Now for a little time there was not any kind of trouble between Jeff Campbell and Melanctha Herbert.  They were always together now for long times, and very often.  They got much joy now, both of them, from being all the time together.

It was summer now, and they had warm sunshine to wander.  It was summer now, and Jeff Campbell had more time to wander, for colored people never get sick so much in the summer.  It was summer now, and there was a lovely silence everywhere, and all the noises, too, that they heard around them were lovely ones, and added to the joy, in these warm days, they loved so much to be together.

They talked some to each other in these days, did Jeff Campbell and Melanctha Herbert, but always in these days their talking more and more was like it always is with real lovers.  Jeff did not talk so much now about what he before always had been thinking.  Sometimes Jeff would be, as if he was just waking from himself to be with Melanctha, and then he would find he had been really all the long time with her, and he had really never needed to be doing any thinking.

It was sometimes pure joy Jeff would be talking to Melanctha, in these warm days he loved so much to wander with her.  Sometimes Jeff would lose all himself in a strong feeling.  Very often now, and always with more joy in his feeling, he would find himself, he did not know how or what it was he had been thinking.  And Melanctha always loved very well to make him feel it.  She always now laughed a little at him, and went back a little in him to his before, always thinking, and she teased him with his always now being so good with her in his feeling, and then she would so well and freely, and with her pure, strong ways of reaching, she would give him all the love she knew now very well, how much he always wanted to be sure he really had it.

And Jeff took it straight now, and he loved it, and he felt, strong, the joy of all this being, and it swelled out full inside him, and he poured it all out back to her in freedom, in tender kindness, and in joy, and in gentle brother fondling.  And Melanctha loved him for it always, her Jeff Campbell now, who never did things ugly, for her, like all the men she always knew before always had been doing to her.  And they loved it always, more and more, together, with this new feeling they had now, in these long summer days so warm; they, always together now, just these two so dear, more and more to each other always, and the summer evenings when they wandered, and the noises in the full streets, and the music of the organs, and the dancing, and the warm smell of the people, and of dogs and of the horses, and all the joy of the strong, sweet pungent, dirty, moist, warm negro southern summer.

Every day now, Jeff seemed to be coming nearer, to be really loving.  Every day now, Melanctha poured it all out to him, with more freedom.  Every day now, they seemed to be having more and more, both together, of this strong, right feeling.  More and more every day now they seemed to know more really, what it was each other one was always feeling.  More and more now every day Jeff found in himself, he felt more trusting.  More and more every day now, he did not think anything in words about what he was always doing.  Every day now more and more Melanctha would let out to Jeff her real, strong feeling.