JENNIE GERHARDT. Theodore Dreiser

encouragingly as he went out. “You’ll come out all right. Don’t worry. I’ve got to go back, but I’ll come around in the morning.”

      He went away, and the bitter stress of it blew lightly over his head, for he was thinking that Jennie had made a mistake. This was shown by the manner in which he had asked her questions as they had walked together, and that in the face of her sad and doubtful mood.

      “What’d you want to do that for?” and “Didn’t you ever think what you were doing?” he persisted.

      “Please don’t ask me to-night,” Jennie had said, which put an end to the sharpest form of his queries. She had no excuse to offer and no complaint to make. If any blame attached, very likely it was hers. His own misfortune and the family’s and her sacrifice were alike forgotten.

      Left alone in her strange abode, Jennie gave way to her saddened feelings. The shock and shame of being banished from her home overcame her, and she wept. Although of a naturally long-suffering and uncomplaining disposition, the catastrophic wind-up of all her hopes was too much for her. What was this element in life that could seize and overwhelm one as does a great wind? Why this sudden intrusion of death to shatter all that had seemed most promising in life?

      As she thought over the past, a very clear recollection of the details of her long relationship with Brander came back to her, and for all her suffering she could only feel a loving affection for him. After all, he had not deliberately willed her any harm. His kindness, his generosity — these things had been real. He had been essentially a good man, and she was sorry — more for his sake than for her own — that his end had been so untimely.

      These cogitations, while not at all reassuring, at least served to pass the night away, and the next morning Bass stopped on his way to work to say that Mrs. Gerhardt wished her to come home that same evening. Gerhardt would not be present, and they could talk it over. She spent the day lonesomely enough, but when night fell her spirits brightened, and at a quarter of eight she set out.

      There was not much of comforting news to tell her. Gerhardt was still in a direfully angry and outraged mood. He had already decided to throw up his place on the following Saturday and go to Youngstown. Any place was better than Columbus after this; he could never expect to hold up his head here again. Its memories were odious. He would go away now, and if he succeeded in finding work the family should follow, a decision which meant the abandoning of the little home. He was not going to try to meet the mortgage on the house — he could not hope to.

      At the end of the week Gerhardt took his leave, Jennie returned home, and for a time at least there was a restoration of the old order, a condition which, of course, could not endure.

      Bass saw it. Jennie’s trouble and its possible consequences weighed upon him disagreeably. Columbus was no place to stay. Youngstown was no place to go. If they should all move away to some larger city it would be much better.

      He pondered over the situation, and hearing that a manufacturing boom was on in Cleveland, he thought it might be wise to try his luck there. If he succeeded, the others might follow. If Gerhardt still worked on in Youngstown, as he was now doing, and the family came to Cleveland, it would save Jennie from being turned out in the streets.

      Bass waited a little while before making up his mind, but finally announced his purpose.

      “I believe I’ll go up to Cleveland,” he said to his mother one evening as she was getting supper.

      “Why?” she asked, looking up uncertainly. She was rather afraid that Bass would desert her.

      “I think I can get work there,” he returned. “We oughtn’t to stay in this darned old town.”

      “Don’t swear,” she returned reprovingly.

      “Oh, I know,” he said, “but it’s enough to make any one swear. We’ve never had anything but rotten luck here. I’m going to go, and maybe if I get anything we can all move. We’d be better off if we’d get some place where people don’t know us. We can’t be anything here.”

      Mrs. Gerhardt listened with a strong hope for a betterment of their miserable life creeping into her heart. If Bass would only do this. If he would go and get work, and come to her rescue, as a strong bright young son might, what a thing it would be! They were in the rapids of a life which was moving toward a dreadful calamity. If only something would happen.

      “Do you think you could get something to do?” she asked interestedly.

      “I ought to,” he said. “I’ve never looked for a place yet that I didn’t get it. Other fellows have gone up there and done all right. Look at the Millers.”

      He shoved his hands into his pockets and looked out the window.

      “Do you think you could get along until I try my hand up there?” he asked.

      “I guess we could,” she replied. “Papa’s at work now and we have some money that, that —” she hesitated to name the source, so ashamed was she of their predicament.

      “Yes, I know,” said Bass, grimly.

      “We won’t have to pay any rent here before fall and then we’ll have to give it up anyhow,” she added.

      She was referring to the mortgage on the house, which fell due the next September and which unquestionably could not be met. “If we could move away from here before then, I guess we could get along.”

      “I’ll do it,” said Bass determinedly. “I’ll go.”

      Accordingly, he threw up his place at the end of the month, and the day after he left for Cleveland.