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.