“It’s all right now,” he said 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 rather lightly above 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 inquired.
“Please don’t ask me tonight,” Jennie had said to him, 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.
Being left alone in her strange abode, Jennie gave way to her saddened feelings. The shock and shame of being turned out finally subdued 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. She found herself turning in memory to the dead senator and the dire consequence of her relationship with him, as well as to the harsh and yet deserved wrath of her father. 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?
As she thought over these things, 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. The graciousness of his demeanor, the generosity of his disposition, the uniformly affectionate manner toward her, all came back to clear his memory. He had been essentially a good man, and she could but feel sorry, more for his sake than for her own, that his end had been so untimely.
These cogitations, while not at all reassuring, were, nevertheless, a source of beguilement, the use of which was to cause the night to pass, 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.
The reception of this intelligence was most grateful to Jennie. Of all things, the most painful seemed that of not being able to go home again, and this word now opened that door to her. She spent the day lonesomely enough, but when night fell her spirits brightened, and at a quarter of eight she set out.
The details of this reunion and of several subsequent visits which she made were of a kind somewhat to sustain her drooping spirits, even though they did not bring her much comforting intelligence. Gerhardt, she learned, was still in a direfully angry and outraged mood. He had already decided to throw up his place on the following Saturday and go over to Youngstown, the possibility of getting work there luring him as a refuge from evil. Any place was better than Columbus after this, Mrs. Gerhardt confessed he had said. 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.
Poor as this intelligence was, Mrs. Gerhardt’s kindly disposition succeeded in making some capital out of it. If he went, as he said, Jennie could of course return. Jennie had the money Brander had given her, as she well knew. They could get along. She should only wait until Saturday and then return, after which they would have ample time to decide what was best.
The sudden turn of affairs transformed one portion of Jennie’s troubles,—that of being compelled to go away, into grief for her father’s pain-racked and conscience-driven body, but, as she could not fail to see that whatever befell now could neither receive let nor hindrance from her, she decided to avail herself of her mother’s offer.
At the end of the week, Gerhardt took his leave and Jennie returned, after which, for a time at least, there was a restoration of the old order, a condition which of course could not endure.
Bass saw it. The trouble that had so recently manifested itself was decidedly odious to him. The thought of the possible developments, the certainty of talk and the intention of Gerhardt to move the family, with the exception of Jennie, to Youngstown, all weighed upon him disagreeably. Columbus was no place to stay. Youngstown was no place to go. If they could all move away to some larger city, it would be much better.
He pondered over this and hearing, through first one and then another, that a manufacturing boom was on in Cleveland, thought it might be wise if they, or at least he, went there. He might go, and if he succeeded, the others might come. 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 in an uncertain manner. 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.
“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 do 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, then said:
“Do you think you could get along until I try my hand up there?”
“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.
CHAPTER X
The incidents of the days that followed, relating as they did peculiarly to Jennie, were of an order which the morality of our day has agreed to taboo. Certain processes of the All-mother, the great artificing wisdom of the power that in silence and darkness works and weaves—when viewed in the light of the established opinion of some of the little individuals created by it, are considered very vile. “How is it,” we ask ourselves, “that any good can come of contemplating so disagreeable a process?” And we turn our faces away from the creation of life, as if that were the last thing that man should dare to interest himself in, openly.
It is curious that a feeling of this