and he staid home every
evening, and he began again with his reading, and he did not do much
talking, and he did not seem to himself to have any kind of feeling.

And one day Jeff thought perhaps he really was forgetting, one day he
thought he could soon come back and be happy in his old way of regular
and quiet living.

Jeff Campbell had never talked to any one of what had been going on
inside him. Jeff Campbell liked to talk and he was honest, but it
never came out from him, anything he was ever really feeling, it
only came out from him, what it was that he was always thinking. Jeff
Campbell always was very proud to hide what he was really feeling.
Always he blushed hot to think things he had been feeling. Only to
Melanctha Herbert, had it ever come to him, to tell what it was that
he was feeling.

And so Jeff Campbell went on with this dull and sodden, heavy, quiet
always in him, and he never seemed to be able to have any feeling.
Only sometimes he shivered hot with shame when he remembered some
things he once had been feeling. And then one day it all woke up, and
was sharp in him.

Dr. Campbell was just then staying long times with a sick man who
might soon be dying. One day the sick man was resting. Dr. Campbell
went to the window to look out a little, while he was waiting. It
was very early now in the southern springtime. The trees were just
beginning to get the little zigzag crinkles in them, which the young
buds always give them. The air was soft and moist and pleasant to
them. The earth was wet and rich and smelling for them. The birds were
making sharp fresh noises all around them. The wind was very gentle
and yet urgent to them. And the buds and the long earthworms, and the
negroes, and all the kinds of children, were coming out every minute
farther into the new spring, watery, southern sunshine.

Jeff Campbell too began to feel a little his old joy inside him. The
sodden quiet began to break up in him. He leaned far out of the window
to mix it all up with him. His heart went sharp and then it almost
stopped inside him. Was it Melanctha Herbert he had just seen passing
by him? Was it Melanctha, or was it just some other girl, who made him
feel so bad inside him? Well, it was no matter, Melanctha was there
in the world around him, he did certainly always know that in him.
Melanctha Herbert was always in the same town with him, and he could
never any more feel her near him. What a fool he was to throw her