Three Lives: Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle LenaStein, Gertrude
General
Three Lives: Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena
Stein, Gertrude
Working class women -- Fiction
Jeff Campbell heard all this very often, but it did not interest him
very deeply. He felt no desire to know more of this Melanctha. He
heard her, once, talking to another girl outside of the house, when
he was paying a visit to Jane Harden. He did not see much in the talk
that he heard her do. He did not see much in the things Jane Harden
said when she abused Melanctha to him. He was more interested in Jane
herself than in anything he heard about Melanctha. He knew Jane Harden
had a good mind, and she had had power, and she could really have
done things, and now this drinking covered everything all over. Jeff
Campbell was always very sorry when he had to see it. Jane Harden was
a roughened woman, and yet Jeff found a great many strong good things
in her, that still made him like her.
Jeff Campbell did everything he could for Jane Harden. He did not care
much to hear about Melanctha. He had no feeling, much, about her. He
did not find that he took any interest in her. Jane Harden was so much
a stronger woman, and Jane really had had a good mind, and she had
used it to do things with it, before this drinking business had taken
such a hold upon her.
Dr. Campbell was helping Melanctha Herbert to take care of her sick
mother. He saw Melanctha now for long times and very often, and
they sometimes talked a good deal together, but Melanctha never said
anything to him about Jane Harden. She never talked to him about
anything that was not just general matters, or about medicine, or
to tell him funny stories. She asked him many questions and always
listened very well to all he told her, and she always remembered
everything she heard him say about doctoring, and she always
remembered everything that she had learned from all the others.
Jeff Campbell never found that all this talk interested him very
deeply. He did not find that he liked Melanctha when he saw her so
much, any better. He never found that he thought much about Melanctha.
He never found that he believed much in her having a good mind, like
Jane Harden. He found he liked Jane Harden always better, and that he
wished very much that she had never begun that bad drinking.
Melanctha Herbert's mother was now always getting sicker. Melanctha
really did everything that any woman could. Melanctha's mother never
liked her daughter any better. She never said much, did 'Mis' Herbert,
but anybody could see that she did not think much of this daughter.
Dr. Campbell now often had to stay a long time to take care of 'Mis'
Herbert. One day 'Mis' Herbert was much sicker and Dr. Campbell
thought that this night, she would surely die. He came back late to
the house, as he had said he would, to sit up and watch 'Mis' Herbert,
and to help Melanctha, if she should need anybody to be with her.
Melanctha Herbert and Jeff Campbell sat up all that night together.
'Mis' Herbert did not die. The next day she was a little better.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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