Rose had a hard time to bring her baby to its birth and Melanctha did everything that any woman could.

The baby though it was healthy after it was born did not live long.  Rose Johnson was careless and negligent and selfish and when Melanctha had to leave for a few days the baby died.  Rose Johnson had liked her baby well enough and perhaps she just forgot it for a while, anyway the child was dead and Rose and Sam were very sorry, but then these things came so often in the negro world in Bridgepoint that they neither of them thought about it very long.  When Rose had become strong again she went back to her house with Sam.  And Sam Johnson was always now very gentle and kind and good to Melanctha who had been so good to Rose in her bad trouble.

Melanctha Herbert’s troubles with Jem Richards were never getting any better.  Jem always now had less and less time to be with her.  When Jem was with Melanctha now he was good enough to her.  Jem Richards was worried with his betting.  Never since Jem had first begun to make a living had he ever had so much trouble for such a long time together with his betting.  Jem Richards was good enough now to Melanctha but he had not much strength to give her.  Melanctha could never any more now make him quarrel with her.  Melanctha never now could complain of his treatment of her, for surely, he said it always by his actions to her, surely she must know how a man was when he had trouble on his mind with trying to make things go a little better.

Sometimes Jem and Melanctha had long talks when they neither of them liked very well what the other one was saying, but mostly now Melanctha could not make Jem Richards quarrel with her, and more and more, Melanctha could not find any way to make it right to blame him for the trouble she now always had inside her.  Jem was good to her, and she knew, for he told her, that he had trouble all the time now with his betting.  Melanctha knew very well that for her it was all wrong inside Jem Richards, but Melanctha had now no way that she could really reach him.

Things between Melanctha and Jem Richards were now never getting any better.  Melanctha now more and more needed to be with Rose Johnson.  Rose still liked to have Melanctha come to her house and do things for her, and Rose liked to grumble to her and to scold her and to tell Melanctha what was the way Melanctha always should be doing so she could make things come out better and not always be so much in trouble.  Sam Johnson in these days was always very good and gentle to Melanctha.  Sam was now beginning to be very sorry for her.

Jem Richards never made things any better for Melanctha.  Often Jem would talk so as to make Melanctha almost certain that he never any more wanted to have her.  Then Melanctha would get very blue, and she would say to Rose, sure she would kill herself, for that certainly now was the best way she could do.