“I sure am a good boy to be learning all the time the right way you are teaching me, Melanctha, darling,” began Jeff Campbell, laughing, “You can’t say no, never, I ain’t a good scholar for you to be teaching now, Melanctha, and I am always so ready to come to you every day, and never playing hooky ever from you.  You can’t say ever, Melanctha, now can you, I ain’t a real good boy to be always studying to be learning to be real bright, just like my teacher.  You can’t say ever to me, I ain’t a good boy to you now, Melanctha.”  “Not near so good, Jeff Campbell, as such a good, patient kind of teacher, like me, who never teaches any ways it ain’t good her scholars should be knowing, ought to be really having, Jeff, you hear me?  I certainly don’t think I am right for you, to be forgiving always, when you are so bad, and I so patient, with all this hard teaching always.”  “But you do forgive me always, sure, Melanctha, always?” “Always and always, you be sure Jeff, and I certainly am afraid I never can stop with my forgiving, you always are going to be so bad to me, and I always going to have to be so good with my forgiving.”  “Oh!  Oh!” cried Jeff Campbell, laughing, “I ain’t going to be so bad for always, sure I ain’t, Melanctha, my own darling.  And sure you do forgive me really, and sure you love me true and really, sure, Melanctha?” “Sure, sure, Jeff, boy, sure now and always, sure now you believe me, sure you do, Jeff, always.”  “I sure hope I does, with all my heart, Melanctha, darling.”  “I sure do that same, Jeff, dear boy, now you really know what it is to be loving, and I prove it to you now so, Jeff, you never can be forgetting.  You see now, Jeff, good and certain, what I always before been saying to you, Jeff, now.”  “Yes, Melanctha, darling,” murmured Jeff, and he was very happy in it, and so the two of them now in the warm air of the sultry, southern, negro sunshine, lay there for a long time just resting.

And now for a real long time there was no open trouble any more between Jeff Campbell and Melanctha Herbert.  Then it came that Jeff knew he could not say out any more, what it was he wanted, he could not say out any more, what it was, he wanted to know about, what Melanctha wanted.

Melanctha sometimes now, when she was tired with being all the time so much excited, when Jeff would talk a long time to her about what was right for them both to be always doing, would be, as if she gave way in her head, and lost herself in a bad feeling.  Sometimes when they had been strong in their loving, and Jeff would have rise inside him some strange feeling, and Melanctha felt it in him as it would soon be coming, she would lose herself then in this bad feeling that made her head act as if she never knew what it was they were doing.  And slowly now, Jeff soon always came to be feeling that his Melanctha would be hurt very much in her head in the ways he never liked to think of, if she would ever now again have to listen to his trouble, when he was telling about what it was he still was wanting to make things for himself really understanding.