Jennie Gerhardt

       CHAPTER I

      One morning, in the fall of 1880, a middle-aged woman, accompanied by a young girl of eighteen, presented herself at the clerk’s desk of the principal hotel in Columbus, Ohio, and made inquiry as to whether there was anything about the place that she could do. She was of a helpless, fleshy build, with a frank open countenance and an innocent, diffident manner. Her eyes were large and patient, and in them dwelt such a shadow of distress as only those who have looked sympathetically into the countenances of the distraught and helpless poor know anything about. Any one could see where the daughter behind her got the timidity and shamefacedness which now caused her to stand back and look indifferently away.

      The fancy, the feeling, the innate affection of an untutored, but poetic mind, were all blended in the mother, but poverty was driving her. Excepting a kind of gravity and poise, which were characteristic of her father, the daughter inherited her disposition from her mother. Together they presented so appealing a picture of honest necessity, that even the clerk was affected.

      “What is it you would like to do?” he said.

      “Maybe you have some cleaning or scrubbing,” she replied, timidly. “I could wash the floors.”

      The daughter, hearing the statement, turned uneasily, not because it irritated her to work, but because she hated people to know. The clerk interrupted because he did not like to see the mother strain so nervously at explaining. Manlike, he was affected by the evidence of beauty in distress. The innocent helplessness of the daughter made their lot seem hard.

      “Wait a moment,” he said, and, stepping into a back office, called the head housekeeper.

      There was work to be done. The main staircase and parlor hall were unswept because of the absence of the regular scrubwoman.

      “Is that her daughter with her?” asked the housekeeper, who could see them from where she was standing.

      “Yes, I suppose so,” returned the clerk.

      “She might come this afternoon, if she wants to. The girl helps her I suppose.”

      “You go see the housekeeper,” said the clerk pleasantly, as he came back to the desk. “Right through there”—pointing to a nearby door. “She’ll arrange with you about it.”

      The succession of events of which this little scene might have been called the tragic culmination, had taken place in the life and family of William Gerhardt, a glass-blower by trade. Having suffered the reverses so common in the lower fields of endeavor, this man was forced, for the present, to see his wife, his six children, and himself depending for the necessaries of life upon whatever windfall of fortune the morning of each successive day might bring. He was sick in bed. His oldest boy, Sebastian, worked as an apprentice to a local freight-car builder, but received only four dollars a week. Genevieve, the oldest of the girls, was past eighteen, but had not as yet been taught any special work. The other children, George, aged fourteen; Martha, twelve; William, ten; and Veronica, eight, were too young to do anything, and only made the problem of existence the more complicated. It was the ambition of both the father and mother to keep them in school, but the method of supplying clothes, books and monthly dues for this purpose, was practically beyond solution. The father, being an ardent Lutheran, insisted that the parochial schools were essential, and there, outside of the prayers and precepts of the Evangelical faith, they learned little. One child, Veronica, was already forced to remain at home for the want of shoes. George, old enough to understand and suffer from distinction made between himself and those better dressed, often ran away and played “hookey.” Martha complained that she had nothing to wear, and Genevieve was glad that she was out of it all. Their one mainstay was the home, which, barring a six-hundred-dollar mortgage, the father owned. He had borrowed this money at a time when he had saved enough to buy the house and lot, in order