+Jeff Campbell too began to feel a little his old joy inside him. The
+sodden quiet began to break up in him. He leaned far out of the window
+to mix it all up with him. His heart went sharp and then it almost
+stopped inside him. Was it Melanctha Herbert he had just seen passing
+by him? Was it Melanctha, or was it just some other girl, who made him
+feel so bad inside him? Well, it was no matter, Melanctha was there
+in the world around him, he did certainly always know that in him.
+Melanctha Herbert was always in the same town with him, and he could
+never any more feel her near him. What a fool he was to throw her from
+him. Did he know she did not really love him. Suppose Melanctha was
+now suffering through him. Suppose she really would be glad to see
+him. And did anything else he did, really mean anything now to him?
+What a fool he was to cast her from him. And yet did Melanctha Herbert
+want him, was she honest to him, had Melanctha ever loved him, and
+did Melanctha now suffer by him? Oh! Oh! Oh! and the bitter water once
+more rose up in him.
+
+All that long day, with the warm moist young spring stirring in him,
+Jeff Campbell worked, and thought, and beat his breast, and wandered,
+and spoke aloud, and was silent, and was certain, and then in doubt
+and then keen to surely feel, and then all sodden in him; and he
+walked, and he sometimes ran fast to lose himself in his rushing, and
+he bit his nails to pain and bleeding, and he tore his hair so that he
+could be sure he was really feeling, and he never could know what it
+was right, he now should be doing. And then late that night he wrote
+it all out to Melanctha Herbert, and he made himself quickly send it
+without giving himself any time to change it.
+
+"It has come to me strong to-day Melanctha, perhaps I am wrong the
+way I now am thinking. Perhaps you do want me badly to be with you.
+Perhaps I have hurt you once again the way I used to. I certainly
+Melanctha, if I ever think that really, I certainly do want bad not
+to be wrong now ever any more to you. If you do feel the way to-day it
+came to me strong maybe you are feeling, then say so Melanctha to me,
+and I come again to see you. If not, don't say anything any more ever
+to me. I don't want ever to be bad to you Melanctha, really. I never
+want ever to be a bother to you. I never can stand it to think I am
+wrong; really, thinking you don't want me to come to you. Tell me
+Melanctha, tell me honest to me, shall I come now any more to see
+you." "Yes" came the answer from Melanctha, "I be home Jeff to-night
+to see you."
+
+Jeff Campbell went that evening late to see Melanctha Herbert. As Jeff
+came nearer to her, he doubted that he wanted really to be with her,
+he felt that he did not know what it was he now wanted from her. Jeff
+Campbell knew very well now, way inside him, that they could never
+talk their trouble out between them. What was it Jeff wanted now to
+tell Melanctha Herbert? What was it that Jeff Campbell now could tell
+her? Surely he never now could learn to trust her. Surely Jeff knew
+very well all that Melanctha always had inside her. And yet it was
+awful, never any more to see her.
+
+Jeff Campbell went in to Melanctha, and he kissed her, and he held
+her, and then he went away from her and he stood still and looked at
+her. "Well Jeff!" "Yes Melanctha!" "Jeff what was it made you act so
+to me?" "You know very well Melanctha, it's always I am thinking you
+don't love me, and you are acting to me good out of kindness, and then
+Melanctha you certainly never did say anything to me why you never
+came to meet me, as you certainly did promise to me you would that day
+I never saw you!" "Jeff don't you really know for certain, I always
+love you?" "No Melanctha, deed I don't know it in me. Deed and certain
+sure Melanctha, if I only know that in me, I certainly never would
+give you any bother." "Jeff, I certainly do love you more seems to
+me always, you certainly had ought to feel that in you." "Sure
+Melanctha?" "Sure Jeff boy, you know that." "But then Melanctha why
+did you act so to me?" "Oh Jeff you certainly been such a bother to
+me. I just had to go away that day Jeff, and I certainly didn't
+mean not to tell you, and then that letter you wrote came to me and
+something happened to me. I don't know right what it was Jeff, I just
+kind of fainted, and what could I do Jeff, you said you certainly
+never any more wanted to come and see me!" "And no matter Melanctha,
+even if you knew, it was just killing me to act so to you, you never
+would have said nothing to me?" "No of course, how could I Jeff when
+you wrote that way to me. I know how you was feeling Jeff to me, but
+I certainly couldn't say nothing to you." "Well Melanctha, I certainly
+know I am right proud too in me, but I certainly never could act so to
+you Melanctha, if I ever knew any way at all you ever really loved me.
+No Melanctha darling, you and me certainly don't feel much the same
+way ever. Any way Melanctha, I certainly do love you true Melanctha."
+"And I love you too Jeff, even though you don't never certainly seem
+to believe me." "No I certainly don't any way believe you Melanctha,
+even when you say it to me. I don't know Melanctha how, but sure I
+certainly do trust you, only I don't believe now ever in your really
+being loving to me. I certainly do know you trust me always Melanctha,
+only somehow it ain't ever all right to me. I certainly don't know any
+way otherwise Melanctha, how I can say it to you." "Well I certainly
+can't help you no ways any more Jeff Campbell, though you certainly
+say it right when you say I trust you Jeff now always. You certainly
+is the best man Jeff Campbell, I ever can know, to me. I never been
+anyways thinking it can be ever different to me." "Well you trust me
+then Melanctha, and I certainly love you Melanctha, and seems like
+to me Melanctha, you and me had ought to be a little better than we
+certainly ever are doing now to be together. You certainly do think
+that way, too, Melanctha to me. But may be you do really love me. Tell
+me, please, real honest now Melanctha darling, tell me so I really
+always know it in me, do you really truly love me?" "Oh you stupid,
+stupid boy, Jeff Campbell. Love you, what do you think makes me
+always to forgive you. If I certainly didn't always love you Jeff,
+I certainly never would let you be always being all the time such a
+bother to me the way you certainly Jeff always are to me. Now don't
+you dass ever any more say words like that ever to me. You hear me now
+Jeff, or I do something real bad sometime, so I really hurt you. Now
+Jeff you just be good to me. You know Jeff how bad I need it, now you
+should always be good to me!"
+
+Jeff Campbell could not make an answer to Melanctha. What was it he
+should now say to her? What words could help him to make their feeling
+any better? Jeff Campbell knew that he had learned to love deeply,
+that, he always knew very well now in him, Melanctha had learned to
+be strong to be always trusting, that he knew too now inside him, but
+Melanctha did not really love him, that he felt always too strong for
+him. That fact always was there in him, and it always thrust itself
+firm, between them. And so this talk did not make things really better
+for them.
+
+Jeff Campbell was never any more a torment to Melanctha, he was only
+silent to her. Jeff often saw Melanctha and he was very friendly with
+her and he never any more was a bother to her. Jeff never any more now
+had much chance to be loving with her. Melanctha never was alone now
+when he saw her.
+
+Melanctha Herbert had just been getting thick in her trouble with Jeff
+Campbell, when she went to that church where she first met Rose, who
+later was married regularly to Sam Johnson. Rose was a good-looking,
+better kind of black girl, and had been brought up quite like their
+own child by white folks. Rose was living now with colored people.
+Rose was staying just then with a colored woman, who had known 'Mis'
+Herbert and her black husband and this girl Melanctha.
+
+Rose soon got to like Melanctha Herbert and Melanctha now always
+wanted to be with Rose, whenever she could do it. Melanctha Herbert
+always was doing everything for Rose that she could think of that Rose
+ever wanted. Rose always liked to be with nice people who would do
+things for her. Rose had strong common sense and she was lazy. Rose
+liked Melanctha Herbert, she had such kind of fine ways in her. Then,
+too, Rose had it in her to be sorry for the subtle, sweet-natured,
+docile, intelligent Melanctha Herbert who always was so blue
+sometimes, and always had had so much trouble. Then, too, Rose could
+scold Melanctha, for Melanctha Herbert never could know how to keep
+herself from trouble, and Rose was always strong to keep straight,
+with her simple selfish wisdom.
+
+But why did the subtle, intelligent, attractive, half white girl
+Melanctha Herbert, with her sweetness and her power and her wisdom,
+demean herself to do for and to flatter and to be scolded, by this
+lazy, stupid, ordinary, selfish black girl. This was a queer thing in
+Melanctha Herbert.
+
+And so now in these new spring days, it was with Rose that Melanctha
+began again to wander. Rose always knew very well in herself what was
+the right way to do when you wandered. Rose knew very well, she was
+not just any common kind of black girl, for she had been raised by
+white folks, and Rose always saw to it that she was engaged to him
+when she had any one man with whom she ever always wandered. Rose
+always had strong in her the sense for proper conduct. Rose always was
+telling the complex and less sure Melanctha, what was the right way
+she should do when she wandered.
+
+Rose never knew much about Jeff Campbell with Melanctha Herbert. Rose
+had not known about Melanctha Herbert when she had been almost all her
+time with Dr. Campbell.
+
+Jeff Campbell did not like Rose when he saw her with Melanctha. Jeff
+would never, when he could help it, meet her. Rose did not think much
+about Dr. Campbell. Melanctha never talked much about him to her. He
+was not important now to be with her.
+
+Rose did not like Melanctha's old friend Jane Harden when she saw her.
+Jane despised Rose for an ordinary, stupid, sullen black girl. Jane
+could not see what Melanctha could find in that black girl, to endure
+her. It made Jane sick to see her. But then Melanctha had a good mind,
+but she certainly never did care much to really use it. Jane Harden
+now really never cared any more to see Melanctha, though Melanctha
+still always tried to be good to her. And Rose, she hated that stuck
+up, mean speaking, nasty, drunk thing, Jane Harden. Rose did not see
+how Melanctha could bear to ever see her, but Melanctha always was so
+good to everybody, she never would know how to act to people the way
+they deserved that she should do it.
+
+Rose did not know much about Melanctha, and Jeff Campbell and Jane
+Harden. All Rose knew about Melanctha was her old life with her mother
+and her father. Rose was always glad to be good to poor Melanctha, who
+had had such an awful time with her mother and her father, and now she
+was alone and had nobody who could help her. "He was a awful black man
+to you Melanctha, I like to get my hands on him so he certainly could
+feel it. I just would Melanctha, now you hear me."
+
+Perhaps it was this simple faith and simple anger and simple moral way
+of doing in Rose, that Melanctha now found such a comfort to her. Rose
+was selfish and was stupid and was lazy, but she was decent and knew
+always what was the right way she should do, and what she wanted, and
+she certainly did admire how bright was her friend Melanctha Herbert,
+and she certainly did feel how very much it was she always suffered
+and she scolded her to keep her from more trouble, and she never was
+angry when she found some of the different ways Melanctha Herbert
+sometimes had to do it.
+
+And so always Rose and Melanctha were more and more together, and Jeff
+Campbell could now hardly ever any more be alone with Melanctha.
+
+Once Jeff had to go away to another town to see a sick man. "When I
+come back Monday Melanctha, I come Monday evening to see you. You be
+home alone once Melanctha to see me." "Sure Jeff, I be glad to see
+you!"
+
+When Jeff Campbell came to his house on Monday there was a note
+there from Melanctha. Could Jeff come day after to-morrow, Wednesday?
+Melanctha was so sorry she had to go out that evening. She was awful
+sorry and she hoped Jeff would not be angry.
+
+Jeff was angry and he swore a little, and then he laughed, and then he
+sighed. "Poor Melanctha, she don't know any way to be real honest, but
+no matter, I sure do love her and I be good if only she will let me."
+
+Jeff Campbell went Wednesday night to see Melanctha. Jeff Campbell
+took her in his arms and kissed her. "I certainly am awful sorry not
+to see you Jeff Monday, the way I promised, but I just couldn't Jeff,
+no way I could fix it." Jeff looked at her and then he laughed a
+little at her. "You want me to believe that really now Melanctha. All
+right I believe it if you want me to Melanctha. I certainly be good to
+you to-night the way you like it. I believe you certainly did want
+to see me Melanctha, and there was no way you could fix it." "Oh Jeff
+dear," said Melanctha, "I sure was wrong to act so to you. It's awful
+hard for me ever to say it to you, I have been wrong in my acting to
+you, but I certainly was bad this time Jeff to you. It do certainly
+come hard to me to say it Jeff, but I certainly was wrong to go away
+from you the way I did it. Only you always certainly been so bad Jeff,
+and such a bother to me, and making everything always so hard for me,
+and I certainly got some way to do it to make it come back sometimes
+to you. You bad boy Jeff, now you hear me, and this certainly is the
+first time Jeff I ever yet said it to anybody, I ever been wrong,
+Jeff, you hear me!" "All right Melanctha, I sure do forgive you,
+cause it's certainly the first time I ever heard you say you ever did
+anything wrong the way you shouldn't," and Jeff Campbell laughed and
+kissed her, and Melanctha laughed and loved him, and they really were
+happy now for a little time together.
+
+And now they were very happy in each other and then they were silent
+and then they became a little sadder and then they were very quiet
+once more with each other.
+
+"Yes I certainly do love you Jeff!" Melanctha said and she was very
+dreamy. "Sure, Melanctha." "Yes Jeff sure, but not the way you are now
+ever thinking. I love you more and more seems to me Jeff always, and
+I certainly do trust you more and more always to me when I know you. I
+do love you Jeff, sure yes, but not the kind of way of loving you
+are ever thinking it now Jeff with me. I ain't got certainly no hot
+passion any more now in me. You certainly have killed all that kind of
+feeling now Jeff in me. You certainly do know that Jeff, now the way I
+am always, when I am loving with you. You certainly do know that Jeff,
+and that's the way you certainly do like it now in me. You certainly
+don't mind now Jeff, to hear me say this to you."
+
+Jeff Campbell was hurt so that it almost killed him. Yes he certainly
+did know now what it was to have real hot love in him, and yet
+Melanctha certainly was right, he did not deserve she should ever give
+it to him. "All right Melanctha I ain't ever kicking. I always will
+give you certainly always everything you want that I got in me. I take
+anything you want now to give me. I don't say never Melanctha it don't
+hurt me, but I certainly don't say ever Melanctha it ought ever to be
+any different to me." And the bitter tears rose up in Jeff Campbell,
+and they came and choked his voice to be silent, and he held himself
+hard to keep from breaking.
+
+"Good-night Melanctha," and Jeff was very humble to her. "Goodnight
+Jeff, I certainly never did mean any way to hurt you. I do love you,
+sure Jeff every day more and more, all the time I know you." "I
+know Melanctha, I know, it's never nothing to me. You can't help it,
+anybody ever the way they are feeling. It's all right now Melanctha,
+you believe me, good-night now Melanctha, I got now to leave you,
+good-by Melanctha, sure don't look so worried to me, sure Melanctha
+I come again soon to see you." And then Jeff stumbled down the steps,
+and he went away fast to leave her.
+
+And now the pain came hard and harder in Jeff Campbell, and he
+groaned, and it hurt him so, he could not bear it. And the tears came,
+and his heart beat, and he was hot and worn and bitter in him.
+
+Now Jeff knew very well what it was to love Melanctha. Now Jeff
+Campbell knew he was really understanding. Now Jeff knew what it was
+to be good to Melanctha. Now Jeff was good to her always.
+
+Slowly Jeff felt it a comfort in him to have it hurt so, and to be
+good to Melanctha always. Now there was no way Melanctha ever had had
+to bear things from him, worse than he now had it in him. Now Jeff was
+strong inside him. Now with all the pain there was peace in him. Now
+he knew he was understanding, now he knew he had a hot love in him,
+and he was good always to Melanctha Herbert who was the one had made
+him have it. Now he knew he could be good, and not cry out for help
+to her to teach him how to bear it. Every day Jeff felt himself more a
+strong man, the way he once had thought was his real self, the way he
+knew it. Now Jeff Campbell had real wisdom in him, and it did not make
+him bitter when it hurt him, for Jeff knew now all through him that he
+was really strong to bear it.
+
+And so now Jeff Campbell could see Melanctha often, and he was
+patient, and always very friendly to her, and every day Jeff Campbell
+understood Melanctha Herbert better. And always Jeff saw Melanctha
+could not love him the way he needed she should do it. Melanctha
+Herbert had no way she ever really could remember.
+
+And now Jeff knew there was a man Melanctha met very often, and
+perhaps she wanted to try to have this man to be good, for her. Jeff
+Campbell never saw the man Melanctha Herbert perhaps now wanted. Jeff
+Campbell only knew very well that there was one. Then there was Rose
+that Melanctha now always had with her when she wandered.
+
+Jeff Campbell was very quiet to Melanctha. He said to her, now he
+thought he did not want to come any more especially to see her. When
+they met, he always would be glad to see her, but now he never would
+go anywhere any more to meet her. Sure he knew she always would have
+a deep love in him for her. Sure she knew that. "Yes Jeff, I always
+trust you Jeff, I certainly do know that all right." Jeff Campbell
+said, all right he never could say anything to reproach her. She knew
+always that he really had learned all through him how to love her.
+"Yes, Jeff, I certainly do know that." She knew now she could always
+trust him. Jeff always would be loyal to her though now she never was
+any more to him like a religion, but he never could forget the real
+sweetness in her. That Jeff must remember always, though now he never
+can trust her to be really loving to any man for always, she never did
+have any way she ever could remember. If she ever needed anybody to be
+good to her, Jeff Campbell always would do anything he could to help
+her. He never can forget the things she taught him so he could be
+really understanding, but he never any more wants to see her. He be
+like a brother to her always, when she needs it, and he always will be
+a good friend to her. Jeff Campbell certainly was sorry never any
+more to see her, but it was good that they now knew each other really.
+"Good-bye Jeff you always been very good always to me." "Good-bye
+Melanctha you know you always can trust yourself to me." "Yes, I know,
+I know Jeff, really." "I certainly got to go now Melanctha, from you.
+I go this time, Melanctha really," and Jeff Campbell went away and
+this time he never looked back to her. This time Jeff Campbell just
+broke away and left her.
+
+Jeff Campbell loved to think now he was strong again to be quiet, and
+to live regular, and to do everything the way he wanted it to be right
+for himself and all the colored people. Jeff went away for a little
+while to another town to work there, and he worked hard, and he was
+very sad inside him, and sometimes the tears would rise up in him, and
+then he would work hard, and then he would begin once more to see
+some beauty in the world around him. Jeff had behaved right and he had
+learned to have a real love in him. That was very good to have inside
+him.
+
+Jeff Campbell never could forget the sweetness in Melanctha Herbert,
+and he was always very friendly to her, but they never any more came
+close to one another. More and more Jeff Campbell and Melanctha fell
+away from all knowing of each other, but Jeff never could forget
+Melanctha. Jeff never could forget the real sweetness she had in her,
+but Jeff never any more had the sense of a real religion for her. Jeff
+always had strong in him the meaning of all the new kind of beauty
+Melanctha Herbert once had shown him, and always more and more it
+helped him with his working for himself and for all the colored
+people.
+
+Melanctha Herbert, now that she was all through with Jeff Campbell,
+was free to be with Rose and the new men she met now.
+
+Rose was always now with Melanctha Herbert. Rose never found any way
+to get excited. Rose always was telling Melanctha Herbert the right
+way she should do, so that she would not always be in trouble. But
+Melanctha Herbert could not help it, always she would find new ways to
+get excited.
+
+Melanctha was all ready now to find new ways to be in trouble. And
+yet Melanctha Herbert never wanted not to do right. Always Melanctha
+Herbert wanted peace and quiet, and always she could only find new
+ways to get excited.
+
+"Melanctha," Rose would say to her, "Melanctha, I certainly have got
+to tell you, you ain't right to act so with that kind of feller. You
+better just had stick to black men now, Melanctha, you hear me what I
+tell you, just the way you always see me do it. They're real bad men,
+now I tell you Melanctha true, and you better had hear to me. I been
+raised by real nice kind of white folks, Melanctha, and I certainly
+knows awful well, soon as ever I can see 'em acting, what is a white
+man will act decent to you and the kind it ain't never no good to a
+colored girl to ever go with. Now you know real Melanctha how I always
+mean right good to you, and you ain't got no way like me Melanctha,
+what was raised by white folks, to know right what is the way you
+should be acting with men. I don't never want to see you have bad
+trouble come hard to you now Melanctha, and so you just hear to me
+now Melanctha, what I tell you, for I knows it. I don't say never
+certainly to you Melanctha, you never had ought to have nothing to
+do ever with no white men, though it ain't never to me Melanctha, the
+best kind of a way a colored girl can have to be acting, no I never
+do say to you Melanctha, you hadn't never ought to be with white men,
+though it ain't never the way I feel it ever real, right for a decent
+colored girl to be always doing, but not never Melanctha, now you hear
+me, no not never no kind of white men like you been with always now
+Melanctha when I see you. You just hear to me Melanctha, you certainly
+had ought to hear to me Melanctha, I say it just like I knows it awful
+well, Melanctha, and I knows you don't know no better, Melanctha, how
+to act so, the ways I seen it with them kind of white fellers, them as
+never can know what to do right by a decent girl they have ever got to
+be with them. Now you hear to me Melanctha, what I tell you."
+
+And so it was Melanctha Herbert found new ways to be in trouble.
+But it was not very bad this trouble, for these white men Rose never
+wanted she should be with, never meant very much to Melanctha. It was
+only that she liked it to be with them, and they knew all about fine
+horses, and it was just good to Melanctha, now a little, to feel real
+reckless with them. But mostly it was Rose and other better kind of
+colored girls and colored men with whom Melanctha Herbert now always
+wandered.
+
+It was summer now and the colored people came out into the sunshine,
+full blown with the flowers. And they shone in the streets and in the
+fields with their warm joy, and they glistened in their black heat,
+and they flung themselves free in their wide abandonment of shouting
+laughter.
+
+It was very pleasant in some ways, the life Melanctha Herbert now led
+with Rose and all the others. It was not always that Rose had to scold
+her.
+
+There was not anybody of all these colored people, excepting only
+Rose, who ever meant much to Melanctha Herbert. But they all liked
+Melanctha, and the men all liked to see her do things, she was so game
+always to do anything anybody ever could do, and then she was good and
+sweet to do anything anybody ever wanted from her.
+
+These were pleasant days then, in the hot southern negro sunshine,
+with many simple jokes and always wide abandonment of laughter. "Just
+look at that Melanctha there a running. Don't she just go like a bird
+when she is flying. Hey Melanctha there, I come and catch you, hey
+Melanctha, I put salt on your tail to catch you," and then the man
+would try to catch her, and he would fall full on the earth and roll
+in an agony of wide-mouthed shouting laughter. And this was the kind
+of way Rose always liked to have Melanctha do it, to be engaged to
+him, and to have a good warm nigger time with colored men, not to go
+about with that kind of white man, never could know how to act right,
+to any decent kind of girl they could ever get to be with them.
+
+Rose, always more and more, liked Melanctha Herbert better. Rose often
+had to scold Melanctha Herbert, but that only made her like Melanctha
+better. And then Melanctha always listened to her, and always acted
+every way she could to please her. And then Rose was so sorry for
+Melanctha, when she was so blue sometimes, and wanted somebody should
+come and kill her.
+
+And Melanctha Herbert clung to Rose in the hope that Rose could
+save her. Melanctha felt the power of Rose's selfish, decent kind of
+nature. It was so solid, simple, certain to her. Melanctha clung to
+Rose, she loved to have her scold her, she always wanted to be with
+her. She always felt a solid safety in her; Rose always was, in her
+way, very good to let Melanctha be loving to her. Melanctha never had
+any way she could really be a trouble to her. Melanctha never had any
+way that she could ever get real power, to come close inside to her.
+Melanctha was always very humble to her. Melanctha was always ready to
+do anything Rose wanted from her. Melanctha needed badly to have
+Rose always willing to let Melanctha cling to her. Rose was a simple,
+sullen, selfish, black girl, but she had a solid power in her. Rose
+had strong the sense of decent conduct, she had strong the sense of
+decent comfort. Rose always knew very well what it was she wanted, and
+she knew very well what was the right way to do to get everything she
+wanted, and she never had any kind of trouble to perplex her. And so
+the subtle intelligent attractive half white girl Melanctha Herbert
+loved and did for, and demeaned herself in service to this coarse,
+decent, sullen, ordinary, black, childish Rose and now this unmoral
+promiscuous shiftless Rose was to be married to a good man of the
+negroes, while Melanctha Herbert with her white blood and attraction
+and her desire for a right position was perhaps never to be really
+regularly married. Sometimes the thought of how all her world was
+made filled the complex, desiring Melanctha with despair. She wondered
+often how she could go on living when she was so blue. Sometimes
+Melanctha thought she would just kill herself, for sometimes she
+thought this would be really the best thing for her to do.
+
+Rose was now to be married to a decent good man of the negroes. His
+name was Sam Johnson, and he worked as a deck-hand on a coasting
+steamer, and he was very steady, and he got good wages.
+
+Rose first met Sam Johnson at church, the same place where she had met
+Melanctha Herbert. Rose liked Sam when she saw him, she knew he was a
+good man and worked hard and got good wages, and Rose thought it
+would be very nice and very good now in her position to get really,
+regularly married.
+
+Sam Johnson liked Rose very well and he always was ready to do
+anything she wanted. Sam was a tall, square shouldered, decent, a
+serious, straightforward, simple, kindly, colored workman. They got
+on very well together, Sam and Rose, when they were married. Rose
+was lazy, but not dirty, and Sam was careful but not fussy. Sam was
+a kindly, simple, earnest, steady workman, and Rose had good
+common decent sense in her, of how to live regular, and not to have
+excitements, and to be saving so you could be always sure to have
+money, so as to have everything you wanted.
+
+It was not very long that Rose knew Sam Johnson, before they were
+regularly married. Sometimes Sam went into the country with all the
+other young church people, and then he would be a great deal with Rose
+and with her Melanctha Herbert. Sam did not care much about Melanctha
+Herbert. He liked Rose's ways of doing, always better. Melanctha's
+mystery had no charm for Sam ever. Sam wanted a nice little house to
+come to when he was tired from his working, and a little baby all his
+own he could be good to. Sam Johnson was ready to marry as soon as
+ever Rose wanted he should do it. And so Sam Johnson and Rose one
+day had a grand real wedding and were married. Then they furnished
+completely, a little red brick house and then Sam went back to his
+work as deck hand on a coasting steamer.
+
+Rose had often talked to Sam about how good Melanctha was and how much
+she always suffered. Sam Johnson never really cared about Melanctha
+Herbert, but he always did almost everything Rose ever wanted, and
+he was a gentle, kindly creature, and so he was very good to Rose's
+friend Melanctha. Melanctha Herbert knew very well Sam did not like
+her, and so she was very quiet, and always let Rose do the talking for
+her. She only was very good to always help Rose, and to do anything
+she ever wanted from her, and to be very good and listen and be quiet
+whenever Sam had anything to say to her. Melanctha liked Sam Johnson,
+and all her life Melanctha loved and wanted good and kind and
+considerate people, and always Melanctha loved and wanted people to be
+gentle to her, and always she wanted to be regular, and to have peace
+and quiet in her, and always Melanctha could only find new ways to be
+in trouble. And Melanctha needed badly to have Rose, to believe her,
+and to let her cling to her. Rose was the only steady thing Melanctha
+had to cling to and so Melanctha demeaned herself to be like a
+servant, to wait on, and always to be scolded, by this ordinary,
+sullen, black, stupid, childish woman.
+
+Rose was always telling Sam he must be good to poor Melanctha. "You
+know Sam," Rose said very often to him, "You certainly had ought to be
+very good to poor Melanctha, she always do have so much trouble with
+her. You know Sam how I told you she had such a bad time always with
+that father, and he was awful mean to her always that awful black man,
+and he never took no kind of care ever to her, and he never helped her
+when her mother died so hard, that poor Melanctha. Melanctha's ma you
+know Sam, always was just real religious. One day Melanctha was real
+little, and she heard her ma say to her pa, it was awful sad to her,
+Melanctha had not been the one the Lord had took from them stead of
+the little brother who was dead in the house there from fever. That
+hurt Melanctha awful when she heard her ma say it. She never could
+feel it right, and I don't no ways blame Melanctha, Sam, for not
+feeling better to her ma always after, though Melanctha, just like
+always she is, always was real good to her ma after, when she was so
+sick, and died so hard, and nobody never to help Melanctha do it, and
+she just all alone to do everything without no help come to her no
+way, and that ugly awful black man she have for a father never all the
+time come near her. But that's always the way Melanctha is just doing
+Sam, the way I been telling to you. She always is being just so good
+to everybody and nobody ever there to thank her for it. I never did
+see nobody ever Sam, have such bad luck, seems to me always with them,
+like that poor Melanctha always has it, and she always so good with
+it, and never no murmur in her, and never no complaining from her, and
+just never saying nothing with it. You be real good to her Sam, now
+you hear me, now you and me is married right together. He certainly
+was an awful black man to her Sam, that father she had, acting always
+just like a brute to her and she so game and never to tell anybody how
+it hurt her. And she so sweet and good always to do anything anybody
+ever can be wanting. I don't see Sam how some men can be to act so
+awful. I told you Sam, how once Melanctha broke her arm bad and she
+was so sick and it hurt her awful and he never would let no doctor
+come near to her and he do some things so awful to her, she don't
+never want to tell nobody how bad he hurt her. That's just the way Sam
+with Melanctha always, you never can know how bad it is, it hurts
+her. You hear me Sam, you always be real good to her now you and me is
+married right to each other."
+
+And so Rose and Sam Johnson were regularly married, and Rose sat at
+home and bragged to all her friends how nice it was to be married
+really to a husband.
+
+Rose did not have Melanctha to live with her, now Rose was married.
+Melanctha was with Rose almost as much as ever but it was a little
+different now their being together.
+
+Rose Johnson never asked Melanctha to live with her in the house, now
+Rose was married. Rose liked to have Melanctha come all the time to
+help her, Rose liked Melanctha to be almost always with her, but Rose
+was shrewd in her simple selfish nature, she did not ever think to ask
+Melanctha to live with her.
+
+Rose was hard headed, she was decent, and she always knew what it was
+she needed. Rose needed Melanctha to be with her, she liked to have
+her help her, the quick, good Melanctha to do for the slow, lazy,
+selfish, black girl, but Rose could have Melanctha to do for her and
+she did not need her to live with her.
+
+Sam never asked Rose why she did not have her. Sam always took what
+Rose wanted should be done for Melanctha, as the right way he should
+act toward her.
+
+It could never come to Melanctha to ask Rose to let her. It never
+could come to Melanctha to think that Rose would ask her. It would
+never ever come to Melanctha to want it, if Rose should ask her, but
+Melanctha would have done it for the safety she always felt when she
+was near her. Melanctha Herbert wanted badly to be safe now, but this
+living with her, that, Rose would never give her. Rose had strong
+the sense for decent comfort, Rose had strong the sense for proper
+conduct, Rose had strong the sense to get straight always what she
+wanted, and she always knew what was the best thing she needed, and
+always Rose got what she wanted.
+
+And so Rose had Melanctha Herbert always there to help her, and she
+sat and was lazy and she bragged and she complained a little and she
+told Melanctha how she ought to do, to get good what she wanted like
+she Rose always did it, and always Melanctha was doing everything Rose
+ever needed. "Don't you bother so, doing that Melanctha, I do it or
+Sam when he comes home to help me. Sure you don't mind lifting it
+Melanctha? You is very good Melanctha to do it, and when you go out
+Melanctha, you stop and get some rice to bring me to-morrow when you
+come in. Sure you won't forget Melanctha. I never see anybody like
+you Melanctha to always do things so nice for me." And then Melanctha
+would do some more for Rose, and then very late Melanctha would go
+home to the colored woman where she lived now.
+
+And so though Melanctha still was so much with Rose Johnson, she had
+times when she could not stay there. Melanctha now could not really
+cling there. Rose had Sam, and Melanctha more and more lost the hold
+she had had there.
+
+Melanctha Herbert began to feel she must begin again to look and see
+if she could find what it was she had always wanted. Now Rose Johnson
+could no longer help her.
+
+And so Melanctha Herbert began once more to wander and with men Rose
+never thought it was right she should be with.
+
+One day Melanctha had been very busy with the different kinds of ways
+she wandered. It was a pleasant late afternoon at the end of a long
+summer. Melanctha was walking along, and she was free and excited.
+Melanctha had just parted from a white man and she had a bunch of
+flowers he had left with her. A young buck, a mulatto, passed by and
+snatched them from her. "It certainly is real sweet in you sister, to
+be giving me them pretty flowers," he said to her.
+
+"I don't see no way it can make them sweeter to have with you," said
+Melanctha. "What one man gives, another man had certainly just as much
+good right to be taking." "Keep your old flowers then, I certainly
+don't never want to have them." Melanctha Herbert laughed at him and
+took them. "No, I didn't nohow think you really did want to have them.
+Thank you kindly mister, for them. I certainly always do admire to see
+a man always so kind of real polite to people." The man laughed, "You
+ain't nobody's fool I can say for you, but you certainly are a damned
+pretty kind of girl, now I look at you. Want men to be polite to you?
+All right, I can love you, that's real polite now, want to see me try
+it." "I certainly ain't got no time this evening just only left to
+thank you. I certainly got to be real busy now, but I certainly
+always will admire to see you." The man tried to catch and stop her,
+Melanctha Herbert laughed and dodged so that he could not touch her.
+Melanctha went quickly down a side street near her and so the man for
+that time lost her.
+
+For some days Melanctha did not see any more of her mulatto. One day
+Melanctha was with a white man and they saw him. The white man stopped
+to speak to him. Afterwards Melanctha left the white man and she then
+soon met him. Melanctha stopped to talk to him. Melanctha Herbert soon
+began to like him.
+
+Jem Richards, the new man Melanctha had begun to know now, was a
+dashing kind of fellow, who had to do with fine horses and with
+racing. Sometimes Jem Richards would be betting and would be good and
+lucky, and be making lots of money. Sometimes Jem would be betting
+badly, and then he would not be having any money.
+
+Jem Richards was a straight man. Jem Richards always knew that by and
+by he would win again and pay it, and so Jem mostly did win again, and
+then he always paid it.
+
+Jem Richards was a man other men always trusted. Men gave him money
+when he lost all his, for they all knew Jem Richards would win again,
+and when he did win they knew, and they were right, that he would pay
+it.
+
+Melanctha Herbert all her life had always loved to be with horses.
+Melanctha liked it that Jem knew all about fine horses. He was a
+reckless man was Jem Richards. He knew how to win out, and always all
+her life, Melanctha Herbert loved successful power.
+
+Melanctha Herbert always liked Jem Richards better. Things soon began
+to be very strong between them.
+
+Jem was more game even than Melanctha. Jem always had known what
+it was to have real wisdom. Jem had always all his life been
+understanding.
+
+Jem Richards made Melanctha Herbert come fast with him. He never gave
+her any time with waiting. Soon Melanctha always had Jem with her.
+Melanctha did not want anything better. Now in Jem Richards, Melanctha
+found everything she had ever needed to content her.
+
+Melanctha was now less and less with Rose Johnson. Rose did not think
+much of the way Melanctha now was going. Jem Richards was all right,
+only Melanctha never had no sense of the right kind of way she should
+be doing. Rose often was telling Sam now, she did not like the fast
+way Melanctha was going. Rose told it to Sam, and to all the girls and
+men, when she saw them. But Rose was nothing just then to Melanctha.
+Melanctha Herbert now only needed Jem Richards to be with her.
+
+And things were always getting stronger between Jem Richards and
+Melanctha Herbert. Jem Richards began to talk now as if he wanted to
+get married to her. Jem was deep in his love now for her. And as for
+Melanctha, Jem was all the world now to her. And so Jem gave her a
+ring, like white folks, to show he was engaged to her, and would by
+and by be married to her. And Melanctha was filled full with joy to
+have Jem so good to her.
+
+Melanctha always loved to go with Jem to the races. Jem had been lucky
+lately with his betting, and he had a swell turn-out to drive in, and
+Melanctha looked very handsome there beside him.
+
+Melanctha was very proud to have Jem Richards want her. Melanctha
+loved it the way Jem knew how to do it. Melanctha loved Jem and
+loved that he should want her. She loved it too, that he wanted to be
+married to her. Jem Richards was a straight decent man, whom other
+men always looked up to and trusted. Melanctha needed badly a man to
+content her.
+
+Melanctha's joy made her foolish. Melanctha told everybody about how
+Jem Richards, that swell man who owned all those fine horses and was
+so game, nothing ever scared him, was engaged to be married to her,
+and that was the ring he gave her.
+
+Melanctha let out her joy very often to Rose Johnson. Melanctha had
+begun again now to go there.
+
+Melanctha's love for Jem made her foolish. Melanctha had to have some
+one always now to talk to and so she went often to Rose Johnson.
+
+Melanctha put all herself into Jem Richards. She was mad and foolish
+in the joy she had there.
+
+Rose never liked the way Melanctha did it. "No Sam I don't say never
+Melanctha ain't engaged to Jem Richards the way she always says it,
+and Jem he is all right for that kind of man he is, though he do think
+himself so smart and like he owns the earth and everything he can get
+with it, and he sure gave Melanctha a ring like he really meant he
+should be married right soon with it, only Sam, I don't ever like it
+the way Melanctha is going. When she is engaged to him Sam, she ain't
+not right to take on so excited. That ain't no decent kind of a way a
+girl ever should be acting. There ain't no kind of a man going stand
+that, not like I knows men Sam, and I sure does know them. I knows
+them white and I knows them colored, for I was raised by white folks,
+and they don't none of them like a girl to act so. That's all right to
+be so when you is just only loving, but it ain't no ways right to be
+acting so when you is engaged to him, and when he says, all right he
+get really regularly married to you. You see Sam I am right like I am
+always and I knows it. Jem Richards, he ain't going to the last to get
+real married, not if I knows it right, the way Melanctha now is acting
+to him. Rings or anything ain't nothing to them, and they don't never
+do no good for them, when a girl acts foolish like Melanctha always
+now is acting. I certainly will be right sorry Sam, if Melanctha has
+real bad trouble come now to her, but I certainly don't no ways like
+it Sam the kind of way Melanctha is acting to him. I don't never say
+nothing to her Sam. I just listens to what she is saying always, and
+I thinks it out like I am telling to you Sam but I don't never say
+nothing no more now to Melanctha. Melanctha didn't say nothing to me
+about that Jem Richards till she was all like finished with him, and
+I never did like it Sam, much, the way she was acting, not coming
+here never when she first ran with those men and met him. And I didn't
+never say nothing to her, Sam, about it, and it ain't nothing ever to
+me, only I don't never no more want to say nothing to her, so I just
+listens to what she got to tell like she wants it. No Sam, I don't
+never want to say nothing to her. Melanctha just got to go her own
+way, not as I want to see her have bad trouble ever come hard to her,
+only it ain't in me never Sam, after Melanctha did so, ever to say
+nothing more to her how she should be acting. You just see Sam like I
+tell you, what way Jem Richards will act to her, you see Sam I just am
+right like I always am when I knows it."
+
+Melanctha Herbert never thought she could ever again be in trouble.
+Melanctha's joy had made her foolish.
+
+And now Jem Richards had some bad trouble with his betting. Melanctha
+sometimes felt now when she was with him that there was something
+wrong inside him. Melanctha knew he had had trouble with his betting
+but Melanctha never felt that that could make any difference to them.
+
+Melanctha once had told Jem, sure he knew she always would love to be
+with him, if he was in jail or only just a beggar. Now Melanctha
+said to him, "Sure you know Jem that it don't never make any kind of
+difference you're having any kind of trouble, you just try me Jem and
+be game, don't look so worried to me. Jem sure I know you love me like
+I love you always, and its all I ever could be wanting Jem to me, just
+your wanting me always to be with you. I get married Jem to you
+soon ever as you can want me, if you once say it Jem to me. It ain't
+nothing to me ever, anything like having any money Jem, why you look
+so worried to me."
+
+Melanctha Herbert's love had surely made her mad and foolish. She
+thrust it always deep into Jem Richards and now that he had trouble
+with his betting, Jem had no way that he ever wanted to be made to
+feel it. Jem Richards never could want to marry any girl while he had
+trouble. That was no way a man like him should do it. Melanctha's love
+had made her mad and foolish, she should be silent now and let him do
+it. Jem Richards was not a kind of man to want a woman to be strong to
+him, when he was in trouble with his betting. That was not the kind of
+a time when a man like him needed to have it.
+
+Melanctha needed so badly to have it, this love which she had always
+wanted, she did not know what she should do to save it. Melanctha saw
+now, Jem Richards always had something wrong inside him. Melanctha
+soon dared not ask him. Jem was busy now, he had to sell things and
+see men to raise money. Jem could not meet Melanctha now so often.
+
+It was lucky for Melanctha Herbert that Rose Johnson was coming now to
+have her baby. It had always been understood between them, Rose should
+come and stay then in the house where Melanctha lived with an old
+colored woman, so that Rose could have the Doctor from the hospital
+near by to help her, and Melanctha there to take care of her the way
+Melanctha always used to do it.
+
+Melanctha was very good now to Rose Johnson. Melanctha did everything
+that any woman could, she tended Rose, and she was patient,
+submissive, soothing and untiring, while the sullen, childish,
+cowardly, black Rosie grumbled, and fussed, and howled, and made
+herself to be an abomination and like a simple beast.
+
+All this time Melanctha was always being every now and then with Jem
+Richards. Melanctha was beginning to be stronger with Jem Richards.
+Melanctha was never so strong and sweet and in her nature as when she
+was deep in trouble, when she was fighting so with all she had, she
+could not do any foolish thing with her nature.
+
+Always now Melanctha Herbert came back again to be nearer to Rose
+Johnson. Always now Melanctha would tell all about her troubles to
+Rose Johnson. Rose had begun now a little again to advise her.
+
+Melanctha always told Rose now about the talks she had with Jem
+Richards, talks where they neither of them liked very well what the
+other one was saying. Melanctha did not know what it was Jem Richards
+wanted. All Melanctha knew was, he did not like it when she wanted to
+be good friends and get really married, and then when Melanctha would
+say, "all right, I never wear your ring no more Jem, we ain't not any
+more to meet ever like we ever going to get really regular married,"
+then Jem did not like it either. What was it Jem Richards really
+wanted?
+
+Melanctha stopped wearing Jem's ring on her finger. Poor Melanctha,
+she wore it on a string she tied around her neck so that she could
+always feel it, but Melanctha was strong now with Jem Richards, and he
+never saw it. And sometimes Jem seemed to be awful sorry for it, and
+sometimes he seemed kind of glad of it. Melanctha never could make out
+really what it was Jem Richards wanted.
+
+There was no other woman yet to Jem, that Melanctha knew, and so she
+always trusted that Jem would come back to her, deep in his love, the
+way once he had had it and had made all the world like she once had
+never believed anybody could really make it. But Jem Richards was more
+game than Melanctha Herbert. He knew how to fight to win out, better.
+Melanctha really had already lost it, in not keeping quiet and waiting
+for Jem to do it.
+
+Jem Richards was not yet having better luck in his betting. He never
+before had had such a long time without some good coming to him in
+his betting. Sometimes Jem talked as if he wanted to go off on a trip
+somewhere and try some other place for luck with his betting. Jem
+Richards never talked as if he wanted to take Melanctha with him.
+
+And so Melanctha sometimes was really trusting, and sometimes she was
+all sick inside her with her doubting. What was it Jem really wanted
+to do with her? He did not have any other woman, in that Melanctha
+could be really trusting, and when she said no to him, no she never
+would come near him, now he did not want to have her, then Jem would
+change and swear, yes sure he did want her, now and always right here
+near him, but he never now any more said he wanted to be married soon
+to her. But then Jem Richards never would marry a girl, he said that
+very often, when he was in this kind of trouble, and now he did not
+see any way he could get out of his trouble. But Melanctha ought to
+wear his ring, sure she knew he never had loved any kind of woman like
+he loved her. Melanctha would wear the ring a little while, and then
+they would have some more trouble, and then she would say to him, no
+she certainly never would any more wear anything he gave her, and then
+she would wear it on the string so nobody could see it but she could
+always feel it on her.
+
+Poor Melanctha, surely her love had made her mad and foolish.
+
+And now Melanctha needed always more and more to be with Rose Johnson,
+and Rose had commenced again to advise her, but Rose could not help
+her. There was no way now that anybody could advise her. The time when
+Melanctha could have changed it with Jem Richards was now all past
+for her. Rose knew it, and Melanctha too, she knew it, and it almost
+killed her to let herself believe it.
+
+The only comfort Melanctha ever had now was waiting on Rose till
+she was so tired she could hardly stand it. Always Melanctha did
+everything Rose ever wanted. Sam Johnson began now to be very gentle
+and a little tender to Melanctha. She was so good to Rose and Sam was
+so glad to have her there to help Rose and to do things and to be a
+comfort to her.
+
+Rose had a hard time to bring her baby to its birth and Melanctha did
+everything that any woman could.
+
+The baby though it was healthy after it was born did not live long.
+Rose Johnson was careless and negligent and selfish and when Melanctha
+had to leave for a few days the baby died. Rose Johnson had liked her
+baby well enough and perhaps she just forgot it for a while, anyway
+the child was dead and Rose and Sam were very sorry, but then these
+things came so often in the negro world in Bridgepoint that they
+neither of them thought about it very long. When Rose had become
+strong again she went back to her house with Sam. And Sam Johnson was
+always now very gentle and kind and good to Melanctha who had been so
+good to Rose in her bad trouble.
+
+Melanctha Herbert's troubles with Jem Richards were never getting any
+better. Jem always now had less and less time to be with her. When
+Jem was with Melanctha now he was good enough to her. Jem Richards was
+worried with his betting. Never since Jem had first begun to make a
+living had he ever had so much trouble for such a long time together
+with his betting. Jem Richards was good enough now to Melanctha but he
+had not much strength to give her. Melanctha could never any more now
+make him quarrel with her. Melanctha never now could complain of his
+treatment of her, for surely, he said it always by his actions to her,
+surely she must know how a man was when he had trouble on his mind
+with trying to make things go a little better.
+
+Sometimes Jem and Melanctha had long talks when they neither of
+them liked very well what the other one was saying, but mostly now
+Melanctha could not make Jem Richards quarrel with her, and more and
+more, Melanctha could not find any way to make it right to blame him
+for the trouble she now always had inside her. Jem was good to her,
+and she knew, for he told her, that he had trouble all the time now
+with his betting. Melanctha knew very well that for her it was all
+wrong inside Jem Richards, but Melanctha had now no way that she could
+really reach him.
+
+Things between Melanctha and Jem Richards were now never getting any
+better. Melanctha now more and more needed to be with Rose Johnson.
+Rose still liked to have Melanctha come to her house and do things
+for her, and Rose liked to grumble to her and to scold her and to tell
+Melanctha what was the way Melanctha always should be doing so
+she could make things come out better and not always be so much in
+trouble. Sam Johnson in these days was always very good and gentle to
+Melanctha. Sam was now beginning to be very sorry for her.
+
+Jem Richards never made things any better for Melanctha. Often Jem
+would talk so as to make Melanctha almost certain that he never any
+more wanted to have her. Then Melanctha would get very blue, and she
+would say to Rose, sure she would kill herself, for that certainly now
+was the best way she could do.
+
+Rose Johnson never saw it the least bit that way. "I don't see
+Melanctha why you should talk like you would kill yourself just
+because you're blue. I'd never kill myself Melanctha cause I was blue.
+I'd maybe kill somebody else but I'd never kill myself. If I ever
+killed myself, Melanctha it'd be by accident and if I ever killed
+myself by accident, Melanctha, I'd be awful sorry. And that certainly
+is the way you should feel it Melanctha, now you hear me, not just
+talking foolish like you always do. It certainly is only your way just
+always being foolish makes you all that trouble to come to you always
+now, Melanctha, and I certainly right well knows that. You certainly
+never can learn no way Melanctha ever with all I certainly been
+telling to you, ever since I know you good, that it ain't never no way
+like you do always is the right way you be acting ever and talking,
+the way I certainly always have seen you do so Melanctha always. I
+certainly am right Melanctha about them ways you have to do it, and
+I knows it; but you certainly never can noways learn to act right
+Melanctha, I certainly do know that, I certainly do my best Melanctha
+to help you with it only you certainly never do act right Melanctha,
+not to nobody ever, I can see it. You never act right by me Melanctha
+no more than by everybody. I never say nothing to you Melanctha when
+you do so, for I certainly never do like it when I just got to say it
+to you, but you just certainly done with that Jem Richards you always
+say wanted real bad to be married to you, just like I always said to
+Sam you certainly was going to do it. And I certainly am real kind of
+sorry like for you Melanctha, but you certainly had ought to have come
+to see me to talk to you, when you first was engaged to him so I could
+show you, and now you got all this trouble come to you Melanctha
+like I certainly know you always catch it. It certainly ain't never
+Melanctha I ain't real sorry to see trouble come so hard to you, but
+I certainly can see Melanctha it all is always just the way you always
+be having it in you not never to do right. And now you always talk
+like you just kill yourself because you are so blue, that certainly
+never is Melanctha, no kind of a way for any decent kind of a girl to
+do."
+
+Rose had begun to be strong now to scold Melanctha and she was
+impatient very often with her, but Rose could now never any more be a
+help to her. Melanctha Herbert never could know now what it was right
+she should do. Melanctha always wanted to have Jem Richards with her
+and now he never seemed to want her, and what could Melanctha do.
+Surely she was right now when she said she would just kill herself,
+for that was the only way now she could do.
+
+Sam Johnson always, more and more, was good and gentle to Melanctha.
+Poor Melanctha, she was so good and sweet to do anything anybody ever
+wanted, and Melanctha always liked it if she could have peace and
+quiet, and always she could only find new ways to be in trouble. Sam
+often said this now to Rose about Melanctha.
+
+"I certainly don't never want Sam to say bad things about Melanctha,
+for she certainly always do have most awful kind of trouble come hard
+to her, but I never can say I like it real right Sam the way Melanctha
+always has to do it. Its now just the same with her like it is always
+she has got to do it, now the way she is with that Jem Richards. He
+certainly now don't never want to have her but Melanctha she ain't got
+no right kind of spirit. No Sam I don't never like the way any more
+Melanctha is acting to him, and then Sam, she ain't never real right
+honest, the way she always should do it. She certainly just don't kind
+of never Sam tell right what way she is doing with it. I don't never
+like to say nothing Sam no more to her about the way she always has
+to be acting. She always say, yes all right Rose, I do the way you say
+it, and then Sam she don't never noways do it. She certainly is right
+sweet and good, Sam, is Melanctha, nobody ever can hear me say she
+ain't always ready to do things for everybody anyway she ever can see
+to do it, only Sam some ways she never does act real right ever, and
+some ways, Sam, she ain't ever real honest with it. And Sam sometimes
+I hear awful kind of things she been doing, some girls know about her
+how she does it, and sometimes they tell me what kind of ways she
+has to do it, and Sam it certainly do seem to me like more and more I
+certainly am awful afraid Melanctha never will come to any good.
+And then Sam, sometimes, you hear it, she always talk like she kill
+herself all the time she is so blue, and Sam that certainly never is
+no kind of way any decent girl ever had ought to do. You see Sam, how
+I am right like I always is when I knows it. You just be careful, Sam,
+now you hear me, you be careful Sam sure, I tell you, Melanctha more
+and more I see her I certainly do feel Melanctha no way is really
+honest. You be careful, Sam now, like I tell you, for I knows it, now
+you hear to me, Sam, what I tell you, for I certainly always is right,
+Sam, when I knows it."
+
+At first Sam tried a little to defend Melanctha, and Sam always was
+good and gentle to her, and Sam liked the ways Melanctha had to be
+quiet to him, and to always listen as if she was learning, when she
+was there and heard him talking, and then Sam liked the sweet way she
+always did everything so nicely for him; but Sam never liked to fight
+with anybody ever, and surely Rose knew best about Melanctha and
+anyway Sam never did really care much about Melanctha. Her mystery
+never had had any interest for him. Sam liked it that she was sweet
+to him and that she always did everything Rose ever wanted that she
+should be doing. But Melanctha never would be important to him. All
+Sam ever wanted was to have a little house and to live regular and to
+work hard and to come home to his dinner, when he was tired with his
+working and by and by he wanted to have some children all his own to
+be good to, and so Sam was real sorry for Melanctha, she was so good
+and so sweet always to them, and Jem Richards was a bad man to behave
+so to her, but that was always the way a girl got it when she liked
+that kind of fast fellow. Anyhow Melanctha was Rose's friend, and Sam
+never cared to have anything to do with the kind of trouble always
+came to women, when they wanted to have men, who never could know how
+to behave good and steady to their women.
+
+And so Sam never said much to Rose about Melanctha. Sam was always
+very gentle to her, but now he began less and less to see her. Soon
+Melanctha never came any more to the house to see Rose and Sam never
+asked Rose anything about her.
+
+Melanctha Herbert was beginning now to come less and less to the house
+to be with Rose Johnson. This was because Rose seemed always less and
+less now to want her, and Rose would not let Melanctha now do things
+for her. Melanctha was always humble to her and Melanctha always
+wanted in every way she could to do things for her. Rose said no,
+she guessed she do that herself like she likes to have it better.
+Melanctha is real good to stay so long to help her, but Rose guessed
+perhaps Melanctha better go home now, Rose don't need nobody to help
+her now, she is feeling real strong, not like just after she had all
+that trouble with the baby, and then Sam, when he comes home for his
+dinner he likes it when Rose is all alone there just to give him his
+dinner. Sam always is so tired now, like he always is in the summer,
+so many people always on the steamer, and they make so much work so
+Sam is real tired now, and he likes just to eat his dinner and never
+have people in the house to be a trouble to him.
+
+Each day Rose treated Melanctha more and more as if she never wanted
+Melanctha any more to come there to the house to see her. Melanctha
+dared not ask Rose why she acted in this way to her. Melanctha badly
+needed to have Rose always there to save her. Melanctha wanted badly
+to cling to her and Rose had always been so solid for her. Melanctha
+did not dare to ask Rose if she now no longer wanted her to come and
+see her.
+
+Melanctha now never any more had Sam to be gentle to her. Rose always
+sent Melanctha away from her before it was time for Sam to come home
+to her. One day Melanctha had stayed a little longer, for Rose
+that day had been good to let Melanctha begin to do things for her.
+Melanctha then left her and Melanctha met Sam Johnson who stopped a
+minute to speak kindly to her.
+
+The next day Rose Johnson would not let Melanctha come in to her. Rose
+stood on the steps, and there she told Melanctha what she thought now
+of her.
+
+"I guess Melanctha it certainly ain't no ways right for you to come
+here no more just to see me. I certainly don't Melanctha no ways like
+to be a trouble to you. I certainly think Melanctha I get along better
+now when I don't have nobody like you are, always here to help me, and
+Sam he do so good now with his working, he pay a little girl something
+to come every day to help me. I certainly do think Melanctha I don't
+never want you no more to come here just to see me." "Why Rose, what
+I ever done to you, I certainly don't think you is right Rose to be so
+bad now to me." "I certainly don't no ways Melanctha Herbert think you
+got any right ever to be complaining the way I been acting to you. I
+certainly never do think Melanctha Herbert, you hear me, nobody
+ever been more patient to you than I always been to like you, only
+Melanctha, I hear more things now so awful bad about you, everybody
+always is telling to me what kind of a way you always have been doing
+so much, and me always so good to you, and you never no ways, knowing
+how to be honest to me. No Melanctha it ain't ever in me, not to want
+you to have good luck come to you, and I like it real well Melanctha
+when you some time learn how to act the way it is decent and right
+for a girl to be doing, but I don't no ways ever like it the kind of
+things everybody tell me now about you. No Melanctha, I can't never
+any more trust you. I certainly am real sorry to have never any more
+to see you, but there ain't no other way, I ever can be acting to
+you. That's all I ever got any more to say to you now Melanctha." "But
+Rose, deed; I certainly don't know, no more than the dead, nothing I
+ever done to make you act so to me. Anybody say anything bad about
+me Rose, to you, they just a pack of liars to you, they certainly
+is Rose, I tell you true. I certainly never done nothing I ever been
+ashamed to tell you. Why you act so bad to me Rose. Sam he certainly
+don't think ever like you do, and Rose I always do everything I can,
+you ever want me to do for you." "It ain't never no use standing there
+talking, Melanctha Herbert. I just can tell it to you, and Sam, he
+don't know nothing about women ever the way they can be acting. I
+certainly am very sorry Melanctha, to have to act so now to you, but I
+certainly can't do no other way with you, when you do things always so
+bad, and everybody is talking so about you. It ain't no use to you
+to stand there and say it different to me Melanctha. I certainly am
+always right Melanctha Herbert, the way I certainly always have been
+when I knows it, to you. No Melanctha, it just is, you never can have
+no kind of a way to act right, the way a decent girl has to do, and I
+done my best always to be telling it to you Melanctha Herbert, but it
+don't never do no good to tell nobody how to act right; they certainly
+never can learn when they ain't got no sense right to know it, and you
+never have no sense right Melanctha to be honest, and I ain't never
+wishing no harm to you ever Melanctha Herbert, only I don't never want
+any more to see you come here. I just say to you now, like I always
+been saying to you, you don't know never the right way, any kind of
+decent girl has to be acting, and so Melanctha Herbert, me and Sam, we
+don't never any more want you to be setting your foot in my house
+here Melanctha Herbert, I just tell you. And so you just go along now,
+Melanctha Herbert, you hear me, and I don't never wish no harm to come
+to you."
+
+Rose Johnson went into her house and closed the door behind her.
+Melanctha stood like one dazed, she did not know how to bear this blow
+that almost killed her. Slowly then Melanctha went away without even
+turning to look behind her.
+
+Melanctha Herbert was all sore and bruised inside her. Melanctha had
+needed Rose always to believe her, Melanctha needed Rose always to let
+her cling to her, Melanctha wanted badly to have somebody who could
+make her always feel a little safe inside her, and now Rose had sent
+her from her. Melanctha wanted Rose more than she had ever wanted all
+the others. Rose always was so simple, solid, decent, for her. And now
+Rose had cast her from her. Melanctha was lost, and all the world went
+whirling in a mad weary dance around her.
+
+Melanctha Herbert never had any strength alone ever to feel safe
+inside her. And now Rose Johnson had cast her from her, and Melanctha
+could never any more be near her. Melanctha Herbert knew now, way
+inside her, that she was lost, and nothing any more could ever help
+her.
+
+Melanctha went that night to meet Jem Richards who had promised to be
+at the old place to meet her. Jem Richards was absent in his manner to
+her. By and by he began to talk to her, about the trip he was going
+to take soon, to see if he could get some luck back in his betting.
+Melanctha trembled, was Jem too now going to leave her. Jem Richards
+talked some more then to her, about the bad luck he always had now,
+and how he needed to go away to see if he could make it come out any
+better.
+
+Then Jem stopped, and then he looked straight at Melanctha.
+
+"Tell me Melanctha right and true, you don't care really nothing more
+about me now Melanctha," he said to her.
+
+"Why you ask me that, Jem Richards," said Melanctha.
+
+"Why I ask you that Melanctha, God Almighty, because I just don't give
+a damn now for you any more Melanctha. That the reason I was asking."
+
+Melanctha never could have for this an answer. Jem Richards waited and
+then he went away and left her.
+
+Melanctha Herbert never again saw Jem Richards. Melanctha never again
+saw Rose Johnson, and it was hard to Melanctha never any more to see
+her. Rose Johnson had worked in to be the deepest of all Melanctha's
+emotions.
+
+"No, I don't never see Melanctha Herbert no more now," Rose would say
+to anybody who asked her about Melanctha. "No, Melanctha she never
+comes here no more now, after we had all that trouble with her acting
+so bad with them kind of men she liked so much to be with. She don't
+never come to no good Melanctha Herbert don't, and me and Sam don't
+want no more to see her. She didn't do right ever the way I told her.
+Melanctha just wouldn't, and I always said it to her, if she don't be
+more kind of careful, the way she always had to be acting, I never
+did want no more she should come here in my house no more to see me. I
+ain't no ways ever against any girl having any kind of a way, to have
+a good time like she wants it, but not that kind of a way Melanctha
+always had to do it. I expect some day Melanctha kill herself, when
+she act so bad like she do always, and then she got so awful blue.
+Melanctha always says that's the only way she ever can think it a easy
+way for her to do. No, I always am real sorry for Melanctha, she never
+was no just common kind of nigger, but she don't never know not with
+all the time I always was telling it to her, no she never no way could
+learn, what was the right way she should do. I certainly don't never
+want no kind of harm to come bad to Melanctha, but I certainly do
+think she will most kill herself some time, the way she always say it
+would be easy way for her to do. I never see nobody ever could be so
+awful blue."
+
+But Melanctha Herbert never really killed herself because she was so
+blue, though often she thought this would be really the best way for
+her to do. Melanctha never killed herself, she only got a bad fever
+and went into the hospital where they took good care of her and cured
+her.
+
+When Melanctha was well again, she took a place and began to work
+and to live regular. Then Melanctha got very sick again; she began to
+cough and sweat and be so weak she could not stand to do her work.
+
+Melanctha went back to the hospital, and there the Doctor told her she
+had the consumption, and before long she would surely die. They sent
+her where she would be taken care of, a home for poor consumptives,
+and there Melanctha stayed until she died.
+
+FINIS
+
+
+
+
+THE GENTLE LENA
+
+Lena was patient, gentle, sweet and german. She had been a servant for
+four years and had liked it very well.
+
+Lena had been brought from Germany to Bridgepoint by a cousin and had
+been in the same place there for four years.
+
+This place Lena had found very good. There was a pleasant, unexacting
+mistress and her children, and they all liked Lena very well.
+
+There was a cook there who scolded Lena a great deal but Lena's german
+patience held no suffering and the good incessant woman really only
+scolded so for Lena's good.
+
+Lena's german voice when she knocked and called the family in the
+morning was as awakening, as soothing, and as appealing, as a delicate
+soft breeze in midday, summer. She stood in the hallway every morning
+a long time in her unexpectant and unsuffering german patience calling
+to the young ones to get up. She would call and wait a long time and
+then call again, always even, gentle, patient, while the young ones
+fell back often into that precious, tense, last bit of sleeping that
+gives a strength of joyous vigor in the young, over them that have
+come to the readiness of middle age, in their awakening.
+
+Lena had good hard work all morning, and on the pleasant, sunny
+afternoons she was sent out into the park to sit and watch the little
+two year old girl baby of the family.
+
+The other girls, all them that make the pleasant, lazy crowd, that
+watch the children in the sunny afternoons out in the park, all liked
+the simple, gentle, german Lena very well. They all, too, liked very
+well to tease her, for it was so easy to make her mixed and troubled,
+and all helpless, for she could never learn to know just what the
+other quicker girls meant by the queer things they said.
+
+The two or three of these girls, the ones that Lena always sat with,
+always worked together to confuse her. Still it was pleasant, all this
+life for Lena.
+
+The little girl fell down sometimes and cried, and then Lena had to
+soothe her. When the little girl would drop her hat, Lena had to pick
+it up and hold it. When the little girl was bad and threw away her
+playthings, Lena told her she could not have them and took them from
+her to hold until the little girl should need them.
+
+It was all a peaceful life for Lena, almost as peaceful as a pleasant
+leisure. The other girls, of course, did tease her, but then that only
+made a gentle stir within her.
+
+Lena was a brown and pleasant creature, brown as blonde races
+often have them brown, brown, not with the yellow or the red or the
+chocolate brown of sun burned countries, but brown with the clear
+color laid flat on the light toned skin beneath, the plain, spare
+brown that makes it right to have been made with hazel eyes, and not
+too abundant straight, brown hair, hair that only later deepens itself
+into brown from the straw yellow of a german childhood.
+
+Lena had the flat chest, straight back and forward falling shoulders
+of the patient and enduring working woman, though her body was now
+still in its milder girlhood and work had not yet made these lines too
+clear.
+
+The rarer feeling that there was with Lena, showed in all the even
+quiet of her body movements, but in all it was the strongest in the
+patient, old-world ignorance, and earth made pureness of her brown,
+flat, soft featured face. Lena had eyebrows that were a wondrous
+thickness. They were black, and spread, and very cool, with their dark
+color and their beauty, and beneath them were her hazel eyes, simple
+and human, with the earth patience of the working, gentle, german
+woman.
+
+Yes it was all a peaceful life for Lena. The other girls, of course,
+did tease her, but then that only made a gentle stir within her.
+
+"What you got on your finger Lena," Mary, one of the girls she always
+sat with, one day asked her. Mary was good natured, quick, intelligent
+and Irish.
+
+Lena had just picked up the fancy paper made accordion that the little
+girl had dropped beside her, and was making it squeak sadly as she
+pulled it with her brown, strong, awkward finger.
+
+"Why, what is it, Mary, paint?" said Lena, putting her finger to her
+mouth to taste the dirt spot.
+
+"That's awful poison Lena, don't you know?" said Mary, "that green
+paint that you just tasted."
+
+Lena had sucked a good deal of the green paint from her finger. She
+stopped and looked hard at the finger. She did not know just how much
+Mary meant by what she said.
+
+"Ain't it poison, Nellie, that green paint, that Lena sucked just
+now," said Mary. "Sure it is Lena, its real poison, I ain't foolin'
+this time anyhow."
+
+Lena was a little troubled. She looked hard at her finger where the
+paint was, and she wondered if she had really sucked it.
+
+It was still a little wet on the edges and she rubbed it off a long
+time on the inside of her dress, and in between she wondered and
+looked at the finger and thought, was it really poison that she had
+just tasted.
+
+"Ain't it too bad, Nellie, Lena should have sucked that," Mary said.
+
+Nellie smiled and did not answer. Nellie was dark and thin, and looked
+Italian. She had a big mass of black hair that she wore high up on her
+head, and that made her face look very fine.
+
+Nellie always smiled and did not say much, and then she would look at
+Lena to perplex her.
+
+And so they all three sat with their little charges in the pleasant
+sunshine a long time. And Lena would often look at her finger and
+wonder if it was really poison that she had just tasted and then she
+would rub her finger on her dress a little harder.
+
+Mary laughed at her and teased her and Nellie smiled a little and
+looked queerly at her.
+
+Then it came time, for it was growing cooler, for them to drag
+together the little ones, who had begun to wander, and to take each
+one back to its own mother. And Lena never knew for certain whether it
+was really poison, that green stuff that she had tasted.
+
+During these four years of service, Lena always spent her Sundays out
+at the house of her aunt, who had brought her four years before to
+Bridgepoint.
+
+This aunt, who had brought Lena, four years before, to Bridgepoint,
+was a hard, ambitious, well meaning, german woman. Her husband was a
+grocer in the town, and they were very well to do. Mrs. Haydon, Lena's
+aunt, had two daughters who were just beginning as young ladies,
+and she had a little boy who was not honest and who was very hard to
+manage.
+
+Mrs. Haydon was a short, stout, hard built, german woman. She always
+hit the ground very firmly and compactly as she walked. Mrs. Haydon
+was all a compact and well hardened mass, even to her face, reddish
+and darkened from its early blonde, with its hearty, shiny cheeks, and
+doubled chin well covered over with the up roll from her short, square
+neck.
+
+The two daughters, who were fourteen and fifteen, looked like
+unkneaded, unformed mounds of flesh beside her.
+
+The elder girl, Mathilda, was blonde, and slow, and simple, and quite
+fat. The younger, Bertha, who was almost as tall as her sister, was
+dark, and quicker, and she was heavy, too, but not really fat.
+
+These two girls the mother had brought up very firmly. They were well
+taught for their position. They were always both well dressed, in the
+same kinds of hats and dresses, as is becoming in two german sisters.
+The mother liked to have them dressed in red. Their best clothes were
+red dresses, made of good heavy cloth, and strongly trimmed with braid
+of a glistening black. They had stiff, red felt hats, trimmed with
+black velvet ribbon, and a bird. The mother dressed matronly, in a
+bonnet and in black, always sat between her two big daughters, firm,
+directing, and repressed.
+
+The only weak spot in this good german woman's conduct was the way she
+spoiled her boy, who was not honest and who was very hard to manage.
+
+The father of this family was a decent, quiet, heavy, and
+uninterfering german man. He tried to cure the boy of his bad ways,
+and make him honest, but the mother could not make herself let the
+father manage, and so the boy was brought up very badly.
+
+Mrs. Haydon's girls were now only just beginning as young ladies, and
+so to get her niece, Lena, married, was just then the most important
+thing that Mrs. Haydon had to do.
+
+Mrs. Haydon had four years before gone to Germany to see her parents,
+and had taken the girls with her. This visit had been for Mrs. Haydon
+most successful, though her children had not liked it very well.
+
+Mrs. Haydon was a good and generous woman, and she patronized her
+parents grandly, and all the cousins who came from all about to see
+her. Mrs. Haydon's people were of the middling class of farmers. They
+were not peasants, and they lived in a town of some pretension, but
+it all seemed very poor and smelly to Mrs. Haydon's american born
+daughters.
+
+Mrs. Haydon liked it all. It was familiar, and then here she was so
+wealthy and important. She listened and decided, and advised all of
+her relations how to do things better. She arranged their present and
+their future for them, and showed them how in the past they had been
+wrong in all their methods.
+
+Mrs. Haydon's only trouble was with her two daughters, whom she could
+not make behave well to her parents. The two girls were very nasty to
+all their numerous relations. Their mother could hardly make them kiss
+their grandparents, and every day the girls would get a scolding. But
+then Mrs. Haydon was so very busy that she did not have time to really
+manage her stubborn daughters.
+
+These hard working, earth-rough german cousins were to these american
+born children, ugly and dirty, and as far below them as were italian
+or negro workmen, and they could not see how their mother could ever
+bear to touch them, and then all the women dressed so funny, and were
+worked all rough and different.
+
+The two girls stuck up their noses at them all, and always talked in
+English to each other about how they hated all these people and how
+they wished their mother would not do so. The girls could talk some
+German, but they never chose to use it.
+
+It was her eldest brother's family that most interested Mrs. Haydon.
+Here there were eight children, and out of the eight, five of them
+were girls.
+
+Mrs. Haydon thought it would be a fine thing to take one of these
+girls back with her to Bridgepoint and get her well started. Everybody
+liked that she should do so and they were all willing that it should
+be Lena.
+
+Lena was the second girl in her large family. She was at this time
+just seventeen years old. Lena was not an important daughter in the
+family. She was always sort of dreamy and not there. She worked hard
+and went very regularly at it, but even good work never seemed to
+bring her near.
+
+Lena's age just suited Mrs. Haydon's purpose. Lena could first go
+out to service, and learn how to do things, and then, when she was a
+little older, Mrs. Haydon could get her a good husband. And then Lena
+was so still and docile, she would never want to do things her own
+way. And then, too, Mrs. Haydon, with all her hardness had wisdom, and
+she could feel the rarer strain there was in Lena.
+
+Lena was willing to go with Mrs. Haydon. Lena did not like her german
+life very well. It was not the hard work but the roughness that
+disturbed her. The people were not gentle, and the men when they were
+glad were very boisterous, and would lay hold of her and roughly tease
+her. They were good people enough around her, but it was all harsh and
+dreary for her.
+
+Lena did not really know that she did not like it. She did not know
+that she was always dreamy and not there. She did not think whether it
+would be different for her away off there in Bridgepoint. Mrs. Haydon
+took her and got her different kinds of dresses, and then took her
+with them to the steamer. Lena did not really know what it was that
+had happened to her.
+
+Mrs. Haydon, and her daughters, and Lena traveled second class on the
+steamer. Mrs. Haydon's daughters hated that their mother should take
+Lena. They hated to have a cousin, who was to them, little better than
+a nigger, and then everybody on the steamer there would see her. Mrs.
+Haydon's daughters said things like this to their mother, but she
+never stopped to hear them, and the girls did not dare to make their
+meaning very clear. And so they could only go on hating Lena hard,
+together. They could not stop her from going back with them to
+Bridgepoint.
+
+Lena was very sick on the voyage. She thought, surely before it was
+over that she would die. She was so sick she could not even wish that
+she had not started. She could not eat, she could not moan, she was
+just blank and scared, and sure that every minute she would die. She
+could not hold herself in, nor help herself in her trouble. She just
+staid where she had been put, pale, and scared, and weak, and sick,
+and sure that she was going to die.
+
+Mathilda and Bertha Haydon had no trouble from having Lena for a
+cousin on the voyage, until the last day that they were on the ship,
+and by that time they had made their friends and could explain.
+
+Mrs. Haydon went down every day to Lena, gave her things to make her
+better, held her head when it was needful, and generally was good and
+did her duty by her.
+
+Poor Lena had no power to be strong in such trouble. She did not know
+how to yield to her sickness nor endure. She lost all her little sense
+of being in her suffering. She was so scared, and then at her best,
+Lena, who was patient, sweet and quiet, had not self-control, nor any
+active courage.
+
+Poor Lena was so scared and weak, and every minute she was sure that
+she would die.
+
+After Lena was on land again a little while, she forgot all her bad
+suffering. Mrs. Haydon got her the good place, with the pleasant
+unexacting mistress, and her children, and Lena began to learn some
+English and soon was very happy and content.
+
+All her Sundays out Lena spent at Mrs. Haydon's house. Lena would have
+liked much better to spend her Sundays with the girls she always sat
+with, and who often asked her, and who teased her and made a
+gentle stir within her, but it never came to Lena's unexpectant and
+unsuffering german nature to do something different from what was
+expected of her, just because she would like it that way better. Mrs.
+Haydon had said that Lena was to come to her house every other Sunday,
+and so Lena always went there.
+
+Mrs. Haydon was the only one of her family who took any interest in
+Lena. Mr. Haydon did not think much of her. She was his wife's cousin
+and he was good to her, but she was for him stupid, and a little
+simple, and very dull, and sure some day to need help and to be in
+trouble. All young poor relations, who were brought from Germany to
+Bridgepoint were sure, before long, to need help and to be in trouble.
+
+The little Haydon boy was always very nasty to her. He was a hard
+child for any one to manage, and his mother spoiled him very badly.
+Mrs. Haydon's daughters as they grew older did not learn to like Lena
+any better. Lena never knew that she did not like them either. She
+did not know that she was only happy with the other quicker girls, she
+always sat with in the park, and who laughed at her and always teased
+her.
+
+Mathilda Haydon, the simple, fat, blonde, older daughter felt very
+badly that she had to say that this was her cousin Lena, this Lena who
+was little better for her than a nigger. Mathilda was an overgrown,
+slow, flabby, blonde, stupid, fat girl, just beginning as a woman;
+thick in her speech and dull and simple in her mind, and very jealous
+of all her family and of other girls, and proud that she could have
+good dresses and new hats and learn music, and hating very badly to
+have a cousin who was a common servant. And then Mathilda remembered
+very strongly that dirty nasty place that Lena came from and that
+Mathilda had so turned up her nose at, and where she had been made
+so angry because her mother scolded her and liked all those rough
+cow-smelly people.
+
+Then, too, Mathilda would get very mad when her mother had Lena at
+their parties, and when she talked about how good Lena was, to certain
+german mothers in whose sons, perhaps, Mrs. Haydon might find Lena a
+good husband. All this would make the dull, blonde, fat Mathilda very
+angry. Sometimes she would get so angry that she would, in her thick,
+slow way, and with jealous anger blazing in her light blue eyes, tell
+her mother that she did not see how she could like that nasty Lena;
+and then her mother would scold Mathilda, and tell her that she knew
+her cousin Lena was poor and Mathilda must be good to poor people.
+
+Mathilda Haydon did not like relations to be poor. She told all her
+girl friends what she thought of Lena, and so the girls would never
+talk to Lena at Mrs. Haydon's parties. But Lena in her unsuffering
+and unexpectant patience never really knew that she was slighted. When
+Mathilda was with her girls in the street or in the park and would see
+Lena, she always turned up her nose and barely nodded to her, and then
+she would tell her friends how funny her mother was to take care of
+people like that Lena, and how, back in Germany, all Lena's people
+lived just like pigs.
+
+The younger daughter, the dark, large, but not fat, Bertha Haydon, who
+was very quick in her mind, and in her ways, and who was the favorite
+with her father, did not like Lena, either. She did not like her
+because for her Lena was a fool and so stupid, and she would let those
+Irish and Italian girls laugh at her and tease her, and everybody
+always made fun of Lena, and Lena never got mad, or even had sense
+enough to know that they were all making an awful fool of her.
+
+Bertha Haydon hated people to be fools. Her father, too, thought Lena
+was a fool, and so neither the father nor the daughter ever paid
+any attention to Lena, although she came to their house every other
+Sunday.
+
+Lena did not know how all the Haydons felt. She came to her aunt's
+house all her Sunday afternoons that she had out, because Mrs. Haydon
+had told her she must do so. In the same way Lena always saved all of
+her wages. She never thought of any way to spend it. The german cook,
+the good woman who always scolded Lena, helped her to put it in the
+bank each month, as soon as she got it. Sometimes before it got into
+the bank to be taken care of, somebody would ask Lena for it. The
+little Haydon boy sometimes asked and would get it, and sometimes some
+of the girls, the ones Lena always sat with, needed some more money;
+but the german cook, who always scolded Lena, saw to it that this did
+not happen very often. When it did happen she would scold Lena very
+sharply, and for the next few months she would not let Lena touch her
+wages, but put it in the bank for her on the same day that Lena got
+it.
+
+So Lena always saved her wages, for she never thought to spend them,
+and she always went to her aunt's house for her Sundays because she
+did not know that she could do anything different.
+
+Mrs. Haydon felt more and more every year that she had done right to
+bring Lena back with her, for it was all coming out just as she had
+expected. Lena was good and never wanted her own way, she was learning
+English, and saving all her wages, and soon Mrs. Haydon would get her
+a good husband.
+
+All these four years Mrs. Haydon was busy looking around among all the
+german people that she knew for the right man to be Lena's husband,
+and now at last she was quite decided.
+
+The man Mrs. Haydon wanted for Lena was a young german-american
+tailor, who worked with his father. He was good and all the family
+were very saving, and Mrs. Haydon was sure that this would be just
+right for Lena, and then too, this young tailor always did whatever
+his father and his mother wanted.
+
+This old german tailor and his wife, the father and the mother of
+Herman Kreder, who was to marry Lena Mainz, were very thrifty, careful
+people. Herman was the only child they had left with them, and he
+always did everything they wanted. Herman was now twenty-eight years
+old, but he had never stopped being scolded and directed by his father
+and his mother. And now they wanted to see him married.
+
+Herman Kreder did not care much to get married. He was a gentle soul
+and a little fearful. He had a sullen temper, too. He was obedient to
+his father and his mother. He always did his work well. He often went
+out on Saturday nights and on Sundays, with other men. He liked it
+with them but he never became really joyous. He liked to be with men
+and he hated to have women with them. He was obedient to his mother,
+but he did not care much to get married.
+
+Mrs. Haydon and the elder Kreders had often talked the marriage over.
+They all three liked it very well. Lena would do anything that Mrs.
+Haydon wanted, and Herman was always obedient in everything to his
+father and his mother. Both Lena and Herman were saving and good
+workers and neither of them ever wanted their own way.
+
+The elder Kreders, everybody knew, had saved up all their money, and
+they were hard, good german people, and Mrs. Haydon was sure that with
+these people Lena would never be in any trouble. Mr. Haydon would not
+say anything about it. He knew old Kreder had a lot of money and owned
+some good houses, and he did not care what his wife did with that
+simple, stupid Lena, so long as she would be sure never to need help
+or to be in trouble.
+
+Lena did not care much to get married. She liked her life very well
+where she was working. She did not think much about Herman Kreder. She
+thought he was a good man and she always found him very quiet. Neither
+of them ever spoke much to the other. Lena did not care much just then
+about getting married.
+
+Mrs. Haydon spoke to Lena about it very often. Lena never answered
+anything at all. Mrs. Haydon thought, perhaps Lena did not like Herman
+Kreder. Mrs. Haydon could not believe that any girl not even Lena,
+really had no feeling about getting married.
+
+Mrs. Haydon spoke to Lena very often about Herman. Mrs. Haydon
+sometimes got very angry with Lena. She was afraid that Lena, for
+once, was going to be stubborn, now when it was all fixed right for
+her to be married.
+
+"Why you stand there so stupid, why don't you answer, Lena," said Mrs.
+Haydon one Sunday, at the end of a long talking that she was giving
+Lena about Herman Kreder, and about Lena's getting married to him.
+
+"Yes ma'am," said Lena, and then Mrs. Haydon was furious with this
+stupid Lena. "Why don't you answer with some sense, Lena, when I ask
+you if you don't like Herman Kreder. You stand there so stupid and
+don't answer just like you ain't heard a word what I been saying to
+you. I never see anybody like you, Lena. If you going to burst out at
+all, why don't you burst out sudden instead of standing there so silly
+and don't answer. And here I am so good to you, and find you a good
+husband so you can have a place to live in all your own. Answer me,
+Lena, don't you like Herman Kreder? He is a fine young fellow, almost
+too good for you, Lena, when you stand there so stupid and don't make
+no answer. There ain't many poor girls that get the chance you got now
+to get married."
+
+"Why, I do anything you say, Aunt Mathilda. Yes, I like him. He don't
+say much to me, but I guess he is a good man, and I do anything you
+say for me to do."
+
+"Well then Lena, why you stand there so silly all the time and not
+answer when I asked you."
+
+"I didn't hear you say you wanted I should say anything to you. I
+didn't know you wanted me to say nothing. I do whatever you tell me
+it's right for me to do. I marry Herman Kreder, if you want me."
+
+And so for Lena Mainz the match was made.
+
+Old Mrs. Kreder did not discuss the matter with her Herman. She never
+thought that she needed to talk such things over with him. She just
+told him about getting married to Lena Mainz who was a good worker and
+very saving and never wanted her own way, and Herman made his usual
+little grunt in answer to her.
+
+Mrs. Kreder and Mrs. Haydon fixed the day and made all the
+arrangements for the wedding and invited everybody who ought to be
+there to see them married.
+
+In three months Lena Mainz and Herman Kreder were to be married.
+
+Mrs. Haydon attended to Lena's getting all the things that she needed.
+Lena had to help a good deal with the sewing. Lena did not sew very
+well. Mrs. Haydon scolded because Lena did not do it better, but then
+she was very good to Lena, and she hired a girl to come and help her.
+Lena still stayed on with her pleasant mistress, but she spent all her
+evenings and her Sundays with her aunt and all the sewing.
+
+Mrs. Haydon got Lena some nice dresses. Lena liked that very well.
+Lena liked having new hats even better, and Mrs. Haydon had some made
+for her by a real milliner who made them very pretty.
+
+Lena was nervous these days, but she did not think much about getting
+married. She did not know really what it was, that, which was always
+coming nearer.
+
+Lena liked the place where she was with the pleasant mistress and the
+good cook, who always scolded, and she liked the girls she always sat
+with. She did not ask if she would like being married any better. She
+always did whatever her aunt said and expected, but she was always
+nervous when she saw the Kreders with their Herman. She was excited
+and she liked her new hats, and everybody teased her and every day her
+marrying was coming nearer, and yet she did not really know what it
+was, this that was about to happen to her.
+
+Herman Kreder knew more what it meant to be married and he did not
+like it very well. He did not like to see girls and he did not want
+to have to have one always near him. Herman always did everything that
+his father and his mother wanted and now they wanted that he should be
+married.
+
+Herman had a sullen temper; he was gentle and he never said much. He
+liked to go out with other men, but he never wanted that there should
+be any women with them. The men all teased him about getting married.
+Herman did not mind the teasing but he did not like very well the
+getting married and having a girl always with him.
+
+Three days before the wedding day, Herman went away to the country to
+be gone over Sunday. He and Lena were to be married Tuesday afternoon.
+When the day came Herman had not been seen or heard from.
+
+The old Kreder couple had not worried much about it. Herman always did
+everything they wanted and he would surely come back in time to get
+married. But when Monday night came, and there was no Herman, they
+went to Mrs. Haydon to tell her what had happened.
+
+Mrs. Haydon got very much excited. It was hard enough to work so as
+to get everything all ready, and then to have that silly Herman go off
+that way, so no one could tell what was going to happen. Here was Lena
+and everything all ready, and now they would have to make the wedding
+later so that they would know that Herman would be sure to be there.
+
+Mrs. Haydon was very much excited, and then she could not say much to
+the old Kreder couple. She did not want to make them angry, for she
+wanted very badly now that Lena should be married to their Herman.
+
+At last it was decided that the wedding should be put off a week
+longer. Old Mr. Kreder would go to New York to find Herman, for it was
+very likely that Herman had gone there to his married sister.
+
+Mrs. Haydon sent word around, about waiting until a week from that
+Tuesday, to everybody that had been invited, and then Tuesday morning
+she sent for Lena to come down to see her.
+
+Mrs. Haydon was very angry with poor Lena when she saw her. She
+scolded her hard because she was so foolish, and now Herman had gone
+off and nobody could tell where he had gone to, and all because Lena
+always was so dumb and silly. And Mrs. Haydon was just like a mother
+to her, and Lena always stood there so stupid and did not answer what
+anybody asked her, and Herman was so silly too, and now his father
+had to go and find him. Mrs. Haydon did not think that any old people
+should be good to their children. Their children always were so
+thankless, and never paid any attention, and older people were always
+doing things for their good. Did Lena think it gave Mrs. Haydon any
+pleasure, to work so hard to make Lena happy, and get her a good
+husband, and then Lena was so thankless and never did anything that
+anybody wanted. It was a lesson to poor Mrs. Haydon not to do things
+any more for anybody. Let everybody take care of themselves and never
+come to her with any troubles; she knew better now than to meddle to
+make other people happy. It just made trouble for her and her husband
+did not like it. He always said she was too good, and nobody ever
+thanked her for it, and there Lena was always standing stupid and not
+answering anything anybody wanted. Lena could always talk enough to
+those silly girls she liked so much, and always sat with, but who
+never did anything for her except to take away her money, and here was
+her aunt who tried so hard and was so good to her and treated her just
+like one of her own children and Lena stood there, and never made any
+answer and never tried to please her aunt, or to do anything that her
+aunt wanted. "No, it ain't no use your standin' there and cryin',
+now, Lena. Its too late now to care about that Herman. You should have
+cared some before, and then you wouldn't have to stand and cry now,
+and be a disappointment to me, and then I get scolded by my husband
+for taking care of everybody, and nobody ever thankful. I am glad you
+got the sense to feel sorry now, Lena, anyway, and I try to do what
+I can to help you out in your trouble, only you don't deserve to have
+anybody take any trouble for you. But perhaps you know better next
+time. You go home now and take care you don't spoil your clothes and
+that new hat, you had no business to be wearin' that this morning, but
+you ain't got no sense at all, Lena. I never in my life see anybody be
+so stupid."
+
+Mrs. Haydon stopped and poor Lena stood there in her hat, all trimmed
+with pretty flowers, and the tears coming out of her eyes, and Lena
+did not know what it was that she had done, only she was not going to
+be married and it was a disgrace for a girl to be left by a man on the
+very day she was to be married.
+
+Lena went home all alone, and cried in the street car.
+
+Poor Lena cried very hard all alone in the street car. She almost
+spoiled her new hat with her hitting it against the window in her
+crying. Then she remembered that she must not do so.
+
+The conductor was a kind man and he was very sorry when he saw her
+crying. "Don't feel so bad, you get another feller, you are such a
+nice girl," he said to make her cheerful. "But Aunt Mathilda said now,
+I never get married," poor Lena sobbed out for her answer. "Why you
+really got trouble like that," said the conductor, "I just said that
+now to josh you. I didn't ever think you really was left by a feller.
+He must be a stupid feller. But don't you worry, he wasn't much good
+if he could go away and leave you, lookin' to be such a nice girl. You
+just tell all your trouble to me, and I help you." The car was empty
+and the conductor sat down beside her to put his arm around her, and
+to be a comfort to her. Lena suddenly remembered where she was, and if
+she did things like that her aunt would scold her. She moved away from
+the man into the corner. He laughed, "Don't be scared," he said, "I
+wasn't going to hurt you. But you just keep up your spirit. You are a
+real nice girl, and you'll be sure to get a real good husband. Don't
+you let nobody fool you. You're all right and I don't want to scare
+you."
+
+The conductor went back to his platform to help a passenger get on
+the car. All the time Lena stayed in the street car, he would come
+in every little while and reassure her, about her not to feel so bad
+about a man who hadn't no more sense than to go away and leave her.
+She'd be sure yet to get a good man, she needn't be so worried, he
+frequently assured her.
+
+He chatted with the other passenger who had just come in, a very well
+dressed old man, and then with another who came in later, a good sort
+of a working man, and then another who came in, a nice lady, and he
+told them all about Lena's having trouble, and it was too bad there
+were men who treated a poor girl so badly. And everybody in the car
+was sorry for poor Lena and the workman tried to cheer her, and the
+old man looked sharply at her, and said she looked like a good girl,
+but she ought to be more careful and not to be so careless, and things
+like that would not happen to her, and the nice lady went and sat
+beside her and Lena liked it, though she shrank away from being near
+her.
+
+So Lena was feeling a little better when she got off the car, and the
+conductor helped her, and he called out to her, "You be sure you keep
+up a good heart now. He wasn't no good that feller and you were lucky
+for to lose him. You'll get a real man yet, one that will be better
+for you. Don't you be worried, you're a real nice girl as I ever see
+in such trouble," and the conductor shook his head and went back into
+his car to talk it over with the other passengers he had there.
+
+The german cook, who always scolded Lena, was very angry when she
+heard the story. She never did think Mrs. Haydon would do so much for
+Lena, though she was always talking so grand about what she could
+do for everybody. The good german cook always had been a little
+distrustful of her. People who always thought they were so much never
+did really do things right for anybody. Not that Mrs. Haydon wasn't
+a good woman. Mrs. Haydon was a real, good, german woman, and she
+did really mean to do well by her niece Lena. The cook knew that
+very well, and she had always said so, and she always had liked and
+respected Mrs. Haydon, who always acted very proper to her, and Lena
+was so backward, when there was a man to talk to, Mrs. Haydon did have
+hard work when she tried to marry Lena. Mrs. Haydon was a good woman,
+only she did talk sometimes too grand. Perhaps this trouble would
+make her see it wasn't always so easy to do, to make everybody do
+everything just like she wanted. The cook was very sorry now for Mrs.
+Haydon. All this must be such a disappointment, and such a worry to
+her, and she really had always been very good to Lena. But Lena had
+better go and put on her other clothes and stop all that crying. That
+wouldn't do nothing now to help her, and if Lena would be a good girl,
+and just be real patient, her aunt would make it all come out right
+yet for her. "I just tell Mrs. Aldrich, Lena, you stay here yet a
+little longer. You know she is always so good to you, Lena, and I know
+she let you, and I tell her all about that stupid Herman Kreder. I got
+no patience, Lena, with anybody who can be so stupid. You just stop
+now with your crying, Lena, and take off them good clothes and put
+them away so you don't spoil them when you need them, and you can help
+me with the dishes and everything will come off better for you. You
+see if I ain't right by what I tell you. You just stop crying now Lena
+quick, or else I scold you."
+
+Lena still choked a little and was very miserable inside her but she
+did everything just as the cook told her.
+
+The girls Lena always sat with were very sorry to see her look so sad
+with her trouble. Mary the Irish girl sometimes got very angry with
+her. Mary was always very hot when she talked to Lena's aunt Mathilda,
+who thought she was so grand, and had such stupid, stuck up daughters.
+Mary wouldn't be a fat fool like that ugly tempered Mathilda Haydon,
+not for anything anybody could ever give her. How Lena could keep on
+going there so much when they all always acted as if she was just dirt
+to them, Mary never could see. But Lena never had any sense of how she
+should make people stand round for her, and that was always all the
+trouble with her. And poor Lena, she was so stupid to be sorry for
+losing that gawky fool who didn't ever know what he wanted and just
+said "ja" to his mamma and his papa, like a baby, and was scared to
+look at a girl straight, and then sneaked away the last day like as
+if somebody was going to do something to him. Disgrace, Lena talking
+about disgrace! It was a disgrace for a girl to be seen with the likes
+of him, let alone to be married to him. But that poor Lena, she never
+did know how to show herself off for what she was really. Disgrace to
+have him go away and leave her. Mary would just like to get a chance
+to show him. If Lena wasn't worth fifteen like Herman Kreder, Mary
+would just eat her own head all up. It was a good riddance Lena had of
+that Herman Kreder and his stingy, dirty parents, and if Lena didn't
+stop crying about it,--Mary would just naturally despise her.
+
+Poor Lena, she knew very well how Mary meant it all, this she was
+always saying to her. But Lena was very miserable inside her. She felt
+the disgrace it was for a decent german girl that a man should go away
+and leave her. Lena knew very well that her aunt was right when she
+said the way Herman had acted to her was a disgrace to everyone that
+knew her. Mary and Nellie and the other girls she always sat with were
+always very good to Lena but that did not make her trouble any better.
+It was a disgrace the way Lena had been left, to any decent family,
+and that could never be made any different to her.
+
+And so the slow days wore on, and Lena never saw her Aunt Mathilda. At
+last on Sunday she got word by a boy to go and see her aunt Mathilda.
+Lena's heart beat quick for she was very nervous now with all this
+that had happened to her. She went just as quickly as she could to see
+her Aunt Mathilda.
+
+Mrs. Haydon quick, as soon as she saw Lena, began to scold her for
+keeping her aunt waiting so long for her, and for not coming in all
+the week to see her, to see if her aunt should need her, and so her
+aunt had to send a boy to tell her. But it was easy, even for Lena,
+to see that her aunt was not really angry with her. It wasn't Lena's
+fault, went on Mrs. Haydon, that everything was going to happen all
+right for her. Mrs. Haydon was very tired taking all this trouble
+for her, and when Lena couldn't even take trouble to come and see
+her aunt, to see if she needed anything to tell her. But Mrs. Haydon
+really never minded things like that when she could do things for
+anybody. She was tired now, all the trouble she had been taking to
+make things right for Lena, but perhaps now Lena heard it she would
+learn a little to be thankful to her. "You get all ready to be married
+Tuesday, Lena, you hear me," said Mrs. Haydon to her. "You come here
+Tuesday morning and I have everything all ready for you. You wear your
+new dress I got you, and your hat with all them flowers on it, and
+you be very careful coming you don't get your things all dirty, you so
+careless all the time, Lena, and not thinking, and you act sometimes
+you never got no head at all on you. You go home now, and you tell
+your Mrs. Aldrich that you leave her Tuesday. Don't you go forgetting
+now, Lena, anything I ever told you what you should do to be careful.
+You be a good girl, now Lena. You get married Tuesday to Herman
+Kreder." And that was all Lena ever knew of what had happened all this
+week to Herman Kreder. Lena forgot there was anything to know about
+it. She was really to be married Tuesday, and her Aunt Mathilda said
+she was a good girl, and now there was no disgrace left upon her.
+
+Lena now fell back into the way she always had of being always dreamy
+and not there, the way she always had been, except for the few days
+she was so excited, because she had been left by a man the very day
+she was to have been married. Lena was a little nervous all these last
+days, but she did not think much about what it meant for her to be
+married.
+
+Herman Kreder was not so content about it. He was quiet and was sullen
+and he knew he could not help it. He knew now he just had to let
+himself get married. It was not that Herman did not like Lena Mainz.
+She was as good as any other girl could be for him. She was a little
+better perhaps than other girls he saw, she was so very quiet, but
+Herman did not like to always have to have a girl around him. Herman
+had always done everything that his mother and his father wanted. His
+father had found him in New York, where Herman had gone to be with his
+married sister.
+
+Herman's father when he had found him coaxed Herman a long time and
+went on whole days with his complaining to him, always troubled but
+gentle and quite patient with him, and always he was worrying to
+Herman about what was the right way his boy Herman should always do,
+always whatever it was his mother ever wanted from him, and always
+Herman never made him any answer.
+
+Old Mr. Kreder kept on saying to him, he did not see how Herman could
+think now, it could be any different. When you make a bargain you just
+got to stick right to it, that was the only way old Mr. Kreder could
+ever see it, and saying you would get married to a girl and she got
+everything all ready, that was a bargain just like one you make in
+business and Herman he had made it, and now Herman he would just have
+to do it, old Mr. Kreder didn't see there was any other way a good boy
+like his Herman had, to do it. And then too that Lena Mainz was such
+a nice girl and Herman hadn't ought to really give his father so much
+trouble and make him pay out all that money, to come all the way to
+New York just to find him, and they both lose all that time from their
+working, when all Herman had to do was just to stand up, for an hour,
+and then he would be all right married, and it would be all over for
+him, and then everything at home would never be any different to him.
+
+And his father went on; there was his poor mother saying always how
+her Herman always did everything before she ever wanted, and now just
+because he got notions in him, and wanted to show people how he could
+be stubborn, he was making all this trouble for her, and making them
+pay all that money just to run around and find him. "You got no idea
+Herman, how bad mama is feeling about the way you been acting Herman,"
+said old Mr. Kreder to him. "She says she never can understand how
+you can be so thankless Herman. It hurts her very much you been so
+stubborn, and she find you such a nice girl for you, like Lena Mainz
+who is always just so quiet and always saves up all her wages, and she
+never wanting her own way at all like some girls are always all the
+time to have it, and you mama trying so hard, just so you could be
+comfortable Herman to be married, and then you act so stubborn Herman.
+You like all young people Herman, you think only about yourself, and
+what you are just wanting, and your mama she is thinking only what is
+good for you to have, for you in the future. Do you think your mama
+wants to have a girl around to be a bother, for herself, Herman. Its
+just for you Herman she is always thinking, and she talks always about
+how happy she will be, when she sees her Herman married to a nice
+girl, and then when she fixed it all up so good for you, so it never
+would be any bother to you, just the way she wanted you should like
+it, and you say yes all right, I do it, and then you go away like this
+and act stubborn, and make all this trouble everybody to take for you,
+and we spend money, and I got to travel all round to find you. You
+come home now with me Herman and get married, and I tell your mama she
+better not say anything to you about how much it cost me to come all
+the way to look for you--Hey Herman," said his father coaxing, "Hey,
+you come home now and get married. All you got to do Herman is just to
+stand up for an hour Herman, and then you don't never to have any more
+bother to it--Hey Herman!--you come home with me to-morrow and get
+married. Hey Herman."
+
+Herman's married sister liked her brother Herman, and she had always
+tried to help him, when there was anything she knew he wanted. She
+liked it that he was so good and always did everything that their
+father and their mother wanted, but still she wished it could be that
+he could have more his own way, if there was anything he ever wanted.
+
+But now she thought Herman with his girl was very funny. She wanted
+that Herman should be married. She thought it would do him lots of
+good to get married. She laughed at Herman when she heard the story.
+Until his father came to find him, she did not know why it was Herman
+had come just then to New York to see her. When she heard the story
+she laughed a good deal at her brother Herman and teased him a good
+deal about his running away, because he didn't want to have a girl to
+be all the time around him.
+
+Herman's married sister liked her brother Herman, and she did not want
+him not to like to be with women. He was good, her brother Herman, and
+it would surely do him good to get married. It would make him stand up
+for himself stronger. Herman's sister always laughed at him and always
+she would try to reassure him. "Such a nice man as my brother Herman
+acting like as if he was afraid of women. Why the girls all like a man
+like you Herman, if you didn't always run away when you saw them. It
+do you good really Herman to get married, and then you got somebody
+you can boss around when you want to. It do you good Herman to get
+married, you see if you don't like it, when you really done it. You
+go along home now with papa, Herman and get married to that Lena. You
+don't know how nice you like it Herman when you try once how you can
+do it. You just don't be afraid of nothing, Herman. You good enough
+for any girl to marry, Herman. Any girl be glad to have a man like you
+to be always with them Herman. You just go along home with papa and
+try it what I say, Herman. Oh you so funny Herman, when you sit there,
+and then run away and leave your girl behind you. I know she is crying
+like anything Herman for to lose you. Don't be bad to her Herman.
+You go along home with papa now and get married Herman. I'd be awful
+ashamed Herman, to really have a brother didn't have spirit enough
+to get married, when a girl is just dying for to have him. You always
+like me to be with you Herman. I don't see why you say you don't
+want a girl to be all the time around you. You always been good to me
+Herman, and I know you always be good to that Lena, and you soon feel
+just like as if she had always been there with you. Don't act like as
+if you wasn't a nice strong man, Herman. Really I laugh at you Herman,
+but you know I like awful well to see you real happy. You go home and
+get married to that Lena, Herman. She is a real pretty girl and real
+nice and good and quiet and she make my brother Herman very happy. You
+just stop your fussing now with Herman, papa. He go with you to-morrow
+papa, and you see he like it so much to be married, he make everybody
+laugh just to see him be so happy. Really truly, that's the way
+it will be with you Herman. You just listen to me what I tell you
+Herman." And so his sister laughed at him and reassured him, and his
+father kept on telling what the mother always said about her Herman,
+and he coaxed him and Herman never said anything in answer, and his
+sister packed his things up and was very cheerful with him, and she
+kissed him, and then she laughed and then she kissed him, and his
+father went and bought the tickets for the train, and at last late on
+Sunday he brought Herman back to Bridgepoint with him.
+
+It was always very hard to keep Mrs. Kreder from saying what she
+thought, to her Herman, but her daughter had written her a letter, so
+as to warn her not to say anything about what he had been doing, to
+him, and her husband came in with Herman and said, "Here we are come
+home mama, Herman and me, and we are very tired it was so crowded
+coming," and then he whispered to her. "You be good to Herman, mama,
+he didn't mean to make us so much trouble," and so old Mrs. Kreder,
+held in what she felt was so strong in her to say to her Herman. She
+just said very stiffly to him, "I'm glad to see you come home to-day,
+Herman." Then she went to arrange it all with Mrs. Haydon.
+
+Herman was now again just like he always had been, sullen and very
+good, and very quiet, and always ready to do whatever his mother and
+his father wanted. Tuesday morning came, Herman got his new clothes
+on and went with his father and his mother to stand up for an hour and
+get married. Lena was there in her new dress, and her hat with all
+the pretty flowers, and she was very nervous for now she knew she was
+really very soon to be married. Mrs. Haydon had everything all ready.
+Everybody was there just as they should be and very soon Herman Kreder
+and Lena Mainz were married.
+
+When everything was really over, they went back to the Kreder house
+together. They were all now to live together, Lena and Herman and
+the old father and the old mother, in the house where Mr. Kreder had
+worked so many years as a tailor, with his son Herman always there to
+help him.
+
+Irish Mary had often said to Lena she never did see how Lena could
+ever want to have anything to do with Herman Kreder and his dirty
+stingy parents. The old Kreders were to an Irish nature, a stingy,
+dirty couple. They had not the free-hearted, thoughtless, fighting,
+mud bespattered, ragged, peat-smoked cabin dirt that irish Mary knew
+and could forgive and love. Theirs was the german dirt of saving, of
+being dowdy and loose and foul in your clothes so as to save them and
+yourself in washing, having your hair greasy to save it in the soap
+and drying, having your clothes dirty, not in freedom, but because so
+it was cheaper, keeping the house close and smelly because so it cost
+less to get it heated, living so poorly not only so as to save money
+but so they should never even know themselves that they had it,
+working all the time not only because from their nature they just had
+to and because it made them money but also that they never could be
+put in any way to make them spend their money.
+
+This was the place Lena now had for her home and to her it was very
+different than it could be for an irish Mary. She too was german and
+was thrifty, though she was always so dreamy and not there. Lena was
+always careful with things and she always saved her money, for that
+was the only way she knew how to do it. She never had taken care of
+her own money and she never had thought how to use it.
+
+Lena Mainz had been, before she was Mrs. Herman Kreder, always clean
+and decent in her clothes and in her person, but it was not because
+she ever thought about it or really needed so to have it, it was the
+way her people did in the german country where she came from, and her
+Aunt Mathilda and the good german cook who always scolded, had kept
+her on and made her, with their scoldings, always more careful to keep
+clean and to wash real often. But there was no deep need in all this
+for Lena and so, though Lena did not like the old Kreders, though she
+really did not know that, she did not think about their being stingy
+dirty people.
+
+Herman Kreder was cleaner than the old people, just because it was his
+nature to keep cleaner, but he was used to his mother and his father,
+and he never thought that they should keep things cleaner. And Herman
+too always saved all his money, except for that little beer he drank
+when he went out with other men of an evening the way he always liked
+to do it, and he never thought of any other way to spend it. His
+father had always kept all the money for them and he always was doing
+business with it. And then too Herman really had no money, for he
+always had worked for his father, and his father had never thought to
+pay him.
+
+And so they began all four to live in the Kreder house together, and
+Lena began soon with it to look careless and a little dirty, and to be
+more lifeless with it, and nobody ever noticed much what Lena wanted,
+and she never really knew herself what she needed.
+
+The only real trouble that came to Lena with their living all four
+there together, was the way old Mrs. Kreder scolded. Lena had always
+been used to being scolded, but this scolding of old Mrs. Kreder was
+very different from the way she ever before had had to endure it.
+
+Herman, now he was married to her, really liked Lena very well. He did
+not care very much about her but she never was a bother to him being
+there around him, only when his mother worried and was nasty to them
+because Lena was so careless, and did not know how to save things
+right for them with their eating, and all the other ways with money,
+that the old woman had to save it.
+
+Herman Kreder had always done everything his mother and his father
+wanted but he did not really love his parents very deeply. With Herman
+it was always only that he hated to have any struggle. It was all
+always all right with him when he could just go along and do the same
+thing over every day with his working, and not to hear things, and not
+to have people make him listen to their anger. And now his marriage,
+and he just knew it would, was making trouble for him. It made him
+hear more what his mother was always saying, with her scolding. He had
+to really hear it now because Lena was there, and she was so scared
+and dull always when she heard it. Herman knew very well with his
+mother, it was all right if one ate very little and worked hard all
+day and did not hear her when she scolded, the way Herman always had
+done before they were so foolish about his getting married and having
+a girl there to be all the time around him, and now he had to help her
+so the girl could learn too, not to hear it when his mother scolded,
+and not to look so scared, and not to eat much, and always to be sure
+to save it.
+
+Herman really did not know very well what he could do to help Lena
+to understand it. He could never answer his mother back to help Lena,
+that never would make things any better for her, and he never could
+feel in himself any way to comfort Lena, to make her strong not to
+hear his mother, in all the awful ways she always scolded. It just
+worried Herman to have it like that all the time around him. Herman
+did not know much about how a man could make a struggle with a mother,
+to do much to keep her quiet, and indeed Herman never knew much how to
+make a struggle against anyone who really wanted to have anything very
+badly. Herman all his life never wanted anything so badly, that he
+would really make a struggle against any one to get it. Herman all his
+life only wanted to live regular and quiet, and not talk much and to
+do the same way every day like every other with his working. And now
+his mother had made him get married to this Lena and now with his
+mother making all that scolding, he had all this trouble and this
+worry always on him.
+
+Mrs. Haydon did not see Lena now very often. She had not lost her
+interest in her niece Lena, but Lena could not come much to her house
+to see her, it would not be right, now Lena was a married woman.
+And then too Mrs. Haydon had her hands full just then with her two
+daughters, for she was getting them ready to find them good husbands,
+and then too her own husband now worried her very often about her
+always spoiling that boy of hers, so he would be sure to turn out no
+good and be a disgrace to a german family, and all because his mother
+always spoiled him. All these things were very worrying now to Mrs.
+Haydon, but still she wanted to be good to Lena, though she could not
+see her very often. She only saw her when Mrs. Haydon went to call
+on Mrs. Kreder or when Mrs. Kreder came to see Mrs. Haydon, and that
+never could be very often. Then too these days Mrs. Haydon could not
+scold Lena, Mrs. Kreder was always there with her, and it would not be
+right to scold Lena, when Mrs. Kreder was there, who had now the real
+right to do it. And so her aunt always said nice things now to Lena,
+and though Mrs. Haydon sometimes was a little worried when she saw
+Lena looking sad and not careful, she did not have time just then to
+really worry much about it.
+
+Lena now never any more saw the girls she always used to sit with. She
+had no way now to see them and it was not in Lena's nature to search
+out ways to see them, nor did she now ever think much of the days when
+she had been used to see them. They never any of them had come to the
+Kreder house to see her. Not even Irish Mary had ever thought to come
+to see her. Lena had been soon forgotten by them. They had soon passed
+away from Lena and now Lena never thought any more that she had ever
+known them.
+
+The only one of her old friends who tried to know what Lena liked and
+what she needed, and who always made Lena come to see her, was the
+good german cook who had always scolded. She now scolded Lena hard for
+letting herself go so, and going out when she was looking so untidy.
+"I know you going to have a baby Lena, but that's no way for you to be
+looking. I am ashamed most to see you come and sit here in my kitchen,
+looking so sloppy and like you never used to Lena. I never see anybody
+like you Lena. Herman is very good to you, you always say so, and he
+don't treat you bad even though you don't deserve to have anybody good
+to you, you so careless all the time, Lena, letting yourself go like
+you never had anybody tell you what was the right way you should know
+how to be looking. No, Lena, I don't see no reason you should let
+yourself go so and look so untidy Lena, so I am ashamed to see you sit
+there looking so ugly, Lena. No Lena that ain't no way ever I see a
+woman make things come out better, letting herself go so every way and
+crying all the time like as if you had real trouble. I never wanted to
+see you marry Herman Kreder, Lena, I knew what you got to stand with
+that old woman always, and that old man, he is so stingy too and he
+don't say things out but he ain't any better in his heart than his
+wife with her bad ways, I know that Lena, I know they don't hardly
+give you enough to eat, Lena, I am real sorry for you Lena, you know
+that Lena, but that ain't any way to be going round so untidy Lena,
+even if you have got all that trouble. You never see me do like that
+Lena, though sometimes I got a headache so I can't see to stand to
+be working hardly, and nothing comes right with all my cooking, but I
+always see Lena, I look decent. That's the only way a german girl can
+make things come out right Lena. You hear me what I am saying to you
+Lena. Now you eat something nice Lena, I got it all ready for you, and
+you wash up and be careful Lena and the baby will come all right to
+you, and then I make your Aunt Mathilda see that you live in a house
+soon all alone with Herman and your baby, and then everything go
+better for you. You hear me what I say to you Lena. Now don't let me
+ever see you come looking like this any more Lena, and you just stop
+with that always crying. You ain't got no reason to be sitting there
+now with all that crying, I never see anybody have trouble it did them
+any good to do the way you are doing, Lena. You hear me Lena. You go
+home now and you be good the way I tell you Lena, and I see what I can
+do. I make your Aunt Mathilda make old Mrs. Kreder let you be till you
+get your baby all right. Now don't you be scared and so silly Lena. I
+don't like to see you act so Lena when really you got a nice man and
+so many things really any girl should be grateful to be having. Now
+you go home Lena to-day and you do the way I say, to you, and I see
+what I can do to help you."
+
+"Yes Mrs. Aldrich" said the good german woman to her mistress later,
+"Yes Mrs. Aldrich that's the way it is with them girls when they want
+so to get married. They don't know when they got it good Mrs. Aldrich.
+They never know what it is they're really wanting when they got it,
+Mrs. Aldrich. There's that poor Lena, she just been here crying and
+looking so careless so I scold her, but that was no good that marrying
+for that poor Lena, Mrs. Aldrich. She do look so pale and sad now Mrs.
+Aldrich, it just break my heart to see her. She was a good girl was
+Lena, Mrs. Aldrich, and I never had no trouble with her like I got
+with so many young girls nowadays, Mrs. Aldrich, and I never see any
+girl any better to work right than our Lena, and now she got to stand
+it all the time with that old woman Mrs. Kreder. My! Mrs. Aldrich, she
+is a bad old woman to her. I never see Mrs. Aldrich how old people can
+be so bad to young girls and not have no kind of patience with them.
+If Lena could only live with her Herman, he ain't so bad the way men
+are, Mrs. Aldrich, but he is just the way always his mother wants him,
+he ain't got no spirit in him, and so I don't really see no help for
+that poor Lena. I know her aunt, Mrs. Haydon, meant it all right for
+her Mrs. Aldrich, but poor Lena, it would be better for her if her
+Herman had stayed there in New York that time he went away to leave
+her. I don't like it the way Lena is looking now, Mrs. Aldrich. She
+looks like as if she don't have no life left in her hardly, Mrs.
+Aldrich, she just drags around and looks so dirty and after all the
+pains I always took to teach her and to keep her nice in her ways and
+looking. It don't do no good to them, for them girls to get married
+Mrs. Aldrich, they are much better when they only know it, to stay in
+a good place when they got it, and keep on regular with their working.
+I don't like it the way Lena looks now Mrs. Aldrich. I wish I knew
+some way to help that poor Lena, Mrs. Aldrich, but she she is a bad
+old woman, that old Mrs. Kreder, Herman's mother. I speak to Mrs.
+Haydon real soon, Mrs. Aldrich, I see what we can do now to help that
+poor Lena."
+
+These were really bad days for poor Lena. Herman always was real
+good to her and now he even sometimes tried to stop his mother from
+scolding Lena. "She ain't well now mama, you let her be now you hear
+me. You tell me what it is you want she should be doing, I tell her. I
+see she does it right just the way you want it mama. You let be, I say
+now mama, with that always scolding Lena. You let be, I say now, you
+wait till she is feeling better." Herman was getting really strong
+to struggle, for he could see that Lena with that baby working hard
+inside her, really could not stand it any longer with his mother and
+the awful ways she always scolded.
+
+It was a new feeling Herman now had inside him that made him feel he
+was strong to make a struggle. It was new for Herman Kreder really to
+be wanting something, but Herman wanted strongly now to be a father,
+and he wanted badly that his baby should be a boy and healthy, Herman
+never had cared really very much about his father and his mother,
+though always, all his life, he had done everything just as they
+wanted, and he had never really cared much about his wife, Lena,
+though he always had been very good to her, and had always tried to
+keep his mother off her, with the awful way she always scolded, but to
+be really a father of a little baby, that feeling took hold of Herman
+very deeply. He was almost ready, so as to save his baby from all
+trouble, to really make a strong struggle with his mother and with his
+father, too, if he would not help him to control his mother.
+
+Sometimes Herman even went to Mrs. Haydon to talk all this trouble
+over. They decided then together, it was better to wait there all four
+together for the baby, and Herman could make Mrs. Kreder stop a little
+with her scolding, and then when Lena was a little stronger, Herman
+should have his own house for her, next door to his father, so he
+could always be there to help him in his working, but so they could
+eat and sleep in a house where the old woman could not control them
+and they could not hear her awful scolding.
+
+And so things went on, the same way, a little longer. Poor Lena was
+not feeling any joy to have a baby. She was scared the way she had
+been when she was so sick on the water. She was scared now every time
+when anything would hurt her. She was scared and still and lifeless,
+and sure that every minute she would die. Lena had no power to be
+strong in this kind of trouble, she could only sit still and be
+scared, and dull, and lifeless, and sure that every minute she would
+die.
+
+Before very long, Lena had her baby. He was a good, healthy little
+boy, the baby. Herman cared very much to have the baby. When Lena was
+a little stronger he took a house next door to the old couple, so he
+and his own family could eat and sleep and do the way they wanted.
+This did not seem to make much change now for Lena. She was just the
+same as when she was waiting with her baby. She just dragged around
+and was careless with her clothes and all lifeless, and she acted
+always and lived on just as if she had no feeling. She always did
+everything regular with the work, the way she always had had to do it,
+but she never got back any spirit in her. Herman was always good and
+kind, and always helped her with her working. He did everything he
+knew to help her. He always did all the active new things in the house
+and for the baby. Lena did what she had to do the way she always had
+been taught it. She always just kept going now with her working, and
+she was always careless, and dirty, and a little dazed, and lifeless.
+Lena never got any better in herself of this way of being that she had
+had ever since she had been married.
+
+Mrs. Haydon never saw any more of her niece, Lena. Mrs. Haydon had now
+so much trouble with her own house, and her daughters getting married,
+and her boy, who was growing up, and who always was getting so much
+worse to manage. She knew she had done right by Lena. Herman Kreder
+was a good man, she would be glad to get one so good, sometimes,
+for her own daughters, and now they had a home to live in together,
+separate from the old people, who had made their trouble for them.
+Mrs. Haydon felt she had done very well by her niece, Lena, and she
+never thought now she needed any more to go and see her. Lena would do
+very well now without her aunt to trouble herself any more about her.
+
+The good german cook who had always scolded, still tried to do her
+duty like a mother to poor Lena. It was very hard now to do right by
+Lena. Lena never seemed to hear now what anyone was saying to her.
+Herman was always doing everything he could to help her. Herman
+always, when he was home, took good care of the baby. Herman loved
+to take care of his baby. Lena never thought to take him out or to do
+anything she didn't have to.
+
+The good cook sometimes made Lena come to see her. Lena would come
+with her baby and sit there in the kitchen, and watch the good woman
+cooking, and listen to her sometimes a little, the way she used to,
+while the good german woman scolded her for going around looking so
+careless when now she had no trouble, and sitting there so dull, and
+always being just so thankless. Sometimes Lena would wake up a little
+and get back into her face her old, gentle, patient, and unsuffering
+sweetness, but mostly Lena did not seem to hear much when the good
+german woman scolded. Lena always liked it when Mrs. Aldrich her good
+mistress spoke to her kindly, and then Lena would seem to go back
+and feel herself to be like she was when she had been in service.
+But mostly Lena just lived along and was careless in her clothes, and
+dull, and lifeless.
+
+By and by Lena had two more little babies. Lena was not so much scared
+now when she had the babies. She did not seem to notice very much
+when they hurt her, and she never seemed to feel very much now about
+anything that happened to her.
+
+They were very nice babies, all these three that Lena had, and Herman
+took good care of them always. Herman never really cared much about
+his wife, Lena. The only things Herman ever really cared for were his
+babies. Herman always was very good to his children. He always had a
+gentle, tender way when he held them. He learned to be very handy with
+them. He spent all the time he was not working, with them. By and by
+he began to work all day in his own home so that he could have his
+children always in the same room with him.
+
+Lena always was more and more lifeless and Herman now mostly never
+thought about her. He more and more took all the care of their three
+children. He saw to their eating right and their washing, and he
+dressed them every morning, and he taught them the right way to do
+things, and he put them to their sleeping, and he was now always every
+minute with them. Then there was to come to them, a fourth baby. Lena
+went to the hospital near by to have the baby. Lena seemed to be going
+to have much trouble with it. When the baby was come out at last, it
+was like its mother lifeless. While it was coming, Lena had grown very
+pale and sicker. When it was all over Lena had died, too, and nobody
+knew just how it had happened to her.
+
+The good german cook who had always scolded Lena, and had always to
+the last day tried to help her, was the only one who ever missed
+her. She remembered how nice Lena had looked all the time she was
+in service with her, and how her voice had been so gentle and
+sweet-sounding, and how she always was a good girl, and how she never
+had to have any trouble with her, the way she always had with all the
+other girls who had been taken into the house to help her. The good
+cook sometimes spoke so of Lena when she had time to have a talk with
+Mrs. Aldrich, and this was all the remembering there now ever was of
+Lena.
+
+Herman Kreder now always lived very happy, very gentle, very quiet,
+very well content alone with his three children. He never had a woman
+any more to be all the time around him. He always did all his own
+work in his house, when he was through every day with the work he was
+always doing for his father. Herman always was alone, and he always
+worked alone, until his little ones were big enough to help him.
+Herman Kreder was very well content now and he always lived very
+regular and peaceful, and with every day just like the next one,
+always alone now with his three good, gentle children.
+
+FINIS
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Three Lives, by Gertrude Stein
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