Jennie Gerhardt: A Novel. Dreiser Theodore
with me to-morrow evening?" he asked.
"I'd like it," said Jennie, to whom the proposition was a glorious novelty.
He smiled and patted her cheek, foolishly happy to see her again. Every day seemed to add to her beauty. Graced with her clean white apron, her shapely head crowned by the glory of her simply plaited hair, she was a pleasing sight for any man to look upon.
He waited until Mrs. Gerhardt returned, and then, having accomplished the purpose of his visit, he arose.
"I'm going to take your daughter out riding to-morrow evening," he explained. "I want to talk to her about her future."
"Won't that be nice?" said the mother. She saw nothing incongruous in the proposal. They parted with smiles and much handshaking.
"That man has the best heart," commented Mrs. Gerhardt. "Doesn't he always speak so nicely of you? He may help you to an education. You ought to be proud."
"I am," said Jennie frankly.
"I don't know whether we had better tell your father or not," concluded Mrs. Gerhardt. "He doesn't like for you to be out evenings."
Finally they decided not to tell him. He might not understand.
Jennie was ready when he called. He could see by the weak-flamed, unpretentious parlor-lamp that she was dressed for him, and that the occasion had called out the best she had. A pale lavender gingham, starched and ironed, until it was a model of laundering, set off her pretty figure to perfection. There were little lace-edged cuffs and a rather high collar attached to it. She had no gloves, nor any jewelry, nor yet a jacket good enough to wear, but her hair was done up in such a dainty way that it set off her well-shaped head better than any hat, and the few ringlets that could escape crowned her as with a halo. When Brander suggested that she should wear a jacket she hesitated a moment; then she went in and borrowed her mother's cape, a plain gray woolen one. Brander realized now that she had no jacket, and suffered keenly to think that she had contemplated going without one.
"She would have endured the raw night air," he thought, "and said nothing of it."
He looked at her and shook his head reflectively. Then they started, and he quickly forgot everything but the great fact that she was at his side. She talked with freedom and with a gentle girlish enthusiasm that he found irresistibly charming.
"Why, Jennie," he said, when she had called upon him to notice how soft the trees looked, where, outlined dimly against the new rising moon, they were touched with its yellow light, "you're a great one. I believe you would write poetry if you were schooled a little."
"Do you suppose I could?" she asked innocently.
"Do I suppose, little girl?" he said, taking her hand. "Do I suppose? Why, I know. You're the dearest little day-dreamer in the world. Of course you could write poetry. You live it. You are poetry, my dear. Don't you worry about writing any."
This eulogy touched her as nothing else possibly could have done. He was always saying such nice things. No one ever seemed to like or to appreciate her half as much as he did. And how good he was! Everybody said that. Her own father.
They rode still farther, until suddenly remembering, he said: "I wonder what time it is. Perhaps we had better be turning back. Have you your watch?"
Jennie started, for this watch had been the one thing of which she had hoped he would not speak. Ever since he had returned it had been on her mind.
In his absence the family finances had become so strained that she had been compelled to pawn it. Martha had got to that place in the matter of apparel where she could no longer go to school unless something new were provided for her. And so, after much discussion, it was decided that the watch must go.
Bass took it, and after much argument with the local pawn broker, he had been able to bring home ten dollars. Mrs. Gerhardt expended the money upon her children, and heaved a sigh of relief. Martha looked very much better. Naturally, Jennie was glad.
Now, however, when the Senator spoke of it, her hour of retribution seemed at hand. She actually trembled, and he noticed her discomfiture.
"Why, Jennie," he said gently, "what made you start like that?"
"Nothing," she answered.
"Haven't you your watch?"
She paused, for it seemed impossible to tell a deliberate falsehood. There was a strained silence; then she said, with a voice that had too much of a sob in it for him not to suspect the truth, "No, sir." He persisted, and she confessed everything.
"Well," he said, "dearest, don't feel badly about it. There never was such another girl. I'll get your watch for you. Hereafter when you need anything I want you to come to me. Do you hear? I want you to promise me that. If I'm not here, I want you to write me. I'll always be in touch with you from now on. You will have my address. Just let me know, and I'll help you. Do you understand?"
"Yes," said Jennie.
"You'll promise to do that now, will you?'
"Yes," she replied.
For a moment neither of them spoke.
"Jennie," he said at last, the spring-like quality of the night moving him to a burst of feeling, "I've about decided that I can't do without you. Do you think you could make up your mind to live with me from now on?"
Jennie looked away, not clearly understanding his words as he meant them.
"I don't know," she said vaguely.
"Well, you think about it," he said pleasantly. "I'm serious. Would you be willing to marry me, and let me put you away in a seminary for a few years?"
"Go away to school?"
"Yes, after you marry me."
"I guess so," she replied. Her mother came into her mind. Maybe she could help the family.
He looked around at her, and tried to make out the expression on her face. It was not dark. The moon was now above the trees in the east, and already the vast host of stars were paling before it.
"Don't you care for me at all, Jennie?" he asked.
"Yes!"
"You never come for my laundry any more, though," he returned pathetically. It touched her to hear him say this.
"I didn't do that," she answered. "I couldn't help it; Mother thought it was best."
"So it was," he assented. "Don't feel badly. I was only joking with you. You'd be glad to come if you could, wouldn't you?"
"Yes, I would," she answered frankly.
He took her hand and pressed it so feelingly that all his kindly words seemed doubly emphasized to her. Reaching up impulsively, she put her arms about him. "You're so good to me," she said with the loving tone of a daughter.
"You're my girl, Jennie," he said with deep feeling. "I'd do anything in the world for you."
CHAPTER VI
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,