arm and proposed to take her to some near-by
watering-place, but Mrs. Gerhardt wouldn't go. "I don't think it would
do any good," she said. She sat about or went driving with her
daughter, but the fading autumn scenery depressed her. "I don't like
to get sick in the fall," she said. "The leaves coming down make me
think I am never going to get well."

"Oh, ma, how you talk!" said Jennie; but she felt frightened,
nevertheless.

How much the average home depends upon the mother was seen when it
was feared the end was near. Bass, who had thought of getting married
and getting out of this atmosphere, abandoned the idea temporarily.
Gerhardt, shocked and greatly depressed, hung about like one expectant
of and greatly awed by the possibility of disaster. Jennie, too
inexperienced in death to feel that she could possibly lose her
mother, felt as if somehow her living depended on her. Hoping in spite
of all opposing circumstances, she hung about, a white figure of
patience, waiting and serving.

The end came one morning after a month of illness and several days
of unconsciousness, during which silence reigned in the house and all
the family went about on tiptoe. Mrs. Gerhardt passed away with her
dying gaze fastened on Jennie's face for the last few minutes of
consciousness that life vouchsafed her. Jennie stared into her eyes
with a yearning horror. "Oh, mamma! mamma!" she cried. "Oh no,
no!"

Gerhardt came running in from the yard, and, throwing himself down
by the bedside, wrung his bony hands in anguish. "I should have gone
first!" he cried. "I should have gone first!"

The death of Mrs. Gerhardt hastened the final breaking up of the
family. Bass was bent on getting married at once, having had a girl in
town for some time. Martha, whose views of life had broadened and
hardened, was anxious to get out also. She felt that a sort of stigma
attached to the home--to herself, in fact, so long as she
remained there. Martha looked to the public schools as a source of
income; she was going to be a teacher. Gerhardt alone scarcely knew
which way to turn. He was again at work as a night watchman. Jennie
found him crying one day alone in the kitchen, and immediately burst
into tears herself. "Now, papa!" she pleaded, "it isn't as bad as
that. You will always have a home--you know that--as long as
I have anything. You can come with me."

"No, no," he protested. He really did not want to go with her. "It
isn't that," he continue