d protest that the house was fairly comfortable, that
the man was a nice, quiet, respectable-looking American--that if
he did drink a little beer it would not matter. Gerhardt would
immediately become incensed.

"That is always the way," he declared vigorously. "You have no
sense of economy. You are always so ready to let things go if I am not
there. He is a nice man! How do you know he is a nice man? Does he
keep the fire up? No! Does he keep the walks clean? If you don't watch
him he will be just like the others, no good. You should go around and
see how things are for yourself."

"All right, papa," she would reply in a genial effort to soothe
him, "I will. Please don't worry. I'll lock up the beer. Don't you
want a cup of coffee now and some toast?"

"No," Gerhardt would sigh immediately, "my stomach it don't do
right. I don't know how I am going to come out of this."

Dr. Makin, the leading physician of the vicinity, and a man of
considerable experience and ability, called at Jennie's request and
suggested a few simple things--hot milk, a wine tonic, rest, but
he told Jennie that she must not expect too much. "You know he is
quite well along in years now. He is quite feeble. If he were twenty
years younger we might do a great deal for him. As it is he is quite
well off where he is. He may live for some time. He may get up and be
around again, and then he may not. We must all expect these things. I
have never any care as to what may happen to me. I am too old
myself."

Jennie felt sorry to think that her father might die, but she was
pleased to think that if he must it was going to be under such
comfortable circumstances. Here at least he could have every care.

It soon became evident that this was Gerhardt's last illness, and
Jennie thought it her duty to communicate with her brothers and
sisters. She wrote Bass that his father was not well, and had a letter
from him saying that he was very busy and couldn't come on unless the
danger was an immediate one. He went on to say that George was in
Rochester, working for a wholesale wall-paper house--the
Sheff-Jefferson Company, he thought. Martha and her husband had gone
to Boston. Her address was a little suburb named Belmont, just outside
the city. William was in Omaha, working for a local electric company.
Veronica was married to a man named Albert Sheridan, who was connected
with a wholesale drug company in Cleveland. "She never comes to see
me," complained Ba