Page:Nigger Heaven (1926).pdf/69

 —the dimensions of the largest chamber were about twelve by eight feet—and she had danced until two. Nearly everybody danced every night: why? Mary asked herself. Is it that we want to forget? She was reminded of a Negro story called Melanctha, in Gertrude Stein's Three Lives. A white assistant in the library had brought this book to her to read and she had been recommending it ever since, but it seemed that no other copies were available. She recalled now a passage from this story which she had committed to memory. Dr. Campbell was speaking to Melanctha: It ain't very easy for you to understand what I was meaning by what I was just saying to you, and perhaps some of the good people I like so wouldn't think very much, any more than you do, Miss Melanctha, about the ways I have to be good. But that's no matter Miss Melanctha. What I mean Miss Melanctha by what I was just saying to you is, that I don't, no, never, believe in doing things just to get excited. You see Miss Melanctha I mean the way so many of the coloured people do it. Instead of just working hard and caring about their working and living regular with their families and saving up all their money, so they will have some to bring their children up better, instead of living regular and doing like that and getting all their new ways from just decent living, the coloured people just keep running around and perhaps drinking and doing everything bad they can ever think of, and not just because they like all