ha and her bad ways, had been a true story, and yet
he wanted very badly to be with Melanctha. Perhaps she could teach
him to really understand it better. Perhaps she could teach him how it
could be all true, and yet how he could be right to believe in her and
to trust her.

Jeff sat down and began his answer to her. "Dear Melanctha," Jeff
wrote to her. "I certainly don't think you got it all just right in
the letter, I just been reading, that you just wrote me. I certainly
don't think you are just fair or very understanding to all I have
to suffer to keep straight on to really always to believe in you and
trust you. I certainly don't think you always are fair to remember
right how hard it is for a man, who thinks like I was always thinking,
not to think you do things very bad very often. I certainly don't
think, Melanctha, I ain't right when I was so angry when I got your
letter to me. I know very well, Melanctha, that with you, I never have
been a coward. I find it very hard, and I never said it any different,
it is hard to me to be understanding, and to know really what it is
you wanted, and what it is you are meaning by what you are always
saying to me. I don't say ever, it ain't very hard for you to be
standing that I ain't very quick to be following whichever way that
you are always leading. You know very well, Melanctha, it hurts me
very bad and way inside me when I have to hurt you, but I always got
to be real honest with you. There ain't no other way for me to be,
with you, and I know very well it hurts me too, a whole lot, when
I can't follow so quick as you would have me. I don't like to be a
coward to you, Melanctha, and I don't like to say what I ain't meaning
to you. And if you don't want me to do things honest, Melanctha, why
I can't ever talk to you, and you are right when you say, you never
again want to see me, but if you got any real sense of what I always
been feeling with you, and if you got any right sense, Melanctha, of
how hard I been trying to think and to feel right for you, I will be
very glad to come and see you, and to begin again with you. I don't
say anything now, Melanctha, about how bad I been this week, since
I saw you, Melanctha. It don't ever do any good to talk such things
over. All I know is I do my best, Melanctha, to you, and I don't say,
no, never, I can do any different than just to be honest and come as
fast as I think it's right for me to be going in the ways you teach
me to