bell. "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 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 whispered
to him fondly.

"Oh yes," said Jeff, very dreary. "I never could keep really mad 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