Jennie Gerhardt. Theodore Dreiser

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СКАЧАТЬ the way, he talked to her of her family, and wanted to know how her father was getting on.

      “He’s doing real well,” she said; “they like him where he’s working.”

      Brander kept silent awhile, for he was content to have this girl beside him again. The absence he had endured had made his heart grow fonder. She seemed even more delightful than when he had last seen her. Everything she did was so gentle.

      For an hour the senator thrilled with such pleasure as he had not known in years. Jennie was not silent, and every word she said showed the natural feeling and interest she took in everything in life.

      “Well, Jennie,” he said, when she asked him to notice how soft the trees looked, where outlined dimly against the new rising moon they were touched with its yellow light, “you’re a great one. I believe you would write poetry if you were schooled a little.”

      “Do you suppose I could?” she asked innocently.

      “Do I suppose, little girl?” he said, taking her hand. “Do I suppose? Why, I know. You’re the dearest little day-dreamer in the world. Of course you could write poetry. You live it. You are poetry, my dear. Don’t you worry about writing any.”

      This eulogy touched her as nothing else possibly could have. He was always saying such nice things. No one ever seemed to like or appreciate her half as much as he did. And how great he was! Everybody said that. Her own father.

      They rode still further, until suddenly remembering, he said, “I wonder what time it is. Perhaps we had better be turning back. Have you your watch?”

      Jennie started, for this watch had been the one thing of which she had hoped he would not speak. Ever since he had returned, it had been on her mind.

      In his absence, the family finances had become so strained, she had been compelled to pawn it. Martha had got to that place in the matter of apparel where she could no longer go to school unless something new were provided for her. Mrs. Gerhardt had spoken of this in her hopeless, helpless way, and Jennie had felt heart-tugs many a morning when little Martha had gone forth, her old clothes demeaning her every feature.

      “I don’t know what to do,” said her mother.

      “You might pawn my watch,” said Jennie. “I guess Bass could take it.”

      Mrs. Gerhardt objected, but need is a stem commander. She thought more calmly over it after a day or two, and finally Jennie persuaded her to let her give Bass the watch.

      “Get as much as you can,” she said. “I don’t know whether we’ll be able to get it out again.”

      Secretly Mrs. Gerhardt wept.

      Bass took it, and having argued with the local pawnbroker, was able to bring home ten dollars. Mrs. Gerhardt took the money, and, after expending it all upon her children, heaved a sigh of relief. Martha looked very much better. Naturally, Jennie was glad.

      Now, however, when the senator spoke of it, her hour of retribution seemed at hand. She actually trembled, and he noticed the quaver.

      “Why, Jennie,” he said gently, “what made you start like that?”

      “Nothing,” she answered.

      “Haven’t you your watch?”

      She paused, for it seemed impossible to tell a deliberate falsehood. There was a strained silence, in which he suspected something of the truth, and then she said, with a voice that had too much of a sob in it for him not to hear, “No, sir.”

      Seriously he weighed the matter, and then suspecting some further generosity toward her family, finally made her confess.

      “Well,” he said, “dearest, don’t feel badly about it. There never was such another girl. I’ll get your watch for you. Hereafter when you need anything, I want you to come to me. Do you hear? I want you to promise me that. If I’m not here, I want you to write me. I’ll always be in touch with you from now on. You will have my address. Just let me know, and I’ll help you. Do you understand?”

      “Yes,” said Jennie.

      “You’ll promise to do that now, will you?”

      “Yes,” she replied.

      For a time neither of them spoke.

      “Jennie,” he said at last, the spring-like quality of the night moving him to a burst of feeling, “I’ve about decided that I can’t do without you. Do you think you could make up your mind to live with me from now on?”

      Jennie looked away, not clearly understanding his words as he meant them. It was a strong statement for him. The man had got to the place where that wondrous something about her made it constantly more difficult for him to keep his hands off of her. She was so much of a grace and a naiad, he longed to fold her in his arms. Oh, that youth could only come back to him, so that he might be worthy of this girl.

      “I don’t know,” she said, vaguely feeling that it all meant something finer and better.

      “Well now, you think about it,” he said pleasantly. “I’m serious. Would you be willing to marry me and let me put you away in a seminary for a few years?”

      “Go away to school?”

      “Yes, after you marry me.”

      “I guess so,” she replied. Her mother came into her mind. Maybe she could help the family.

      He looked around at her, and tried to make out her face clearly in the shadow. It was not dark. The moon was now above the trees in the east, and already the vast host of stars were paling before it.

      “Don’t you care for me at all, Jennie?” he asked.

      “Yes!”

      “You never come for my laundry any more though,” he returned pathetically. It touched her to hear him say this.

      “I didn’t do that,” she answered. “I couldn’t help it. Mother thought it was best.”

      “So it was,” he said, feeling her sorrow over the matter. “I was only joking with you. You’d be glad to come if you could, wouldn’t you?”

      “Yes, I would,” she answered frankly.

      He took her hand and pressed it so feelingly that all his kindly words seemed doubly re-enforced to her. Reaching impulsively up, she put her arms about him. “You’re so good to me,” she said with the loving tone of a daughter.

      “There, there,” he exclaimed, the weakest and loveliest portion of his disposition manifesting itself. “It isn’t that. You’re my girl, Jennie. I’d do anything in the world for you.”

       CHAPTER VI

      The father of this unfortunate family, William Gerhardt, was a man of considerable interest on his personal side. Born in the Kingdom of Saxony, he had had character enough to oppose the army-conscription iniquity, and flee, in his eighteenth year, to Paris. From there he had set forth for America, the land of promise.

      Arrived СКАЧАТЬ