"I will go now," he said, again addressing Gerhardt, "but you mustn"t think that I am leaving this matter for good. You have made a serious mistake this evening. I hope you will realize that. I bid you goodnight." He bowed slightly and went out.
Gerhardt closed the door firmly. "Now," he said, turning to his daughter and wife, "we will see whether we are rid of him or not. I will show you how to go after night upon the streets when everybody is talking already."
In so far as words were concerned, the argument ceased, but looks and feeling ran strong and deep, and for days thereafter scarcely a word was spoken in the little cottage. Gerhardt began to brood over the fact that he had accepted his place from the Senator and decided to give it up. He made it known that no more of the Senator"s washing was to be done in their house, and if he had not been sure that Mrs.
Gerhardt"s hotel work was due to her own efforts in finding it he would have stopped that. No good would come out of it, anyway. If she had never gone to the hotel all this talk would never have come upon them.
As for the Senator, he went away decidedly ruffled by this crude occurrence. Neighborhood slanders are bad enough on their own plane, but for a man of his standing to descend and become involved in one struck him now as being a little bit unworthy. He did not know what to do about the situation, and while he was trying to come to some decision several days went by. Then he was called to Washington, and he went away without having seen Jennie again.
In the mean time the Gerhardt family struggled along as before.
They were poor, indeed, but Gerhardt was willing to face poverty if only it could be endured with honor. The grocery bills were of the same size, however. The children"s clothing was steadily wearing out.
Economy had to be practised, and payments stopped on old bills that Gerhardt was trying to adjust.
Then came a day when the annual interest on the mortgage was due, and yet another when two different grocery-men met Gerhardt on the street and asked about their little bills. He did not hesitate to explain just what the situation was, and to tell them with convincing honesty that he would try hard and do the best he could. But his spirit was unstrung by his misfortunes. He prayed for the favor of Heaven while at his labor, and did not hesitate to use the daylight hours that he should have had for sleeping to go about--either looking for a more remunerative position or to obtain such little jobs as he could now and then pick up. One of them was that of cutting gra.s.s.
Mrs. Gerhardt protested that he was killing himself, but he explained his procedure by pointing to their necessity.
"When people stop me on the street and ask me for money I have no time to sleep."
It was a distressing situation for all of them.
To cap it all, Sebastian got in jail. It was that old coal-stealing ruse of his practised once too often. He got up on a car one evening while Jennie and the children waited for him, and a railroad detective arrested him. There had been a good deal of coal stealing during the past two years, but so long as it was confined to moderate quant.i.ties the railroad took no notice. When, however, customers of shippers complained that cars from the Pennsylvania fields lost thousands of pounds in transit to Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, and other points, detectives were set to work. Gerhardt"s children were not the only ones who preyed upon the railroad in this way. Other families in Columbus--many of them--were constantly doing the same thing, but Sebastian happened to be seized upon as the Columbus example.
"You come off that car now," said the detective, suddenly appearing out of the shadow. Jennie and the other children dropped their baskets and buckets and fled for their lives. Sebastian"s first impulse was to jump and run, but when he tried it the detective grabbed him by the coat.
"Hold on here," he exclaimed. "I want you."
"Aw, let go," said Sebastian savagely, for he was no weakling.
There was nerve and determination in him, as well as a keen sense of his awkward predicament.
"Let go, I tell you," he reiterated, and giving a jerk, he almost upset his captor.
"Come here now," said the detective, pulling him viciously in an effort to establish his authority.
Sebastian came, but it was with a blow which staggered his adversary.
There was more struggling, and then a pa.s.sing railroad hand came to the detective"s a.s.sistance. Together they hurried him toward the depot, and there discovering the local officer, turned him over. It was with a torn coat, scarred hands and face, and a black eye that Sebastian was locked up for the night.
When the children came home they could not say what had happened to their brother, but as nine o"clock struck, and then ten and eleven, and Sebastian did not return, Mrs. Gerhardt was beside herself. He had stayed out many a night as late as twelve and one, but his mother had a foreboding of something terrible tonight. When half-past one arrived, and no Sebastian, she began to cry.
"Some one ought to go up and tell your father," she said. "He may be in jail."
Jennie volunteered, but George, who was soundly sleeping, was awakened to go along with her.
"What!" said Gerhardt, astonished to see his two children.
"Ba.s.s hasn"t come yet," said Jennie, and then told the story of the evening"s adventure in explanation.
Gerhardt left his work at once, walking back with his two children to a point where he could turn off to go to the jail. He guessed what had happened, and his heart was troubled.
"Is that so, now!" he repeated nervously, rubbing his clumsy hands across his wet forehead.
Arrived at the station-house, the sergeant in charge told him curtly that Ba.s.s was under arrest.
"Sebastian Gerhardt?" he said, looking over his blotter; "yes, here he is. Stealing coal and resisting an officer. Is he your boy?"
"Oh, my!" said Gerhardt, "Ach Gott!" He actually wrung his hands in distress.
"Want to see him?" asked the Sergeant.
"Yes, yes," said the father.
"Take him back, Fred," said the other to the old watchman in charge, "and let him see the boy."
When Gerhardt stood in the back room, and Sebastian was brought out all marked and tousled, he broke down and began to cry. No word could cross his lips because of his emotion.
"Don"t cry, pop," said Sebastian bravely. "I couldn"t help it. It"s all right. I"ll be out in the morning."
Gerhardt only shook with his grief.
"Don"t cry," continued Sebastian, doing his very best to restrain his own tears. "I"ll be all right. What"s the use of crying?"
"I know, I know," said the gray-headed parent brokenly, "but I can"t help it. It is my fault that I should let you do that."
"No, no, it isn"t," said Sebastian. "You couldn"t help it. Does mother know anything about it?"
"Yes, she knows," he returned. "Jennie and George just came up where I was and told me. I didn"t know anything about it until just now," and he began to cry again.
"Well, don"t you feel badly," went on Ba.s.s, the finest part of his nature coming to the surface. "I"ll be all right. Just you go back to work now, and don"t worry. I"ll be all right."
"How did you hurt your eye?" asked the father, looking at him with red eyes.
"Oh, I had a little wrestling match with the man who nabbed me,"
said the boy, smiling bravely. "I thought I could get away."
"You shouldn"t do that, Sebastian," said the father. "It may go harder with you on that account. When does your case come up?"
"In the morning, they told me," said Ba.s.s. "Nine o"clock."
Gerhardt stayed with his son for some time, and discussed the question of bail, fine, and the dire possibility of a jail sentence without arriving at any definite conclusion. Finally he was persuaded by Ba.s.s to go away, but the departure was the occasion for another outburst of feeling; he was led away shaking and broken with emotion.
"It"s pretty tough," said Ba.s.s to himself as he was led back to his cell. He was thinking solely of his father. "I wonder what ma will think."
The thought of this touched him tenderly. "I wish I"d knocked the dub over the first crack," he said. "What a fool I was not to get away."
CHAPTER VII