t worse
every minute in him.

One night Jeff Campbell was lying in his bed with his thinking, and
night after night now he could not do any sleeping for his thinking.
Tonight 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 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