Melanctha loved to see these dark and smelly places. She always loved
to watch and talk and listen with men who worked hard. But it was
never from these rougher people that Melanctha tried to learn the ways
that lead to wisdom. In the daylight she always liked to talk with
rough men and to listen to their lives and about their work and their
various ways of doing, but when the darkness covered everything all
over, Melanctha would meet, and stand, and talk with a clerk or a
young shipping agent who had seen her watching, and so it was that she
would try to learn to understand.
And then Melanctha was fond of watching men work on new buildings. She
loved to see them hoisting, digging, sawing and stone cutting. Here,
too, in the daylight, she always learned to know the common workmen.
"Heh, Sis, look out or that rock will fall on you and smash you all
up into little pieces. Do you think you would make a nice jelly?" And
then they would all laugh and feel that their jokes were very funny.
And "Say, you pretty yaller girl, would it scare you bad to stand up
here on top where I be? See if you've got grit and come up here where
I can hold you. All you got to do is to sit still on that there rock
that they're just hoistin', and then when you get here I'll hold you
tight, don't you be scared Sis."
Sometimes Melanctha would do some of these things that had much
danger, and always with such men, she showed her power and her break
neck courage.
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