Three Lives - Gertrude Stein (free reads txt) 📗

the next morning, and then slowly and without much pain she died away. Jeff Campbell stayed till the last moment, with Melanctha, to make her mother’s dying easy for her. When it was over he sent in the colored woman from next door to help Melanctha fix things, and then he went away to take care of his other patients. He came back very soon to Melanctha. He helped her to have a funeral for her mother. Melanctha then went to live with the good natured woman, who had been her neighbor. Melanctha still saw Jeff Campbell very often. Things began to be very strong between them.

Melanctha now never wandered, unless she was with Jeff Campbell. Sometimes she and he wandered a good deal together. Jeff Campbell had not got over his way of talking to her all the time about all the things he was always thinking. Melanctha never talked much, now, when they were together. Sometimes Jeff Campbell teased her about her not talking to him. “I certainly did think Melanctha you was a great talker from the way Jane Harden and everybody said things to me, and from the way I heard you talk so much when I first met you. Tell me true Melanctha, why don’t you talk more now to me, perhaps it is I talk so much I don’t give you any chance to say things to me, or perhaps it is you hear me talk so much you don’t think so much now of a whole lot of talking. Tell me honest Melanctha, why don’t you talk more to me.” “You know very well Jeff Campbell,” said Melanctha. “You certainly do know very well Jeff, you don’t think really much, of my talking. You think a whole lot more about everything than I do Jeff, and you don’t care much what I got to say about it. You know that’s true what I am saying Jeff, if you want to be real honest, the way you always are when I like you so much.” Jeff laughed and looked fondly at her. “I don’t say ever I know, you ain’t right, when you say things like that to me, Melanctha. You see you always like to be talking just what you think everybody wants to be hearing from you, and when you are like that, Melanctha, honest, I certainly don’t care very much to hear you, but sometimes you say something that is what you are really thinking, and then I like a whole lot to hear you talking.” Melanctha smiled, with her strong sweetness, on him, and she felt her power very deeply. “I certainly never do talk very much when I like anybody really, Jeff. You see, Jeff, it ain’t much use to talk about what a woman is really feeling in her. You see all that, Jeff, better, by and by, when you get to really feeling. You won’t be so ready then always with your talking. You see, Jeff, if it don’t come true what I am saying.” “I don’t ever say you ain’t always right, Melanctha,” said Jeff Campbell. “Perhaps what I call my thinking ain’t really so very understanding. I don’t say, no never now any more, you ain’t right, Melanctha, when you really say things to me. Perhaps I see it all to be very different when I come to really see what you mean by what you are always saying to me.” “You is very sweet and good to me always, Jeff Campbell,” said Melanctha. “ ’Deed I certainly am not good to you, Melanctha. Don’t I bother you all the time with my talking, but I really do like you a whole lot, Melanctha.” “And I like you, Jeff Campbell, and you certainly are mother, and father, and brother, and sister, and child and everything, always to me. I can’t say much about how good you been to me, Jeff Campbell, I never knew any man who was good and didn’t do things ugly, before I met you to take care of me, Jeff Campbell. Goodbye, Jeff, come see me tomorrow, when you get through with your working.” “Sure Melanctha, you know that already,” said Jeff Campbell, and then he went away and left her.

These months had been an uncertain time for Jeff Campbell. He never knew how much he really knew about Melanctha. He saw her now for long times and very often. He was beginning always more and more to like her. But he did not seem to himself to know very much about her. He was beginning to feel he could almost trust the goodness in her. But then, always, really, he was not very sure about her. Melanctha always had ways that made him feel uncertain with her, and yet he was so near, in his feeling for her. He now never thought about all this in real words any more. He was always letting it fight itself out in him. He was now never taking any part in this fighting that was always going on inside him.

Jeff always loved now to be with Melanctha and yet he always hated to go to her. Somehow he was always afraid when he was to go to her, and yet he had made himself very certain that here he would not be a coward. He never felt any of this being afraid, when he was with her. Then they always were very true, and near to one another. But always when he was going to her, Jeff would like anything that could happen that would keep him a little longer from her.

It was a very uncertain time, all these months, for Jeff Campbell. He did not know very well what it was that he really wanted. He was very certain that he did not know very well what it was that Melanctha wanted. Jeff Campbell had always all his life loved to be with people, and he had loved all his life always to