"Lester is extravagant," she said.
Gerhardt carried them to the basement.
At least they should be burned in the furnace.
He would have used them as lighters for his own pipe, sticking them in the fire to catch a blaze, only old newspapers were better, and he had stacks of these—another evidence of his lord and master's wretched, spendthrift disposition.
It was a sad world to work in.
Almost everything was against him.
Still he fought as valiantly as he could against waste and shameless extravagance.
His own economies were rigid.
He would wear the same suit of black—cut down from one of Lester's expensive investments of years before—every Sunday for a couple of years.
Lester's shoes, by a little stretch of the imagination, could be made to seem to fit, and these he wore. His old ties also—the black ones—they were fine.
If he could have cut down Lester's shirts he would have done so; he did make over the underwear, with the friendly aid of the cook's needle.
Lester's socks, of course, were just right.
There was never any expense for Gerhardt's clothing.
The remaining stock of Lester's discarded clothing—shoes, shirts, collars, suits, ties, and what not—he would store away for weeks and months, and then, in a sad and gloomy frame of mind, he would call in a tailor, or an old-shoe man, or a ragman, and dispose of the lot at the best price he could.
He learned that all second-hand clothes men were sharks; that there was no use in putting the least faith in the protests of any rag dealer or old-shoe man.
They all lied.
They all claimed to be very poor, when as a matter of fact they were actually rolling in wealth.
Gerhardt had investigated these stories; he had followed them up; he had seen what they were doing with the things he sold them.
"Scoundrels!" he declared.
"They offer me ten cents for a pair of shoes, and then I see them hanging out in front of their places marked two dollars.
Such robbery! My God!
They could afford to give me a dollar."
Jennie smiled.
It was only to her that he complained, for he could expect no sympathy from' Lester.
So far as his own meager store of money was concerned, he gave the most of it to his beloved church, where he was considered to be a model of propriety, honesty, faith—in fact, the embodiment of all the virtues.
And so, for all the ill winds that were beginning to blow socially, Jennie was now leading the dream years of her existence.
Lester, in spite of the doubts which assailed him at times as to the wisdom of his career, was invariably kind and considerate, and he seemed to enjoy his home life.
"Everything all right?" she would ask when he came in of an evening.
"Sure!" he would answer, and pinch her chin or cheek. She would follow him in while Jeannette, always alert, would take his coat and hat.
In the winter-time they would sit in the library before the big grate-fire.
In the spring, summer, or fall Lester preferred to walk out on the porch, one corner of which commanded a sweeping view of the lawn and the distant street, and light his before-dinner cigar. Jennie would sit on the side of his chair and stroke his head.
"Your hair is not getting the least bit thin, Lester; aren't you glad?" she would say; or,
"Oh, see how your brow is wrinkled now.
You mustn't do that.
You didn't change your tie, mister, this morning. Why didn't you?
I laid one out for you."
"Oh, I forgot," he would answer, or he would cause the wrinkles to disappear, or laughingly predict that he would soon be getting bald if he wasn't so now.
In the drawing-room or library, before Vesta and Gerhardt, she was not less loving, though a little more circumspect.
She loved odd puzzles like pigs in clover, the spider's hole, baby billiards, and the like.
Lester shared in these simple amusements.
He would work by the hour, if necessary, to make a difficult puzzle come right.
Jennie was clever at solving these mechanical problems. Sometimes she would have to show him the right method, and then she would be immensely pleased with herself.
At other times she would stand behind him watching, her chin on his shoulder, her arms about his neck.
He seemed not to mind—indeed, he was happy in the wealth of affection she bestowed. Her cleverness, her gentleness, her tact created an atmosphere which was immensely pleasing; above all her youth and beauty appealed to him.
It made him feel young, and if there was one thing Lester objected to, it was the thought of drying up into an aimless old age.
"I want to keep young, or die young," was one of his pet remarks; and Jennie came to understand.
She was glad that she was so much younger now for his sake.
Another pleasant feature of the home life was Lester's steadily increasing affection for Vesta.
The child would sit at the big table in the library in the evening conning her books, while Jennie would sew, and Gerhardt would read his interminable list of German Lutheran papers.
It grieved the old man that Vesta should not be allowed to go to a German Lutheran parochial school, but Lester would listen to nothing of the sort.