always was trying not to let Melanctha
feel it, with him, but it was always there inside him. Now Jeff
Campbell always was serious, and dark, and heavy, and sullen, and he
would often sit a long time with Melanctha without moving.

"You certainly never have forgiven to me, what I said to you that
night, Jeff, now have you?" Melanctha asked him after a long silence,
late one evening with him. "It ain't ever with me a question like
forgiving, Melanctha, I got in me. It's just only what you are feeling
for me, makes any difference to me. I ain't ever seen anything since
in you, makes me think you didn't mean it right, what you said about
not thinking now any more I was good, to make it right for you to be
really caring so very much to love me."

"I certainly never did see no man like you, Jeff. You always wanting
to have it all clear out in words always, what everybody is always
feeling. I certainly don't see a reason, why I should always be
explaining to you what I mean by what I am just saying. And you ain't
got no feeling ever for me, to ask me what I meant, by what I was
saying when I was so tired, that night. I never know anything right I
was saying." "But you don't ever tell me now, Melanctha, so I really
hear you say it, you don't mean it the same way, the way you said it
to me." "Oh Jeff, you so stupid always to me and always just bothering
with your always asking to me. And I don't never any way remember ever
anything I been saying to you, and I am always my head, so it hurts
me it half kills me, and my heart jumps so, sometimes I think I die
so when it hurts me, and I am so blue always, I think sometimes I take
something to just kill me, and I got so much to bother thinking always
and doing, and I got so much to worry, and all that, and then you come
and ask me what I mean by what I was just saying to you. I certainly
don't know, Jeff, when you ask me. Seems to me, Jeff, sometimes you
might have some kind of a right feeling to be careful to me." "You
ain't got no right Melanctha Herbert," flashed out Jeff through his
dark, frowning anger, "you certainly ain't got no right always to be
using your being hurt and being sick, and having pain, like a weapon,
so as to make me do things it ain't never right for me to be doing for
you. You certainly ain't got no right to be always holding your pain
out to show me." "What do you mean by them words, Jeff Campbell." "I
certainly do mean them just like I am saying them, Me