PLEASE NOTE: Each paragraph - in each section of the work - is numbered on the right-hand side.
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946). Three Lives. 1909
The Good Anna
Part I
THE TRADESMEN of Bridgepoint learned to dread the sound of “Miss 1
Mathilda”, for with that name the good Anna always conquered.
The strictest of the one price stores found that they could give 2
things for a little less, when the good Anna had fully said that
“Miss Mathilda” could not pay so much and that she could buy it
cheaper “by Lindheims.”
Lindheims was Anna’s favorite store, for there they had bargain 3
days, when flour and sugar were sold for a quarter of a cent less
for a pound, and there the heads of the departments were all her
friends and always managed to give her the bargain prices, even on
other days.
Anna led an arduous and troubled life. 4
Anna managed the whole little house for Miss Mathilda. It was a 5
funny little house, one of a whole row of all the same kind that
made a close pile like a row of dominoes that a child knocks over,
for they were built along a street which at this point came down a
steep hill. They were funny little houses, two stories high, with
red brick fronts and long white steps.
This one little house was always very full with Miss Mathilda, an 6
under servant, stray dogs and cats and Anna’s voice that scolded,
managed, grumbled all day long.
“Sallie! can’t I leave you alone a minute but you must run to the 7
door to see the butcher boy come down the street and there is Miss
Mathilda calling for her shoes. Can I do everything while you go
around always thinking about nothing at all? If I ain’t after you
every minute you would be forgetting all the time, and I take all
this pains, and when you come to me you was as ragged as a buzzard
and as dirty as a dog. Go and find Miss Mathilda her shoes where you
put them this morning.”
“Peter!”, — her voice rose higher, — “Peter!”, — Peter was the 8
youngest and the favorite dog, — “Peter, if you don’t leave Baby
alone,” — Baby was an old, blind terrier that Anna had loved for
many years, — “Peter if you don’t leave Baby alone, I take a rawhide
to you, you bad dog.”
The good Anna had high ideals for canine chastity and discipline. 9
The three regular dogs, the three that always lived with Anna, Peter
and old Baby, and the fluffy little Rags, who was always jumping up
into the air just to show that he was happy, together with the
transients, the many stray ones that Anna always kept until she
found them homes, were all under strict orders never to be bad one
with the other.
A sad disgrace did once happen in the family. A little transient 10
terrier for whom Anna had found a home suddenly produced a crop of
pups. The new owners were certain that this Foxy had known no dog
since she was in their care. The good Anna held to it stoutly that
her Peter and her Rags were guiltless, and she made her statement
with so much heat that Foxy’s owners were at last convinced that
these results were due to their neglect.
“You bad dog,” Anna said to Peter that night, “you bad dog.” 11
“Peter was the father of those pups,” the good Anna explained to 12
Miss Mathilda, “and they look just like him too, and poor little
Foxy, they were so big that she could hardly have them, but Miss
Mathilda, I would never let those people know that Peter was so
bad.”
Periods of evil thinking came very regularly to Peter and to Rags 13
and to the visitors within their gates. At such times Anna would be
very busy and scold hard, and then too she always took great care to
seclude the bad dogs from each other whenever she had to leave the
house. Sometimes just to see how good it was that she had made them,
Anna would leave the room a little while and leave them all
together, and then she would suddenly come back. Back would slink
all the wicked-minded dogs at the sound of her hand upon the knob,
and then they would sit desolate in their corners like a lot of
disappointed children whose stolen sugar has been taken from them.
Innocent blind old Baby was the only one who preserved the dignity 14
becoming in a dog.
You see that Anna led an arduous and troubled life. 15
The good Anna was a small, spare, german woman, at this time about 16
forty years of age. Her face was worn, her cheeks were thin, her
mouth drawn and firm, and her light blue eyes were very bright.
Sometimes they were full of lightning and sometimes full of humor,
but they were always sharp and clear.
Her voice was a pleasant one, when she told the histories of bad 17
Peter and of Baby and of little Rags. Her voice was a high and
piercing one when she called to the teamsters and to the other
wicked men, what she wanted that should come to them, when she saw
them beat a horse or kick a dog. She did not belong to any society
that could stop them and she told them so most frankly, but her
strained voice and her glittering eyes, and her queer piercing
german english first made them afraid and then ashamed. They all
knew too, that all the policemen on the beat were her friends. These
always respected and obeyed Miss Annie, as they called her, and
promptly attended to all of her complaints.
For five years Anna managed the little house for Miss Mathilda. In 18
these five years there were four different under servants.
The one that came first was a pretty, cheerful irish girl. Anna 19
took her with a doubting mind. Lizzie was an obedient, happy
servant, and Anna began to have a little faith. This was not for
long. The pretty, cheerful Lizzie disappeared one day without her
notice and with all her baggage and returned no more.
This pretty, cheerful Lizzie was succeeded by a melancholy Molly. 20
Molly was born in America, of german parents. All her people had 21
been long dead or gone away. Molly had always been alone. She was a
tall, dark, sallow, thin-haired creature, and she was always
troubled with a cough, and she had a bad temper, and always said
ugly dreadful swear words.
Anna found all this very hard to bear, but she kept Molly a long 22
time out of kindness. The kitchen was constantly a battle-ground.
Anna scolded and Molly swore strange oaths, and then Miss Mathilda
would shut her door hard to show that she could hear it all.
At last Anna had to give it up. “Please Miss Mathilda won’t you 23
speak to Molly,” Anna said, “I can’t do a thing with her. I scold
her, and she don’t seem to hear and then she swears so that she
scares me. She loves you Miss Mathilda, and you scold her please
once.”
“But Anna,” cried poor Miss Mathilda, “I don’t want to,” and that 24
large, cheerful, but faint hearted woman looked all aghast at such a
prospect. “But you must, please Miss Mathilda!” Anna said.
Miss Mathilda never wanted to do any scolding. “But you must 25
please Miss Mathilda,” Anna said.
Miss Mathilda every day put off the scolding, hoping always that 26
Anna would learn to manage Molly better. It never did get better and
at last Miss Mathilda saw that the scolding simply had to be.
It was agreed between the good Anna and her Miss Mathilda that 27
Anna should be away when Molly would be scolded. The next evening
that it was Anna’s evening out, Miss Mathilda faced her task and
went down into the kitchen.
Molly was sitting in the little kitchen leaning her elbows on the 28
table. She was a tall, thin, sallow girl, aged twenty-three, by
nature slatternly and careless but trained by Anna into superficial
neatness. Her drab striped cotton dress and gray black checked apron
increased the length and sadness of her melancholy figure. “Oh,
Lord!” groaned Miss Mathilda to herself as she approached her.
“Molly, I want to speak to you about your behaviour to Anna!”, 29
here Molly dropped her head still lower on her arms and began to
cry.
“Oh! Oh!” groaned Miss Mathilda. 30
“It’s all Miss Annie’s fault, all of it,” Molly said at last, in a 31
trembling voice, “I do my best.”
“I know Anna is often hard to please,” began Miss Mathilda, with a 32
twinge of mischief, and then she sobered herself to her task, “but
you must remember, Molly, she means it for your good and she is
really very kind to you.”
“I don’t want her kindness,” Molly cried, “I wish you would tell 33
me what to do, Miss Mathilda, and then I would be all right. I hate
Miss Annie.”
“This will never do Molly,” Miss Mathilda said sternly, in her 34
deepest, firmest tones, “Anna is the head of the kitchen and you
must either obey her or leave.”
“I don’t want to leave you,” whimpered melancholy Molly. “Well 35
Molly then try and do better,” answered Miss Mathilda, keeping a
good stern front, and backing quickly from the kitchen.
“Oh! Oh!” groaned Miss Mathilda, as she went back up the stairs. 36
Miss Mathilda’s attempt to make peace between the constantly 37
contending women in the kitchen had no real effect. They were very
soon as bitter as before.
At last it was decided that Molly was to go away. Molly went away 38
to work in a factory in the town, and she went to live with an old
woman in the slums, a very bad old woman Anna said.
Anna was never easy in her mind about the fate of Molly. Sometimes 39
she would see or hear of her. Molly was not well, her cough was
worse, and the old woman really was a bad one.
After a year of this unwholesome life, Molly was completely broken 40
down. Anna then again took her in charge. She brought her from her
work and from the woman where she lived, and put her in a hospital
to stay till she was well. She found a place for her as nursemaid to
a little girl out in the country, and Molly was at last established
and content.
Molly had had, at first, no regular successor. In a few months it 41
was going to be the summer and Miss Mathilda would be gone away, and
old Katie would do very well to come in every day and help Anna with
her work.
Old Katy was a heavy, ugly, short and rough old german woman, with 42
a strange distorted german-english all her own. Anna was worn out
now with her attempt to make the younger generation do all that it
should and rough old Katy never answered back, and never wanted her
own way. No scolding or abuse could make its mark on her uncouth and
aged peasant hide. She said her “Yes, Miss Annie,” when an answer
had to come, and that was always all that she could say.
“Old Katy is just a rough old woman, Miss Mathilda,” Anna said, 43
“but I think I keep her here with me. She can work and she don’t
give me trouble like I had with Molly all the time.”
Anna always had a humorous sense from this old Katy’s twisted 44
peasant english, from the roughness on her tongue of buzzing s’s and
from the queer ways of her brutish servile humor. Anna could not let
old Katy serve at table—old Katy was too coarsely made from natural
earth for that—and so Anna had all this to do herself and that she
never liked, but even then this simple rough old creature was
pleasanter to her than any of the upstart young.
Life went on very smoothly now in these few months before the 45
summer came. Miss Mathilda every summer went away across the ocean
to be gone for several months. When she went away this summer old
Katy was so sorry, and on the day that Miss Mathilda went, old Katy
cried hard for many hours. An earthy, uncouth, servile peasant
creature old Katy surely was. She stood there on the white stone
steps of the little red brick house, with her bony, square dull head
with its thin, tanned, toughened skin and its sparse and kinky
grizzled hair, and her strong, squat figure a little overmade on the
right side, clothed in her blue striped cotton dress, all clean and
always washed but rough and harsh to see—and she stayed there on the
steps till Anna brought her in, blubbering, her apron to her face,
and making queer guttural broken moans.
When Miss Mathilda early in the fall came to her house again old 46
Katy was not there.
“I never thought old Katy would act so Miss Mathilda,” Anna said, 47
“when she was so sorry when you went away, and I gave her full wages
all the summer, but they are all alike Miss Mathilda, there isn’t
one of them that’s fit to trust. You know how Katy said she liked
you, Miss Mathilda, and went on about it when you went away and then
she was so good and worked all right until the middle of the summer,
when I got sick, and then she went away and left me all alone and
took a place out in the country, where they gave her some more
money. She didn’t say a word, Miss Mathilda, she just went off and
left me there alone when I was sick after that awful hot summer that
we had, and after all we done for her when she had no place to go,
and all summer I gave her better things to eat than I had for
myself. Miss Mathilda, there isn’t one of them has any sense of
what’s the right way for a girl to do, not one of them.”
Old Katy was never heard from any more. 48
No under servant was decided upon now for several months. Many 49
came and many went, and none of them would do. At last Anna heard of
Sallie.
Sallie was the oldest girl in a family of eleven and Sallie was 50
just sixteen years old. From Sallie down they came always littler
and littler in her family, and all of them were always out at work
excepting only the few littlest of them all.
Sallie was a pretty blonde and smiling german girl, and stupid and 51
a little silly. The littler they came in her family the brighter
they all were. The brightest of them all was a little girl of ten.
She did a good day’s work washing dishes for a man and wife in a
saloon, and she earned a fair day’s wage, and then there was one
littler still. She only worked for half the day. She did the house
work for a bachelor doctor. She did it all, all of the housework and
received each week her eight cents for her wage. Anna was always
indignant when she told that story.
“I think he ought to give her ten cents Miss Mathilda any way. 52
Eight cents is so mean when she does all his work and she is such a
bright little thing too, not stupid like our Sallie. Sallie would
never learn to do a thing if I didn’t scold her all the time, but
Sallie is a good girl, and I take care and she will do all right.”
Sallie was a good, obedient german child. She never answered Anna 53
back, no more did Peter, old Baby and little Rags and so though
always Anna’s voice was sharply raised in strong rebuke and worn
expostulation, they were a happy family all there together in the
kitchen.
Anna was a mother now to Sallie, a good incessant german mother 54
who watched and scolded hard to keep the girl from any evil step.
Sallie’s temptations and transgressions were much like those of
naughty Peter and jolly little Rags, and Anna took the same way to
keep all three from doing what was bad.
Sallie’s chief badness besides forgetting all the time and never 55
washing her hands clean to serve at table, was the butcher boy.
He was an unattractive youth enough, that butcher boy. Suspicion 56
began to close in around Sallie that she spent the evenings when
Anna was away, in company with this bad boy.
“Sallie is such a pretty girl, Miss Mathilda,” Anna said, “and she 57
is so dumb and silly, and she puts on that red waist, and she
crinkles up her hair with irons so I have to laugh, and then I tell
her if she only washed her hands clean it would be better than all
that fixing all the time, but you can’t do a thing with the young
girls nowadays Miss Mathilda. Sallie is a good girl but I got to
watch her all the time.”
Suspicion closed in around Sallie more and more, that she spent 58
Anna’s evenings out with this boy sitting in the kitchen. One early
morning Anna’s voice was sharply raised.
“Sallie this ain’t the same banana that I brought home yesterday, 59
for Miss Mathilda, for her breakfast, and you was out early in the
street this morning, what was you doing there?”
“Nothing, Miss Annie, I just went out to see, that’s all and 60
that’s the same banana, ’deed it is Miss Annie.”
“Sallie, how can you say so and after all I do for you, and Miss 61
Mathilda is so good to you. I never brought home no bananas
yesterday with specks on it like that. I know better, it was that
boy was here last night and ate it while I was away, and you was out
to get another this morning. I don’t want no lying Sallie.”
Sallie was stout in her defence but then she gave it up and she 62
said it was the boy who snatched it as he ran away at the sound of
Anna’s key opening the outside door. “But I will never let him in
again, Miss Annie, ’deed I won’t,” said Sallie.
And now it was all peaceful for some weeks and then Sallie with 63
fatuous simplicity began on certain evenings to resume her bright
red waist, her bits of jewels and her crinkly hair.
One pleasant evening in the early spring, Miss Mathilda was 64
standing on the steps beside the open door, feeling cheerful in the
pleasant, gentle night. Anna came down the street, returning from
her evening out. “Don’t shut the door, please, Miss Mathilda,” Anna
said in a low voice, “I don’t want Sallie to know I’m home.”
Anna went softly through the house and reached the kitchen door. 65
At the sound of her hand upon the knob there was a wild scramble and
a bang, and then Sallie sitting there alone when Anna came into the
room, but, alas, the butcher boy forgot his overcoat in his escape.
You see that Anna led an arduous and troubled life. 66
Anna had her troubles, too, with Miss Mathilda. “And I slave and 67
slave to save the money and you go out and spend it all on
foolishness,” the good Anna would complain when her mistress, a
large and careless woman, would come home with a bit of porcelain, a
new etching and sometimes even an oil painting on her arm.
“But Anna,” argued Miss Mathilda, “if you didn’t save this money, 68
don’t you see I could not buy these things,” and then Anna would
soften and look pleased until she learned the price, and then
wringing her hands, “Oh, Miss Mathilda, Miss Mathilda,” she would
cry, “and you gave all that money out for that, when you need a
dress to go out in so bad.” “Well, perhaps I will get one for myself
next year, Anna,” Miss Mathilda would cheerfully concede. “If we
live till then Miss Mathilda, I see that you do,” Anna would then
answer darkly.
Anna had great pride in the knowledge and possessions of her 69
cherished Miss Mathilda, but she did not like her careless way of
wearing always her old clothes. “You can’t go out to dinner in that
dress, Miss Mathilda,” she would say, standing firmly before the
outside door, “You got to go and put on your new dress you always
look so nice in.” “But Anna, there isn’t time.” “Yes there is, I go
up and help you fix it, please Miss Mathilda you can’t go out to
dinner in that dress and next year if we live till then, I make you
get a new hat, too. It’s a shame Miss Mathilda to go out like that.”
The poor mistress sighed and had to yield. It suited her cheerful, 70
lazy temper to be always without care but sometimes it was a burden
to endure, for so often she had it all to do again unless she made a
rapid dash out of the door before Anna had a chance to see.
Life was very easy always for this large and lazy Miss Mathilda, 71
with the good Anna to watch and care for her and all her clothes and
goods. But, alas, this world of ours is after all much what it
should be and cheerful Miss Mathilda had her troubles too with Anna.
It was pleasant that everything for one was done, but annoying 72
often that what one wanted most just then, one could not have when
one had foolishly demanded and not suggested one’s desire. And then
Miss Mathilda loved to go out on joyous, country tramps when,
stretching free and far with cheerful comrades, over rolling hills
and cornfields, glorious in the setting sun, and dogwood white and
shining underneath the moon and clear stars over head, and brilliant
air and tingling blood, it was hard to have to think of Anna’s anger
at the late return, though Miss Mathilda had begged that there might
be no hot supper cooked that night. And then when all the happy crew
of Miss Mathilda and her friends, tried with fullness of good health
and burning winds and glowing sunshine in the eyes, stiffened and
justly worn and wholly ripe for pleasant food and gentle content,
were all come together to the little house—it was hard for all that
tired crew who loved the good things Anna made to eat, to come to
the closed door and wonder there if it was Anna’s evening in or out,
and then the others must wait shivering on their tired feet, while
Miss Mathilda softened Anna’s heart, or if Anna was well out, boldly
ordered youthful Sallie to feed all the hungry lot.
Such things were sometimes hard to bear and often grievously did 73
Miss Mathilda feel herself a rebel with the cheerful Lizzies, the
melancholy Mollies, the rough old Katies and the stupid Sallies.
Miss Mathilda had other troubles too, with the good Anna. Miss 74
Mathilda had to save her Anna from the many friends, who in the
kindly fashion of the poor, used up her savings and then gave her
promises in place of payments.
The good Anna had many curious friends that she had found in the 75
twenty years that she had lived in Bridgepoint, and Miss Mathilda
would often have to save her from them all.
----------
The Good Anna
Part II: The Life of the Good Anna
ANNA FEDERNER, this good Anna, was of solid lower middle-class south 1
german stock.
When she was seventeen years old she went to service in a 2
bourgeois family, in the large city near her native town, but she
did not stay there long. One day her mistress offered her maid—that
was Anna—to a friend, to see her home. Anna felt herself to be a
servant, not a maid, and so she promptly left the place.
Anna had always a firm old world sense of what was the right way 3
for a girl to do.
No argument could bring her to sit an evening in the empty 4
parlour, although the smell of paint when they were fixing up the
kitchen made her very sick, and tired as she always was, she never
would sit down during the long talks she held with Miss Mathilda. A
girl was a girl and should act always like a girl, both as to giving
all respect and as to what she had to eat.
A little time after she left this service, Anna and her mother 5
made the voyage to America. They came second-class, but it was for
them a long and dreary journey. The mother was already ill with
consumption.
They landed in a pleasant town in the far South and there the 6
mother slowly died.
Anna was now alone and she made her way to Bridgepoint where an 7
older half brother was already settled. This brother was a heavy,
lumbering, good natured german man, full of the infirmity that comes
of excess of body.
He was a baker and married and fairly well to do. 8
Anna liked her brother well enough but was never in any way 9
dependent on him.
When she arrived in Bridgepoint, she took service with Miss Mary 10
Wadsmith.
Miss Mary Wadsmith was a large, fair, helpless woman, burdened 11
with the care of two young children. They had been left her by her
brother and his wife who had died within a few months of each other.
Anna soon had the household altogether in her charge. 12
Anna found her place with large, abundant women, for such were 13
always lazy, careless or all helpless, and so the burden of their
lives could fall on Anna, and give her just content. Anna’s
superiors must be always these large helpless women, or be men, for
none others could give themselves to be made so comfortable and
free.
Anna had no strong natural feeling to love children, as she had to 14
love cats and dogs, and a large mistress. She never became deeply
fond of Edgar and Jane Wadsmith. She naturally preferred the boy,
for boys love always better to be done for and made comfortable and
full of eating, while in the little girl she had to meet the
feminine, the subtle opposition, showing so early always in a young
girl’s nature.
For the summer, the Wadsmiths had a pleasant house out in the 15
country, and the winter months they spent in hotel apartments in the
city.
Gradually it came to Anna to take the whole direction of their 16
movements, to make all the decisions as to their journeyings to and
fro, and for the arranging of the places where they were to live.
Anna had been with Miss Mary for three years, when little Jane 17
began to raise her strength in opposition. Jane was a neat, pleasant
little girl, pretty and sweet with a young girl’s charm, and with
two blonde braids carefully plaited down her back.
Miss Mary, like her Anna, had no strong natural feeling to love 18
children, but she was fond of these two young ones of her blood, and
yielded docilely to the stronger power in the really pleasing little
girl. Anna always preferred the rougher handling of the boy, while
Miss Mary found the gentle force and the sweet domination of the
girl to please her better.
In a spring when all the preparations for the moving had been 19
made, Miss Mary and Jane went together to the country home, and
Anna, after finishing up the city matters was to follow them in a
few days with Edgar, whose vacation had not yet begun.
Many times during the preparations for this summer, Jane had met 20
Anna with sharp resistance, in opposition to her ways. It was simple
for little Jane to give unpleasant orders, not from herself but from
Miss Mary, large, docile, helpless Miss Mary Wadsmith who could
never think out any orders to give Anna from herself.
Anna’s eyes grew slowly sharper, harder, and her lower teeth 21
thrust a little forward and pressing strongly up, framed always more
slowly the “Yes, Miss Jane,” to the quick, “Oh Anna! Miss Mary says
she wants you to do it so!”
On the day of their migration, Miss Mary had been already put into 22
the carriage. “Oh, Anna!” cried little Jane running back into the
house, “Miss Mary says that you are to bring along the blue
dressings out of her room and mine.” Anna’s body stiffened, “We
never use them in the summer, Miss Jane,” she said thickly. “Yes
Anna, but Miss Mary thinks it would be nice, and she told me to tell
you not to forget, good-by!” and the little girl skipped lightly
down the steps into the carriage and they drove away.
Anna stood still on the steps, her eyes hard and sharp and 23
shining, and her body and her face stiff with resentment. And then
she went into the house, giving the door a shattering slam.
Anna was very hard to live with in those next three days. Even 24
Baby, the new puppy, the pride of Anna’s heart, a present from her
friend the widow, Mrs. Lehntman — even this pretty little black and
tan felt the heat of Anna’s scorching flame. And Edgar, who had
looked forward to these days, to be for him filled full of freedom
and of things to eat — he could not rest a moment in Anna’s bitter
sight.
On the third day, Anna and Edgar went to the Wadsmith country 25
home. The blue dressings out of the two rooms remained behind.
All the way, Edgar sat in front with the colored man and drove. It 26
was an early spring day in the South. The fields and woods were
heavy from the soaking rains. The horses dragged the carriage slowly
over the long road, sticky with brown clay and rough with masses of
stones thrown here and there to be broken and trodden into place by
passing teams. Over and through the soaking earth was the feathery
new spring growth of little flowers, of young leaves and of ferns.
The tree tops were all bright with reds and yellows, with brilliant
gleaming whites and gorgeous greens. All the lower air was full of
the damp haze rising from heavy soaking water on the earth, mingled
with a warm and pleasant smell from the blue smoke of the spring
fires in all the open fields. And above all this was the clear,
upper air, and the songs of birds and the joy of sunshine and of
lengthening days.
The languor and the stir, the warmth and weight and the strong 27
feel of life from the deep centres of the earth that comes always
with the early, soaking spring, when it is not answered with an
active fervent joy, gives always anger, irritation and unrest.
To Anna alone there in the carriage, drawing always nearer to the 28
struggle with her mistress, the warmth, the slowness, the jolting
over stones, the steaming from the horses, the cries of men and
animals and birds, and the new life all round about were simply
maddening. “Baby! if you don’t lie still, I think I kill you. I
can’t stand it any more like this.”
At this time Anna, about twenty-seven years of age, was not yet 29
all thin and worn. The sharp bony edges and corners of her head and
face were still rounded out with flesh, but already the temper and
the humor showed sharply in her clean blue eyes, and the thinning
was begun about the lower jaw, that was so often strained with the
upward pressure of resolve.
To-day, alone there in the carriage, she was all stiff and yet all 30
trembling with the sore effort of decision and revolt.
As the carriage turned into the Wadsmith gate, little Jane ran out 31
to see. She just looked at Anna’s face; she did not say a word about
blue dressings.
Anna got down from the carriage with little Baby in her arms. She 32
took out all the goods that she had brought and the carriage drove
away. Anna left everything on the porch, and went in to where Miss
Mary Wadsmith was sitting by the fire.
Miss Mary was sitting in a large armchair by the fire. All the 33
nooks and crannies of the chair were filled full of her soft and
spreading body. She was dressed in a black satin morning gown, the
sleeves, great monster things, were heavy with the mass of her soft
flesh. She sat there always, large, helpless, gentle. She had a
fair, soft, regular, good-looking face, with pleasant, empty,
grey-blue eyes, and heavy sleepy lids.
Behind Miss Mary was the little Jane, nervous and jerky with 34
excitement as she saw Anna come into the room.
“Miss Mary,” Anna began. She had stopped just within the door, her 35
body and her face stiff with repression, her teeth closed hard and
the white lights flashing sharply in the pale, clean blue of her
eyes. Her bearing was full of the strange coquetry of anger and of
fear, the stiffness, the bridling, the suggestive movement
underneath the rigidness of forced control, all the queer ways the
passions have to show themselves all one.
“Miss Mary,” the words came slowly with thick utterance and with 36
jerks, but always firm and strong. “Miss Mary, I can’t stand it any
more like this. When you tell me anything to do, I do it. I do
everything I can and you know I work myself sick for you. The blue
dressings in your room makes too much work to have for summer. Miss
Jane don’t know what work is. If you want to do things like that I
go away.”
Anna stopped still. Her words had not the strength of meaning they 37
were meant to have, but the power in the mood of Anna’s soul
frightened and awed Miss Mary through and through.
Like in all large and helpless women, Miss Mary’s heart beat 38
weakly in the soft and helpless mass it had to govern. Little Jane’s
excitements had already tried her strength. Now she grew Dale
fainted quite away.
“Miss Mary!” cried Anna running to her mistress and supporting all 39
her helpless weight back in the chair. Little Jane, distracted, flew
about as Anna ordered, bringing smelling salts and brandy and
vinegar and water and chafing poor Miss Mary’s wrists.
Miss Mary slowly opened her mild eyes. Anna sent the weeping 40
little Jane out of the room. She herself managed to get Miss Mary
quiet on the couch.
There was never a word more said about blue dressings. 41
Anna had conquered, and a few days later little Jane gave her a 42
green parrot to make peace.
For six more years little Jane and Anna lived in the same house. 43
They were careful and respectful to each other to the end.
Anna liked the parrot very well. She was fond of cats too and of 44
horses, but best of all animals she loved the dog and best of all
dogs, little Baby, the first gift from her friend, the widow Mrs.
Lehntman.
The widow Mrs. Lehntman was the romance in Anna’s life. 45
Anna met her first at the house of her half brother, the baker, 46
who had known the late Mr. Lehntman, a small grocer, very well.
Mrs. Lehntman had been for many years a midwife. Since her 47
husband’s death she had herself and two young children to support.
Mrs. Lehntman was a good looking woman. She had a plump well 48
rounded body, clear olive skin, bright dark eyes and crisp black
curling hair. She was pleasant, magnetic, efficient and good. She
was very attractive, very generous and very amiable.
She was a few years older than our good Anna, who was soon 49
entirely subdued by her magnetic, sympathetic charm.
Mrs. Lehntman in her work loved best to deliver young girls who 50
were in trouble. She would take these into her own house and care
for them in secret, till they could guiltlessly go home or back to
work, and then slowly pay her the money for their care. And so
through this new friend Anna led a wider and more entertaining life,
and often she used up her savings in helping Mrs. Lehntman through
those times when she was giving very much more than she got.
It was through Mrs. Lehntman that Anna met Dr. Shonjen who 51
employed her when at last it had to be that she must go away from
her Miss Mary Wadsmith.
During the last years with her Miss Mary, Anna’s health was very 52
bad, as indeed it always was from that time on until the end of her
strong life.
Anna was a medium sized, thin, hard working, worrying woman. 53
She had always had bad headaches and now they came more often and 54
more wearing.
Her face grew thin, more bony and more worn, her skin stained 55
itself pale yellow, as it does with working sickly women, and the
clear blue of her eyes went pale.
Her back troubled her a good deal, too. She was always tired at 56
her work and her temper grew more difficult and fretful.
Miss Mary Wadsmith often tried to make Anna see a little to 57
herself, and get a doctor, and the little Jane, now blossoming into
a pretty, sweet young woman, did her best to make Anna do things for
her good. Anna was stubborn always to Miss Jane, and fearful of
interference in her ways. Miss Mary Wadsmith’s mild advice she
easily could always turn aside.
Mrs. Lehntman was the only one who had any power Over Anna. She 58
induced her to let Dr. Shonjen take her in his care.
No one but a Dr. Shonjen could have brought a good and german Anna 59
first to stop her work and then submit herself to operation, but he
knew so well how to deal with german and poor people. Cheery,
jovial, hearty, full of jokes that made much fun and yet were full
of simple common sense and reasoning courage, he could persuade even
a good Anna to do things that were for her own good.
Edgar had now been for some years away from home, first at a 60
school and then at work to prepare himself to be a civil engineer.
Miss Mary and Jane promised to take a trip for all the time that
Anna was away and so there would be no need for Anna’s work, nor for
a new girl to take Anna’s place.
Anna’s mind was thus a little set at rest. She gave herself to 61
Mrs. Lehntman and the doctor to do what they thought best to make
her well and strong.
Anna endured the operation very well, and was patient, almost 62
docile, in the slow recovery of her working strength. But when she
was once more at work for her Miss Mary Wadsmith, all the good
effect of these several months of rest were soon worked and worried
well away.
For all the rest of her strong working life Anna was never really 63
well. She had bad headaches all the time and she was always thin and
worn.
She worked away her appetite, her health and strength, and always 64
for the sake of those who begged her not to work so hard. To her
thinking, in her stubborn, faithful, german soul, this was the right
way for a girl to do.
Anna’s life With Miss Mary Wadsmith was now drawing to an end. 65
Miss Jane, now altogether a young lady, had come out into the 66
world. Soon she would become engaged and then be married, and then
perhaps Miss Mary Wadsmith would make her home with her.
In such a household Anna was certain that she would never take a 67
place. Miss Jane was always careful and respectful and very good to
Anna, but never could Anna be a girl in a household where Miss Jane
would be the head. This much was very certain in her mind, and so
these last two years with her Miss Mary were not as happy as before.
The change came very soon. 68
Miss Jane became engaged and in a few months was to marry a man 69
from out of town, from Curden, an hour’s railway ride from
Bridgepoint.
Poor Miss Mary Wadsmith did not know the strong resolve Anna had 70
made to live apart from her when this new household should be
formed. Anna found it very hard to speak to her Miss Mary of this
change.
The preparations for the wedding went on day and night. 71
Anna worked and sewed hard to make it all go well. 72
Miss Mary was much fluttered, but content and happy with Anna to 73
make everything so easy for them all.
Anna worked so all the time to drown her sorrow and her conscience 74
too, for somehow it was not right to leave Miss Mary so. But what
else could she do? She could not live as her Miss Mary’s girl, in a
house where Miss Jane would be the head.
The wedding day grew always nearer. At last it came and passed. 75
The young people went on their wedding trip, and Anna and Miss 76
Mary were left behind to pack up all the things.
Even yet poor Anna had not had the strength to tell Miss Mary her 77
resolve, but now it had to be.
Anna every spare minute ran to her friend Mrs. Lehntman for 78
comfort and advice. She begged her friend to be with her when she
told the news to Miss Mary.
Perhaps if Mrs. Lehntman had not been in Bridgepoint, Anna would 79
have tried to live in the new house. Mrs. Lehntman did not urge her
to this thing nor even give her this advice, but feeling for Mrs.
Lehntman as she did made even faithful Anna not quite so strong in
her dependence on Miss Mary’s need as she would other-wise have
been.
Remember, Mrs. Lehntman was the romance in Anna’s life. 80
All the packing was now done and in a few days Miss Mary was to go 81
to the new house, where the young people were ready for her coming.
At last Anna had to speak. 82
Mrs. Lehntman agreed to go with her and help to make the matter 83
clear to poor Miss Mary.
The two women came together to Miss Mary Wadsmith sitting placid 84
by the fire in the empty living room. Miss Mary had seen Mrs.
Lehntman many times before, and so her coming in with Anna raised no
suspicion in her mind.
It was very hard for the two women to begin. 85
It must be very gently done, this telling to Miss Mary of the 86
change. She must not be shocked by suddenness or with excitement.
Anna was all stiff, and inside all a quiver with shame, anxiety 87
and grief. Even courageous Mrs. Lehntman, efficient, impulsive and
complacent as she was and not deeply concerned in the event, felt
awkward, abashed and almost guilty in that large, mild, helpless
presence. And at her side to make her feel the power of it all, was
the intense conviction of poor Anna, struggling to be unfeeling,
self righteous and suppressed.
“Miss Mary”—with Anna when things had to come they came always 88
sharp and short—“Miss Mary, Mrs. Lehntman has come here with me, so
I can tell you about not staying with you there in Curden. Of course
I go help you to get settled and then I think I come back and stay
right here in Bridgepoint. You know my brother he is here and all
his family, and I think it would be not right to go away from them
so far, and you know you don’t want me now so much Miss Mary when
you are all together there in Curden.”
Miss Mary Wadsmith was puzzled. She did not understand what Anna 89
meant by what she said.
“Why Anna of course you can come to see your brother whenever you 90
like to, and I will always pay your fare. I thought you understood
all about that, and we will be very glad to have your nieces come to
stay with you as often as they like. There will always be room
enough in a big house like Mr. Goldthwaite’s.”
It was now for Mrs. Lehntman to begin her work. 91
“Miss Wadsmith does not understand just what you mean Anna,” she 92
began. “Miss Wadsmith, Anna feels how good and kind you are, and she
talks about it all the time, and what you do for her in every way
you can, and she is very grateful and never would want to go away
from you, only she thinks it would be better now that Mrs.
Goldthwaite has this big new house and will want to manage it in her
own way, she thinks perhaps it would be better if Mrs. Goldthwaite
had all new servants with her to begin with, and not a girl like
Anna who knew her when she was a little girl. That is what Anna
feels about it now, and she asked me and I said to her that I
thought it would be better for you all and you knew she liked you so
much and that you were so good to her, and you would understand how
she thought it would be better in the new house if she stayed on
here in Bridgepoint, anyway for a little while until Mrs.
Goldthwaite was used to her new house. Is’nt that it Anna that you
wanted Miss Wadsmith to know?”
“Oh Anna,” Miss Mary Wadsmith said it slowly and in a grieved tone 93
of surprise that was very hard for the good Anna to endure, “Oh
Anna, I didn’t think that you would ever want to leave me after all
these years.”
“Miss Mary!” it came in one tense jerky burst, “Miss Mary it’s 94
only working under Miss Jane now would make me leave you so. I know
how good you are and I work myself sick for you and for Mr. Edgar
and for Miss Jane too, only Miss Jane she will want everything
different from like the way we always did, and you knew Miss Mary I
can’t have Miss Jane watching at me all the time, and every minute
something new. Miss Mary, it would be very bad and Miss Jane don’t
really want me to come with you to the new house, I know that all
the time. Please Miss Mary don’t feel bad about it or think I ever
want to go away from you if I could do things right for you the way
they ought to be.”
Poor Miss Mary. Struggling was not a thing for her to do. Anna 95
would surely yield if she would struggle, but struggling was too
much work and too much worry for peaceful Miss Mary to endure. If
Anna would do so she must. Poor Miss Mary Wadsmith sighed, looked
wistfully at Anna and then gave it up.
“You must do as you think best Anna,” she said at last letting all 96
of her soft self sink back into the chair. “I am very sorry and so I
am sure will be Miss Jane when she hears what you have thought it
best to do. It was very good of Mrs. Lehntman to come with you and I
am sure she does it for you good. I suppose you want to go out a
little now. Come back in an hour Anna and help me go to bed.” Miss
Mary closed her eyes and rested still and placid by the fire.
The two women went away. 97
This was the end of Anna’s service with Miss Mary Wadsmith, and 98
soon her new life taking care of Dr. Shonjen was begun.
Keeping house for a jovial bachelor doctor gave new elements of 99
understanding to Anna’s maiden german mind. Her habits were as firm
fixed as before, but it always was with Anna that things that had
been done once with her enjoyment and consent could always happen
any time again, such as her getting up at any hour of the night to
make a supper and cook hot chops and chicken fry for Dr. Shonjen and
his bachelor friends.
Anna loved to work for men, for they could eat so much and with 100
such joy. And when they were warm and full, they were content, and
let her do whatever she thought best. Not that Anna’s conscience
ever slept, for neither with interference or without would she
strain less to keep on saving every cent and working every hour of
the day. But truly she loved it best when she could scold. Now it
was not only other girls and the colored man, and dogs, and cats,
and horses and her parrot, but her cheery master, jolly Dr. Shonjen,
whom she could guide and constantly rebuke to his own good.
The doctor really loved her scoldings as she loved his 101
wickednesses and his merry joking ways.
These days were happy days with Anna. 102
Her freakish humor now first showed itself, her sense of fun in 103
the queer ways that people had, that made her later find delight in
brutish servile Katy, in Sally’s silly ways and in the badness of
Peter and of Rags. She loved to make sport with the skeletons the
doctor had, to make them move and make strange noises till the negro
boy shook in his shoes and his eyes rolled white in his agony of
fear.
Then Anna would tell these histories to her doctor. Her worn, 104
thin, lined, determined face would form for itself new and humorous
creases, and her pale blue eyes would kindle with humour and with
joy as her doctor burst into his hearty laugh. And the good Anna
full of the coquetry of pleasing would bridle with her angular,
thin, spinster body, straining her stories and herself to please.
These early days with jovial Dr. Shonjen were very happy days with 105
the good Anna.
All of Anna’s spare hours in these early days she spent with her 106
friend, the widow Mrs. Lehntman. Mrs. Lehntman lived with her two
children in a small house in the same part of the town as Dr.
Shonjen. The older of these two children was a girl named Julia and
was now about thirteen years of age. This Julia Lehntman was an
unattractive girl enough, harsh featured, dull and stubborn as had
been her heavy german father. Mrs. Lehntman did not trouble much
with her, but gave her always all she wanted that she had, and let
the girl do as she liked. This was not from indifference or dislike
on the part of Mrs. Lehntman, it was just her usual way.
Her second child was a boy, two years younger than his sister, a 107
bright, pleasant, cheery fellow, who too, did what he liked with his
money and his time. All this was so with Mrs. Lehntman because she
had so much in her head and in her house that clamoured for her
concentration and her time.
This slackness and neglect in the running of the house, and the 108
indifference in this mother for the training of her young was very
hard for our good Anna to endure. Of course she did her best to
scold, to save for Mrs. Lehntman, and to put things in their place
the way they ought to be.
Even in the early days when Anna was first won by the glamour of 109
Mrs. Lehntman’s brilliancy and charm, she had been uneasy in Mrs.
Lehntman’s house with a need of putting things to rights. Now that
the two children growing up were of more importance in the house,
and now that long acquaintance had brushed the dazzle out of Anna’s
eyes, she began to struggle to make things go here as she thought
was right.
She watched and scolded hard these days to make young Julia do the 110
way she should. Not that Julia Lehntman was pleasant in the good
Anna’s sight, but it must never be that a young girl growing up
should have no one to make her learn to do things right.
The boy was easier to scold, for scoldings never sank in very 111
deep, and indeed he liked them very well for they brought with them
new things to eat, and lively teasing, and good jokes.
Julia, the girl, grew very sullen with it all, and very often won 112
her point, for after all Miss Annie was no relative of hers and had
no business coming there and making trouble all the time. Appealing
to the mother was no use. It was wonderful how Mrs. Lehntman could
listen and not hear, could answer and yet not decide, could say and
do what she was asked and yet leave things as they were before.
One day it got almost too bad for even Anna’s friendship to bear 113
out.
“Well, Julia, is your mamma out?” Anna asked, one Sunday summer 114
afternoon, as she came into the Lehntman house.
Anna looked very well this day. She was always careful in her 115
dress and sparing of new clothes. She made herself always fulfill
her own ideal of how a girl should look when she took her Sundays
out. Anna knew so well the kind of ugliness appropriate to each rank
in life.
It was interesting to see how when she bought things for Miss 116
Wadsmith and later for her cherished Miss Mathilda and always
entirely from her own taste and often as cheaply as she bought
things for her friends or for herself, that on the one hand she
chose the things having the right air for a member of the upper
class, and for the others always the things having the awkward
ugliness that we call Dutch. She knew the best thing in each kind,
and she never in the course of her strong life compromised her sense
of what was the right thing for a girl to wear.
On this bright summer Sunday afternoon she came to the Lehntmans’, 117
much dressed up in her new, brick red, silk waist trimmed with broad
black beaded braid, a dark cloth skirt and a new stiff, shiny, black
straw hat, trimmed with colored ribbons and a bird. She had on new
gloves, and a feather boa about her neck.
Her spare, thin, awkward body and her worn, pale yellow face 118
though lit up now with the pleasant summer sun made a queer discord
with the brightness of her clothes.
She came to the Lehntman house, where she had not been for several 119
days, and opening the door that is always left unlatched in the
houses of the lower middle class in the pleasant cities of the
South, she found Julia in the family sitting-room alone.
“Well, Julia, where is your mamma?” Anna asked. “Ma is out but 120
come in, Miss Annie, and look at our new brother.” “What you talk so
foolish for Julia,” said Anna sitting down. “I ain’t talkin’
foolish, Miss Annie. Didn’t you know mamma has just adopted a cute,
nice little baby boy?” “You talk so crazy, Julia, you ought to know
better than to say such things.” Julia turned sullen. “All right
Miss Annie, you don’t need to believe what I say, but the little
baby is in the kitchen and ma will tell you herself when she comes
in.”
It sounded most fantastic, but Julia had an air of truth and Mrs. 121
Lehntman was capable of doing stranger things. Anna was disturbed.
“What you mean Julia,” she said. “I don’t mean nothin’ Miss Annie,
you don’t believe the baby is in there, well you can go and see it
for yourself.”
Anna went into the kitchen. A baby was there all right enough, and 122
a lusty little boy he seemed. He was very tight asleep in a basket
that stood in the corner by the open door.
“You mean your mamma is just letting him stay here a little 123
while,” Anna said to Julia who had followed her into the kitchen to
see Miss Annie get real mad. “No that ain’t it Miss Annie. The
mother was that girl, Lily that came from Bishop’s place out in the
country, and she don’t want no children, and ma liked the little boy
so much, she said she’d keep him here and adopt him for her own
child.”
Anna, for once, was fairly dumb with astonishment and rage. The 124
front door slammed.
“There’s ma now,” cried Julia in an uneasy triumph. for she was 125
not quite certain in her mind which side of the question she was on,
“There’s ma now, and you can ask her for yourself if I ain’t told
you true.”
Mrs. Lehntman came into the kitchen where they were. She was 126
bland, impersonal and pleasant, as it was her wont to be. Still
to-day, through this her usual manner that gave her such success in
her practice as a midwife, there shone an uneasy consciousness of
guilt, for like all who had to do with the good Anna, Mrs. Lehntman
dreaded her firm character, her vigorous judgements and the bitter
fervour of her tongue.
It had been plain to see in the six years these women were 127
together, how Anna gradually had come to lead. Not really lead, of
course, for Mrs. Lehntman never could be led, she was so very
devious in her ways; but Anna had come to have direction whenever
she could learn what Mrs. Lehntman meant to do before the deed was
done. Now it was hard to tell which would win out. Mrs. Lehntman had
her unhearing mind and her happy way of giving a pleasant well
diffused attention, and then she had it on her side that, after all,
this thing was already done.
Anna was, as usual, determined for the right. She was stiff and 128
pale with her anger and her fear, and nervous, and all a tremble as
was her usual way when a bitter fight was near.
Mrs. Lehntman was easy and pleasant as she came into the room. 129
Anna was stiff and silent and very white.
“We haven’t seen you for a long time, Anna,” Mrs. Lehntman 130
cordially began. “I was just gettin’ worried thinking you was sick.
My! but it’s a hot day to-day. Come into the sittin’-room, Anna, and
Julia will make us some ice tea.”
Anna followed Mrs. Lehntman into the other room in a stiff 131
silence, and when there she did not, as invited, take a chair.
As always with Anna when a thing had to come it came very short 132
and sharp. She found it hard to breathe just now, and every word
came with a jerk.
“Mrs. Lehntman, it ain’t true what Julia said about your taking 133
that Lily’s boy to keep. I told Julia when she told me she was crazy
to talk so.”
Anna’s real excitements stopped her breath, and made her words 134
come sharp and with a jerk. Mrs. Lehntman’s feelings spread her
breath, and made her words come slow, but more pleasant and more
easy even than before.
“Why Anna,” she began, “don’t you see Lily couldn’t keep her boy 135
for she is working at the Bishops’ now, and he is such a cute dear
little chap, and you know how fond I am of little fellers, and I
thought it would be nice for Julia and for Willie to have a little
brother. You know Julia always loves to play with babies, and I have
to be away so much, and Willie he is running in the streets every
minute all the time, and you see a baby would be sort of nice
company for Julia, and you know you are always saying Anna, Julia
should not be on the streets so much and the baby will be so good to
keep her in.”
Anna was every minute paler with indignation and with heat. 136
“Mrs. Lehntman, I don’t see what business it is for you to take 137
another baby for your own, when you can’t do what’s right by Julia
and Willie you got here already. There’s Julia, nobody tells her a
thing when I ain’t here, and who is going to tell her now how to do
things for that baby? She ain’t got no sense what’s the right way to
do with children, and you out all the time, and you ain’t got no
time for your own neither, and now you want to be takin’ up with
strangers. I know you was careless, Mrs. Lehntman, but I didn’t
think that you could do this so. No, Mrs. Lehntman, it ain’t your
duty to take up with no others, when you got two children of your
own, that got to get along just any way they can, and you know you
ain’t got any too much money all the time, and you are all so
careless here and spend it all the time, and Julia and Willie
growin’ big. It ain’t right, Mrs. Lehntman, to do so.”
This was as bad as it could be. Anna had never spoken her mind so 138
to her friend before. Now it was too harsh for Mrs. Lehntman to
allow herself to really hear. If she really took the meaning in
these words she could never ask Anna to come into her house again,
and she liked Anna very well, and was used to depend on her savings
and her strength. And then too Mrs. Lehntman could not really take
in harsh ideas. She was too well diffused to catch the feel of any
sharp firm edge.
Now she managed to understand all this in a way that made it easy 139
for her to say, “Why, Anna, I think you feel too bad about seeing
what the children are doing every minute in the day. Julia and
Willie are real good, and they play with all the nicest children in
the square. If you had some, all your own, Anna, you’d see it don’t
do no harm to let them do a little as they like, and Julia likes
this baby so, and sweet dear little boy, it would be so kind of bad
to send him to a ’sylum now, you know it would Anna, when you like
children so yourself, and are so good to my Willie all the time. No
indeed Anna, it’s easy enough to say I should send this poor, cute
little boy to a ’sylum when I could keep him here so nice, but you
know Anna, you wouldn’t like to do it yourself, now you really know
you wouldn’t, Anna, though you talk to me so hard.—My, it’s hot
to-day, what you doin’ with that ice tea in there Julia, when Miss
Annie is waiting all this time for her drink?”
Julia brought in the ice tea. She was so excited with the talk she 140
had been hearing from the kitchen, that she slopped it on the plate
out of the glasses a good deal. But she was safe, for Anna felt this
trouble so deep down that she did not even see those awkward, bony
hands, adorned to-day with a new ring, those stupid, foolish hands
that always did things the wrong way.
“Here Miss Annie,” Julia said, “Here, Miss Annie, is your glass of 141
tea, I know you like it good and strong.”
“No, Julia, I don’t want no ice tea here. Your mamma ain’t able to 142
afford now using her money upon ice tea for her friends. It ain’t
right she should now any more. I go out now to see Mrs. Drehten. She
does all she can, and she is sick now working so hard taking care of
her own children. I go there now. Good by Mrs. Lehntman, I hope you
don’t get no bad luck doin’ what it ain’t right for you to do.”
“My, Miss Annie is real mad now,” Julia said, as the house shook, 143
as the good Anna shut the outside door with a concentrated
shattering slam.
It was some months now that Anna had been intimate with Mrs. 144
Drehten.
Mrs. Drehten had had a tumor and had come to Dr. Shonjen to be 145
treated. During the course of her visits there, she and Anna had
learned to like each other very well. There was no fever in this
friendship, it was just the interchange of two hard working,
worrying women, the one large and motherly, with the pleasant,
patient, soft, worn, tolerant face, that comes with a german husband
to obey, and seven solid girls and boys to bear and rear, and the
other was our good Anna with her spinster body, her firm jaw, her
humorous, light, clean eyes and her lined, worn, thin, pale yellow
face.
Mrs. Drehten lived a patient, homely, hard-working life. Her 146
husband an honest, decent man enough, was a brewer, and somewhat
given to over drinking, and so he was often surly and unpleasant.
The family of seven children was made up of four stalwart, cheery, 147
filial sons, and three hard working obedient simple daughters.
It was a family life the good Anna very much approved and also she 148
was much liked by them all. With a german woman’s feeling for the
masterhood in men, she was docile to the surly father and rarely
rubbed him the wrong way. To the large, worn, patient, sickly mother
she was a sympathetic listener, wise in council and most efficient
in her help. The young ones too, liked her very well. The sons
teased her all the time and roared with boisterous pleasure when she
gave them back sharp hits. The girls were all so good that her
scoldings here were only in the shape of good advice, sweetened with
new trimmings for their hats, and ribbons, and sometimes on their
birthdays, bits of jewels.
It was here that Anna came for comfort after her grievous stroke 149
at her friend the widow, Mrs. Lehntman. Not that Anna would tell
Mrs. Drehten of this trouble. She could never lay bare the wound
that came to her through this idealised affection. Her affair with
Mrs. Lehntman was too sacred and too grievous ever to be told. But
here in this large household, in busy movement and variety in
strife, she could silence the uneasiness and pain of her own wound.
The Drehtens lived out in the country in one of the wooden, ugly 150
houses that lie in groups outside of our large cities.
The father and the sons all had their work here making beer, and 151
the mother and her girls scoured and sewed and cooked.
On Sundays they were all washed very clean, and smelling of 152
kitchen soap. The sons, in their Sunday clothes, loafed around the
house or in the village, and on special days went on picnics with
their girls. The daughters in their awkward, colored finery went to
church most of the day and then walking with their friends.
They always came together for their supper, where Anna always was 153
most welcome, the jolly Sunday evening supper that german people
love. Here Anna and the boys gave it to each other in sharp hits and
hearty boisterous laughter, the girls made things for them to eat,
and waited on them all, the mother loved all her children all the
time, and the father joined in with his occasional unpleasant word
that made a bitter feeling but which they had all learned to pass as
if it were not said.
It was to the comfort of this house that Anna came that Sunday 154
summer afternoon, after she had left Mrs. Lehntman and her careless
ways.
The Drehten house was open all about. No one was there but Mrs. 155
Drehten resting in her rocking chair, out in the pleasant, scented,
summer air.
Anna had had a hot walk from the cars. 156
She went into the kitchen for a cooling drink, and then came out 157
and sat down on the steps near Mrs. Drehten.
Anna’s anger had changed. A sadness had come to her. Now with the 158
patient, friendly, gentle mother talk of Mrs. Drehten, this sadness
changed to resignation and to rest.
As the evening came on the young ones dropped in one by one. Soon 159
the merry Sunday evening supper was begun.
It had not been all comfort for our Anna, these months of knowing 160
Mrs. Drehten. It had made trouble for her with the family of her
half brother, the fat baker.
Her half brother, the fat baker, was a queer kind of a man. He was 161
a huge, unwieldy creature, all puffed out all over, and no longer
able to walk much, with his enormous body and the big, swollen,
bursted veins in his great legs. He did not try to walk much now. He
sat around his place, leaning on his great thick stick, and watching
his workmen at their work.
On holidays, and sometimes of a Sunday, he went out in his bakery 162
wagon. He went then to each customer he had and gave them each a
large, sweet, raisined loaf of caky bread. At every house with many
groans and gasps he would descend his heavy weight out of the wagon,
his good featured, black haired, flat, good natured face shining
with oily perspiration, with pride in labor and with generous
kindness. Up each stoop he hobbled with the help of his big stick,
and into the nearest chair in the kitchen or in the parlour, as the
fashion of the house demanded, and there he sat and puffed, and then
presented to the mistress or the cook the raisined german loaf his
boy supplied him.
Anna had never been a customer of his. She had always lived in 163
another part of the town, but he never left her out in these bakery
progresses of his, and always with his own hand he gave her her
festive loaf.
Anna liked her half brother well enough. She never knew him really 164
well, for he rarely talked at all and least of all to women, but he
seemed to her, honest, and good and kind, and he never tried to
interfere in Anna’s ways. And then Anna liked the loaves of raisined
bread, for in the summer she and the second girl could live on them,
and not be buying bread with the household money all the time.
But things were not so simple with our Anna, with the other 165
members of her half brother’s house.
Her half brother’s family was made up of himself, his wife, and 166
their two daughters.
Anna never liked her brother’s wife. 167
The youngest of two daughters was named after her aunt Anna. 168
Anna never liked her half brother’s wife. This woman had been very 169
good to Anna, never interfering in her ways, always glad to see her
and to make her visits pleasant, but she had not found favour in our
good Anna’s sight.
Anna had too, no real affection for her nieces. She never scolded 170
them or tried to guide them for their good. Anna never criticised or
interfered in the running of her half brother’s house.
Mrs. Federner was a good looking, prosperous woman, a little harsh 171
and cold within her soul perhaps, but trying always to be pleasant,
good and kind. Her daughters were well trained, quiet, obedient,
well dressed girls, and yet our good Anna loved them not, nor their
mother, nor any of their ways.
It was in this house that Anna had first met her friend, the 172
window, Mrs. Lehntman.
The Federners had never seemed to feel it wrong in Anna, her 173
devotion to this friend and her care of her and of her children.
Mrs. Lehntman and Anna and her feelings were all somehow too big for
their attack. But Mrs. Federner had the mind and tongue that blacken
things. Not really to blacken black, of course, but just to roughen
and to rub on a little smut. She could somehow make even the face of
the Almighty seem pimply and a little coarse, and so she always did
this with her friends, though not with the intent to interfere.
This was really true with Mrs. Lehntman that Mrs. Federner did not 174
mean to interfere, but Anna’s friendship with the Drehtens was a
very different matter.
Why should Mrs. Drehten, that poor common working wife of a man 175
who worked for others in a brewery and who always drank too much,
and was not like a thrifty, decent german man, why should that Mrs.
Drehten and her ugly, awkward daughters be getting presents from her
husband’s sister all the time, and her husband always so good to
Anna, and one of the girls having her name too, and those Drehtens
all strangers to her and never going to come to any good? It was not
right for Anna to do so.
Mrs. Federner knew better than to say such things straight out to 176
her husband’s fiery, stubborn sister, but she lost no chance to let
Anna feel and see what they all thought.
It was easy to blacken all the Drehtens, their poverty, the 177
husband’s drinking, the four big sons carrying on and always lazy,
the awkward, ugly daughters dressing up with Anna’s help and trying
to look so fine, and the poor, weak, hard-working sickly mother, so
easy to degrade with large dosings of contemptuous pity.
Anna could not do much with these attacks for Mrs. Federner always 178
ended with, “And you so good to them Anna all the time. I don’t see
how they could get along at all if you didn’t help them all the
time, but you are so good Anna, and got such a feeling heart, just
like your brother, that you give anything away you got to anybody
that will ask you for it, and that’s shameless enough to take it
when they ain’t no relatives of yours. Poor Mrs. Drehten, she is a
good woman. Poor thing it must be awful hard for her to have to take
things from strangers all the time, and her husband spending it on
drink. I was saying to Mrs. Lehntman, Anna, only yesterday, how I
never was so sorry for any one as Mrs. Drehten, and how good it was
for you to help them all the time.”
All this meant a gold watch and chain to her god daughter for her 179
birthday, the next month, and a new silk umbrella for the elder
sister. Poor Anna, and she did not love them very much, these
relatives of hers, and they were the only kin she had.
Mrs. Lehntman never joined in, in these attacks. Mrs. Lehntman was 180
diffuse and careless in her ways, but she never worked such things
for her own ends, and she was too sure of Anna to be jealous of her
other friends.
All this time Anna was leading her happy life with Dr. Shonjen. 181
She had every day her busy time. She cooked and saved and sewed and
scrubbed and scolded. And every night she had her happy time, in
seeing her Doctor like the fine things she bought so cheap and
cooked so good for him to eat. And then he would listen and laugh so
loud, as she told him stories of what had happened on that day.
The Doctor, too, liked it better all the time and several times in 182
these five years he had of his own motion raised her wages.
Anna was content with what she had and grateful for all her doctor 183
did for her.
So Anna’s serving and her giving life went on, each with its 184
varied pleasures and its pains.
The adopting of the little boy did not put an end to Anna’s 185
friendship for the widow Mrs. Lehntman. Neither the good Anna nor
the careless Mrs. Lehntman would give each other up excepting for
the gravest cause.
Mrs. Lehntman was the only romance Anna ever knew. A certain 186
magnetic brilliancy in person and in manner made Mrs. Lehntman a
woman other women loved. Then, too, she was generous and good and
honest, though she was so careless always in her ways. And then she
trusted Anna and liked her better than any of her other friends, and
Anna always felt this very much.
No, Anna could not give up Mrs. Lehntman, and soon she was busier 187
than before making Julia do things right for little Johnny.
And now new schemes were working strong in Mrs. Lehntman’s head, 188
and Anna must listen to her plans and help her make them work.
Mrs. Lehntman always loved best in her work to deliver young girls 189
who were in trouble. She would keep these in her house until they
could go to their homes or to their work, and slowly pay her back
the money for their care.
Anna had always helped her friend to do this thing, for like all 190
the good women of the decent poor, she felt it hard that girls
should not be helped, not girls that were really bad of course,
these she condemned and hated in her heart and with her tongue, but
honest, decent, good, hard working, foolish girls who were in
trouble.
For such as these Anna always liked to give her money and her 191
strength.
Now Mrs. Lehntman thought that it would pay to take a big house 192
for herself to take in girls and to do everything in a big way.
Anna did not like this plan. 193
Anna was never daring in her ways. Save and you will have the 194
money you have saved, was all that she could know.
Not that the good Anna had it so. 195
She saved and saved and always saved, and then here and there, to 196
this friend and to that, to one in her trouble and to the other in
her joy, in sickness, death, and weddings, or to make young people
happy, it always went, the hard earned money she had saved.
Anna could not clearly see how Mrs. Lehntman could make a big 197
house pay. In the small house where she had these girls, it did not
pay, and in a big house there was so much more that she would spend.
Such things were hard for the good Anna to very clearly see. One 198
day she came into the Lehntman house. “Anna,” Mrs. Lehntman said,
“you know that nice big house on the next corner that we saw to
rent. I took it for a year just yesterday. I paid a little down you
know so I could have it sure all right and now you fix it up just
like you want. I let you do just what you like with it.”
Anna knew that it was now too late. However, “But Mrs. Lehntman 199
you said you would not take another house, you said so just last
week. Oh, Mrs. Lehntman I didn’t think that you would do this so!”
Anna knew so well it was too late. 200
“I know, Anna, but it was such a good house, just right you know 201
and some one else was there to see, and you know you said it suited
very well, and if I didn’t take it the others said they would, and I
wanted to ask you only there wasn’t time, and really Anna, I don’t
need much help, it will go so well I know. I just need a little to
begin and to fix up with and that’s all Anna that I need, and I know
it will go awful well. You wait Anna and you’ll see, and I let you
fix it up just like you want, and you will make it look so nice, you
got such sense in all these things. It will be a good place. You see
Anna if I ain’t right in what I say.”
Of course Anna gave the money for this thing though she could not 202
believe that it was best. No, it was very bad. Mrs. Lehntman could
never make it pay and it would cost so much to keep. But what could
our poor Anna do? Remember Mrs. Lehntman was the only romance Anna
ever knew.
Anna’s strength in her control of what was done in Mrs. Lehntman’s 203
house, was not now what it had been before that Lily’s little Johnny
came. That thing had been for Anna a defeat. There had been no
fighting to a finish but Mrs. Lehntman had very surely won.
Mrs. Lehntman needed Anna just as much as Anna needed Mrs. 204
Lehntman, but Mrs. Lehntman was more ready to risk Anna’s loss, and
so the good Anna grew always weaker in her power to control.
In friendship, power always has its downward curve. One’s strength 205
to manage rises always higher until there comes a time one does not
win, and though one may not really lose, still from the time that
victory is not sure, one’s power slowly ceases to be strong. It is
only in a close tie such as marriage, that influence can mount and
grow always stronger with the years and never meet with a decline.
It can only happen so when there is no way to escape.
Friendship goes by favour. There is always danger of a break or of 206
a stronger power coming in between. Influence can only be a steady
march when one can surely never break away.
Anna wanted Mrs. Lehntman very much and Mrs. Lehntman needed Anna, 207
but there were always other ways to do and if Anna had once given up
she might do so again, so why should Mrs. Lehntman have real fear?
No, while the good Anna did not come to open fight she had been 208
stronger. Now Mrs. Lehntman could always hold out longer. She knew
too, that Anna had a feeling heart. Anna could never stop doing all
she could for any one that really needed help. Poor Anna had no
power to say no.
And then, too, Mrs. Lehntman was the only romance Anna ever knew. 209
Romance is the ideal in one’s life and it is very lonely living with
it lost.
So the good Anna gave all her savings for this place, although she 210
knew that this was not the right way for her friend to do.
For some time now they were all very busy fixing up the house. It 211
swallowed all Anna’s savings fixing up this house, for when Anna
once began to make it nice, she could not leave it be until it was
as good as for the purpose it should be.
Somehow it was Anna now that really took the interest in the 212
house. Mrs. Lehntman, now the thing was done seemed very lifeless,
without interest in the house, uneasy in her mind and restless in
her ways, and more diffuse even than before in her attention. She
was good and kind to all the people in her house, and let them do
whatever they thought best.
Anna did not fail to see that Mrs. Lehntman had some thing on her 213
mind that was all new. What was it that disturbed Mrs. Lehntman so?
She kept on saying it was all in Anna’s head. She had no trouble now
at all. Everybody was so good and it was all so nice in the new
house. But surely there was something here that was all wrong.
Anna heard a good deal of all this from her half brother’s wife, 214
the hard speaking Mrs. Federner.
Through the fog of dust and work and furnishing in the new house, 215
and through the disturbed mind of Mrs. Lehntman, and with the dark
hints of Mrs. Federner, there loomed up to Anna’s sight a man, a new
doctor that Mrs. Lehntman knew.
Anna had never met the man but she heard of him very often now. 216
Not from her friend, the widow Mrs. Lehntman. Anna knew that Mrs.
Lehntman made of him a mystery that Anna had not the strength just
then to vigorously break down.
Mrs. Federner gave always dark suggestions and unpleasant hints. 217
Even good Mrs. Drehten talked of it.
Mrs. Lehntman never spoke of the new doctor more than she could 218
help. This was most mysterious and unpleasant and very hard for our
good Anna to endure.
Anna’s troubles came all of them at once. 219
Here in Mrs. Lehntman’s house loomed up dismal and forbidding, a 220
mysterious, perhaps an evil man. In Dr. Shonjen’s house were
beginning signs of interest in the doctor in a woman.
This, too, Mrs. Federner often told to the poor Anna. The doctor 221
surely would be married soon, he liked so much now to go to Mr.
Weingartner’s house where there was a daughter who loved Doctor,
everybody knew.
In these days the living room in her half brother’s house was 222
Anna’s torture chamber. And worst of all there was so much reason
for her half sister’s words. The Doctor certainly did look like
marriage and Mrs. Lehntman acted very queer.
Poor Anna. Dark were these days and much she had to suffer. 223
The Doctor’s trouble came to a head the first. It was true Doctor 224
was engaged and to be married soon. He told Anna so himself.
What was the good Anna now to do? Dr. Shonjen wanted her of course 225
to stay. Anna was so sad with all these troubles. She knew here in
the Doctor’s house it would be bad when he was married, but she had
not the strength now to be firm and go away. She said at last that
she would try and stay.
Doctor got married now very soon. Anna made the house all 226
beautiful and clean and she really hoped that she might stay. But
this was not for long.
Mrs. Shonjen was a proud, unpleasant woman. She wanted constant 227
service and attention and never even a thank you to a servant. Soon
all Doctor’s old people went away. Anna went to Doctor and
explained. She told him what all the servants thought of his new
wife. Anna bade him a sad farewell and went away.
Anna was now most uncertain what to do. She could go to Curden to 228
her Miss Mary Wadsmith who always wrote how much she needed Anna,
but Anna still dreaded Miss Jane’s interfering ways. Then too, she
could not yet go away from Bridgepoint and from Mrs. Lehntman,
unpleasant as it always was now over there.
Through one of Doctor’s friends Anna heard of Miss Mathilda. Anna 229
was very doubtful about working for a Miss Mathilda. She did not
think it would be good working for a woman any more. She had found
it very good with Miss Mary but she did not think that many women
would be so.
Most women were interfering in their ways. 230
Anna heard that Miss Mathilda was a great big woman, not so big 231
perhaps as her Miss Mary, still she was big, and the good Anna liked
them better so. She did not like them thin and small and active and
always looking in and always prying.
Anna could not make up her mind what was the best thing now for 232
her to do. She could sew and this way make a living, but she did not
like such business very well.
Mrs. Lehntman urged the place with Miss Mathilda. She was sure 233
Anna would find it better so. The good Anna did not know.
“Well Anna,” Mrs. Lehntman said, “I tell you what we do. I go with 234
you to that woman that tells fortunes, perhaps she tell us something
that will show us what is the best way for you now to do.”
It was very bad to go to a woman who tells fortunes. Anna was of 235
strong South German Catholic religion and the german priests in the
churches always said that it was very bad to do things so. But what
else now could the good Anna do? She was so mixed and bothered in
her mind, and troubled with this life that was all wrong, though she
did try so hard to do the best she knew. “All right, Mrs. Lehntman,”
Anna said at last, “I think I go there now with you.”
This woman who told fortunes was a medium. She had a house in the 236
lower quarter of the town. Mrs. Lehntman and the good Anna went to
her.
The medium opened the door for them herself. She was a loose made, 237
dusty, dowdy woman with a persuading, conscious and embracing manner
and very greasy hair.
The woman let them come into the house. 238
The street door opened straight into the parlor, as is the way in 239
the small houses of the south. The parlor had a thick and flowered
carpet on the floor. The room was full of dirty things all made by
hand. Some hung upon the wall, some were on the seats and over backs
of chairs and some on tables and on those what-nots that poor people
love. And everywhere were little things that break. Many of these
little things were broken and the place was stuffy and not clean.
No medium uses her parlor for her work. It is always in her eating 240
room that she has her trances.
The eating room in all these houses is the living room in winter. 241
It has a round table in the centre covered with a decorated woolen
cloth, that has soaked in the grease of many dinners, for though it
should be always taken off, it is easier to spread the cloth upon it
than change it for the blanket deadener that one owns. The
upholstered chairs are dark and worn, and dirty. The carpet has
grown dingy with the food that’s fallen from the table, the dirt
that’s scraped from off the shoes, and the dust that settles with
the ages. The sombre greenish colored paper on the walls has been
smoked a dismal dirty grey, and all pervading is the smell of soup
made out of onions and fat chunks of meat.
The medium brought Mrs. Lehntman and our Anna into his eating 242
room, after she had found out what it was they wanted. They all
three sat around the table and then the medium went into her trance.
The medium first closed her eyes and then they opened very wide 243
and lifeless. She took a number of deep breaths, choked several
times and swallowed very hard. She waved her hand back every now and
then, and she began to speak in a monotonous slow, even tone.
“I see—I see—don’t crowd so on me,—I see—I see—too many 244
forms—don’t crowd so on me—I see—I see—you are thinking of
something—you don’t know whether you want to do it now. I see—I
see—don’t crowd so on me—I see—I see—you are not sure,—I see—I see—a
house with trees around it,—it is dark—it is evening—I see—I see—you
go in the house—I see—I see you come out—it will be all right—you go
and do it—do what you are not certain about—it will come out all
right—it is best and you should do it now.”
She stopped, she made deep gulps, her eyes rolled back into her 245
head, she swallowed hard and then she was her former dingy and bland
self again.
“Did you get what you wanted that the spirit should tell you?” the 246
woman asked. Mrs. Lehntman answered yes, it was just what her friend
had wanted so bad to know. Anna was uneasy in this house with
superstition, with fear of her good priest, and with disgust at all
the dirt and grease, but she was most content for now she knew what
it was best for her to do.
Anna paid the woman for her work and then they came away. 247
“There Anna didn’t I tell you how it would all be? You see the 248
spirit says so too. You must take the place with Miss Mathilda, that
is what I told you was the best thing for you to do. We go out and
see her where she lives to-night. Ain’t you glad, Anna, that I took
you to this place, so you know now what you will do?”
Mrs. Lehntman and Anna went that evening to see Miss Mathilda. 249
Miss Mathilda was staying with a friend who lived in a house that
did have trees about. Miss Mathilda was not there herself to talk
with Anna.
If it had not been that it was evening, and so dark, and that this 250
house had trees all round about, and that Anna found herself going
in and coming out just as the woman that day said that she would do,
had it not all been just as the medium said, the good Anna would
never have taken the place with Miss Mathilda.
Anna did not see Miss Mathilda and she did not like the friend who 251
acted in her place.
This friend was a dark, sweet, gentle little mother woman, very 252
easy to be pleased in her own work and very good to servants, but
she felt that acting for her young friend, the careless Miss
Mathilda, she must be very careful to examine well and see that all
was right and that Anna would surely do the best she knew. She asked
Anna all about her ways and her intentions and how much she would
spend, and how often she went out and whether she could wash and
cook and sew.
The good Anna set her teeth fast to endure and would hardly answer 253
anything at all. Mrs. Lehntman made it all go fairly well.
The good Anna was all worked up with her resentment, and Miss 254
Mathilda’s friend did not think that she would do.
However, Miss Mathilda was willing to begin and as for Anna, she 255
knew that the medium said it must be so. Mrs. Lehntman, too, was
sure, and said she knew that this was the best thing for Anna now to
do. So Anna sent word at last to Miss Mathilda, that if she wanted
her, she would try if it would do.
So Anna began a new life taking care of Miss Mathilda. 256
Anna fixed up the little red brick house where Miss Mathilda was 257
going to live and made it very pleasant, clean and nice. She brought
over her dog, Baby, and her parrot. She hired Lizzie for a second
girl to be with her and soon they were all content. All except the
parrot, for Miss Mathilda did not like its scream. Baby was all
right but not the parrot. But then Anna never really loved the
parrot, and so she gave it to the Drehten girls to keep.
Before Anna could really rest content with Miss Mathilda, she had 258
to tell her good german priest what it was that she had done, and
how very bad it was that she had been and how she would never do so
again.
Anna really did believe with all her might. It was her fortune 259
never to live with people who had any faith, but then that never
worried Anna. She prayed for them always as she should, and she was
very sure that they were good. The doctor loved to tease her with
his doubts and Miss Mathilda liked to do so too, but with the
tolerant spirit of her church, Anna never thought that such things
were bad for them to do.
Anna found it hard to always know just why it was that things went 260
wrong. Sometimes her glasses broke and then she knew that she had
not done her duty by the church, just in the way that she should do.
Sometimes she was so hard at work that she would not go to mass. 261
Something always happened then. Anna’s temper grew irritable and her
ways uncertain and distraught. Everybody suffered and then her
glasses broke. That was always very bad because they cost so much to
fix. Still in a way it always ended Anna’s troubles, because she
knew then that all this was because she had been bad. As long as she
could scold it might be just the bad ways of all the thoughtless
careless world, but when her glasses broke that made it clear. That
meant that it was she herself who had been bad.
No, it was no use for Anna not to do the way she should, for 262
things always then went wrong and finally cost money to make whole,
and this was the hardest thing for the good Anna to endure.
Anna almost always did her duty. She made confession and her 263
mission whenever it was right. Of course she did not tell the father
when she deceived people for their good, or when she wanted them to
give something for a little less.
When Anna told such histories to her doctor and later to her 264
cherished Miss Mathilda, her eyes were always full of humor and
enjoyment as she explained that she had said it so, and now she
would not have to tell the father for she had not really made a sin.
But going to a fortune teller Anna knew was really bad. That had 265
to be told to the father just as it was and penance had then to be
done.
Anna did this and now her new life was well begun, making Miss 266
Mathilda and the rest do just the way they should.
Yes, taking care of Miss Mathilda were the happiest days of all 267
the good Anna’s strong hard working life.
With Miss Mathilda Anna did it all. The clothes, the house, the 268
hats, what she should wear and when and what was always best for her
to do. There was nothing Miss Mathilda would not let Anna manage,
and only be too glad if she would do.
Anna scolded and cooked and sewed and saved so well, that Miss 269
Mathilda had so much to spend, that it kept Anna still busier
scolding all the time about the things she bought, that made so much
work for Anna and the other girl to do. But for all the scolding,
Anna was proud almost to bursting of her cherished Miss Mathilda
with all her knowledge and her great possessions, and the good Anna
was always telling of it all to everybody that she knew.
Yes these were the happiest days of all her life with Anna, even 270
though with her friends there were great sorrows. But these sorrows
did not hurt the good Anna now, as they had done in the years that
went before.
Miss Mathilda was not a romance in the good Anna’s life, but Anna 271
gave her so much strong affection that it almost filled her life as
full.
It was well for the good Anna that her life with Miss Mathilda was 272
so happy, for now in these days, Mrs. Lehntman went altogether bad.
The doctor she had learned to know, was too certainly an evil as
well as a mysterious man, and he had power over the widow and
midwife, Mrs. Lehntman.
Anna never saw Mrs. Lehntman at all now any more. 273
Mrs. Lehntman had borrowed some more money and had given Anna a 274
note then for it all, and after that Anna never saw her any more.
Anna now stopped altogether going to the Lehntmans’. Julia, the
tall, gawky, good, blonde, stupid daughter, came often to see Anna,
but she could tell little of her mother.
It certainly did look very much as if Mrs. Lehntman had now gone 275
altogether bad. This was a great grief to the good Anna, but not so
great a grief as it would have been had not Miss Mathilda meant so
much to her now.
Mrs. Lehntman went from bad to worse. The doctor, the mysterious 276
and evil man, got into trouble doing things that were not right to
do.
Mrs. Lehntman was mixed up in this affair. 277
It was just as bad as it could be, but they managed, both the 278
doctor and Mrs. Lehntman, finally to come out safe.
Everybody was so sorry about Mrs. Lehntman. She had been really a 279
good woman before she met this doctor, and even now she certainly
had not been really bad.
For several years now Anna never even saw her friend. 280
But Anna always found new people to befriend, people who, in the 281
kindly fashion of the poor, used up her savings and then gave
promises in place of payments. Anna never really thought that these
people would be good, but when they did not do the way they should,
and when they did not pay her back the money she had loaned, and
never seemed the better for her care, then Anna would grow bitter
with the world.
No, none of them had any sense of what was the right way for them 282
to do. So Anna would repeat in her despair.
The poor are generous with their things. They give always what 283
they have, but with them to give or to receive brings with it no
feeling that they owe the giver for the gift.
Even a thrifty german Anna was ready to give all that she had 284
saved, and so not be sure that she would have enough to take care of
herself if she fell sick, or for old age, when she could not work.
Save and you will have the money you have saved was true only for
the day of saving, even for a thrifty german Anna. There was no
certain way to have it for old age, for it must always be in
strangers’ hands in a bank or in investments by a friend.
And so when any day one might need life and help from others of 285
the working poor, there was no way a woman who had a little saved
could say them no.
So the good Anna gave her all to friends and strangers, to 286
children, dogs and cats, to anything that asked or seemed to need
her care.
It was in this way that Anna came to help the barber and his wife 287
who lived around the corner, and who some-how could never make ends
meet. They worked hard, were thrifty, had no vices, but the barber
was one of them who never can make money. Whoever owed him money did
not pay. Whenever he had a chance at a good job he fell sick and
could not take it. It was never his own fault that he had trouble,
but he never seemed to make things come out right.
His wife was a blonde, thin, pale, german little woman, who bore 288
her children very hard, and worked too soon, and then till she was
sick. She too, always had things that went wrong.
They both needed constant help and patience, and the good Anna 289
gave both to them all the time.
Another woman who needed help from the good Anna, was one who was 290
in trouble from being good to others.
This woman’s husband’s brother, who was very good, worked in a 291
shop where there was a Bohemian, who was getting sick with a
consumption. This man got so much worse he could not do his work,
but he was not so sick that he could stay in a hospital. So this
woman had him living there with her. He was not a nice man, nor was
he thankful for all the woman did for him. He was cross to her two
children and made a great mess always in her house. The doctor said
he must have many things to eat, and the woman and the brother of
the husband got them for him.
There was no friendship, no affection, no liking even for the man 292
this woman cared for, no claim of common country or of kin, but in
the kindly fashion of the poor this woman gave her all and made her
house a nasty place, and for a man who was not even grateful for the
gift.
Then, of course, the woman herself got into trouble. Her husband’s 293
brother was now married. Her husband lost his job. She did not have
the money for the rent. It was the good Anna’s savings that were
handy.
So it went on. Sometimes a little girl, sometimes a big one was in 294
trouble and Anna heard of them and helped them to find places.
Stray dogs and cats Anna always kept until she found them homes. 295
She was always careful to learn whether these people would be good
to animals.
Out of the whole collection of stray creatures, it was the young 296
Peter and the jolly little Rags, Anna could not find it in her heart
to part with. These became part of the household of the good Anna’s
Miss Mathilda.
Peter was a very useless creature, a foolish, silly, cherished, 297
coward male. It was wild to see him rush up and down in the back
yard, barking and bouncing at the wall, when there was some dog out
beyond, but when the very littlest one there was got inside of the
fence and only looked at Peter, Peter would retire to his Anna and
blot himself out between her skirts.
When Peter was left downstairs alone, he howled. “I am all alone,” 298
he wailed, and then the good Anna would have to come and fetch him
up. Once when Anna stayed a few nights in a house not far away, she
had to carry Peter all the way, for Peter was afraid when he found
himself on the street outside his house. Peter was a good sized
creature and he sat there and he howled, and the good Anna carried
him all the way in her own arms. He was a coward was this Peter, but
he had kindly, gentle eyes and a pretty collie head, and his fur was
very thick and white and nice when he was washed. And then Peter
never strayed away, and he looked out of his nice eyes and he liked
it when you rubbed him down, and he forgot you when you went away,
and he barked whenever there was any noise.
When he was a little pup he had one night been put into the yard 299
and that was all of his origin she knew. The good Anna loved him
well and spoiled him as a good german mother always does her son.
Little Rags was very different in his nature. He was a lively 300
creature made out of ends of things, all fluffy and dust color, and
he was always bounding up into the air and darting all about over
and then under silly Peter and often straight into solemn fat,
blind, sleepy Baby, and then in a wild rush after some stray cat.
Rags was a pleasant, jolly little fellow. The good Anna liked him 301
very well, but never with her strength as she loved her good looking
coward, foolish young man, Peter.
Baby was the dog of her past life and she held Anna with old ties 302
of past affection. Peter was the spoiled, good looking young man, of
her middle age, and Rags was always something of a toy. She liked
him but he never struck in very deep. Rags had strayed in somehow
one day and then when no home for him was quickly found, he had just
stayed right there.
It was a very happy family there all together in the kitchen, the 303
good Anna and Sally and old Baby and young Peter and the jolly
little Rags.
The parrot had passed out of Anna’s life. She had really never 304
loved the parrot and now she hardly thought to ask for him, even
when she visited the Drehtens.
Mrs. Drehten was the friend Anna always went to, for her Sundays. 305
She did not get advice from Mrs. Drehten as she used to from the
widow, Mrs. Lehntman, for Mrs. Drehten was a mild, worn,
unaggressive nature that never cared to influence or to lead. But
they could mourn together for the world these two worn, working
german women, for its sadness and its wicked ways of doing. Mrs.
Drehten knew so well what one could suffer.
Things did not go well in these days with the Drehtens. 306
The children were all good, but the father with his temper and his 307
spending kept everything from being what it should.
Poor Mrs. Drehten still had trouble with her tumor. She could 308
hardly do any work now any more. Mrs. Drehten was a large, worn,
patient german woman, with a soft face, lined, yellow brown in color
and the look that comes from a german husband to obey, and many
solid girls and boys to bear and rear, and from being always on
one’s feet and never having any troubles cured.
Mrs. Drehten was always getting worse, and now the doctor thought 309
it would be best to take the tumor out.
It was no longer Dr. Shonjen who treated Mrs. Drehten. They all 310
went now to a good old german doctor they all knew.
“You see, Miss Mathilda,” Anna said, “All the old german patients 311
don’t go no more now to Doctor. I stayed with him just so long as I
could stand it, but now he is moved away up town too far for poor
people, and his wife, she holds her head up so and always is
spending so much money just for show, and so he can’t take right
care of us poor people any more. Poor man, he has got always to be
thinking about making money now. I am awful sorry about Doctor, Miss
Mathilda, but he neglected Mrs. Drehten shameful when she had her
trouble, so now I never see him any more. Doctor Herman is a good,
plain, german doctor and he would never do things so, and Miss
Mathilda, Mrs. Drehten is coming in to-morrow to see you before she
goes to the hospital for her operation. She could not go comfortable
till she had seen you first to see what you would say.”
All Anna’s friends reverenced the good Anna’s cherished Miss 312
Mathilda. How could they not do so and still remain friends with the
good Anna? Miss Mathilda rarely really saw them but they were always
sending flowers and words of admiration through her Anna. Every now
and then Anna would bring one of them to Miss Mathilda for advice.
It is wonderful how poor people love to take advice from people 313
who are friendly and above them, from people who read in books and
who are good.
Miss Mathilda saw Mrs. Drehten and told her she was glad that she 314
was going to the hospital for operation for that surely would be
best, and so good Mrs. Drehten’s mind was set at rest.
Mrs. Drehten’s tumor came out very well. Mrs. Drehten was 315
afterwards never really well, but she could do her work a little
better, and be on her feet and yet not get so tired.
And so Anna’s life went on, taking care of Miss Mathilda and all 316
her clothes and goods, and being good to every one that asked or
seemed to need her help.
Now, slowly, Anna began to make it up with Mrs. Lehntman. They 317
could never be as they had been before. Mrs. Lehntman could never be
again the romance in the good Anna’s life, but they could be friends
again, and Anna could help all the Lehntmans in their need. This
slowly came about.
Mrs. Lehntman had now left the evil and mysterious man who had 318
been the cause of all her trouble. She had given up, too, the new
big house that she had taken. Since her trouble her practice had
been very quiet. Still she managed to do fairly well. She began to
talk of paying the good Anna. This, however, had not gotten very
far.
Anna saw Mrs. Lehntman a good deal now. Mrs. Lehntman’s crisp, 319
black, curly hair had gotten streaked with gray. Her dark, full,
good looking face had lost its firm outline, gone flabby and a
little worn. She had grown stouter and her clothes did not look very
nice. She was as bland as ever in her ways, and as diffuse as always
in her attention, but through it all there was uneasiness and fear
and uncertainty lest some danger might be near.
She never said a word of her past life to the good Anna, but it 320
was very plain to see that her experience had not left her easy, nor
yet altogether free.
It had been hard for this good woman, for Mrs. Lehntman was really 321
a good woman, it had been a very hard thing for this german woman to
do what everybody knew and thought was wrong. Mrs. Lehntman was
strong and she had courage, but it had been very hard to bear. Even
the good Anna did not speak to her with freedom. There always
remained a mystery and a depression in Mrs. Lehntman’s affair.
And now the blonde, foolish, awkward daughter, Julia was in 322
trouble. During the years the mother gave her no attention, Julia
kept company with a young fellow who was a clerk somewhere in a
store down in the city. He was a decent, dull young fellow, who did
not make much money and could never save it for he had an old mother
he supported. He and Julia had been keeping company for several
years and now it was needful that they should be married. But then
how could they marry? He did not make enough to start them and to
keep on supporting his old mother too. Julia was not used to working
much and she said, and she was stubborn, that she would not live
with Charley’s dirty, cross, old mother. Mrs. Lehntman had no money.
She was just beginning to get on her feet. It was of course, the
good Anna’s savings that were handy.
However it paid Anna to bring about this marriage, paid her in 323
scoldings and in managing the dull, long, awkward Julia, and her
good, patient, stupid Charley. Anna loved to buy things cheap, and
fix up a new place.
Julia and Charley were soon married and things went pretty well 324
with them. Anna did not approve their slack, expensive ways of
doing.
“No Miss Mathilda,” she would say, “The young people nowadays have 325
no sense for saving and putting money by so they will have something
to use when they need it. There’s Julia and her Charley. I went in
ther the other day, Miss Mathilda, and they had a new table with a
marble top and on it they had a grand new plush album. ‘Where you
get that album?’ I asked Julia. ‘Oh, Charley he gave it to me for my
birthday,’ she said, and I asked her if it was paid for and she said
not all yet but it would be soon. Now I ask you what business have
they Miss Mathilda, when they ain’t paid for anything they got
already, what business have they to be buying new things for her
birthdays. Julia she don’t do no work, she just sits around and
thinks how she can spend the money, and Charley he never puts one
cent by. I never see anything like the people nowadays Miss
Mathilda, they don’t seem to have any sense of being careful about
money. Julia and Charley when they have any children they won’t have
nothing to bring them up with right. I said that to Julia, Miss
Mathilda, when she showed me those silly things that Charley bought
her, and she just said in her silly, giggling way, perhaps they
don’t have any children, and then Miss Mathilda you know there is
Mrs. Lehntman. You know she regular adopted little Johnny just so
she could pay out some more money just as if she didn’t have trouble
enough taking care of her own children. No Miss Mathilda, I never
see how people can do things so. People don’t seem to have no sense
of right or wrong or anything these days Miss Mathilda, they are
just careless and thinking always of themselves and how they can
always have a happy time. No, Miss Mathilda I don’t see how people
can go on and do things so.”
The good Anna could not understand the careless and bad ways of 326
all the world and always she grew bitter with it all. No, not one of
them had any sense of what was the right way for them to do.
Anna’s past life was now drawing to an end. Her old blind dog, 327
Baby, was sick and like to die. Baby had been the first gift from
her friend the widow, Mrs. Lehntman in the old days when Anna had
been with Miss Mary Wadsmith, and when these two women had first
come together.
Through all the years of change, Baby had stayed with the good 328
Anna, growing old and fat and blind and lazy. Baby had been active
and a ratter when she was young, but that was so long ago it was
forgotten, and for many years now Baby had wanted only her warm
basket and her dinner.
Anna in her active life found need of others, of Peter and the 329
funny little Rags, but always Baby was the eldest and held her with
the ties of old affection. Anna was harsh when the young ones tried
to keep poor Baby out and use her basket. Baby had been blind now
for some years as dogs get, when they are no longer active. She got
weak and fat and breathless and she could not even stand long any
more. Anna had always to see that she got her dinner and that the
young active ones did not deprive her.
Baby did not die with a real sickness. She just got older and more 330
blind and coughed and then more quiet, and then slowly one bright
summer’s day she died.
There is nothing more dreary than old age in animals. Somehow it 331
is all wrong that they should have grey hair and withered skin, and
blind old eyes, and decayed and useless teeth. An old man or an old
woman almost always has some tie that seems to bind them to the
younger, realer life. They have children or the remembrance of old
duties, but a dog that’s old and so cut off from all its world of
struggle, is like a dreary, deathless Struldbrug, the dreary dragger
on of death through life.
And so one day old Baby died. It was dreary, more than sad, for 332
the good Anna. She did not want the poor old beast to linger with
its weary age, and blind old eyes and dismal shaking cough, but this
death left Anna very empty. She had the foolish young man Peter, and
the jolly little Rags for comfort, but Baby had been the only one
that could remember.
The good Anna wanted a real graveyard for her Baby, but this could 333
not be in a Christian country, and so Anna all alone took her old
friend done up in decent wrappings and put her into the ground in
some quiet place that Anna knew of.
The good Anna did not weep for poor old Baby. Nay, she had not 334
time even to feel lonely, for with the good Anna it was sorrow upon
sorrow. She was now no longer to keep house for Miss Mathilda.
When Anna had first come to Miss Mathilda she had known that it 335
might only be for a few years, for Miss Mathilda was given to much
wandering and often changed her home, and found new places where she
went to live. The good Anna did not then think much about this, for
when she first went to Miss Mathilda she had not thought that she
would like it and so she had not worried about staying. Then in
those happy years that they had been together, Anna had made herself
forget it. This last year when she knew that it was coming she had
tried hard to think it would not happen.
“We won’t talk about it now Miss Mathilda, perhaps we all be dead 336
by then,” she would say when Miss Mathilda tried to talk it over.
Or, “If we live till then Miss Mathilda, perhaps you will be staying
on right here.”
No, the good Anna could not talk as if this thing were real, it 337
was too weary to be once more left with strangers.
Both the good Anna and her cherished Miss Mathilda tried hard to 338
think that this would not really happen.
Anna made missions and all kinds of things to keep her Miss 339
Mathilda and Miss Mathilda thought out all the ways to see if the
good Anna could not go with her, but neither the missions nor the
plans had much success. Miss Mathilda would go, and she was going
far away to a new country where Anna could not live, for she would
be too lonesome.
There was nothing that these two could do but part. Perhaps we all 340
be dead by then, the good Anna would repeat, but even that did not
really happen. If we all live till then, Miss Mathilda, came out
truer. They all did live till then, all except poor old blind Baby,
and they simply had to part.
Poor Anna and poor Miss Mathilda. They could not look at each 341
other that last day. Anna could not keep herself busy working. She
just went in and out and sometimes scolded.
Anna could not make up her mind what she should do now for her 342
future. She said that she would for a while keep this little red
brick house that they had lived in. Perhaps she might just take in a
few boarders. She did not know, she would write about it later and
tell it all to Miss Mathilda.
The dreary day dragged out and then all was ready and Miss 343
Mathilda left to take her train. Anna stood strained and pale and
dry eyed on the white stone steps of the little red brick house that
they had lived in. The last thing Miss Mathilda heard was the good
Anna bidding foolish Peter say good bye and be sure to remember Miss
Mathilda.
----------
The Good Anna
Part III: The Death of the Good Anna
EVERY one who had known of Miss Mathilda wanted the good Anna now to 1
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. 2
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 3
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 4
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 5
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 6
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 7
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 8
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 9
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. 10
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, 11
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 12
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 13
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 14
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 15
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 16
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 17
see Dr. Herman who had operated on good Mrs. Drehten.
The things that Anna really needed were to rest sometimes and eat 18
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 19
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 20
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 21
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 22
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 23
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 24
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, 25
and then the good Anna with her strong, strained, worn-out body
died.
Mrs. Drehten sent word of her death to Miss Mathilda. 26
“Dear Miss Mathilda,” wrote Mrs. Drehten, “Miss Annie died in the 27
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: Paras. 1–100
ROSE JOHNSON made it very hard to bring her baby to its birth. 1
Melanctha Herbert who was Rose Johnson’s friend, did everything 2
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 3
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 4
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. 5
Rose Johnson was a real black, tall, well built, sullen, stupid, 6
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 7
quite like their own child by white folks.
Rose laughed when she was happy but she had not the wide, 8
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 9
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 unmorality of the black people.
Rose Johnson and Melanctha Herbert like many of the twos with 10
women were a curious pair to be such friends.
Melanctha Herbert was a graceful, pale yellow, intelligent, 11
attractive negress. She had not been raised like Rose by white folks
but then she had been half made with real white blood.
She had Rose Johnson were both of the better sort of negroes, 12
there, in Bridgepoint.
“No, I ain’t no common nigger,” said Rose Johnson, “for I was 13
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 14
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 15
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 16
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. 17
“I don’t see Melanctha why you should talk like you would kill 18
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 19
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 20
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 21
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 22
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 23
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 24
very lazy and very well content.
After she had lived some time this way, Rose thought it would be 25
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. 26
Rose was lazy but not dirty and Sam was careful but not fussy, and 27
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 28
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 29
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 30
to her house again with Sam.
Melanctha Herbert had not made her life all simple like Rose 31
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 32
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 33
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 34
she could only find new ways to be in trouble.
Melanctha wondered often how it was she did not kill herself when 35
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. 36
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 37
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 38
mother lived, once in a while.
It was many years now that Melanctha had not heard or seen or 39
known of anything her father did.
Melanctha Herbert almost always hated her black father, but she 40
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 41
youth was bitter to remember.
Melanctha had not loved her father and her mother and they had 42
found it very troublesome to have her.
Melanctha’s mother and her father had been regularly married. 43
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 44
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 45
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 46
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 47
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 48
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’ 49
coachman very well.
One day James Herbert came to where his wife and daughter lived, 50
and he was furious.
“Where’s that Melanctha girl of yours,” he said fiercely, “if she 51
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, 52
angry negro. Herbert never was a joyous negro.
Even when he drank with other men, and he did that very often, he 53
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 54
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 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 55
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 56
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 57
was so fierce and serious that no one ever thought of asking.
‘Mis’ Herbert as her neighbors called her was never heard even to 58
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 59
every one who knew them always knew everything that happened.
The morning of one day when in the evening Herbert and the 60
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 61
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 62
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 63
black curses, and then sharp razors flashed in the black hands, that
held them flung back-ward in the negro fashion, and then for some
minutes there was fierce slashing.
John was a decent, pleasant, good natured, light brown negro, but 64
he knew how to use a razor to do bloody slashing.
When the two men were pulled apart by the other negroes who were 65
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 66
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 67
was furious.
“Where’s that Melanctha, of yours?” he said to his wife, when he 68
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 69
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 70
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 71
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 72
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 73
in the power she now knew she had within her.
Melanctha did not care much now, any longer, to see John or his 74
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 75
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 76
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 77
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 78
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 79
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 80
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 81
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 82
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 83
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 84
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 rail-road yard, and 85
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 86
perhaps a free and whirling future.
Melanctha came here very often and watched the men and all the 87
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 88
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 89
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 90
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 91
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 92
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 93
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 94
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 95
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 96
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 97
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 98
catch yer,” or “Hi, there, you yaller girl, come here and we’ll take
you saillin’.” 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 99
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. 100
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.”
----------
Melanctha
Each One as She May: Paras. 101–200
Sometimes Melanctha would do some of these things that had much 101
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 102
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 103
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 104
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 105
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 106
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 107
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 108
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 109
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 110
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 111
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 112
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, 113
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, 114
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 115
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 116
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 117
tried to do the drinking but it had no real attraction for her.
In the first year, between Jane Harden and Melanctha Herbert, Jane 118
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 119
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 120
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 121
Melanctha, but she certainly did begin to really understand.
In every way she got it from Jane Harden. There was nothing good 122
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 123
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 124
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. 125
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, 126
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 127
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 128
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 129
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 130
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. 131
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 132
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 133
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 134
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 135
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 136
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 137
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, 138
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 139
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 140
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 141
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 142
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 143
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. 144
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 145
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,
hardworking doctor boy who was her only child.
Jeff Campbell had been raised religious by his people but religion 146
had never interested Jeff very much. Jefferson was very good. He
loved his people and he never hurt he 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 147
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. 148
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 149
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 150
trouble. Jane sometimes had abused Melanctha to him. What right had
that 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 151
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 152
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 153
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 154
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. 155
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 156
‘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 157
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 158
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 159
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 160
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 161
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 162
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 163
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 164
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 165
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 166
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, 167
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. 168
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 169
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 170
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 171
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. 172
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 my self up in that kind of trouble.”
“Yes I certainly do see that very clear Dr. Campbell,” said 173
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 174
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 h arm 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. 175
“That certainly does explain to me Dr. Campbell what I been 176
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 177
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 178
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 179
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’ 180
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 181
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. 182
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 183
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 184
gently at Melanctha.
“I certainly never did think, Miss Melanctha, I would find you to 185
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 186
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 187
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 188
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 189
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 190
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. 191
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 192
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 193
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. 194
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 195
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 196
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
Campell,” 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 197
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 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 198
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. 199
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 200
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.
----------
Melanctha
Each One as She May: Paras. 201–300
Jeff always loved now to be with Melanctha and yet he always hated 201
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. 202
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 203
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 204
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 205
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 206
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 207
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 208
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 209
said anything about whether Melanctha would want to meet her.
Jefferson never quite understood 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 210
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 211
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 to
Jeff Campbell how in every way, she Jane, had taught Melanctha. Jane
then began to explain how eager Melanctha always had been for all
that kind of learning. Jane Harden began to tell how they had
wandered. Jane began to tell how Melanctha once had loved her, Jane
Harden. Jane began to tell Jeff of all the bad ways Melanctha had
used with her. Jane began to tell all she knew of the way Melanctha
had gone on, after she had left her. Jane began to tell all about
the different men, white ones and blacks, Melanctha never was
particular about things like that, Jane Harden said in passing, not
that Melanctha was a bad one, and she had a good mind, Jane Harden
never would say that she hadn’t, but Melanctha always liked to use
all the understanding ways that Jane had taught her, and so she
wanted to know everything, always, that they knew how to teach her.
Jane was beginning to make Jeff Campbell see much clearer. Jane 212
Harden did not know what it was that she was really doing with all
this talking. Jane did not know what Jeff was feeling. Jane was
always honest when she was talking, and now it just happened she had
started talking about her old times with Melanctha Herbert. Jeff
understood very well that it was all true what Jane was saying. Jeff
Campbell was beginning now to see very clearly. He was beginning to
feel very sick inside him. He knew now many things Melanctha had not
yet taught him. He felt very sick and his heart was very heavy, and
Melanctha certainly did seem very ugly to him. Jeff was at last
beginning to know what it was to have deep feeling. He took care a
little longer of Jane Harden, and then he went to his other
patients, and then he went home to his room, and he sat down and at
last he had stopped thinking. He was very sick and his heart was
very heavy in him. He was very tired and all the world was very
dreary to him, and he knew very well now at last, he was really
feeling. He knew it now from the way it hurt him. He knew very well
that now at last he was beginning to really have understanding. The
next day he had arranged to spend, long and happy, all alone in the
spring fields with Melanctha, wandering. He wrote her a note and
said he could not go, he had a sick patient and would have to stay
home with him. For three days after, he made no sign to Melanctha.
He was very sick all these days, and his heart was very heavy in
him, and he knew very well that now at last he had learned what it
was to have deep feeling.
At last one day he got a letter from Melanctha. “I certainly don’t 213
rightly understand what you are doing now to me Jeff Campbell,”
wrote Melanctha Herbert. “I certainly don’t rightly understand Jeff
Campbell why you ain’t all these days been near me, but I certainly
do suppose it’s just another one of the queer kind of ways you have
to be good, and repenting of yourself all of a sudden. I certainly
don’t say to you Jeff Campbell I admire very much the way you take
to be good Jeff Campbell. I am sorry Dr. Campbell, but I certainly
am afraid I can’t stand it no more from you the way you have been
just acting. I certainly can’t stand it any more the way you act
when you have been as if you thought I was always good enough for
anybody to have with them, and then you act as if I was a bad one
and you always just despise me. I certainly am afraid Dr. Campbell I
can’t stand it any more like that. I certainly can’t stand it any
more the way you are always changing. I certainly am afraid Dr.
Campbell you ain’t man enough to deserve to have anybody care so
much to be always with you. I certainly am awful afraid Dr. Campbell
I don’t ever any more want to really see you. Good-by Dr. Campbell I
wish you always to be real happy.”
Jeff Campbell sat in his room, very quiet, a long time, after he 214
got through reading this letter. He sat very still and first he was
very angry. As if he, too, did not know very badly what it was to
suffer keenly. As if he had not been very strong to stay with
Melanctha when he never knew what it was that she really wanted He
knew he was very right to be angry, he knew he really had not been a
coward. He knew Melanctha had done many things it was very hard for
him to forgive her. He knew very well he had done his best to be
kind, and to trust her, and to be loyal to her, and now;—and then
Jeff suddenly remembered how one night Melanctha had been so strong
to suffer, and he felt come back to him the sweetness in her, and
then Jeff knew that really, he always forgave her, and that really,
it all was that he was so sorry he had hurt her, and he wanted to go
straight away and be a comfort to her. Jeff knew very well, that
what Jane Harden had told him about Melanctha and her bad ways, had
been a true story, and yet he wanted very badly to be with
Melanctha. Perhaps she could teach him to really understand it
better. Perhaps she could tach him how it could be all true, and yet
how he could be right to believe in her and to trust her.
Jeff sat down and began his answer to her. “Dear Melanctha,” Jeff 215
wrote to her. “I certainly don’t think you got it all just right in
the litter, I just been reading, that you just wrote me. I certainly
don’t think you are just fair or very understanding to all I have to
suffer to keep straight on to really always to believe in you and
trust you. I certainly don’t think you always are fair to remember
right how hard it is for a man, who thinks like I was always
thinking, not to think you do things very bad very often. I
certainly don’t think, Melanctha, I ain’t right when I was so angry
when I got your letter to me. I know very well, Melanctha, that with
you, I never have been a coward. I find it very hard, and I never
said it any different, it is hard to me to be understanding, and to
know really what it is you wanted, and what it is you are meaning by
what you are always saying to me. I don’t say ever, it ain’t very
hard for you to be standing that I ain’t very quick to be following
whichever way that you are always leading. You know very well,
Melanctha, it hurts me very bad and way inside me when I have to
hurt you, but I always got to be real honest with you. There ain’t
no other way for me to be, with you, and I know very well it hurts
me too, a whole lot, when I can’t follow so quick as you would have
me. I don’t like to be a coward to you, Melanctha, and I don’t like
to say what I ain’t meaning to you. And if you don’t want me to do
things honest, Melanctha, why I can’t ever talk to you, and you are
right when you say, you never again want to see me, but if you got
any real sense of what I always been feeling with you, and if you
got any right sense, Melanctha, of how hard I been trying to think
and to feel right for you, I will be very glad to come and see you,
and to begin again with you. I don’t say anything now, Melanctha,
about how bad I been this week, since I saw you, Melanctha. It don’t
ever do any good to talk such things over. All I know is I do my
best, Melanctha, to you, and I don’t say, no, never, I can do any
different than just to be honest and come as fast as I think it’s
right for me to be going in the ways you teach me to be really
understanding. So don’t talk any more foolishness, Melanctha, about
my always changing. I don’t change, never, and I got to do what I
think is right and honest to me, and I never told you any different,
and you always knew it very well that I always would do just so. If
you like me to come and see you to-morrow, and go out with you, I
will be very glad to, Melanctha. Let me know right away, what it is
you want me to be doing for you, Melanctha.
Very truly yours,
JEFFERSON CAMPBELL
“Please come to me, Jeff.” Melanctha wrote back for her answer. 216
Jeff went very slowly to Melanctha, glad as he was, still to be
going to her. Melanctha came, very quick, to meet him, when she saw
him from where she had been watching for him. They went into the
house together. They were very glad to be together. They were very
good to one another.
“I certainly did think, Melanctha, this time almost really, you 217
never did want me to come to you at all any more to see you,” said
Jeff Campbell to her, when they had begun again with their talking
to each other. “You certainly did make me think, perhaps really this
time, Melanctha, it was all over, my being with you ever, and I was
very mad, and very sorry, too, Melanctha.”
“Well you certainly was very bad to me, Jeff Campbell,” said 218
Melanctha, fondly.
“I certainly never do say any more you ain’t always right, 219
Melanctha,” Jeff answered and he was very ready now with cheerful
laughing, “I certainly never do say that any more, Melanctha, if I
know it, but still, really, Melanctha, honest, I think perhaps I
wasn’t real bad to you any more than you just needed from me.”
Jeff held Melanctha in his arms and kissed her. He sighed then and 220
was very silent with her. “Well, Melanctha,” he said at last, with
some more laughing, “well, Melanctha, any way you can’t say ever it
ain’t, if we are ever friends good and really, you can’t say, no,
never, but that we certainly have worked right hard to get both of
us together for it, so we shall sure deserve it then, if we can ever
really get it.” “We certainly have worked real hard, Jeff, I can’t
say that ain’t all right the way you say it,” said Melanctha. “I
certainly never can deny it, Jeff, when I feel so worn with all the
trouble you been making for me, you bad boy, Jeff,” and then
Melanctha smiled and then she sighed, and then she was very silent
with him.
At last Jeff was to go away. They stood there on the steps for a 221
long time trying to say good-by to each other. At last Jeff made
himself really say it. At last he made himself, that he went down
the steps and went away.
On the next Sunday they arranged, they were to have the long happy 222
day of wandering that they had lost last time by Jane Harden’s
talking. Not that Melanctha Herbert had heard yet of Jane Harden’s
talking.
Jeff saw Melanctha every day now. Jeff was a little uncertain all 223
this time inside him, for he had never yet told to Melanctha what it
was that had so nearly made him really want to leave her. Jeff knew
that for him, it was not right he should not tell her. He knew they
could only have real peace between them when he had been honest, and
had really told her. On this long Sunday Jeff was certain that he
would really tell her.
They were very happy all that day in their wandering. They had 224
taken things along to eat together. They sat in the bright fields
and they were happy, they wandered in the woods and they were happy.
Jeff always loved in this way to wander. Jeff always loved to watch
everything as it was growing, and he loved all the colors in the
trees and on the ground, and the little, new, bright colored bugs he
found in the moist ground and in the grass he loved to lie on and in
which he was always so busy searching. Jeff loved everything that
moved and that was still, and that had color, and beauty, and real
being.
Jeff loved very much this day while they were wandering. He almost 225
forgot that he had any trouble with him still inside him. Jeff loved
to be there with Melanctha Herbert. She was always so sympathetic to
him for the way she listened to everything he found and told her,
the way she felt his joy in all this being, the way she never said
she wanted anything different from the way they had it. It was
certainly a busy and a happy day, this their first long day of
really wandering.
Later they were tired, and Melanctha sat down on the ground, and 226
Jeff threw himself his full length beside her. Jeff lay there, very
quiet, and then he pressed her hand and kissed it and murmured to
her, “You certainly are very good to me, Melanctha.” Melanctha felt
it very deep and did not answer. Jeff lay there a long time, looking
up above him. He was counting all the little leaves he saw above
him. He was following all the little clouds with his eyes as they
sailed past him. He watched all the birds that flew high beyond him,
and all the time Jeff knew he must tell to Melanctha what it was he
knew now, that which Jane Harden, just a week ago, had told him. He
knew very well that for him it was certain that he had to say it. It
was hard, but for Jeff Campbell the only way to lose it was to say
it, the only way to know Melanctha really, was to tell her all the
struggle he had made to know her, to tell her so she could help him
to understand his trouble better, to help him so that never again he
could have any way to doubt her.
Jeff lay there a long time, very quiet, always looking up above 227
him, and yet feeling very close now to Melanctha. At last he turned
a little toward her, took her hands closer in his to make him feel
it stronger, and then very slowly, for the words came very hard for
him, slowly he began his talk to her.
“Melanctha,” began Jeff, very slowly, “Melanctha, it ain’t right I 228
shouldn’t tell you why I went away last week and almost never got
the chance again to see you. Jane Harden was sick, and I went in to
take care of her. She began to tell everything she ever knew about
you. She didn’t know how well now I know you. I didn’t tell her not
to go on talking. I listened while she told me everything about you.
I certainly found it very hard with what she told me. I know she was
talking truth in everything sha said about you. I knew you had been
free in your ways, Melanctha, I knew you liked to get excitement the
way I always hate to see the colored people take it. I didn’t know,
till I heard Jane Harden say it, you had done things so bad,
Melanctha. When Jane Harden told me, I got very sick, Melanctha. I
couldn’t bear hardly, to think, perhaps I was just another like them
to you, Melanctha. I was wrong not to trust you perhaps, Melanctha,
but it did make things very ugly to me. I try to be honest to you,
Melanctha, the way you say you really want it from me.”
Melanctha drew her hands from Jeff Campbell. She sat there, and 229
there was deep scorn in her anger.
“If you wasn’t all through just selfish and nothing else, Jeff 230
Campbell, you would take care you wouldn’t have to tell me things
like this, Jeff Campbell.”
Jeff was silent a little, and he waited before he gave his answer. 231
It was not the power of Melanctha’s words that held him, for, for
them, he had his answer, it was the power of the mood that filled
Melanctha, and for that he had no answer. At last he broke through
this awe, with his slow fighting resolution, and he began to give
his answer.
“I don’t say ever, Melanctha,” he began, “it wouldn’t have been 232
more right for me to stop Jane Harden in her talking and to come to
you to have you tell me what you were when I never knew you. I don’t
say it, no never to you, that that would not have been the right way
for me to do, Melanctha. But I certainly am without any kind of
doubting, I certainly do know for sure, I had a good right to know
about what you were and your ways and your trying to use your
understanding, every kind of way you could to get your learning. I
certainly did have a right to know things like that about you,
Melanctha. I don’t say it ever, Melanctha, and I say it very often,
I don’t say ever I shouldn’t have stopped Jane Harden in her talking
and come to you and asked you yourself to tell me all about it, but
I guess I wanted to keep myself from how much it would hurt me more,
to have you yourself say it to me. Perhaps it was I wanted to keep
you from having it hurt you so much more, having you to have to tell
it to me. I don’t know, I don’t say it was to help you from being
hurt most, or to help me. Perhaps I was a coward to let Jane Harden
tell me ’stead of coming straight to you, to have you tell me, but I
certainly am sure, Melanctha, I certainly had a right to know such
things about you. I don’t say it ever, ever, Melanctha, I hadn’t the
just right to know those things about you.” Melanctha laughed her
harsh laugh. “You needn’t have been under no kind of worry, Jeff
Campbell, about whether you should have asked me. You could have
asked, it wouldn’t have hurt nothing. I certainly never would have
told you nothing.” “I am not so sure of that, Melanctha,” said Jeff
Campbell. “I certainly do think you would have told me. I certainly
do think I could make you feel it right to tell me. I certainly do
think all I did wrong was to let Jane Harden tell me. I certainly do
know I never did wrong, to learn what she told me. I certainly know
very well, Melanctha, if I had come here to you, you would have told
it all to me, Melanctha.”
He was silent, and this struggle lay there, strong, between them. 233
It was a struggle, sure to be going on always between them. It was a
struggle that was as sure always to be going on between them, as
their minds and hearts always were to have different ways of
working.
At last Melanctha took his hand, leaned over him and kissed him. 234
“I sure am very fond of you, Jeff Campbell,” Melanctha whispered to
him.
Now for a little time there was not any kind of trouble between 235
Jeff Campbell and Melanctha Herbert. They were always together now
for long times, and very often. They got much joy now, both of them,
from being all the time together.
It was summer now, and they had warm sunshine to wander. It was 236
summer wander. It was summer now, and Jeff Campbell had more time to
wander, for colored people never get sick so much in summer. It was
summer now, and there was a lovely silence everywhere, and all the
noises, too, that they heard around them were lovely ones, and added
to the joy, in these warm days, they loved so much to be together.
They talked some to each other in these days, did Jeff Campbell 237
and Melanctha Herbert, but always in these days their talking more
and more was like it always is with real lovers. Jeff did not talk
so much now about what he before always had been thinking. Sometimes
Jeff would be, as if he was just waking from himself to be with
Melanctha, and then he would find he had been really all the long
time with her, and he had really never needed to be doing any
thinking.
It was sometimes pure joy Jeff would be talking to Melanctha, in 238
these warm days he loved so much to wander with her. Sometimes Jeff
would lose all himself in a strong feeling. Very often now, and
always with more joy in his feeling, Very often now, and always with
more joy in his feeling, he would find himself, he did not know how
or what it was he had been thinking. And Melanctha always loved very
well to make him feel it. She always now laughed a little at him,
and went back a little in him to his before, always thinking, and
she teased him with his always now being so good with her in his
feeling, and then she would so well and freely, and with her pure,
strong ways of reaching, she would give him all the love she knew
now very well, how much he always wanted to be sure he really had
it.
And Jeff took it straight now, and he loved it, and he felt, 239
strong, the joy of all this being, and it swelled out full inside
him, and he poured it all out back to her in freedom, in tender
kindness, and in joy, and in gentle brother fondling. And Melanctha
loved him for it always, her Jeff Campbell now, who never did things
ugly, for her, like all the men she always knew before always had
been doing to her. And they loved it always, more and more,
together, with this new feeling they had now, in these long summer
days so warm; they, always together now, just these two so dear,
more and more to each other always, and the summer evenings when
they wandered, and the noises in the full streets, and the music of
the organs, and the dancing, and the warm smell of the people, and
of dogs and of the horses, and all the joy of the strong, sweet
pungent, dirty, moist, warm negro southern summer.
Every day now, Jeff seemed to be coming nearer, to be really 240
loving. Every day now, Melanctha poured it all out to him, with more
freedom. Every day now, they seemed to be having more and more, both
together, of this strong, right feeling. More and more every day now
they seemed to know more really, what it was each other one was
always feeling. More and more now every day Jeff found in himself,
he felt more trusting. More and more every day now, he did not think
anything in words about what he was always doing. Every day now more
and more Melanctha would let out to Jeff her real, strong feeling.
One day there had been much joy between them, more than they ever 241
yet had had with their new feeling. All the day they had lost
themselves in warm wandering. Now they were lying there and resting,
with a green, bright, light-flecked world around them.
What was it that now really happened to them? What was it that 242
Melanctha did, that made everything get all ugly for them? What was
it that Melanctha felt then, that made Jeff remember all the feeling
he had had in him when Jane Harden told him how Melanctha had
learned to be so very understanding? Jeff did not know how it was
that it had happened to him. It was all green, and warm, and very
lovely to him, and now Melanctha somehow had made it all so ugly for
him. What was it Melanctha was now doing with him? What was it he
used to be thinking was the right way for him and all the colored
people to be always trying to make it right, the way they should be
always living? Why was Melanctha Herbert now all so ugly for him?
Melanctha Herbert somehow had made him feel deeply just then, what 243
very more it was that she wanted from him. Jeff Campbell now felt in
him what everybody always had needed to make them really
understanding, to him. Jeff felt a strong disgust inside him; not
for Melanctha herself, to him, not for himself really, in him, not
for what it was that everybody wanted, in them; he only had disgust
because he never could know really in him, what it was he wanted, to
be really right in understanding, for him, he only had disgust
because he never could know really what it was really right to him
to be always doing, in the things he had before believed in, the
things he before had believed in for himself and for all the colored
people, the living regular, and the never wanting to be always
having new things, just to keep on, always being in excitements. All
the old thinking now came up very strong inside him. He sort of
turned away then, and threw Melanctha from him.
Jeff never, even now, knew what it was that moved him. He never, 244
even now, was ever sure, he really knew what Melanctha was, when she
was real herself, and honest. He thought he knew, and then there
came to him some moment, just like this one, when she really woke
him up to be strong in him. Then he really knew he could know
nothing. He knew then, he never could know what it was she really
wanted with him. He knew then he never could know really what with
him. He knew then he never could know really what it was he felt
inside him. It was all so mixed up inside him. All he knew was he
wanted very badly Melanctha should be there beside him, and he
wanted very badly, too, always to throw her from him. What was it
really that Melanctha wanted with him? What was it really, he, Jeff
Campbell, wanted she should give him? “I certainly did think now,”
Jeff Campbell groaned inside him, “I certainly did think now I
really was knowing all right, what I wanted. I certainly did really
think now I was knowing how to be trusting with Melanctha. I
certainly did think it was like that now with me sure, after all
I’ve been through all this time with her. And now I certainly do
know I don’t know anything that’s very real about her. Oh the good
Lord help and keep me!” and Jeff groaned hard inside him, and he
buried his face deep in the green grass underneath him, and
Melanctha Herbert was very silent there beside him.
Then Jeff turned to look and see her. She was lying very still 245
there by him, and the bitter water on her face was biting. Jeff was
so very sorry then, all over and inside him, the way he always was
when Melanctha had been deep hurt by him. “I didn’t mean to be so
bad again to you, Melanctha, dear one,” and he was very tender to
her. “I certainly didn’t never mean to go to be so bad to you,
Melanctha, darling. I certainly don’t know, Melanctha, darling, what
it is makes me act so to you sometimes, when I certainly ain’t
meaning anything like I want to hurt you. I certainly don’t mean to
be so bad, Melanctha, only it comes so quick on me before I know
what I am acting to you. I certainly am all sorry, hard, to be so
bad to you, Melanctha, darling.” “I suppose, Jeff,” said Melanctha,
very low and bitter, “I suppose you are always thinking, Jeff,
somebody had ought to be ashamed with us two together, and you
certainly do think you don’t see any way to it, Jeff, for me to be
feeling that way ever, so you certainly don’t see any way to it,
only to do it just so often for me. That certainly is the way always
with you, Jeff Campbell, if I understand you right the way you are
always acting to me. That certainly is right the way I am saying it
to you now, Jeff Campbell. You certainly didn’t anyway trust me now
no more, did you, when you just acted so bad to me. I certainly am
right the way I say it Jeff now to you. I certainly am right when I
ask you for it now, to tell me what I ask you, about not trusting me
more then again, Jeff, just like you never really knew me. You
certainly never did trust me just then, Jeff, you hear me?” “Yes,
Melanctha,” Jeff answered slowly. Melanctha paused. “I guess I
certainly never can forgive you this time, Jeff Campbell,” she said
firmly. Jeff paused too, and thought a little. “I certainly am
afraid you never can no more now again, Melanctha,” he said sadly.
They lay there very quiet now a long time, each one thinking very 246
hard on their own trouble. At last Jeff began again to tell
Melanctha what it was he was always thinking with her. “I certainly
do know, Melanctha, you certainly now don’t want any more to be
hearing me just talking, but you see, Melanctha, really, it’s just
like this way always with me. You see, Melanctha, its like this way
now all the time with me. You remember, Melanctha, what I was once
telling to you, when I didn’t know you very long together, about how
I certainly never did know more than just two kinds of ways of
loving, one way the way it is good to be in families and the other
kind of way, like animals are all the time just with each other, and
how I didn’t ever like that last kind of way much for any of the
colored people. You see Melanctha, it’s like this way with me. I got
a new feeling now, you been teaching to me, just like I told you
once, just like a new religion to me, and I see perhaps what really
loving is like, like really having everything together, new things,
little pieces all different, like I always before been thinking was
bad to be having, all go together like, to make one good big
feeling. You see, Melanctha, it’s certainly like that you make me
been seeing, like I never know before any way there was of all kinds
of loving to come together to make one way really truly lovely. I
see that now, sometimes, the way you certainly been teaching me,
Melanctha, really, and then I love you those times, Melanctha, like
a real religion, and then it comes over me all sudden, I don’t know
anything real about you Melanctha, dear one, and then it comes over
me sudden, perhaps I certainly am wrong now, thinking all this way
so lovely, and not thinking now any more the old way I always before
was always thinking, about what was the right way for me, to live
regular and all the colored people, and then I think, perhaps,
Melanctha you are really just a bad one, and I think, perhaps I
certainly am doing it so because I just am too anxious to be just
having all the time excitements, like I don’t ever like really to be
doing when I know it, and then I always get so bad to you,
Melanctha, and I can’t help it with myself then, never, for I want
to be always right really in the ways, I have to do them. I
certainly do very badly want to be right, Melanctha, the only way I
know is right Melanctha really, and I don’t know any way, Melanctha,
to find out really, whether my old way, the way I always used to be
thinking, or the new way, you make so like a real religion to me
sometimes, Melanctha, which way certainly is the real right way for
me to be always thinking, and then I certainly am awful good and
sorry, Melanctha, I always give you so much trouble, hurting you
with the bad ways I am acting. Can’t you help me to any way, to make
it all straight for me, Melanctha, so I know right and real what it
is I should be acting. You see, Melanctha, I don’t want always to be
a coward with you, if I only could know certain what was the right
way for me to be acting. I certainly am real sure, Melanctha, that
would be the way I would be acting, if I only knew it sure for
certain now, Melanctha. Can’t you help me any way to find out real
and true, Melanctha, dear one. I certainly do badly want to know
always, the way I should be acting.”
“No, Jeff, dear, I certainly can’t help you much in that kind of 247
trouble you are always having. All I can do now, Jeff, is to just
keep certainly with my believing you are good always, Jeff, and
though you certainly do hurt me bad, I always got strong faith in
you, Jeff, more in you certainly, than you seem to be having in your
acting to me, always so bad, Jeff.”
“You certainly are very good to me, Melanctha, dear one,” Jeff 248
said, after a long, tender silence. “You certainly are very good to
me, Melanctha, darling, and me so bad to you always, in my acting.
Do you love me good, and right, Melanctha, always?” “Always and
always, you be sure of that now you have me. Oh you Jeff, you always
be so stupid.” “I certainly never can say now you ain’t right, when
you say that to me so, Melanctha,” Jeff answered. “Oh, Jeff dear, I
love you always, you know that now, all right, for certain. If you
don’t know it right now, Jeff, really, I prove it to you now, for
good and always.” And they lay there a long time in their loving,
and then Jeff began again with his happy free enjoying.
“I sure am a good boy to be learning all the time the right way 249
you are teaching me, Melanctha, darling,” began Jeff Campbell,
laughing, “You can’t say no, never, I ain’t a good scholar for you
to be teaching now, Melanctha, and I am always so ready to come to
you every day, and never playing hooky ever from you. You can’t say
ever, Melanctha, now can you, I ain’t a real good boy to be always
studying to be learning to be real bright, just like my teacher. You
can’t say ever to me, I ain’t a good boy to you now, Melanctha.”
“Not near so good, Jeff Campbell, as such a good, patient kind of
teacher, like me, who never teaches any ways it ain’t good her
scholars should be knowing, ought to be really having, Jeff, you
hear me? I certainly don’t think I am right for you, to be forgiving
always, when you are so bad, and I so patient, with all this hard
teaching always.” “But you do forgive me always, sure, Melanctha,
always?” “Always and always, you be sure Jeff, and I certainly am
afraid I never can stop with my forgiving, you always are going to
be so bad to me, and I always going to have to be so good with my
forgiving.” “Oh! Oh!” cried Jeff Campbell, laughing, “I ain’t going
to be so bad for always, sure I ain’t, Melanctha, my own darling.
And sure you do forgive me really, and sure you love me true and
really, sure, Melanctha?” “Sure, sure, Jeff, boy, sure now and
always, sure now you believe me, sure you do, Jeff, always.” “I sure
hope I does, with all my heart, Melanctha, darling.” “I sure do that
same, Jeff, dear boy, now you really know what it is to be loving,
and I prove it to you now so, Jeff, you never can be forgetting. You
see now, Jeff, good and certain, what I always before been saying to
you, Jeff, now.” “Yes, Melanctha, darling,” murmured Jeff, and he
was very happy in it, and so the two of them now in the warm air of
the sultry, southern, negro sunshine, lay there for a long time just
resting.
And now for a real long time there was no open trouble any more 250
between Jeff Campbell and Melanctha Herbert. Then it came that Jeff
knew he could not say out any more, what it was he wanted, he could
not say out any more, what it was, he wanted to know about, what
Melanctha wanted.
Melanctha sometimes now, when she was tired with being all the 251
time so much excited, when Jeff would talk a long time to her about
what was right for them both to be always doing, would be, as if she
gave way in her head, and lost herself in a bad feeling. Sometimes
when they had been strong in their loving, and Jeff would have rise
inside him some strange feeling, and Melanctha felt it in him as it
would soon be coming, she would lose herself then in this bad
feeling that made her head act as if she never knew what it was they
were doing. And slowly now, Jeff soon always came to be feeling that
his Melanctha would be hurt very much in her head in the ways he
never liked to think of, if she would ever now again have to listen
to his trouble, when he was telling about what it was he still was
wanting to make things for himself really understanding.
Now Jeff began to have always a strong feeling that Melanctha 252
could no longer stand it, with all her bad suffering, to let him
fight out with himself what was right for him to be doing. Now he
felt he must not, when she was there with him, keep on, with this
kind of fighting that was always going on inside him. Jeff Campbell
never knew yet, what he thought was the right way, for himself and
for all the colored people to be living. Jeff was coming always each
time closer to be really understanding, but now Melanctha was so bad
in her suffering with him, that he knew she could not any longer
have him with her while he was always showing that he never really
yet was sure what it was, the right way, for them to be really
loving.
Jeff saw now he had to go so fast, so that Melanctha never would 253
have to wait any to get from him always all that she ever wanted. He
never could be honest now, he never could be now, any more, trying
to be really understanding, for always every moment now he felt it
to be a strong thing in him, how very much it was Melanctha Herbert
always suffered.
Jeff did not know very well these days, what it was, was really 254
happening to him. All he knew every now and then, when they were
getting strong to get excited, the way they used to when he gave his
feeling out so that he could be always honest, that Melanctha
somehow never seemed to hear him, she just looked at him and looked
as if her head hurt with him, and then Jeff had to keep himself from
being honest, and he had to go so fast, and to do everything
Melanctha ever wanted from him.
Jeff did not like it very well these days, in his true feeling. He 255
knew now very well Melanctha was not strong enough inside her to
stand any more of his slow way of doing. And yet now he knew he was
not honest in his feeling. Now he always had to show more to
Melanctha than he was ever feeling. Now she made him go so fast, and
he knew it was not real with his feeling, and yet he could not make
her suffer so any more because he always was so slow with his
feeling.
It was very hard for Jeff Campbell to make all this way of doing, 256
right, inside him. If Jeff Campbell could not be straight out, and
real honest, he never could be very strong inside him. Now
Melanctha, with her making him feel, always, how good she was and
how very much she suffered in him, made him always go so fast then,
he could not be strong then, to feel things out straight then inside
him. Always now when he was with her, he was being more, than he
could already yet, be feeling for her. Always now, with her, he had
something inside him always holding in him, always now, with her, he
was far ahead of his own feeling.
Jeff Campbell never knew very well these days what it was that was 257
going on inside him. All he knew was, he was uneasy now always to be
with Melanctha. All he knew was, that he was always uneasy when he
was with Melanctha, not the way he used to be from just not being
very understanding, but now, because he never could be honest with
her, because he was now always feeling her strong suffering, in her,
because he knew now he was having a straight, good feeling with her,
but she went so fast, and he was so slow to her; Jeff knew his right
feeling never got a chance to show itself as strong, to her.
All this was always getting harder for Jeff Campbell. He was very 258
proud to hold himself to be strong, was Jeff Campbell. He was very
tender not to hurt Melanctha, when he knew she would be sure to feel
it badly in her head a long time after, he hated that he could not
now be honest with her, he wanted to stay away to work it out all
alone, without her, he was afraid she would feel it to suffer, if he
kept away now from her. He was uneasy always, with her, he was
uneasy when he thought about her, he knew now he had a good,
straight, strong feeling of right loving for her, and yet now he
never could use it to be good and honest with her.
Jeff Campbell did not know, these days, anything he could do to 259
make it better for her. He did not know anything he could do, to set
himself really right in his acting and his thinking toward her. She
pulled him so fast with her, and he did not dare to hurt her, and he
could not come right, so fast, the way she always needed he should
be doing it now, for her.
These days were not very joyful ones now any more, to Jeff 260
Campbell, with Melanctha. He did not think it out to himself now, in
words, about her. He did not know enough, what was his real trouble,
with her.
Sometimes now and again with them, and with all this trouble for a 261
little while well forgotten by him, Jeff, and Melanctha with him,
would be very happy in a strong, sweet loving. Sometimes then, Jeff
would find himself to be soaring very high in his true loving.
Sometimes Jeff would find then, in his loving, his soul swelling out
full inside him. Always Jeff felt now in himself, deep feeling.
Always now Jeff had to go so much faster than was real with his 262
feeling. Yet always Jeff knew now he had a right, strong feeling.
Always now when Jeff was wondering, it was Melanctha he was
doubting, in the loving. Now he would often ask her, was she real
now to him, in her loving. He would ask her often, feeling something
queer about it all inside him, though yet he was never really strong
in his doubting, and always Melanctha would answer to him, “Yes
Jeff, sure, you know it, always,” and always Jeff felt a doubt now,
in her loving.
Always now Jeff felt in himself, deep loving. Always now he did 263
not know really, if Melanctha was true in her loving.
All these days Jeff was uncertain in him, and he was uneasy about 264
which way he should act so as not to be wrong and put them both into
bad trouble. Always now he was, as if he must feel deep into
Melanctha to see if it was real loving he would find she now had in
her, and always he would stop himself, with her, for always he was
afraid now that he might badly hurt her.
Always now he liked it better when he was detained when he had to 265
go and see her. Always now he never liked to go to be with her,
although he never wanted really, not to be always with her. Always
now he never felt really at ease with her, even when they were good
friends together. Always now he felt, with her, he could not be
really honest to her. And Jeff never could be happy with her when he
could not feel strong to tell all his feeling to her. Always now
every day he found it harder to make the time pass, with her, and
not let his feeling come so that he would quarrel with her.
And so one evening, late, he was to go to her. He waited a little 266
long, before he went to her. He was afraid, in himself, to-night, he
would surely hurt her. He never wanted to go when he might quarrel
with her.
Melanctha sat there looking very angry, when he came in to her. 267
Jeff took off his hat and coat and then sat down by the fire with
her.
“If you come in much later to me just now, Jeff Campbell, I 268
certainly never would have seen you no more never to speak to you,
’thout your apologising real humble to me.” “Apologising Melanctha,”
and Jeff laughed and was scornful to her, “Apologising, Melanctha, I
ain’t proud that kind of way, Melanctha, I don’t mind apologising to
you, Melanctha, all I mind, Melanctha is to be doing of things
wrong, to you.” “That’s easy, to say things that way, Jeff to me.
But you never was very proud Jeff, to be courageous to me.” “I don’t
know about that Melanctha. I got courage to say some things hard,
when I mean them, to you.” “Oh, yes, Jeff, I know all about that,
Jeff, to me. But I mean real courage, to run around and not care
nothing about what happens, and always to be game in any kind of
trouble. That’s what I mean by real courage, to me, Jeff, if you
want to know it.” “Oh, yes, Melanctha, I know all that kind of
courage. I see plenty of it all the time with some kinds of colored
men and with some girls like you Melanctha, and Jane Harden. I know
all about how you are always making a fuss to be proud because you
don’t holler so much when you run in to where you ain’t got any
business to be, and so you get hurt, the way you ought to. And then,
you kind of people are very brave then, sure, with all your kinds of
suffering, but the way I see it, going round with all my patients,
that kind of courage makes all kind of trouble, for them who ain’t
so noble with their courage, and then they got it, always to be
bearing it, when the end comes, to be hurt the hardest. It’s like
running around and being game to spend all your money always, and
then a man’s wife and children are the ones do all the starving and
they don’t ever get a name for being brave, and they don’t ever want
to be doing all that suffering, and they got to stand it and say
nothing. That’s the way I see it a good deal now with all that kind
of braveness in some of the colored people. They always make a lot
of noise to show they are so brave not to holler, when they got so
much suffering they always bring all on themselves, just by doing
things they got no business to be doing. I don’t say, never,
Melanctha, they ain’t got good courage not to holler, but I never
did see much in looking for that kind of trouble just to show you
ain’t going to holler. No its all right being brave every day, just
living regular and not having new ways all the time just to get
excitements, the way I hate to see it in all the colored people. No
I don’t see much, Melanctha, in being brave just to get it good,
where you’ve got no business. I ain’t ashamed Melanctha, right here
to tell you, I ain’t ashamed ever to say I ain’t got no longing to
be brave, just to go around and look for trouble. “Yes that’s just
like you always, Jeff, you never understand things right, the way
you are always feeling in you. You ain’t got no way to understand
right, how it depends what way somebody goes to look for new things,
the way it makes it right for them to get excited.” “No Melanctha, I
certainly never do say I understand much anybody’s got a right to
think they won’t have real bad trouble, if they go and look hard
where they are certain sure to find it. No Melanctha, it certainly
does sound very pretty all this talking about danger and being game
and never hollering, and all that way of talking, but when two men
are just fighting, the strong man mostly gets on top with doing good
hard pounding, and the man that’s getting all that pounding, he
mostly never likes it so far as I have been able yet to see it, and
I don’t see much difference what kind of noble way they are made of
when they ain’t got any kind of business to get together there to be
fighting. That certainly is the only way I ever see it happen right,
Melanctha, whenever I happen to be anywhere I can be looking.”
“That’s because you never can see anything that ain’t just so
simple, Jeff, with everybody, the way you always think it. It do
make all the difference the kind of way anybody is made to do things
game Jeff Campbell.” “Maybe Melanctha, I certainly never say no you
ain’t right, Melanctha. I just been telling it to you all straight,
Melanctha, the way I always see it. Perhaps if you run around where
you ain’t got any business, and you stand up very straight and say,
I am so brave, nothing can ever ever hurt me, maybe nothing will
ever hurt you then Melanctha. I never have seen it do so. I never
can say truly and differently to you Melanctha, but I always am
ready to be learning from you, Melanctha. And perhaps when somebody
cuts into you real hard, with a brick he is throwing, perhaps you
never will do any hollering then, Melanctha. I certainly don’t ever
say no, Melanctha to you, I only say that ain’t the way yet I ever
see it happen when I had a chance to be there looking.”
They sat there together, quiet by the fire, and they did not seem 269
to feel very loving.
“I certainly do wonder,” Melanctha said dreamily, at last breaking 270
into their long unloving silence. “I certainly do wonder why always
it happens to me I care for anybody who ain’t no ways good enough
for me ever to be thinking to respect him.”
Jeff looked at Melanctha. Jeff got up then and walked a little up 271
and down the room, and then he came back, and his face was set and
dark and he was very quiet to her.
“Oh dear, Jeff, sure, why you look so solemn now to me. Sure Jeff 272
I never am meaning anything real by what I just been saying. What
was I just been saying Jeff to you. I only certainly was just
thinking how everything always was just happening to me.”
Jeff Campbell sat very still and dark, and made no answer. 273
“Seems to me, Jeff you might be good to me a little to-night when 274
my head hurts so, and I am so tired with all the hard work I have
been doing, thinking, and I always got so many things to be a
trouble to me, living like I do with nobody ever who can help me.
Seems to me you might be good to me Jeff to-night, and not get
angry, every little thing I am ever saying to you.”
“I certainly would not get angry ever with you, Melanctha, just 275
because you say things to me. But now I certainly been thinking you
really mean what you have been just then saying to me.” “But you say
all the time to me Jeff, you ain’t no ways good enough in your
loving to me, you certainly say to me all the time you ain’t no ways
good or understanding to me.” “That certainly is what I say to you
always, just the way I feel it to you Melanctha always, and I got it
right in me to say it, and I have got a right in me to be very
strong and feel it, and to be always sure to believe it, but it
ain’t right for you Melanctha to feel it. When you feel it so
Melanctha, it does certainly make everything all wrong with our
loving. It makes it so I certainly never can bear to have it.”
They sat there then a long time by the fire, very silent, and not 276
loving, and never looking to each other for it. Melanctha was moving
and twitching herself and very nervous with it. Jeff was heavy and
sullen and dark and very serious in it.
“Oh why can’t you forget I said it to you Jeff now, and I 277
certainly am so tired, and my head and all now with it.”
Jeff stirred, “All right Melanctha, don’t you go make yourself 278
sick now in your head, feeling so bad with it,” and Jeff made
himself do it, and he was a patient doctor again now with Melanctha
when he felt her really having her head hurt with it. “It’s all
right now Melanctha darling, sure it is now I tell you. You just lie
down now a little, dear one, and I sit here by the fire and just
read awhile and just watch with you so I will be here ready, if you
need me to give you something to help you resting.” And then Jeff
was a good doctor to her, and very sweet and tender with her, and
Melanctha loved him to be there to help her, and then Melanctha fell
asleep a little, and Jeff waited there beside her until he saw she
was really sleeping, and then he went back and sat down by the fire.
And Jeff tried to begin again with his thinking, and he could not 279
make it come clear to himself, with all his thinking, and he felt
everything all thick and heavy and bad, now inside him, everything
that he could not understand right, with all the hard work he made,
with his thinking. And then he moved himself a little, and took a
book to forget his thinking, and then as always, he loved it when he
was reading, and then very soon he was deep in his reading, and so
he forgot now for a little while that he never could seem to be very
understanding.
And so Jeff forgot himself for awhile in his reading, and 280
Melanctha was sleeping. And then Melanctha woke up and she was
screaming. “Oh, Jeff, I thought you gone away for always from me.
Oh, Jeff, never now go away no more from me. Oh, Jeff, sure, sure,
always be just so good to me.”
There was a weight in Jeff Campbell from now on, always with him, 281
that he could never lift out from him, to feel easy. He always was
trying not to have it in him and he always was trying not to let
Melanctha feel it, with him, but it was always there inside him. Now
Jeff Campbell always was serious, and dark, and heavy, and sullen,
and he would often sit a long time with Melanctha without moving.
“You certainly never have forgiven to me, what I said to you that 282
night, Jeff, now have you?” Melanctha asked him after a long
silence, late one evening with him. “It ain’t ever with me a
question like forgiving, Melanctha, I got in me. It’s just only what
you are feeling for me, makes any difference to me. I ain’t ever
seen anything since in you, makes me think you didn’t mean it right,
what you said about not thinking now any more I was good, to make it
right for you to be really caring so very much to love me.”
“I certainly never did see no man like you, Jeff. You always 283
wanting to have it all clear out in words always, what everybody is
always feeling. I certainly don’t see a reason, why I should always
be explaining to you what I mean by what I am just saying. And you
ain’t got no feeling ever for me, to ask me what I meant, by what I
was saying when I was so tired, that night. I never know anything
right I was saying.” “But you don’t ever tell me now, Melanctha, so
I really hear you say it, you don’t mean it the same way, the way
you said it to me.” “Oh Jeff, you so stupid always to me and always
just bothering with your always asking to me. And I don’t never any
way remember ever anything I been saying to you, and I am always my
head, so it hurts me it half kills me, and my heart jumps so,
sometimes I think I die so when it hurts me, and I am so blue
always, I think sometimes I take something to just kill me, and I
got so much to bother thinking always and doing, and I got so much
to worry, and all that, and then you come and ask me what I mean by
what I was just saying to you. I certainly don’t know, Jeff, when
you ask me. Seems to me, Jeff, sometimes you might have some kind of
a right feeling to be careful to me.” “You ain’t got no right
Melanctha Herbert,” flashed out Jeff through his dark, frowning
anger, “you certainly ain’t got no right always to be using your
being hurt and being sick, and having pain, like a weapon, so as to
make me do things it ain’t never right for me to be doing for you.
You certainly ain’t got no right to be always holding your pain out
to show me.” “What do you mean by them words, Jeff Campbell.” “I
certainly do mean them just like I am saying them, Melanctha. You
act always, like I been responsible all myself for all our loving
one another. And if its anything anyway that ever hurts you, you act
like as if it was me made you just begin it all with me. I ain’t no
coward, you hear me, Melanctha? I never put my trouble back on
anybody, thinking that they made me. I certainly am right ready
always, Melanctha, you certainly had ought to know me, to stand all
my own trouble for me, but I tell you straight now, the way I think
it Melanctha, I ain’t going to be as if I was the reason why you
wanted to be loving, and to be suffering so now with me.” “But ain’t
you certainly ought to be feeling it so, to be right, Jeff Campbell.
Did I ever do anything but just let you do everything you wanted to
me. Did I ever try to make you be loving to me. Did I ever do
nothing except just sit there ready to endure your loving with me.
But I certainly never, Jeff Campbell, did make any kind of way as if
I wanted really to be having you for me.”
Jeff stared at Melanctha. “So that’s the way you say it when you 284
are thinking right about it all, Melanctha. Well I certainly ain’t
got a word to say ever to you any more, Melanctha, if that’s the way
its straight out to you now, Melanctha.” And Jeff almost laughed out
to her, and he turned to take his hat and coat, and go away now
forever from her.
Melanctha dropped her head on her arms, and she trembled all over 285
and inside her. Jeff stopped a little and looked very sadly at her.
Jeff could not so quickly make it right for himself, to leave her.
“Oh, I certainly shall go crazy now, I certainly know that,” 286
Melanctha moaned as she sat there, all fallen and miserable and weak
together.
Jeff came and took her in his arms, and held her. Jeff was very 287
good then to her, but they neither of them felt inside all right, as
they once did, to be together.
From now on, Jeff had real torment in him. 288
Was it true what Melanctha had said that night to him? Was it 289
true, that he was the one had made all this trouble for them? Was it
true, he was the only one, who always had had wrong ways in him?
Waking or sleeping Jeff now always had this torment going on inside
him.
Jeff did not know now any more, what to feel within him. He did 290
not know how to begin thinking out this trouble that must always now
be bad inside him. He just felt a confused struggle and resentment
always in him, a knowing, no, Melanctha was not right in what she
had said that night to him, and then a feeling, perhaps he always
had been wrong in the way he never could be understanding. And then
would come strong to him, a sense of the deep sweetness in
Melanctha’s loving and a hating the cold slow way he always had to
feel things in him.
Always Jeff knew, sure, Melanctha was wrong in what she had said 291
that night to him, but always Melanctha had had deep feeling with
him, always he was poor and slow in the only way he knew how to have
any feeling. Jeff knew Melanctha was wrong, and yet he always had a
deep doubt in him. What could he know, who had to such slow feeling
in him? What could he ever know, who always had to find his way with
just thinking. What could he know, who had to be taught such a long
time to learn about what was really loving? Jeff now always had this
torment in him.
Melanctha was now always making him feel her way, strong whenever 292
she was with him. Did she go on to do it just to show him, did she
do it so now because she was no longer loving, did she do it so
because that was her way to make him be really loving Jeff never did
know how it was that it all happened so to him.
Melanctha acted now the way she had said it always had been with 293
them. Now it was always Jeff who had to do the asking. Now it was
always Jeff who had to do the asking. Now it was always Jeff who had
to ask when would be the next time he should come to see her. Now
always she was good and patient to him, and now always she was kind
and loving with him, and always Jeff felt it was, that she was good
to give him anything he ever asked or wanted, but never now any more
for her own sake to make her happy in him. Now she did these things,
as if it was just to please her Jeff Campbell who needed she should
now have kindness for him. Always now he was the beggar, with them.
Always now Melanctha gave it, not of her need, but from her bounty
to him. Always now Jeff found it getting harder for him.
Sometimes Jeff wanted to tear things away from before him, always 294
now he wanted to fight things and be angry with them, and always now
Melanctha was so patient to him.
Now, deep inside him, there was always a doubt with Jeff, of 295
Melanctha’s loving. It was not a doubt yet to make him really
doubting, for with that, Jeff never could be really loving, but
always now he knew that something, and that not in him, something
was wrong with their loving. Jeff Campbell could not know any right
way to think out what was inside Melanctha with her loving, he could
not use any way now to reach inside her to find if she was true in
her loving, but now something had gone wrong between them, and now
he never felt sure in him, the way once she had made him, that now
at last he really had got to be understanding.
Melanctha was too many for him. He was helpless to find out the 296
way she really felt now for him. Often Jeff would ask her, did she
really love him. Always she said, “Yes Jeff, sure, you know that,”
and now instead of a full sweet strong love with it, Jeff only felt
a patient, kind endurance in it.
Jeff did not know. If he was right in such a feeling, he certainly 297
never any more did want to have Melanctha Herbert with him. Jeff
Campbell hated badly to think Melanctha ever would give him love,
just for his sake, and not because she needed it herself, to be with
him. Such a way of loving would be very hard for Jeff to be
enduring.
“Jeff what makes you act so funny to me. Jeff you certainly now 298
are jealous to me. Sure Jeff, now I don’t see ever why you be so
foolish to look so to me.” “Don’t you ever think I can be jealous of
anybody ever Melanctha, you hear me. It’s just, you certainly don’t
ever understand me. It’s just, this way with me always now
Melanctha. You love me, and I don’t care anything what you do or
what you ever been to anybody. You don’t love me, then I don’t care
any more about what you ever do or what you ever be to anybody. But
I never want you to be being good Melanctha to me, when it ain’t
your loving makes you need it. I certainly don’t ever want to be
having any of your kind of kindness to me. If you don’t love me, I
can stand it. All I never want to have is your being good to me from
kindness. If you don’t love me, then you and I certainly do quit
right here Melanctha, all strong feeling, to be always living to
each other. It certainly never is anybody I ever am thinking about
when I am thinking with you Melanctha darling. That’s the true way I
am telling you Melanctha, always. It’s only your loving me ever
gives me anything to bother me Melanctha, so all you got to do, if
you don’t really love me, is just certainly to say so to me. I won’t
bother you more then than I can help to keep from it Melanctha. You
certainly need never to be in any worry, never, about me Melanctha.
You just tell me straight out Melanctha, real, the way you feel it.
I certainly can stand it all right, I tell you true Melanctha. And I
never will care to know why or nothing Melanctha. Loving is just
living Melanctha to me, and if you don’t really feel it now
Melanctha to me, there ain’t ever nothing between us then Melanctha,
is there? That’s straight and honest just the way I always feel it
to you now Melanctha. Oh Melanctha, darling, do you love me? Oh
Melanctha, please, please, tell me honest, tell me, do you really
love me?”
“Oh you so stupid Jeff boy, of course I always love you. Always 299
and always Jeff and I always just so good to you. Oh you so stupid
Jeff and don’t know when you got it good with me. Oh dear, Jeff I
certainly am so tired Jeff to-night, don’t you go be a bother to me.
Yes I love you Jeff, how often you want me to tell you. Oh you so
stupid Jeff, but yes I love you. Now I won’t say it no more now
tonight Jeff, you hear me. You just be good Jeff now to me or else I
certainly get awful angry with you. Yes I love you, sure, Jeff,
though you don’t any way deserve it from me. Yes, yes I love you.
Yes Jeff I say it till I certainly am very sleepy. Yes I love you
now Jeff, and you certainly must stop asking me to tell you. Oh you
great silly boy Jeff Campbell, sure I love you, oh you silly stupid,
my own boy Jeff Campbell. Yes I love you and I certainly never won’t
say it one more time to-night Jeff, now you hear me.”
Yes Jeff Campbell heard her, and he tried hard to believe her. He 300
did not really doubt her but somehow it was wrong now, the way
Melanctha said it. Jeff always now felt baffled with Melanctha.
Something, he knew, was not right now in her. Something in her
always now was making stronger the torment that was tearing every
minute at the joy he once always had had with her.
----------
Melanctha
Each One as She May: Paras. 301–400
Always now Jeff wondered did Melanctha love him. Always now he was 301
wondering, was Melanctha right when she said, it was he had made all
their beginning. Was Melanctha right when she said, it was he had
the real responsibility for all the trouble they had and still were
having now between them. If she was right, what a brute he always
had been in his acting. If she was right, how good she had been to
endure the pain he had made so bad so often for her. But no, surely
she had made herself to bear it, for her own sake, not for his to
make him happy. Surely he was not so twisted in all his long
thinking. Surely he could remember right what it was had happened
every day in their long loving. Surely he was not so poor a coward
as Melanctha always seemed to be thinking. Surely, surely, and then
the torment would get worse every minute in him.
One night Jeff Campbell was lying in his bed with his thinking, 302
and night after night now he could not do any sleeping for his
thinking. To-night suddenly he sat up in his bed, and it all came
clear to him, and he pounded his pillow with his fist, and he almost
shouted out alone there to him, “I ain’t a brute the way Melanctha
has been saying. Its all wrong the way I been worried thinking. We
did begin fair, each not for the other but for ourselves, what we
were wanting. Melanctha Herbert did it just like I did it, because
she liked it bad enough to want to stand it. It’s all wrong in me to
think it any way except the way we really did it. I certainly don’t
know now whether she is now real and true in her loving. I ain’t got
any way ever to find out if she is real and true now always to me.
All I know is I didn’t ever make her to begin to be with me.
Melanctha has got to stand for her own trouble, just like I got to
stand for my own trouble. Each man has got to do it for himself when
he is in real trouble. Melanctha, she certainly don’t remember right
when she says I made her begin and then I made her trouble. No by
God, I ain’t no coward nor a brute either ever to her. I been the
way I felt it honest, and that certainly is all about it now between
us, and everybody always has just got to stand for their own
trouble. I certainly am right this time the way I see it.” And Jeff
lay down now, at last in comfort, and he slept, and he was free from
his long doubting torment.
“You know Melanctha,” Jeff Campbell began, the next time he was 303
alone to talk a long time to Melanctha. “You know Melanctha,
sometimes I think a whole lot about what you like to say so much
about being game and never doing any hollering. Seems to me
Melanctha, I certainly don’t understand right what you mean by not
hollering. Seems to me it certainly ain’t only what comes right away
when one is hit, that counts to be brave to be bearing, but all that
comes later from your getting sick from the shock of being hurt once
in a fight, and all that, and all the being taken care of for years
after, and the suffering of your family, and all that, you certainly
must stand and not holler, to be certainly really brave the way I
understand it.” “What you mean Jeff by your talking.” “I mean, seems
to me really not to holler, is to be strong not to show you ever
have been hurt. Seems to me, to get your head hurt from your trouble
and to show it, ain’t certainly no braver than to say, oh, oh, how
bad you hurt me, please don’t hurt me mister. It just certainly
seems to me, like many people think themselves so game just to stand
what we all of us always just got to be standing, and everybody
stands it, and we don’t certainly none of us like it, and yet we
don’t ever most of us think we are so much being game, just because
we got to stand it.”
“I know what you mean now by what you are saying to me now Jeff 304
Campbell. You make a fuss now to me, because I certainly just have
stopped standing everything you like to be always doing so cruel to
me. But that’s just the way always with you Jeff Campbell, if you
want to know it. You ain’t got no kind of right feeling for all I
always been forgiving to you.” “I said it once for fun, Melanctha,
but now I certainly do mean it, you think you got a right to go
where you got no business, and you say, I am so brave nothing can
hurt me, and then something, like always, it happens to hurt you,
and you show your hurt always so everybody can see it, and you say,
I am so brave nothing did hurt me except he certainly didn’t have
any right to, and see how bad I suffer, but you never hear me make a
holler, though certainly anybody got any feeling, to see me suffer,
would certainly never touch me except to take good care of me.
Sometimes I certainly don’t rightly see Melanctha, how much more
game that is than just the ordinary kind of holler.” “No, Jeff
Campbell, and made the way you is you certainly ain’t likely ever to
be much more understanding.” “No, Melanctha, nor you neither. You
think always, you are the only one who ever can do any way to really
suffer.” “Well, and ain’t I certainly always been the only person
knows how to bear it. No, Jeff Campbell, I certainly be glad to love
anybody really worthy, but I made so, I never seem to be able in
this world to find him.” “No, and your kind of way of thinking, you
certainly Melanctha never going to any way be able ever to be
finding of him. Can’t you understand Melanctha, ever, how no man
certainly ever really can hold your love for long times together.
You certainly Melanctha, you ain’t got down deep loyal feeling, true
inside you, and when you ain’t just that moment quick with feeling,
then you certainly ain’t ever got anything more there to keep you.
You see Melanctha, it certainly is this way with you, it is, that
you ain’t ever got any way to remember right what you been doing, or
anybody else that has been feeling with you. You certainly
Melanctha, never can remember right, when it comes what you have
done and what you think happens to you.” “It certainly is all easy
for you Jeff Campbell to be talking. You remember right, because you
don’t remember nothing till you get home with your thinking
everything all over, but I certainly don’t think much ever of that
kind of way of remembering right, Jeff Campbell. I certainly do call
it remembering right Jeff Campbell, to remember right just when it
happens to you, so you have a right kind of feeling not to act the
way you always been doing to me, and then you go home Jeff Campbell,
and you begin with your thinking, and then it certainly is very easy
for you to be good and forgiving with it. No, that ain’t to me, the
way of remembering Jeff Campbell, not as I can see it not to make
people always suffer, waiting for you certainly to get to do it.
Seems to me like Jeff Campbell, I never could feel so like a man was
low and to be scorning of him, like that day in the summer, when you
threw me off just because you got one of those fits of your
remembering. No, Jeff Campbell, its real feeling every moment when
its needed, that certainly does seem to me like real remembering.
And that way, certainly, you don’t never know nothing like what
should be right Jeff Campbell. No Jeff, it’s me that always
certainly has had to bear it with you. It’s always me that certainly
has had to suffer, while you go home to remember. No you certainly
ain’t got no sense yet Jeff, what you need to make you really
feeling. No, it certainly is me Jeff Campbell, that always has got
to be remembering for us both, always. That’s what’s the true way
with us Jeff Campbell, if you want to know what it is I am always
thinking.” “You is certainly real modest Melanctha, when you do this
kind of talking, you sure is Melanctha,” said Jeff Campbell
laughing. “I think sometimes Melanctha I am certainly awful
conceited, when I think sometimes I am all out doors, and I think I
certainly am so bright, and better than most everybody I ever got
anything now to do with, but when I hear you talk this way
Melanctha, I certainly do think I am a real modest kind of fellow.”
“Modest!” said Melanctha, angry, “Modest, that certainly is a queer
thing for you Jeff to be calling yourself even when you are
laughing.” “Well it certainly does depend a whole lot what you are
thinking with,” said Jeff Campbell. “I never did use to think I was
so much on being real modest Melanctha, but now I know really I am,
when I hear you talking. I see all the time there are many people
living just as good as I am, though they are a little different to
me. Now with you Melanctha if I understand you right what you are
talking, you don’t think that way of no other one that you are ever
knowing.” “I certainly could be real modest too, Jeff Campbell,”
said Melanctha. “If I could meet somebody once I could keep right on
respecting when I got so I was really knowing with them. But I
certainly never met anybody like that yet, Jeff Campbell, if you
want to know it.” “No, Melanctha, and with the way you got of
thinking, it certainly don’t look like as if you ever will
Melanctha, with your never remembering anything only what you just
then are feeling in you, and you not understanding what any one else
is ever feeling, if they don’t holler just the way you are doing. No
Melanctha, I certainly don’t see any ways you are likely ever to
meet one, so good as you are always thinking you be.” “No, Jeff
Campbell, it certainly ain’t that way with me at all the way you say
it. It’s because I am always knowing what it is I am wanting, when I
get it. I certainly don’t never have to wait till I have it, and
then throw away what I got in me, and then come back and say, that’s
a mistake I just been making, it ain’t that never at all like I
understood it, I want to have, bad, what I didn’t think it was I
wanted. It’s that way of knowing right what I am wanting, makes me
feel nobody can come right with me, when I am feeling things, Jeff
Campbell. I certainly do say Jeff Campbell, I certainly don’t think
much of the way you always do it, always never knowing what it is
you are ever really wanting and everybody always got to suffer. No
Jeff, I don’t certainly think there is much doubting which is better
and the stronger with us two, Jeff Campbell.”
“As you will, Melanctha Herbert,” cried Jeff Campbell, and he rose 305
up, and he thundered out a black oath, and he was fierce to leave
her now forever, and then with the same movement, he took her in his
arms and held her.
“What a silly goose boy you are, Jeff Campbell,” Melanctha 306
whispered to him fondly.
“Oh yes,” said Jeff, very dreary. “I never could keep really mad 307
with anybody, not when I was a little boy and playing. I used most
to cry sometimes, I couldn’t get real mad and keep on a long time
with it, the way everybody always did it. It’s certainly no use to
me Melanctha, I certainly can’t ever keep mad with you Melanctha, my
dear one. But don’t you ever be thinking it’s because I think you
right in what you been just saying to me. I don’t Melanctha really
think it that way, honest, though I certainly can’t get mad the way
I ought to. No Melanctha, little girl, really truly, you ain’t right
the way you think it. I certainly do know that Melanctha, honest.
You certainly don’t do me right Melanctha, the way you say you are
thinking. Good-bye Melanctha, though you certainly is my own little
girl for always.” And then they were very good a little girl for
always.” And then they were very good a little to each other, and
then Jeff went away for that evening, from her.
Melanctha had begun now once more to wander. Melanctha did not yet 308
always wander, but a little now she needed to begin to look for
others. Now Melanctha Herbert began again to be with some of the
better kind of black girls, and with them she sometimes wandered.
Melanctha had not yet come again to need to be alone, when she
wandered.
Jeff Campbell did not know that Melanctha had begun again to 309
wander All Jeff knew, was that now he could not be so often with
her.
Jeff never knew how it had come to happen to him, but now he never 310
thought to go to see Melanctha Herbert, until he had before, asked
her if she could be going to have time then to have him with her.
Then Melanctha would think a little, and then she would say to him,
“Let me see Jeff, to-morrow, you was just saying to me. I certainly
am awful busy you know Jeff just now. It certainly does seem to me
this week Jeff, I can’t anyways fix it. Sure I want to see you soon
Jeff. I certainly Jeff got to do a little more now, I been giving so
much time, when I had no business, just to be with you when you
asked me. Now I guess Jeff, I certainly can’t see you no more this
week Jeff, the way I got to do things.” “All right Melanctha,” Jeff
would answer and he would be very angry. “I want to come only just
certainly as you want me now Melanctha.” “Now Jeff you know I
certainly can’t be neglecting always to be with everybody just to
see you. You come see me next week Tuesday Jeff, you hear me. I
don’t think Jeff I certainly be so busy, Tuesday.” Jeff Campbell
would then go away and leave her, and he would be hurt and very
angry, for it was hard for a man with a great pride in himself, like
Jeff Campbell, to feel himself no better than a beggar. And yet he
always came as she said he should, on the day she had fixed for him,
and always Jeff Campbell was not sure yet that he really understood
what it was Melanctha wanted. Always Melanctha said to him, yes she
loved him, sure he knew that. Always Melanctha said to him, she
certainly did love him just the same as always, only sure he knew
now she certainly did seem to be right busy with all she certainly
now had to be doing.
Jeff never knew what Melanctha had to do now, that made her always 311
be so busy, but Jeff Campbell never cared to ask Melanctha such a
question. Besides Jeff knew Melanctha Herbert would never, in such a
matter, give him any kind of a real answer. Jeff did not know
whether it was that Melanctha did not know how to give a simple
answer. And then how could he, Jeff, know what was important to her.
Jeff Campbell always felt strongly in him, he had no right to
interfere with Melanctha in any practical kind of a matter. There
they had always, never asked each other any kind of question. There
they had felt always in each other, not any right to take care of
one another. And Jeff Campbell now felt less than he had ever, any
right to claim to know what Melanctha thought it right that she
should do in any of her ways of living. All Jeff felt a right in
himself to question, was her loving.
Jeff learned every day now, more and more, how much it was that he 312
could really suffer. Sometimes it hurt so in him, when he was alone,
it would force some slow tears from him. But every day, now that
Jeff Campbell, knew more how it could hurt him, he lost his feeling
of deep awe that he once always had had for Melanctha’s feeling.
Suffering was not so much after all, thought Jeff Campbell, if even
he could feel it so it hurt him. It hurt him bad, just the way he
knew he once had hurt Melanctha, and yet he too could have it and
not make any kind of a loud holler with it.
In tender hearted natures, those that mostly never feel strong 313
passion, suffering often comes to make them harder. When these do
not know in themselves what it is to suffer, suffering is then very
awful to them and they badly want to help everyone who ever has to
suffer, and they have a deep reverence for anybody who knows really
how to always suffer. But when it comes to them to really suffer,
they soon begin to lose their fear and tenderness and wonder. Why it
isn’t so very much to suffer, when even I can bear to do it. It
isn’t very pleasant to be having all the time, to stand it, but they
are not so much wiser after all, all the others just because they
know too how to bear it.
Passionate natures who have always made themselves, to suffer, 314
that is all the kind of people who have emotions that come to them
as sharp as a sensation, they always get more tender-hearted when
they suffer, and it always does them good to suffer. Tender-hearted,
unpassionate, and comfortable natures always get much harder when
they suffer, for so they lose the fear and reverence and wonder they
once had for everybody who ever has to suffer, for now they know
themselves what it is to suffer and it is not so awful any longer to
them when they know too, just as well as all the others, how to have
it.
And so it came in these days to Jeff Campbell. Jeff knew now 315
always, way inside him, what it is to really suffer, and now every
day with it, he knew how to understand Melanctha better. Jeff
Campbell still loved Melanctha Herbert and he still had a real trust
in her and he still had a little hope that some day they would once
more get together, but slowly, every day, this hope in him would
keep growing always weaker. They still were a good deal of time
together, but now they never any more were really trusting with each
other. In the days when they used to be together, Jeff had felt he
did not know much what was inside Melanctha, but he knew very well,
how very deep always was his trust in her; now he knew Melanctha
Herbert better, but now he never felt a deep trust in her. Now Jeff
never could be really honest with her. He never doubted yet, that
she was steady only to him, but somehow he could not believe much
really in Melanctha’s loving.
Melanctha Herbert was a little angry now when Jeff asked her, “I 316
never give nobody before Jeff, ever more than one chance with me,
and I certainly been giving you most a hundred Jeff, you hear me.”
“And why shouldn’t you Melanctha, give me a million, if you really
love me!” Jeff flashed out very angry. “I certainly don’t know as
you deserve that anyways from me, Jeff Campbell.” “It ain’t
deserving, I am ever talking about to you Melanctha. Its loving, and
if you are really loving to me you won’t certainly never any ways
call them chances.” “Deed Jeff, you certainly are getting awful wise
Jeff now, ain’t you, to me.” “No I ain’t Melanctha, and I ain’t
jealous either to you. I just am doubting from the way you are
always acting to me.” “Oh yes Jeff, that’s what they all say, the
same way, when they certainly got jealousy all through them. You
ain’t got no cause to be jealous with me Jeff, and I am awful tired
of all this talking now, you hear me.”
Jeff Campbell never asked Melanctha any more if she loved him. Now 317
things were always getting worse between them. Now Jeff was always
very silent with Melanctha. Now Jeff never wanted to be honest to
her, and now Jeff never had much to say to her.
Now when they were together, it was Melanctha always did most of 318
the talking. Now she often had other girls there with her. Melanctha
was always kind to Jeff Campbell but she never seemed to need to be
alone now with him. She always treated Jeff, like her best friend,
and she always spoke so to him and yet she never seemed now to very
often want to see him.
Every day it was getting harder for Jeff Campbell. It was as if 319
now, when he had learned to really love Melanctha, she did not need
any more to have him. Jeff began to know this very well inside him.
Jeff Campbell did not know yet that Melanctha had begun again to 320
wander. Jeff was not very quick to suspect Melanctha. All Jeff knew
was, that he did not trust her to be now really loving to him.
Jeff was no longer now in any doubt inside him. He knew very well 321
now he really loved Melanctha. He knew now very well she was not any
more a real religion to him. Jeff Campbell knew very well too now
inside him, he did not really want Melanctha, now if he could no
longer trust her, though he loved her hard and really knew now what
it was to suffer.
Every day Melanctha Herbert was less and less near to him. She 322
always was very pleasant in her talk and to be with him, but somehow
now it never was any comfort to him.
Melanctha Herbert now always had a lot of friends around her. Jeff 323
Campbell never wanted to be with them. Now Melanctha began to find
it, she said it often to him, always harder to arrange to be alone
now with him. Sometimes she would be late for him. Then Jeff always
would try to be patient in his waiting, for Jeff Campbell knew very
well how to remember, and he knew it was only right that he should
now endure this from her.
Then Melanctha began to manage often not to see him, and once she 324
went away when she had promised to be there to meet him.
Then Jeff Campbell was really filled up with his anger. Now he 325
knew he could never really want her. Now he knew he never any more
could really trust her.
Jeff Campbell never knew why Melanctha had not come to meet him. 326
Jeff had heard a little talking now, about how Melanctha Herbert had
commenced once more to wander. Jeff Campbell still sometimes saw
Jane Harden, who always needed a doctor to be often there to help
her. Jane Harden always knew very well what happened to Melanctha.
Jeff Campbell never would talk to Jane Harden anything about
Melanctha. Jeff was always loyal to Melanctha. Jeff never let Jane
Harden say much to him about Melanctha, though he never let her know
that now he loved her. But somehow Jeff did know now about
Melanctha, and he knew about some men that Melanctha met with Rose
Johnson very often.
Jeff Campbell would not let himself really doubt Melanctha, but 327
Jeff began to know now very well, he did not want her. Melanctha
Herbert did not love him ever, Jeff knew it now, the way he once had
thought that she could feel it. Once she had been greater for him
than he had thought he could ever know how to feel it. Now Jeff had
come to where he could understand Melanctha Herbert. Jeff was not
bitter to her because she could not really love him, he was bitter
only that he had let himself have a real illusion in him. He was a
little bitter too, that he had lost now, what he had always felt
real in the world, that had made it for him always full of beauty,
and now he had not got this new religion really, and he had lost
what he before had to know what was good and had real beauty.
Jeff Campbell was so angry now in him, because he had begged 328
Melanctha always to be honest to him. Jeff could stand it in her not
to love him, he could not stand it in her not to be honest to him.
Jeff Campbell went home from where Melanctha had not met him, and 329
he was sore and full of anger in him.
Jeff Campbell could not be sure what to do, to make it right 330
inside him. Surely he must be strong now and cast this loving from
him, and yet, was he sure he now had real wisdom in him, and yet,
was he sure he now had real wisdom in him. Was he sure that
Melanctha Herbert never had had a real deep loving for him. Was he
sure Melanctha Herbert never had deserved a reverence from him.
Always now Jeff had this torment in him, but always now he felt more
that Melanctha never had real greatness for him.
Jeff waited to see if Melanctha would send any word to him. 331
Melanctha Herbert never sent a line to him.
At last Jeff wrote his letter to Melanctha. “Dear Melanctha, I 332
certainly do know you ain’t been any way sick this last week when
you never met me right the way you promised, and never sent me any
word to say why you acted a way you certainly never could think was
the right way you should do it to me. Jane Harden said she saw you
that day and you went out walking with some people you like now to
be with. Don’t be misunderstanding me now any more Melanctha. I love
you now because that’s my slow way to learn what you been teaching,
but I know now you certainly never had what seems to me real kind of
feeling. I don’t love you Melanctha any more now like a real
religion, because now I know you are just made like all us others. I
know now no man can ever really hold you because no man can ever be
real to trust in you, because you mean right Melanctha, but you
never can remember, and so you certainly never have got any way to
be honest. So please you understand me right now Melanctha, it never
is I don’t know how to love you. I do know now how to love you,
Melanctha, really. You sure do know that, Melanctha, in me. You
certainly always can trust me. And so now Melanctha, I can say to
you certainly real honest with you, I am better than you are in my
right kind of feeling. And so Melanctha, I don’t never any more want
to be a trouble to you. You certainly make me see things Melanctha,
I never any other way could be knowing. You been very good and
patient to me, when I was certainly below you in my right feeling. I
certainly never have been near so good and patient to you ever any
way Melanctha, I certainly know that Melanctha. But Melanctha, with
me, it certainly is, always to be good together, two people
certainly must be thinking each one as good as the other, to be
really loving right Melanctha. And it certainly must never be any
kind of feeling, of one only taking, and one only just giving,
Melanctha, to me. I know you certainly don’t really ever understand
me now Melanctha, but that’s no matter. I certainly do know what I
am feeling now with you real Melanctha. And so good-bye now for good
Melanctha. I say I can never ever really trust you real Melanctha,
that’s only just certainly from your way of not being ever equal in
your feeling to anybody real, Melanctha, and your way never to know
right how to remember. Many ways I really trust you deep Melanctha,
and your way of not being ever equal in your feeling to anybody
real, Melanctha, and your way never to know right how to remember.
Many ways I really trust you deep Melanctha, and I certainly do feel
deep all the good sweetness you certainly got real in you Melanctha.
Its only just in your loving me Melanctha. You never can be equal to
me and that way I certainly never can bear any more to have it. And
so now Melanctha, I always be your friend, if you need me, and now
we never see each other any more to talk to.”
And then Jeff Campbell thought and thought, and he could never 333
make any way for him now, to see it different, and so at last he
sent this letter to Melanctha.
And now surely it was all over in Jeff Campbell. Surely now he 334
never any more could know Melanctha. And yet, perhaps Melanctha
really loved him. And then she would know how much it hurt him never
any more, any way, to see her, and perhaps she would write a line to
tell him. But that was a foolish way for Jeff ever to be thinking.
Of course Melanctha never would write be thinking. Of course
Melanctha never would write a word to him. It was all over now for
always, everything between them, and Jeff felt it a real relief to
him.
For many days now Jeff Campbell only felt it as a relief in him. 335
Jeff was all locked up and quiet now inside him. It was all settling
down heavy in him, and these days when it was sinking so deep in
him, it was only the rest and quiet of not fighting that he could
really feel inside him. Jeff Campbell could not think now, or feel
anything else in him. He had no beauty nor any goodness to see
around him. It was a dull, pleasant kind of quiet he now had inside
him. Jeff almost began to love this dull quiet in him, for it was
more nearly being free for him than anything he had known in him
since Melanctha Herbert first had moved him. He did not find it a
real rest yet for him, he had not really conquered what had been
working so long in him, he had not learned to see beauty and real
goodness yet in what had happened to him, but it was rest even if he
was sodden now all through him. Jeff Campbell liked it very well,
not to have fighting always going on inside him.
And so Jeff went on every day, and he was quiet, and he began 336
again to watch himself in his working; and he did not see any beauty
now around him, and it was dull and heavy always now inside him, and
yet he was content to have gone so far in keeping steady to what he
knew was the right way for him to come back to, to be regular, and
see beauty in every kind of quiet way of living, the way he had
always wanted it for himself and for all the colored people. He knew
he had lost the sense he once had of joy all through him, but he
could work, and perhaps he would bring some real belief back into
him about the beauty that he could not now any more see around him.
And so Jeff Campbell went on with his working, and he staid home 337
every evening, and he began again with his reading, and he did not
do much talking, and he did not seem to himself to have any kind of
feeling.
And one day Jeff thought perhaps he really was forgetting, one day 338
he thought he could soon come back and be happy in his old way of
regular and quiet living.
Jeff Campbell had never talked to any one of what had been going 339
on inside him. Jeff Campbell liked to talk and he was honest, but it
never came out from him, anything he was ever really feeling, it
only came out from him, what it was that he was always thinking.
Jeff Campbell always was very proud to hide what he was really
feeling. Always he blushed hot to think things he had been feeling.
Only to Melanctha Herbert, had it ever come to him, to tell what it
was that he was feeling.
And so Jeff Campbell went on with this dull and sodden, heavy, 340
quiet always in him, and he never seemed to be able to have any
feeling. Only sometimes he shivered hot with shame when he
remembered some things he once had been feeling. And then one day it
all woke up, and was sharp in him.
Dr. Campbell was just then staying long times with a sick man who 341
might soon be dying. One day the sick man was resting. Dr. Campbell
went to the window to look out a little, while he was waiting. It
was very early now in the southern springtime. The trees were just
beginning to get the little zigzag crinkles in them, which the young
buds always give them. The air was soft and moist and pleasant to
them. The earth was wet and rich and smelling for them. The wind was
very gentle and yet urgent to them. And the buds and the long
earthworms, and the negroes, and all the kinds of children, were
coming out every minute farther into the new spring, watery,
southern sunshine.
Jeff Campbell too began to feel a little his old joy inside him. 342
The sodden quiet began to break up in him. He leaned far out of the
window to mix it all up with him. His heart went sharp and then it
almost stopped inside him. Was it Melanctha Herbert he had just seen
passing by him? Was it Melanctha, or was it just some other girl,
who made him feel so bad inside him? Well, it was no matter,
Melanctha was there in the world around him, he did certainly always
know that in him. Melanctha Herbert was always in the same town with
him, and he could never any more feel her near him. What a fool he
was to throw her from him. Did he know she did not really love him.
Suppose Melanctha was now suffering through him. Suppose she really
would be glad to see him. And did anything else he did, really mean
anything now to him? What a fool he was to cast her from him. And
yet did Melanctha Herbert want him, was she honest to him, had
Melanctha ever loved him, and did Melanctha now suffer by him? Oh!
Oh! Oh! and the bitter water once more rose up in him.
All that long day, with the warm moist young spring stirring in 343
him, Jeff Campbell worked, and thought, and beat his breast, and
wandered, and spoke aloud, and was silent, and was certain, and then
in doubt and then keen to surely feel, and then all sodden in him;
and he walked, and he sometimes ran fast to lose himself in his
rushing, and he bit his nails to pain and bleeding, and he tore his
hair so that he could be sure he was really feeling, and he never
could know what it was right, he now should be doing. And then late
that night he wrote it all out to Melanctha Herbert, and he made
himself quickly send it without giving himself any time to change
it.
“It has come to me strong to-day Melanctha, perhaps I am wrong the 344
way I now am thinking. Perhaps you do want me badly to be with you.
Perhaps I have hurt you once again the way I used to. I certainly
Melanctha, if I ever think that really, I certainly do want bad not
to be wrong now ever any more to you. If you do feel the way to-day
it came to me strong may-be you are feeling, then say so Melanctha
to me, and I come again to see you. If not, don’t say anything any
more ever to me. I don’t want ever to be bad to you Melanctha,
really. I never want ever to be a bother to you. I never can stand
it to think I am wrong; really, thinking you don’t want me to come
to you. Tell me Melanctha, tell me honest to me, shall I come now
any more to see you.” “Yes” came the answer from Melanctha, “I be
home Jeff to-night to see you.”
Jeff Campbell went that evening late to see Melanctha Herbert. As 345
Jeff came nearer to her, he doubted that he wanted really to be with
her, he felt that he did not know what it was he now wanted from
her. Jeff Campbell knew very well now, way inside him, that they
could never talk their trouble out between them. What was it that
Jeff Campbell now could tell her? Surely he never now could learn to
trust her. Surely Jeff knew very well all that Melanctha always had
inside her. And yet it was awful, never any more to see her.
Jeff Campbell went in to Melanctha, and he kissed her, and he held 346
her, and then he went away from her and he stood still and looked at
her. “Well Jeff!” “Yes Melanctha!” “Jeff what was it made you act so
to me?” “You know very well Melanctha, it’s always I am thinking you
don’t love me, and you are acting to me good out of kindness, and
then Melanctha you certainly never did say anything to me why you
never came to meet me, as you certainly did promise to me you would
that day I never saw you!” “Jeff don’t you really know for certain,
I always love you?” “No Melanctha, deed I don’t know it in me. Deed
and certain sure Melanctha, if I only know that in me, I certainly
never would give you any bother.” “Jeff, I certainly do love you
more seems to me always, you certainly had ought to feel that in
you.” “Sure Melanctha?” “Sure Jeff boy, you know that.” “But then
Melanctha why did you act so to me?” “Oh Jeff you certainly been
such a bother to me. I just had to go away that day Jeff, and I
certainly didn’t mean not to tell you, and then that letter you
wrote came to me and something happened to me. I don’t know right
what it was Jeff, I just kind of fainted, and what could I do Jeff,
you said you certainly never any more wanted to come and see me!”
“And no matter Melanctha, even if you knew, it was just killing me
to act so to you, you never would have said nothing to me?” “No of
course, how could I Jeff when you wrote that way to me. I know how
you was feeling Jeff to me, but I certainly know I am right proud
too in me, but I certainly never could act so to you Melanctha, if I
ever knew any way at all you ever really loved me. No Melanctha
darling, you and me certainly don’t feel much the same way ever. Any
way Melanctha, I certainly do love you true Melanctha.” “And I love
you too Jeff, even though you don’t never certainly seem to believe
me.” “No I certainly don’t any way believe you Melanctha, even when
you say it to me. I don’t know Melanctha how, but sure I certainly
do trust you, only I don’t believe now ever in your really being
loving to me. I certainly do know you trust me always Melanctha,
only somehow it ain’t ever all right to me. I certainly don’t know
any way otherwise Melanctha, how I can say it to you.” “Well I
certainly can’t help you no ways any more Jeff Campbell, though you
certainly say it right when you say I trust you Jeff now always. You
certainly is the best man Jeff Campbell, I ever can know, to me. I
never been anyways thinking it can be ever different to me.” “Well
you trust me then Melanctha, and I certainly love you Melanctha, and
seems like to me Melanctha, you and me had ought to be a little
better than we certainly ever are doing now to be together. You
certainly do think that way, too, Melanctha to me. But may be you do
really love me. Tell me, please, real honest now Melanctha darling,
tell me so I really always know it in me, do you really truly love
me?” “Oh you stupid, stupid boy, Jeff Campbell. Love you, what do
you think makes me always to forgive you. If I certainly didn’t
always love you Jeff, I certainly never would let you be always
being all the time such a bother to me the way you certainly Jeff
always are to me. Now don’t you dass ever any more say words like
that ever to me. You hear me now Jeff, or I do something real bad
sometimes, so I really hurt you. Now Jeff you just be good to me.
You know Jeff how bad I need it, now you should always be good to
me!”
Jeff Campbell could not make an answer to Melanctha. What was it 347
he should now say to her? What words could help him to make their
feeling any better? Jeff Campbell knew that he had learned to love
deeply, that, he always knew very well now in him, Melanctha had
learned to be strong to be always trusting, that he knew too now
inside him, but Melanctha did not really love him, that he felt
always too strong for him. That fact always was there in him, and it
always thrust itself firm, between them. And so this talk did not
make things really better for them.
Jeff Campbell was never any more a torment to Melanctha, he was 348
only silent to her. Jeff often saw Melanctha and he was very
friendly with her and he never any more was a bother to her. Jeff
never any more now had much chance to be loving with her. Melanctha
never was alone now when he saw her.
Melanctha Herbert had just been getting thick in her trouble with 349
Jeff Campbell, when she went to that church where she first met
Rose, who later was married regularly to Sam Johnson. Rose was a
good-looking, better kind of black girl, and had been brought up
quite like their own child by white folks. Rose was living now with
colored people. Rose was staying just then with a colored woman, who
had known ‘Mis’ Herbert and her black husband and this girl
Melanctha.
Rose soon got to like Melanctha Herbert and Melanctha now always 350
wanted to be with Rose, whenever she could do it. Melanctha Herbert
always was doing everything for Rose that she could think of that
Rose ever wanted. Rose always liked to be with nice people who would
do things for her. Rose had strong common sense and she was lazy.
Rose liked Melanctha Herbert, she had such kind of fine ways in her.
Then, too, Rose had it in her to be sorry for the subtle,
sweet-natured, docile, intelligent Melanctha Herbert who always was
so blue sometimes, and always had had so much trouble. Then, too,
Rose could scold Melanctha, for Melanctha Herbert never could know
how to keep herself from trouble, and Rose was always strong to keep
straight, with her simple selfish wisdom.
But why did the subtle, intelligent, attractive, half white girl 351
Melanctha Herbert, with her sweetness and her power and her wisdom,
demean herself to do for and to flatter and to be scolded, by this
lazy, stupid, ordinary, selfish black girl. This was a queer thing
in Melanctha Herbert.
And so now in these new spring days, it was with Rose that 352
Melanctha began again to wander. Rose always knew very well in
herself what was the right way to do when you wandered. Rose knew
very well, she was not just any common kind of black girl, for she
had been raised by white folks, and Rose always saw to it that she
was engaged to him when she had any one man with whom she ever
always wandered. Rose always had strong in her the sense for proper
conduct. Rose always was telling the complex and less sure
Melanctha, what was the right way she should do when she wandered.
Rose never knew much about Jeff Campbell with Melanctha Herbert. 353
Rose had not known about Melanctha Herbert when she had been almost
all her time with Dr. Campbell.
Jeff Campbell did not like Rose when he saw her with Melanctha. 354
Jeff would never, when he could help it, meet her. Rose did not
think much about Dr. Campbell. Melanctha never talked much about him
to her. He was not important now to be with her.
Rose did not like Melanctha’s old friend Jane Harden when she saw 355
her. Jane despised Rose for an ordinary, stupid, sullen black girl.
Jane could not see what Melanctha could find in that black girl, to
endure her. It made Jane sick to see her. But then Melanctha had a
good mind, but she certainly never did care much to really use it.
Jane Harden now really never cared any more to see Melanctha, though
Melanctha still always tried to be good to her. And Rose, she hated
that stuck up, mean speaking, nasty, drunk thing, Jane Harden. Rose
did not see how Melanctha could bear to ever see her, but Melanctha
always was so good to everybody, she never would know how to act to
people the way they deserved that she should do it.
Rose did not know much about Melanctha, and Jeff Campbell and Jane 356
Harden. All Rose knew about Melanctha was her old life with her
mother and her father. Rose was always glad to be good to poor
Melanctha, who had had such an awful time with her mother and her
father, and now she was alone and had nobody who could help her. “He
was a awful black man to you Melanctha, I like to get my hands on
him so he certainly could feel it. I just would Melanctha, now you
hear me.”
Perhaps it was this simple faith and simple anger and simple moral 357
way of doing in Rose, that Melanctha now found such a comfort to
her. Rose was selfish and was stupid and was lazy, but she was
decent and knew always what was the right way she should do, and
what she wanted, and she certainly did admire how bright was her
friend Melanctha Herbert, and she certainly did feel how very much
it was she always suffered and she scolded her to keep her from more
trouble, and she never was angry when she found some of the
different ways Melanctha Herbert sometimes had to do it.
And so always Rose and Melanctha were more and more together, and 358
Jeff Campbell could now hardly ever any more be alone with
Melanctha.
Once Jeff had to go away to another town to see a sick man. “When 359
I come back Monday Melanctha, I come Monday evening to see you. You
be home alone once Melanctha to see me.” “Sure Jeff, I be glad to
see you!”
When Jeff Campbell came to his house on Monday there was a note 360
there from Melanctha. Could Jeff come day after to-morrow,
Wednesday? Melanctha was so sorry she had to go out that evening.
She was awful sorry and she hoped Jeff would not be angry.
Jeff was angry and he swore a little, and then he laughed, and 361
then he sighed. “Poor Melanctha, she don’t know any way to be real
honest, but no matter, I sure do love her and I be good if only she
will let me.”
Jeff Campbell went Wednesday night to see Melanctha. Jeff Campbell 362
took her in his arms and kissed her. “I certainly am awful sorry not
to see you Jeff Monday, the way I promised, but I just couldn’t
Jeff, no way I could fix it.” Jeff looked at her and then he laughed
a little at her. “You want me to believe that really now Melanctha.
All right I believe it if you want me to Melanctha. I certainly be
good to you to-night the way you like it. I believe you certainly
did want to see me Melanctha, and there was no way could fix it.”
“Oh Jeff dear,” said Melanctha, “I sure was wrong to act so to you.
It’s awful hard for me ever to say it to you, I have been wrong in
my acting to you, but I certainly was bad this time Jeff to you. It
do certainly come hard to me to say it Jeff, but I certainly was
wrong to go away from you the way I did it. Only you always
certainly been so bad Jeff, and such a bother to me, and making
everything always so hard for me, and I certainly got some way to do
it to make it come back sometimes to you. You bad boy Jeff, now you
hear me, and this certainly is the first time Jeff I ever yet said
it to anybody, I ever been wrong, Jeff, you hear me!” “All right
Melanctha, I sure do forgive you, cause it’s certainly the first
time I ever heard you say you ever did anything wrong the way you
shouldn’t,” and Jeff Campbell laughed and kissed her, and Melanctha
laughed and loved him, and they really were happy now for a little
time together.
And now they were very happy in each other and then they were 363
silent and then they became a little sadder and then they were very
quiet once more with each other.
“Yes I certainly do love you Jeff!” Melanctha said and she was 364
very dreamy. “Sure, Melanctha.” “Yes Jeff sure, but not the way you
are now ever thinking. I love you more and more seems to me Jeff
always, and I certainly do trust you more and more always to me when
I know you. I do love you Jeff, sure yes, but not the kind of way of
loving you are ever thinking it now Jeff with me. I ain’t got
certainly no hot passion any more now in me. You certainly have
killed all that kind of feeling now Jeff in me. You certainly do
know that kind of feeling now Jeff in me. You certainly do know that
Jeff, now the way I am always, when I am loving with you. You
certainly do know that Jeff, and that’s the way you certainly do
like it now in me. You certainly don’t mind now Jeff, to hear me say
this to you.”
Jeff Campbell was hurt so that it almost killed him. Yes he 365
certainly did know now what it was to have real hot love in him, and
yet Melanctha certainly was right, he did not deserve she should
ever give it to him. “All right Melanctha I ain’t ever kicking. I
always will give you certainly always everything you want that I got
in me. I take anything you want now to give me. I don’t say never
Melanctha it don’t hurt me, but I certainly don’t say ever Melanctha
it ought ever to be any different to me.” And the bitter tears rose
up in Jeff Campbell, and they came and choked his voice to be
silent, and he held himself hard to keep from breaking.
“Good-night Melanctha,” and Jeff was very humble to her. 366
“Good-night Jeff, I certainly never did mean any way to hurt you. I
do love you, sure Jeff every day more and more, all the time I know
you.” “I know Melanctha, I know, it’s never nothing to me. You can’t
help it, anybody ever the way they are feeling. It’s all right now
Melanctha, you believe me, good-night now Melanctha, I got now to
leave you, good-by Melanctha, sure don’t look so worried to me, sure
Melanctha I come again soon to see you.” And then Jeff stumbled down
the steps, and he went away fast to leave her.
And now the pain came hard and harder in Jeff Campbell, and he 367
groaned, and it hurt him so, he could not bear it. And the tears
came, and his heart beat, and he was hot and worn and bitter in him.
Now Jeff knew very well what it was to love Melanctha. Now Jeff 368
Campbell knew he was really understanding. Now Jeff knew what it was
to be good to Melanctha. Now Jeff was good to her always.
Slowly Jeff felt it a comfort in him to have it hurt so, and to be 369
good to Melanctha always. Now there was no way Melanctha ever had
had to bear things from him, worse than he now had it in him. Now
Jeff was strong inside him. Now with all the pain there was peace in
him. Now he knew he was understanding, now he knew he had a hot love
in him, and he was good always to Melanctha Herbert who was the one
had made him have it. Now he knew he could be good, and not cry out
for help to her to teach him how to bear it. Every day Jeff felt
himself more a strong man, the way he once had thought was his real
self, the way he knew it. Now Jeff Campbell had real wisdom in him,
and it did not make him bitter when it hurt him, for Jeff knew now
all through him that he was really strong to bear it.
And so now Jeff Campbell could see Melanctha often, and he was 370
patient, and always very friendly to her, and every day Jeff
Campbell understood Melanctha Herbert better. And always Jeff saw
Melanctha could not love him the way he needed she should do it.
Melanctha Herbert had no way she ever really could remember.
And now Jeff knew there was a man Melanctha met very often, and 371
perhaps she wanted to try to have this man to be good, for her. Jeff
Campbell never saw the man Melanctha Herbert perhaps now wanted.
Jeff Campbell only knew very well that there was one. Then there was
Rose that Melanctha now always had with her when she wandered.
Jeff Campbell was very quiet to Melanctha. He said to her, now he 372
thought he did not want to come any more especially to see her. When
they met, he always would be glad to see her, but now he never would
go anywhere any more to meet her. Sure he knew she always would have
a deep love in him for her. Sure she knew that. “Yes Jeff, I always
trust you Jeff, I certainly do know that all right.” Jeff Campbell
said, all right he never could say anything to reproach her. She
knew always that he really had learned all through him how to love
her. “Yes, Jeff, I certainly do know that.” She knew now she could
always trust him. Jeff always would be loyal to her though now she
never was any more to him like a religion, but he never could forget
the real sweetness in her. That Jeff must remember always, though
now he never can trust her to be really loving to any man for
always, she never did have any way she ever could remember. If she
ever needed anybody to be good to her, Jeff Campbell always would do
anything he could to help her. He never can forget the things she
taught him so he could be really understanding, but he never any
more wants to see her. He be like a brother to her always, when she
needs it, and he always will be a good friend to her. Jeff Campbell
certainly was sorry never any more to see her, but it was good that
they now knew each other really. “Good-by Jeff you always been very
good always to me.” “Good-by Melanctha you know you always can trust
yourself to me.” “Yes, I know, I know Jeff, really.” “I certainly
got to go now Melanctha, from you. I go this time, Melanctha
really,” and Jeff Campbell went away and this time he never looked
back to her. This time Jeff Campbell just broke away and left her.
Jeff Campbell loved to think now he was strong again to be quiet, 373
and to live regular, and to do everything the way he wanted it to be
right for himself and all the colored people. Jeff went away for a
little while to another town to work there, and he worked hard, and
he was very sad inside him, and sometimes the tears would rise up in
him, and then he would work hard, and then he would begin once more
to see some beauty in the world around him. Jeff had behaved right
and he had learned to have a real love in him. That was very good to
have inside him.
Jeff Campbell never could forget the sweetness in Melanctha 374
Herbert, and he was always very friendly to her, but they never any
more came close to one another. More and more Jeff Campbell and
Melanctha fell away from all knowing of each other, but Jeff never
could forget Melanctha. Jeff never could forget the real sweetness
she had in her, but Jeff never any more had the sense of a real
religion for her. Jeff always had strong in him the meaning of all
the new kind of beauty Melanctha Herbert once had shown him, and
always more and more it helped him with his working for himself and
for all the colored people.
Melanctha Herbert, now that she was all through with Jeff 375
Campbell, was free to be with Rose and the new men she met now.
Rose was always now with Melanctha Herbert. Rose never found any 376
way to get excited. Rose always was telling Melanctha Herbert the
right way she should do, so that she would not always be in trouble.
But Melanctha Herbert could not help it, always she would find new
ways to get excited.
Melanctha was all ready now to find new ways to be in trouble. And 377
yet Melanctha Herbert never wanted not to do right. Always Melanctha
Herbert wanted peace and quiet, and always she could only find new
ways to get excited.
“Melanctha,” Rose would say to her, “Melanctha, I certainly have 378
got to tell you, you ain’t right to act so with that kind of feller.
You better just had stick to black men now, Melanctha, you hear me
what I tell you, just the way you always see me do it. They’re real
bad men, now I tell you Melanctha true, and you better had hear to
me. I been raised by real nice kind of white folks, Melanctha, and I
certainly knows awful well, soon as ever I can see ’em acting, what
is a white man will act decent to you and the kind it ain’t never to
good to a colored girl to ever go with. Now you know real Melanctha
how I always mean right good to you, and you ain’t got no way like
me Melanctha, what was raised by white folks, to know right what is
the way you should be acting with men. I don’t never want to see you
have bad trouble come hard to you now Melanctha, and so you just
hear to me now Melanctha, what I tell you, for I knows it. I don’t
say never certainly to you Melanctha, you never had ought to have
nothing to do ever with no white men, though it ain’t never to me
Melanctha, the best kind of a way a colored girl can have to be
acting, no I never do say to you Melanctha, you hadn’t never ought
to be with white men, though it ain’t never the way I feel it ever
real right for a decent colored girl to be always doing, but not
never Melanctha, now you hear me, no not never no kind of white men
like you been with always now Melanctha when I see you. You just
hear to me Melanctha, you certainly had ought to hear to me
Melanctha, I say it just like I knows it awful well, Melanctha, and
I knows you don’t know no better, Melanctha, how to act so, the ways
I seen it with them kind of white fellers, them as never can know
what to do right by a decent girl they have ever got to be with
them. Now you hear to me Melanctha, what I tell you.”
And so it was Melanctha Herbert found new ways to be in trouble. 379
But it was not very bad this trouble, for these white men Rose never
wanted she should be with, never meant very much to Melanctha. It
was only that she liked it to be with them, and they knew all about
fine horses, and it was just good to Melanctha, now a little, to
feel real reckless with them. But mostly it was Rose and other
better kind of colored girls and colored men with whom Melanctha
Herbert now always wandered.
It was summer now and the colored people came out into the 380
sunshine, full blown with the flowers. And they shone in the streets
and in the fields with their warm joy, and they glistened in their
black heat, and they flung themselves free in their wide abandonment
of shouting laughter.
It was very pleasant in some ways, the life Melanctha Herbert now 381
led with Rose and all the others. It was not always that Rose had to
scold her.
There was not anybody of all these colored people, excepting only 382
Rose, who ever meant much to Melanctha Herbert. But they all liked
Melanctha, and the men all liked to see her do things, she was so
game always to do anything anybody ever could do, and then she was
good and sweet to do anything anybody ever wanted from her.
These were pleasant days then, in the hot southern negro sunshine, 383
with many simple jokes and always wide abandonment of laughter.
“Just look at that Melanctha there a running. Don’t she just go like
a bird when she is flying. Hey Melanctha there, I come and catch
you, hey Melanctha, I put salt on your tail to catch you,” and then
the man would try to catch her, and he would fall full on the earth
and roll in an agony of wide-mouthed shouting laughter. And this was
the kind of way Rose always liked to have Melanctha do it, to be
engaged to him, and to have a good warm nigger time with colored
men, not to go about with that kind of white man, never could know
how to act right, to any decent kind of girl they could ever get to
be with them.
Rose, always more and more, liked Melanctha Herbert better. Rose 384
often had to scold Melanctha Herbert, but that only made her like
Melanctha better. And then Melanctha always listened to her, and
always acted every way she could to please her. And then Rose was so
sorry for Melanctha, when she was so blue sometimes, and wanted
somebody should come and kill her.
And Melanctha Herbert clung to Rose in the hope that Rose could 385
save her. Melanctha felt the power of Rose’s selfish, decent kind of
nature. It was so solid, simple, certain to her. Melanctha clung to
Rose, she loved to have her scold her, she always wanted to be with
her. She always felt a solid safety in her. Rose always was, in her
way, very good to let Melanctha be loving to her. Melanctha never
had any way she could really be a trouble to her. Melanctha never
had any way that she could ever get real power, to come close inside
to her. Melanctha was always very humble to her. Melanctha was
always ready to do anything Rose wanted from her. Melanctha needed
badly to have Rose always willing to let Melanctha cling to her.
Rose was a simple, sullen, selfish, black girl, but she had a solid
power in her. Rose had strong the sense of decent conduct, she had
strong the sense for decent comfort. Rose always knew very well what
it was she wanted, and she knew very well what was the right way to
do to get everything she wanted, and she never had any kind of
trouble to perplex her. And so the subtle intelligent attractive
half white girl Melanctha Herbert loved and did for, and demeaned
herself in service to this coarse, decent, sullen, ordinary, black,
childish Rose and now this unmoral promiscuous shiftless Rose was to
be married to a good man of the negroes, while Melanctha Herbert
with her white blood and attraction and her desire for a right
position was perhaps never to be really regularly married. Sometimes
the thought of how all her world was made filled the complex,
desiring Melanctha with despair. She wondered often how she could go
on living when she was so blue. Sometimes Melanctha thought she
would just kill herself, for sometimes she thought this would be
really the best thing for her to do.
Rose was now to be married to a decent good man of the negroes. 386
His name was Sam Johnson, and he worked as a deck-hand on a coasting
steamer, and he was very steady, and he got good wages.
Rose first met Sam Johnson at church, the same place where she had 387
met Melanctha Herbert. Rose liked Sam when she saw him, she knew he
was a good man and worked hard and got good wages, and Rose thought
it would be very nice and very good now in her position to get
really, regularly married.
Sam Johnson liked Rose very well and he always was ready to do 388
anything she wanted. Sam was a tall, square shouldered, decent, a
serious, straightforward, simple, kindly, colored workman. They got
on very well together, Sam and Rose, when they were married. Rose
was lazy, but not dirty, and Sam was careful but not fussy. Sam was
a kindly, simple, earnest, steady workman, and Rose had good common
decent sense in her, of how to live regular, and not to have
excitements, and to be saving so you could be always sure to have
money, so as to have everything you wanted.
It was not very long that Rose knew Sam Johnson, before they were 389
regularly married. Sometimes Sam went into the country with all the
other young church people, and then he would be a great deal with
Rose and with her Melanctha Herbert. He liked Rose’s ways of doing,
always better. Melanctha’s mystery had no charm for Sam ever. Sam
wanted a nice little house to come to when he was tired from his
working, and a little baby all his own he could be good to. Sam
Johnson was ready to marry as soon as ever Rose wanted he should do
it. And so Sam Johnson and Rose one day had a grand real wedding and
were married. Then they furnished completely, a little red brick
house and then Sam went back to his work as deck hand on a coasting
steamer.
Rose had often talked to Sam about how good Melanctha was and how 390
much she always suffered. Sam Johnson never really cared about
Melanctha Herbert, but he always did almost everything Rose ever
wanted, and he was a gentle, kindly creature, and so he was very
good to Rose’s friend Melanctha. Melanctha Herbert knew very well
Sam did not like her, and so she was very quiet, and always let Rose
do the talking for her. She only was very good to always help Rose,
and to do anything she ever wanted from her, and to be very good and
listen and be quiet whenever Sam had anything to say to her.
Melanctha liked Sam Johnson, and all her life Melanctha loved and
wanted good and kind and considerate people, and always Melanctha
loved and wanted people to be gentle to her, and always she wanted
to be regular, and to have peace and quiet in her, and always
Melanctha could only find new ways to be in trouble. And Melanctha
needed badly to have Rose, to believe her, and to let her cling to
her. Rose was the only steady thing Melanctha had to cling to and so
Melanctha demeaned herself to be like a servant, to wait on, and
always to be scolded, by this ordinary, sullen, black, stupid,
childish woman.
Rose was always telling Sam he must be good to poor Melanctha. 391
“You know Sam,” Rose said very often to him, “You certainly had
ought to be very good to poor Melanctha, she always do have so much
trouble with her. You know Sam how I told you she had such a bad
time always with that father, and he was awful mean to her always
that awful black man, and he never took no kind of care ever to her,
and he never helped her when her mother died so hard, that poor
Melanctha. Melanctha’s ma you know Sam, always was just real
religious. One day Melanctha was real little, and she heard her ma
say to her pa, it was awful sad to her, Melanctha had not been the
one the Lord had took from them stead of the little brother who was
dead in the house there from fever. That hurt Melanctha awful when
she heard her ma say it. She never could feel it right, and I don’t
no ways blame Melanctha, Sam, for not feeling better to her ma
always after, though Melanctha, just like always she is, always was
real good to her ma after, when she was so sick, and died so hard,
and nobody never to help Melanctha do it, and she just all alone to
do everything without no help come to her no way, and that ugly
awful black man she have for a father never all the time come near
her. But that’s always the way Melanctha is just doing Sam, the way
I been telling to you. She always is being just so good to everybody
and nobody ever there to thank her for it. I never did see nobody
ever Sam, have such bad luck, seems to me always with them, like
that poor Melanctha always has it, and she always so good with it,
and never no murmur in her, and never no complaining from her, and
just never saying nothing with it. You be real good to her Sam, now
you hear me, now you and me is married right together. He certainly
was an awful black man to her Sam, that father she had, acting
always just like a brute to her and she so game and never to tell
anybody how it hurt her. And she so sweet and good always to do
anything anybody ever can be wanting. I don’t see Sam how some men
can be to act so awful. I told you Sam, how once Melanctha broke her
arm bad and she was so sick and it hurt her awful and he never would
let no doctor come near to her and he do some things so awful to
her, she don’t never want to tell nobody how bad he hurt her. That’s
just the way Sam with Melanctha always, you never can know how bad
it is, it hurts her. You hear me Sam, you always be real good to her
now you and me is married right to each other.”
And so Rose and Sam Johnson were regularly married, and Rose sat 392
at home and bragged to all her friends how nice it was to be married
really to a husband.
Rose did not have Melanctha to live with her, now Rose was 393
married. Melanctha was with Rose almost as much as ever but it was a
little different now their being together.
Rose Johnson never asked Melanctha to live with her in the house, 394
now Rose was married. Rose liked to have Melanctha come all the time
to help her, Rose liked Melanctha to be almost always with her, but
Rose was shrewd in her simple selfish nature, she did not ever think
to ask Melanctha to live with her.
Rose was hard headed, she was decent, and she always knew what it 395
was she needed. Rose needed Melanctha to be with her, she liked to
have her help her, the quick, good Melanctha to do for the slow,
lazy, selfish, black girl, but Rose could have Melanctha to do for
her and she did not need her to live with her.
Sam never asked Rose why she did not have her. Sam always took 396
what Rose wanted should be done for Melanctha, as the right way he
should act toward her.
It could never come to Melanctha to ask Rose to let her. It never 397
could come to Melanctha to think that Rose would ask her. It would
never ever come to Melanctha to want it, if Rose should ask her, but
Melanctha would have done it for the safety she always felt when she
was near her. Melanctha Herbert wanted badly to be safe now, but
this living with her, that, Rose would never give her. Rose had
strong the sense for decent comfort, Rose had strong the sense for
proper conduct, Rose had strong the sense to get straight always
what she wanted, and she always knew what was the best thing she
needed, and always Rose got what she wanted.
And so Rose had Melanctha Herbert always there to help her, and 398
she sat and was lazy and she bragged and she complained a little and
she told Melanctha how she ought to do, to get good what she wanted
like she Rose always did it, and always Melanctha was doing
everything Rose ever needed. “Don’t you bother so, doing that
Melanctha, I do it or Sam when he comes home to help me. Sure you
don’t mind lifting it Melanctha? You is very good Melanctha to do
it, and when you go out Melanctha, you stop and get some rice to
bring me to-morrow when you come in. Sure you won’t forget
Melanctha. I never see anybody like you Melanctha to always do
things so nice for me.” And then Melanctha would do some more for
Rose, and then very late Melanctha would go home to the colored
woman where she lived now.
And so though Melanctha still was so much with Rose Johnson, she 399
had times when she could not stay there. Melanctha now could not
really cling there. Rose had Sam, and Melanctha more and more lost
the hold she had had there.
Melanctha Herbert began to feel she must begin again to look and 400
see if could find what it was she had always wanted. Now Rose
Johnson could no longer help her.
----------
Melanctha
Each One as She May: Paras. 401–468
And so Melanctha Herbert began once more to wander and with men Rose 401
never thought it was right she should be with.
One day Melanctha had been very busy with the different kinds of 402
ways she wandered. It was a pleasant late afternoon at the end of a
long summer. Melanctha was walking along, and she was free and
excited. Melanctha had just parted from a white man and she had a
bunch of flowers he had left with her. A young buck, a mulatto,
passed by and snatched them from her. “It certainly is real sweet in
you sister, to be giving me them pretty flowers,” he said to her.
“I don’t see no way it can make them sweeter to have with you,” 403
said Melanctha. “What one man gives, another man had certainly just
as much good right to be taking.” “Keep your old flowers then, I
certainly don’t never want to have them.” Melanctha Herbert laughed
at him and took them. “No, I didn’t nohow think you really did want
to have them. Thank you kindly mister, for them. I certainly always
do admire to see a man always so kind of real polite to people.” The
man laughed, “You ain’t nobody’s fool I can say for you, but you
certainly are a damned pretty kind of girl, now I look at you. Want
men to be polite to you? All right, I can love you, that’s real
polite now, want to see me try it.” “I certainly ain’t got no time
this evening just only left to thank you I certainly got to be real
busy now, but I certainly always will admire to see you.” The man
tried to catch and stop her, Melanctha Herbert laughed and dodged so
that he could not touch her. Melanctha went quickly down a side
street near her and so the man for that time lost her.
For some days Melanctha did not see any more of her mulatto. One 404
day Melanctha was with a white man and they saw him. The white man
stopped to speak to him. Afterwards Melanctha left the white man and
she then soon met him. Melanctha stopped to talk to him. Melanctha
Herbert soon began to like him.
Jem Richards, the new man Melanctha had begun to know now, was a 405
dashing kind of fellow, who had to do with fine horses and with
racing. Sometimes Jem Richards would be betting and would be good
and lucky, and be making lots of money. Sometimes Jem would be
betting badly, and then he would not be having any money.
Jem Richards was a straight man. Jem Richards always knew that by 406
and by he would win again and pay it, and so Jem mostly did win
again, and then he always paid it.
Jem Richards was a man other men always trusted. Men gave him 407
money when he lost all his, for they all knew Jem Richards would win
again, and when he did win they knew, and they were right, that he
would pay it.
Melanctha Herbert all her life had always loved to be with horses. 408
Melanctha liked it that Jem knew all about fine horses. He was a
reckless man was Jem Richards. He knew how to win out, and always
all her life, Melanctha Herbert loved successful power.
Melanctha Herbert always liked Jem Richards better. Things soon 409
began to be very strong between them.
Jem was more game even than Melanctha. Jem always had known what 410
it was to have real wisdom. Jem had always all his life been
understanding.
Jem Richards made Melanctha Herbert come fast with him. He never 411
gave her any time with waiting. Soon Melanctha always had Jem with
her. Melanctha did not want anything better. Now in Jem Richards,
Melanctha found everything she had ever needed to content her.
Melanctha was now less and less with Rose Johnson. Rose did not 412
think much of the way Melanctha now was going. Jem Richards was all
right, only Melanctha never had no sense of the right kind of way
she should be doing. Rose often was telling Sam now, she did not
like the fast way Melanctha was going. Rose told it to Sam, and to
all the girls and men, when she saw them. But Rose was nothing just
then to Melanctha. Melanctha Herbert now only needed Jem Richards to
be with her.
And things were always getting stronger between Jem Richards and 413
Melanctha Herbert. Jem Richards began to talk now as if he wanted to
get married to her. Jem was all was deep in his love now for her.
And as for Melanctha, Jem was all the world now to her. And so Jem
gave her a ring, like white folks, to show he was engaged to her,
and would by and by be married to her. And Melanctha was filled full
with joy to have Jem so good to her.
Melanctha always loved to go with Jem to the races. Jem had been 414
lucky lately with his betting, and he had a swell turn-out to drive
in, and Melanctha looked very handsome there beside him.
Melanctha was very proud to have Jem Richards want her. Melanctha 415
loved it the way Jem knew how to do it. Melanctha loved Jem and
loved that he should want her. She loved it too, that he wanted to
be married to her. Jem Richards was a straight decent man, whom
other men always looked up to and trusted. Melanctha needed badly a
man to content her.
Melanctha’s joy made her foolish. Melanctha told everybody about 416
how Jem Richards, that swell man who owned all those fine horses and
was so game, nothing ever scared him, was engaged to be married to
her, and that was the ring he gave her.
Melanctha let out her joy very often to Rose Johnson. Melanctha 417
had begun again now to go there.
Melanctha’s love for Jem made her foolish. Melanctha had to have 418
some one always now to talk to and so she went often to Rose
Johnson.
Melanctha put all herself into Jem Richards. She was mad and 419
foolish in the joy she had there.
Rose never liked the way Melanctha did it. “No Sam I don’t say 420
never Melanctha ain’t engaged to Jem Richards the way she always
says it, and Jem he is all right for that kind of a man he is,
though he do think himself so smart and like he owns the earth and
everything he can get with it, and he sure gave Melanctha a ring
like he really meant he should be married right soon with it, only
Sam, I don’t ever like it the way Melanctha is going. When she is
engaged to him Sam, she ain’t not right to take on so excited. That
ain’t no decent kind of a way a girl ever should be acting. There
ain’t no kind of a man going stand that, not like I knows men Sam,
and I sure does know them. I knows them white and I knows them
colored, for I was raised by white folks, and they don’t none of
them like a girl to act so. That’s all right to be so when you is
just only loving, but it ain’t no ways right to be acting so when
you is engaged to him, and when he says, all right he get really
regularly married to you. You see Sam I am right like I am always
and I knows it. Jem Richards, he ain’t going to the last to get real
married, not if I knows it right, the way Melanctha now is acting to
him. Rings or anything ain’t nothing to them, and they don’t never
do no good for them, when a girl acts foolish like Melanctha always
now is acting. I certainly will be right sorry Sam, if Melanctha has
real bad trouble come now to her, but I certainly don’t no ways like
it Sam the kind of way Melanctha is acting to him. I don’t never say
nothing to her Sam. I just listens to what she is saying always, and
I thinks it out like I am telling to you Sam but I don’t never say
nothing no more now to Melanctha. Melanctha didn’t say nothing to me
about that Jem Richards till she was all like finished with him, and
I never did like it Sam, much, the way she was acting, not coming
here never when she first ran with those men and met him. And I
didn’t never say nothing to her, Sam, about it, and it ain’t nothing
ever to me, only I don’t never no more want to say nothing to her,
so I just listens to what she got to tell like she wants it. No Sam,
I don’t never want to say nothing to her. Melanctha just got to go
her own way, not as I want to see her have bad trouble ever come
hard to her, only it ain’t in me never Sam, after Melanctha did so,
ever to say nothing more to her how she should be acting. You just
see Sam like I tell you, what way Jem Richards will act to her, you
see Sam I just am right like I always am when I knows it.”
Melanctha Herbert never thought she could ever again be in 421
trouble. Melanctha’s joy had made her foolish.
And now Jem Richards had some bad trouble with his betting. 422
Melanctha sometimes felt now when she was with him that there was
something wrong inside him. Melanctha knew he had had trouble with
his betting but Melanctha never felt that that could make any
difference to them.
Melanctha once had told Jem, sure he knew she always would love to 423
be with him, if he was in jail or only just a beggar. Now Melanctha
said to him, “Sure you know Jem that it don’t never make any kind of
difference you’re having any kind of trouble, you just try me Jem
and be game, don’t look so worried to me. Jem sure I know you love
me like I love you always, and its all I ever could be wanting Jem
to me, just your wanting me always to be with you. I get married Jem
to you soon ever as you can want me, if you once say it Jem to me.
It ain’t nothing to me ever, anything like having any money Jem, why
you look so worried to me.”
Melanctha Herbert’s love had surely made her mad and foolish. She 424
thrust it always deep into Jem Richards and now that he had trouble
with his betting, Jem had no way that he ever wanted to be made to
feel it. Jem Richards never could want to marry any girl while he
had trouble. That was no way a man like him should do it.
Melanctha’s love had made her mad and foolish, she should be silent
now and let him do it. Jem Richards was not a kind of man time when
a man like him needed to have it.
Melanctha needed so badly to have it, this love which she had 425
always wanted, she did not know what she should do to save it.
Melanctha saw now, Jem Richards always had something wrong inside
him. Melanctha soon dared not ask him. Jem was busy now, he had to
sell things and see men to raise money. Jem could not meet Melanctha
now so often.
It was lucky for Melanctha Herbert that Rose Johnson was coming 426
now to have her baby. It had always been understood between them,
Rose should come and stay then in the house where Melanctha lived
with an old colored woman, so that Rose could have the Doctor from
the hospital near by to help her, and Melanctha there to take care
of her the way Melanctha always used to do it.
Melanctha was very good now to Rose Johnson. Melanctha did 427
everything that any woman could, she tended Rose, and she was
patient, submissive, soothing and untiring, while the sullen,
childish, cowardly, black Rosie grumbled, and fussed, and howled,
and made herself to be an abomination and like a simple beast.
All this time Melanctha was always being every now and then with 428
Jem Richards. Melanctha was beginning to be stronger with Jem
Richards. Melanctha was never so strong and sweet and in her nature
as when she was deep in trouble, when she was fighting so with all
she had, she could not do any foolish thing with her nature.
Always now Melanctha Herbert came back again to be nearer to Rose 429
Johnson. Always now Melanctha would tell all about her troubles to
Rose Johnson. Rose had begun now a little again to advise her.
Melanctha always told Rose now about the talks she had with Jem 430
Richards, talks where they neither of them liked very well what the
other one was saying. Melanctha did not know what it was Jem
Richards wanted. All Melanctha knew was, he did not like it when she
wanted to be good friends and get really married, and then when
Melanctha would say, “all right, I never wear your ring no more Jem,
we ain’t not any more to meet ever like we ever like we ever going
to get really regular married,” then Jem did not like it either.
What was it Jem Richards really wanted?
Melanctha stopped wearing Jem’s ring on her finger. Poor 431
Melanctha, she wore it on a string she tied around her neck so that
she could always feel it, but Melanctha was strong now with Jem
Richards, and he never saw it. And sometimes Jem seemed to be awful
sorry for it, and sometimes he seemed kind of glad of it. Melanctha
never could make out really what it was Jem Richards wanted.
There was no other woman yet to Jem, that Melanctha knew, and so 432
she always trusted that Jem would come back to her, deep in his
love, the way once he had had it and had made all the world like she
once had never believed anybody could really make it. But Jem
Richards was more game than Melanctha Herbert. He knew how to fight
to win out, better. Melanctha really had already lost it, in not
keeping quiet and waiting for Jem to do it.
Jem Richards was not yet having better luck in his betting. He 433
never before had had such a long time without some good coming to
him in his betting. Sometimes Jem talked as if he wanted to go off
on a trip somewhere and try some other place for luck with his
betting. Jem Richards never talked as if he wanted to take Melanctha
with him.
And so Melanctha sometimes was really trusting, and sometimes she 434
was all sick inside her with her doubting. What was it Jem really
wanted to do with her? He did not have any other woman, in that
Melanctha could be really trusting, and when she said no to him, no
she never would come near him, now he did not want to have her, then
Jem would change and swear, yes sure he did want her, now and always
right here near him, but he never now any more said he wanted to be
married soon to her. But then Jem Richards never would marry a girl,
he said that very often, when he was in this kind of trouble, and
now he did not see any way he could get out of his trouble. But
Melanctha ought to wear his ring, sure she knew he never had loved
any kind of woman like he loved her. Melanctha would wear the ring a
little while, and then they would have some more trouble, and then
she would say to him, no she certainly never would any more wear
anything he gave her, and then she would wear it on the string so
nobody could see it but she could always feel it on her.
Poor Melanctha, surely her love had made her mad and foolish. 435
And now Melanctha needed always more and more to be with Rose 436
Johnson, and Rose had commenced again to advise her, but Rose could
not help her. There was no way now that anybody could advise her.
The time when Melanctha could have changed it with Jem Richards was
now all past for her. Rose knew it, and Melanctha too, she knew it,
and it almost killed her to let herself believe it.
The only comfort Melanctha ever had now was waiting on Rose till 437
she was so tired she could hardly stand it. Always Melanctha did
everything Rose ever wanted. Sam Johnson began now to be very gentle
and a little tender to Melanctha. She was so good to Rose and Sam
was so glad to have her there to help Rose and to do things and to
be a comfort to her.
Rose had a hard time to bring her baby to its birth and Melanctha 438
did everything that any woman could.
The baby though it was healthy after it was born did not live 439
long. Rose Johnson was careless and negligent and selfish and when
Melanctha had to leave for a few days the baby died. Rose Johnson
had liked her baby well enough and perhaps she just forgot it for a
while, anyway the child was dead and Rose and Sam were very sorry,
but then these things came so often in the negro world in
Bridgepoint that they neither of them thought about it very long.
When Rose had become strong again she went back to her house with
Sam. And Sam Johnson was always now very gentle and kind and good to
Melanctha who had been so good to Rose in her bad trouble.
Melanctha Herbert’s troubles with Jem Richards were never getting 440
any better. Jem always now had less and less time to be with her.
When Jem was with Melanctha now he was good enough to her. Jem
Richards was worried with his betting. Never since Jem had first
begun to make a living had he ever had so much trouble for such a
long time together with his betting. Jem Richards was good enough
now to Melanctha but he had not much strength to give her. Melanctha
could never any more now make him quarrel with her. Melanctha never
now could complain of his treatment of her, for surely, he said it
always by his actions to her, surely she must know how a man was
when he had trouble on his mind with trying to make things go a
little better.
Sometimes Jem and Melanctha had long talks when they neither of 441
them liked very well what the other one was saying, but mostly now
Melanctha could not make Jem Richards quarrel with her, and more and
more, Melanctha could not find any way to make it right to blame him
for the trouble she now always had inside her. Jem was good to her,
and she knew, for he told her, that he had trouble all the time now
with his betting. Melanctha knew very well that for her it was all
wrong inside Jem Richards, but Melanctha had now no way that she
could really reach him.
Things between Melanctha and Jem Richards were now never getting 442
any better. Melanctha now more and more needed to be with Rose
Johnson. Rose still liked to have Melanctha come to her house and do
things for her, and Rose liked to grumble to her and to scold her
and to tell Melanctha what was the way Melanctha always should be
doing so she could make things come out better and not always be so
much in trouble. Sam Johnson in these days was always very good and
gentle to Melanctha. Sam was now beginning to be very sorry for her.
Jem Richards never made things any better for Melanctha. Often Jem 443
would talk so as to make Melanctha almost certain that he never any
more wanted to have her. Then Melanctha would get very blue, and she
would say to Rose, sure she would kill herself, for that certainly
now was the best way she could do.
Rose Johnson never saw it the least bit that way. “I don’t see 444
Melanctha why you should talk like you would kill yourself just
because you’re blue. I’d never kill myself Melanctha cause I was
blue. I’d maybe kill somebody else but I’d never kill myself. If I
ever killed myself, Melanctha it’d be by accident and if I ever
killed myself by accident, Melanctha, I’d be awful sorry. And that
certainly is the way you should feel it Melanctha, now you hear me,
not just talking foolish like you always do. It certainly is only
your way just always being foolish makes you all that trouble to
come to you always now, Melanctha, and I certainly right well knows
that. You certainly never can learn no way Melanctha ever with all I
certainly been telling to you, ever since I know you good, that it
ain’t never no way like you do always is the right way you be acting
ever and talking, the way I certainly always have seen you do so
Melanctha always. I certainly am right Melanctha about them ways you
have to do it, and I knows it; but you certainly never can noways
learn to act right Melanctha, I certainly do know that, I certainly
do my best Melanctha to help you with it only you certainly never do
act right Melanctha, not to nobody ever, I can see it. You never act
right by me Melanctha no more than by everybody. I never say nothing
to you Melanctha when you do so, for I certainly never do like it
when I just got to say it to you, but you just certainly done with
that Jem Richards you always say wanted real bad to be married to
you, just like I always said to Sam you certainly was going to do
it. And I certainly am real kind of sorry like for you Melanctha,
but you certainly had ought to have come to see me to talk to you,
when you first was engaged to him so I could show you, and now you
got all this trouble come to you Melanctha like I certainly know you
always catch it. It certainly ain’t never Melanctha I ain’t real
sorry to see trouble come so hard to you, but I certainly can see
Melanctha it all is always just the way you always be having it in
you not never to do right. And now you always talk like you just
kill yourself because you are so blue, that certainly never is
Melanctha, no kind of a way for any decent kind of a girl to do.”
Rose had begun to be strong now to scold Melanctha and she was 445
impatient very often with her, but Rose could now never any more be
a help to her. Melanctha Herbert never could know now what it was
right she should do. Melanctha always wanted to have Jem Richards
with her and now he never seemed to want her, and what could
Melanctha do. Surely she was right now when she said she would just
kill herself, for that was the only way now she could do.
Sam Johnson always, more and more, was good and gentle to 446
Melanctha. Poor Melanctha, she was so good and sweet to do anything
anybody ever wanted, and Melanctha always liked it if she could have
peace and quiet, and always she could only find new ways to be in
trouble. Sam often said this now to Rose about Melanctha.
“I certainly don’t never want Sam to say bad things about 447
Melanctha, for she certainly always do have most awful kind of
trouble come hard to her, but I never can say I like it real right
Sam the way Melanctha always has to do it. Its now just the same
with her like it is always she has got to do it, now the way she is
with that Jem Richards. He certainly now don’t never want to have
her but Melanctha she ain’t got no right kind of spirit. No Sam I
don’t never like the way any more Melanctha is acting to him, and
then Sam, she ain’t never real right honest, the way she always
should do it. She certainly just don’t kind of never Sam tell right
what way she is doing with it. I don’t never like to say nothing Sam
no more to her about the way she always has to be acting. She always
say, yes all right Rose, I do the way you say it, and then Sam she
don’t never noways do it. She certainly is right sweet and good,
Sam, is Melanctha, nobody ever can hear me say she ain’t always
ready to do things for everybody any way she ever can see to do it,
only Sam some ways she never does act real right ever, and some
ways, Sam, she ain’t ever real honest with it. And Sam sometimes I
hear awful kind of things she been doing, some girls know about her
how she does it, and sometimes they tell me what kind of ways she
has to do it, and Sam it certainly do seem to me like more and more
I certainly am awful afraid Melanctha never will come to any good.
And then Sam, sometimes, you hear it, she always talk like she kill
herself all the time she is so blue, and Sam that certainly never is
no kind of way any decent girl ever had ought to do. You see Sam,
how I am right like I always is when I knows it. You just be
careful, Sam, now you hear me, you be careful Sam sure, I tell you,
Melanctha more and more I see her I certainly do feel Melanctha no
way is really honest. You be careful, Sam now, like I tell you, for
I knows it, now you hear to me, Sam, what I tell you, for I
certainly always is right, Sam, when I knows it.”
At first Sam tried a little to defend Melanctha, and Sam always 448
was good and gentle to her, and Sam liked the ways Melanctha had to
be quiet to him, and to always listen as if she was learning, when
she was there and heard him talking, and then Sam liked the sweet
way she always did everything so nicely for him; but Sam never liked
to fight with anybody ever, and surely Rose knew best about
Melanctha and anyway Sam never did really care much about Melanctha.
Her mystery never had had any interest for him. Sam liked it that
she was sweet to him and that she always did everything Rose ever
wanted that she should be doing. but Melanctha never could be
important to him. All Sam ever wanted was to have a little house and
to live regular and to work hard and to come home to his dinner,
when he was tired with his working and by and by he wanted to have
some children all his own to be good to, and so Sam was real sorry
for Melanctha, she was so good and so sweet always to them, and Jem
Richards was a bad man to behave so to her, but that was always the
way a girl got it when she liked that kind of a fast fellow. Anyhow
Melanctha was Rose’s friend, and Sam never cared to have anything to
do with the kind of trouble always came to women, when they wanted
to have men, who never could know how to behave good and steady to
their women.
And so Sam never said much to Rose about Melanctha. Sam was always 449
very gentle to her, but now he began less and less to see her. Soon
Melanctha never came any more to the house to see Rose and Sam never
asked Rose anything about her.
Melanctha Herbert was beginning now to come less and less to the 450
house to be with Rose Johnson. This was because Rose seemed always
less and less now to want her, and Rose would not let Melanctha now
do things for her. Melanctha was always humble to her and Melanctha
always wanted in every way she could to do things for her. Rose said
no, she guessed she do that herself like she likes to have it
better. Melanctha is real good to stay so long to help her, but Rose
guessed perhaps Melanctha better go home now, Rose don’t need nobody
to help her now, she is feeling real strong, not like just after she
had all that trouble with the baby, and then Sam, when he comes home
for his dinner he likes it when Rose is all alone there just to give
him his dinner. Sam always is so tired now, like he always is in the
summer, so many people always on the steamer, and they make so much
work so Sam is real tired now, and he just to eat his dinner and
never have people in the house to be a trouble to him.
Each day Rose treated Melanctha more and more as if she never 451
wanted Melanctha any more to come there to the house to see her.
Melanctha dared not ask Rose why she acted in this way to her.
Melanctha badly needed to have Rose always there to save her.
Melanctha wanted badly to cling to her and Rose had always been so
solid for her. Melanctha did not dare to ask Rose if she now no
longer wanted her to come and see her.
Melanctha now never any more had Sam to be gentle to her. Rose 452
always sent Melanctha away from her before it was time for Sam to
come home to her. One day Melanctha had stayed a little longer, for
Rose that day had been good to let Melanctha begin to do things for
her. Melanctha then left her and Melanctha met Sam Johnson who
stopped a minute to speak kindly to her.
The next day Rose Johnson would not let Melanctha come in to her. 453
Rose stood on the steps, and there she told Melanctha what she
thought now of her.
“I guess Melanctha it certainly ain’t no ways right for you to 454
come here no more just to see me. I certainly don’t Melanctha no
ways like to be a trouble to you. I certainly think Melanctha I get
along better now when I don’t have nobody like you are, always here
to help me, and Sam he do so good now with his working, he pay a
little girl something to come every day to help me. I certainly do
think Melanctha I don’t never want you no more to come here just to
see me.” “Why Rose, what I ever done to you, I certainly don’t think
you is right Rose to be so bad now to me.” “I certainly don’t no
ways Melanctha Herbert think you got any right ever to be
complaining the way I been acting to you. I certainly never do think
Melanctha Herbert, you hear to me, nobody ever been more patient to
you than I always been to like you, only Melanctha, I hear more
things now so awful bad about you, everybody always is telling to me
what kind of a way you always have been doing so much, and me always
so good to you, and you never no ways, knowing how to be honest to
me. No Melanctha it ain’t ever in me, not to want you to have good
luck come to you, and I like it real well Melanctha when you some
time learn how to act the way it is decent and right for a girl to
be doing, but I don’t no ways ever like it the kind of things
everybody tell me now about you. No Melanctha, I can’t never any
more trust you. I certainly am real sorry to have never any more to
see you, but there ain’t no other way, I ever can be acting to you.
That’s all I ever got any more to say to you now Melanctha.” “But
Rose, deed; I certainly don’t know, no more than the dead, nothing I
ever done to make you act so to me. Anybody say anything bad about
me Rose, to you, they just a pack of liars to you, they certainly is
Rose, I tell you true. I certainly never done nothing I ever been
ashamed to tell you. Why you act so bad to me Rose. Sam he certainly
don’t think ever like you do, and Rose I always do everything I can,
you ever want me to do for you.” “It ain’t never no use standing
there talking, Melanctha Herbert. I just can tell it to you, and
Sam, he don’t know nothing about women ever the way they can be
acting. I certainly am very sorry Melanctha, to have to act so now
to you, but I certainly can’t do no other way with you, when you do
things always so bad, and everybody is talking so about you. It
ain’t no use to you to stand there and say it different to me
Melanctha. I certainly am always right Melanctha Herbert, the way I
certainly always have been when I knows it, to you. No Melanctha, it
just is, you never can have no kind of a way to act right, the way a
decent girl has to do, and I done my best always to be telling it to
you Melanctha Herbert, but it don’t never do no good to tell nobody
how to act right; they certainly never can learn when they ain’t got
no sense right to know it, and you never have no sense right
Melanctha to be honest, and I ain’t never wishing no harm to you
ever Melanctha Herbert, only I don’t never want any more to see you
come here. I just say to you now, like I always been saying to you,
you don’t know never the right way, any kind of decent girl has to
be acting, and so Melanctha Herbert, me and Sam, we don’t never any
more want you to be setting your foot in my house here Melanctha
Herbert, I just tell you. And so you just go along now, Melanctha
Herbert, you hear me, and I don’t never wish no harm to come to
you.”
Rose Johnson went into her house and closed the door behind her. 455
Melanctha stood like one dazed, she did not know how to bear this
blow that almost killed her. Slowly then Melanctha went away without
even turning to look behind her.
Melanctha Herbert was all sore and bruised inside her. Melanctha 456
had needed Rose always to believe her, Melanctha needed Rose always
to let her cling to her, Melanctha wanted badly to have somebody who
could make her always feel a little safe inside her, and now Rose
had sent her from her. Melanctha wanted Rose more than she had ever
wanted all the others. Rose always was so simple, solid, decent, for
her. And now Rose had cast her from her. Melanctha was lost, and all
the world went whirling in a mad weary dance around her.
Melanctha Herbert never had any strength alone ever to feel safe 457
inside her. And now Rose Johnson had cast her from her, and
Melanctha could never any more be near her. Melanctha Herbert knew
now, way inside her, that she was lost, and nothing any more could
ever help her.
Melanctha went that night to meet Jem Richards who had promised to 458
be at the old place to meet her. Jem Richards was absent in his
manner to her. By and by he began to talk to her, about the trip he
was going to take soon, to see if he could get some luck back in his
betting. Melanctha trembled, was Jem too now going to leave her. Jem
Richards talked some more then to her, about the bad luck he always
had now, and how he needed to go away to see if he could make it
come out any better.
Then Jem stopped, and then he looked straight at Melanctha. 459
“Tell me Melanctha right and true, you don’t care really nothing 460
more about me now Melanctha,” he said to her.
“Why you ask me that, Jem Richards,” said Melanctha. 461
“Why I ask you that Melanctha, God Almighty, because I just don’t 462
give a damn now for you any more Melanctha. That the reason I was
asking.”
Melanctha never could have for this an answer. Jem Richards waited 463
and then he went away and left her.
Melanctha Herbert never again saw Jem Richards. Melanctha never 464
again saw Rose Johnson, and it was hard to Melanctha never any more
to see her. Rose Johnson had worked in to be the deepest of all
Melanctha’s emotions.
“No, I don’t never see Melanctha Herbert no more now,” Rose would 465
say to anybody who asked her about Melanctha. “No, Melanctha she
never comes here no more now, after we had all that trouble with her
acting so bad with them kind of men she liked so much to be with.
She don’t never come to no good Melanctha Herbert don’t, and me and
Sam don’t want no more to see her. She didn’t do right ever the way
I told her. Melanctha just wouldn’t, and I always said it to her, if
she don’t be more kind of careful, the way she always had to be
acting, I never did want no more she should come here in my house no
more to see me. I ain’t no ways ever against any girl having any
kind of a way, to have a good time like she wants it, but not that
kind of a way Melanctha always had to do it. I expect some day
Melanctha kill herself, when she act so bad like she do always, and
then she get so awful blue. Melanctha always says that’s the only
way she ever can think it a easy way for her to do. No, I always am
real sorry for Melanctha, she never was no just common kind of
nigger, but she don’t never know not with all the time I always was
telling it to her, no she never no way could learn, what was the
right way she should do. I certainly don’t never want no kind of
harm to come bad to Melanctha, but I certainly do think she will
most kill herself some time, the way she always say it would be easy
way for her to do. I never see nobody ever could be so awful blue.”
But Melanctha Herbert never really killed herself because she was 466
so blue, though often she thought this would be really the best way
for her to do. Melanctha never killed herself, she only got a bad
fever and went into the hospital where they took good care of her
and cured her.
When Melanctha was well again, she took a place and began to work 467
and to live regular. Then Melanctha got very sick again, she began
to cough and sweat and be so weak she could not stand to do her
work.
Melanctha went back to the hospital, and there the Doctor told her 468
she had the consumption, and before long she would surely die. They
sent her where she would be taken care of, a home for poor
consumptives, and there Melanctha stayed until she died.
--------------------
The Gentle Lena
LENA was patient, gentle, sweet and german. She had been a servant 1
for four years and had liked it very well.
Lena had been brought from Germany to Bridgepoint by a cousin and 2
had been in the same place there for four years.
This place Lena had found very good. There was a pleasant, 3
unexacting mistress and her children, and they all liked Lena very
well.
There was a cook there who scolded Lena a great deal but LenaÕs 4
german patience held no suffering and the good incessant woman
really only scolded so for LenaÕs good.
LenaÕs german voice when she knocked and called the family in the 5
morning was as awakening, as soothing, and as appealing, as a
delicate soft breeze in midday, summer. She stood in the hallway
every morning a long time in her unexpectant and unsuffering german
patience calling to the young ones to get up. She would call and
wait a long time and then call again, always even, gentle, patient,
while the young ones fell back often into that precious, tense, last
bit of sleeping that gives a strength of joyous vigor in the young,
over them that have come to the readiness of middle age, in their
awakening.
Lena had good hard work all morning, and on the pleasant, sunny 6
afternoons she was sent out into the park to sit and watch the
little two year old girl baby of the family.
The other girls, all them that make the pleasant, lazy crowd, that 7
watch the children in the sunny afternoons out in the park, all
liked the simple, gentle, german Lena very well. They all, too,
liked very well to tease her, for it was so easy to make her mixed
and troubled, and all helpless, for she could never learn to know
just what the other quicker girls meant by the queer things they
said.
The two or three of these girls, the ones that Lena always sat 8
with, always worked together to confuse her. Still it was pleasant,
all this life for Lena.
The little girl fell down sometimes and cried, and then Lena had 9
to soothe her. When the little girl would drop her hat, Lena had to
pick it up and hold it. When the little girl was bad and threw away
her playthings, Lena told her she could not have them and took them
from her to hold until the little girl should need them.
It was all a peaceful life for Lena, almost as peaceful as a 10
pleasant leisure. The other girls, of course, did tease her, but
then that only made a gentle stir within her.
Lena was a brown and pleasant creature, brown as blonde races 11
often have them brown, brown, not with the yellow or the red or the
chocolate brown of sun burned countries, but brown with the clear
color laid flat on the light toned skin beneath, the plain, spare
brown that makes it right to have been made with hazel eyes, and not
too abundant straight, brown hair, hair that only later deepens
itself into brown from the straw yellow of a german childhood.
Lena had the flat chest, straight back and forward falling 12
shoulders of the patient and enduring working woman, though her body
was now still in its milder girlhood and work had not yet made these
lines too clear.
The rarer feeling that there was with Lena, showed in all the even 13
quiet of her body movements, but in all it was the strongest in the
patient, old-world ignorance, and earth made pureness of her brown,
flat, soft featured face. Lena had eyebrows that were a wondrous
thickness. They were black, and spread, and very cool, with their
dark color and their beauty, and beneath them were her hazel eyes,
simple and human, with the earth patience of the working, gentle,
german woman.
Yes it was all a peaceful life for Lena. The other girls, of 14
course, did tease her, but then that only made a gentle stir within
her.
ÒWhat you got on your finger Lena,Ó Mary, one of the girls she 15
always sat with, one day asked her. Mary was good natured, quick,
intelligent and Irish.
Lena had just picked up the fancy paper made accordion that the 16
little girl had dropped beside her, and was making it squeak sadly
as she pulled it with her brown, strong, awkward finger.
ÒWhy, what is it, Mary, paint?Ó said Lena, putting her finger to 17
her mouth to taste the dirt spot.
ÒThatÕs awful poison Lena, donÕt you know?Ó said Mary, Òthat green 18
paint that you just tasted.Ó
Lena had sucked a good deal of the green paint from her finger. 19
She stopped and looked hard at the finger. She did not know just how
much Mary meant by what she said.
ÒAinÕt it poison, Nellie, that green paint, that Lena sucked just 20
now,Ó said Mary. ÒSure it is Lena, its real poison, I ainÕt foolinÕ
this time anyhow.Ó
Lena was a little troubled. She looked hard at her finger where 21
the paint was, she wondered if she had really sucked it.
It was still a little wet on the edges and she rubbed it off a 22
long time on the inside of her dress, and in between she wondered
and looked at the finger and thought, was it really poison that she
had just tasted.
ÒAinÕt it too bad, Nellie, Lena should have sucked that,Ó Mary 23
said.
Nellie smiled and did not answer. Nellie was dark and thin, and 24
looked Italian. She had a big mass of black hair that she wore high
up on her head, and that made her face look very fine.
Nellie always smiled and did not say much, and then she would look 25
at Lena to perplex her.
And so they all three sat with their little charges in the 26
pleasant sunshine a long time. And Lena would often look at her
finger and wonder if it was really poison that she had just tasted
and then she would rub her finger on her dress a little harder.
Mary laughed at her and teased her and Nellie smiled a little and 27
looked queerly at her.
Then it came time, for it was growing cooler, for them to drag 28
together the little ones, who had begun to wander, and to take each
one back to its own mother. And Lena never knew for certain whether
it was really poison, that green stuff that she had tasted.
During these four years of service, Lena always spent her Sundays 29
out at the house of her aunt, who had brought her four years before
to Bridgepoint.
This aunt, who had brought Lena, four years before, to 30
Bridgepoint, was a hard, ambitious, well meaning, german woman. Her
husband was a grocer in the town, and they were very well to do.
Mrs. Haydon, LenaÕs aunt, had two daughters who were just beginning
as young ladies, and she had a little boy who was not honest and who
was very hard to manage.
Mrs. Haydon was a short, stout, hard built, german woman. She 31
always hit the ground very firmly and compactly as she walked. Mrs.
Haydon was all a compact and well hardened mass, even to her face,
reddish and darkened from its early blonde, with its hearty, shiny,
cheeks, and doubled chin well covered over with the up-roll from her
short, square neck.
The two daughters, who were fourteen and fifteen, looked like 32
unkneaded, unformed mounds of flesh beside her.
The elder girl, Mathilda, was blonde, and slow, and simple, and 33
quite fat. The younger, Bertha, who was almost as tall as her
sister, was dark, and quicker, and she was heavy, too, but not
really fat.
These two girls the mother had brought up very firmly. They were 34
well taught for their position. They were always both well dressed,
in the same kinds of hats and dresses, as is becoming in two german
sisters. The mother liked to have them dressed in red. Their best
clothes were red dresses, made of good heavy cloth, and strongly
trimmed with braid of a glistening black. They had stiff, red felt
hats, trimmed with black velvet ribbon, and a bird. The mother
dressed matronly, in a bonnet and in black, always sat between her
two big daughters, firm, directing, and repressed.
The only weak spot in this good german womanÕs conduct was the way 35
she spoiled her boy, who was not honest and who was very hard to
manage.
The father of this family was a decent, quiet, heavy, and 36
uninterfering german man. He tried to cure the boy of his bad ways,
and make him honest, but the mother could not make herself let the
father manage, and so the boy was brought up very badly.
Mrs. HaydonÕs girls were now only just beginning as young ladies, 37
and so to get her niece, Lena, married, was just then the most
important thing that Mrs. Haydon had to do.
Mrs. Haydon had four years before gone to Germany to see her 38
parents, and had taken the girls with her. This visit had been for
Mrs. Haydon most successful, though her children had not liked it
very well.
Mrs. Haydon was a good and generous woman, and she patronized her 39
parents grandly, and all the cousins who came from all about to see
her. Mrs. HaydonÕs people were of the middling class of farmers.
They were not peasants, and they lived in a town of some pretension,
but it all seemed very poor and smelly to Mrs. HaydonÕs american
born daughters.
Mrs. Haydon liked it all. It was familiar, and then here she was 40
so wealthy and important. She listened and decided, and advised all
of her relations how to do things better. She arranged their present
and their future for them, and showed them how in the past they had
been wrong in all their methods.
Mrs. HaydonÕs only trouble was with her two daughters, whom she 41
could not make behave well to her parents. The two girls were very
nasty to all their numerous relations. Their mother could hardly
make them kiss their grandparents, and every day the girls would get
a scolding. But then Mrs. Haydon was so very busy that she did not
have time to really manage her stubborn daughters.
These hard working, earth-rough german cousins were to these 42
american born children, ugly and dirty, and as far below them as
were italian or negro workmen, and they could not see how their
mother could ever bear to touch them, and then all the women dressed
so funny, and were worked all rough and different.
The two girls stuck up their noses at them all, and always talked 43
in English to each other about how they hated all these people and
how they wished their mother would not do so. The girls could talk
some German, but they never chose to use it.
It was her eldest brotherÕs family that most interested Mrs. 44
Haydon. Here there were eight children, and out of the eight, five
of them were girls.
Mrs. Haydon thought it would be a fine thing to take one of these 45
girls back with her to Bridgepoint and get her well started.
Everybody liked that she should do so, and they were all willing
that it should be Lena.
Lena was the second girl in her large family. She was at this time 46
just seventeen years old. Lena was not an important daughter in the
family. She was always sort of dreamy and not there. She worked hard
and went very regularly at it, but even good work never seemed to
bring her near.
LenaÕs age just suited Mrs. HaydonÕs purpose. Lena could first go 47
out to service, and learn how to do things, and then, when she was a
little older, Mrs. Haydon could get her a good husband. And then
Lena was so still and docile, she would never want to do things her
own way. And then, too, Mrs. Haydon, with all her hardness had
wisdom, and she could feel the rarer strain there was in Lena.
Lena was willing to go with Mrs. Haydon. Lena did not like her 48
german life very well. It was not the hard work but the roughness
that disturbed her. The people were not gentle, and the men when
they were glad were very boisterous, and would lay hold of her and
roughly tease her. They were good people enough around her, but it
was all harsh and dreary for her.
Lena did not really know that she did not like it. She did not 49
know that she was always dreamy and not there. She did not think
whether it would be different for her away off there in Bridgepoint.
Mrs. Haydon took her and got her different kinds of dresses, and
then took her with them to the steamer. Lena did not really know
what it was that had happened to her.
Mrs. Haydon, and her daughters, and Lena traveled second class on 50
the steamer. Mrs. HaydonÕs daughters hated that their mother should
take Lena. They hated to have a cousin, who was to them, little
better than a nigger, and then everybody on the steamer there would
see her. Mrs. HaydonÕs daughters said things like this to their
mother, but she never stopped to hear them, and the girls did not
dare to make their meaning very clear. And so they could only go on
hating Lena hard, together. They could not stop her from going back
with them to Bridgepoint.
Lena was very sick on the voyage. She thought, surely before it 51
was over that she would die. She was so sick she could not even wish
that she had not started. She could not eat, she could not moan, she
was just blank and scared, and sure that every minute she would die.
She could not hold herself in, nor help herself in her trouble. She
just staid where she had been put, pale, and scared, and weak, and
sick, and sure that she was going to die.
Mathilda and Bertha Haydon had no trouble from having Lena for a 52
cousin on the voyage, until the last day that they were on the ship,
and by that time they had made their friends and could explain.
Mrs. Haydon went down every day to Lena, gave her things to make 53
her better, held her head when it was needful, and generally was
good and did her duty by her.
Poor Lena had no power to be strong in such trouble. She did not 54
know how to yield to her sickness nor endure. She lost all her
little sense of being in her suffering. She was so scared, and then
at her best, Lena, who was patient, sweet and quiet, had not
self-control, nor any active courage.
Poor Lena was so scared and weak, and every minute she was sure 55
that she would die.
After Lena was on land again a little while, she forgot all her 56
bad suffering. Mrs. Haydon got her the good place, with the pleasant
unexacting mistress, and her children, and Lena began to learn some
English and soon was very happy and content.
All her Sundays out Lena spent at Mrs. HaydonÕs house. Lena would 57
have liked much better to spend her Sundays with the girls she
always sat with, and who often asked her, and who teased her and
made a gentle stir within her, but it never came to LenaÕs
unexpectant and unsuffering german nature to do something different
from what was expected of her, just because she would like it that
way better. Mrs. Haydon had said that Lena was to come to her house
every other Sunday, and so Lena always went there.
Mrs. Haydon was the only one of her family who took any interest 58
in Lena. Mr. Haydon did not think much of her. She was his wifeÕs
cousin and he was good to her, but she was for him stupid, and a
little simple, and very dull, and sure some day to need help and to
be in trouble. All young poor relations, who were brought from
Germany to Bridgepoint were sure, before long, to need help and to
be in trouble.
The little Haydon boy was always very nasty to her. He was a hard 59
child for any one to manage, and his mother spoiled him very badly.
Mrs. HaydonÕs daughters as they grew older did not learn to like
Lena any better. Lena never knew that she did not like them either.
She did not know that she was only happy with the other quicker
girls, she always sat with in the park, and who laughed at her and
always teased her.
Mathilda Haydon, the simple, fat, blonde, older daughter felt very 60
badly that she had to say that this was her cousin Lena, this Lena
who was little better for her than a nigger. Mathilda was an
overgrown, slow, flabby, blonde, stupid, fat girl, just beginning as
a woman; thick in her speech and dull and simple in her mind, and
very jealous of all her family and of other girls, and proud that
she could have good dresses and new hats and learn music, and hating
very badly to have a cousin who was a common servant. And then
Mathilda remembered very strongly that dirty nasty place that Lena
came from and that Mathilda had so turned up her nose at, and where
she had been made so angry because her mother scolded her and liked
all those rough cow-smelly people.
Then, too, Mathilda would get very mad when her mother had Lena at 61
their parties, and when she talked about how good Lena was, to
certain german mothers in whose sons, perhaps, Mrs. Haydon might
find Lena a good husband. All this would make the dull, blonde, fat
Mathilda very angry. Sometimes she would get so angry that she
would, in her thick, slow way, and with jealous anger blazing in her
light blue eyes, tell her mother that she did not see how she could
like that nasty Lena; and then her mother would scold Mathilda, and
tell her that she knew her cousin Lena was poor and Mathilda must be
good to poor people.
Mathilda Haydon did not like relations to be poor. She told all 62
her girl friends what she thought of Lena, and so the girls would
never talk to Lena at Mrs. HaydonÕs parties. But Lena in her
unsuffering and unexpectant patience never really knew that she was
slighted. When Mathilda was with her girls in the street or in the
park and would see Lena, she always turned up her nose and barely
nodded to her, and then she would tell her friends how funny her
mother was to take care of people like that Lena, and how, back in
Germany, all LenaÕs people lived just like pigs.
The younger daughter, the dark, large, but not fat, Bertha Haydon, 63
who was very quick in her mind, and in her ways, and who was the
favorite with her father, did not like Lena, either. She did not
like her because for her Lena was a fool and so stupid, and she
would let those Irish and Italian girls laugh at her and tease her,
and everybody always made fun of Lena, and Lena never got mad, or
even had sense enough to know that they were all making an awful
fool of her.
Bertha Haydon hated people to be fools. Her father, too, thought 64
Lena was a fool, and so neither the father nor the daughter ever
paid any attention to Lena, although she came to their house every
other Sunday.
Lena did not know how all the Haydons felt. She came to her auntÕs 65
house all her Sunday afternoons that she had out, because Mrs.
Haydon had told her she must do so. In the same way Lena always
saved all of her wages. She never thought of any way to spend it.
The german cook, the good woman who always scolded Lena, helped her
to put it in the bank each month, as soon as she got it. Sometimes
before it got into the bank to be taken care of, somebody would ask
Lena for it. The little Haydon boy sometimes asked and would get it,
and sometimes some of the girls, the ones Lena always sat with,
needed some more money; but the german cook, who always scolded
Lena, saw to it that this did not happen very often. When it did
happen she would scold Lena very sharply, and for the next few
months she would not let Lena touch her wages, but put it in the
bank for her on the same day that Lena got it.
So Lena always saved her wages, for she never thought to spend 66
them, and she always went to her auntÕs house for her Sundays
because she did not know that she could do anything different.
Mrs. Haydon felt more and more every year that she had done right 67
to bring Lena back with her, for it was all coming out just as she
had expected. Lena was good and never wanted her own way, she was
learning English, and saving all her wages, and soon Mrs. Haydon
would get her a good husband.
All these four years Mrs. Haydon was busy looking around among all 68
the german people that she knew for the right man to be LenaÕs
husband, and now at last she was quite decided.
The man Mrs. Haydon wanted for Lena was a young german-american 69
tailor, who worked with his father. He was good and all the family
were very saving, and Mrs. Haydon was sure that this would be just
right for Lena, and then too, this young tailor always did what-ever
his father and his mother wanted.
This old german tailor and his wife, the father and the mother of 70
Herman Kreder, who was to marry Lena Mainz, were very thrifty,
careful people. Herman was the only child they had left with them,
and he always did everything they wanted. Herman was now
twenty-eight years old, but he had never stopped being scolded and
directed by his father and his mother. And now they wanted to see
him married.
Herman Kreder did not care much to get married. He was a gentle 71
soul and a little fearful. He had a sullen temper, too. He was
obedient to his father and his mother. He always did his work well.
He often went out on Saturday nights and on Sundays, with other men.
He liked it with them but he never became really joyous. He liked to
be with men and he hated to have women with them. He was obedient to
his mother, but he did not care much to get married.
Mrs. Haydon and the elder Kreders had often talked the marriage 72
over. They all three liked it very well. Lena would do anything that
Mrs. Haydon wanted, and Herman was always obedient in everything to
his father and his mother. Both Lena and Herman were saving and good
workers and neither of them ever wanted their own way.
The elder Kreders, everybody knew, had saved up all their money, 73
and they were hard, good german people, and Mrs. Haydon was sure
that with these people Lena would never be in any trouble. Mr.
Haydon would not say anything about it. He knew old Kreder had a lot
of money and owned some good houses, and he did not care what his
wife did with that simple, stupid Lena, so long as she would be sure
never to need help or to be in trouble.
Lena did not care much to get married. She liked her life very 74
well where she was working. She did not think much about Herman
Kreder. She thought he was a good man and she always found him very
quiet. Neither of them ever spoke much to the other. Lena did not
care much just then about getting married.
Mrs. Haydon spoke to Lena about it very often. Lena never answered 75
anything at all. Mrs. Haydon thought, perhaps Lena did not like
Herman Kreder. Mrs. Haydon could not believe that any girl not even
Lena, really had no feeling about getting married.
Mrs. Haydon spoke to Lena very often about Herman. Mrs. Haydon 76
sometimes got very angry with Lena. She was afraid that Lena, for
once, was going to be stubborn, now when it was all fixed right for
her to be married.
ÒWhy you stand there so stupid, why donÕt you answer, Lena,Ó said 77
Mrs. Haydon one Sunday, at the end of a long talking that she was
giving Lena about Herman Kreder, and about LenaÕs getting married to
him.
ÒYes maÕam,Ó said Lena, and then Mrs. Haydon was furious with this 78
stupid Lena. ÒWhy donÕt you answer with some sense, Lena, when I ask
you if you donÕt like Herman Kreder. You stand there so stupid and
donÕt answer just like you ainÕt heard a word what I been saying to
you. I never see anybody like you, Lena. If you going to burst out
at all, why donÕt you burst out sudden instead of standing there so
silly and donÕt answer. And here I am so good to you, and find you a
good husband so you can have a place to live in all your own. Answer
me, Lena, donÕt you like Herman Kreder? He is a fine young fellow,
almost too good for you, Lena, when you stand there so stupid and
donÕt make no answer. There ainÕt many poor girls that get the
chance you got now to get married.Ó
ÒWhy, I do anything you say, Aunt Mathilda. Yes, I like him. He 79
donÕt say much to me, but I guess he is a good man, and I do
anything you say for me to do.Ó
ÒWell then Lena, why you stand there so silly all the time and not 80
answer when I asked you.Ó
ÒI didnÕt hear you say you wanted I should say anything to you. I 81
didnÕt know you wanted me to say nothing. I do whatever you tell me
itÕs right for me to do. I marry Herman Kreder, if you want me.Ó
And so for Lena Mainz the match was made. 82
Old Mrs. Kreder did not discuss the matter with her Herman. She 83
never thought that she needed to talk such things over with him. She
just told him about getting married to Lena Mainz who was a good
worker and very saving and never wanted her own way, and Herman made
his usual little grunt in answer to her.
Mrs. Kreder and Mrs. Haydon fixed the day and made all the 84
arrangements for the wedding and invited everybody who ought to be
there to see them married.
In three months Lena Mainz and Herman Kreder were to be married. 85
Mrs. Haydon attended to LenaÕs getting all the things that she 86
needed. Lena had to help a good deal with the sewing. Lena did not
sew very well. Mrs. Haydon scolded because Lena did not do it
better, but then she was very good to Lena, and she hired a girl to
come and help her. Lena still stayed on with her pleasant mistress,
but she spent all her evenings and her Sundays with her aunt and all
the sewing.
Mrs. Haydon got Lena some nice dresses. Lena liked that very well. 87
Lena liked having new hats even better, and Mrs. Haydon had some
made for her by a real milliner who made them very pretty.
Lena was nervous these days, but she did not think much about 88
getting married. She did not know really what it was, that, which
was always coming nearer.
Lena liked the place where she was with the pleasant mistress and 89
the good cook, who always scolded, and she liked the girls she
always sat with. She did not ask if she would like being married any
better. She always did whatever her aunt said and expected, but she
was always nervous when she saw the Kreders with their Herman. She
was excited and she liked her new hats, and everybody teased her and
every day her marrying was coming nearer, and yet she did not really
know what it was, this that was about to happen to her.
Herman Kreder knew more what it meant to be married and he did not 90
like it very well. He did not like to see girls and he did not want
to have to have one always near him. Herman always did everything
that his father and his mother wanted and now they wanted that he
should be married.
Herman had a sullen temper; he was gentle and he never said much. 91
He liked to go out with other men, out he never wanted that there
should be any women with them. The men all teased him about getting
married. Herman did not mind the teasing but he did not like very
well the getting married and having a girl always with him.
Three days before the wedding day, Herman went away to the country 92
to be gone over Sunday. He and Lena were to be married Tuesday
afternoon. When the day came Herman had not been seen or heard from.
The old Kreder couple had not worried much about it. Herman always 93
did everything they wanted and he would surely come back in time to
get married. But when Monday night came, and there was no Herman,
they went to Mrs. Haydon to tell her what had happened.
Mrs. Haydon got very much excited. It was hard enough to work so 94
as to get everything all ready, and then to have that silly Herman
go off that way, so no one could tell what was going to happen. Here
was Lena and everything all ready, and now they would have to make
the wedding later so that they would know that Herman would be sure
to be there.
Mrs. Haydon was very much excited, and then she could not say much 95
to the old Kreder couple. She did not want to make them angry, for
she wanted very badly now that Lena should be married to their
Herman.
At last it was decided that the wedding should be put off a week 96
longer. Old Mr. Kreder would go to New York to find Herman, for it
was very likely that Herman had gone there to his married sister.
Mrs. Haydon sent word around, about waiting until a week from that 97
Tuesday, to everybody that had been invited, and then Tuesday
morning she sent for Lena to come down to see her.
Mrs. Haydon was very angry with poor Lena when she saw her. She 98
scolded her hard because she was so foolish, and now Herman had gone
off and nobody could tell where he had gone to, and all because Lena
always was so dumb and silly. And Mrs. Haydon was just like a mother
to her, and Lena always stood there so stupid and did not answer
what anybody asked her, and Herman was so silly too, and now his
father had to go and find him. Mrs. Haydon did not think that any
old people should be good to their children. Their children always
were so thankless, and never paid any attention, and older people
were always doing things for their good. Did Lena think it gave Mrs.
Haydon any pleasure, to work so hard to make Lena happy, and get her
a good husband, and then Lena was so thankless and never did
anything that anybody wanted. It was a lesson to poor Mrs. Haydon
not to do things any more for anybody. Let everybody take care of
themselves and never come to her with any troubles; she knew better
now than to meddle to make other people happy. It just made trouble
for her and her husband did not like it. He always said she was too
good, and nobody ever thanked her for it, and there Lena was always
standing stupid and not answering anything anybody wanted. Lena
could always talk enough to those silly girls she liked so much, and
always sat with, but who never did anything for her except to take
away her money, and here was her aunt who tried so hard and was so
good to her and treated her just like one of her own children and
Lena stood there, and never made any answer and never tried to
please her aunt, or to do anything that her aunt wanted. ÒNo, it
ainÕt no use your standinÕ there and cryinÕ, now, Lena. Its too late
now to care about that Herman. You should have cared some before,
and then you wouldnÕt have to stand and cry now, and be a
disappointment to me, and then I get scolded by my husband for
taking care of everybody, and nobody ever thankful. I am glad you
got the sense to feel sorry now, Lena, anyway, and I try to do what
I can to help you out in your trouble, only you donÕt deserve to
have anybody take any trouble for you. But perhaps you know better
next time. You go home now and take care you donÕt spoil your
clothes and that new hat, you had no business to be wearinÕ that
this morning, but you ainÕt got no sense at all, Lena. I never in my
life see anybody be so stupid.Ó
Mrs. Haydon stopped and poor Lena stood there in her hat, all 99
trimmed with pretty flowers, and the tears coming out of her eyes,
and Lena did not know what it was that she had done, only she was
not going to be married and it was a disgrace for a girl to be left
by a man on the very day she was to be married.
Lena went home all alone, and cried in the street car. 100
Poor Lena cried very hard all alone in the street car. She almost 101
spoiled her new hat with her hitting it against the window in her
crying. Then she remembered that she must not do so.
The conductor was a kind man and he was very sorry when he saw her 102
crying. ÒDonÕt feel so bad, you get another feller, you are such a
nice girl,Ó he said to make her cheerful. ÒBut Aunt Mathilda said
now, I never get married,Ó poor Lena sobbed out for her answer. ÒWhy
you really got trouble like that,Ó said the conductor, ÒI just said
that now to josh you. I didnÕt ever think you really was left by a
feller. He must be a stupid feller. But donÕt you worry, he wasnÕt
much good if he could go away and leave you, lookinÕ to be such a
nice girl. You just tell all your trouble to me, and I help you.Ó
The car was empty and the conductor sat down beside her to put his
arm around her, and to be a comfort to her. Lena suddenly remembered
where she was, and if she did things like that her aunt would scold
her. She moved away from the man into the corner. He laughed, ÒDonÕt
be scared,Ó he said, ÒI wasnÕt going to hurt you. But you just keep
up your spirit. You are a real nice girl, and youÕll be sure to get
a real good husband. DonÕt you let nobody fool you. YouÕre all right
and I donÕt want to scare you.Ó
The conductor went back to his platform to help a passenger get on 103
the car. All the time Lena stayed in the street car, he would come
in every little while and reassure her, about her not to feel so bad
about a man who hadnÕt no more sense than to go away and leave her.
SheÕd be sure yet to get a good man, she neednÕt be so worried, he
frequently assured her.
He chatted with the other passenger who had just come in, a very 104
well dressed old man, and then with another who came in later, a
good sort of a working man, and then another who came in, a nice
lady, and he told them all about LenaÕs having trouble, and it was
too bad there were men who treated a poor girl so badly. And
everybody in the car was sorry for poor Lena and the workman tried
to cheer her, and the old man looked sharply at her, and said she
looked like a good girl, but she ought to be more careful and not to
be so careless, and things like that would not happen to her, and
the nice lady went and sat beside her and Lena liked it, though she
shrank away from being near her.
So Lena was feeling a little better when she got off the car, and 105
the conductor helped her, and he called out to her, ÒYou be sure you
keep up a good heart now. He wasnÕt no good that feller and you were
lucky for to lose him. YouÕll get a real man yet, one that will be
better for you. DonÕt you be worried, youÕre a real nice girl as I
ever see in such trouble,Ó and the conductor shook his head and went
back into his car to talk it over with the other passengers he had
there.
The german cook, who always scolded Lena, was very angry when she 106
heard the story. She never did think Mrs. Haydon would do so much
for Lena, though she was always talking so grand about what she
could do for everybody. The good german cook always had been a
little distrustful of her. People who always thought they were so
much never did really do things right for anybody. Not that Mrs.
Haydon wasnÕt good woman. Mrs. Haydon was a real, good, german
woman, and she did really mean to do well by her niece Lena. The
cook knew that very well, and she had always said so, and she always
had liked and respected Mrs. Haydon, who always acted very proper to
her, and Lena was so backward, when there was a man to talk to, Mrs.
Haydon did have hard work when she tried to marry Lena. Mrs. Haydon
was a good woman, only she did talk sometimes too grand. Perhaps
this trouble would make her see it wasnÕt always so easy to do, to
make everybody do everything just like she wanted. The cook was very
sorry now for Mrs. Haydon. All this must be such a disappointment,
and such a worry to her, and she really had always been very good to
Lena. But Lena had better go and put on her other clothes and stop
with all that crying. That wouldnÕt do nothing now to help her, and
if Lena would be a good girl, and just be real patient, her aunt
would make it all come out right yet for her. ÒI just tell Mrs.
Aldrich, Lena, you stay here yet a little longer. You know she is
always so good to you, Lena, and I know she let you, and I tell her
all about that stupid Herman Kreder. I got no patience, Lena, with
anybody who can be so stupid. You just stop now with your crying,
Lena, and take off them good clothes and put them away so you donÕt
spoil them when you need them, and you can help me with the dishes
and everything will come off better for you. You see if I ainÕt
right by what I tell you. You just stop crying now Lena quick, or
else I scold you.Ó
Lena still choked a little and was very miserable inside her but 107
she did everything just as the cook told her.
The girls Lena always sat with were very sorry to see her look so 108
sad with her trouble. Mary the Irish girl sometimes got very angry
with her. Mary was always very hot when she talked of LenaÕs aunt
Mathilda, who thought she was so grand, and had such stupid, stuck
up daughters. Mary wouldnÕt be a fat fool like that ugly tempered
Mathilda Haydon, not for anything anybody could ever give her. How
Lena could keep on going there so much when they all always acted as
if she was just dirt to them, Mary never could see. But Lena never
had any sense of how she should make people stand round for her, and
that was always all the trouble with her. And poor Lena, she was so
stupid to be sorry for losing that gawky fool who didnÕt ever know
what he wanted and just said ÒjaÓ to his mamma and his papa, like a
baby, and was scared to look at a girl straight, and then sneaked
away the last day like as if somebody was going to do something to
him. Disgrace, Lena talking about disgrace! It was a disgrace for a
girl to be seen with the likes of him, let alone to be married to
him. But that poor Lena, she never did know how to show herself off
for what she was really. Disgrace to have him go away and leave her.
Mary would just like to get a chance to show him. If Lena wasnÕt
worth fifteen like Herman Kreder, Mary would just eat her own head
all up. It was a good riddance Lena had of that Herman Kreder and
his stingy, dirty parents, and if Lena didnÕt stop crying about it,
Ñ Mary would just naturally despise her.
Poor Lena, she knew very well how Mary meant it all, this she was 109
always saying to her. But Lena was very miserable inside her. She
felt the disgrace it was for a decent german girl that a man should
go away and leave her. Lena knew very well that her aunt was right
when she said the way Herman had acted to her was a disgrace to
everyone that knew her. Mary and Nellie and the other girls she
always sat with were always very good to Lena but that did not make
her trouble any better. It was a disgrace the way Lena had been
left, to any decent family, and that could never be made any
different to her.
And so the slow days wore on, and Lena never saw her Aunt 110
Mathilda. At last on Sunday she got word by a boy to go and see her
aunt Mathilda. LenaÕs heart beat quick for she was very nervous now
with all this that had happened to her. She went just as quickly as
she could to see her Aunt Mathilda.
Mrs. Haydon quick, as soon as she saw Lena, began to scold her for 111
keeping her aunt waiting so long for her, and for not coming in all
the week to see her, to see if her aunt should need her, and so her
aunt had to send a boy to tell her. But it was easy, even for Lena,
to see that her aunt was not really angry with her. It wasnÕt LenaÕs
fault, went on Mrs. Haydon, that everything was going to happen all
right for her. Mrs. Haydon was very tired taking all this trouble
for her, and when Lena couldnÕt even take trouble to come and see
her aunt, to see if she needed anything to tell her. But Mrs. Haydon
really never minded things like that when she could do things for
anybody. She was tired now, all the trouble she had been taking to
make things right for Lena, but perhaps now Lena heard it she would
learn a little to be thankful to her. ÒYou get all ready to be
married Tuesday, Lena, you hear me,Ó said Mrs. Haydon to her. ÒYou
come here Tuesday morning and I have everything all ready for you.
You wear your new dress I got you, and your hat with all them
flowers on it, and you be very careful coming you donÕt get your
things all dirty, you so careless all the time, Lena, and not
thinking, and you act sometimes you never got no head at all on you.
You go home now, and you tell your Mrs. Aldrich that you leave her
Tuesday. DonÕt you go forgetting now, Lena, anything I ever told you
what you should do to be careful. You be a good girl, now Lena. You
get married Tuesday to Herman Kreder.Ó And that was all Lena ever
knew of what had happened all this week to Herman Kreder. Lena
forgot there was anything to know about it. She was really to be
married Tuesday, and her Aunt Mathilda said she was a good girl, and
now there was no disgrace left upon her.
Lena now fell back into the way she always had of being always 112
dreamy and not there, the way she always had been, except for the
few days she was so excited, because she had been left by a man the
very day she was to have been married. Lena was a little nervous all
these last days, but she did not think much about what it meant for
her to be married.
Herman Kreder was not so content about it. He was quiet and was 113
sullen and he knew he could not help it. He knew now he just had to
let himself get married. It was not that Herman did not like Lena
Mainz. She was as good as any other girl could be for him. She was a
little better perhaps than other girls he saw, she was so very
quiet, but Herman did not like to always have to have a girl around
him. Herman had always done everything that his mother and his
father wanted. His father had found him in New York, where Herman
had gone to be with his married sister.
HermanÕs father when he had found him coaxed Herman a long time 114
and went on whole days with his complaining to him, always troubled
but gentle and quite patient with him, and always he was worrying to
Herman about what was the right way his boy Herman should always do,
always whatever it was his mother ever wanted from him, and always
Herman never made him any answer.
Old Mr. Kreder kept on saying to him, he did not see how Herman 115
could think now, it could be any different. When you make a bargain
you just got to stick right to it, that was the only way old Mr.
Kreder could ever see it, and saying you would get married to a girl
and she got everything all ready, that was a bargain just like one
you make in business and Herman he had made it, and now Herman he
would just have to do it, old Mr. Kreder didnÕt see there was any
other way a good boy like his Herman had, to do it. And then too
that Lena Mainz was such a nice girl and Herman hadnÕt ought to
really give his father so much trouble and make him pay out all that
money, to come all the way to New York just to find him, and they
both lose all that time from their working, when all Herman had to
do was just to stand up, for an hour, and then he would be all right
married, and it would be all over for him, and then everything at
home would never be any different to him.
And his father went on; there was his poor mother saying always 116
how her Herman always did everything before she ever wanted, and now
just because he got notions in him, and wanted to show people how he
could be stubborn, he was making all this trouble for her, and
making them pay all that money just to run around and find him. ÒYou
got no idea Herman, how bad mama is feeling about the way you been
acting Herman,Ó said old Mr. Kreder to him. ÒShe says she never can
understand how you can be so thankless Herman. It hurts her very
much you been so stubborn, and she find you such a nice girl for
you, like Lena Mainz who is always just so quiet and always saves up
all her wages, and she never wanting her own way at all like some
girls are always all the time to have it, and your mama trying so
hard, just so you could be comfortable Herman to be married, and
then you act so stubborn Herman. You like all young people Herman,
you think only about yourself, and what you are just wanting, and
your mama she is thinking only what is good for you to have, for you
in the future. Do you think your mama wants to have a girl around to
be a bother, for herself, Herman. Its just for you Herman she is
always thinking, and she talks always about how happy she will be,
when she sees her Herman married to a nice girl, and then when she
fixed it all up so good for you, so it never would be any bother to
you, just the way she wanted you should like it, and you say yes all
right, I do it, and then you go away like this and act stubborn, and
make all this trouble everybody to take for you, and we spend money,
and I got to travel all round to find you. You come home now with me
Herman and get married, and I tell your mama she better not say
anything to you about how much it cost me to come all the way to
look for youÑHey Herman,Ó said his father coaxing, ÒHey, you come
home now and get married. All you got to do Herman is just to stand
up for an hour Herman, and then you donÕt never to have any more
bother to itÑHey Herman!Ñyou come home with me to-morrow and get
married. Hey Herman.Ó
HermanÕs married sister liked her brother Herman, and she had 117
always tried to help him, when there was anything she knew he
wanted. She liked it that he was so good and always did everything
that their father and their mother wanted, but still she wished it
could be that he could have more his own way, if there was anything
he ever wanted.
But now she thought Herman with his girl was very funny. She 118
wanted that Herman should be married. She thought it would do him
lots of good to get married. She laughed at Herman when she heard
the story. Until his father came to find him, she did not know why
it was Herman had come just then to New York to see her. When she
heard the story she laughed a good deal at her brother Herman and
teased him a good deal about his running away, because he didnÕt
want to have a girl to be all the time around him.
HermanÕs married sister liked her brother Herman, and she did not 119
want him not to like to be with women. He was good, her brother
Herman, and it would surely do him good to get married. It would
make him stand up for himself stronger. HermanÕs sister always
laughed at him and always she would try to reassure him. ÒSuch a
nice man as my brother Herman acting like as if he was afraid of
women. Why the girls all like a man like you Herman, if you didnÕt
always run away when you saw them. It do you good really Herman to
get married, and then you got somebody you can boss around when you
want to. It do you good Herman to get married, and then you got
somebody you can boss around when you want to. It do you good Herman
to get married, you see if you donÕt like it, when you really done
it. You go along home now with papa, Herman and get married to that
Lena. You donÕt know how nice you like it Herman when you try once
how you can do it. You just donÕt be afraid of nothing, Herman. You
good enough for any girl to marry, Herman. Any girl be glad to have
a man like you to be always with them Herman. You just go along home
with papa and try it what I say, Herman. Oh you so funny Herman,
when you sit there, and then run away and leave your girl behind
you. I know she is crying like anything Herman for to lose you.
DonÕt be bad to her Herman. You go along home with papa now and get
married Herman. IÕd be awful ashamed Herman, to really have a
brother didnÕt have spirit enough to get married, when a girl is
just dying for to have him. You always like me to be with you
Herman. I donÕt see why you say you donÕt want a girl to be all the
time around you. You always been good to me Herman, and I know you
always been good to that Lena, and you soon feel just like as if she
had always been there with you. DonÕt act like as if you wasnÕt a
nice strong man, Herman. Really I laugh at you Herman, but you know
I like awful well to see you real happy. You go home and get married
to that Lena, Herman. She is a real pretty girl and real nice and
good and quiet and she make my brother Herman very happy. You just
stop your fussing now with Herman, papa. He go with you to-morrow
papa, and you see he like it so much to be married, he make
everybody laugh just to see him be so happy. Really truly, thatÕs
the way it will be with you Herman. You just listen to me what I
tell you Herman.Ó And so his sister laughed at him and reassured
him, and his father kept on telling what the mother always said
about her Herman, and he coaxed him and Herman never said anything
in answer, and his sister packed his things up and was very cheerful
with him, and she kissed him, and then she laughed and then she
kissed him, and his father went and bought the tickets for the
train, and at last late on Sunday he brought Herman back to
Bridgepoint with him.
It was always very hard to keep Mrs. Kreder from saying what she 120
thought, to her Herman, but her daughter had written her a letter,
so as to warn her not to say anything about what he had been doing,
to him, and her husband came in with Herman and said, ÒHere we are
come home mama, Herman and me, and we are very tired it was so
crowded coming,Ó and then he whispered to her. ÒYou be good to
Herman, mama, he didnÕt mean to make us so much trouble,Ó and so old
Mrs. Kreder, held in what she felt was so strong in her to say to
her Herman. She just said very stiffly to him, ÒIÕm glad to see you
come home to-day, Herman.Ó Then she went to arrange it all with Mrs.
Haydon.
Herman was now again just like he always had been, sullen and very 121
good, and very quiet, and always ready to do whatever his mother and
his father wanted. Tuesday morning came, Herman got his new clothes
on and went with his father and his mother to stand up for an hour
and get married. Lena was there in her new dress, and her hat with
all the pretty flowers, and she was very nervous for now she knew
she was really very soon to be married. Mrs. Haydon had everything
all ready. Everybody was there just as they should be and very soon
Herman Kreder and Lena Mainz were married.
When everything was really over, they went back to the Kreder 122
house together. They were all now to live together, Lena and Herman
and the old father and the old mother, in the house where Mr. Kreder
had worked so many years as a tailor, with his son Herman always
there to help him.
Irish Mary had often said to Lena she never did see how Lena could 123
ever want to have anything to do with Herman Kreder and his dirty
stingy parents. The old Kreders were to an Irish nature, a stingy,
dirty couple. They had not the free-hearted, thoughtless, fighting,
mud bespattered, ragged, peat-smoked cabin dirt that irish Mary knew
and could forgive and love. Theirs was the german dirt of saving, of
being dowdy and loose and foul in your clothes so as to save them
and yourself in washing, having your hair greasy to save it in the
soap and drying, having your clothes dirty, not in freedom, but
because so it was cheaper, keeping the house close and smelly
because so it cost less to get it heated, living so poorly not only
so as to save money but so they should never even know themselves
that they had it, working all the time not only because from their
nature they just had to and because it made them money but also that
they never could be put in any way to make them spend their money.
This was the place Lena now had for her home and to her it was 124
very different than it could be for an irish Mary. She too was
german and was thrifty, though she was always so dreamy and not
there. Lena was always careful with things and she always saved her
money, for that was the only way she knew how to do it. She never
had taken care of her own money and she never had thought how to use
it.
Lena Mainz had been, before she was Mrs. Herman Kreder, always 125
clean and decent in her clothes and in her person, but it was not
because she ever thought about it or really needed so to have it, it
was the way her people did in the german country where she came
from, and her Aunt Mathilda and the good german cook who always
scolded, had kept her on and made her, with their scoldings, always
more careful to keep clean and to wash real often. But there was no
deep need in all this for Lena and so, though Lena did not like the
old Kreders, though she really did not know that, she did not think
about their being stingy dirty people.
Herman Kreder was cleaner than the old people, just because it was 126
his nature to keep cleaner, but he was used to his mother and his
father, and he never thought that they should keep things cleaner.
And Herman too always saved all his money, except for that little
beer he drank when he always liked to do it, and he never thought of
any other way to spend it. His father had always kept all the money
for them and he always was doing business with it. And then too
Herman really had no money, for he always had worked for his father,
and his father had never thought to pay him.
And so they began all four to live in the Kreder house together, 127
and Lena began soon with it to look careless and a little dirty, and
to be more lifeless with it, and nobody ever noticed much what Lena
wanted, and she never really knew herself what she needed.
The only real trouble that came to Lena with their living all four 128
there together, was the way old Mrs. Kreder scolded. Lena had always
been used to being scolded, but this scolding of old Mrs. Kreder was
very different from the way she ever before had had to endure it.
Herman, now he was married to her, really liked Lena very well. He 129
did not care very much about her but she never was a bother to him
being there around him, only when his mother worried and was nasty
to them because Lena was so careless, and did not know how to save
things right for them with their eating, and all the other ways with
money, that the old woman had to save it,
Herman Kreder had always done everything his mother and his father 130
wanted but he did not really love his parents very deeply. With
Herman it was always only that he hated to have any struggle. It was
all always all right with him when he could just go along and do the
same thing over every day with his working, and not to hear things,
and not to have people make him listen to their anger. And now his
marriage, and he just knew it would, was making trouble for him. It
made him hear more what his mother was always saying, with her
scolding. He had to really hear it now because Lena was there, and
she was so scared and dull always when she heard it. Herman knew
very well with his mother, it was all right if one ate very little
and worked hard all day and did not hear her when she scolded, the
way Herman always had done before they were so foolish about his
getting married and having a girl there to be all the time around
him, and now he had to help her so the girl could learn too, not to
hear it when his mother scolded, and not to look so scared, and not
to eat much, and always to be sure to save it.
Herman really did not know very well what he could do to help Lena 131
to understand it. He could never answer his mother back to help
Lena, that never would make things any better for her, and he never
could feel in himself any way to comfort Lena, to make her strong
not to hear his mother, in all the awful ways she always scolded. It
just worried Herman to have it like that all the time around him.
Herman did not know much about how a man could make a struggle with
a mother, to do much to keep her quiet, and indeed Herman never knew
much how to make a struggle against anyone who really wanted to have
anything very badly. Herman all his life never wanted anything so
badly, that he would really make a struggle against any one to get
it. Herman all his life only wanted to live regular and quiet, and
not talk much and to do the same way every day like every other with
his working. And now his mother had made him get married to this
Lena and now with his mother making all that scolding, he had all
this trouble and this worry always on him.
Mrs. Haydon did not see Lena now very often. She had not lost her 132
interest in her niece Lena, but Lena could not come much to her
house to see her, it would not be right, now Lena was a married
woman. And then too Mrs. Haydon had her hands full just then with
her two daughters, for she was getting them ready to find them good
husbands, and then too her own husband now worried her very often
about her always spoiling that boy of hers, so he would be sure to
turn out no good and be a disgrace to a german family, and all
because his mother always spoiled him. All these things were very
worrying now to Mrs. Haydon, but still she wanted to be good to
Lena, though she could not see her very often. She only saw her when
Mrs. Haydon went to call on Mrs. Kreder or when Mrs. Kreder came to
see Mrs. Haydon, and that never could be very often. Then too these
days Mrs. Haydon could not scold Lena, Mrs. Kreder was always there
with her, and it would not be right to scold Lena when Mrs. Kreder
was there, who had now the real right to do it. And so her aunt
always said nice things now to Lena, and though Mrs. Haydon
sometimes was a little worried when she saw Lena looking sad and not
careful, she did not have time just then to really worry much about
it.
Lena now never any more saw the girls she always used to sit with. 133
She had no way now to see them and it was not in LenaÕs nature to
search out ways to see them, nor did she now ever think much of the
days when she had been used to see them. They never any of them had
come to the Kreder house to see her. Not even Irish Mary had ever
thought to come to see her. Lena had been soon forgotten by them.
They had soon passed away from Lena and now Lena never thought any
more that she had ever known them.
The only one of her old friends who tried to know what Lena liked 134
and what she needed, and who always made Lena come to see her, was
the good german cook who had always scolded. She now scolded Lena
hard for letting herself go so, and going out when she was looking
so untidy. ÒI know you going to have a baby Lena, but thatÕs no way
for you to be looking. I am ashamed most to see you come and sit
here in my kitchen, looking so sloppy and like you never used to
Lena. I never see anybody like you Lena. Herman is very good to you,
you always say so, and he donÕt treat you bad ever though you donÕt
deserve to have anybody good to you, you so careless all the time,
Lena, letting yourself go like you never had anybody tell you what
was the right way you should know how to be looking. No, Lena, I
donÕt see no reason you should let yourself go so and look so untidy
Lena, so I am ashamed to see you sit there looking so ugly, Lena. No
Lena that ainÕt no way ever I see a woman make things come out
better, letting herself go so every way and crying all the time like
as if you had real trouble. I never wanted to see you marry Herman
Kreder, Lena, I knew what you got to stand with that old woman
always, and that old man, he is so stingy too and he donÕt say
things out but he ainÕt any better in his heart than his wife with
her bad ways, I know that Lena, I know they donÕt hardly give you
enough to eat, Lena, I am real sorry for you Lena, you know that
Lena, but that ainÕt any way to be going round so untidy Lena, even
if you have got all that trouble. You never see me do like that
Lena, though sometimes I got a headache so I canÕt see to stand to
be working hardly, and nothing comes right with all my cooking, but
I always see Lena, I look decent. ThatÕs the only way a german girl
can make things come out right Lena. You hear me what I am saying to
you Lena. Now you eat something nice Lena, I got it all ready for
you, and you wash up and be careful Lena and the baby will come all
right to you, and then I make your Aunt Mathilda see that you live
in a house soon all alone with Herman and your baby, and then
everything go better for you. You hear me what I say to you Lena.
Now donÕt let me ever see you come looking like this any more Lena,
and you just stop with that always crying. You ainÕt got no reason
to be sitting there now with all that crying, I never see anybody
have trouble it did them any good to do the way you are doing, Lena.
You hear me Lena. You go home now and you be good the way I tell you
Lena, and I see what I can do. I make your Aunt Mathilda make old
Mrs. Kreder let you be till you get your baby all right. Now donÕt
you be scared and so silly Lena. I donÕt like to see you act so Lena
when really you got a nice man and so many things really any girl
should be grateful to be having. Now you go home Lena to-day and you
do the way I say, to you, and I see what I can do to help you.Ó
ÒYes Mrs. AldrichÓ said the good german woman to her mistress 135
later, ÒYes Mrs. Aldrich thatÕs the way it is with them girls when
they want so to get married. They donÕt know when they got it good
Mrs. Aldrich. They never know what it is theyÕre really wanting when
they got it, Mrs. Aldrich. ThereÕs that poor Lena, she just been
here crying and looking so careless so I scold her, but that was no
good that marrying for that poor Lena, Mrs. Aldrich. She do look so
pale and sad now Mrs. Aldrich, it just break my heart to see her.
She was a good girl was Lena, Mrs. Aldrich, and I never had no
trouble with her like I got with so many young girls nowadays, Mrs.
Aldrich, and I never see any girl any better to work right than our
Lena, and now she got to stand it all the time with that old woman
Mrs. Kreder. My! Mrs. Aldrich, she is a bad old woman to her. I
never see Mrs. Aldrich how old people can be so bad to young girls
and not have no kind of patience with them. If Lena could only live
with her Herman, he ainÕt so bad the way men are, Mrs. Aldrich, but
he is just the way always his mother wants him, he ainÕt got no
spirit in him, and so I donÕt really see no help for that poor Lena.
I know her aunt, Mrs. Haydon, meant it all right for her Mrs.
Aldrich, but poor Lena, it would be better for her it her Herman had
stayed there in New York that time he went away to leave her. I
donÕt like it the way Lena is looking now, Mrs. Aldrich. She looks
like as if she donÕt have no life left in her hardly, Mrs. Aldrich,
she just drags around and looks so dirty and after all the pains I
always took to teach her and to keep her nice in her ways and
looking. It donÕt do no good to them, for them girls to get married
Mrs. Aldrich, they are much better when they only know it, to stay
in a good place when they got it, and keep on regular with their
working. I donÕt like it the way Lena looks now Mrs. Aldrich. I wish
I knew some way to help that poor Lena, Mrs. Aldrich, but she she is
a bad old woman, that old Mrs. Kreder, HermanÕs mother. I speak to
Mrs. Haydon real soon, Mrs. Aldrich, I see what we can do now to
help that poor Lena.Ó
These were really bad days for poor Lena. Herman always was real 136
good to her and now he even sometimes tried to stop his mother from
scolding Lena. ÒShe ainÕt well now mama, you let her be now you hear
me. You tell me what it is you want she should be doing, I tell her.
I see she does it right just the way you want it mama. You let be, I
say now mama, with that always scolding Lena. You let be, I say now,
you wait till she is feeling better.Ó Herman was getting really
strong to struggle, for he could see that Lena with that baby
working hard inside her, really could not stand it any longer with
his mother and the awful ways she always scolded.
It was a new feeling Herman now had inside him that made him feel 137
he was strong to make a struggle. It was new for Herman Kreder
really to be wanting something, but Herman wanted strongly now to be
a father, and he wanted badly that his baby should be a boy and
healthy. Herman never had cared really very much about his father
and his mother, though always, all his life, he had done everything
just as they wanted, and he had never really cared much about his
wife, Lena, though he always had been very good to her, and had
always tried to keep his mother off her, with the awful way she
always scolded, but to be really a father of a little baby, that
feeling took hold of Herman very deeply. He was almost ready, so as
to save his baby from all trouble, to really make a strong struggle
with his mother and with his father, too, if he would not help him
to control his mother.
Sometimes Herman even went to Mrs. Haydon to talk all this trouble 138
over. They decided then together, it was better to wait there all
four together for the baby, and Herman could make Mrs. Kreder stop a
little with her scolding, and then when Lena was a little stronger,
Herman should have his own house for her, next door to his father,
so he could always be there to help him in his working, but so they
could eat and sleep in a house where the old woman could not control
them and they could not hear her awful scolding.
And so things went on, the same way, a little longer. Poor Lena 139
was not feeling any joy to have a baby. She was scared the way she
had been when she was so sick on the water. She was scared now every
time when anything would hurt her. She was scared and still and
lifeless, and sure that every minute she would die. Lena had no
power to be strong in this kind of trouble, she could only sit still
and be scared, and dull, and lifeless, and sure that every minute
she would die.
Before very long, Lena had her baby. He was a good, healthy little 140
boy, the baby. Herman cared very much to have the baby. When Lena
was a little stronger he took a house next door to the old couple,
so he and his own family could eat and sleep and do the way they
wanted. This did not seem to make much change now for Lena. She was
just the same as when she was waiting with her baby. She just
dragged around and was careless with her clothes and all lifeless,
and she acted always and lived on just as if she had no feeling. She
always did everything regular with the work, the way she always had
had to do it, but she never got back any spirit in her. Herman was
always good and kind, and always helped her with her working. He did
everything he knew to help her. He always did all the active new
things in the house and for the baby. Lena did what she had to do
the way she always had been taught it. She always just kept going
now with her working, and she was always careless, and dirty, and a
little dazed, and lifeless. Lena never got any better in herself of
this way of being that she had had ever since she had been married.
Mrs. Haydon never saw any more of her niece, Lena. Mrs. Haydon had 141
now so much trouble with her own house, and her daughters getting
married, and her boy, who was growing up, and who always was getting
so much worse to manage. She knew she had done right by Lena. Herman
Kreder was a good man, she would be glad to get one so good,
sometimes, for her own daughters, and now they had a home to live in
together, separate from the old people, who had made their trouble
for them. Mrs. Haydon felt she had done very well by her niece,
Lena, and she never thought now she needed any more to go and see
her. Lena would do very well now without her aunt to trouble herself
any more about her.
The good german cook who had always scolded, still tried to do her 142
duty like a mother to poor Lena. It was very hard now to do right by
Lena. Lena never seemed to hear now what anyone was saying to her.
Herman was always doing everything he could to help her. Herman
always, when he was home, took good care of the baby. Herman loved
to take care of his baby. Lena never thought to take him out or to
do anything she didnÕt have to.
The good cook sometimes made Lena come to see her. Lena would come 143
with her baby and sit there in the kitchen, and watch the good woman
cooking, and listen to her sometimes a little, the way she used to,
while the good german woman scolded her for going around looking so
careless when now she had no trouble, and sitting there so dull, and
always being just so thankless. Sometimes Lena would wake up a
little and get back into her face her old, gentle, patient, and
unsuffering sweetness, but mostly Lena did not seem to hear much
when the good german woman scolded. Lena always liked it when Mrs.
Aldrich her good mistress spoke to her kindly, and then Lena would
seem to go back and feel herself to be like she was when she had
been in service. But mostly Lena just lived along and was careless
in her clothes, and dull, and lifeless.
By and by Lena had two more little babies. Lena was not so much 144
scared now when she had the babies. She did not seem to notice very
much when they hurt her, and she never seemed to feel very much now
about anything that happended to her.
They were very nice babies, all these three that Lena had, and 145
Herman took good care of them always. Herman never really cared much
about his wife, Lena. The only things Herman ever really cared for
were his babies. Herman always was very good to his children. He
always had a gentle, tender way when he held them. He learned to be
very handy with them. He spent all the time he was not working, with
them. By and by he began to work all day in his own home so that he
could have his children always in the same room with him.
Lena always was more and more lifeless and Herman now mostly never 146
thought about her. He more and more took all the care of their three
children. He saw to their eating right and their washing, and he
dressed them every morning, and he taught them the right way to do
things, and he put them to their sleeping, and he was now always
every minute with them. Then there was to come to them, a fourth
baby. Lena went to the hospital near by to have the baby. Lena
seemed to be going to have much trouble with it. When the baby was
come out at last, it was like its mother lifeless. While it was
coming, Lena had grown very pale and sicker. When it was all over
Lena had died, too, and nobody knew just how it had happened to her.
The good german cook who had always scolded Lena, and had always 147
to the last day tried to help her, was the only one who ever missed
her. She remembered how nice Lena had looked all the time she was in
service with her, and how her voice had been so gentle and
sweet-sounding, and how she always was a good girl, and how she
never had to have any trouble with her, the way she always had with
all the other girls who had been taken into the house to help her.
The good cook sometimes spoke so of Lena when she had time to have a
talk with Mrs. Aldrich, and this was all the remembering there now
ever was of Lena.
Herman Kreder now always lived very happy, very gentle, very 148
quiet, very well content alone with his three children. He never had
a woman any more to be all the time around him. He always did all
his own work in his house, when he was through every day with the
work he was always doing for his father. Herman always was alone,
and he always worked alone, until his little ones were big enough to
help him. Herman Kreder was very well content now and he always
lived very regular and peaceful, and with every day just like the
next one, always alone now with his three good, gentle children.
FINIS