“What do you think of that?” exclaimed William, his mouth wide open.
“Poor papa!” said Veronica, tears welling up in her eyes.
Mrs. Gerhardt sat down, clasped her hands in her lap, and stared at the floor. “Now, what to do?” she nervously exclaimed. The possibility that Gerhardt was disabled for life opened long vistas of difficulties which she had not the courage to contemplate.
Bass came home at half-past six and Jennie at eight. The former heard the news with an astonished face.
“Gee! that’s tough, isn’t it?” he exclaimed. “Did the letter say how bad he was hurt?”
“No,” replied Mrs. Gerhardt.
“Well, I wouldn’t worry about it,” said Bass easily. “It won’t do any good. We’ll get along somehow. I wouldn’t worry like that if I were you.”
The truth was, he wouldn’t, because his nature was wholly different. Life did not rest heavily upon his shoulders. His brain was not large enough to grasp the significance and weigh the results of things.
“I know,” said Mrs. Gerhardt, endeavoring to recover herself. “I can’t help it, though. To think that just when we were getting along fairly well this new calamity should be added. It seems sometimes as if we were under a curse. We have so much bad luck.”
When Jennie came her mother turned to her instinctively; here was her one stay.
“What’s the matter, ma?” asked Jennie as she opened the door and observed her mother’s face. “What have you been crying about?”
Mrs. Gerhardt looked at her, and then turned half away.
“Pa’s had his hands burned,” put in Bass solemnly. “He’ll be home to-morrow.”
Jennie turned and stared at him. “His hands burned!” she exclaimed.
“Yes,” said Bass.
“How did it happen?”
“A pot of glass was turned over.”
Jennie looked at her mother, and her eyes dimmed with tears. Instinctively she ran to her and put her arms around her.
“Now, don’t you cry, ma,” she said, barely able to control herself. “Don’t you worry. I know how you feel, but we’ll get along. Don’t cry now.” Then her own lips lost their evenness, and she struggled long before she could pluck up courage to contemplate this new disaster. And now without volition upon her part there leaped into her consciousness a new and subtly persistent thought. What about Lester’s offer of assistance now? What about his declaration of love? Somehow it came back to her—his affection, his personality, his desire to help her, his sympathy, so like that which Brander had shown when Bass was in jail. Was she doomed to a second sacrifice? Did it really make any difference? Wasn’t her life a failure already? She thought this over as she looked at her mother sitting there so silent, haggard, and distraught. “What a pity,” she thought, “that her mother must always suffer! Wasn’t it a shame that she could never have any real happiness?”
“I wouldn’t feel so badly,” she said, after a time. “Maybe pa isn’t burned so badly as we think. Did the letter say he’d be home in the morning?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Gerhardt, recovering herself.
They talked more quietly from now on, and gradually, as the details were exhausted, a kind of dumb peace settled down upon the household.
“One of us ought to go to the train to meet him in the morning,” said Jennie to Bass. “I will. I guess Mrs. Bracebridge won’t mind.”
“No,” said Bass gloomily, “you mustn’t. I can go.”
He was sour at this new fling of fate, and he looked his feelings; he stalked off gloomily to his room and shut himself in. Jennie and her mother saw the others off to bed, and then sat out in the kitchen talking.
“I don’t see what’s to become of us now,” said Mrs. Gerhardt at last, completely overcome by the financial complications which this new calamity had brought about. She looked so weak and helpless that Jennie could hardly contain herself.
“Don’t worry, mamma dear,” she said, softly, a peculiar resolve coming into her heart. The world was wide. There was comfort and ease in it scattered by others with a lavish hand. Surely, surely misfortune could not press so sharply but that they could live!
She sat down with her mother, the difficulties of the future seeming to approach with audible and ghastly steps.
“What do you suppose will become of us now?” repeated her mother, who saw how her fanciful conception of this Cleveland home had crumbled before her eyes.
“Why,” said Jennie, who saw clearly and knew what could be done, “it will be all right. I wouldn’t worry about it. Something will happen. We’ll get something.”
She realized, as she sat there, that fate had shifted the burden of the situation to her. She must sacrifice herself; there was no other way.
Bass met his father at the railway station in the morning. He looked very pale, and seemed to have suffered a great deal. His cheeks were slightly sunken and his bony profile appeared rather gaunt. His hands were heavily bandaged, and altogether he presented such a picture of distress that many stopped to look at him on the way home from the station.
“By chops,” he said to Bass, “that was a burn I got. I thought once I couldn’t stand the pain any longer. Such pain I had! Such pain! By chops! I will never forget it.”
He related just how the accident had occurred, and said that he did not know whether he would ever be able to use his hands again. The thumb on his right hand and the first two fingers on the left had been burned to the bone. The latter had been amputated at the first joint—the thumb he might save, but his hands would be in danger of being stiff.
“By chops!” he added, “just at the time when I needed the money most. Too bad! Too bad!”
When they reached the house, and Mrs. Gerhardt opened the door, the old mill-worker, conscious of her voiceless sympathy, began to cry. Mrs. Gerhardt sobbed also. Even Bass lost control of himself for a moment or two, but quickly recovered. The other children wept, until Bass called a halt on all of them.
“Don’t cry now,” he said cheeringly. “What’s the use of crying? It isn’t so bad as all that. You’ll be all right again. We can get along.”
Bass’s words had a soothing effect, temporarily, and, now that her husband was home, Mrs. Gerhardt recovered her composure. Though his hands were bandaged, the mere fact that he could walk and was not otherwise injured was some consolation. He might recover the use of his hands and be able to undertake light work again. Anyway, they would hope for the best.
When Jennie came home that night she wanted to run to her father and lay the treasury of her services and affection at his feet, but she trembled lest he might be as cold to her as formerly.
Gerhardt, too, was troubled. Never had he completely recovered from the shame which his daughter had brought upon him. Although he wanted to be kindly, his feelings were so tangled that he hardly knew what to say or do.
“Papa,” said Jennie, approaching him timidly.
Gerhardt looked confused and tried to say something natural, but it was unavailing. The thought of his helplessness, the knowledge of her sorrow and of his own responsiveness to her affection—it was all too much for him; he broke down again and cried helplessly.
“Forgive me, papa,” she pleaded, “I’m so sorry. Oh, I’m so sorry.”
He did not attempt to look at her, but in the swirl of feeling that their meeting created he thought that he could forgive, and he did.
“I have prayed,” he said brokenly. “It is all right.”
When he recovered himself he felt ashamed of his emotion, but a new relationship of sympathy and of understanding had been established. From that time, although there was always a great reserve between them, Gerhardt tried not to ignore her completely, and she endeavored to show him the simple affection of a daughter, just as in the old days.
But while the household was again at peace, there were other cares and burdens to be faced. How were they to get along now with five dollars taken from the weekly budget, and with the cost of Gerhardt’s presence added? Bass might have contributed more of his weekly earnings, but he did not feel called upon to do it. And so the small sum of nine dollars weekly must meet as best it could the current expenses of rent, food, and coal, to say nothing of incidentals, which now began to press very heavily. Gerhardt had to go to a doctor to have his hands dressed daily. George needed a new pair of shoes. Either more money must come from some source or the family must beg for credit and suffer the old tortures of want. The situation crystallized the half-formed resolve in Jennie’s mind.