He was long deeply in love with an American girl whom he had never spoken to, and the dream of his life was to marry an American.

He ended by marrying the daughter of Pferd the brewer, who had been at an American school in Indianapolis, and had come home as fragilely and nasally American as anybody.

She made him a good, sickly, fretful wife; and bore him five children, of whom two survived, with no visible taint of their German origin.
In the mean time Jacob's father had died and left his money to his son, with the understanding that he was to provide for his mother, who would gladly have given every cent to him and been no burden to him, if she could.

He took her home, and cared tenderly for her as long as she lived; and she meekly did her best to abolish herself in a household trying so hard to be American.

She could not help her native accent, but she kept silence when her son's wife had company; and when her eldest granddaughter began very early to have American callers, she went out of the room; they would not have noticed her if she had staid.
Before this Jacob had come forward publicly in proportion to his financial importance in the community.