such friends.

Melanctha Herbert was a graceful, pale yellow, intelligent, attractive
negress. She had not been raised like Rose by white folks but then she
had been half made with real white blood.

She and Rose Johnson were both of the better sort of negroes, there,
in Bridgepoint.

"No, I ain't no common nigger," said Rose Johnson, "for I was raised
by white folks, and Melanctha she is so bright and learned so much
in school, she ain't no common nigger either, though she ain't got no
husband to be married to like I am to Sam Johnson."

Why did the subtle, intelligent, attractive, half white girl Melanctha
Herbert love and do for and demean herself in service to this coarse,
decent, sullen, ordinary, black childish Rose, and why was this
unmoral, promiscuous, shiftless Rose married, and that's not so common
either, to a good man of the negroes, while Melanctha with her white
blood and attraction and her desire for a right position had not yet
been really married.

Sometimes the thought of how all her world was made, filled the
complex, desiring Melanctha with despair. She wondered, often, how she
could go on living when she was so blue.

Melanctha told Rose one day how a woman whom she knew had killed
herself because she was so blue. Melanctha said, sometimes, she
thought this was the best thing for her herself to do.

Rose Johnson did not see it the least bit that way.

"I don't see Melanctha why you should talk like you would kill
yourself just because you're blue. I'd never kill myself Melanctha
just 'cause I was blue. I'd maybe kill somebody else Melanctha
'cause I was blue, but I'd never kill myself. If I ever killed myself
Melanctha it'd be by accident, and if I ever killed myself by accident
Melanctha, I'd be awful sorry."

Rose Johnson and Melanctha Herbert had first met, one night, at
church. Rose Johnson did not care much for religion. She had not
enough emotion to be really roused by a revival. Melanctha Herbert had
not come yet to know how to use religion. She was still too complex
with desire. However, the two of them in negro fashion went very often
to the negro church, along with all their friends, and they slowly
came to know each other very well.

Rose Johnson had been raised not as a servant but quite like their own
child by white folks. Her mother who had died when Rose was still
a baby, had been a trusted servant in the family. Rose was a cute,
attractive, good looking little black gi