A few moments after he had gone, and Jennie had become engrossed with her labor as before, the fact that she also had observed him disclosed itself.
“Wasn’t that a fine-looking man who went up just now?”
“Yes, he was,” said her mother.
“He had a gold-headed cane.”
“You mustn’t stare at people when they pass,” cautioned her mother wisely. “It isn’t nice.”
“I didn’t stare at him,” returned Jennie innocently. “He bowed to me.”
“Well, don’t you pay any attention to anybody,” said her mother. “They may not like it.”
Jennie fell to her task in silence, but the finery of the world was having its say. She could not help giving ear to the sounds, the brightness, and the buzz of conversation and laughter which went about. In one section of the parlor floor was the dining-room, and from the clink of dishes one could tell that supper was being prepared. In another was the parlor proper, and there someone came to play on the piano. All that feeling of rest and relaxation which comes before the evening meal pervaded the place. It touched the heart of the innocent working-girl with hope, for hers were the years, and poverty could not as yet fill her young mind with cares. She rubbed diligently always, and sometimes forgot the troubled mother at her side, whose kindly eyes were becoming invested with crow’s-feet, and whose lips half-repeated the hundred cares of the day. She could only think that all of this was very fascinating, and wish that a portion of it might come to her.
At half-past five, the housekeeper, remembering them, came and told them that they might go. The fully finished stairway was relinquished by both with a sigh of relief, and passing out into the side street, by the rear entrance, after putting their implements away, the couple hastened homeward, the mother, at least, pleased to think that at last she had something to do.
As they passed several fine houses, Jennie was again touched by something of that which the unwonted novelty of the hotel life had driven swiftly home.
“Isn’t it fine to be rich?” she said.
“Yes,” answered her mother, who was thinking of the suffering Veronica.
“Did you see what a big dining-room they had there?”
“Yes.”
They went on past the low cottages and among the dead leaves of the year.
“I wish we were rich,” murmured Jennie with a sigh.
“I don’t know just what to do,” confided her mother after a time, when her own deep thoughts would no longer bear silence. “I don’t believe there’s a thing to eat in the house.”
“Let’s stop and see Mr. Bauman again,” exclaimed Jennie, her natural sympathies restored by the hopeless quality in her mother’s voice.
“Do you think he would trust us any more?”
“Let’s tell him where we’re working. I will.”
“Well,” said her mother wearily.
Into the small, dimly lighted grocery store, which was two blocks from their house, both of the wayfarers ventured nervously. Mrs. Gerhardt was about to begin, but Jennie spoke first.
“Will you let us have some bread tonight, and a little bacon? We’re working now at the Columbus House, and we’ll be sure to pay you Saturday.”
“Yes,” added Mrs. Gerhardt, “I have something to do.”
Bauman, who had long supplied them before illness and trouble began, knew that they told the truth.
“How long have you been working there?” he asked.
“Just this afternoon.”
“You know, Mrs. Gerhardt,” he said, “how it is with me. I don’t want to refuse you. Mr. Gerhardt is good for it, but I am poor, too. Times are hard,” he explained further. “I have my family to keep.”
“Yes, I know,” said Mrs. Gerhardt weakly.
Her old red cotton shawl hid her rough hands, red from the day’s work, but they were working nervously. Jennie stood by strained and silent.
“Well,” concluded Mr. Bauman eventually, “I guess it’s all right this time. Do what you can for me Saturday.”
He laid out the bread and bacon, and when about to hand it to them added, with a touch of cynicism:
“When you get money again, I guess you’ll go and trade somewhere else.”
“No,” returned Mrs. Gerhardt, “you know better than that.” But she was too nervous to parley long.
They went out into the shadowy street again, and on past the low cottages to their own home.
“I wonder,” said the mother wearily, when they neared the door, “if they’ve got any coal?”
“Don’t worry,” said Jennie. “If they haven’t, I’ll go.”
“A man run us away,” was almost the first greeting that the perturbed George offered, when the children had gathered in the kitchen to discuss developments with their mother. “I got some though,” he added. “I threw it off a car.”
Mrs. Gerhardt only smiled, but Jennie laughed.
“How is Veronica?” she inquired.
“She seems to be sleeping,” said the father. “I gave her medicine again at five.”
While the scant meal was being thus tardily prepared, the mother went to the cot-side, taking up another night’s vigil that was almost without sleep.
During the preparation of the meal, such as it was, Sebastian made a suggestion. His larger experience in social and commercial matters made this valuable. Though only a car-builder’s apprentice, without any education, except such as pertained to Lutheran doctrine, to which he objected very much, he was imbued with American color and energy. His transformed name of Bass suited him exactly. Tall, athletic and well-featured for his age, he had already received those favors and glances from the young girls that tend to make the bright boy a dandy. With the earliest evidence of such interest, he had begun to see that appearances were worth something, and from that to the illusion that they were more important than anything else, was but an easy step. At the car-works he got in with a half-dozen other young boys, who knew Columbus and its possibilities thoroughly, and with them he fraternized until he was a typical stripling of the town. He knew all about ball-games and athletics, had heard that the state capital contained the high and mighty of the land, loved the theatre, with its suggestion of travel and advertisement, and was not unaware that to succeed one must do something—associate, or at least, seem to, with those who were foremost in the world of appearances.
For this reason, the young boy loved to hang about the Columbus House. It seemed to him that this hotel with its glow and shine was the centre and circumference of all that was worth while in the social sense. He would go downtown evenings, when he first secured money enough to buy a decent suit of clothes, and stand around the hotel entrance with his friends, kicking his heels, smoking a two-for-five-cent cigar, preening himself on his stylish appearance and looking after the girls. Others were there with him, town dandies and nobodies, those who gambled, or sought other pleasures, and young men who came there to get shaved or to drink a glass of whiskey.