“Bass said we might get some of the laundry of the men at the hotel to do.”
Mrs. Gerhardt, whose mind had been straining all night at the problem of adding something to the three dollars which her six afternoons would bring her, approved of the idea.
“So we might,” she said. “I’ll ask that clerk.”
When they reached the hotel, however, no immediate opportunity presented itself. They worked on until late in the afternoon. Then, as fortune would have it, the housekeeper sent them in to scrub up the floor behind the clerk’s desk. That important individual felt very kindly toward mother and daughter. He liked the former’s sweetly troubled countenance and the latter’s pretty face. So he listened graciously when Mrs. Gerhardt ventured meekly to put the question which she had been revolving in her mind all the afternoon.
“Is there any gentleman here,” she said, “who would give me his washing to do? I’d be so very much obliged for it.”
The clerk looked at her, and again recognized that absolute want was written all over her anxious face.
“Let’s see,” he answered, thinking of Senator Brander and Marshall Hopkins. Both were charitable men, who would be more than glad to aid a poor woman. “You go up and see Senator Brander,” he continued. “He’s in twenty-two. Here,” he added, writing out the number, “you go up and tell him I sent you.”
Mrs. Gerhardt took the card with a tremor of gratefulness. Her eyes looked the words she could not say.
“That’s all right,” said the clerk, observing her emotion. “You go right up. You’ll find him in his room now.”
With the greatest diffidence Mrs. Gerhardt knocked at number twenty-two. Jennie stood silently at her side.