henever Sam had anything to say to her. Melanctha liked Sam Johnson,
and all her life Melanctha loved and wanted good and kind and
considerate people, and always Melanctha loved and wanted people to be
gentle to her, and always she wanted to be regular, and to have peace
and quiet in her, and always Melanctha could only find new ways to be
in trouble. And Melanctha needed badly to have Rose, to believe her,
and to let her cling to her. Rose was the only steady thing Melanctha
had to cling to and so Melanctha demeaned herself to be like a
servant, to wait on, and always to be scolded, by this ordinary,
sullen, black, stupid, childish woman.

Rose was always telling Sam he must be good to poor Melanctha. "You
know Sam," Rose said very often to him, "You certainly had ought to be
very good to poor Melanctha, she always do have so much trouble with
her. You know Sam how I told you she had such a bad time always with
that father, and he was awful mean to her always that awful black man,
and he never took no kind of care ever to her, and he never helped her
when her mother died so hard, that poor Melanctha. Melanctha's ma you
know Sam, always was just real religious. One day Melanctha was real
little, and she heard her ma say to her pa, it was awful sad to her,
Melanctha had not been the one the Lord had took from them stead of
the little brother who was dead in the house there from fever. That
hurt Melanctha awful when she heard her ma say it. She never could
feel it right, and I don't no ways blame Melanctha, Sam, for not
feeling better to her ma always after, though Melanctha, just like
always she is, always was real good to her ma after, when she was so
sick, and died so hard, and nobody never to help Melanctha do it, and
she just all alone to do everything without no help come to her no
way, and that ugly awful black man she have for a father never all the
time come near her. But that's always the way Melanctha is just doing
Sam, the way I been telling to you. She always is being just so good
to everybody and nobody ever there to thank her for it. I never did
see nobody ever Sam, have such bad luck, seems to me always with them,
like that poor Melanctha always has it, and she always so good with
it, and never no murmur in her, and never no complaining from her, and
just never saying nothing with it. You be real good to her Sam, now
you hear me, now you and me is married right together. He certainly
was an awful black man