Veronica and William were restless.
They objected to leaving school and going to work, apparently preferring to live on money which Gerhardt had long since concluded was not being come by honestly.
He was now pretty well satisfied as to the true relations of Jennie and Lester.
At first he had believed them to be married, but the way Lester had neglected Jennie for long periods, the humbleness with which she ran at his beck and call, her fear of telling him about Vesta—somehow it all pointed to the same thing.
She had not been married at home. Gerhardt had never had sight of her marriage certificate.
Since she was away she might have been married, but he did not believe it.
The real trouble was that Gerhardt had grown intensely morose and crotchety, and it was becoming impossible for young people to live with him.
Veronica and William felt it.
They resented the way in which he took charge of the expenditures after Martha left.
He accused them of spending too much on clothes and amusements, he insisted that a smaller house should be taken, and he regularly sequestered a part of the money which Jennie sent, for what purpose they could hardly guess.
As a matter of fact, Gerhardt was saving as much as possible in order to repay Jennie eventually.
He thought it was sinful to go on in this way, and this was his one method, out side of his meager earnings, to redeem himself.
If his other children had acted rightly by him he felt that he would not now be left in his old age the recipient of charity from one, who, despite her other good qualities, was certainly not leading a righteous life.
So they quarreled.
It ended one winter month when George agreed to receive his complaining brother and sister on condition that they should get something to do.
Gerhardt was nonplussed for a moment, but invited them to take the furniture and go their way.
His generosity shamed them for the moment; they even tentatively invited him to come and live with them, but this he would not do.
He would ask the foreman of the mill he watched for the privilege of sleeping in some out-of-the-way garret.
He was always liked and trusted.
And this would save him a little money.
So in a fit of pique he did this, and there was seen the spectacle of an old man watching through a dreary season of nights, in a lonely trafficless neighborhood while the city pursued its gaiety elsewhere.
He had a wee small corner in the topmost loft of a warehouse away from the tear and grind of the factory proper.
Here Gerhardt slept by day.
In the afternoon he would take a little walk, strolling toward the business center, or out along the banks of the Cuyahoga, or the lake.
As a rule his hands were below his back, his brow bent in meditation.
He would even talk to himself a little—an occasional
"By chops!" or
"So it is" being indicative of his dreary mood.
At dusk he would return, taking his stand at the lonely gate which was his post of duty.
His meals he secured at a nearby workingmen's boarding-house, such as he felt he must have.
The nature of the old German's reflections at this time were of a peculiarly subtle and somber character.
What was this thing—life?
What did it all come to after the struggle, and the worry, and the grieving?
Where does it all go to?
People die; you hear nothing more from them.
His wife, now, she had gone.
Where had her spirit taken its flight?
Yet he continued to hold some strongly dogmatic convictions.
He believed there was a hell, and that people who sinned would go there.
How about Mrs. Gerhardt?
How about Jennie?
He believed that both had sinned woefully.
He believed that the just would be rewarded in heaven.
But who were the just?
Mrs. Gerhardt had not had a bad heart.
Jennie was the soul of generosity.
Take his son Sebastian.
Sebastian was a good boy, but he was cold, and certainly indifferent to his father.
Take Martha—she was ambitious, but obviously selfish.
Somehow the children, outside of Jennie, seemed self-centered.