e Melanctha, I certainly never say no you ain't right, Melanctha.
I just been telling it to you all straight, Melanctha, the way I
always see it. Perhaps if you run around where you ain't got any
business, and you stand up very straight and say, I am so brave,
nothing can ever ever hurt me, maybe nothing will ever hurt you then
Melanctha. I never have seen it do so. I never can say truly any
differently to you Melanctha, but I always am ready to be learning
from you, Melanctha. And perhaps when somebody cuts into you real
hard, with a brick he is throwing, perhaps you never will do any
hollering then, Melanctha. I certainly don't ever say no, Melanctha,
to you, I only say that ain't the way yet I ever see it happen when I
had a chance to be there looking."

They sat there together, quiet by the fire, and they did not seem to
feel very loving.

"I certainly do wonder," Melanctha said dreamily, at last breaking
into their long unloving silence. "I certainly do wonder why always it
happens to me I care for anybody who ain't no ways good enough for me
ever to be thinking to respect him."

Jeff looked at Melanctha. Jeff got up then and walked a little up and
down the room, and then he came back, and his face was set and dark
and he was very quiet to her.

"Oh dear, Jeff, sure, why you look so solemn now to me. Sure Jeff I
never am meaning anything real by what I just been saying. What was I
just been saying Jeff to you. I only certainly was just thinking how
everything always was just happening to me."

Jeff Campbell sat very still and dark, and made no answer.

"Seems to me, Jeff you might be good to me a little to-night when my
head hurts so, and I am so tired with all the hard work I have been
doing, thinking, and I always got so many things to be a trouble to
me, living like I do with nobody ever who can help me. Seems to me
you might be good to me Jeff to-night, and not get angry, every little
thing I am ever saying to you."

"I certainly would not get angry ever with you, Melanctha, just
because you say things to me. But now I certainly been thinking you
really mean what you have been just then saying to me." "But you say
all the time to me Jeff, you ain't no ways good enough in your loving
to me, you certainly say to me all the time you ain't no ways good
or understanding to me." "That certainly is what I say to you always,
just the way I feel it to you Melanctha always, and I got it right in
me to say it, an