第 六 章 · The father of this unfortunate family, William Gerhardt, was a man

of considerable interest on his personal side. Born in the kingdom of

Saxony, he had had character enough to oppose the army conscription

iniquity, and to flee, in his eighteenth year, to Paris. From there he

had set forth for America, the land of promise.

Arrived in this country, he had made his way, by slow stages, from

New York to Philadelphia, and thence westward, working for a time in

the various glass factories in Pennsylvania. In one romantic village

of this new world he had found his heart's ideal. With her, a simple

American girl of German extraction, he had removed to Youngstown, and

thence to Columbus, each time following a glass manufacturer by the

name of Hammond, whose business prospered and waned by turns.

Gerhardt was an honest man, and he liked to think that others

appreciated his integrity. "William," his employer used to say to him,

"I want you because I can trust you," and this, to him, was more than

silver and gold.

This honesty, like his religious convictions, was wholly due to

inheritance. He had never reasoned about it. Father and grandfather

before him were sturdy German artisans, who had never cheated anybody

out of a dollar, and this honesty of intention came into his veins

undiminished.

His Lutheran proclivities had been strengthened by years of

church-going and the religious observances of home life, In his

father's cottage the influence of the Lutheran minister had been

all-powerful; he had inherited the feeling that the Lutheran Church

was a perfect institution, and that its teachings were of

all-importance when it came to the issue of the future life. His wife,

nominally of the Mennonite faith, was quite willing to accept her

husband's creed. And so his household became a God-fearing one;

wherever they went their first public step was to ally themselves with

the local Lutheran church, and the minister was always a welcome guest

in the Gerhardt home.

Pastor Wundt, the shepherd of the Columbus church, was a sincere

and ardent Christian, but his bigotry and hard-and-fast orthodoxy made

him intolerant. He considered that the members of his flock were

jeopardizing their eternal salvation if they danced, played cards, or

went to theaters, and he did not hesitate to declare vociferously that

hell was yawning for those who disobeyed his injunctions. Drinking,

even temperately, was a sin. Smoking--well, he smoked himself.

Right conduct in marriage, however, and innocence before that state

were absolute essentials of Christian living. Let no one talk of

salvation, he had said, for a daughter who had failed to keep her

chastity unstained, or for the parents who, by negligence, had

permitted her to fall. Hell was yawning for all such. You must walk

the straight and narrow way if you would escape eternal punishment,

and a just God was angry with sinners every day.

Gerhardt and his wife, and also Jennie, accepted the doctrines of

their Church as expounded by Mr. Wundt without reserve. With Jennie,

however, the assent was little more than nominal. Religion had as yet

no striking hold upon her. It was a pleasant thing to know that there

was a heaven, a fearsome one to realize that there was a hell. Young

girls and boys ought to be good and obey their parents. Otherwise the

whole religious problem was badly jumbled in her mind.

Gerhardt was convinced that everything spoken from the pulpit of

his church was literally true. Death and the future life were

realities to him.

Now that the years were slipping away and the problem of the world

was becoming more and more inexplicable, he clung with pathetic

anxiety to the doctrines which contained a solution. Oh, if he could

only be so honest and upright that the Lord might have no excuse for

ruling him out. He trembled not only for himself, but for his wife and

children. Would he not some day be held responsible for them? Would

not his own laxity and lack of system in inculcating the laws of

eternal life to them end in his and their damnation? He pictured to

himself the torments of hell, and wondered how it would be with him

and his in the final hour.

Naturally, such a deep religious feeling made him stern with his

children. He was prone to scan with a narrow eye the pleasures and

foibles of youthful desire. Jennie was never to have a lover if her

father had any voice in the matter. Any flirtation with the youths she

might meet upon the streets of Columbus could have no continuation in

her home. Gerhardt forgot that he was once young himself, and looked

only to the welfare of her spirit. So the Senator was a novel factor

in her life.

When he first began to be a part of their family affairs the

conventional standards of Father Gerhardt proved untrustworthy. He had

no means of judging such a character. This was no ordinary person

coquetting with his pretty daughter. The manner in which the Senator

entered the family life was so original and so plausible that he

became an active part before any one thought anything about it.

Gerhardt himself was deceived, and, expecting nothing but honor and

profit to flow to the family from such a source, accepted the interest

and the service, and plodded peacefully on. His wife did not tell him

of the many presents which had come before and since the wonderful

Christmas.

But one morning as Gerhardt was coming home from his night work a

neighbor named Otto Weaver accosted him.

"Gerhardt," he said, "I want to speak a word with you. As a friend

of yours, I want to tell you what I hear. The neighbors, you know,

they talk now about the man who comes to see your daughter."

"My daughter?" said Gerhardt, more puzzled and pained by this

abrupt attack than mere words could indicate. "Whom do you mean? I

don't know of any one who comes to see my daughter."

"No?" inquired Weaver, nearly as much astonished as the recipient

of his confidences. "The middle-aged man, with gray hair. He carries a

cane sometimes. You don't know him?"

Gerhardt racked his memory with a puzzled face.

"They say he was a senator once," went on Weaver, doubtful of what

he had got into; "I don't know."

"Ah," returned Gerhardt, measurably relieved. "Senator Brander.

Yes. He has come sometimes--so. Well, what of it?"

"It is nothing," returned the neighbor, "only they talk. He is no

longer a young man, you know. Your daughter, she goes out with him now

a few times. These people, they see that, and now they talk about her.

I thought you might want to know."

Gerhardt was shocked to the depths of his being by these terrible

words. People must have a reason for saying such things. Jennie and

her mother were seriously at fault. Still he did not hesitate to

defend his daughter.

"He is a friend of the family," he said confusedly. "People should

not talk until they know. My daughter has done nothing."

"That is so. It is nothing," continued Weaver. "People talk before

they have any grounds. You and I are old friends. I thought you might

want to know."

Gerhardt stood there motionless another minute or so t his jaw

fallen and a strange helplessness upon him. The world was such a grim

thing to have antagonistic to you. Its opinions and good favor were so

essential. How hard he had tried to live up to its rules! Why should

it not be satisfied and let him alone?

"I am glad you told me," he murmured as he started homeward. "I

will see about it. Good-by."

Gerhardt took the first opportunity to question his wife.

"What is this about Senator Brander coming out to call on Jennie?"

he asked in German. "The neighbors are talking about it."

"Why, nothing," answered Mrs. Gerhardt, in the same language. She

was decidedly taken aback at his question. "He did call two or three

times."

"You didn't tell me that," he returned, a sense of her frailty in

tolerating and shielding such weakness in one of their children

irritating him.

"No," she replied, absolutely nonplussed. "He has only been here

two or three times."

"Two or three times!" exclaimed Gerhardt, the German tendency to

talk loud coming upon him. "Two or three times! The whole neighborhood

talks about it. What is this, then?"

"He only called two or three times," Mrs. Gerhardt repeated

weakly.

"Weaver comes to me on the street," continued Gerhardt, "and tells

me that my neighbors are talking of the man my daughter is going with.

I didn't know anything about it. There I stood. I didn't know what to

say. What kind of a way is that? What must the man think of me?"

"There is nothing the matter," declared the mother, using an

effective German idiom. "Jennie has gone walking with him once or

twice. He has called here at the house. What is there now in that for

the people to talk about? Can't the girl have any pleasure at

all?"

"But he is an old man," returned Gerhardt, voicing the words of

Weaver. "He is a public citizen. What should he want to call on a girl

like Jennie for?"

"I don't know," said Mrs. Gerhardt, defensively. "He comes here to

the house. I don't know anything but good about the man. Can I tell

him not to come?"

Gerhardt paused at this. All that he knew of the Senator was

excellent. What was there now that was so terrible about it?

"The neighbors are so ready to talk. They haven't got anything else

to talk about now, so they talk about Jennie. You know whether she is

a good girl or not. Why should they say such things?" and tears came

into the soft little mother's eyes.

"That is all right," grumbled Gerhardt, "but he ought not to want

to come around and take a girl of her age out walking. It looks bad,

even if he don't mean any harm."

At this moment Jennie came in. She had heard the talking in the

front bedroom, where she slept with one of the children, but had not

suspected its import. Now her mother turned her back and bent over the

table where she was making biscuit, in order that her daughter might

not see her red eyes.

"What's the matter?" she inquired, vaguely troubled by the tense

stillness in the attitude of both her parents.

"Nothing," said Gerhardt firmly.

Mrs. Gerhardt made no sign, but her very immobility told something.

Jennie went over to her and quickly discovered that she had been

weeping.

"What's the matter?" she repeated wonderingly, gazing at her

father.

Gerhardt only stood there, his daughter's innocence dominating his

terror of evil.

"What's the matter?" she urged softly of her mother.

"Oh, it's the neighbors," returned the mother brokenly.

"They're always ready to talk about something they don't know

anything about."

"Is it me again?" inquired Jennie, her face flushing faintly.

"You see," observed Gerhardt, apparently addressing the world in

general, "she knows. Now, why didn't you tell me that he was coming

here? The neighbors talk, and I hear nothing about it until to-day.

What kind of a way is that, anyhow?"

"Oh," exclaimed Jennie, out of the purest sympathy for her mother,

"what difference does it make?"

"What difference?" cried Gerhardt, still talking in German,

although Jennie answered in English. "Is it no difference that men

stop me on the street and speak of it? You should be ashamed of

yourself to say that. I always thought well of this man, but now,

since you don't tell me about him, and the neighbors talk, I don't

know what to think. Must I get my knowledge of what is going on in my

own home from my neighbors?"

Mother and daughter paused. Jennie had already begun to think that

their error was serious.

"I didn't keep anything from you because it was evil," she said.

"Why, he only took me out riding once."

"Yes, but you didn't tell me that," answered her father.

"You know you don't like for me to go out after dark," replied

Jennie. "That's why I didn't. There wasn't anything else to hide about

it."

"He shouldn't want you to go out after dark with him," observed

Gerhardt, always mindful of the world outside. "What can he want with

you. Why does he come here? He is too old, anyhow. I don't think you

ought to have anything to do with him--such a young girl as you

are."

"He doesn't want to do anything except help me," murmured Jennie.

"He wants to marry me."

"Marry you? Ha! Why doesn't he tell me that!" exclaimed Gerhardt.

"I shall look into this. I won't have him running around with my

daughter, and the neighbors talking. Besides, he is too old. I shall

tell him that. He ought to know better than to put a girl where she

gets talked about. It is better he should stay away altogether."

This threat of Gerhardt's, that he would tell Brander to stay away,

seemed simply terrible to Jennie and to her mother. What good could

come of any such attitude? Why must they be degraded before him? Of

course Brander did call again, while Gerhardt was away at work, and

they trembled lest the father should hear of it. A few days later the

Senator came and took Jennie for a long walk. Neither she nor her

mother said anything to Gerhardt. But he was not to be put off the

scent for long.

"Has Jennie been out again with that man?" he inquired of Mrs.

Gerhardt the next evening.

"He was here last night," returned the mother, evasively.

"Did she tell him he shouldn't come any more?"

"I don't know. I don't think so."

"Well, now, I will see for myself once whether this thing will be

stopped or not," said the determined father. "I shall talk with him.

Wait till he comes again."

In accordance with this, he took occasion to come up from his

factory on three different evenings, each time carefully surveying the

house, in order to discover whether any visitor was being entertained.

On the fourth evening Brander came, and inquiring for Jennie, who was

exceedingly nervous, he took her out for a walk. She was afraid of her

father, lest some unseemly things should happen, but did not know

exactly what to do.

Gerhardt, who was on his way to the house at the time, observed her

departure. That was enough for him. Walking deliberately in upon his

wife, he said:

"Where is Jennie?"

"She is out somewhere," said her mother.

"Yes, I know where," said Gerhardt. "I saw her. Now wait till she

comes home. I will tell him."

He sat down calmly, reading a German paper and keeping an eye upon

his wife, until, at last, the gate clicked, and the front door opened.

Then he got up.

"Where have you been?" he exclaimed in German.

Brander, who had not suspected that any trouble of this character

was pending, felt irritated and uncomfortable. Jennie was covered with

confusion. Her mother was suffering an agony of torment in the

kitchen.

"Why, I have been out for a walk," she answered confusedly.

"Didn't I tell you not to go out any more after dark?" said

Gerhardt, utterly ignoring Brander.

Jennie colored furiously, unable to speak a word.

"What is the trouble?" inquired Brander gravely. "Why should you

talk to her like that?"

"She should not go out after dark," returned the father rudely. "I

have told her two or three times now. I don't think you ought to come

here any more, either."

"And why?" asked the Senator, pausing to consider and choose his

words. "Isn't this rather peculiar? What has your daughter done?"

"What has she done!" exclaimed Gerhardt, his excitement growing

under the strain he was enduring, and speaking almost unaccented

English in consequence. "She is running around the streets at night

when she oughtn't to be. I don't want my daughter taken out after dark

by a man of your age. What do you want with her anyway? She is only a

child yet."

"Want!" said the Senator, straining to regain his ruffled dignity.

"I want to talk with her, of course. She is old enough to be

interesting to me. I want to marry her if she will have me."

"I want you to go out of here and stay out of here," returned the

father, losing all sense of logic, and descending to the ordinary

level of parental compulsion. "I don't want you to come around my

house any more. I have enough trouble without my daughter being taken

out and given a bad name."

"I tell you frankly," said the Senator, drawing himself up to his

full height, "that you will have to make clear your meaning. I have

done nothing that I am ashamed of. Your daughter has not come to any

harm through me. Now, I want to know what you mean by conducting

yourself in this manner."

"I mean," said Gerhardt, excitedly repeating himself, "I mean, I

mean that the whole neighborhood talks about how you come around here,

and have buggy-rides and walks with my daughter when I am not

here--that's what I mean. I mean that you are no man of honorable

intentions, or you would not come taking up with a little girl who is

only old enough to be your daughter. People tell me well enough what

you are. Just you go and leave my daughter alone."

"People!" said the Senator. "Well, I care nothing for your people.

I love your daughter, and I am here to see her because I do love her.

It is my intention to marry her, and if your neighbors have anything

to say to that, let them say it. There is no reason why you should

conduct yourself in this manner before you know what my intentions

are."

Unnerved by this unexpected and terrible altercation, Jennie had

backed away to the door leading out into the dining-room, and her

mother, seeing her, came forward.

"Oh," said the latter, breathing excitedly, "he came home when you

were away. What shall we do?" They clung together, as women do, and

wept silently. The dispute continued.

"Marry, eh," exclaimed the father. "Is that it?"

"Yes," said the Senator, "marry, that is exactly it. Your daughter

is eighteen years of age and can decide for herself. You have insulted

me and outraged your daughter's feelings. Now, I wish you to know that

it cannot stop here. If you have any cause to say anything against me

outside of mere hearsay I wish you to say it."

The Senator stood before him, a very citadel of righteousness. He

was neither loud-voiced nor angry-mannered, but there was a tightness

about his lips which bespoke the man of force and determination.

"I don't want to talk to you any more," returned Gerhardt, who was

checked but not overawed. "My daughter is my daughter. I am the one

who will say whether she shall go out at night, or whether she shall

marry you, either. I know what you politicians are. When I first met

you I thought you were a fine man, but now, since I see the way you

conduct yourself with my daughter, I don't want anything more to do

with you. Just you go and stay away from here. That's all I ask of

you."

"I am sorry, Mrs. Gerhardt," said Brander, turning deliberately

away from the angry father, "to have had such an argument in your

home. I had no idea that your husband was opposed to my visits.

However, I will leave the matter as it stands for the present. You

must not take all this as badly as it seems."

Gerhardt looked on in astonishment at his coolness.

"I will go now," he said, again addressing Gerhardt, "but you

mustn't think that I am leaving this matter for good. You have made a

serious mistake this evening. I hope you will realize that. I bid you

goodnight." He bowed slightly and went out.

Gerhardt closed the door firmly. "Now," he said, turning to his

daughter and wife, "we will see whether we are rid of him or not. I

will show you how to go after night upon the streets when everybody is

talking already."

In so far as words were concerned, the argument ceased, but looks

and feeling ran strong and deep, and for days thereafter scarcely a

word was spoken in the little cottage. Gerhardt began to brood over

the fact that he had accepted his place from the Senator and decided

to give it up. He made it known that no more of the Senator's washing

was to be done in their house, and if he had not been sure that Mrs.

Gerhardt's hotel work was due to her own efforts in finding it he

would have stopped that. No good would come out of it, anyway. If she

had never gone to the hotel all this talk would never have come upon

them.

As for the Senator, he went away decidedly ruffled by this crude

occurrence. Neighborhood slanders are bad enough on their own plane,

but for a man of his standing to descend and become involved in one

struck him now as being a little bit unworthy. He did not know what to

do about the situation, and while he was trying to come to some

decision several days went by. Then he was called to Washington, and

he went away without having seen Jennie again.

In the mean time the Gerhardt family struggled along as before.

They were poor, indeed, but Gerhardt was willing to face poverty if

only it could be endured with honor. The grocery bills were of the

same size, however. The children's clothing was steadily wearing out.

Economy had to be practised, and payments stopped on old bills that

Gerhardt was trying to adjust.

Then came a day when the annual interest on the mortgage was due,

and yet another when two different grocery-men met Gerhardt on the

street and asked about their little bills. He did not hesitate to

explain just what the situation was, and to tell them with convincing

honesty that he would try hard and do the best he could. But his

spirit was unstrung by his misfortunes. He prayed for the favor of

Heaven while at his labor, and did not hesitate to use the daylight

hours that he should have had for sleeping to go about--either

looking for a more remunerative position or to obtain such little jobs

as he could now and then pick up. One of them was that of cutting

grass.

Mrs. Gerhardt protested that he was killing himself, but he

explained his procedure by pointing to their necessity.

"When people stop me on the street and ask me for money I have no

time to sleep."

It was a distressing situation for all of them.

To cap it all, Sebastian got in jail. It was that old coal-stealing

ruse of his practised once too often. He got up on a car one evening

while Jennie and the children waited for him, and a railroad detective

arrested him. There had been a good deal of coal stealing during the

past two years, but so long as it was confined to moderate quantities

the railroad took no notice. When, however, customers of shippers

complained that cars from the Pennsylvania fields lost thousands of

pounds in transit to Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, and other points,

detectives were set to work. Gerhardt's children were not the only

ones who preyed upon the railroad in this way. Other families in

Columbus--many of them--were constantly doing the same thing,

but Sebastian happened to be seized upon as the Columbus example.

"You come off that car now," said the detective, suddenly appearing

out of the shadow. Jennie and the other children dropped their baskets

and buckets and fled for their lives. Sebastian's first impulse was to

jump and run, but when he tried it the detective grabbed him by the

coat.

"Hold on here," he exclaimed. "I want you."

"Aw, let go," said Sebastian savagely, for he was no weakling.

There was nerve and determination in him, as well as a keen sense of

his awkward predicament.

"Let go, I tell you," he reiterated, and giving a jerk, he almost

upset his captor.

"Come here now," said the detective, pulling him viciously in an

effort to establish his authority.

Sebastian came, but it was with a blow which staggered his

adversary.

There was more struggling, and then a passing railroad hand came to

the detective's assistance. Together they hurried him toward the

depot, and there discovering the local officer, turned him over. It

was with a torn coat, scarred hands and face, and a black eye that

Sebastian was locked up for the night.

When the children came home they could not say what had happened to

their brother, but as nine o'clock struck, and then ten and eleven,

and Sebastian did not return, Mrs. Gerhardt was beside herself. He had

stayed out many a night as late as twelve and one, but his mother had

a foreboding of something terrible tonight. When half-past one

arrived, and no Sebastian, she began to cry.

"Some one ought to go up and tell your father," she said. "He may

be in jail."

Jennie volunteered, but George, who was soundly sleeping, was

awakened to go along with her.

"What!" said Gerhardt, astonished to see his two children.

"Bass hasn't come yet," said Jennie, and then told the story of the

evening's adventure in explanation.

Gerhardt left his work at once, walking back with his two children

to a point where he could turn off to go to the jail. He guessed what

had happened, and his heart was troubled.

"Is that so, now!" he repeated nervously, rubbing his clumsy hands

across his wet forehead.

Arrived at the station-house, the sergeant in charge told him

curtly that Bass was under arrest.

"Sebastian Gerhardt?" he said, looking over his blotter; "yes, here

he is. Stealing coal and resisting an officer. Is he your boy?"

"Oh, my!" said Gerhardt, "Ach Gott!" He actually wrung his

hands in distress.

"Want to see him?" asked the Sergeant.

"Yes, yes," said the father.

"Take him back, Fred," said the other to the old watchman in

charge, "and let him see the boy."

When Gerhardt stood in the back room, and Sebastian was brought out

all marked and tousled, he broke down and began to cry. No word could

cross his lips because of his emotion.

"Don't cry, pop," said Sebastian bravely. "I couldn't help it. It's

all right. I'll be out in the morning."

Gerhardt only shook with his grief.

"Don't cry," continued Sebastian, doing his very best to restrain

his own tears. "I'll be all right. What's the use of crying?"

"I know, I know," said the gray-headed parent brokenly, "but I

can't help it. It is my fault that I should let you do that."

"No, no, it isn't," said Sebastian. "You couldn't help it. Does

mother know anything about it?"

"Yes, she knows," he returned. "Jennie and George just came up

where I was and told me. I didn't know anything about it until just

now," and he began to cry again.

"Well, don't you feel badly," went on Bass, the finest part of his

nature coming to the surface. "I'll be all right. Just you go back to

work now, and don't worry. I'll be all right."

"How did you hurt your eye?" asked the father, looking at him with

red eyes.

"Oh, I had a little wrestling match with the man who nabbed me,"

said the boy, smiling bravely. "I thought I could get away."

"You shouldn't do that, Sebastian," said the father. "It may go

harder with you on that account. When does your case come up?"

"In the morning, they told me," said Bass. "Nine o'clock."

Gerhardt stayed with his son for some time, and discussed the

question of bail, fine, and the dire possibility of a jail sentence

without arriving at any definite conclusion. Finally he was persuaded

by Bass to go away, but the departure was the occasion for another

outburst of feeling; he was led away shaking and broken with

emotion.

"It's pretty tough," said Bass to himself as he was led back to his

cell. He was thinking solely of his father. "I wonder what ma will

think."

The thought of this touched him tenderly. "I wish I'd knocked the

dub over the first crack," he said. "What a fool I was not to get

away."