Rose never liked the way Melanctha did it.  “No Sam I don’t say never Melanctha ain’t engaged to Jem Richards the way she always says it, and Jem he is all right for that kind of man he is, though he do think himself so smart and like he owns the earth and everything he can get with it, and he sure gave Melanctha a ring like he really meant he should be married right soon with it, only Sam, I don’t ever like it the way Melanctha is going.  When she is engaged to him Sam, she ain’t not right to take on so excited.  That ain’t no decent kind of a way a girl ever should be acting.  There ain’t no kind of a man going stand that, not like I knows men Sam, and I sure does know them.  I knows them white and I knows them colored, for I was raised by white folks, and they don’t none of them like a girl to act so.  That’s all right to be so when you is just only loving, but it ain’t no ways right to be acting so when you is engaged to him, and when he says, all right he get really regularly married to you.  You see Sam I am right like I am always and I knows it.  Jem Richards, he ain’t going to the last to get real married, not if I knows it right, the way Melanctha now is acting to him.  Rings or anything ain’t nothing to them, and they don’t never do no good for them, when a girl acts foolish like Melanctha always now is acting.  I certainly will be right sorry Sam, if Melanctha has real bad trouble come now to her, but I certainly don’t no ways like it Sam the kind of way Melanctha is acting to him.  I don’t never say nothing to her Sam.  I just listens to what she is saying always, and I thinks it out like I am telling to you Sam but I don’t never say nothing no more now to Melanctha.  Melanctha didn’t say nothing to me about that Jem Richards till she was all like finished with him, and I never did like it Sam, much, the way she was acting, not coming here never when she first ran with those men and met him.  And I didn’t never say nothing to her, Sam, about it, and it ain’t nothing ever to me, only I don’t never no more want to say nothing to her, so I just listens to what she got to tell like she wants it.  No Sam, I don’t never want to say nothing to her.  Melanctha just got to go her own way, not as I want to see her have bad trouble ever come hard to her, only it ain’t in me never Sam, after Melanctha did so, ever to say nothing more to her how she should be acting.  You just see Sam like I tell you, what way Jem Richards will act to her, you see Sam I just am right like I always am when I knows it.”

Melanctha Herbert never thought she could ever again be in trouble.  Melanctha’s joy had made her foolish.

And now Jem Richards had some bad trouble with his betting.  Melanctha sometimes felt now when she was with him that there was something wrong inside him.  Melanctha knew he had had trouble with his betting but Melanctha never felt that that could make any difference to them.