here,
he said, and beautiful streets. Vessels from the lakes came into the
heart of the city. It was a wonderful city, and growing very fast. It
was thus that the new life appealed to him.

The effect which all this had upon Mrs. Gerhardt, Jennie, and the
rest of the family was phenomenal. Mrs. Gerhardt, long weighed upon by
the misery which Jennie's error had entailed, was for taking measures
for carrying out this plan at once. So buoyant was her natural
temperament that she was completely carried away by the glory of
Cleveland, and already saw fulfilled therein not only her own desires
for a nice home, but the prosperous advancement of her children. "Of
course they could get work," she said. Bass was right. She had always
wanted Gerhardt to go to some large city, but he would not. Now it was
necessary, and they would go and become better off than they ever had
been.

And Gerhardt did take this view of the situation. In answer to his
wife's letter he wrote that it was not advisable for him to leave his
place, but if Bass saw a way for them, it might be a good thing to go.
He was the more ready to acquiesce in the plan for the simple reason
that he was half distracted with the worry of supporting the family
and of paying the debts already outstanding. Every week he laid by
five dollars out of his salary, which he sent in the form of a postal
order to Mrs. Gerhardt. Three dollars he paid for board, and fifty
cents he kept for spending money, church dues, a little tobacco and
occasionally a glass of beer. Every week he put a dollar and a half in
a little iron bank against a rainy day. His room was a bare corner in
the topmost loft of the mill. To this he would ascend after sitting
alone on the doorstep of the mill in this lonely, foresaken
neighborhood, until nine o'clock of an evening; and here, amid the
odor of machinery wafted up from the floor below, by the light of a
single tallow candle, he would conclude his solitary day, reading his
German paper, folding his hands and thinking, kneeling by an open
window in the shadow of the night to say his prayers, and silently
stretching himself to rest. Long were the days, dreary the prospect.
Still he lifted his hands in utmost faith to God, praying that his
sins might be forgiven and that he might be vouchsafed a few more
years of comfort and of happy family life.

So the momentous question was finally decided. There was the
greatest longing and impatience among the chi