around him. Jeff had behaved right and he had
learned to have a real love in him. That was very good to have inside
him.

Jeff Campbell never could forget the sweetness in Melanctha Herbert,
and he was always very friendly to her, but they never any more came
close to one another. More and more Jeff Campbell and Melanctha fell
away from all knowing of each other, but Jeff never could forget
Melanctha. Jeff never could forget the real sweetness she had in her,
but Jeff never any more had the sense of a real religion for her. Jeff
always had strong in him the meaning of all the new kind of beauty
Melanctha Herbert once had shown him, and always more and more it
helped him with his working for himself and for all the colored
people.

Melanctha Herbert, now that she was all through with Jeff Campbell,
was free to be with Rose and the new men she met now.

Rose was always now with Melanctha Herbert. Rose never found any way
to get excited. Rose always was telling Melanctha Herbert the right
way she should do, so that she would not always be in trouble. But
Melanctha Herbert could not help it, always she would find new ways to
get excited.

Melanctha was all ready now to find new ways to be in trouble. And
yet Melanctha Herbert never wanted not to do right. Always Melanctha
Herbert wanted peace and quiet, and always she could only find new
ways to get excited.

"Melanctha," Rose would say to her, "Melanctha, I certainly have got
to tell you, you ain't right to act so with that kind of feller. You
better just had stick to black men now, Melanctha, you hear me what I
tell you, just the way you always see me do it. They're real bad men,
now I tell you Melanctha true, and you better had hear to me. I been
raised by real nice kind of white folks, Melanctha, and I certainly
knows awful well, soon as ever I can see 'em acting, what is a white
man will act decent to you and the kind it ain't never no good to a
colored girl to ever go with. Now you know real Melanctha how I always
mean right good to you, and you ain't got no way like me Melanctha,
what was raised by white folks, to know right what is the way you
should be acting with men. I don't never want to see you have bad
trouble come hard to you now Melanctha, and so you just hear to me
now Melanctha, what I tell you, for I knows it. I don't say never
certainly to you Melanctha, you never had ought to have nothing to
do ever with no white men, though it ain't never to me