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Updated: September 20, 2025
When she returned at eight in the evening the family considered it nothing amiss. A month later Jennie was able to announce that Lester intended to marry her. His visits had of course paved the way for this, and it seemed natural enough. Only Gerhardt seemed a little doubtful. He did not know just how this might be. Perhaps it was all right.
At one time, while engaged in cutting the grass, Gerhardt found, to his horror, not a handful, but literally boxes of half-burned match-sticks lying unconsumed and decaying under the fallen blades. He was discouraged, to say the least. He gathered up this damning evidence in a newspaper and carried it back into the sitting-room where Jennie was sewing. "See here, what I find!" he demanded.
"Can't you earn enough to keep from taking coal off the coal cars?" asked the Court; but before either father or son had time to answer he added, "What is your business?" "Car builder," said Sebastian. "And what do you do?" he questioned, addressing Gerhardt. "I am watchman at Miller's furniture factory." "Um," said the court, feeling that Sebastian's attitude remained sullen and contentious.
He learned that all second-hand clothes men were sharks; that there was no use in putting the least faith in the protests of any rag dealer or old-shoe man. They all lied. They all claimed to be very poor, when as a matter of fact they were actually rolling in wealth. Gerhardt had investigated these stories; he had followed them up; he had seen what they were doing with the things he sold them.
Jennie lifted her head, her blue eyes wet with tears, and handed the little one to her mother. "I can't help it," she said, half crying, half smiling. Quickly she kissed her mother and the children; then she hurried out. As she went down the street with George she looked back and bravely waved her hand. Mrs. Gerhardt responded, noticing how much more like a woman she looked.
The progress of the old German's malady toward final dissolution preyed greatly on Jennie's mind; for, in spite of the fact that they had been so far apart in times past, they had now grown very close together. Gerhardt had come to realize clearly that his outcast daughter was goodness itself at least, so far as he was concerned. She never quarreled with him, never crossed him in any way.
If she were married, yes, possibly. If she were alone probably. Yet if she did not get some work which paid well they would have a difficult time. It was the same old problem. What could she do? Nevertheless, she decided to act. If she could get five or six dollars a week they could live. This hundred and fifteen dollars which Gerhardt had saved would tide them over the worst difficulties perhaps.
Her eyes seemed to come nearer to them, Claude thought, when she spoke of it, and she evidently cared a great deal more about what was blooming in the wood than about what the Americans were doing on the Garonne. He wished he could talk to her as Gerhardt did. He admired the way she roused herself and tried to interest them, speaking her difficult language with such spirit and precision.
Through all these years the subtle hope had persisted, in spite of every circumstance, that somehow life might bring him back to her. He had come, it is true he really had in death but he had gone again. Where? Whither her mother, whither Gerhardt, whither Vesta had gone? She could not hope to see him again, for the papers had informed her of his removal to Mrs.
They, too, had been thus sponsored. They too, had heard his solemn pledge to care for their spiritual welfare. He was silent. "We do," prompted the minister. "We do," repeated Gerhardt and his wife weakly. "Do you now dedicate this child by the rite of baptism unto the Lord, who brought it?" "We do."
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