It was he who had spoken to his mother more than once of the Columbus House, and now that she was working there, much to his mortification, he thought that it would be better if they only took laundry from it. Work they had to, in some such difficult way, but if they could get some of these fine gentlemen’s laundry to do, how much better it would be. Others did it.
“Why don’t you get some of those hotel fellows to give you their laundry?” he asked of Jennie after she had related the afternoon’s experiences to him. “It would be better than scrubbing the stairs.”
“How do you get it?” she replied.
“Why, ask the clerk, of course.”
This struck her as very much worth while.
“Don’t you ever speak to me if you meet me around there,” he cautioned her a little later, privately. “Don’t you let on that you know me.”
“Why?” she asked, innocently.
“Well, you know why,” he answered, having indicated before that when they looked so poor he did not want to be disgraced by having to own them as relatives. “Just you go on by. Do you hear?”
“All right,” she returned, meekly, for although this youth was not much over a year her senior, his superior will dominated.
The next day on their way to the hotel, Jennie spoke to her mother.
“Bass said we might get some of the laundry of the men at the hotel to do.”
Mrs. Gerhardt, whose mind had been straining all night at the problem of adding something to the three dollars which her six afternoons would bring her, approved of the idea.
“So we might,” she said. “I’ll ask that clerk.”
When they reached the hotel, however, no immediate opportunity presented itself. They worked on until late in the afternoon. Then, as fortune would have it, the housekeeper sent them in to scrub up the floor behind the clerk’s desk. That individual felt very kindly toward both mother and daughter. He liked the former’s sweetly troubled countenance, and the latter’s pretty face. When they were working about him on their knees, he did not feel irritated at all. Finally they got through, and Mrs. Gerhardt ventured very meekly to put the question which she had been anxiously revolving in her mind all the afternoon.
“Is there any gentleman here,” she said, “who would give me his washing to do? I’d be so very much obliged for it.”
The clerk looked at her, and again saw what was written all over her face, absolute want.
“Let’s see,” he answered, thinking of Senator Brander and Marshall Hopkins. Both were men of large, charitable mould who would be more than glad to aid a poor woman. “You go up and see Senator Brander. He’s in twenty-two. Here,” he added, writing out the number, “you go up and tell him I sent you.”
Mrs. Gerhardt took the card with a tremor of gratefulness. Her eyes looked the words she could not say.
“That’s all right,” said the clerk, observing her emotion. “You go right up. You’ll find him in his room now.”
With the greatest diffidence Mrs. Gerhardt knocked at number twenty-two. Jennie stood silently at her side.
After a moment the door was opened, and in the full radiance of the bright room stood the senator. He was as faultlessly attired as before, only this time, because of a fancy smoking coat, he looked younger.
“Well, madam,” he said, recognizing the couple, and particularly the daughter, he had seen upon the stairs, “what can I do for you?”
Very much abashed, the mother hesitated in her reply.
“We would like to know if you have any washing you could let us have to do?”
“Washing,” he repeated after her, in a voice which had a peculiarly resonant quality. “Washing? Come right in. Let me see.”
He stepped aside with much grace, waved them in, and closed the door. While the two stood half-confused amid the evidences of comfort and finery, he repeated, “Let me see.”
Mrs. Gerhardt looked principally at his handsome head, but Jennie studied the room. Such an array of knick-knacks and things that seemed of great value on mantel and dressing-case she had never seen. The senator’s easy chair, with a green-shaded lamp beside it, the rich heavy carpet and rugs upon the floor, and all the scattered evidence of mannish comfort were to her distinctly ideal.
While they were standing he moved over to a comer of the room, but turned about to say, “Sit down; take those two chairs there.”
Still overawed, mother and daughter thought it more polite to disobey.
He disappeared into a large closet, but came out again, and after advising them to sit down, said, with a glance at Mrs. Gerhardt and a smile at Jennie:
“Is this your daughter?”
“Yes, sir,” said the mother. “She’s my oldest girl.”
“Oh, she is,” he returned, turning his back now and opening a bureau drawer. While he was rummaging and extracting several articles of apparel, he asked:
“Is your husband alive?”
“What is his name?”
“Where does he live?”
To all of these questions Mrs. Gerhardt very humbly answered.
“How many children have you?” he inquired very earnestly.
“Six,” said Mrs. Gerhardt.
“Well,” he returned, “that’s quite a family. You’ve certainly done your duty to the nation.”
“Yes, sir,” returned Mrs. Gerhardt, who was touched by his genial and interested manner.
“And you say this is your oldest daughter?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What does your husband do?”
“He’s a glass-blower. But he’s sick now.”
During the colloquy Jennie’s large blue eyes were wide with interest. Whenever he looked at her, she turned upon him such a frank, unsophisticated gaze, and smiled in such a vague, sweet way, that he could not help repeating his attentions.
“Well,” he said, “that is too bad. I have some washing here—not very much, but what there is, you are welcome to. Next week there may be more.”
He went about now, stuffing things into a blue cotton bag with a pretty design on the side, and all the while asking questions. In some indefinable way, these two figures appealed to him. He wanted to know just how their home condition stood and why this innocent looking mother, with the pathetic eyes, came to be scrubbing hotel stairways.
In trying to question closely, without giving offense, he bordered upon the ridiculous:
“Where is it you live?” he said, recalling that the mother had only vaguely indicated.
“On 13th Street,” she returned.
“North or South?”
“South.”
He paused again, and bringing over the bag said:
“Well, here they are. How much do you charge for your work?”
Mrs. Gerhardt started to explain, but he saw how aimless his question was. He really did not care about the price. Whatever such humble souls as these might charge, he would willingly pay.
“Never mind,” he said, sorry that he had mentioned the subject.
“Do you want these any certain day?” questioned the mother.
“No,” he said, scratching his head