The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair (2024)

CHAPTER I

It was four o’clock when the ceremony was over and the carriages began toarrive. There had been a crowd following all the way, owing to the exuberanceof Marija Berczynskas. The occasion rested heavily upon Marija’s broadshoulders—it was her task to see that all things went in due form, andafter the best home traditions; and, flying wildly hither and thither, bowlingevery one out of the way, and scolding and exhorting all day with hertremendous voice, Marija was too eager to see that others conformed to theproprieties to consider them herself. She had left the church last of all, and,desiring to arrive first at the hall, had issued orders to the coachman todrive faster. When that personage had developed a will of his own in thematter, Marija had flung up the window of the carriage, and, leaning out,proceeded to tell him her opinion of him, first in Lithuanian, which he did notunderstand, and then in Polish, which he did. Having the advantage of her inaltitude, the driver had stood his ground and even ventured to attempt tospeak; and the result had been a furious altercation, which, continuing all theway down Ashland Avenue, had added a new swarm of urchins to the cortege ateach side street for half a mile.

This was unfortunate, for already there was a throng before the door. The musichad started up, and half a block away you could hear the dull “broom,broom” of a cello, with the squeaking of two fiddles which vied with eachother in intricate and altitudinous gymnastics. Seeing the throng, Marijaabandoned precipitately the debate concerning the ancestors of her coachman,and, springing from the moving carriage, plunged in and proceeded to clear away to the hall. Once within, she turned and began to push the other way,roaring, meantime, “Eik! Eik! Uzdaryk-duris!” in tones whichmade the orchestral uproar sound like fairy music.

“Z. Graiczunas, Pasilinksminimams darzas. Vynas. Sznapsas. Wines andLiquors. Union Headquarters”—that was the way the signs ran. Thereader, who perhaps has never held much converse in the language of far-offLithuania, will be glad of the explanation that the place was the rear room ofa saloon in that part of Chicago known as “back of the yards.” Thisinformation is definite and suited to the matter of fact; but how pitifullyinadequate it would have seemed to one who understood that it was also thesupreme hour of ecstasy in the life of one of God’s gentlest creatures,the scene of the wedding feast and the joy-transfiguration of little OnaLukoszaite!

She stood in the doorway, shepherded by Cousin Marija, breathless from pushingthrough the crowd, and in her happiness painful to look upon. There was a lightof wonder in her eyes and her lids trembled, and her otherwise wan little facewas flushed. She wore a muslin dress, conspicuously white, and a stiff littleveil coming to her shoulders. There were five pink paper roses twisted in theveil, and eleven bright green rose leaves. There were new white cotton glovesupon her hands, and as she stood staring about her she twisted them togetherfeverishly. It was almost too much for her—you could see the pain of toogreat emotion in her face, and all the tremor of her form. She was soyoung—not quite sixteen—and small for her age, a mere child; andshe had just been married—and married to Jurgis,[1]of all men, to Jurgis Rudkus, he with the white flower in the buttonhole of hisnew black suit, he with the mighty shoulders and the giant hands.

[1]Pronounced Yoorghis

Ona was blue-eyed and fair, while Jurgis had great black eyes with beetlingbrows, and thick black hair that curled in waves about his ears—in short,they were one of those incongruous and impossible married couples with whichMother Nature so often wills to confound all prophets, before and after. Jurgiscould take up a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound quarter of beef and carry it into acar without a stagger, or even a thought; and now he stood in a far corner,frightened as a hunted animal, and obliged to moisten his lips with his tongueeach time before he could answer the congratulations of his friends.

Gradually there was effected a separation between the spectators and theguests—a separation at least sufficiently complete for working purposes.There was no time during the festivities which ensued when there were notgroups of onlookers in the doorways and the corners; and if any one of theseonlookers came sufficiently close, or looked sufficiently hungry, a chair wasoffered him, and he was invited to the feast. It was one of the laws of theveselija that no one goes hungry; and, while a rule made in the forestsof Lithuania is hard to apply in the stockyards district of Chicago, with itsquarter of a million inhabitants, still they did their best, and the childrenwho ran in from the street, and even the dogs, went out again happier. Acharming informality was one of the characteristics of this celebration. Themen wore their hats, or, if they wished, they took them off, and their coatswith them; they ate when and where they pleased, and moved as often as theypleased. There were to be speeches and singing, but no one had to listen whodid not care to; if he wished, meantime, to speak or sing himself, he wasperfectly free. The resulting medley of sound distracted no one, save possiblyalone the babies, of which there were present a number equal to the totalpossessed by all the guests invited. There was no other place for the babies tobe, and so part of the preparations for the evening consisted of a collectionof cribs and carriages in one corner. In these the babies slept, three or fourtogether, or wakened together, as the case might be. Those who were stillolder, and could reach the tables, marched about munching contentedly at meatbones and bologna sausages.

The room is about thirty feet square, with whitewashed walls, bare save for acalendar, a picture of a race horse, and a family tree in a gilded frame. Tothe right there is a door from the saloon, with a few loafers in the doorway,and in the corner beyond it a bar, with a presiding genius clad in soiledwhite, with waxed black mustaches and a carefully oiled curl plastered againstone side of his forehead. In the opposite corner are two tables, filling athird of the room and laden with dishes and cold viands, which a few of thehungrier guests are already munching. At the head, where sits the bride, is asnow-white cake, with an Eiffel tower of constructed decoration, with sugarroses and two angels upon it, and a generous sprinkling of pink and green andyellow candies. Beyond opens a door into the kitchen, where there is a glimpseto be had of a range with much steam ascending from it, and many women, old andyoung, rushing hither and thither. In the corner to the left are the threemusicians, upon a little platform, toiling heroically to make some impressionupon the hubbub; also the babies, similarly occupied, and an open window whencethe populace imbibes the sights and sounds and odors.

Suddenly some of the steam begins to advance, and, peering through it, youdiscern Aunt Elizabeth, Ona’s stepmother—Teta Elzbieta, as theycall her—bearing aloft a great platter of stewed duck. Behind her isKotrina, making her way cautiously, staggering beneath a similar burden; andhalf a minute later there appears old Grandmother Majauszkiene, with a bigyellow bowl of smoking potatoes, nearly as big as herself. So, bit by bit, thefeast takes form—there is a ham and a dish of sauerkraut, boiled rice,macaroni, bologna sausages, great piles of penny buns, bowls of milk, andfoaming pitchers of beer. There is also, not six feet from your back, the bar,where you may order all you please and do not have to pay for it.“Eiksz! Graicziau!” screams Marija Berczynskas, and falls towork herself—for there is more upon the stove inside that will be spoiledif it be not eaten.

So, with laughter and shouts and endless badinage and merriment, the gueststake their places. The young men, who for the most part have been huddled nearthe door, summon their resolution and advance; and the shrinking Jurgis ispoked and scolded by the old folks until he consents to seat himself at theright hand of the bride. The two bridesmaids, whose insignia of office arepaper wreaths, come next, and after them the rest of the guests, old and young,boys and girls. The spirit of the occasion takes hold of the stately bartender,who condescends to a plate of stewed duck; even the fat policeman—whoseduty it will be, later in the evening, to break up the fights—draws up achair to the foot of the table. And the children shout and the babies yell, andevery one laughs and sings and chatters—while above all the deafeningclamor Cousin Marija shouts orders to the musicians.

The musicians—how shall one begin to describe them? All this time theyhave been there, playing in a mad frenzy—all of this scene must be read,or said, or sung, to music. It is the music which makes it what it is; it isthe music which changes the place from the rear room of a saloon in back of theyards to a fairy place, a wonderland, a little corner of the high mansions ofthe sky.

The little person who leads this trio is an inspired man. His fiddle is out oftune, and there is no rosin on his bow, but still he is an inspiredman—the hands of the muses have been laid upon him. He plays like onepossessed by a demon, by a whole horde of demons. You can feel them in the airround about him, capering frenetically; with their invisible feet they set thepace, and the hair of the leader of the orchestra rises on end, and hiseyeballs start from their sockets, as he toils to keep up with them.

Tamoszius Kuszleika is his name, and he has taught himself to play the violinby practicing all night, after working all day on the “killingbeds.” He is in his shirt sleeves, with a vest figured with faded goldhorseshoes, and a pink-striped shirt, suggestive of peppermint candy. A pair ofmilitary trousers, light blue with a yellow stripe, serve to give thatsuggestion of authority proper to the leader of a band. He is only about fivefeet high, but even so these trousers are about eight inches short of theground. You wonder where he can have gotten them or rather you would wonder, ifthe excitement of being in his presence left you time to think of such things.

For he is an inspired man. Every inch of him is inspired—you might almostsay inspired separately. He stamps with his feet, he tosses his head, he swaysand swings to and fro; he has a wizened-up little face, irresistibly comical;and, when he executes a turn or a flourish, his brows knit and his lips workand his eyelids wink—the very ends of his necktie bristle out. And everynow and then he turns upon his companions, nodding, signaling, beckoningfrantically—with every inch of him appealing, imploring, in behalf of themuses and their call.

For they are hardly worthy of Tamoszius, the other two members of theorchestra. The second violin is a Slovak, a tall, gaunt man with black-rimmedspectacles and the mute and patient look of an overdriven mule; he responds tothe whip but feebly, and then always falls back into his old rut. The third manis very fat, with a round, red, sentimental nose, and he plays with his eyesturned up to the sky and a look of infinite yearning. He is playing a bass partupon his cello, and so the excitement is nothing to him; no matter what happensin the treble, it is his task to saw out one long-drawn and lugubrious noteafter another, from four o’clock in the afternoon until nearly the samehour next morning, for his third of the total income of one dollar per hour.

Before the feast has been five minutes under way, Tamoszius Kuszleika has risenin his excitement; a minute or two more and you see that he is beginning toedge over toward the tables. His nostrils are dilated and his breath comesfast—his demons are driving him. He nods and shakes his head at hiscompanions, jerking at them with his violin, until at last the long form of thesecond violinist also rises up. In the end all three of them begin advancing,step by step, upon the banqueters, Valentinavyczia, the cellist, bumping alongwith his instrument between notes. Finally all three are gathered at the footof the tables, and there Tamoszius mounts upon a stool.

Now he is in his glory, dominating the scene. Some of the people are eating,some are laughing and talking—but you will make a great mistake if youthink there is one of them who does not hear him. His notes are never true, andhis fiddle buzzes on the low ones and squeaks and scratches on the high; butthese things they heed no more than they heed the dirt and noise and squalorabout them—it is out of this material that they have to build theirlives, with it that they have to utter their souls. And this is theirutterance; merry and boisterous, or mournful and wailing, or passionate andrebellious, this music is their music, music of home. It stretches out its armsto them, they have only to give themselves up. Chicago and its saloons and itsslums fade away—there are green meadows and sunlit rivers, mighty forestsand snow-clad hills. They behold home landscapes and childhood scenesreturning; old loves and friendships begin to waken, old joys and griefs tolaugh and weep. Some fall back and close their eyes, some beat upon the table.Now and then one leaps up with a cry and calls for this song or that; and thenthe fire leaps brighter in Tamoszius’ eyes, and he flings up his fiddleand shouts to his companions, and away they go in mad career. The company takesup the choruses, and men and women cry out like all possessed; some leap totheir feet and stamp upon the floor, lifting their glasses and pledging eachother. Before long it occurs to some one to demand an old wedding song, whichcelebrates the beauty of the bride and the joys of love. In the excitement ofthis masterpiece Tamoszius Kuszleika begins to edge in between the tables,making his way toward the head, where sits the bride. There is not a foot ofspace between the chairs of the guests, and Tamoszius is so short that he pokesthem with his bow whenever he reaches over for the low notes; but still hepresses in, and insists relentlessly that his companions must follow. Duringtheir progress, needless to say, the sounds of the cello are pretty wellextinguished; but at last the three are at the head, and Tamoszius takes hisstation at the right hand of the bride and begins to pour out his soul inmelting strains.

Little Ona is too excited to eat. Once in a while she tastes a littlesomething, when Cousin Marija pinches her elbow and reminds her; but, for themost part, she sits gazing with the same fearful eyes of wonder. Teta Elzbietais all in a flutter, like a hummingbird; her sisters, too, keep running upbehind her, whispering, breathless. But Ona seems scarcely to hearthem—the music keeps calling, and the far-off look comes back, and shesits with her hands pressed together over her heart. Then the tears begin tocome into her eyes; and as she is ashamed to wipe them away, and ashamed to letthem run down her cheeks, she turns and shakes her head a little, and thenflushes red when she sees that Jurgis is watching her. When in the endTamoszius Kuszleika has reached her side, and is waving his magic wand aboveher, Ona’s cheeks are scarlet, and she looks as if she would have to getup and run away.

In this crisis, however, she is saved by Marija Berczynskas, whom the musessuddenly visit. Marija is fond of a song, a song of lovers’ parting; shewishes to hear it, and, as the musicians do not know it, she has risen, and isproceeding to teach them. Marija is short, but powerful in build. She works ina canning factory, and all day long she handles cans of beef that weighfourteen pounds. She has a broad Slavic face, with prominent red cheeks. Whenshe opens her mouth, it is tragical, but you cannot help thinking of a horse.She wears a blue flannel shirt-waist, which is now rolled up at the sleeves,disclosing her brawny arms; she has a carving fork in her hand, with which shepounds on the table to mark the time. As she roars her song, in a voice ofwhich it is enough to say that it leaves no portion of the room vacant, thethree musicians follow her, laboriously and note by note, but averaging onenote behind; thus they toil through stanza after stanza of a lovesickswain’s lamentation:—

“Sudiev’ kvietkeli, tu brangiausis;
Sudiev’ ir laime, man biednam,
Matau—paskyre teip Aukszcziausis,
Jog vargt ant svieto reik vienam!”

When the song is over, it is time for the speech, and old Dede Antanas rises tohis feet. Grandfather Anthony, Jurgis’ father, is not more than sixtyyears of age, but you would think that he was eighty. He has been only sixmonths in America, and the change has not done him good. In his manhood heworked in a cotton mill, but then a coughing fell upon him, and he had toleave; out in the country the trouble disappeared, but he has been working inthe pickle rooms at Durham’s, and the breathing of the cold, damp air allday has brought it back. Now as he rises he is seized with a coughing fit, andholds himself by his chair and turns away his wan and battered face until itpasses.

Generally it is the custom for the speech at a veselija to be taken outof one of the books and learned by heart; but in his youthful days Dede Antanasused to be a scholar, and really make up all the love letters of his friends.Now it is understood that he has composed an original speech of congratulationand benediction, and this is one of the events of the day. Even the boys, whoare romping about the room, draw near and listen, and some of the women sob andwipe their aprons in their eyes. It is very solemn, for Antanas Rudkus hasbecome possessed of the idea that he has not much longer to stay with hischildren. His speech leaves them all so tearful that one of the guests, JokubasSzedvilas, who keeps a delicatessen store on Halsted Street, and is fat andhearty, is moved to rise and say that things may not be as bad as that, andthen to go on and make a little speech of his own, in which he showerscongratulations and prophecies of happiness upon the bride and groom,proceeding to particulars which greatly delight the young men, but which causeOna to blush more furiously than ever. Jokubas possesses what his wifecomplacently describes as “poetiszka vaidintuve”—a poeticalimagination.

Now a good many of the guests have finished, and, since there is no pretense ofceremony, the banquet begins to break up. Some of the men gather about the bar;some wander about, laughing and singing; here and there will be a little group,chanting merrily, and in sublime indifference to the others and to theorchestra as well. Everybody is more or less restless—one would guessthat something is on their minds. And so it proves. The last tardy diners arescarcely given time to finish, before the tables and the debris are shoved intothe corner, and the chairs and the babies piled out of the way, and the realcelebration of the evening begins. Then Tamoszius Kuszleika, after replenishinghimself with a pot of beer, returns to his platform, and, standing up, reviewsthe scene; he taps authoritatively upon the side of his violin, then tucks itcarefully under his chin, then waves his bow in an elaborate flourish, andfinally smites the sounding strings and closes his eyes, and floats away inspirit upon the wings of a dreamy waltz. His companion follows, but with hiseyes open, watching where he treads, so to speak; and finally Valentinavyczia,after waiting for a little and beating with his foot to get the time, casts uphis eyes to the ceiling and begins to saw—“Broom! broom!broom!”

The company pairs off quickly, and the whole room is soon in motion. Apparentlynobody knows how to waltz, but that is nothing of any consequence—thereis music, and they dance, each as he pleases, just as before they sang. Most ofthem prefer the “two-step,” especially the young, with whom it isthe fashion. The older people have dances from home, strange and complicatedsteps which they execute with grave solemnity. Some do not dance anything atall, but simply hold each other’s hands and allow the undisciplined joyof motion to express itself with their feet. Among these are Jokubas Szedvilasand his wife, Lucija, who together keep the delicatessen store, and consumenearly as much as they sell; they are too fat to dance, but they stand in themiddle of the floor, holding each other fast in their arms, rocking slowly fromside to side and grinning seraphically, a picture of toothless and perspiringecstasy.

Of these older people many wear clothing reminiscent in some detail ofhome—an embroidered waistcoat or stomacher, or a gaily coloredhandkerchief, or a coat with large cuffs and fancy buttons. All these thingsare carefully avoided by the young, most of whom have learned to speak Englishand to affect the latest style of clothing. The girls wear ready-made dressesor shirt waists, and some of them look quite pretty. Some of the young men youwould take to be Americans, of the type of clerks, but for the fact that theywear their hats in the room. Each of these younger couples affects a style ofits own in dancing. Some hold each other tightly, some at a cautious distance.Some hold their hands out stiffly, some drop them loosely at their sides. Somedance springily, some glide softly, some move with grave dignity. There areboisterous couples, who tear wildly about the room, knocking every one out oftheir way. There are nervous couples, whom these frighten, and who cry,“Nusfok! Kas yra?” at them as they pass. Each couple is paired forthe evening—you will never see them change about. There is AlenaJasaityte, for instance, who has danced unending hours with Juozas Raczius, towhom she is engaged. Alena is the beauty of the evening, and she would bereally beautiful if she were not so proud. She wears a white shirtwaist, whichrepresents, perhaps, half a week’s labor painting cans. She holds herskirt with her hand as she dances, with stately precision, after the manner ofthe grandes dames. Juozas is driving one of Durham’s wagons, andis making big wages. He affects a “tough” aspect, wearing his haton one side and keeping a cigarette in his mouth all the evening. Then there isJadvyga Marcinkus, who is also beautiful, but humble. Jadvyga likewise paintscans, but then she has an invalid mother and three little sisters to support byit, and so she does not spend her wages for shirtwaists. Jadvyga is small anddelicate, with jet-black eyes and hair, the latter twisted into a little knotand tied on the top of her head. She wears an old white dress which she hasmade herself and worn to parties for the past five years; it ishigh-waisted—almost under her arms, and not very becoming,—but thatdoes not trouble Jadvyga, who is dancing with her Mikolas. She is small, whilehe is big and powerful; she nestles in his arms as if she would hide herselffrom view, and leans her head upon his shoulder. He in turn has clasped hisarms tightly around her, as if he would carry her away; and so she dances, andwill dance the entire evening, and would dance forever, in ecstasy of bliss.You would smile, perhaps, to see them—but you would not smile if you knewall the story. This is the fifth year, now, that Jadvyga has been engaged toMikolas, and her heart is sick. They would have been married in the beginning,only Mikolas has a father who is drunk all day, and he is the only other man ina large family. Even so they might have managed it (for Mikolas is a skilledman) but for cruel accidents which have almost taken the heart out of them. Heis a beef-boner, and that is a dangerous trade, especially when you are onpiecework and trying to earn a bride. Your hands are slippery, and your knifeis slippery, and you are toiling like mad, when somebody happens to speak toyou, or you strike a bone. Then your hand slips up on the blade, and there is afearful gash. And that would not be so bad, only for the deadly contagion. Thecut may heal, but you never can tell. Twice now; within the last three years,Mikolas has been lying at home with blood poisoning—once for three monthsand once for nearly seven. The last time, too, he lost his job, and that meantsix weeks more of standing at the doors of the packing houses, at sixo’clock on bitter winter mornings, with a foot of snow on the ground andmore in the air. There are learned people who can tell you out of thestatistics that beef-boners make forty cents an hour, but, perhaps, thesepeople have never looked into a beef-boner’s hands.

When Tamoszius and his companions stop for a rest, as perforce they must, nowand then, the dancers halt where they are and wait patiently. They never seemto tire; and there is no place for them to sit down if they did. It is only fora minute, anyway, for the leader starts up again, in spite of all the protestsof the other two. This time it is another sort of a dance, a Lithuanian dance.Those who prefer to, go on with the two-step, but the majority go through anintricate series of motions, resembling more fancy skating than a dance. Theclimax of it is a furious prestissimo, at which the couples seize handsand begin a mad whirling. This is quite irresistible, and every one in the roomjoins in, until the place becomes a maze of flying skirts and bodies quitedazzling to look upon. But the sight of sights at this moment is TamosziusKuszleika. The old fiddle squeaks and shrieks in protest, but Tamoszius has nomercy. The sweat starts out on his forehead, and he bends over like a cycliston the last lap of a race. His body shakes and throbs like a runaway steamengine, and the ear cannot follow the flying showers of notes—there is apale blue mist where you look to see his bowing arm. With a most wonderful rushhe comes to the end of the tune, and flings up his hands and staggers backexhausted; and with a final shout of delight the dancers fly apart, reelinghere and there, bringing up against the walls of the room.

After this there is beer for every one, the musicians included, and therevelers take a long breath and prepare for the great event of the evening,which is the acziavimas. The acziavimas is a ceremony which, oncebegun, will continue for three or four hours, and it involves one uninterrupteddance. The guests form a great ring, locking hands, and, when the music startsup, begin to move around in a circle. In the center stands the bride, and, oneby one, the men step into the enclosure and dance with her. Each dances forseveral minutes—as long as he pleases; it is a very merry proceeding,with laughter and singing, and when the guest has finished, he finds himselfface to face with Teta Elzbieta, who holds the hat. Into it he drops a sum ofmoney—a dollar, or perhaps five dollars, according to his power, and hisestimate of the value of the privilege. The guests are expected to pay for thisentertainment; if they be proper guests, they will see that there is a neat sumleft over for the bride and bridegroom to start life upon.

Most fearful they are to contemplate, the expenses of this entertainment. Theywill certainly be over two hundred dollars and maybe three hundred; and threehundred dollars is more than the year’s income of many a person in thisroom. There are able-bodied men here who work from early morning until late atnight, in ice-cold cellars with a quarter of an inch of water on thefloor—men who for six or seven months in the year never see the sunlightfrom Sunday afternoon till the next Sunday morning—and who cannot earnthree hundred dollars in a year. There are little children here, scarce intheir teens, who can hardly see the top of the work benches—whose parentshave lied to get them their places—and who do not make the half of threehundred dollars a year, and perhaps not even the third of it. And then to spendsuch a sum, all in a single day of your life, at a wedding feast! (Forobviously it is the same thing, whether you spend it at once for your ownwedding, or in a long time, at the weddings of all your friends.)

It is very imprudent, it is tragic—but, ah, it is so beautiful! Bit bybit these poor people have given up everything else; but to this they clingwith all the power of their souls—they cannot give up theveselija! To do that would mean, not merely to be defeated, but toacknowledge defeat—and the difference between these two things is whatkeeps the world going. The veselija has come down to them from a far-offtime; and the meaning of it was that one might dwell within the cave and gazeupon shadows, provided only that once in his lifetime he could break hischains, and feel his wings, and behold the sun; provided that once in hislifetime he might testify to the fact that life, with all its cares and itsterrors, is no such great thing after all, but merely a bubble upon the surfaceof a river, a thing that one may toss about and play with as a juggler tosseshis golden balls, a thing that one may quaff, like a goblet of rare red wine.Thus having known himself for the master of things, a man could go back to histoil and live upon the memory all his days.

Endlessly the dancers swung round and round—when they were dizzy theyswung the other way. Hour after hour this had continued—the darkness hadfallen and the room was dim from the light of two smoky oil lamps. Themusicians had spent all their fine frenzy by now, and played only one tune,wearily, ploddingly. There were twenty bars or so of it, and when they came tothe end they began again. Once every ten minutes or so they would fail to beginagain, but instead would sink back exhausted; a circumstance which invariablybrought on a painful and terrifying scene, that made the fat policeman stiruneasily in his sleeping place behind the door.

It was all Marija Berczynskas. Marija was one of those hungry souls who clingwith desperation to the skirts of the retreating muse. All day long she hadbeen in a state of wonderful exaltation; and now it was leaving—and shewould not let it go. Her soul cried out in the words of Faust, “Stay,thou art fair!” Whether it was by beer, or by shouting, or by music, orby motion, she meant that it should not go. And she would go back to the chaseof it—and no sooner be fairly started than her chariot would be thrownoff the track, so to speak, by the stupidity of those thrice accursedmusicians. Each time, Marija would emit a howl and fly at them, shaking herfists in their faces, stamping upon the floor, purple and incoherent with rage.In vain the frightened Tamoszius would attempt to speak, to plead thelimitations of the flesh; in vain would the puffing and breathless ponasJokubas insist, in vain would Teta Elzbieta implore. “Szalin!”Marija would scream. “Palauk! isz kelio! What are you paid for, childrenof hell?” And so, in sheer terror, the orchestra would strike up again,and Marija would return to her place and take up her task.

She bore all the burden of the festivities now. Ona was kept up by herexcitement, but all of the women and most of the men were tired—the soulof Marija was alone unconquered. She drove on the dancers—what had oncebeen the ring had now the shape of a pear, with Marija at the stem, pulling oneway and pushing the other, shouting, stamping, singing, a very volcano ofenergy. Now and then some one coming in or out would leave the door open, andthe night air was chill; Marija as she passed would stretch out her foot andkick the doorknob, and slam would go the door! Once this procedure was thecause of a calamity of which Sebastijonas Szedvilas was the hapless victim.Little Sebastijonas, aged three, had been wandering about oblivious to allthings, holding turned up over his mouth a bottle of liquid known as“pop,” pink-colored, ice-cold, and delicious. Passing through thedoorway the door smote him full, and the shriek which followed brought thedancing to a halt. Marija, who threatened horrid murder a hundred times a day,and would weep over the injury of a fly, seized little Sebastijonas in her armsand bid fair to smother him with kisses. There was a long rest for theorchestra, and plenty of refreshments, while Marija was making her peace withher victim, seating him upon the bar, and standing beside him and holding tohis lips a foaming schooner of beer.

In the meantime there was going on in another corner of the room an anxiousconference between Teta Elzbieta and Dede Antanas, and a few of the moreintimate friends of the family. A trouble was come upon them. Theveselija is a compact, a compact not expressed, but therefore only themore binding upon all. Every one’s share was different—and yetevery one knew perfectly well what his share was, and strove to give a littlemore. Now, however, since they had come to the new country, all this waschanging; it seemed as if there must be some subtle poison in the air that onebreathed here—it was affecting all the young men at once. They would comein crowds and fill themselves with a fine dinner, and then sneak off. One wouldthrow another’s hat out of the window, and both would go out to get it,and neither could be seen again. Or now and then half a dozen of them would gettogether and march out openly, staring at you, and making fun of you to yourface. Still others, worse yet, would crowd about the bar, and at the expense ofthe host drink themselves sodden, paying not the least attention to any one,and leaving it to be thought that either they had danced with the bridealready, or meant to later on.

All these things were going on now, and the family was helpless with dismay. Solong they had toiled, and such an outlay they had made! Ona stood by, her eyeswide with terror. Those frightful bills—how they had haunted her, eachitem gnawing at her soul all day and spoiling her rest at night. How often shehad named them over one by one and figured on them as she went towork—fifteen dollars for the hall, twenty-two dollars and a quarter forthe ducks, twelve dollars for the musicians, five dollars at the church, and ablessing of the Virgin besides—and so on without an end! Worst of all wasthe frightful bill that was still to come from Graiczunas for the beer andliquor that might be consumed. One could never get in advance more than a guessas to this from a saloon-keeper—and then, when the time came he alwayscame to you scratching his head and saying that he had guessed too low, butthat he had done his best—your guests had gotten so very drunk. By himyou were sure to be cheated unmercifully, and that even though you thoughtyourself the dearest of the hundreds of friends he had. He would begin to serveyour guests out of a keg that was half full, and finish with one that was halfempty, and then you would be charged for two kegs of beer. He would agree toserve a certain quality at a certain price, and when the time came you and yourfriends would be drinking some horrible poison that could not be described. Youmight complain, but you would get nothing for your pains but a ruined evening;while, as for going to law about it, you might as well go to heaven at once.The saloon-keeper stood in with all the big politics men in the district; andwhen you had once found out what it meant to get into trouble with such people,you would know enough to pay what you were told to pay and shut up.

What made all this the more painful was that it was so hard on the few that hadreally done their best. There was poor old ponas Jokubas, for instance—hehad already given five dollars, and did not every one know that JokubasSzedvilas had just mortgaged his delicatessen store for two hundred dollars tomeet several months’ overdue rent? And then there was withered old poniAniele—who was a widow, and had three children, and the rheumatismbesides, and did washing for the tradespeople on Halsted Street at prices itwould break your heart to hear named. Aniele had given the entire profit of herchickens for several months. Eight of them she owned, and she kept them in alittle place fenced around on her backstairs. All day long the children ofAniele were raking in the dump for food for these chickens; and sometimes, whenthe competition there was too fierce, you might see them on Halsted Streetwalking close to the gutters, and with their mother following to see that noone robbed them of their finds. Money could not tell the value of thesechickens to old Mrs. Jukniene—she valued them differently, for she had afeeling that she was getting something for nothing by means of them—thatwith them she was getting the better of a world that was getting the better ofher in so many other ways. So she watched them every hour of the day, and hadlearned to see like an owl at night to watch them then. One of them had beenstolen long ago, and not a month passed that some one did not try to stealanother. As the frustrating of this one attempt involved a score of falsealarms, it will be understood what a tribute old Mrs. Jukniene brought, justbecause Teta Elzbieta had once loaned her some money for a few days and savedher from being turned out of her house.

More and more friends gathered round while the lamentation about these thingswas going on. Some drew nearer, hoping to overhear the conversation, who werethemselves among the guilty—and surely that was a thing to try thepatience of a saint. Finally there came Jurgis, urged by some one, and thestory was retold to him. Jurgis listened in silence, with his great blackeyebrows knitted. Now and then there would come a gleam underneath them and hewould glance about the room. Perhaps he would have liked to go at some of thosefellows with his big clenched fists; but then, doubtless, he realized howlittle good it would do him. No bill would be any less for turning out any oneat this time; and then there would be the scandal—and Jurgis wantednothing except to get away with Ona and to let the world go its own way. So hishands relaxed and he merely said quietly: “It is done, and there is nouse in weeping, Teta Elzbieta.” Then his look turned toward Ona, whostood close to his side, and he saw the wide look of terror in her eyes.“Little one,” he said, in a low voice, “do not worry—itwill not matter to us. We will pay them all somehow. I will work harder.”That was always what Jurgis said. Ona had grown used to it as the solution ofall difficulties—“I will work harder!” He had said that inLithuania when one official had taken his passport from him, and another hadarrested him for being without it, and the two had divided a third of hisbelongings. He had said it again in New York, when the smooth-spoken agent hadtaken them in hand and made them pay such high prices, and almost preventedtheir leaving his place, in spite of their paying. Now he said it a third time,and Ona drew a deep breath; it was so wonderful to have a husband, just like agrown woman—and a husband who could solve all problems, and who was sobig and strong!

The last sob of little Sebastijonas has been stifled, and the orchestra hasonce more been reminded of its duty. The ceremony begins again—but thereare few now left to dance with, and so very soon the collection is over andpromiscuous dances once more begin. It is now after midnight, however, andthings are not as they were before. The dancers are dull and heavy—mostof them have been drinking hard, and have long ago passed the stage ofexhilaration. They dance in monotonous measure, round after round, hour afterhour, with eyes fixed upon vacancy, as if they were only half conscious, in aconstantly growing stupor. The men grasp the women very tightly, but there willbe half an hour together when neither will see the other’s face. Somecouples do not care to dance, and have retired to the corners, where they sitwith their arms enlaced. Others, who have been drinking still more, wanderabout the room, bumping into everything; some are in groups of two or three,singing, each group its own song. As time goes on there is a variety ofdrunkenness, among the younger men especially. Some stagger about in eachother’s arms, whispering maudlin words—others start quarrels uponthe slightest pretext, and come to blows and have to be pulled apart. Now thefat policeman wakens definitely, and feels of his club to see that it is readyfor business. He has to be prompt—for thesetwo-o’clock-in-the-morning fights, if they once get out of hand, are likea forest fire, and may mean the whole reserves at the station. The thing to dois to crack every fighting head that you see, before there are so many fightingheads that you cannot crack any of them. There is but scant account kept ofcracked heads in back of the yards, for men who have to crack the heads ofanimals all day seem to get into the habit, and to practice on their friends,and even on their families, between times. This makes it a cause forcongratulation that by modern methods a very few men can do the painfullynecessary work of head-cracking for the whole of the cultured world.

There is no fight that night—perhaps because Jurgis, too, iswatchful—even more so than the policeman. Jurgis has drunk a great deal,as any one naturally would on an occasion when it all has to be paid for,whether it is drunk or not; but he is a very steady man, and does not easilylose his temper. Only once there is a tight shave—and that is the faultof Marija Berczynskas. Marija has apparently concluded about two hours ago thatif the altar in the corner, with the deity in soiled white, be not the truehome of the muses, it is, at any rate, the nearest substitute on earthattainable. And Marija is just fighting drunk when there come to her ears thefacts about the villains who have not paid that night. Marija goes on thewarpath straight off, without even the preliminary of a good cursing, and whenshe is pulled off it is with the coat collars of two villains in her hands.Fortunately, the policeman is disposed to be reasonable, and so it is notMarija who is flung out of the place.

All this interrupts the music for not more than a minute or two. Then again themerciless tune begins—the tune that has been played for the lasthalf-hour without one single change. It is an American tune this time, onewhich they have picked up on the streets; all seem to know the words ofit—or, at any rate, the first line of it, which they hum to themselves,over and over again without rest: “In the good old summertime—inthe good old summertime! In the good old summertime—in the good oldsummertime!” There seems to be something hypnotic about this, with itsendlessly recurring dominant. It has put a stupor upon every one who hears it,as well as upon the men who are playing it. No one can get away from it, oreven think of getting away from it; it is three o’clock in the morning,and they have danced out all their joy, and danced out all their strength, andall the strength that unlimited drink can lend them—and still there is noone among them who has the power to think of stopping. Promptly at seveno’clock this same Monday morning they will every one of them have to bein their places at Durham’s or Brown’s or Jones’s, each inhis working clothes. If one of them be a minute late, he will be docked anhour’s pay, and if he be many minutes late, he will be apt to find hisbrass check turned to the wall, which will send him out to join the hungry mobthat waits every morning at the gates of the packing houses, from sixo’clock until nearly half-past eight. There is no exception to this rule,not even little Ona—who has asked for a holiday the day after her weddingday, a holiday without pay, and been refused. While there are so many who areanxious to work as you wish, there is no occasion for incommoding yourself withthose who must work otherwise.

Little Ona is nearly ready to faint—and half in a stupor herself, becauseof the heavy scent in the room. She has not taken a drop, but every one elsethere is literally burning alcohol, as the lamps are burning oil; some of themen who are sound asleep in their chairs or on the floor are reeking of it sothat you cannot go near them. Now and then Jurgis gazes at herhungrily—he has long since forgotten his shyness; but then the crowd isthere, and he still waits and watches the door, where a carriage is supposed tocome. It does not, and finally he will wait no longer, but comes up to Ona, whoturns white and trembles. He puts her shawl about her and then his own coat.They live only two blocks away, and Jurgis does not care about the carriage.

There is almost no farewell—the dancers do not notice them, and all ofthe children and many of the old folks have fallen asleep of sheer exhaustion.Dede Antanas is asleep, and so are the Szedvilases, husband and wife, theformer snoring in octaves. There is Teta Elzbieta, and Marija, sobbing loudly;and then there is only the silent night, with the stars beginning to pale alittle in the east. Jurgis, without a word, lifts Ona in his arms, and stridesout with her, and she sinks her head upon his shoulder with a moan. When hereaches home he is not sure whether she has fainted or is asleep, but when hehas to hold her with one hand while he unlocks the door, he sees that she hasopened her eyes.

“You shall not go to Brown’s today, little one,” he whispers,as he climbs the stairs; and she catches his arm in terror, gasping: “No!No! I dare not! It will ruin us!”

But he answers her again: “Leave it to me; leave it to me. I will earnmore money—I will work harder.”

CHAPTER II

Jurgis talked lightly about work, because he was young. They told him storiesabout the breaking down of men, there in the stockyards of Chicago, and of whathad happened to them afterward—stories to make your flesh creep, butJurgis would only laugh. He had only been there four months, and he was young,and a giant besides. There was too much health in him. He could not evenimagine how it would feel to be beaten. “That is well enough for men likeyou,” he would say, “silpnas, puny fellows—but my backis broad.”

Jurgis was like a boy, a boy from the country. He was the sort of man thebosses like to get hold of, the sort they make it a grievance they cannot gethold of. When he was told to go to a certain place, he would go there on therun. When he had nothing to do for the moment, he would stand round fidgeting,dancing, with the overflow of energy that was in him. If he were working in aline of men, the line always moved too slowly for him, and you could pick himout by his impatience and restlessness. That was why he had been picked out onone important occasion; for Jurgis had stood outside of Brown andCompany’s “Central Time Station” not more than half an hour,the second day of his arrival in Chicago, before he had been beckoned by one ofthe bosses. Of this he was very proud, and it made him more disposed than everto laugh at the pessimists. In vain would they all tell him that there were menin that crowd from which he had been chosen who had stood there amonth—yes, many months—and not been chosen yet. “Yes,”he would say, “but what sort of men? Broken-down tramps andgood-for-nothings, fellows who have spent all their money drinking, and want toget more for it. Do you want me to believe that with thesearms”—and he would clench his fists and hold them up in the air, sothat you might see the rolling muscles—“that with these arms peoplewill ever let me starve?”

“It is plain,” they would answer to this, “that you have comefrom the country, and from very far in the country.” And this was thefact, for Jurgis had never seen a city, and scarcely even a fair-sized town,until he had set out to make his fortune in the world and earn his right toOna. His father, and his father’s father before him, and as manyancestors back as legend could go, had lived in that part of Lithuania known asBrelovicz, the Imperial Forest. This is a great tract of a hundredthousand acres, which from time immemorial has been a hunting preserve of thenobility. There are a very few peasants settled in it, holding title fromancient times; and one of these was Antanas Rudkus, who had been rearedhimself, and had reared his children in turn, upon half a dozen acres ofcleared land in the midst of a wilderness. There had been one son besidesJurgis, and one sister. The former had been drafted into the army; that hadbeen over ten years ago, but since that day nothing had ever been heard of him.The sister was married, and her husband had bought the place when old Antanashad decided to go with his son.

It was nearly a year and a half ago that Jurgis had met Ona, at a horse fair ahundred miles from home. Jurgis had never expected to get married—he hadlaughed at it as a foolish trap for a man to walk into; but here, without everhaving spoken a word to her, with no more than the exchange of half a dozensmiles, he found himself, purple in the face with embarrassment and terror,asking her parents to sell her to him for his wife—and offering hisfather’s two horses he had been sent to the fair to sell. But Ona’sfather proved as a rock—the girl was yet a child, and he was a rich man,and his daughter was not to be had in that way. So Jurgis went home with aheavy heart, and that spring and summer toiled and tried hard to forget. In thefall, after the harvest was over, he saw that it would not do, and tramped thefull fortnight’s journey that lay between him and Ona.

He found an unexpected state of affairs—for the girl’s father haddied, and his estate was tied up with creditors; Jurgis’ heart leaped ashe realized that now the prize was within his reach. There was ElzbietaLukoszaite, Teta, or Aunt, as they called her, Ona’s stepmother, andthere were her six children, of all ages. There was also her brother Jonas, adried-up little man who had worked upon the farm. They were people of greatconsequence, as it seemed to Jurgis, fresh out of the woods; Ona knew how toread, and knew many other things that he did not know, and now the farm hadbeen sold, and the whole family was adrift—all they owned in the worldbeing about seven hundred rubles which is half as many dollars. They would havehad three times that, but it had gone to court, and the judge had decidedagainst them, and it had cost the balance to get him to change his decision.

Ona might have married and left them, but she would not, for she loved TetaElzbieta. It was Jonas who suggested that they all go to America, where afriend of his had gotten rich. He would work, for his part, and the women wouldwork, and some of the children, doubtless—they would live somehow.Jurgis, too, had heard of America. That was a country where, they said, a manmight earn three rubles a day; and Jurgis figured what three rubles a day wouldmean, with prices as they were where he lived, and decided forthwith that hewould go to America and marry, and be a rich man in the bargain. In thatcountry, rich or poor, a man was free, it was said; he did not have to go intothe army, he did not have to pay out his money to rascally officials—hemight do as he pleased, and count himself as good as any other man. So Americawas a place of which lovers and young people dreamed. If one could only manageto get the price of a passage, he could count his troubles at an end.

It was arranged that they should leave the following spring, and meantimeJurgis sold himself to a contractor for a certain time, and tramped nearly fourhundred miles from home with a gang of men to work upon a railroad in Smolensk.This was a fearful experience, with filth and bad food and cruelty andoverwork; but Jurgis stood it and came out in fine trim, and with eighty rublessewed up in his coat. He did not drink or fight, because he was thinking allthe time of Ona; and for the rest, he was a quiet, steady man, who did what hewas told to, did not lose his temper often, and when he did lose it made theoffender anxious that he should not lose it again. When they paid him off hedodged the company gamblers and dramshops, and so they tried to kill him; buthe escaped, and tramped it home, working at odd jobs, and sleeping always withone eye open.

So in the summer time they had all set out for America. At the last momentthere joined them Marija Berczynskas, who was a cousin of Ona’s. Marijawas an orphan, and had worked since childhood for a rich farmer of Vilna, whobeat her regularly. It was only at the age of twenty that it had occurred toMarija to try her strength, when she had risen up and nearly murdered the man,and then come away.

There were twelve in all in the party, five adults and six children—andOna, who was a little of both. They had a hard time on the passage; there wasan agent who helped them, but he proved a scoundrel, and got them into a trapwith some officials, and cost them a good deal of their precious money, whichthey clung to with such horrible fear. This happened to them again in NewYork—for, of course, they knew nothing about the country, and had no oneto tell them, and it was easy for a man in a blue uniform to lead them away,and to take them to a hotel and keep them there, and make them pay enormouscharges to get away. The law says that the rate card shall be on the door of ahotel, but it does not say that it shall be in Lithuanian.

It was in the stockyards that Jonas’ friend had gotten rich, and so toChicago the party was bound. They knew that one word, Chicago and that was allthey needed to know, at least, until they reached the city. Then, tumbled outof the cars without ceremony, they were no better off than before; they stoodstaring down the vista of Dearborn Street, with its big black buildingstowering in the distance, unable to realize that they had arrived, and why,when they said “Chicago,” people no longer pointed in somedirection, but instead looked perplexed, or laughed, or went on without payingany attention. They were pitiable in their helplessness; above all things theystood in deadly terror of any sort of person in official uniform, and sowhenever they saw a policeman they would cross the street and hurry by. For thewhole of the first day they wandered about in the midst of deafening confusion,utterly lost; and it was only at night that, cowering in the doorway of ahouse, they were finally discovered and taken by a policeman to the station. Inthe morning an interpreter was found, and they were taken and put upon a car,and taught a new word—“stockyards.” Their delight atdiscovering that they were to get out of this adventure without losing anothershare of their possessions it would not be possible to describe.

They sat and stared out of the window. They were on a street which seemed torun on forever, mile after mile—thirty-four of them, if they had knownit—and each side of it one uninterrupted row of wretched little two-storyframe buildings. Down every side street they could see, it was thesame—never a hill and never a hollow, but always the same endless vistaof ugly and dirty little wooden buildings. Here and there would be a bridgecrossing a filthy creek, with hard-baked mud shores and dingy sheds and docksalong it; here and there would be a railroad crossing, with a tangle ofswitches, and locomotives puffing, and rattling freight cars filing by; hereand there would be a great factory, a dingy building with innumerable windowsin it, and immense volumes of smoke pouring from the chimneys, darkening theair above and making filthy the earth beneath. But after each of theseinterruptions, the desolate procession would begin again—the processionof dreary little buildings.

A full hour before the party reached the city they had begun to note theperplexing changes in the atmosphere. It grew darker all the time, and upon theearth the grass seemed to grow less green. Every minute, as the train sped on,the colors of things became dingier; the fields were grown parched and yellow,the landscape hideous and bare. And along with the thickening smoke they beganto notice another circumstance, a strange, pungent odor. They were not surethat it was unpleasant, this odor; some might have called it sickening, buttheir taste in odors was not developed, and they were only sure that it wascurious. Now, sitting in the trolley car, they realized that they were on theirway to the home of it—that they had traveled all the way from Lithuaniato it. It was now no longer something far off and faint, that you caught inwhiffs; you could literally taste it, as well as smell it—you could takehold of it, almost, and examine it at your leisure. They were divided in theiropinions about it. It was an elemental odor, raw and crude; it was rich, almostrancid, sensual, and strong. There were some who drank it in as if it were anintoxicant; there were others who put their handkerchiefs to their faces. Thenew emigrants were still tasting it, lost in wonder, when suddenly the car cameto a halt, and the door was flung open, and a voiceshouted—“Stockyards!”

They were left standing upon the corner, staring; down a side street there weretwo rows of brick houses, and between them a vista: half a dozen chimneys, tallas the tallest of buildings, touching the very sky—and leaping from themhalf a dozen columns of smoke, thick, oily, and black as night. It might havecome from the center of the world, this smoke, where the fires of the agesstill smolder. It came as if self-impelled, driving all before it, a perpetualexplosion. It was inexhaustible; one stared, waiting to see it stop, but stillthe great streams rolled out. They spread in vast clouds overhead, writhing,curling; then, uniting in one giant river, they streamed away down the sky,stretching a black pall as far as the eye could reach.

Then the party became aware of another strange thing. This, too, like thecolor, was a thing elemental; it was a sound, a sound made up of ten thousandlittle sounds. You scarcely noticed it at first—it sunk into yourconsciousness, a vague disturbance, a trouble. It was like the murmuring of thebees in the spring, the whisperings of the forest; it suggested endlessactivity, the rumblings of a world in motion. It was only by an effort that onecould realize that it was made by animals, that it was the distant lowing often thousand cattle, the distant grunting of ten thousand swine.

They would have liked to follow it up, but, alas, they had no time foradventures just then. The policeman on the corner was beginning to watch them;and so, as usual, they started up the street. Scarcely had they gone a block,however, before Jonas was heard to give a cry, and began pointing excitedlyacross the street. Before they could gather the meaning of his breathlessejaculations he had bounded away, and they saw him enter a shop, over which wasa sign: “J. Szedvilas, Delicatessen.” When he came out again it wasin company with a very stout gentleman in shirt sleeves and an apron, claspingJonas by both hands and laughing hilariously. Then Teta Elzbieta recollectedsuddenly that Szedvilas had been the name of the mythical friend who had madehis fortune in America. To find that he had been making it in the delicatessenbusiness was an extraordinary piece of good fortune at this juncture; though itwas well on in the morning, they had not breakfasted, and the children werebeginning to whimper.

Thus was the happy ending to a woeful voyage. The two families literally fellupon each other’s necks—for it had been years since JokubasSzedvilas had met a man from his part of Lithuania. Before half the day theywere lifelong friends. Jokubas understood all the pitfalls of this new world,and could explain all of its mysteries; he could tell them the things theyought to have done in the different emergencies—and what was still moreto the point, he could tell them what to do now. He would take them to poniAniele, who kept a boardinghouse the other side of the yards; old Mrs.Jukniene, he explained, had not what one would call choice accommodations, butthey might do for the moment. To this Teta Elzbieta hastened to respond thatnothing could be too cheap to suit them just then; for they were quiteterrified over the sums they had had to expend. A very few days of practicalexperience in this land of high wages had been sufficient to make clear to themthe cruel fact that it was also a land of high prices, and that in it the poorman was almost as poor as in any other corner of the earth; and so therevanished in a night all the wonderful dreams of wealth that had been hauntingJurgis. What had made the discovery all the more painful was that they werespending, at American prices, money which they had earned at home rates ofwages—and so were really being cheated by the world! The last two daysthey had all but starved themselves—it made them quite sick to pay theprices that the railroad people asked them for food.

Yet, when they saw the home of the Widow Jukniene they could not but recoil,even so, in all their journey they had seen nothing so bad as this. Poni Anielehad a four-room flat in one of that wilderness of two-story frame tenementsthat lie “back of the yards.” There were four such flats in eachbuilding, and each of the four was a “boardinghouse” for theoccupancy of foreigners—Lithuanians, Poles, Slovaks, or Bohemians. Someof these places were kept by private persons, some were cooperative. Therewould be an average of half a dozen boarders to each room—sometimes therewere thirteen or fourteen to one room, fifty or sixty to a flat. Each one ofthe occupants furnished his own accommodations—that is, a mattress andsome bedding. The mattresses would be spread upon the floor in rows—andthere would be nothing else in the place except a stove. It was by no meansunusual for two men to own the same mattress in common, one working by day andusing it by night, and the other working at night and using it in the daytime.Very frequently a lodging house keeper would rent the same beds to doubleshifts of men.

Mrs. Jukniene was a wizened-up little woman, with a wrinkled face. Her home wasunthinkably filthy; you could not enter by the front door at all, owing to themattresses, and when you tried to go up the backstairs you found that she hadwalled up most of the porch with old boards to make a place to keep herchickens. It was a standing jest of the boarders that Aniele cleaned house byletting the chickens loose in the rooms. Undoubtedly this did keep down thevermin, but it seemed probable, in view of all the circumstances, that the oldlady regarded it rather as feeding the chickens than as cleaning the rooms. Thetruth was that she had definitely given up the idea of cleaning anything, underpressure of an attack of rheumatism, which had kept her doubled up in onecorner of her room for over a week; during which time eleven of her boarders,heavily in her debt, had concluded to try their chances of employment in KansasCity. This was July, and the fields were green. One never saw the fields, norany green thing whatever, in Packingtown; but one could go out on the road and“hobo it,” as the men phrased it, and see the country, and have along rest, and an easy time riding on the freight cars.

Such was the home to which the new arrivals were welcomed. There was nothingbetter to be had—they might not do so well by looking further, for Mrs.Jukniene had at least kept one room for herself and her three little children,and now offered to share this with the women and the girls of the party. Theycould get bedding at a secondhand store, she explained; and they would not needany, while the weather was so hot—doubtless they would all sleep on thesidewalk such nights as this, as did nearly all of her guests.“Tomorrow,” Jurgis said, when they were left alone, “tomorrowI will get a job, and perhaps Jonas will get one also; and then we can get aplace of our own.”

Later that afternoon he and Ona went out to take a walk and look about them, tosee more of this district which was to be their home. In back of the yards thedreary two-story frame houses were scattered farther apart, and there weregreat spaces bare—that seemingly had been overlooked by the great sore ofa city as it spread itself over the surface of the prairie. These bare placeswere grown up with dingy, yellow weeds, hiding innumerable tomato cans;innumerable children played upon them, chasing one another here and there,screaming and fighting. The most uncanny thing about this neighborhood was thenumber of the children; you thought there must be a school just out, and it wasonly after long acquaintance that you were able to realize that there was noschool, but that these were the children of the neighborhood—that therewere so many children to the block in Packingtown that nowhere on its streetscould a horse and buggy move faster than a walk!

It could not move faster anyhow, on account of the state of the streets. Thosethrough which Jurgis and Ona were walking resembled streets less than they dida miniature topographical map. The roadway was commonly several feet lower thanthe level of the houses, which were sometimes joined by high board walks; therewere no pavements—there were mountains and valleys and rivers, gulliesand ditches, and great hollows full of stinking green water. In these pools thechildren played, and rolled about in the mud of the streets; here and there onenoticed them digging in it, after trophies which they had stumbled on. Onewondered about this, as also about the swarms of flies which hung about thescene, literally blackening the air, and the strange, fetid odor which assailedone’s nostrils, a ghastly odor, of all the dead things of the universe.It impelled the visitor to questions and then the residents would explain,quietly, that all this was “made” land, and that it had been“made” by using it as a dumping ground for the city garbage. Aftera few years the unpleasant effect of this would pass away, it was said; butmeantime, in hot weather—and especially when it rained—the flieswere apt to be annoying. Was it not unhealthful? the stranger would ask, andthe residents would answer, “Perhaps; but there is no telling.”

A little way farther on, and Jurgis and Ona, staring open-eyed and wondering,came to the place where this “made” ground was in process ofmaking. Here was a great hole, perhaps two city blocks square, and with longfiles of garbage wagons creeping into it. The place had an odor for which thereare no polite words; and it was sprinkled over with children, who raked in itfrom dawn till dark. Sometimes visitors from the packing houses would wanderout to see this “dump,” and they would stand by and debate as towhether the children were eating the food they got, or merely collecting it forthe chickens at home. Apparently none of them ever went down to find out.

Beyond this dump there stood a great brickyard, with smoking chimneys. Firstthey took out the soil to make bricks, and then they filled it up again withgarbage, which seemed to Jurgis and Ona a felicitous arrangement,characteristic of an enterprising country like America. A little way beyond wasanother great hole, which they had emptied and not yet filled up. This heldwater, and all summer it stood there, with the near-by soil draining into it,festering and stewing in the sun; and then, when winter came, somebody cut theice on it, and sold it to the people of the city. This, too, seemed to thenewcomers an economical arrangement; for they did not read the newspapers, andtheir heads were not full of troublesome thoughts about “germs.”

They stood there while the sun went down upon this scene, and the sky in thewest turned blood-red, and the tops of the houses shone like fire. Jurgis andOna were not thinking of the sunset, however—their backs were turned toit, and all their thoughts were of Packingtown, which they could see so plainlyin the distance. The line of the buildings stood clear-cut and black againstthe sky; here and there out of the mass rose the great chimneys, with the riverof smoke streaming away to the end of the world. It was a study in colors now,this smoke; in the sunset light it was black and brown and gray and purple. Allthe sordid suggestions of the place were gone—in the twilight it was avision of power. To the two who stood watching while the darkness swallowed itup, it seemed a dream of wonder, with its talc of human energy, of things beingdone, of employment for thousands upon thousands of men, of opportunity andfreedom, of life and love and joy. When they came away, arm in arm, Jurgis wassaying, “Tomorrow I shall go there and get a job!”

CHAPTER III

In his capacity as delicatessen vender, Jokubas Szedvilas had manyacquaintances. Among these was one of the special policemen employed by Durham,whose duty it frequently was to pick out men for employment. Jokubas had nevertried it, but he expressed a certainty that he could get some of his friends ajob through this man. It was agreed, after consultation, that he should makethe effort with old Antanas and with Jonas. Jurgis was confident of his abilityto get work for himself, unassisted by any one. As we have said before, he wasnot mistaken in this. He had gone to Brown’s and stood there not morethan half an hour before one of the bosses noticed his form towering above therest, and signaled to him. The colloquy which followed was brief and to thepoint:

“Speak English?”

“No; Lit-uanian.” (Jurgis had studied this word carefully.)

“Job?”

“Je.” (A nod.)

“Worked here before?”

“No ’stand.”

(Signals and gesticulations on the part of the boss. Vigorous shakes of thehead by Jurgis.)

“Shovel guts?”

“No ’stand.” (More shakes of the head.)

“Zarnos. Pagaiksztis. Szluofa!” (Imitative motions.)

“Je.”

“See door. Durys?” (Pointing.)

“Je.”

“To-morrow, seven o’clock. Understand? Rytoj! Prieszpietys!Septyni!”

“Dekui, tamistai!” (Thank you, sir.) And that was all. Jurgisturned away, and then in a sudden rush the full realization of his triumphswept over him, and he gave a yell and a jump, and started off on a run. He hada job! He had a job! And he went all the way home as if upon wings, and burstinto the house like a cyclone, to the rage of the numerous lodgers who had justturned in for their daily sleep.

Meantime Jokubas had been to see his friend the policeman, and receivedencouragement, so it was a happy party. There being no more to be done thatday, the shop was left under the care of Lucija, and her husband sallied forthto show his friends the sights of Packingtown. Jokubas did this with the air ofa country gentleman escorting a party of visitors over his estate; he was anold-time resident, and all these wonders had grown up under his eyes, and hehad a personal pride in them. The packers might own the land, but he claimedthe landscape, and there was no one to say nay to this.

They passed down the busy street that led to the yards. It was still earlymorning, and everything was at its high tide of activity. A steady stream ofemployees was pouring through the gate—employees of the higher sort, atthis hour, clerks and stenographers and such. For the women there were waitingbig two-horse wagons, which set off at a gallop as fast as they were filled. Inthe distance there was heard again the lowing of the cattle, a sound as of afar-off ocean calling. They followed it, this time, as eager as children insight of a circus menagerie—which, indeed, the scene a good dealresembled. They crossed the railroad tracks, and then on each side of thestreet were the pens full of cattle; they would have stopped to look, butJokubas hurried them on, to where there was a stairway and a raised gallery,from which everything could be seen. Here they stood, staring, breathless withwonder.

There is over a square mile of space in the yards, and more than half of it isoccupied by cattle pens; north and south as far as the eye can reach therestretches a sea of pens. And they were all filled—so many cattle no onehad ever dreamed existed in the world. Red cattle, black, white, and yellowcattle; old cattle and young cattle; great bellowing bulls and little calvesnot an hour born; meek-eyed milch cows and fierce, long-horned Texas steers.The sound of them here was as of all the barnyards of the universe; and as forcounting them—it would have taken all day simply to count the pens. Hereand there ran long alleys, blocked at intervals by gates; and Jokubas told themthat the number of these gates was twenty-five thousand. Jokubas had recentlybeen reading a newspaper article which was full of statistics such as that, andhe was very proud as he repeated them and made his guests cry out with wonder.Jurgis too had a little of this sense of pride. Had he not just gotten a job,and become a sharer in all this activity, a cog in this marvelous machine? Hereand there about the alleys galloped men upon horseback, booted, and carryinglong whips; they were very busy, calling to each other, and to those who weredriving the cattle. They were drovers and stock raisers, who had come from farstates, and brokers and commission merchants, and buyers for all the bigpacking houses.

Here and there they would stop to inspect a bunch of cattle, and there would bea parley, brief and businesslike. The buyer would nod or drop his whip, andthat would mean a bargain; and he would note it in his little book, along withhundreds of others he had made that morning. Then Jokubas pointed out the placewhere the cattle were driven to be weighed, upon a great scale that would weigha hundred thousand pounds at once and record it automatically. It was near tothe east entrance that they stood, and all along this east side of the yardsran the railroad tracks, into which the cars were run, loaded with cattle. Allnight long this had been going on, and now the pens were full; by tonight theywould all be empty, and the same thing would be done again.

“And what will become of all these creatures?” cried Teta Elzbieta.

“By tonight,” Jokubas answered, “they will all be killed andcut up; and over there on the other side of the packing houses are morerailroad tracks, where the cars come to take them away.”

There were two hundred and fifty miles of track within the yards, their guidewent on to tell them. They brought about ten thousand head of cattle every day,and as many hogs, and half as many sheep—which meant some eight or tenmillion live creatures turned into food every year. One stood and watched, andlittle by little caught the drift of the tide, as it set in the direction ofthe packing houses. There were groups of cattle being driven to the chutes,which were roadways about fifteen feet wide, raised high above the pens. Inthese chutes the stream of animals was continuous; it was quite uncanny towatch them, pressing on to their fate, all unsuspicious a very river of death.Our friends were not poetical, and the sight suggested to them no metaphors ofhuman destiny; they thought only of the wonderful efficiency of it all. Thechutes into which the hogs went climbed high up—to the very top of thedistant buildings; and Jokubas explained that the hogs went up by the power oftheir own legs, and then their weight carried them back through all theprocesses necessary to make them into pork.

“They don’t waste anything here,” said the guide, and then helaughed and added a witticism, which he was pleased that his unsophisticatedfriends should take to be his own: “They use everything about the hogexcept the squeal.” In front of Brown’s General Office buildingthere grows a tiny plot of grass, and this, you may learn, is the only bit ofgreen thing in Packingtown; likewise this jest about the hog and his squeal,the stock in trade of all the guides, is the one gleam of humor that you willfind there.

After they had seen enough of the pens, the party went up the street, to themass of buildings which occupy the center of the yards. These buildings, madeof brick and stained with innumerable layers of Packingtown smoke, were paintedall over with advertising signs, from which the visitor realized suddenly thathe had come to the home of many of the torments of his life. It was here thatthey made those products with the wonders of which they pestered himso—by placards that defaced the landscape when he traveled, and bystaring advertisements in the newspapers and magazines—by silly littlejingles that he could not get out of his mind, and gaudy pictures that lurkedfor him around every street corner. Here was where they made Brown’sImperial Hams and Bacon, Brown’s Dressed Beef, Brown’s ExcelsiorSausages! Here was the headquarters of Durham’s Pure Leaf Lard, ofDurham’s Breakfast Bacon, Durham’s Canned Beef, Potted Ham, DeviledChicken, Peerless Fertilizer!

Entering one of the Durham buildings, they found a number of other visitorswaiting; and before long there came a guide, to escort them through the place.They make a great feature of showing strangers through the packing plants, forit is a good advertisement. But Ponas Jokubas whispered maliciously that thevisitors did not see any more than the packers wanted them to. They climbed along series of stairways outside of the building, to the top of its five or sixstories. Here was the chute, with its river of hogs, all patiently toilingupward; there was a place for them to rest to cool off, and then throughanother passageway they went into a room from which there is no returning forhogs.

It was a long, narrow room, with a gallery along it for visitors. At the headthere was a great iron wheel, about twenty feet in circumference, with ringshere and there along its edge. Upon both sides of this wheel there was a narrowspace, into which came the hogs at the end of their journey; in the midst ofthem stood a great burly Negro, bare-armed and bare-chested. He was resting forthe moment, for the wheel had stopped while men were cleaning up. In a minuteor two, however, it began slowly to revolve, and then the men upon each side ofit sprang to work. They had chains which they fastened about the leg of thenearest hog, and the other end of the chain they hooked into one of the ringsupon the wheel. So, as the wheel turned, a hog was suddenly jerked off his feetand borne aloft.

At the same instant the car was assailed by a most terrifying shriek; thevisitors started in alarm, the women turned pale and shrank back. The shriekwas followed by another, louder and yet more agonizing—for once startedupon that journey, the hog never came back; at the top of the wheel he wasshunted off upon a trolley, and went sailing down the room. And meantimeanother was swung up, and then another, and another, until there was a doubleline of them, each dangling by a foot and kicking in frenzy—andsquealing. The uproar was appalling, perilous to the eardrums; one feared therewas too much sound for the room to hold—that the walls must give way orthe ceiling crack. There were high squeals and low squeals, grunts, and wailsof agony; there would come a momentary lull, and then a fresh outburst, louderthan ever, surging up to a deafening climax. It was too much for some of thevisitors—the men would look at each other, laughing nervously, and thewomen would stand with hands clenched, and the blood rushing to their faces,and the tears starting in their eyes.

Meantime, heedless of all these things, the men upon the floor were going abouttheir work. Neither squeals of hogs nor tears of visitors made any differenceto them; one by one they hooked up the hogs, and one by one with a swift strokethey slit their throats. There was a long line of hogs, with squeals andlifeblood ebbing away together; until at last each started again, and vanishedwith a splash into a huge vat of boiling water.

It was all so very businesslike that one watched it fascinated. It wasporkmaking by machinery, porkmaking by applied mathematics. And yet somehow themost matter-of-fact person could not help thinking of the hogs; they were soinnocent, they came so very trustingly; and they were so very human in theirprotests—and so perfectly within their rights! They had done nothing todeserve it; and it was adding insult to injury, as the thing was done here,swinging them up in this cold-blooded, impersonal way, without a pretense ofapology, without the homage of a tear. Now and then a visitor wept, to be sure;but this slaughtering machine ran on, visitors or no visitors. It was like somehorrible crime committed in a dungeon, all unseen and unheeded, buried out ofsight and of memory.

One could not stand and watch very long without becoming philosophical, withoutbeginning to deal in symbols and similes, and to hear the hog squeal of theuniverse. Was it permitted to believe that there was nowhere upon the earth, orabove the earth, a heaven for hogs, where they were requited for all thissuffering? Each one of these hogs was a separate creature. Some were whitehogs, some were black; some were brown, some were spotted; some were old, someyoung; some were long and lean, some were monstrous. And each of them had anindividuality of his own, a will of his own, a hope and a heart’s desire;each was full of self-confidence, of self-importance, and a sense of dignity.And trusting and strong in faith he had gone about his business, the while ablack shadow hung over him and a horrid Fate waited in his pathway. Nowsuddenly it had swooped upon him, and had seized him by the leg. Relentless,remorseless, it was; all his protests, his screams, were nothing to it—itdid its cruel will with him, as if his wishes, his feelings, had simply noexistence at all; it cut his throat and watched him gasp out his life. And nowwas one to believe that there was nowhere a god of hogs, to whom this hogpersonality was precious, to whom these hog squeals and agonies had a meaning?Who would take this hog into his arms and comfort him, reward him for his workwell done, and show him the meaning of his sacrifice? Perhaps some glimpse ofall this was in the thoughts of our humble-minded Jurgis, as he turned to go onwith the rest of the party, and muttered: “Dieve—but I’m gladI’m not a hog!”

The carcass hog was scooped out of the vat by machinery, and then it fell tothe second floor, passing on the way through a wonderful machine with numerousscrapers, which adjusted themselves to the size and shape of the animal, andsent it out at the other end with nearly all of its bristles removed. It wasthen again strung up by machinery, and sent upon another trolley ride; thistime passing between two lines of men, who sat upon a raised platform, eachdoing a certain single thing to the carcass as it came to him. One scraped theoutside of a leg; another scraped the inside of the same leg. One with a swiftstroke cut the throat; another with two swift strokes severed the head, whichfell to the floor and vanished through a hole. Another made a slit down thebody; a second opened the body wider; a third with a saw cut the breastbone; afourth loosened the entrails; a fifth pulled them out—and they also slidthrough a hole in the floor. There were men to scrape each side and men toscrape the back; there were men to clean the carcass inside, to trim it andwash it. Looking down this room, one saw, creeping slowly, a line of danglinghogs a hundred yards in length; and for every yard there was a man, working asif a demon were after him. At the end of this hog’s progress every inchof the carcass had been gone over several times; and then it was rolled intothe chilling room, where it stayed for twenty-four hours, and where a strangermight lose himself in a forest of freezing hogs.

Before the carcass was admitted here, however, it had to pass a governmentinspector, who sat in the doorway and felt of the glands in the neck fortuberculosis. This government inspector did not have the manner of a man whowas worked to death; he was apparently not haunted by a fear that the hog mightget by him before he had finished his testing. If you were a sociable person,he was quite willing to enter into conversation with you, and to explain to youthe deadly nature of the ptomaines which are found in tubercular pork; andwhile he was talking with you you could hardly be so ungrateful as to noticethat a dozen carcasses were passing him untouched. This inspector wore a blueuniform, with brass buttons, and he gave an atmosphere of authority to thescene, and, as it were, put the stamp of official approval upon the thingswhich were done in Durham’s.

Jurgis went down the line with the rest of the visitors, staring open-mouthed,lost in wonder. He had dressed hogs himself in the forest of Lithuania; but hehad never expected to live to see one hog dressed by several hundred men. Itwas like a wonderful poem to him, and he took it all in guilelessly—evento the conspicuous signs demanding immaculate cleanliness of the employees.Jurgis was vexed when the cynical Jokubas translated these signs with sarcasticcomments, offering to take them to the secret rooms where the spoiled meatswent to be doctored.

The party descended to the next floor, where the various waste materials weretreated. Here came the entrails, to be scraped and washed clean for sausagecasings; men and women worked here in the midst of a sickening stench, whichcaused the visitors to hasten by, gasping. To another room came all the scrapsto be “tanked,” which meant boiling and pumping off the grease tomake soap and lard; below they took out the refuse, and this, too, was a regionin which the visitors did not linger. In still other places men were engaged incutting up the carcasses that had been through the chilling rooms. First therewere the “splitters,” the most expert workmen in the plant, whoearned as high as fifty cents an hour, and did not a thing all day except chophogs down the middle. Then there were “cleaver men,” great giantswith muscles of iron; each had two men to attend him—to slide the halfcarcass in front of him on the table, and hold it while he chopped it, and thenturn each piece so that he might chop it once more. His cleaver had a bladeabout two feet long, and he never made but one cut; he made it so neatly, too,that his implement did not smite through and dull itself—there was justenough force for a perfect cut, and no more. So through various yawning holesthere slipped to the floor below—to one room hams, to anotherforequarters, to another sides of pork. One might go down to this floor and seethe pickling rooms, where the hams were put into vats, and the great smokerooms, with their airtight iron doors. In other rooms they prepared saltpork—there were whole cellars full of it, built up in great towers to theceiling. In yet other rooms they were putting up meats in boxes and barrels,and wrapping hams and bacon in oiled paper, sealing and labeling and sewingthem. From the doors of these rooms went men with loaded trucks, to theplatform where freight cars were waiting to be filled; and one went out thereand realized with a start that he had come at last to the ground floor of thisenormous building.

Then the party went across the street to where they did the killing ofbeef—where every hour they turned four or five hundred cattle into meat.Unlike the place they had left, all this work was done on one floor; andinstead of there being one line of carcasses which moved to the workmen, therewere fifteen or twenty lines, and the men moved from one to another of these.This made a scene of intense activity, a picture of human power wonderful towatch. It was all in one great room, like a circus amphitheater, with a galleryfor visitors running over the center.

Along one side of the room ran a narrow gallery, a few feet from the floor;into which gallery the cattle were driven by men with goads which gave themelectric shocks. Once crowded in here, the creatures were prisoned, each in aseparate pen, by gates that shut, leaving them no room to turn around; andwhile they stood bellowing and plunging, over the top of the pen there leanedone of the “knockers,” armed with a sledge hammer, and watching fora chance to deal a blow. The room echoed with the thuds in quick succession,and the stamping and kicking of the steers. The instant the animal had fallen,the “knocker” passed on to another; while a second man raised alever, and the side of the pen was raised, and the animal, still kicking andstruggling, slid out to the “killing bed.” Here a man put shacklesabout one leg, and pressed another lever, and the body was jerked up into theair. There were fifteen or twenty such pens, and it was a matter of only acouple of minutes to knock fifteen or twenty cattle and roll them out. Thenonce more the gates were opened, and another lot rushed in; and so out of eachpen there rolled a steady stream of carcasses, which the men upon the killingbeds had to get out of the way.

The manner in which they did this was something to be seen and never forgotten.They worked with furious intensity, literally upon the run—at a pace withwhich there is nothing to be compared except a football game. It was all highlyspecialized labor, each man having his task to do; generally this would consistof only two or three specific cuts, and he would pass down the line of fifteenor twenty carcasses, making these cuts upon each. First there came the“butcher,” to bleed them; this meant one swift stroke, so swiftthat you could not see it—only the flash of the knife; and before youcould realize it, the man had darted on to the next line, and a stream ofbright red was pouring out upon the floor. This floor was half an inch deepwith blood, in spite of the best efforts of men who kept shoveling it throughholes; it must have made the floor slippery, but no one could have guessed thisby watching the men at work.

The carcass hung for a few minutes to bleed; there was no time lost, however,for there were several hanging in each line, and one was always ready. It waslet down to the ground, and there came the “headsman,” whose taskit was to sever the head, with two or three swift strokes. Then came the“floorsman,” to make the first cut in the skin; and then another tofinish ripping the skin down the center; and then half a dozen more in swiftsuccession, to finish the skinning. After they were through, the carcass wasagain swung up; and while a man with a stick examined the skin, to make surethat it had not been cut, and another rolled it up and tumbled it through oneof the inevitable holes in the floor, the beef proceeded on its journey. Therewere men to cut it, and men to split it, and men to gut it and scrape it cleaninside. There were some with hose which threw jets of boiling water upon it,and others who removed the feet and added the final touches. In the end, aswith the hogs, the finished beef was run into the chilling room, to hang itsappointed time.

The visitors were taken there and shown them, all neatly hung in rows, labeledconspicuously with the tags of the government inspectors—and some, whichhad been killed by a special process, marked with the sign of the kosher rabbi,certifying that it was fit for sale to the orthodox. And then the visitors weretaken to the other parts of the building, to see what became of each particleof the waste material that had vanished through the floor; and to the picklingrooms, and the salting rooms, the canning rooms, and the packing rooms, wherechoice meat was prepared for shipping in refrigerator cars, destined to beeaten in all the four corners of civilization. Afterward they went outside,wandering about among the mazes of buildings in which was done the workauxiliary to this great industry. There was scarcely a thing needed in thebusiness that Durham and Company did not make for themselves. There was a greatsteam power plant and an electricity plant. There was a barrel factory, and aboiler-repair shop. There was a building to which the grease was piped, andmade into soap and lard; and then there was a factory for making lard cans, andanother for making soap boxes. There was a building in which the bristles werecleaned and dried, for the making of hair cushions and such things; there was abuilding where the skins were dried and tanned, there was another where headsand feet were made into glue, and another where bones were made intofertilizer. No tiniest particle of organic matter was wasted in Durham’s.Out of the horns of the cattle they made combs, buttons, hairpins, andimitation ivory; out of the shinbones and other big bones they cut knife andtoothbrush handles, and mouthpieces for pipes; out of the hoofs they cuthairpins and buttons, before they made the rest into glue. From such things asfeet, knuckles, hide clippings, and sinews came such strange and unlikelyproducts as gelatin, isinglass, and phosphorus, bone black, shoe blacking, andbone oil. They had curled-hair works for the cattle tails, and a “woolpullery” for the sheepskins; they made pepsin from the stomachs of thepigs, and albumen from the blood, and violin strings from the ill-smellingentrails. When there was nothing else to be done with a thing, they first putit into a tank and got out of it all the tallow and grease, and then they madeit into fertilizer. All these industries were gathered into buildings near by,connected by galleries and railroads with the main establishment; and it wasestimated that they had handled nearly a quarter of a billion of animals sincethe founding of the plant by the elder Durham a generation and more ago. If youcounted with it the other big plants—and they were now really allone—it was, so Jokubas informed them, the greatest aggregation of laborand capital ever gathered in one place. It employed thirty thousand men; itsupported directly two hundred and fifty thousand people in its neighborhood,and indirectly it supported half a million. It sent its products to everycountry in the civilized world, and it furnished the food for no less thanthirty million people!

To all of these things our friends would listen open-mouthed—it seemed tothem impossible of belief that anything so stupendous could have been devisedby mortal man. That was why to Jurgis it seemed almost profanity to speak aboutthe place as did Jokubas, skeptically; it was a thing as tremendous as theuniverse—the laws and ways of its working no more than the universe to bequestioned or understood. All that a mere man could do, it seemed to Jurgis,was to take a thing like this as he found it, and do as he was told; to begiven a place in it and a share in its wonderful activities was a blessing tobe grateful for, as one was grateful for the sunshine and the rain. Jurgis waseven glad that he had not seen the place before meeting with his triumph, forhe felt that the size of it would have overwhelmed him. But now he had beenadmitted—he was a part of it all! He had the feeling that this whole hugeestablishment had taken him under its protection, and had become responsiblefor his welfare. So guileless was he, and ignorant of the nature of business,that he did not even realize that he had become an employee of Brown’s,and that Brown and Durham were supposed by all the world to be deadlyrivals—were even required to be deadly rivals by the law of the land, andordered to try to ruin each other under penalty of fine and imprisonment!

CHAPTER IV

Promptly at seven the next morning Jurgis reported for work. He came to thedoor that had been pointed out to him, and there he waited for nearly twohours. The boss had meant for him to enter, but had not said this, and so itwas only when on his way out to hire another man that he came upon Jurgis. Hegave him a good cursing, but as Jurgis did not understand a word of it he didnot object. He followed the boss, who showed him where to put his streetclothes, and waited while he donned the working clothes he had bought in asecondhand shop and brought with him in a bundle; then he led him to the“killing beds.” The work which Jurgis was to do here was verysimple, and it took him but a few minutes to learn it. He was provided with astiff besom, such as is used by street sweepers, and it was his place to followdown the line the man who drew out the smoking entrails from the carcass of thesteer; this mass was to be swept into a trap, which was then closed, so that noone might slip into it. As Jurgis came in, the first cattle of the morning werejust making their appearance; and so, with scarcely time to look about him, andnone to speak to any one, he fell to work. It was a sweltering day in July, andthe place ran with steaming hot blood—one waded in it on the floor. Thestench was almost overpowering, but to Jurgis it was nothing. His whole soulwas dancing with joy—he was at work at last! He was at work and earningmoney! All day long he was figuring to himself. He was paid the fabulous sum ofseventeen and a half cents an hour; and as it proved a rush day and he workeduntil nearly seven o’clock in the evening, he went home to the familywith the tidings that he had earned more than a dollar and a half in a singleday!

At home, also, there was more good news; so much of it at once that there wasquite a celebration in Aniele’s hall bedroom. Jonas had been to have aninterview with the special policeman to whom Szedvilas had introduced him, andhad been taken to see several of the bosses, with the result that one hadpromised him a job the beginning of the next week. And then there was MarijaBerczynskas, who, fired with jealousy by the success of Jurgis, had set outupon her own responsibility to get a place. Marija had nothing to take with hersave her two brawny arms and the word “job,” laboriously learned;but with these she had marched about Packingtown all day, entering every doorwhere there were signs of activity. Out of some she had been ordered withcurses; but Marija was not afraid of man or devil, and asked every one shesaw—visitors and strangers, or work-people like herself, and once ortwice even high and lofty office personages, who stared at her as if theythought she was crazy. In the end, however, she had reaped her reward. In oneof the smaller plants she had stumbled upon a room where scores of women andgirls were sitting at long tables preparing smoked beef in cans; and wanderingthrough room after room, Marija came at last to the place where the sealed canswere being painted and labeled, and here she had the good fortune to encounterthe “forelady.” Marija did not understand then, as she was destinedto understand later, what there was attractive to a “forelady”about the combination of a face full of boundless good nature and the musclesof a dray horse; but the woman had told her to come the next day and she wouldperhaps give her a chance to learn the trade of painting cans. The painting ofcans being skilled piecework, and paying as much as two dollars a day, Marijaburst in upon the family with the yell of a Comanche Indian, and fell tocapering about the room so as to frighten the baby almost into convulsions.

Better luck than all this could hardly have been hoped for; there was only oneof them left to seek a place. Jurgis was determined that Teta Elzbieta shouldstay at home to keep house, and that Ona should help her. He would not have Onaworking—he was not that sort of a man, he said, and she was not that sortof a woman. It would be a strange thing if a man like him could not support thefamily, with the help of the board of Jonas and Marija. He would not even hearof letting the children go to work—there were schools here in America forchildren, Jurgis had heard, to which they could go for nothing. That the priestwould object to these schools was something of which he had as yet no idea, andfor the present his mind was made up that the children of Teta Elzbieta shouldhave as fair a chance as any other children. The oldest of them, littleStanislovas, was but thirteen, and small for his age at that; and while theoldest son of Szedvilas was only twelve, and had worked for over a year atJones’s, Jurgis would have it that Stanislovas should learn to speakEnglish, and grow up to be a skilled man.

So there was only old Dede Antanas; Jurgis would have had him rest too, but hewas forced to acknowledge that this was not possible, and, besides, the old manwould not hear it spoken of—it was his whim to insist that he was aslively as any boy. He had come to America as full of hope as the best of them;and now he was the chief problem that worried his son. For every one thatJurgis spoke to assured him that it was a waste of time to seek employment forthe old man in Packingtown. Szedvilas told him that the packers did not evenkeep the men who had grown old in their own service—to say nothing oftaking on new ones. And not only was it the rule here, it was the ruleeverywhere in America, so far as he knew. To satisfy Jurgis he had asked thepoliceman, and brought back the message that the thing was not to be thoughtof. They had not told this to old Anthony, who had consequently spent the twodays wandering about from one part of the yards to another, and had now comehome to hear about the triumph of the others, smiling bravely and saying thatit would be his turn another day.

Their good luck, they felt, had given them the right to think about a home; andsitting out on the doorstep that summer evening, they held consultation aboutit, and Jurgis took occasion to broach a weighty subject. Passing down theavenue to work that morning he had seen two boys leaving an advertisement fromhouse to house; and seeing that there were pictures upon it, Jurgis had askedfor one, and had rolled it up and tucked it into his shirt. At noontime a manwith whom he had been talking had read it to him and told him a little aboutit, with the result that Jurgis had conceived a wild idea.

He brought out the placard, which was quite a work of art. It was nearly twofeet long, printed on calendered paper, with a selection of colors so brightthat they shone even in the moonlight. The center of the placard was occupiedby a house, brilliantly painted, new, and dazzling. The roof of it was of apurple hue, and trimmed with gold; the house itself was silvery, and the doorsand windows red. It was a two-story building, with a porch in front, and a veryfancy scrollwork around the edges; it was complete in every tiniest detail,even the doorknob, and there was a hammock on the porch and white lace curtainsin the windows. Underneath this, in one corner, was a picture of a husband andwife in loving embrace; in the opposite corner was a cradle, with fluffycurtains drawn over it, and a smiling cherub hovering upon silver-coloredwings. For fear that the significance of all this should be lost, there was alabel, in Polish, Lithuanian, and German—“Dom. Namai.Heim.” “Why pay rent?” the linguistic circular went on todemand. “Why not own your own home? Do you know that you can buy one forless than your rent? We have built thousands of homes which are now occupied byhappy families.”—So it became eloquent, picturing the blissfulnessof married life in a house with nothing to pay. It even quoted “Home,Sweet Home,” and made bold to translate it into Polish—though forsome reason it omitted the Lithuanian of this. Perhaps the translator found ita difficult matter to be sentimental in a language in which a sob is known as agukcziojimas and a smile as a nusiszypsojimas.

Over this document the family pored long, while Ona spelled out its contents.It appeared that this house contained four rooms, besides a basement, and thatit might be bought for fifteen hundred dollars, the lot and all. Of this, onlythree hundred dollars had to be paid down, the balance being paid at the rateof twelve dollars a month. These were frightful sums, but then they were inAmerica, where people talked about such without fear. They had learned thatthey would have to pay a rent of nine dollars a month for a flat, and there wasno way of doing better, unless the family of twelve was to exist in one or tworooms, as at present. If they paid rent, of course, they might pay forever, andbe no better off; whereas, if they could only meet the extra expense in thebeginning, there would at last come a time when they would not have any rent topay for the rest of their lives.

They figured it up. There was a little left of the money belonging to TetaElzbieta, and there was a little left to Jurgis. Marija had about fifty dollarspinned up somewhere in her stockings, and Grandfather Anthony had part of themoney he had gotten for his farm. If they all combined, they would have enoughto make the first payment; and if they had employment, so that they could besure of the future, it might really prove the best plan. It was, of course, nota thing even to be talked of lightly; it was a thing they would have to sift tothe bottom. And yet, on the other hand, if they were going to make the venture,the sooner they did it the better, for were they not paying rent all the time,and living in a most horrible way besides? Jurgis was used to dirt—therewas nothing could scare a man who had been with a railroad gang, where onecould gather up the fleas off the floor of the sleeping room by the handful.But that sort of thing would not do for Ona. They must have a better place ofsome sort soon—Jurgis said it with all the assurance of a man who hadjust made a dollar and fifty-seven cents in a single day. Jurgis was at a lossto understand why, with wages as they were, so many of the people of thisdistrict should live the way they did.

The next day Marija went to see her “forelady,” and was told toreport the first of the week, and learn the business of can-painter. Marijawent home, singing out loud all the way, and was just in time to join Ona andher stepmother as they were setting out to go and make inquiry concerning thehouse. That evening the three made their report to the men—the thing wasaltogether as represented in the circular, or at any rate so the agent hadsaid. The houses lay to the south, about a mile and a half from the yards; theywere wonderful bargains, the gentleman had assured them—personally, andfor their own good. He could do this, so he explained to them, for the reasonthat he had himself no interest in their sale—he was merely the agent fora company that had built them. These were the last, and the company was goingout of business, so if any one wished to take advantage of this wonderfulno-rent plan, he would have to be very quick. As a matter of fact there wasjust a little uncertainty as to whether there was a single house left; for theagent had taken so many people to see them, and for all he knew the companymight have parted with the last. Seeing Teta Elzbieta’s evident grief atthis news, he added, after some hesitation, that if they really intended tomake a purchase, he would send a telephone message at his own expense, and haveone of the houses kept. So it had finally been arranged—and they were togo and make an inspection the following Sunday morning.

That was Thursday; and all the rest of the week the killing gang atBrown’s worked at full pressure, and Jurgis cleared a dollar seventy-fiveevery day. That was at the rate of ten and one-half dollars a week, orforty-five a month. Jurgis was not able to figure, except it was a very simplesum, but Ona was like lightning at such things, and she worked out the problemfor the family. Marija and Jonas were each to pay sixteen dollars a monthboard, and the old man insisted that he could do the same as soon as he got aplace—which might be any day now. That would make ninety-three dollars.Then Marija and Jonas were between them to take a third share in the house,which would leave only eight dollars a month for Jurgis to contribute to thepayment. So they would have eighty-five dollars a month—or, supposingthat Dede Antanas did not get work at once, seventy dollars a month—whichought surely to be sufficient for the support of a family of twelve.

An hour before the time on Sunday morning the entire party set out. They hadthe address written on a piece of paper, which they showed to some one now andthen. It proved to be a long mile and a half, but they walked it, and half anhour or so later the agent put in an appearance. He was a smooth and floridpersonage, elegantly dressed, and he spoke their language freely, which gavehim a great advantage in dealing with them. He escorted them to the house,which was one of a long row of the typical frame dwellings of the neighborhood,where architecture is a luxury that is dispensed with. Ona’s heart sank,for the house was not as it was shown in the picture; the color scheme wasdifferent, for one thing, and then it did not seem quite so big. Still, it wasfreshly painted, and made a considerable show. It was all brand-new, so theagent told them, but he talked so incessantly that they were quite confused,and did not have time to ask many questions. There were all sorts of thingsthey had made up their minds to inquire about, but when the time came, theyeither forgot them or lacked the courage. The other houses in the row did notseem to be new, and few of them seemed to be occupied. When they ventured tohint at this, the agent’s reply was that the purchasers would be movingin shortly. To press the matter would have seemed to be doubting his word, andnever in their lives had any one of them ever spoken to a person of the classcalled “gentleman” except with deference and humility.

The house had a basement, about two feet below the street line, and a singlestory, about six feet above it, reached by a flight of steps. In addition therewas an attic, made by the peak of the roof, and having one small window in eachend. The street in front of the house was unpaved and unlighted, and the viewfrom it consisted of a few exactly similar houses, scattered here and thereupon lots grown up with dingy brown weeds. The house inside contained fourrooms, plastered white; the basement was but a frame, the walls beingunplastered and the floor not laid. The agent explained that the houses werebuilt that way, as the purchasers generally preferred to finish the basementsto suit their own taste. The attic was also unfinished—the family hadbeen figuring that in case of an emergency they could rent this attic, but theyfound that there was not even a floor, nothing but joists, and beneath them thelath and plaster of the ceiling below. All of this, however, did not chilltheir ardor as much as might have been expected, because of the volubility ofthe agent. There was no end to the advantages of the house, as he set themforth, and he was not silent for an instant; he showed them everything, down tothe locks on the doors and the catches on the windows, and how to work them. Heshowed them the sink in the kitchen, with running water and a faucet, somethingwhich Teta Elzbieta had never in her wildest dreams hoped to possess. After adiscovery such as that it would have seemed ungrateful to find any fault, andso they tried to shut their eyes to other defects.

Still, they were peasant people, and they hung on to their money by instinct;it was quite in vain that the agent hinted at promptness—they would see,they would see, they told him, they could not decide until they had had moretime. And so they went home again, and all day and evening there was figuringand debating. It was an agony to them to have to make up their minds in amatter such as this. They never could agree all together; there were so manyarguments upon each side, and one would be obstinate, and no sooner would therest have convinced him than it would transpire that his arguments had causedanother to waver. Once, in the evening, when they were all in harmony, and thehouse was as good as bought, Szedvilas came in and upset them again. Szedvilashad no use for property owning. He told them cruel stories of people who hadbeen done to death in this “buying a home” swindle. They would bealmost sure to get into a tight place and lose all their money; and there wasno end of expense that one could never foresee; and the house might begood-for-nothing from top to bottom—how was a poor man to know? Then,too, they would swindle you with the contract—and how was a poor man tounderstand anything about a contract? It was all nothing but robbery, and therewas no safety but in keeping out of it. And pay rent? asked Jurgis. Ah, yes, tobe sure, the other answered, that too was robbery. It was all robbery, for apoor man. After half an hour of such depressing conversation, they had theirminds quite made up that they had been saved at the brink of a precipice; butthen Szedvilas went away, and Jonas, who was a sharp little man, reminded themthat the delicatessen business was a failure, according to its proprietor, andthat this might account for his pessimistic views. Which, of course, reopenedthe subject!

The controlling factor was that they could not stay where they were—theyhad to go somewhere. And when they gave up the house plan and decided to rent,the prospect of paying out nine dollars a month forever they found just as hardto face. All day and all night for nearly a whole week they wrestled with theproblem, and then in the end Jurgis took the responsibility. Brother Jonas hadgotten his job, and was pushing a truck in Durham’s; and the killing gangat Brown’s continued to work early and late, so that Jurgis grew moreconfident every hour, more certain of his mastership. It was the kind of thingthe man of the family had to decide and carry through, he told himself. Othersmight have failed at it, but he was not the failing kind—he would showthem how to do it. He would work all day, and all night, too, if need be; hewould never rest until the house was paid for and his people had a home. So hetold them, and so in the end the decision was made.

They had talked about looking at more houses before they made the purchase; butthen they did not know where any more were, and they did not know any way offinding out. The one they had seen held the sway in their thoughts; wheneverthey thought of themselves in a house, it was this house that they thought of.And so they went and told the agent that they were ready to make the agreement.They knew, as an abstract proposition, that in matters of business all men areto be accounted liars; but they could not but have been influenced by all theyhad heard from the eloquent agent, and were quite persuaded that the house wassomething they had run a risk of losing by their delay. They drew a deep breathwhen he told them that they were still in time.

They were to come on the morrow, and he would have the papers all drawn up.This matter of papers was one in which Jurgis understood to the full the needof caution; yet he could not go himself—every one told him that he couldnot get a holiday, and that he might lose his job by asking. So there wasnothing to be done but to trust it to the women, with Szedvilas, who promisedto go with them. Jurgis spent a whole evening impressing upon them theseriousness of the occasion—and then finally, out of innumerable hidingplaces about their persons and in their baggage, came forth the precious wadsof money, to be done up tightly in a little bag and sewed fast in the lining ofTeta Elzbieta’s dress.

Early in the morning they sallied forth. Jurgis had given them so manyinstructions and warned them against so many perils, that the women were quitepale with fright, and even the imperturbable delicatessen vender, who pridedhimself upon being a businessman, was ill at ease. The agent had the deed allready, and invited them to sit down and read it; this Szedvilas proceeded todo—a painful and laborious process, during which the agent drummed uponthe desk. Teta Elzbieta was so embarrassed that the perspiration came out uponher forehead in beads; for was not this reading as much as to say plainly tothe gentleman’s face that they doubted his honesty? Yet Jokubas Szedvilasread on and on; and presently there developed that he had good reason for doingso. For a horrible suspicion had begun dawning in his mind; he knitted hisbrows more and more as he read. This was not a deed of sale at all, so far ashe could see—it provided only for the renting of the property! It washard to tell, with all this strange legal jargon, words he had never heardbefore; but was not this plain—“the party of the first part herebycovenants and agrees to rent to the said party of the second part!” Andthen again—“a monthly rental of twelve dollars, for a periodof eight years and four months!” Then Szedvilas took off his spectacles,and looked at the agent, and stammered a question.

The agent was most polite, and explained that that was the usual formula; thatit was always arranged that the property should be merely rented. He kepttrying to show them something in the next paragraph; but Szedvilas could notget by the word “rental”—and when he translated it to TetaElzbieta, she too was thrown into a fright. They would not own the home at all,then, for nearly nine years! The agent, with infinite patience, began toexplain again; but no explanation would do now. Elzbieta had firmly fixed inher mind the last solemn warning of Jurgis: “If there is anything wrong,do not give him the money, but go out and get a lawyer.” It was anagonizing moment, but she sat in the chair, her hands clenched like death, andmade a fearful effort, summoning all her powers, and gasped out her purpose.

Jokubas translated her words. She expected the agent to fly into a passion, buthe was, to her bewilderment, as ever imperturbable; he even offered to go andget a lawyer for her, but she declined this. They went a long way, on purposeto find a man who would not be a confederate. Then let any one imagine theirdismay, when, after half an hour, they came in with a lawyer, and heard himgreet the agent by his first name! They felt that all was lost; they sat likeprisoners summoned to hear the reading of their death warrant. There wasnothing more that they could do—they were trapped! The lawyer read overthe deed, and when he had read it he informed Szedvilas that it was allperfectly regular, that the deed was a blank deed such as was often used inthese sales. And was the price as agreed? the old man asked—three hundreddollars down, and the balance at twelve dollars a month, till the total offifteen hundred dollars had been paid? Yes, that was correct. And it was forthe sale of such and such a house—the house and lot and everything?Yes,—and the lawyer showed him where that was all written. And it was allperfectly regular—there were no tricks about it of any sort? They werepoor people, and this was all they had in the world, and if there was anythingwrong they would be ruined. And so Szedvilas went on, asking one tremblingquestion after another, while the eyes of the women folks were fixed upon himin mute agony. They could not understand what he was saying, but they knew thatupon it their fate depended. And when at last he had questioned until there wasno more questioning to be done, and the time came for them to make up theirminds, and either close the bargain or reject it, it was all that poor TetaElzbieta could do to keep from bursting into tears. Jokubas had asked her ifshe wished to sign; he had asked her twice—and what could she say? Howdid she know if this lawyer were telling the truth—that he was not in theconspiracy? And yet, how could she say so—what excuse could she give? Theeyes of every one in the room were upon her, awaiting her decision; and atlast, half blind with her tears, she began fumbling in her jacket, where shehad pinned the precious money. And she brought it out and unwrapped it beforethe men. All of this Ona sat watching, from a corner of the room, twisting herhands together, meantime, in a fever of fright. Ona longed to cry out and tellher stepmother to stop, that it was all a trap; but there seemed to besomething clutching her by the throat, and she could not make a sound. And soTeta Elzbieta laid the money on the table, and the agent picked it up andcounted it, and then wrote them a receipt for it and passed them the deed. Thenhe gave a sigh of satisfaction, and rose and shook hands with them all, stillas smooth and polite as at the beginning. Ona had a dim recollection of thelawyer telling Szedvilas that his charge was a dollar, which occasioned somedebate, and more agony; and then, after they had paid that, too, they went outinto the street, her stepmother clutching the deed in her hand. They were soweak from fright that they could not walk, but had to sit down on the way.

So they went home, with a deadly terror gnawing at their souls; and thatevening Jurgis came home and heard their story, and that was the end. Jurgiswas sure that they had been swindled, and were ruined; and he tore his hair andcursed like a madman, swearing that he would kill the agent that very night. Inthe end he seized the paper and rushed out of the house, and all the way acrossthe yards to Halsted Street. He dragged Szedvilas out from his supper, andtogether they rushed to consult another lawyer. When they entered his officethe lawyer sprang up, for Jurgis looked like a crazy person, with flying hairand bloodshot eyes. His companion explained the situation, and the lawyer tookthe paper and began to read it, while Jurgis stood clutching the desk withknotted hands, trembling in every nerve.

Once or twice the lawyer looked up and asked a question of Szedvilas; the otherdid not know a word that he was saying, but his eyes were fixed upon thelawyer’s face, striving in an agony of dread to read his mind. He saw thelawyer look up and laugh, and he gave a gasp; the man said something toSzedvilas, and Jurgis turned upon his friend, his heart almost stopping.

“Well?” he panted.

“He says it is all right,” said Szedvilas.

“All right!”

“Yes, he says it is just as it should be.” And Jurgis, in hisrelief, sank down into a chair.

“Are you sure of it?” he gasped, and made Szedvilas translatequestion after question. He could not hear it often enough; he could not askwith enough variations. Yes, they had bought the house, they had really boughtit. It belonged to them, they had only to pay the money and it would be allright. Then Jurgis covered his face with his hands, for there were tears in hiseyes, and he felt like a fool. But he had had such a horrible fright; strongman as he was, it left him almost too weak to stand up.

The lawyer explained that the rental was a form—the property was said tobe merely rented until the last payment had been made, the purpose being tomake it easier to turn the party out if he did not make the payments. So longas they paid, however, they had nothing to fear, the house was all theirs.

Jurgis was so grateful that he paid the half dollar the lawyer asked withoutwinking an eyelash, and then rushed home to tell the news to the family. Hefound Ona in a faint and the babies screaming, and the whole house in anuproar—for it had been believed by all that he had gone to murder theagent. It was hours before the excitement could be calmed; and all through thatcruel night Jurgis would wake up now and then and hear Ona and her stepmotherin the next room, sobbing softly to themselves.

CHAPTER V

They had bought their home. It was hard for them to realize that the wonderfulhouse was theirs to move into whenever they chose. They spent all their timethinking about it, and what they were going to put into it. As their week withAniele was up in three days, they lost no time in getting ready. They had tomake some shift to furnish it, and every instant of their leisure was given todiscussing this.

A person who had such a task before him would not need to look very far inPackingtown—he had only to walk up the avenue and read the signs, or getinto a streetcar, to obtain full information as to pretty much everything ahuman creature could need. It was quite touching, the zeal of people to seethat his health and happiness were provided for. Did the person wish to smoke?There was a little discourse about cigars, showing him exactly why the ThomasJefferson Five-cent Perfecto was the only cigar worthy of the name. Had he, onthe other hand, smoked too much? Here was a remedy for the smoking habit,twenty-five doses for a quarter, and a cure absolutely guaranteed in ten doses.In innumerable ways such as this, the traveler found that somebody had beenbusied to make smooth his paths through the world, and to let him know what hadbeen done for him. In Packingtown the advertisements had a style all of theirown, adapted to the peculiar population. One would be tenderly solicitous.“Is your wife pale?” it would inquire. “Is she discouraged,does she drag herself about the house and find fault with everything? Why doyou not tell her to try Dr. Lanahan’s Life Preservers?” Anotherwould be jocular in tone, slapping you on the back, so to speak.“Don’t be a chump!” it would exclaim. “Go and get theGoliath Bunion Cure.” “Get a move on you!” would chime inanother. “It’s easy, if you wear the Eureka Two-fifty Shoe.”

Among these importunate signs was one that had caught the attention of thefamily by its pictures. It showed two very pretty little birds buildingthemselves a home; and Marija had asked an acquaintance to read it to her, andtold them that it related to the furnishing of a house. “Feather yournest,” it ran—and went on to say that it could furnish all thenecessary feathers for a four-room nest for the ludicrously small sum ofseventy-five dollars. The particularly important thing about this offer wasthat only a small part of the money need be had at once—the rest onemight pay a few dollars every month. Our friends had to have some furniture,there was no getting away from that; but their little fund of money had sunk solow that they could hardly get to sleep at night, and so they fled to this astheir deliverance. There was more agony and another paper for Elzbieta to sign,and then one night when Jurgis came home, he was told the breathless tidingsthat the furniture had arrived and was safely stowed in the house: a parlor setof four pieces, a bedroom set of three pieces, a dining room table and fourchairs, a toilet set with beautiful pink roses painted all over it, anassortment of crockery, also with pink roses—and so on. One of the platesin the set had been found broken when they unpacked it, and Ona was going tothe store the first thing in the morning to make them change it; also they hadpromised three saucepans, and there had only two come, and did Jurgis thinkthat they were trying to cheat them?

The next day they went to the house; and when the men came from work they ate afew hurried mouthfuls at Aniele’s, and then set to work at the task ofcarrying their belongings to their new home. The distance was in reality overtwo miles, but Jurgis made two trips that night, each time with a huge pile ofmattresses and bedding on his head, with bundles of clothing and bags andthings tied up inside. Anywhere else in Chicago he would have stood a goodchance of being arrested; but the policemen in Packingtown were apparently usedto these informal movings, and contented themselves with a cursory examinationnow and then. It was quite wonderful to see how fine the house looked, with allthe things in it, even by the dim light of a lamp: it was really home, andalmost as exciting as the placard had described it. Ona was fairly dancing, andshe and Cousin Marija took Jurgis by the arm and escorted him from room toroom, sitting in each chair by turns, and then insisting that he should do thesame. One chair squeaked with his great weight, and they screamed with fright,and woke the baby and brought everybody running. Altogether it was a great day;and tired as they were, Jurgis and Ona sat up late, contented simply to holdeach other and gaze in rapture about the room. They were going to be married assoon as they could get everything settled, and a little spare money put by; andthis was to be their home—that little room yonder would be theirs!

It was in truth a never-ending delight, the fixing up of this house. They hadno money to spend for the pleasure of spending, but there were a few absolutelynecessary things, and the buying of these was a perpetual adventure for Ona. Itmust always be done at night, so that Jurgis could go along; and even if itwere only a pepper cruet, or half a dozen glasses for ten cents, that wasenough for an expedition. On Saturday night they came home with a greatbasketful of things, and spread them out on the table, while every one stoodround, and the children climbed up on the chairs, or howled to be lifted up tosee. There were sugar and salt and tea and crackers, and a can of lard and amilk pail, and a scrubbing brush, and a pair of shoes for the second oldestboy, and a can of oil, and a tack hammer, and a pound of nails. These last wereto be driven into the walls of the kitchen and the bedrooms, to hang things on;and there was a family discussion as to the place where each one was to bedriven. Then Jurgis would try to hammer, and hit his fingers because the hammerwas too small, and get mad because Ona had refused to let him pay fifteen centsmore and get a bigger hammer; and Ona would be invited to try it herself, andhurt her thumb, and cry out, which necessitated the thumb’s being kissedby Jurgis. Finally, after every one had had a try, the nails would be driven,and something hung up. Jurgis had come home with a big packing box on his head,and he sent Jonas to get another that he had bought. He meant to take one sideout of these tomorrow, and put shelves in them, and make them into bureaus andplaces to keep things for the bedrooms. The nest which had been advertised hadnot included feathers for quite so many birds as there were in this family.

They had, of course, put their dining table in the kitchen, and the dining roomwas used as the bedroom of Teta Elzbieta and five of her children. She and thetwo youngest slept in the only bed, and the other three had a mattress on thefloor. Ona and her cousin dragged a mattress into the parlor and slept atnight, and the three men and the oldest boy slept in the other room, havingnothing but the very level floor to rest on for the present. Even so, however,they slept soundly—it was necessary for Teta Elzbieta to pound more thanonce on the door at a quarter past five every morning. She would have ready agreat pot full of steaming black coffee, and oatmeal and bread and smokedsausages; and then she would fix them their dinner pails with more thick slicesof bread with lard between them—they could not afford butter—andsome onions and a piece of cheese, and so they would tramp away to work.

This was the first time in his life that he had ever really worked, it seemedto Jurgis; it was the first time that he had ever had anything to do which tookall he had in him. Jurgis had stood with the rest up in the gallery and watchedthe men on the killing beds, marveling at their speed and power as if they hadbeen wonderful machines; it somehow never occurred to one to think of theflesh-and-blood side of it—that is, not until he actually got down intothe pit and took off his coat. Then he saw things in a different light, he gotat the inside of them. The pace they set here, it was one that called for everyfaculty of a man—from the instant the first steer fell till the soundingof the noon whistle, and again from half-past twelve till heaven only knew whathour in the late afternoon or evening, there was never one instant’s restfor a man, for his hand or his eye or his brain. Jurgis saw how they managedit; there were portions of the work which determined the pace of the rest, andfor these they had picked men whom they paid high wages, and whom they changedfrequently. You might easily pick out these pacemakers, for they worked underthe eye of the bosses, and they worked like men possessed. This was called“speeding up the gang,” and if any man could not keep up with thepace, there were hundreds outside begging to try.

Yet Jurgis did not mind it; he rather enjoyed it. It saved him the necessity offlinging his arms about and fidgeting as he did in most work. He would laugh tohimself as he ran down the line, darting a glance now and then at the man aheadof him. It was not the pleasantest work one could think of, but it wasnecessary work; and what more had a man the right to ask than a chance to dosomething useful, and to get good pay for doing it?

So Jurgis thought, and so he spoke, in his bold, free way; very much to hissurprise, he found that it had a tendency to get him into trouble. For most ofthe men here took a fearfully different view of the thing. He was quitedismayed when he first began to find it out—that most of the menhated their work. It seemed strange, it was even terrible, when you cameto find out the universality of the sentiment; but it was certainly thefact—they hated their work. They hated the bosses and they hated theowners; they hated the whole place, the whole neighborhood—even the wholecity, with an all-inclusive hatred, bitter and fierce. Women and littlechildren would fall to cursing about it; it was rotten, rotten ashell—everything was rotten. When Jurgis would ask them what they meant,they would begin to get suspicious, and content themselves with saying,“Never mind, you stay here and see for yourself.”

One of the first problems that Jurgis ran upon was that of the unions. He hadhad no experience with unions, and he had to have it explained to him that themen were banded together for the purpose of fighting for their rights. Jurgisasked them what they meant by their rights, a question in which he was quitesincere, for he had not any idea of any rights that he had, except the right tohunt for a job, and do as he was told when he got it. Generally, however, thisharmless question would only make his fellow workingmen lose their tempers andcall him a fool. There was a delegate of the butcher-helpers’ union whocame to see Jurgis to enroll him; and when Jurgis found that this meant that hewould have to part with some of his money, he froze up directly, and thedelegate, who was an Irishman and only knew a few words of Lithuanian, lost histemper and began to threaten him. In the end Jurgis got into a fine rage, andmade it sufficiently plain that it would take more than one Irishman to scarehim into a union. Little by little he gathered that the main thing the menwanted was to put a stop to the habit of “speeding-up”; they weretrying their best to force a lessening of the pace, for there were some, theysaid, who could not keep up with it, whom it was killing. But Jurgis had nosympathy with such ideas as this—he could do the work himself, and socould the rest of them, he declared, if they were good for anything. If theycouldn’t do it, let them go somewhere else. Jurgis had not studied thebooks, and he would not have known how to pronounce “laissezfaire”; but he had been round the world enough to know that a man has toshift for himself in it, and that if he gets the worst of it, there is nobodyto listen to him holler.

Yet there have been known to be philosophers and plain men who swore by Malthusin the books, and would, nevertheless, subscribe to a relief fund in time of afamine. It was the same with Jurgis, who consigned the unfit to destruction,while going about all day sick at heart because of his poor old father, who waswandering somewhere in the yards begging for a chance to earn his bread. OldAntanas had been a worker ever since he was a child; he had run away from homewhen he was twelve, because his father beat him for trying to learn to read.And he was a faithful man, too; he was a man you might leave alone for a month,if only you had made him understand what you wanted him to do in the meantime.And now here he was, worn out in soul and body, and with no more place in theworld than a sick dog. He had his home, as it happened, and some one who wouldcare for him if he never got a job; but his son could not help thinking,suppose this had not been the case. Antanas Rudkus had been into every buildingin Packingtown by this time, and into nearly every room; he had stood morningsamong the crowd of applicants till the very policemen had come to know his faceand to tell him to go home and give it up. He had been likewise to all thestores and saloons for a mile about, begging for some little thing to do; andeverywhere they had ordered him out, sometimes with curses, and not once evenstopping to ask him a question.

So, after all, there was a crack in the fine structure of Jurgis’ faithin things as they are. The crack was wide while Dede Antanas was hunting ajob—and it was yet wider when he finally got it. For one evening the oldman came home in a great state of excitement, with the tale that he had beenapproached by a man in one of the corridors of the pickle rooms ofDurham’s, and asked what he would pay to get a job. He had not known whatto make of this at first; but the man had gone on with matter-of-fact franknessto say that he could get him a job, provided that he were willing to payone-third of his wages for it. Was he a boss? Antanas had asked; to which theman had replied that that was nobody’s business, but that he could dowhat he said.

Jurgis had made some friends by this time, and he sought one of them and askedwhat this meant. The friend, who was named Tamoszius Kuszleika, was a sharplittle man who folded hides on the killing beds, and he listened to what Jurgishad to say without seeming at all surprised. They were common enough, he said,such cases of petty graft. It was simply some boss who proposed to add a littleto his income. After Jurgis had been there awhile he would know that the plantswere simply honeycombed with rottenness of that sort—the bosses graftedoff the men, and they grafted off each other; and some day the superintendentwould find out about the boss, and then he would graft off the boss. Warming tothe subject, Tamoszius went on to explain the situation. Here wasDurham’s, for instance, owned by a man who was trying to make as muchmoney out of it as he could, and did not care in the least how he did it; andunderneath him, ranged in ranks and grades like an army, were managers andsuperintendents and foremen, each one driving the man next below him and tryingto squeeze out of him as much work as possible. And all the men of the samerank were pitted against each other; the accounts of each were kept separately,and every man lived in terror of losing his job, if another made a betterrecord than he. So from top to bottom the place was simply a seething caldronof jealousies and hatreds; there was no loyalty or decency anywhere about it,there was no place in it where a man counted for anything against a dollar. Andworse than there being no decency, there was not even any honesty. The reasonfor that? Who could say? It must have been old Durham in the beginning; it wasa heritage which the self-made merchant had left to his son, along with hismillions.

Jurgis would find out these things for himself, if he stayed there long enough;it was the men who had to do all the dirty jobs, and so there was no deceivingthem; and they caught the spirit of the place, and did like all the rest.Jurgis had come there, and thought he was going to make himself useful, andrise and become a skilled man; but he would soon find out his error—fornobody rose in Packingtown by doing good work. You could lay that down for arule—if you met a man who was rising in Packingtown, you met a knave.That man who had been sent to Jurgis’ father by the boss, he wouldrise; the man who told tales and spied upon his fellows would rise; but the manwho minded his own business and did his work—why, they would “speedhim up” till they had worn him out, and then they would throw him intothe gutter.

Jurgis went home with his head buzzing. Yet he could not bring himself tobelieve such things—no, it could not be so. Tamoszius was simply anotherof the grumblers. He was a man who spent all his time fiddling; and he would goto parties at night and not get home till sunrise, and so of course he did notfeel like work. Then, too, he was a puny little chap; and so he had been leftbehind in the race, and that was why he was sore. And yet so many strangethings kept coming to Jurgis’ notice every day!

He tried to persuade his father to have nothing to do with the offer. But oldAntanas had begged until he was worn out, and all his courage was gone; hewanted a job, any sort of a job. So the next day he went and found the man whohad spoken to him, and promised to bring him a third of all he earned; and thatsame day he was put to work in Durham’s cellars. It was a “pickleroom,” where there was never a dry spot to stand upon, and so he had totake nearly the whole of his first week’s earnings to buy him a pair ofheavy-soled boots. He was a “squeedgie” man; his job was to goabout all day with a long-handled mop, swabbing up the floor. Except that itwas damp and dark, it was not an unpleasant job, in summer.

Now Antanas Rudkus was the meekest man that God ever put on earth; and soJurgis found it a striking confirmation of what the men all said, that hisfather had been at work only two days before he came home as bitter as any ofthem, and cursing Durham’s with all the power of his soul. For they hadset him to cleaning out the traps; and the family sat round and listened inwonder while he told them what that meant. It seemed that he was working in theroom where the men prepared the beef for canning, and the beef had lain in vatsfull of chemicals, and men with great forks speared it out and dumped it intotrucks, to be taken to the cooking room. When they had speared out all theycould reach, they emptied the vat on the floor, and then with shovels scrapedup the balance and dumped it into the truck. This floor was filthy, yet theyset Antanas with his mop slopping the “pickle” into a hole thatconnected with a sink, where it was caught and used over again forever; and ifthat were not enough, there was a trap in the pipe, where all the scraps ofmeat and odds and ends of refuse were caught, and every few days it was the oldman’s task to clean these out, and shovel their contents into one of thetrucks with the rest of the meat!

This was the experience of Antanas; and then there came also Jonas and Marijawith tales to tell. Marija was working for one of the independent packers, andwas quite beside herself and outrageous with triumph over the sums of money shewas making as a painter of cans. But one day she walked home with a pale-facedlittle woman who worked opposite to her, Jadvyga Marcinkus by name, and Jadvygatold her how she, Marija, had chanced to get her job. She had taken the placeof an Irishwoman who had been working in that factory ever since any one couldremember. For over fifteen years, so she declared. Mary Dennis was her name,and a long time ago she had been seduced, and had a little boy; he was acripple, and an epileptic, but still he was all that she had in the world tolove, and they had lived in a little room alone somewhere back of HalstedStreet, where the Irish were. Mary had had consumption, and all day long youmight hear her coughing as she worked; of late she had been going all topieces, and when Marija came, the “forelady” had suddenly decidedto turn her off. The forelady had to come up to a certain standard herself, andcould not stop for sick people, Jadvyga explained. The fact that Mary had beenthere so long had not made any difference to her—it was doubtful if sheeven knew that, for both the forelady and the superintendent were new people,having only been there two or three years themselves. Jadvyga did not know whathad become of the poor creature; she would have gone to see her, but had beensick herself. She had pains in her back all the time, Jadvyga explained, andfeared that she had womb trouble. It was not fit work for a woman, handlingfourteen-pound cans all day.

It was a striking circumstance that Jonas, too, had gotten his job by themisfortune of some other person. Jonas pushed a truck loaded with hams from thesmoke rooms on to an elevator, and thence to the packing rooms. The trucks wereall of iron, and heavy, and they put about threescore hams on each of them, aload of more than a quarter of a ton. On the uneven floor it was a task for aman to start one of these trucks, unless he was a giant; and when it was oncestarted he naturally tried his best to keep it going. There was always the bossprowling about, and if there was a second’s delay he would fall tocursing; Lithuanians and Slovaks and such, who could not understand what wassaid to them, the bosses were wont to kick about the place like so many dogs.Therefore these trucks went for the most part on the run; and the predecessorof Jonas had been jammed against the wall by one and crushed in a horrible andnameless manner.

All of these were sinister incidents; but they were trifles compared to whatJurgis saw with his own eyes before long. One curious thing he had noticed, thevery first day, in his profession of shoveler of guts; which was the sharptrick of the floor bosses whenever there chanced to come a “slunk”calf. Any man who knows anything about butchering knows that the flesh of a cowthat is about to calve, or has just calved, is not fit for food. A good many ofthese came every day to the packing houses—and, of course, if they hadchosen, it would have been an easy matter for the packers to keep them tillthey were fit for food. But for the saving of time and fodder, it was the lawthat cows of that sort came along with the others, and whoever noticed it wouldtell the boss, and the boss would start up a conversation with the governmentinspector, and the two would stroll away. So in a trice the carcass of the cowwould be cleaned out, and entrails would have vanished; it was Jurgis’task to slide them into the trap, calves and all, and on the floor below theytook out these “slunk” calves, and butchered them for meat, andused even the skins of them.

One day a man slipped and hurt his leg; and that afternoon, when the last ofthe cattle had been disposed of, and the men were leaving, Jurgis was orderedto remain and do some special work which this injured man had usually done. Itwas late, almost dark, and the government inspectors had all gone, and therewere only a dozen or two of men on the floor. That day they had killed aboutfour thousand cattle, and these cattle had come in freight trains from farstates, and some of them had got hurt. There were some with broken legs, andsome with gored sides; there were some that had died, from what cause no onecould say; and they were all to be disposed of, here in darkness and silence.“Downers,” the men called them; and the packing house had a specialelevator upon which they were raised to the killing beds, where the gangproceeded to handle them, with an air of businesslike nonchalance which saidplainer than any words that it was a matter of everyday routine. It took acouple of hours to get them out of the way, and in the end Jurgis saw them gointo the chilling rooms with the rest of the meat, being carefully scatteredhere and there so that they could not be identified. When he came home thatnight he was in a very somber mood, having begun to see at last how those mightbe right who had laughed at him for his faith in America.

CHAPTER VI

Jurgis and Ona were very much in love; they had waited a long time—it wasnow well into the second year, and Jurgis judged everything by the criterion ofits helping or hindering their union. All his thoughts were there; he acceptedthe family because it was a part of Ona. And he was interested in the housebecause it was to be Ona’s home. Even the tricks and cruelties he saw atDurham’s had little meaning for him just then, save as they might happento affect his future with Ona.

The marriage would have been at once, if they had had their way; but this wouldmean that they would have to do without any wedding feast, and when theysuggested this they came into conflict with the old people. To Teta Elzbietaespecially the very suggestion was an affliction. What! she would cry. To bemarried on the roadside like a parcel of beggars! No! No!—Elzbieta hadsome traditions behind her; she had been a person of importance in hergirlhood—had lived on a big estate and had servants, and might havemarried well and been a lady, but for the fact that there had been ninedaughters and no sons in the family. Even so, however, she knew what wasdecent, and clung to her traditions with desperation. They were not going tolose all caste, even if they had come to be unskilled laborers in Packingtown;and that Ona had even talked of omitting a veselija was enough to keepher stepmother lying awake all night. It was in vain for them to say that theyhad so few friends; they were bound to have friends in time, and then thefriends would talk about it. They must not give up what was right for a littlemoney—if they did, the money would never do them any good, they coulddepend upon that. And Elzbieta would call upon Dede Antanas to support her;there was a fear in the souls of these two, lest this journey to a new countrymight somehow undermine the old home virtues of their children. The very firstSunday they had all been taken to mass; and poor as they were, Elzbieta hadfelt it advisable to invest a little of her resources in a representation ofthe babe of Bethlehem, made in plaster, and painted in brilliant colors. Thoughit was only a foot high, there was a shrine with four snow-white steeples, andthe Virgin standing with her child in her arms, and the kings and shepherds andwise men bowing down before him. It had cost fifty cents; but Elzbieta had afeeling that money spent for such things was not to be counted too closely, itwould come back in hidden ways. The piece was beautiful on the parlor mantel,and one could not have a home without some sort of ornament.

The cost of the wedding feast would, of course, be returned to them; but theproblem was to raise it even temporarily. They had been in the neighborhood soshort a time that they could not get much credit, and there was no one exceptSzedvilas from whom they could borrow even a little. Evening after eveningJurgis and Ona would sit and figure the expenses, calculating the term of theirseparation. They could not possibly manage it decently for less than twohundred dollars, and even though they were welcome to count in the whole of theearnings of Marija and Jonas, as a loan, they could not hope to raise this sumin less than four or five months. So Ona began thinking of seeking employmentherself, saying that if she had even ordinarily good luck, she might be able totake two months off the time. They were just beginning to adjust themselves tothis necessity, when out of the clear sky there fell a thunderbolt uponthem—a calamity that scattered all their hopes to the four winds.

About a block away from them there lived another Lithuanian family, consistingof an elderly widow and one grown son; their name was Majauszkis, and ourfriends struck up an acquaintance with them before long. One evening they cameover for a visit, and naturally the first subject upon which the conversationturned was the neighborhood and its history; and then Grandmother Majauszkiene,as the old lady was called, proceeded to recite to them a string of horrorsthat fairly froze their blood. She was a wrinkled-up and wizenedpersonage—she must have been eighty—and as she mumbled the grimstory through her toothless gums, she seemed a very old witch to them.Grandmother Majauszkiene had lived in the midst of misfortune so long that ithad come to be her element, and she talked about starvation, sickness, anddeath as other people might about weddings and holidays.

The thing came gradually. In the first place as to the house they had bought,it was not new at all, as they had supposed; it was about fifteen years old,and there was nothing new upon it but the paint, which was so bad that itneeded to be put on new every year or two. The house was one of a whole rowthat was built by a company which existed to make money by swindling poorpeople. The family had paid fifteen hundred dollars for it, and it had not costthe builders five hundred, when it was new. Grandmother Majauszkiene knew thatbecause her son belonged to a political organization with a contractor who putup exactly such houses. They used the very flimsiest and cheapest material;they built the houses a dozen at a time, and they cared about nothing at allexcept the outside shine. The family could take her word as to the trouble theywould have, for she had been through it all—she and her son had boughttheir house in exactly the same way. They had fooled the company, however, forher son was a skilled man, who made as high as a hundred dollars a month, andas he had had sense enough not to marry, they had been able to pay for thehouse.

Grandmother Majauszkiene saw that her friends were puzzled at this remark; theydid not quite see how paying for the house was “fooling thecompany.” Evidently they were very inexperienced. Cheap as the houseswere, they were sold with the idea that the people who bought them would not beable to pay for them. When they failed—if it were only by a singlemonth—they would lose the house and all that they had paid on it, andthen the company would sell it over again. And did they often get a chance todo that? Dieve! (Grandmother Majauszkiene raised her hands.) They didit—how often no one could say, but certainly more than half of the time.They might ask any one who knew anything at all about Packingtown as to that;she had been living here ever since this house was built, and she could tellthem all about it. And had it ever been sold before? Susimilkie! Why,since it had been built, no less than four families that their informant couldname had tried to buy it and failed. She would tell them a little about it.

The first family had been Germans. The families had all been of differentnationalities—there had been a representative of several races that haddisplaced each other in the stockyards. Grandmother Majauszkiene had come toAmerica with her son at a time when so far as she knew there was only one otherLithuanian family in the district; the workers had all been Germansthen—skilled cattle butchers that the packers had brought from abroad tostart the business. Afterward, as cheaper labor had come, these Germans hadmoved away. The next were the Irish—there had been six or eight yearswhen Packingtown had been a regular Irish city. There were a few colonies ofthem still here, enough to run all the unions and the police force and get allthe graft; but most of those who were working in the packing houses had goneaway at the next drop in wages—after the big strike. The Bohemians hadcome then, and after them the Poles. People said that old man Durham himselfwas responsible for these immigrations; he had sworn that he would fix thepeople of Packingtown so that they would never again call a strike on him, andso he had sent his agents into every city and village in Europe to spread thetale of the chances of work and high wages at the stockyards. The people hadcome in hordes; and old Durham had squeezed them tighter and tighter, speedingthem up and grinding them to pieces and sending for new ones. The Poles, whohad come by tens of thousands, had been driven to the wall by the Lithuanians,and now the Lithuanians were giving way to the Slovaks. Who there was poorerand more miserable than the Slovaks, Grandmother Majauszkiene had no idea, butthe packers would find them, never fear. It was easy to bring them, for wageswere really much higher, and it was only when it was too late that the poorpeople found out that everything else was higher too. They were like rats in atrap, that was the truth; and more of them were piling in every day. By and bythey would have their revenge, though, for the thing was getting beyond humanendurance, and the people would rise and murder the packers. GrandmotherMajauszkiene was a socialist, or some such strange thing; another son of herswas working in the mines of Siberia, and the old lady herself had made speechesin her time—which made her seem all the more terrible to her presentauditors.

They called her back to the story of the house. The German family had been agood sort. To be sure there had been a great many of them, which was a commonfailing in Packingtown; but they had worked hard, and the father had been asteady man, and they had a good deal more than half paid for the house. But hehad been killed in an elevator accident in Durham’s.

Then there had come the Irish, and there had been lots of them, too; thehusband drank and beat the children—the neighbors could hear themshrieking any night. They were behind with their rent all the time, but thecompany was good to them; there was some politics back of that, GrandmotherMajauszkiene could not say just what, but the Laffertys had belonged to the“War Whoop League,” which was a sort of political club of all thethugs and rowdies in the district; and if you belonged to that, you could neverbe arrested for anything. Once upon a time old Lafferty had been caught with agang that had stolen cows from several of the poor people of the neighborhoodand butchered them in an old shanty back of the yards and sold them. He hadbeen in jail only three days for it, and had come out laughing, and had noteven lost his place in the packing house. He had gone all to ruin with thedrink, however, and lost his power; one of his sons, who was a good man, hadkept him and the family up for a year or two, but then he had got sick withconsumption.

That was another thing, Grandmother Majauszkiene interrupted herself—thishouse was unlucky. Every family that lived in it, some one was sure to getconsumption. Nobody could tell why that was; there must be something about thehouse, or the way it was built—some folks said it was because thebuilding had been begun in the dark of the moon. There were dozens of housesthat way in Packingtown. Sometimes there would be a particular room that youcould point out—if anybody slept in that room he was just as good asdead. With this house it had been the Irish first; and then a Bohemian familyhad lost a child of it—though, to be sure, that was uncertain, since itwas hard to tell what was the matter with children who worked in the yards. Inthose days there had been no law about the age of children—the packershad worked all but the babies. At this remark the family looked puzzled, andGrandmother Majauszkiene again had to make an explanation—that it wasagainst the law for children to work before they were sixteen. What was thesense of that? they asked. They had been thinking of letting little Stanislovasgo to work. Well, there was no need to worry, Grandmother Majauszkienesaid—the law made no difference except that it forced people to lie aboutthe ages of their children. One would like to know what the lawmakers expectedthem to do; there were families that had no possible means of support exceptthe children, and the law provided them no other way of getting a living. Veryoften a man could get no work in Packingtown for months, while a child could goand get a place easily; there was always some new machine, by which the packerscould get as much work out of a child as they had been able to get out of aman, and for a third of the pay.

To come back to the house again, it was the woman of the next family that haddied. That was after they had been there nearly four years, and this woman hadhad twins regularly every year—and there had been more than you couldcount when they moved in. After she died the man would go to work all day andleave them to shift for themselves—the neighbors would help them now andthen, for they would almost freeze to death. At the end there were three daysthat they were alone, before it was found out that the father was dead. He wasa “floorsman” at Jones’s, and a wounded steer had brokenloose and mashed him against a pillar. Then the children had been taken away,and the company had sold the house that very same week to a party of emigrants.

So this grim old woman went on with her tale of horrors. How much of it wasexaggeration—who could tell? It was only too plausible. There was thatabout consumption, for instance. They knew nothing about consumption whatever,except that it made people cough; and for two weeks they had been worryingabout a coughing-spell of Antanas. It seemed to shake him all over, and itnever stopped; you could see a red stain wherever he had spit upon the floor.

And yet all these things were as nothing to what came a little later. They hadbegun to question the old lady as to why one family had been unable to pay,trying to show her by figures that it ought to have been possible; andGrandmother Majauszkiene had disputed their figures—“You say twelvedollars a month; but that does not include the interest.”

Then they stared at her. “Interest!” they cried.

“Interest on the money you still owe,” she answered.

“But we don’t have to pay any interest!” they exclaimed,three or four at once. “We only have to pay twelve dollars eachmonth.”

And for this she laughed at them. “You are like all the rest,” shesaid; “they trick you and eat you alive. They never sell the houseswithout interest. Get your deed, and see.”

Then, with a horrible sinking of the heart, Teta Elzbieta unlocked her bureauand brought out the paper that had already caused them so many agonies. Nowthey sat round, scarcely breathing, while the old lady, who could read English,ran over it. “Yes,” she said, finally, “here it is, ofcourse: ‘With interest thereon monthly, at the rate of seven per cent perannum.’”

And there followed a dead silence. “What does that mean?” askedJurgis finally, almost in a whisper.

“That means,” replied the other, “that you have to pay themseven dollars next month, as well as the twelve dollars.”

Then again there was not a sound. It was sickening, like a nightmare, in whichsuddenly something gives way beneath you, and you feel yourself sinking,sinking, down into bottomless abysses. As if in a flash of lightning they sawthemselves—victims of a relentless fate, cornered, trapped, in the gripof destruction. All the fair structure of their hopes came crashing about theirears.—And all the time the old woman was going on talking. They wishedthat she would be still; her voice sounded like the croaking of some dismalraven. Jurgis sat with his hands clenched and beads of perspiration on hisforehead, and there was a great lump in Ona’s throat, choking her. Thensuddenly Teta Elzbieta broke the silence with a wail, and Marija began to wringher hands and sob, “Ai! Ai! Beda man!”

All their outcry did them no good, of course. There sat GrandmotherMajauszkiene, unrelenting, typifying fate. No, of course it was not fair, butthen fairness had nothing to do with it. And of course they had not known it.They had not been intended to know it. But it was in the deed, and that was allthat was necessary, as they would find when the time came.

Somehow or other they got rid of their guest, and then they passed a night oflamentation. The children woke up and found out that something was wrong, andthey wailed and would not be comforted. In the morning, of course, most of themhad to go to work, the packing houses would not stop for their sorrows; but byseven o’clock Ona and her stepmother were standing at the door of theoffice of the agent. Yes, he told them, when he came, it was quite true thatthey would have to pay interest. And then Teta Elzbieta broke forth intoprotestations and reproaches, so that the people outside stopped and peered inat the window. The agent was as bland as ever. He was deeply pained, he said.He had not told them, simply because he had supposed they would understand thatthey had to pay interest upon their debt, as a matter of course.

So they came away, and Ona went down to the yards, and at noontime saw Jurgisand told him. Jurgis took it stolidly—he had made up his mind to it bythis time. It was part of fate; they would manage it somehow—he made hisusual answer, “I will work harder.” It would upset their plans fora time; and it would perhaps be necessary for Ona to get work after all. ThenOna added that Teta Elzbieta had decided that little Stanislovas would have towork too. It was not fair to let Jurgis and her support the family—thefamily would have to help as it could. Previously Jurgis had scouted this idea,but now knit his brows and nodded his head slowly—yes, perhaps it wouldbe best; they would all have to make some sacrifices now.

So Ona set out that day to hunt for work; and at night Marija came home sayingthat she had met a girl named Jasaityte who had a friend that worked in one ofthe wrapping rooms in Brown’s, and might get a place for Ona there; onlythe forelady was the kind that takes presents—it was no use for any oneto ask her for a place unless at the same time they slipped a ten-dollar billinto her hand. Jurgis was not in the least surprised at this now—hemerely asked what the wages of the place would be. So negotiations were opened,and after an interview Ona came home and reported that the forelady seemed tolike her, and had said that, while she was not sure, she thought she might beable to put her at work sewing covers on hams, a job at which she would earn asmuch as eight or ten dollars a week. That was a bid, so Marija reported, afterconsulting her friend; and then there was an anxious conference at home. Thework was done in one of the cellars, and Jurgis did not want Ona to work insuch a place; but then it was easy work, and one could not have everything. Soin the end Ona, with a ten-dollar bill burning a hole in her palm, had anotherinterview with the forelady.

Meantime Teta Elzbieta had taken Stanislovas to the priest and gotten acertificate to the effect that he was two years older than he was; and with itthe little boy now sallied forth to make his fortune in the world. It chancedthat Durham had just put in a wonderful new lard machine, and when the specialpoliceman in front of the time station saw Stanislovas and his document, hesmiled to himself and told him to go—“Czia! Czia!” pointing.And so Stanislovas went down a long stone corridor, and up a flight of stairs,which took him into a room lighted by electricity, with the new machines forfilling lard cans at work in it. The lard was finished on the floor above, andit came in little jets, like beautiful, wriggling, snow-white snakes ofunpleasant odor. There were several kinds and sizes of jets, and after acertain precise quantity had come out, each stopped automatically, and thewonderful machine made a turn, and took the can under another jet, and so on,until it was filled neatly to the brim, and pressed tightly, and smoothed off.To attend to all this and fill several hundred cans of lard per hour, therewere necessary two human creatures, one of whom knew how to place an empty lardcan on a certain spot every few seconds, and the other of whom knew how to takea full lard can off a certain spot every few seconds and set it upon a tray.

And so, after little Stanislovas had stood gazing timidly about him for a fewminutes, a man approached him, and asked what he wanted, to which Stanislovassaid, “Job.” Then the man said “How old?” andStanislovas answered, “Sixtin.” Once or twice every year a stateinspector would come wandering through the packing plants, asking a child hereand there how old he was; and so the packers were very careful to comply withthe law, which cost them as much trouble as was now involved in theboss’s taking the document from the little boy, and glancing at it, andthen sending it to the office to be filed away. Then he set some one else at adifferent job, and showed the lad how to place a lard can every time the emptyarm of the remorseless machine came to him; and so was decided the place in theuniverse of little Stanislovas, and his destiny till the end of his days. Hourafter hour, day after day, year after year, it was fated that he should standupon a certain square foot of floor from seven in the morning until noon, andagain from half-past twelve till half-past five, making never a motion andthinking never a thought, save for the setting of lard cans. In summer thestench of the warm lard would be nauseating, and in winter the cans would allbut freeze to his naked little fingers in the unheated cellar. Half the year itwould be dark as night when he went in to work, and dark as night again when hecame out, and so he would never know what the sun looked like on weekdays. Andfor this, at the end of the week, he would carry home three dollars to hisfamily, being his pay at the rate of five cents per hour—just about hisproper share of the total earnings of the million and three-quarters ofchildren who are now engaged in earning their livings in the United States.

And meantime, because they were young, and hope is not to be stifled before itstime, Jurgis and Ona were again calculating; for they had discovered that thewages of Stanislovas would a little more than pay the interest, which left themjust about as they had been before! It would be but fair to them to say thatthe little boy was delighted with his work, and at the idea of earning a lot ofmoney; and also that the two were very much in love with each other.

CHAPTER VII

All summer long the family toiled, and in the fall they had money enough forJurgis and Ona to be married according to home traditions of decency. In thelatter part of November they hired a hall, and invited all their newacquaintances, who came and left them over a hundred dollars in debt.

It was a bitter and cruel experience, and it plunged them into an agony ofdespair. Such a time, of all times, for them to have it, when their hearts weremade tender! Such a pitiful beginning it was for their married life; they lovedeach other so, and they could not have the briefest respite! It was a time wheneverything cried out to them that they ought to be happy; when wonder burned intheir hearts, and leaped into flame at the slightest breath. They were shakento the depths of them, with the awe of love realized—and was it so veryweak of them that they cried out for a little peace? They had opened theirhearts, like flowers to the springtime, and the merciless winter had fallenupon them. They wondered if ever any love that had blossomed in the world hadbeen so crushed and trampled!

Over them, relentless and savage, there cracked the lash of want; the morningafter the wedding it sought them as they slept, and drove them out beforedaybreak to work. Ona was scarcely able to stand with exhaustion; but if shewere to lose her place they would be ruined, and she would surely lose it ifshe were not on time that day. They all had to go, even little Stanislovas, whowas ill from overindulgence in sausages and sarsaparilla. All that day he stoodat his lard machine, rocking unsteadily, his eyes closing in spite of him; andhe all but lost his place even so, for the foreman booted him twice to wakenhim.

It was fully a week before they were all normal again, and meantime, withwhining children and cross adults, the house was not a pleasant place to livein. Jurgis lost his temper very little, however, all things considered. It wasbecause of Ona; the least glance at her was always enough to make him controlhimself. She was so sensitive—she was not fitted for such a life as this;and a hundred times a day, when he thought of her, he would clench his handsand fling himself again at the task before him. She was too good for him, hetold himself, and he was afraid, because she was his. So long he had hungeredto possess her, but now that the time had come he knew that he had not earnedthe right; that she trusted him so was all her own simple goodness, and novirtue of his. But he was resolved that she should never find this out, and sowas always on the watch to see that he did not betray any of his ugly self; hewould take care even in little matters, such as his manners, and his habit ofswearing when things went wrong. The tears came so easily into Ona’seyes, and she would look at him so appealingly—it kept Jurgis quite busymaking resolutions, in addition to all the other things he had on his mind. Itwas true that more things were going on at this time in the mind of Jurgis thanever had in all his life before.

He had to protect her, to do battle for her against the horror he saw aboutthem. He was all that she had to look to, and if he failed she would be lost;he would wrap his arms about her, and try to hide her from the world. He hadlearned the ways of things about him now. It was a war of each against all, andthe devil take the hindmost. You did not give feasts to other people, youwaited for them to give feasts to you. You went about with your soul full ofsuspicion and hatred; you understood that you were environed by hostile powersthat were trying to get your money, and who used all the virtues to bait theirtraps with. The store-keepers plastered up their windows with all sorts of liesto entice you; the very fences by the wayside, the lampposts and telegraphpoles, were pasted over with lies. The great corporation which employed youlied to you, and lied to the whole country—from top to bottom it wasnothing but one gigantic lie.

So Jurgis said that he understood it; and yet it was really pitiful, for thestruggle was so unfair—some had so much the advantage! Here he was, forinstance, vowing upon his knees that he would save Ona from harm, and only aweek later she was suffering atrociously, and from the blow of an enemy that hecould not possibly have thwarted. There came a day when the rain fell intorrents; and it being December, to be wet with it and have to sit all day longin one of the cold cellars of Brown’s was no laughing matter. Ona was aworking girl, and did not own waterproofs and such things, and so Jurgis tookher and put her on the streetcar. Now it chanced that this car line was ownedby gentlemen who were trying to make money. And the city having passed anordinance requiring them to give transfers, they had fallen into a rage; andfirst they had made a rule that transfers could be had only when the fare waspaid; and later, growing still uglier, they had made another—that thepassenger must ask for the transfer, the conductor was not allowed to offer it.Now Ona had been told that she was to get a transfer; but it was not her way tospeak up, and so she merely waited, following the conductor about with hereyes, wondering when he would think of her. When at last the time came for herto get out, she asked for the transfer, and was refused. Not knowing what tomake of this, she began to argue with the conductor, in a language of which hedid not understand a word. After warning her several times, he pulled the belland the car went on—at which Ona burst into tears. At the next corner shegot out, of course; and as she had no more money, she had to walk the rest ofthe way to the yards in the pouring rain. And so all day long she satshivering, and came home at night with her teeth chattering and pains in herhead and back. For two weeks afterward she suffered cruelly—and yet everyday she had to drag herself to her work. The forewoman was especially severewith Ona, because she believed that she was obstinate on account of having beenrefused a holiday the day after her wedding. Ona had an idea that her“forelady” did not like to have her girls marry—perhapsbecause she was old and ugly and unmarried herself.

There were many such dangers, in which the odds were all against them. Theirchildren were not as well as they had been at home; but how could they knowthat there was no sewer to their house, and that the drainage of fifteen yearswas in a cesspool under it? How could they know that the pale-blue milk thatthey bought around the corner was watered, and doctored with formaldehydebesides? When the children were not well at home, Teta Elzbieta would gatherherbs and cure them; now she was obliged to go to the drugstore and buyextracts—and how was she to know that they were all adulterated? Howcould they find out that their tea and coffee, their sugar and flour, had beendoctored; that their canned peas had been colored with copper salts, and theirfruit jams with aniline dyes? And even if they had known it, what good would ithave done them, since there was no place within miles of them where any othersort was to be had? The bitter winter was coming, and they had to save money toget more clothing and bedding; but it would not matter in the least how muchthey saved, they could not get anything to keep them warm. All the clothingthat was to be had in the stores was made of cotton and shoddy, which is madeby tearing old clothes to pieces and weaving the fiber again. If they paidhigher prices, they might get frills and fanciness, or be cheated; but genuinequality they could not obtain for love nor money. A young friend ofSzedvilas’, recently come from abroad, had become a clerk in a store onAshland Avenue, and he narrated with glee a trick that had been played upon anunsuspecting countryman by his boss. The customer had desired to purchase analarm clock, and the boss had shown him two exactly similar, telling him thatthe price of one was a dollar and of the other a dollar seventy-five. Uponbeing asked what the difference was, the man had wound up the first halfway andthe second all the way, and showed the customer how the latter made twice asmuch noise; upon which the customer remarked that he was a sound sleeper, andhad better take the more expensive clock!

There is a poet who sings that

“Deeper their heart grows and nobler their bearing,
Whose youth in the fires of anguish hath died.”

But it was not likely that he had reference to the kind of anguish that comeswith destitution, that is so endlessly bitter and cruel, and yet so sordid andpetty, so ugly, so humiliating—unredeemed by the slightest touch ofdignity or even of pathos. It is a kind of anguish that poets have not commonlydealt with; its very words are not admitted into the vocabulary ofpoets—the details of it cannot be told in polite society at all. How, forinstance, could any one expect to excite sympathy among lovers of goodliterature by telling how a family found their home alive with vermin, and ofall the suffering and inconvenience and humiliation they were put to, and thehard-earned money they spent, in efforts to get rid of them? After longhesitation and uncertainty they paid twenty-five cents for a big package ofinsect powder—a patent preparation which chanced to be ninety-five percent gypsum, a harmless earth which had cost about two cents to prepare. Ofcourse it had not the least effect, except upon a few roaches which had themisfortune to drink water after eating it, and so got their inwards set in acoating of plaster of Paris. The family, having no idea of this, and no moremoney to throw away, had nothing to do but give up and submit to one moremisery for the rest of their days.

Then there was old Antanas. The winter came, and the place where he worked wasa dark, unheated cellar, where you could see your breath all day, and whereyour fingers sometimes tried to freeze. So the old man’s cough grew everyday worse, until there came a time when it hardly ever stopped, and he hadbecome a nuisance about the place. Then, too, a still more dreadful thinghappened to him; he worked in a place where his feet were soaked in chemicals,and it was not long before they had eaten through his new boots. Then soresbegan to break out on his feet, and grow worse and worse. Whether it was thathis blood was bad, or there had been a cut, he could not say; but he asked themen about it, and learned that it was a regular thing—it was thesaltpeter. Every one felt it, sooner or later, and then it was all up with him,at least for that sort of work. The sores would never heal—in the end histoes would drop off, if he did not quit. Yet old Antanas would not quit; he sawthe suffering of his family, and he remembered what it had cost him to get ajob. So he tied up his feet, and went on limping about and coughing, until atlast he fell to pieces, all at once and in a heap, like the One-Horse Shay.They carried him to a dry place and laid him on the floor, and that night twoof the men helped him home. The poor old man was put to bed, and though hetried it every morning until the end, he never could get up again. He would liethere and cough and cough, day and night, wasting away to a mere skeleton.There came a time when there was so little flesh on him that the bones began topoke through—which was a horrible thing to see or even to think of. Andone night he had a choking fit, and a little river of blood came out of hismouth. The family, wild with terror, sent for a doctor, and paid half a dollarto be told that there was nothing to be done. Mercifully the doctor did not saythis so that the old man could hear, for he was still clinging to the faiththat tomorrow or next day he would be better, and could go back to his job. Thecompany had sent word to him that they would keep it for him—or ratherJurgis had bribed one of the men to come one Sunday afternoon and say they had.Dede Antanas continued to believe it, while three more hemorrhages came; andthen at last one morning they found him stiff and cold. Things were not goingwell with them then, and though it nearly broke Teta Elzbieta’s heart,they were forced to dispense with nearly all the decencies of a funeral; theyhad only a hearse, and one hack for the women and children; and Jurgis, who waslearning things fast, spent all Sunday making a bargain for these, and he madeit in the presence of witnesses, so that when the man tried to charge him forall sorts of incidentals, he did not have to pay. For twenty-five years oldAntanas Rudkus and his son had dwelt in the forest together, and it was hard topart in this way; perhaps it was just as well that Jurgis had to give all hisattention to the task of having a funeral without being bankrupted, and so hadno time to indulge in memories and grief.

Now the dreadful winter was come upon them. In the forests, all summer long,the branches of the trees do battle for light, and some of them lose and die;and then come the raging blasts, and the storms of snow and hail, and strew theground with these weaker branches. Just so it was in Packingtown; the wholedistrict braced itself for the struggle that was an agony, and those whose timewas come died off in hordes. All the year round they had been serving as cogsin the great packing machine; and now was the time for the renovating of it,and the replacing of damaged parts. There came pneumonia and grippe, stalkingamong them, seeking for weakened constitutions; there was the annual harvest ofthose whom tuberculosis had been dragging down. There came cruel, cold, andbiting winds, and blizzards of snow, all testing relentlessly for failingmuscles and impoverished blood. Sooner or later came the day when the unfit onedid not report for work; and then, with no time lost in waiting, and noinquiries or regrets, there was a chance for a new hand.

The new hands were here by the thousands. All day long the gates of the packinghouses were besieged by starving and penniless men; they came, literally, bythe thousands every single morning, fighting with each other for a chance forlife. Blizzards and cold made no difference to them, they were always on hand;they were on hand two hours before the sun rose, an hour before the work began.Sometimes their faces froze, sometimes their feet and their hands; sometimesthey froze all together—but still they came, for they had no other placeto go. One day Durham advertised in the paper for two hundred men to cut ice;and all that day the homeless and starving of the city came trudging throughthe snow from all over its two hundred square miles. That night forty score ofthem crowded into the station house of the stockyards district—theyfilled the rooms, sleeping in each other’s laps, toboggan fashion, andthey piled on top of each other in the corridors, till the police shut thedoors and left some to freeze outside. On the morrow, before daybreak, therewere three thousand at Durham’s, and the police reserves had to be sentfor to quell the riot. Then Durham’s bosses picked out twenty of thebiggest; the “two hundred” proved to have been a printer’serror.

Four or five miles to the eastward lay the lake, and over this the bitter windscame raging. Sometimes the thermometer would fall to ten or twenty degreesbelow zero at night, and in the morning the streets would be piled withsnowdrifts up to the first-floor windows. The streets through which our friendshad to go to their work were all unpaved and full of deep holes and gullies; insummer, when it rained hard, a man might have to wade to his waist to get tohis house; and now in winter it was no joke getting through these places,before light in the morning and after dark at night. They would wrap up in allthey owned, but they could not wrap up against exhaustion; and many a man gaveout in these battles with the snowdrifts, and lay down and fell asleep.

And if it was bad for the men, one may imagine how the women and childrenfared. Some would ride in the cars, if the cars were running; but when you aremaking only five cents an hour, as was little Stanislovas, you do not like tospend that much to ride two miles. The children would come to the yards withgreat shawls about their ears, and so tied up that you could hardly findthem—and still there would be accidents. One bitter morning in Februarythe little boy who worked at the lard machine with Stanislovas came about anhour late, and screaming with pain. They unwrapped him, and a man beganvigorously rubbing his ears; and as they were frozen stiff, it took only two orthree rubs to break them short off. As a result of this, little Stanislovasconceived a terror of the cold that was almost a mania. Every morning, when itcame time to start for the yards, he would begin to cry and protest. Nobodyknew quite how to manage him, for threats did no good—it seemed to besomething that he could not control, and they feared sometimes that he would gointo convulsions. In the end it had to be arranged that he always went withJurgis, and came home with him again; and often, when the snow was deep, theman would carry him the whole way on his shoulders. Sometimes Jurgis would beworking until late at night, and then it was pitiful, for there was no placefor the little fellow to wait, save in the doorways or in a corner of thekilling beds, and he would all but fall asleep there, and freeze to death.

There was no heat upon the killing beds; the men might exactly as well haveworked out of doors all winter. For that matter, there was very little heatanywhere in the building, except in the cooking rooms and such places—andit was the men who worked in these who ran the most risk of all, becausewhenever they had to pass to another room they had to go through ice-coldcorridors, and sometimes with nothing on above the waist except a sleevelessundershirt. On the killing beds you were apt to be covered with blood, and itwould freeze solid; if you leaned against a pillar, you would freeze to that,and if you put your hand upon the blade of your knife, you would run a chanceof leaving your skin on it. The men would tie up their feet in newspapers andold sacks, and these would be soaked in blood and frozen, and then soakedagain, and so on, until by nighttime a man would be walking on great lumps thesize of the feet of an elephant. Now and then, when the bosses were notlooking, you would see them plunging their feet and ankles into the steaminghot carcass of the steer, or darting across the room to the hot-water jets. Thecruelest thing of all was that nearly all of them—all of those who usedknives—were unable to wear gloves, and their arms would be white withfrost and their hands would grow numb, and then of course there would beaccidents. Also the air would be full of steam, from the hot water and the hotblood, so that you could not see five feet before you; and then, with menrushing about at the speed they kept up on the killing beds, and all withbutcher knives, like razors, in their hands—well, it was to be counted asa wonder that there were not more men slaughtered than cattle.

And yet all this inconvenience they might have put up with, if only it had notbeen for one thing—if only there had been some place where they mighteat. Jurgis had either to eat his dinner amid the stench in which he hadworked, or else to rush, as did all his companions, to any one of the hundredsof liquor stores which stretched out their arms to him. To the west of theyards ran Ashland Avenue, and here was an unbroken line ofsaloons—“Whiskey Row,” they called it; to the north wasForty-seventh Street, where there were half a dozen to the block, and at theangle of the two was “Whiskey Point,” a space of fifteen or twentyacres, and containing one glue factory and about two hundred saloons.

One might walk among these and take his choice: “Hot pea-soup and boiledcabbage today.” “Sauerkraut and hot frankfurters. Walk in.”“Bean soup and stewed lamb. Welcome.” All of these things wereprinted in many languages, as were also the names of the resorts, which wereinfinite in their variety and appeal. There was the “Home Circle”and the “Cosey Corner”; there were “Firesides” and“Hearthstones” and “Pleasure Palaces” and“Wonderlands” and “Dream Castles” and“Love’s Delights.” Whatever else they were called, they weresure to be called “Union Headquarters,” and to hold out a welcometo workingmen; and there was always a warm stove, and a chair near it, and somefriends to laugh and talk with. There was only one conditionattached,—you must drink. If you went in not intending to drink, youwould be put out in no time, and if you were slow about going, like as not youwould get your head split open with a beer bottle in the bargain. But all ofthe men understood the convention and drank; they believed that by it they weregetting something for nothing—for they did not need to take more than onedrink, and upon the strength of it they might fill themselves up with a goodhot dinner. This did not always work out in practice, however, for there waspretty sure to be a friend who would treat you, and then you would have totreat him. Then some one else would come in—and, anyhow, a few drinkswere good for a man who worked hard. As he went back he did not shiver so, hehad more courage for his task; the deadly brutalizing monotony of it did notafflict him so,—he had ideas while he worked, and took a more cheerfulview of his circumstances. On the way home, however, the shivering was apt tocome on him again; and so he would have to stop once or twice to warm upagainst the cruel cold. As there were hot things to eat in this saloon too, hemight get home late to his supper, or he might not get home at all. And thenhis wife might set out to look for him, and she too would feel the cold; andperhaps she would have some of the children with her—and so a wholefamily would drift into drinking, as the current of a river drifts downstream.As if to complete the chain, the packers all paid their men in checks, refusingall requests to pay in coin; and where in Packingtown could a man go to havehis check cashed but to a saloon, where he could pay for the favor by spendinga part of the money?

From all of these things Jurgis was saved because of Ona. He never would takebut the one drink at noontime; and so he got the reputation of being a surlyfellow, and was not quite welcome at the saloons, and had to drift about fromone to another. Then at night he would go straight home, helping Ona andStanislovas, or often putting the former on a car. And when he got home perhapshe would have to trudge several blocks, and come staggering back through thesnowdrifts with a bag of coal upon his shoulder. Home was not a very attractiveplace—at least not this winter. They had only been able to buy one stove,and this was a small one, and proved not big enough to warm even the kitchen inthe bitterest weather. This made it hard for Teta Elzbieta all day, and for thechildren when they could not get to school. At night they would sit huddledround this stove, while they ate their supper off their laps; and then Jurgisand Jonas would smoke a pipe, after which they would all crawl into their bedsto get warm, after putting out the fire to save the coal. Then they would havesome frightful experiences with the cold. They would sleep with all theirclothes on, including their overcoats, and put over them all the bedding andspare clothing they owned; the children would sleep all crowded into one bed,and yet even so they could not keep warm. The outside ones would be shiveringand sobbing, crawling over the others and trying to get down into the center,and causing a fight. This old house with the leaky weatherboards was a verydifferent thing from their cabins at home, with great thick walls plasteredinside and outside with mud; and the cold which came upon them was a livingthing, a demon-presence in the room. They would waken in the midnight hours,when everything was black; perhaps they would hear it yelling outside, orperhaps there would be deathlike stillness—and that would be worse yet.They could feel the cold as it crept in through the cracks, reaching out forthem with its icy, death-dealing fingers; and they would crouch and cower, andtry to hide from it, all in vain. It would come, and it would come; a grislything, a specter born in the black caverns of terror; a power primeval, cosmic,shadowing the tortures of the lost souls flung out to chaos and destruction. Itwas cruel iron-hard; and hour after hour they would cringe in its grasp, alone,alone. There would be no one to hear them if they cried out; there would be nohelp, no mercy. And so on until morning—when they would go out to anotherday of toil, a little weaker, a little nearer to the time when it would betheir turn to be shaken from the tree.

CHAPTER VIII

Yet even by this deadly winter the germ of hope was not to be kept fromsprouting in their hearts. It was just at this time that the great adventurebefell Marija.

The victim was Tamoszius Kuszleika, who played the violin. Everybody laughed atthem, for Tamoszius was petite and frail, and Marija could have picked him upand carried him off under one arm. But perhaps that was why she fascinated him;the sheer volume of Marija’s energy was overwhelming. That first night atthe wedding Tamoszius had hardly taken his eyes off her; and later on, when hecame to find that she had really the heart of a baby, her voice and herviolence ceased to terrify him, and he got the habit of coming to pay hervisits on Sunday afternoons. There was no place to entertain company except inthe kitchen, in the midst of the family, and Tamoszius would sit there with hishat between his knees, never saying more than half a dozen words at a time, andturning red in the face before he managed to say those; until finally Jurgiswould clap him upon the back, in his hearty way, crying, “Come now,brother, give us a tune.” And then Tamoszius’ face would light upand he would get out his fiddle, tuck it under his chin, and play. Andforthwith the soul of him would flame up and become eloquent—it wasalmost an impropriety, for all the while his gaze would be fixed uponMarija’s face, until she would begin to turn red and lower her eyes.There was no resisting the music of Tamoszius, however; even the children wouldsit awed and wondering, and the tears would run down Teta Elzbieta’scheeks. A wonderful privilege it was to be thus admitted into the soul of a manof genius, to be allowed to share the ecstasies and the agonies of his inmostlife.

Then there were other benefits accruing to Marija from thisfriendship—benefits of a more substantial nature. People paid Tamosziusbig money to come and make music on state occasions; and also they would invitehim to parties and festivals, knowing well that he was too good-natured to comewithout his fiddle, and that having brought it, he could be made to play whileothers danced. Once he made bold to ask Marija to accompany him to such aparty, and Marija accepted, to his great delight—after which he neverwent anywhere without her, while if the celebration were given by friends ofhis, he would invite the rest of the family also. In any case Marija wouldbring back a huge pocketful of cakes and sandwiches for the children, andstories of all the good things she herself had managed to consume. She wascompelled, at these parties, to spend most of her time at the refreshmenttable, for she could not dance with anybody except other women and very oldmen; Tamoszius was of an excitable temperament, and afflicted with a franticjealousy, and any unmarried man who ventured to put his arm about the amplewaist of Marija would be certain to throw the orchestra out of tune.

It was a great help to a person who had to toil all the week to be able to lookforward to some such relaxation as this on Saturday nights. The family was toopoor and too hardworked to make many acquaintances; in Packingtown, as a rule,people know only their near neighbors and shopmates, and so the place is like amyriad of little country villages. But now there was a member of the family whowas permitted to travel and widen her horizon; and so each week there would benew personalities to talk about,—how so-and-so was dressed, and where sheworked, and what she got, and whom she was in love with; and how this man hadjilted his girl, and how she had quarreled with the other girl, and what hadpassed between them; and how another man beat his wife, and spent all herearnings upon drink, and pawned her very clothes. Some people would havescorned this talk as gossip; but then one has to talk about what one knows.

It was one Saturday night, as they were coming home from a wedding, thatTamoszius found courage, and set down his violin case in the street and spokehis heart; and then Marija clasped him in her arms. She told them all about itthe next day, and fairly cried with happiness, for she said that Tamoszius wasa lovely man. After that he no longer made love to her with his fiddle, butthey would sit for hours in the kitchen, blissfully happy in each other’sarms; it was the tacit convention of the family to know nothing of what wasgoing on in that corner.

They were planning to be married in the spring, and have the garret of thehouse fixed up, and live there. Tamoszius made good wages; and little by littlethe family were paying back their debt to Marija, so she ought soon to haveenough to start life upon—only, with her preposterous softheartedness,she would insist upon spending a good part of her money every week for thingswhich she saw they needed. Marija was really the capitalist of the party, forshe had become an expert can painter by this time—she was gettingfourteen cents for every hundred and ten cans, and she could paint more thantwo cans every minute. Marija felt, so to speak, that she had her hand on thethrottle, and the neighborhood was vocal with her rejoicings.

Yet her friends would shake their heads and tell her to go slow; one could notcount upon such good fortune forever—there were accidents that alwayshappened. But Marija was not to be prevailed upon, and went on planning anddreaming of all the treasures she was going to have for her home; and so, whenthe crash did come, her grief was painful to see.

For her canning factory shut down! Marija would about as soon have expected tosee the sun shut down—the huge establishment had been to her a thing akinto the planets and the seasons. But now it was shut! And they had not given herany explanation, they had not even given her a day’s warning; they hadsimply posted a notice one Saturday that all hands would be paid off thatafternoon, and would not resume work for at least a month! And that was allthat there was to it—her job was gone!

It was the holiday rush that was over, the girls said in answer toMarija’s inquiries; after that there was always a slack. Sometimes thefactory would start up on half time after a while, but there was notelling—it had been known to stay closed until way into the summer. Theprospects were bad at present, for truckmen who worked in the storerooms saidthat these were piled up to the ceilings, so that the firm could not have foundroom for another week’s output of cans. And they had turned offthree-quarters of these men, which was a still worse sign, since it meant thatthere were no orders to be filled. It was all a swindle, can-painting, said thegirls—you were crazy with delight because you were making twelve orfourteen dollars a week, and saving half of it; but you had to spend it allkeeping alive while you were out, and so your pay was really only half what youthought.

Marija came home, and because she was a person who could not rest withoutdanger of explosion, they first had a great house cleaning, and then she setout to search Packingtown for a job to fill up the gap. As nearly all thecanning establishments were shut down, and all the girls hunting work, it willbe readily understood that Marija did not find any. Then she took to trying thestores and saloons, and when this failed she even traveled over into thefar-distant regions near the lake front, where lived the rich people in greatpalaces, and begged there for some sort of work that could be done by a personwho did not know English.

The men upon the killing beds felt also the effects of the slump which hadturned Marija out; but they felt it in a different way, and a way which madeJurgis understand at last all their bitterness. The big packers did not turntheir hands off and close down, like the canning factories; but they began torun for shorter and shorter hours. They had always required the men to be onthe killing beds and ready for work at seven o’clock, although there wasalmost never any work to be done till the buyers out in the yards had gotten towork, and some cattle had come over the chutes. That would often be ten oreleven o’clock, which was bad enough, in all conscience; but now, in theslack season, they would perhaps not have a thing for their men to do till latein the afternoon. And so they would have to loaf around, in a place where thethermometer might be twenty degrees below zero! At first one would see themrunning about, or skylarking with each other, trying to keep warm; but beforethe day was over they would become quite chilled through and exhausted, and,when the cattle finally came, so near frozen that to move was an agony. Andthen suddenly the place would spring into activity, and the merciless“speeding-up” would begin!

There were weeks at a time when Jurgis went home after such a day as this withnot more than two hours’ work to his credit—which meant aboutthirty-five cents. There were many days when the total was less than half anhour, and others when there was none at all. The general average was six hoursa day, which meant for Jurgis about six dollars a week; and this six hours ofwork would be done after standing on the killing bed till one o’clock, orperhaps even three or four o’clock, in the afternoon. Like as not therewould come a rush of cattle at the very end of the day, which the men wouldhave to dispose of before they went home, often working by electric light tillnine or ten, or even twelve or one o’clock, and without a single instantfor a bite of supper. The men were at the mercy of the cattle. Perhaps thebuyers would be holding off for better prices—if they could scare theshippers into thinking that they meant to buy nothing that day, they could gettheir own terms. For some reason the cost of fodder for cattle in the yards wasmuch above the market price—and you were not allowed to bring your ownfodder! Then, too, a number of cars were apt to arrive late in the day, nowthat the roads were blocked with snow, and the packers would buy their cattlethat night, to get them cheaper, and then would come into play their ironcladrule, that all cattle must be killed the same day they were bought. There wasno use kicking about this—there had been one delegation after another tosee the packers about it, only to be told that it was the rule, and that therewas not the slightest chance of its ever being altered. And so on Christmas EveJurgis worked till nearly one o’clock in the morning, and on ChristmasDay he was on the killing bed at seven o’clock.

All this was bad; and yet it was not the worst. For after all the hard work aman did, he was paid for only part of it. Jurgis had once been among those whoscoffed at the idea of these huge concerns cheating; and so now he couldappreciate the bitter irony of the fact that it was precisely their size whichenabled them to do it with impunity. One of the rules on the killing beds wasthat a man who was one minute late was docked an hour; and this was economical,for he was made to work the balance of the hour—he was not allowed tostand round and wait. And on the other hand if he came ahead of time he got nopay for that—though often the bosses would start up the gang ten orfifteen minutes before the whistle. And this same custom they carried over tothe end of the day; they did not pay for any fraction of an hour—for“broken time.” A man might work full fifty minutes, but if therewas no work to fill out the hour, there was no pay for him. Thus the end ofevery day was a sort of lottery—a struggle, all but breaking into openwar between the bosses and the men, the former trying to rush a job through andthe latter trying to stretch it out. Jurgis blamed the bosses for this, thoughthe truth to be told it was not always their fault; for the packers kept themfrightened for their lives—and when one was in danger of falling behindthe standard, what was easier than to catch up by making the gang work awhile“for the church”? This was a savage witticism the men had, whichJurgis had to have explained to him. Old man Jones was great on missions andsuch things, and so whenever they were doing some particularly disreputablejob, the men would wink at each other and say, “Now we’re workingfor the church!”

One of the consequences of all these things was that Jurgis was no longerperplexed when he heard men talk of fighting for their rights. He felt likefighting now himself; and when the Irish delegate of the butcher-helpers’union came to him a second time, he received him in a far different spirit. Awonderful idea it now seemed to Jurgis, this of the men—that by combiningthey might be able to make a stand and conquer the packers! Jurgis wondered whohad first thought of it; and when he was told that it was a common thing formen to do in America, he got the first inkling of a meaning in the phrase“a free country.” The delegate explained to him how it dependedupon their being able to get every man to join and stand by the organization,and so Jurgis signified that he was willing to do his share. Before anothermonth was by, all the working members of his family had union cards, and woretheir union buttons conspicuously and with pride. For fully a week they werequite blissfully happy, thinking that belonging to a union meant an end to alltheir troubles.

But only ten days after she had joined, Marija’s canning factory closeddown, and that blow quite staggered them. They could not understand why theunion had not prevented it, and the very first time she attended a meetingMarija got up and made a speech about it. It was a business meeting, and wastransacted in English, but that made no difference to Marija; she said what wasin her, and all the pounding of the chairman’s gavel and all the uproarand confusion in the room could not prevail. Quite apart from her own troublesshe was boiling over with a general sense of the injustice of it, and she toldwhat she thought of the packers, and what she thought of a world where suchthings were allowed to happen; and then, while the echoes of the hall rang withthe shock of her terrible voice, she sat down again and fanned herself, and themeeting gathered itself together and proceeded to discuss the election of arecording secretary.

Jurgis too had an adventure the first time he attended a union meeting, but itwas not of his own seeking. Jurgis had gone with the desire to get into aninconspicuous corner and see what was done; but this attitude of silent andopen-eyed attention had marked him out for a victim. Tommy Finnegan was alittle Irishman, with big staring eyes and a wild aspect, a“hoister” by trade, and badly cracked. Somewhere back in thefar-distant past Tommy Finnegan had had a strange experience, and the burden ofit rested upon him. All the balance of his life he had done nothing but try tomake it understood. When he talked he caught his victim by the buttonhole, andhis face kept coming closer and closer—which was trying, because histeeth were so bad. Jurgis did not mind that, only he was frightened. The methodof operation of the higher intelligences was Tom Finnegan’s theme, and hedesired to find out if Jurgis had ever considered that the representation ofthings in their present similarity might be altogether unintelligible upon amore elevated plane. There were assuredly wonderful mysteries about thedeveloping of these things; and then, becoming confidential, Mr. Finneganproceeded to tell of some discoveries of his own. “If ye have iver hadonything to do wid shperrits,” said he, and looked inquiringly at Jurgis,who kept shaking his head. “Niver mind, niver mind,” continued theother, “but their influences may be operatin’ upon ye; it’sshure as I’m tellin’ ye, it’s them that has the reference tothe immejit surroundin’s that has the most of power. It was vouchsafed tome in me youthful days to be acquainted with shperrits” and so TommyFinnegan went on, expounding a system of philosophy, while the perspirationcame out on Jurgis’ forehead, so great was his agitation andembarrassment. In the end one of the men, seeing his plight, came over andrescued him; but it was some time before he was able to find any one to explainthings to him, and meanwhile his fear lest the strange little Irishman shouldget him cornered again was enough to keep him dodging about the room the wholeevening.

He never missed a meeting, however. He had picked up a few words of English bythis time, and friends would help him to understand. They were often veryturbulent meetings, with half a dozen men declaiming at once, in as manydialects of English; but the speakers were all desperately in earnest, andJurgis was in earnest too, for he understood that a fight was on, and that itwas his fight. Since the time of his disillusionment, Jurgis had sworn to trustno man, except in his own family; but here he discovered that he had brothersin affliction, and allies. Their one chance for life was in union, and so thestruggle became a kind of crusade. Jurgis had always been a member of thechurch, because it was the right thing to be, but the church had never touchedhim, he left all that for the women. Here, however, was a newreligion—one that did touch him, that took hold of every fiber of him;and with all the zeal and fury of a convert he went out as a missionary. Therewere many nonunion men among the Lithuanians, and with these he would labor andwrestle in prayer, trying to show them the right. Sometimes they would beobstinate and refuse to see it, and Jurgis, alas, was not always patient! Heforgot how he himself had been blind, a short time ago—after the fashionof all crusaders since the original ones, who set out to spread the gospel ofBrotherhood by force of arms.

CHAPTER IX

One of the first consequences of the discovery of the union was that Jurgisbecame desirous of learning English. He wanted to know what was going on at themeetings, and to be able to take part in them, and so he began to look abouthim, and to try to pick up words. The children, who were at school, andlearning fast, would teach him a few; and a friend loaned him a little bookthat had some in it, and Ona would read them to him. Then Jurgis became sorrythat he could not read himself; and later on in the winter, when some one toldhim that there was a night school that was free, he went and enrolled. Afterthat, every evening that he got home from the yards in time, he would go to theschool; he would go even if he were in time for only half an hour. They wereteaching him both to read and to speak English—and they would have taughthim other things, if only he had had a little time.

Also the union made another great difference with him—it made him beginto pay attention to the country. It was the beginning of democracy with him. Itwas a little state, the union, a miniature republic; its affairs were everyman’s affairs, and every man had a real say about them. In other words,in the union Jurgis learned to talk politics. In the place where he had comefrom there had not been any politics—in Russia one thought of thegovernment as an affliction like the lightning and the hail. “Duck,little brother, duck,” the wise old peasants would whisper;“everything passes away.” And when Jurgis had first come to Americahe had supposed that it was the same. He had heard people say that it was afree country—but what did that mean? He found that here, precisely as inRussia, there were rich men who owned everything; and if one could not find anywork, was not the hunger he began to feel the same sort of hunger?

When Jurgis had been working about three weeks at Brown’s, there had cometo him one noontime a man who was employed as a night watchman, and who askedhim if he would not like to take out naturalization papers and become acitizen. Jurgis did not know what that meant, but the man explained theadvantages. In the first place, it would not cost him anything, and it wouldget him half a day off, with his pay just the same; and then when election timecame he would be able to vote—and there was something in that. Jurgis wasnaturally glad to accept, and so the night watchman said a few words to theboss, and he was excused for the rest of the day. When, later on, he wanted aholiday to get married he could not get it; and as for a holiday with pay justthe same—what power had wrought that miracle heaven only knew! However,he went with the man, who picked up several other newly landed immigrants,Poles, Lithuanians, and Slovaks, and took them all outside, where stood a greatfour-horse tallyho coach, with fifteen or twenty men already in it. It was afine chance to see the sights of the city, and the party had a merry time, withplenty of beer handed up from inside. So they drove downtown and stopped beforean imposing granite building, in which they interviewed an official, who hadthe papers all ready, with only the names to be filled in. So each man in turntook an oath of which he did not understand a word, and then was presented witha handsome ornamented document with a big red seal and the shield of the UnitedStates upon it, and was told that he had become a citizen of the Republic andthe equal of the President himself.

A month or two later Jurgis had another interview with this same man, who toldhim where to go to “register.” And then finally, when election daycame, the packing houses posted a notice that men who desired to vote mightremain away until nine that morning, and the same night watchman took Jurgisand the rest of his flock into the back room of a saloon, and showed each ofthem where and how to mark a ballot, and then gave each two dollars, and tookthem to the polling place, where there was a policeman on duty especially tosee that they got through all right. Jurgis felt quite proud of this good lucktill he got home and met Jonas, who had taken the leader aside and whispered tohim, offering to vote three times for four dollars, which offer had beenaccepted.

And now in the union Jurgis met men who explained all this mystery to him; andhe learned that America differed from Russia in that its government existedunder the form of a democracy. The officials who ruled it, and got all thegraft, had to be elected first; and so there were two rival sets of grafters,known as political parties, and the one got the office which bought the mostvotes. Now and then, the election was very close, and that was the time thepoor man came in. In the stockyards this was only in national and stateelections, for in local elections the Democratic Party always carriedeverything. The ruler of the district was therefore the Democratic boss, alittle Irishman named Mike Scully. Scully held an important party office in thestate, and bossed even the mayor of the city, it was said; it was his boastthat he carried the stockyards in his pocket. He was an enormously richman—he had a hand in all the big graft in the neighborhood. It wasScully, for instance, who owned that dump which Jurgis and Ona had seen thefirst day of their arrival. Not only did he own the dump, but he owned thebrick factory as well, and first he took out the clay and made it into bricks,and then he had the city bring garbage to fill up the hole, so that he couldbuild houses to sell to the people. Then, too, he sold the bricks to the city,at his own price, and the city came and got them in its own wagons. And also heowned the other hole near by, where the stagnant water was; and it was he whocut the ice and sold it; and what was more, if the men told truth, he had nothad to pay any taxes for the water, and he had built the ice-house out of citylumber, and had not had to pay anything for that. The newspapers had got holdof that story, and there had been a scandal; but Scully had hired somebody toconfess and take all the blame, and then skip the country. It was said, too,that he had built his brick-kiln in the same way, and that the workmen were onthe city payroll while they did it; however, one had to press closely to getthese things out of the men, for it was not their business, and Mike Scully wasa good man to stand in with. A note signed by him was equal to a job any timeat the packing houses; and also he employed a good many men himself, and workedthem only eight hours a day, and paid them the highest wages. This gave himmany friends—all of whom he had gotten together into the “War WhoopLeague,” whose clubhouse you might see just outside of the yards. It wasthe biggest clubhouse, and the biggest club, in all Chicago; and they hadprizefights every now and then, and cockfights and even dogfights. Thepolicemen in the district all belonged to the league, and instead ofsuppressing the fights, they sold tickets for them. The man that had takenJurgis to be naturalized was one of these “Indians,” as they werecalled; and on election day there would be hundreds of them out, and all withbig wads of money in their pockets and free drinks at every saloon in thedistrict. That was another thing, the men said—all the saloon-keepers hadto be “Indians,” and to put up on demand, otherwise they could notdo business on Sundays, nor have any gambling at all. In the same way Scullyhad all the jobs in the fire department at his disposal, and all the rest ofthe city graft in the stockyards district; he was building a block of flatssomewhere up on Ashland Avenue, and the man who was overseeing it for him wasdrawing pay as a city inspector of sewers. The city inspector of water pipeshad been dead and buried for over a year, but somebody was still drawing hispay. The city inspector of sidewalks was a barkeeper at the War WhoopCafe—and maybe he could make it uncomfortable for any tradesman who didnot stand in with Scully!

Even the packers were in awe of him, so the men said. It gave them pleasure tobelieve this, for Scully stood as the people’s man, and boasted of itboldly when election day came. The packers had wanted a bridge at AshlandAvenue, but they had not been able to get it till they had seen Scully; and itwas the same with “Bubbly Creek,” which the city had threatened tomake the packers cover over, till Scully had come to their aid. “BubblyCreek” is an arm of the Chicago River, and forms the southern boundary ofthe yards: all the drainage of the square mile of packing houses empties intoit, so that it is really a great open sewer a hundred or two feet wide. Onelong arm of it is blind, and the filth stays there forever and a day. Thegrease and chemicals that are poured into it undergo all sorts of strangetransformations, which are the cause of its name; it is constantly in motion,as if huge fish were feeding in it, or great leviathans disporting themselvesin its depths. Bubbles of carbonic acid gas will rise to the surface and burst,and make rings two or three feet wide. Here and there the grease and filth havecaked solid, and the creek looks like a bed of lava; chickens walk about on it,feeding, and many times an unwary stranger has started to stroll across, andvanished temporarily. The packers used to leave the creek that way, till everynow and then the surface would catch on fire and burn furiously, and the firedepartment would have to come and put it out. Once, however, an ingeniousstranger came and started to gather this filth in scows, to make lard out of;then the packers took the cue, and got out an injunction to stop him, andafterward gathered it themselves. The banks of “Bubbly Creek” areplastered thick with hairs, and this also the packers gather and clean.

And there were things even stranger than this, according to the gossip of themen. The packers had secret mains, through which they stole billions of gallonsof the city’s water. The newspapers had been full of thisscandal—once there had even been an investigation, and an actualuncovering of the pipes; but nobody had been punished, and the thing went righton. And then there was the condemned meat industry, with its endless horrors.The people of Chicago saw the government inspectors in Packingtown, and theyall took that to mean that they were protected from diseased meat; they did notunderstand that these hundred and sixty-three inspectors had been appointed atthe request of the packers, and that they were paid by the United Statesgovernment to certify that all the diseased meat was kept in the state. Theyhad no authority beyond that; for the inspection of meat to be sold in the cityand state the whole force in Packingtown consisted of three henchmen of thelocal political machine![2]And shortly afterward one of these, a physician, made the discovery that thecarcasses of steers which had been condemned as tubercular by the governmentinspectors, and which therefore contained ptomaines, which are deadly poisons,were left upon an open platform and carted away to be sold in the city; and sohe insisted that these carcasses be treated with an injection ofkerosene—and was ordered to resign the same week! So indignant were thepackers that they went farther, and compelled the mayor to abolish the wholebureau of inspection; so that since then there has not been even a pretense ofany interference with the graft. There was said to be two thousand dollars aweek hush money from the tubercular steers alone; and as much again from thehogs which had died of cholera on the trains, and which you might see any daybeing loaded into boxcars and hauled away to a place called Globe, in Indiana,where they made a fancy grade of lard.

[2]Rules and Regulations for the Inspection of Livestock and Their Products.United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Animal Industries, Order No.125:—
Section 1. Proprietors of slaughterhouses, canning, salting, packing, orrendering establishments engaged in the slaughtering of cattle, sheep, orswine, or the packing of any of their products, the carcasses or products ofwhich are to become subjects of interstate or foreign commerce, shall makeapplication to the Secretary of Agriculture for inspection of said animals andtheir products....
Section 15. Such rejected or condemned animals shall at once be removed bythe owners from the pens containing animals which have been inspected and foundto be free from disease and fit for human food, and shall be disposed of inaccordance with the laws, ordinances, and regulations of the state andmunicipality in which said rejected or condemned animals are located....
Section 25. A microscopic examination for trichinae shall be made of allswine products exported to countries requiring such examination. Nomicroscopic examination will be made of hogs slaughtered for interstate trade,but this examination shall be confined to those intended for the exporttrade.

Jurgis heard of these things little by little, in the gossip of those who wereobliged to perpetrate them. It seemed as if every time you met a person from anew department, you heard of new swindles and new crimes. There was, forinstance, a Lithuanian who was a cattle butcher for the plant where Marija hadworked, which killed meat for canning only; and to hear this man describe theanimals which came to his place would have been worthwhile for a Dante or aZola. It seemed that they must have agencies all over the country, to hunt outold and crippled and diseased cattle to be canned. There were cattle which hadbeen fed on “whisky-malt,” the refuse of the breweries, and hadbecome what the men called “steerly”—which means covered withboils. It was a nasty job killing these, for when you plunged your knife intothem they would burst and splash foul-smelling stuff into your face; and when aman’s sleeves were smeared with blood, and his hands steeped in it, howwas he ever to wipe his face, or to clear his eyes so that he could see? It wasstuff such as this that made the “embalmed beef” that had killedseveral times as many United States soldiers as all the bullets of theSpaniards; only the army beef, besides, was not fresh canned, it was old stuffthat had been lying for years in the cellars.

Then one Sunday evening, Jurgis sat puffing his pipe by the kitchen stove, andtalking with an old fellow whom Jonas had introduced, and who worked in thecanning rooms at Durham’s; and so Jurgis learned a few things about thegreat and only Durham canned goods, which had become a national institution.They were regular alchemists at Durham’s; they advertised amushroom-catsup, and the men who made it did not know what a mushroom lookedlike. They advertised “potted chicken,”—and it was like theboardinghouse soup of the comic papers, through which a chicken had walked withrubbers on. Perhaps they had a secret process for making chickenschemically—who knows? said Jurgis’ friend; the things that wentinto the mixture were tripe, and the fat of pork, and beef suet, and hearts ofbeef, and finally the waste ends of veal, when they had any. They put these upin several grades, and sold them at several prices; but the contents of thecans all came out of the same hopper. And then there was “pottedgame” and “potted grouse,” “potted ham,” and“deviled ham”—de-vyled, as the men called it.“De-vyled” ham was made out of the waste ends of smoked beef thatwere too small to be sliced by the machines; and also tripe, dyed withchemicals so that it would not show white; and trimmings of hams and cornedbeef; and potatoes, skins and all; and finally the hard cartilaginous gulletsof beef, after the tongues had been cut out. All this ingenious mixture wasground up and flavored with spices to make it taste like something. Anybody whocould invent a new imitation had been sure of a fortune from old Durham, saidJurgis’ informant; but it was hard to think of anything new in a placewhere so many sharp wits had been at work for so long; where men welcomedtuberculosis in the cattle they were feeding, because it made them fatten morequickly; and where they bought up all the old rancid butter left over in thegrocery stores of a continent, and “oxidized” it by a forced-airprocess, to take away the odor, rechurned it with skim milk, and sold it inbricks in the cities! Up to a year or two ago it had been the custom to killhorses in the yards—ostensibly for fertilizer; but after long agitationthe newspapers had been able to make the public realize that the horses werebeing canned. Now it was against the law to kill horses in Packingtown, and thelaw was really complied with—for the present, at any rate. Any day,however, one might see sharp-horned and shaggy-haired creatures running withthe sheep and yet what a job you would have to get the public to believe that agood part of what it buys for lamb and mutton is really goat’s flesh!

There was another interesting set of statistics that a person might havegathered in Packingtown—those of the various afflictions of the workers.When Jurgis had first inspected the packing plants with Szedvilas, he hadmarveled while he listened to the tale of all the things that were made out ofthe carcasses of animals, and of all the lesser industries that were maintainedthere; now he found that each one of these lesser industries was a separatelittle inferno, in its way as horrible as the killing beds, the source andfountain of them all. The workers in each of them had their own peculiardiseases. And the wandering visitor might be skeptical about all the swindles,but he could not be skeptical about these, for the worker bore the evidence ofthem about on his own person—generally he had only to hold out his hand.

There were the men in the pickle rooms, for instance, where old Antanas hadgotten his death; scarce a one of these that had not some spot of horror on hisperson. Let a man so much as scrape his finger pushing a truck in the picklerooms, and he might have a sore that would put him out of the world; all thejoints in his fingers might be eaten by the acid, one by one. Of the butchersand floorsmen, the beef-boners and trimmers, and all those who used knives, youcould scarcely find a person who had the use of his thumb; time and time againthe base of it had been slashed, till it was a mere lump of flesh against whichthe man pressed the knife to hold it. The hands of these men would becriss-crossed with cuts, until you could no longer pretend to count them or totrace them. They would have no nails,—they had worn them off pullinghides; their knuckles were swollen so that their fingers spread out like a fan.There were men who worked in the cooking rooms, in the midst of steam andsickening odors, by artificial light; in these rooms the germs of tuberculosismight live for two years, but the supply was renewed every hour. There were thebeef-luggers, who carried two-hundred-pound quarters into therefrigerator-cars; a fearful kind of work, that began at four o’clock inthe morning, and that wore out the most powerful men in a few years. There werethose who worked in the chilling rooms, and whose special disease wasrheumatism; the time limit that a man could work in the chilling rooms was saidto be five years. There were the wool-pluckers, whose hands went to pieces evensooner than the hands of the pickle men; for the pelts of the sheep had to bepainted with acid to loosen the wool, and then the pluckers had to pull outthis wool with their bare hands, till the acid had eaten their fingers off.There were those who made the tins for the canned meat; and their hands, too,were a maze of cuts, and each cut represented a chance for blood poisoning.Some worked at the stamping machines, and it was very seldom that one couldwork long there at the pace that was set, and not give out and forget himselfand have a part of his hand chopped off. There were the “hoisters,”as they were called, whose task it was to press the lever which lifted the deadcattle off the floor. They ran along upon a rafter, peering down through thedamp and the steam; and as old Durham’s architects had not built thekilling room for the convenience of the hoisters, at every few feet they wouldhave to stoop under a beam, say four feet above the one they ran on; which gotthem into the habit of stooping, so that in a few years they would be walkinglike chimpanzees. Worst of any, however, were the fertilizer men, and those whoserved in the cooking rooms. These people could not be shown to thevisitor,—for the odor of a fertilizer man would scare any ordinaryvisitor at a hundred yards, and as for the other men, who worked in tank roomsfull of steam, and in some of which there were open vats near the level of thefloor, their peculiar trouble was that they fell into the vats; and when theywere fished out, there was never enough of them left to be worthexhibiting,—sometimes they would be overlooked for days, till all but thebones of them had gone out to the world as Durham’s Pure Leaf Lard!

CHAPTER X

During the early part of the winter the family had had money enough to live anda little over to pay their debts with; but when the earnings of Jurgis fellfrom nine or ten dollars a week to five or six, there was no longer anything tospare. The winter went, and the spring came, and found them still living thusfrom hand to mouth, hanging on day by day, with literally not a month’swages between them and starvation. Marija was in despair, for there was stillno word about the reopening of the canning factory, and her savings were almostentirely gone. She had had to give up all idea of marrying then; the familycould not get along without her—though for that matter she was likelysoon to become a burden even upon them, for when her money was all gone, theywould have to pay back what they owed her in board. So Jurgis and Ona and TetaElzbieta would hold anxious conferences until late at night, trying to figurehow they could manage this too without starving.

Such were the cruel terms upon which their life was possible, that they mightnever have nor expect a single instant’s respite from worry, a singleinstant in which they were not haunted by the thought of money. They would nosooner escape, as by a miracle, from one difficulty, than a new one would comeinto view. In addition to all their physical hardships, there was thus aconstant strain upon their minds; they were harried all day and nearly allnight by worry and fear. This was in truth not living; it was scarcely evenexisting, and they felt that it was too little for the price they paid. Theywere willing to work all the time; and when people did their best, ought theynot to be able to keep alive?

There seemed never to be an end to the things they had to buy and to theunforeseen contingencies. Once their water pipes froze and burst; and when, intheir ignorance, they thawed them out, they had a terrifying flood in theirhouse. It happened while the men were away, and poor Elzbieta rushed out intothe street screaming for help, for she did not even know whether the floodcould be stopped, or whether they were ruined for life. It was nearly as bad asthe latter, they found in the end, for the plumber charged them seventy-fivecents an hour, and seventy-five cents for another man who had stood and watchedhim, and included all the time the two had been going and coming, and also acharge for all sorts of material and extras. And then again, when they went topay their January’s installment on the house, the agent terrified them byasking them if they had had the insurance attended to yet. In answer to theirinquiry he showed them a clause in the deed which provided that they were tokeep the house insured for one thousand dollars, as soon as the present policyran out, which would happen in a few days. Poor Elzbieta, upon whom again fellthe blow, demanded how much it would cost them. Seven dollars, the man said;and that night came Jurgis, grim and determined, requesting that the agentwould be good enough to inform him, once for all, as to all the expenses theywere liable for. The deed was signed now, he said, with sarcasm proper to thenew way of life he had learned—the deed was signed, and so the agent hadno longer anything to gain by keeping quiet. And Jurgis looked the fellowsquarely in the eye, and so the fellow wasted no time in conventional protests,but read him the deed. They would have to renew the insurance every year; theywould have to pay the taxes, about ten dollars a year; they would have to paythe water tax, about six dollars a year—(Jurgis silently resolved to shutoff the hydrant). This, besides the interest and the monthly installments,would be all—unless by chance the city should happen to decide to put ina sewer or to lay a sidewalk. Yes, said the agent, they would have to havethese, whether they wanted them or not, if the city said so. The sewer wouldcost them about twenty-two dollars, and the sidewalk fifteen if it were wood,twenty-five if it were cement.

So Jurgis went home again; it was a relief to know the worst, at any rate, sothat he could no more be surprised by fresh demands. He saw now how they hadbeen plundered; but they were in for it, there was no turning back. They couldonly go on and make the fight and win—for defeat was a thing that couldnot even be thought of.

When the springtime came, they were delivered from the dreadful cold, and thatwas a great deal; but in addition they had counted on the money they would nothave to pay for coal—and it was just at this time that Marija’sboard began to fail. Then, too, the warm weather brought trials of its own;each season had its trials, as they found. In the spring there were cold rains,that turned the streets into canals and bogs; the mud would be so deep thatwagons would sink up to the hubs, so that half a dozen horses could not movethem. Then, of course, it was impossible for any one to get to work with dryfeet; and this was bad for men that were poorly clad and shod, and still worsefor women and children. Later came midsummer, with the stifling heat, when thedingy killing beds of Durham’s became a very purgatory; one time, in asingle day, three men fell dead from sunstroke. All day long the rivers of hotblood poured forth, until, with the sun beating down, and the air motionless,the stench was enough to knock a man over; all the old smells of a generationwould be drawn out by this heat—for there was never any washing of thewalls and rafters and pillars, and they were caked with the filth of alifetime. The men who worked on the killing beds would come to reek withfoulness, so that you could smell one of them fifty feet away; there was simplyno such thing as keeping decent, the most careful man gave it up in the end,and wallowed in uncleanness. There was not even a place where a man could washhis hands, and the men ate as much raw blood as food at dinnertime. When theywere at work they could not even wipe off their faces—they were ashelpless as newly born babes in that respect; and it may seem like a smallmatter, but when the sweat began to run down their necks and tickle them, or afly to bother them, it was a torture like being burned alive. Whether it wasthe slaughterhouses or the dumps that were responsible, one could not say, butwith the hot weather there descended upon Packingtown a veritable Egyptianplague of flies; there could be no describing this—the houses would beblack with them. There was no escaping; you might provide all your doors andwindows with screens, but their buzzing outside would be like the swarming ofbees, and whenever you opened the door they would rush in as if a storm of windwere driving them.

Perhaps the summertime suggests to you thoughts of the country, visions ofgreen fields and mountains and sparkling lakes. It had no such suggestion forthe people in the yards. The great packing machine ground on remorselessly,without thinking of green fields; and the men and women and children who werepart of it never saw any green thing, not even a flower. Four or five miles tothe east of them lay the blue waters of Lake Michigan; but for all the good itdid them it might have been as far away as the Pacific Ocean. They had onlySundays, and then they were too tired to walk. They were tied to the greatpacking machine, and tied to it for life. The managers and superintendents andclerks of Packingtown were all recruited from another class, and never from theworkers; they scorned the workers, the very meanest of them. A poor devil of abookkeeper who had been working in Durham’s for twenty years at a salaryof six dollars a week, and might work there for twenty more and do no better,would yet consider himself a gentleman, as far removed as the poles from themost skilled worker on the killing beds; he would dress differently, and livein another part of the town, and come to work at a different hour of the day,and in every way make sure that he never rubbed elbows with a laboring man.Perhaps this was due to the repulsiveness of the work; at any rate, the peoplewho worked with their hands were a class apart, and were made to feel it.

In the late spring the canning factory started up again, and so once moreMarija was heard to sing, and the love-music of Tamoszius took on a lessmelancholy tone. It was not for long, however; for a month or two later adreadful calamity fell upon Marija. Just one year and three days after she hadbegun work as a can-painter, she lost her job.

It was a long story. Marija insisted that it was because of her activity in theunion. The packers, of course, had spies in all the unions, and in additionthey made a practice of buying up a certain number of the union officials, asmany as they thought they needed. So every week they received reports as towhat was going on, and often they knew things before the members of the unionknew them. Any one who was considered to be dangerous by them would find thathe was not a favorite with his boss; and Marija had been a great hand for goingafter the foreign people and preaching to them. However that might be, theknown facts were that a few weeks before the factory closed, Marija had beencheated out of her pay for three hundred cans. The girls worked at a longtable, and behind them walked a woman with pencil and notebook, keeping countof the number they finished. This woman was, of course, only human, andsometimes made mistakes; when this happened, there was no redress—if onSaturday you got less money than you had earned, you had to make the best ofit. But Marija did not understand this, and made a disturbance. Marija’sdisturbances did not mean anything, and while she had known only Lithuanian andPolish, they had done no harm, for people only laughed at her and made her cry.But now Marija was able to call names in English, and so she got the woman whomade the mistake to disliking her. Probably, as Marija claimed, she mademistakes on purpose after that; at any rate, she made them, and the third timeit happened Marija went on the warpath and took the matter first to theforelady, and when she got no satisfaction there, to the superintendent. Thiswas unheard-of presumption, but the superintendent said he would see about it,which Marija took to mean that she was going to get her money; after waitingthree days, she went to see the superintendent again. This time the manfrowned, and said that he had not had time to attend to it; and when Marija,against the advice and warning of every one, tried it once more, he ordered herback to her work in a passion. Just how things happened after that Marija wasnot sure, but that afternoon the forelady told her that her services would notbe any longer required. Poor Marija could not have been more dumfounded had thewoman knocked her over the head; at first she could not believe what she heard,and then she grew furious and swore that she would come anyway, that her placebelonged to her. In the end she sat down in the middle of the floor and weptand wailed.

It was a cruel lesson; but then Marija was headstrong—she should havelistened to those who had had experience. The next time she would know herplace, as the forelady expressed it; and so Marija went out, and the familyfaced the problem of an existence again.

It was especially hard this time, for Ona was to be confined before long, andJurgis was trying hard to save up money for this. He had heard dreadful storiesof the midwives, who grow as thick as fleas in Packingtown; and he had made uphis mind that Ona must have a man-doctor. Jurgis could be very obstinate whenhe wanted to, and he was in this case, much to the dismay of the women, whofelt that a man-doctor was an impropriety, and that the matter really belongedto them. The cheapest doctor they could find would charge them fifteen dollars,and perhaps more when the bill came in; and here was Jurgis, declaring that hewould pay it, even if he had to stop eating in the meantime!

Marija had only about twenty-five dollars left. Day after day she wanderedabout the yards begging a job, but this time without hope of finding it. Marijacould do the work of an able-bodied man, when she was cheerful, butdiscouragement wore her out easily, and she would come home at night a pitiableobject. She learned her lesson this time, poor creature; she learned it tentimes over. All the family learned it along with her—that when you haveonce got a job in Packingtown, you hang on to it, come what will.

Four weeks Marija hunted, and half of a fifth week. Of course she stoppedpaying her dues to the union. She lost all interest in the union, and cursedherself for a fool that she had ever been dragged into one. She had about madeup her mind that she was a lost soul, when somebody told her of an opening, andshe went and got a place as a “beef-trimmer.” She got this becausethe boss saw that she had the muscles of a man, and so he discharged a man andput Marija to do his work, paying her a little more than half what he had beenpaying before.

When she first came to Packingtown, Marija would have scorned such work asthis. She was in another canning factory, and her work was to trim the meat ofthose diseased cattle that Jurgis had been told about not long before. She wasshut up in one of the rooms where the people seldom saw the daylight; beneathher were the chilling rooms, where the meat was frozen, and above her were thecooking rooms; and so she stood on an ice-cold floor, while her head was oftenso hot that she could scarcely breathe. Trimming beef off the bones by thehundred-weight, while standing up from early morning till late at night, withheavy boots on and the floor always damp and full of puddles, liable to bethrown out of work indefinitely because of a slackening in the trade, liableagain to be kept overtime in rush seasons, and be worked till she trembled inevery nerve and lost her grip on her slimy knife, and gave herself a poisonedwound—that was the new life that unfolded itself before Marija. Butbecause Marija was a human horse she merely laughed and went at it; it wouldenable her to pay her board again, and keep the family going. And as forTamoszius—well, they had waited a long time, and they could wait a littlelonger. They could not possibly get along upon his wages alone, and the familycould not live without hers. He could come and visit her, and sit in thekitchen and hold her hand, and he must manage to be content with that. But dayby day the music of Tamoszius’ violin became more passionate andheartbreaking; and Marija would sit with her hands clasped and her cheeks wetand all her body a-tremble, hearing in the wailing melodies the voices of theunborn generations which cried out in her for life.

Marija’s lesson came just in time to save Ona from a similar fate. Ona,too, was dissatisfied with her place, and had far more reason than Marija. Shedid not tell half of her story at home, because she saw it was a torment toJurgis, and she was afraid of what he might do. For a long time Ona had seenthat Miss Henderson, the forelady in her department, did not like her. At firstshe thought it was the old-time mistake she had made in asking for a holiday toget married. Then she concluded it must be because she did not give theforelady a present occasionally—she was the kind that took presents fromthe girls, Ona learned, and made all sorts of discriminations in favor of thosewho gave them. In the end, however, Ona discovered that it was even worse thanthat. Miss Henderson was a newcomer, and it was some time before rumor made herout; but finally it transpired that she was a kept woman, the former mistressof the superintendent of a department in the same building. He had put herthere to keep her quiet, it seemed—and that not altogether with success,for once or twice they had been heard quarreling. She had the temper of ahyena, and soon the place she ran was a witch’s caldron. There were someof the girls who were of her own sort, who were willing to toady to her andflatter her; and these would carry tales about the rest, and so the furies wereunchained in the place. Worse than this, the woman lived in a bawdy-housedowntown, with a coarse, red-faced Irishman named Connor, who was the boss ofthe loading-gang outside, and would make free with the girls as they went toand from their work. In the slack seasons some of them would go with MissHenderson to this house downtown—in fact, it would not be too much to saythat she managed her department at Brown’s in conjunction with it.Sometimes women from the house would be given places alongside of decent girls,and after other decent girls had been turned off to make room for them. Whenyou worked in this woman’s department the house downtown was never out ofyour thoughts all day—there were always whiffs of it to be caught, likethe odor of the Packingtown rendering plants at night, when the wind shiftedsuddenly. There would be stories about it going the rounds; the girls oppositeyou would be telling them and winking at you. In such a place Ona would nothave stayed a day, but for starvation; and, as it was, she was never sure thatshe could stay the next day. She understood now that the real reason that MissHenderson hated her was that she was a decent married girl; and she knew thatthe talebearers and the toadies hated her for the same reason, and were doingtheir best to make her life miserable.

But there was no place a girl could go in Packingtown, if she was particularabout things of this sort; there was no place in it where a prostitute couldnot get along better than a decent girl. Here was a population, low-class andmostly foreign, hanging always on the verge of starvation, and dependent forits opportunities of life upon the whim of men every bit as brutal andunscrupulous as the old-time slave drivers; under such circumstances immoralitywas exactly as inevitable, and as prevalent, as it was under the system ofchattel slavery. Things that were quite unspeakable went on there in thepacking houses all the time, and were taken for granted by everybody; only theydid not show, as in the old slavery times, because there was no difference incolor between master and slave.

One morning Ona stayed home, and Jurgis had the man-doctor, according to hiswhim, and she was safely delivered of a fine baby. It was an enormous big boy,and Ona was such a tiny creature herself, that it seemed quite incredible.Jurgis would stand and gaze at the stranger by the hour, unable to believe thatit had really happened.

The coming of this boy was a decisive event with Jurgis. It made himirrevocably a family man; it killed the last lingering impulse that he mighthave had to go out in the evenings and sit and talk with the men in thesaloons. There was nothing he cared for now so much as to sit and look at thebaby. This was very curious, for Jurgis had never been interested in babiesbefore. But then, this was a very unusual sort of a baby. He had the brightestlittle black eyes, and little black ringlets all over his head; he was theliving image of his father, everybody said—and Jurgis found this afascinating circumstance. It was sufficiently perplexing that this tiny mite oflife should have come into the world at all in the manner that it had; that itshould have come with a comical imitation of its father’s nose was simplyuncanny.

Perhaps, Jurgis thought, this was intended to signify that it was his baby;that it was his and Ona’s, to care for all its life. Jurgis had neverpossessed anything nearly so interesting—a baby was, when you came tothink about it, assuredly a marvelous possession. It would grow up to be a man,a human soul, with a personality all its own, a will of its own! Such thoughtswould keep haunting Jurgis, filling him with all sorts of strange and almostpainful excitements. He was wonderfully proud of little Antanas; he was curiousabout all the details of him—the washing and the dressing and the eatingand the sleeping of him, and asked all sorts of absurd questions. It took himquite a while to get over his alarm at the incredible shortness of the littlecreature’s legs.

Jurgis had, alas, very little time to see his baby; he never felt the chainsabout him more than just then. When he came home at night, the baby would beasleep, and it would be the merest chance if he awoke before Jurgis had to goto sleep himself. Then in the morning there was no time to look at him, soreally the only chance the father had was on Sundays. This was more cruel yetfor Ona, who ought to have stayed home and nursed him, the doctor said, for herown health as well as the baby’s; but Ona had to go to work, and leavehim for Teta Elzbieta to feed upon the pale blue poison that was called milk atthe corner grocery. Ona’s confinement lost her only a week’swages—she would go to the factory the second Monday, and the best thatJurgis could persuade her was to ride in the car, and let him run along behindand help her to Brown’s when she alighted. After that it would be allright, said Ona, it was no strain sitting still sewing hams all day; and if shewaited longer she might find that her dreadful forelady had put some one elsein her place. That would be a greater calamity than ever now, Ona continued, onaccount of the baby. They would all have to work harder now on his account. Itwas such a responsibility—they must not have the baby grow up to sufferas they had. And this indeed had been the first thing that Jurgis had thoughtof himself—he had clenched his hands and braced himself anew for thestruggle, for the sake of that tiny mite of human possibility.

And so Ona went back to Brown’s and saved her place and a week’swages; and so she gave herself some one of the thousand ailments that womengroup under the title of “womb trouble,” and was never again a wellperson as long as she lived. It is difficult to convey in words all that thismeant to Ona; it seemed such a slight offense, and the punishment was so out ofall proportion, that neither she nor any one else ever connected the two.“Womb trouble” to Ona did not mean a specialist’s diagnosis,and a course of treatment, and perhaps an operation or two; it meant simplyheadaches and pains in the back, and depression and heartsickness, andneuralgia when she had to go to work in the rain. The great majority of thewomen who worked in Packingtown suffered in the same way, and from the samecause, so it was not deemed a thing to see the doctor about; instead Ona wouldtry patent medicines, one after another, as her friends told her about them. Asthese all contained alcohol, or some other stimulant, she found that they alldid her good while she took them; and so she was always chasing the phantom ofgood health, and losing it because she was too poor to continue.

CHAPTER XI

During the summer the packing houses were in full activity again, and Jurgismade more money. He did not make so much, however, as he had the previoussummer, for the packers took on more hands. There were new men every week, itseemed—it was a regular system; and this number they would keep over tothe next slack season, so that every one would have less than ever. Sooner orlater, by this plan, they would have all the floating labor of Chicago trainedto do their work. And how very cunning a trick was that! The men were to teachnew hands, who would some day come and break their strike; and meantime theywere kept so poor that they could not prepare for the trial!

But let no one suppose that this superfluity of employees meant easier work forany one! On the contrary, the speeding-up seemed to be growing more savage allthe time; they were continually inventing new devices to crowd the workon—it was for all the world like the thumbscrew of the mediæval torturechamber. They would get new pacemakers and pay them more; they would drive themen on with new machinery—it was said that in the hog-killing rooms thespeed at which the hogs moved was determined by clockwork, and that it wasincreased a little every day. In piecework they would reduce the time,requiring the same work in a shorter time, and paying the same wages; and then,after the workers had accustomed themselves to this new speed, they wouldreduce the rate of payment to correspond with the reduction in time! They haddone this so often in the canning establishments that the girls were fairlydesperate; their wages had gone down by a full third in the past two years, anda storm of discontent was brewing that was likely to break any day. Only amonth after Marija had become a beef-trimmer the canning factory that she hadleft posted a cut that would divide the girls’ earnings almost squarelyin half; and so great was the indignation at this that they marched out withouteven a parley, and organized in the street outside. One of the girls had readsomewhere that a red flag was the proper symbol for oppressed workers, and sothey mounted one, and paraded all about the yards, yelling with rage. A newunion was the result of this outburst, but the impromptu strike went to piecesin three days, owing to the rush of new labor. At the end of it the girl whohad carried the red flag went downtown and got a position in a great departmentstore, at a salary of two dollars and a half a week.

Jurgis and Ona heard these stories with dismay, for there was no telling whentheir own time might come. Once or twice there had been rumors that one of thebig houses was going to cut its unskilled men to fifteen cents an hour, andJurgis knew that if this was done, his turn would come soon. He had learned bythis time that Packingtown was really not a number of firms at all, but onegreat firm, the Beef Trust. And every week the managers of it got together andcompared notes, and there was one scale for all the workers in the yards andone standard of efficiency. Jurgis was told that they also fixed the price theywould pay for beef on the hoof and the price of all dressed meat in thecountry; but that was something he did not understand or care about.

The only one who was not afraid of a cut was Marija, who congratulated herself,somewhat naïvely, that there had been one in her place only a short time beforeshe came. Marija was getting to be a skilled beef-trimmer, and was mounting tothe heights again. During the summer and fall Jurgis and Ona managed to pay herback the last penny they owed her, and so she began to have a bank account.Tamoszius had a bank account also, and they ran a race, and began to figureupon household expenses once more.

The possession of vast wealth entails cares and responsibilities, however, aspoor Marija found out. She had taken the advice of a friend and invested hersavings in a bank on Ashland Avenue. Of course she knew nothing about it,except that it was big and imposing—what possible chance has a poorforeign working girl to understand the banking business, as it is conducted inthis land of frenzied finance? So Marija lived in a continual dread lestsomething should happen to her bank, and would go out of her way mornings tomake sure that it was still there. Her principal thought was of fire, for shehad deposited her money in bills, and was afraid that if they were burned upthe bank would not give her any others. Jurgis made fun of her for this, for hewas a man and was proud of his superior knowledge, telling her that the bankhad fireproof vaults, and all its millions of dollars hidden safely away inthem.

However, one morning Marija took her usual detour, and, to her horror anddismay, saw a crowd of people in front of the bank, filling the avenue solidfor half a block. All the blood went out of her face for terror. She broke intoa run, shouting to the people to ask what was the matter, but not stopping tohear what they answered, till she had come to where the throng was so densethat she could no longer advance. There was a “run on the bank,”they told her then, but she did not know what that was, and turned from oneperson to another, trying in an agony of fear to make out what they meant. Hadsomething gone wrong with the bank? Nobody was sure, but they thought so.Couldn’t she get her money? There was no telling; the people were afraidnot, and they were all trying to get it. It was too early yet to tellanything—the bank would not open for nearly three hours. So in a frenzyof despair Marija began to claw her way toward the doors of this building,through a throng of men, women, and children, all as excited as herself. It wasa scene of wild confusion, women shrieking and wringing their hands andfainting, and men fighting and trampling down everything in their way. In themidst of the mêlée Marija recollected that she did not have her bankbook, andcould not get her money anyway, so she fought her way out and started on a runfor home. This was fortunate for her, for a few minutes later the policereserves arrived.

In half an hour Marija was back, Teta Elzbieta with her, both of thembreathless with running and sick with fear. The crowd was now formed in a line,extending for several blocks, with half a hundred policemen keeping guard, andso there was nothing for them to do but to take their places at the end of it.At nine o’clock the bank opened and began to pay the waiting throng; butthen, what good did that do Marija, who saw three thousand people beforeher—enough to take out the last penny of a dozen banks?

To make matters worse a drizzling rain came up, and soaked them to the skin;yet all the morning they stood there, creeping slowly toward the goal—allthe afternoon they stood there, heartsick, seeing that the hour of closing wascoming, and that they were going to be left out. Marija made up her mind that,come what might, she would stay there and keep her place; but as nearly all didthe same, all through the long, cold night, she got very little closer to thebank for that. Toward evening Jurgis came; he had heard the story from thechildren, and he brought some food and dry wraps, which made it a littleeasier.

The next morning, before daybreak, came a bigger crowd than ever, and morepolicemen from downtown. Marija held on like grim death, and toward afternoonshe got into the bank and got her money—all in big silver dollars, ahandkerchief full. When she had once got her hands on them her fear vanished,and she wanted to put them back again; but the man at the window was savage,and said that the bank would receive no more deposits from those who had takenpart in the run. So Marija was forced to take her dollars home with her,watching to right and left, expecting every instant that some one would try torob her; and when she got home she was not much better off. Until she couldfind another bank there was nothing to do but sew them up in her clothes, andso Marija went about for a week or more, loaded down with bullion, and afraidto cross the street in front of the house, because Jurgis told her she wouldsink out of sight in the mud. Weighted this way she made her way to the yards,again in fear, this time to see if she had lost her place; but fortunatelyabout ten per cent of the working people of Packingtown had been depositors inthat bank, and it was not convenient to discharge that many at once. The causeof the panic had been the attempt of a policeman to arrest a drunken man in asaloon next door, which had drawn a crowd at the hour the people were on theirway to work, and so started the “run.”

About this time Jurgis and Ona also began a bank account. Besides having paidJonas and Marija, they had almost paid for their furniture, and could have thatlittle sum to count on. So long as each of them could bring home nine or tendollars a week, they were able to get along finely. Also election day cameround again, and Jurgis made half a week’s wages out of that, all netprofit. It was a very close election that year, and the echoes of the battlereached even to Packingtown. The two rival sets of grafters hired halls and setoff fireworks and made speeches, to try to get the people interested in thematter. Although Jurgis did not understand it all, he knew enough by this timeto realize that it was not supposed to be right to sell your vote. However, asevery one did it, and his refusal to join would not have made the slightestdifference in the results, the idea of refusing would have seemed absurd, hadit ever come into his head.

Now chill winds and shortening days began to warn them that the winter wascoming again. It seemed as if the respite had been too short—they had nothad time enough to get ready for it; but still it came, inexorably, and thehunted look began to come back into the eyes of little Stanislovas. Theprospect struck fear to the heart of Jurgis also, for he knew that Ona was notfit to face the cold and the snowdrifts this year. And suppose that some daywhen a blizzard struck them and the cars were not running, Ona should have togive up, and should come the next day to find that her place had been given tosome one who lived nearer and could be depended on?

It was the week before Christmas that the first storm came, and then the soulof Jurgis rose up within him like a sleeping lion. There were four days thatthe Ashland Avenue cars were stalled, and in those days, for the first time inhis life, Jurgis knew what it was to be really opposed. He had faceddifficulties before, but they had been child’s play; now there was adeath struggle, and all the furies were unchained within him. The first morningthey set out two hours before dawn, Ona wrapped all in blankets and tossed uponhis shoulder like a sack of meal, and the little boy, bundled nearly out ofsight, hanging by his coat-tails. There was a raging blast beating in his face,and the thermometer stood below zero; the snow was never short of his knees,and in some of the drifts it was nearly up to his armpits. It would catch hisfeet and try to trip him; it would build itself into a wall before him to beathim back; and he would fling himself into it, plunging like a wounded buffalo,puffing and snorting in rage. So foot by foot he drove his way, and when atlast he came to Durham’s he was staggering and almost blind, and leanedagainst a pillar, gasping, and thanking God that the cattle came late to thekilling beds that day. In the evening the same thing had to be done again; andbecause Jurgis could not tell what hour of the night he would get off, he got asaloon-keeper to let Ona sit and wait for him in a corner. Once it was eleveno’clock at night, and black as the pit, but still they got home.

That blizzard knocked many a man out, for the crowd outside begging for workwas never greater, and the packers would not wait long for any one. When it wasover, the soul of Jurgis was a song, for he had met the enemy and conquered,and felt himself the master of his fate.—So it might be with some monarchof the forest that has vanquished his foes in fair fight, and then falls intosome cowardly trap in the night-time.

A time of peril on the killing beds was when a steer broke loose. Sometimes, inthe haste of speeding-up, they would dump one of the animals out on the floorbefore it was fully stunned, and it would get upon its feet and run amuck. Thenthere would be a yell of warning—the men would drop everything and dashfor the nearest pillar, slipping here and there on the floor, and tumbling overeach other. This was bad enough in the summer, when a man could see; inwintertime it was enough to make your hair stand up, for the room would be sofull of steam that you could not make anything out five feet in front of you.To be sure, the steer was generally blind and frantic, and not especially benton hurting any one; but think of the chances of running upon a knife, whilenearly every man had one in his hand! And then, to cap the climax, the floorboss would come rushing up with a rifle and begin blazing away!

It was in one of these mêlées that Jurgis fell into his trap. That is the onlyword to describe it; it was so cruel, and so utterly not to be foreseen. Atfirst he hardly noticed it, it was such a slight accident—simply that inleaping out of the way he turned his ankle. There was a twinge of pain, butJurgis was used to pain, and did not coddle himself. When he came to walk home,however, he realized that it was hurting him a great deal; and in the morninghis ankle was swollen out nearly double its size, and he could not get his footinto his shoe. Still, even then, he did nothing more than swear a little, andwrapped his foot in old rags, and hobbled out to take the car. It chanced to bea rush day at Durham’s, and all the long morning he limped about with hisaching foot; by noontime the pain was so great that it made him faint, andafter a couple of hours in the afternoon he was fairly beaten, and had to tellthe boss. They sent for the company doctor, and he examined the foot and toldJurgis to go home to bed, adding that he had probably laid himself up formonths by his folly. The injury was not one that Durham and Company could beheld responsible for, and so that was all there was to it, so far as the doctorwas concerned.

Jurgis got home somehow, scarcely able to see for the pain, and with an awfulterror in his soul, Elzbieta helped him into bed and bandaged his injured footwith cold water and tried hard not to let him see her dismay; when the restcame home at night she met them outside and told them, and they, too, put on acheerful face, saying it would only be for a week or two, and that they wouldpull him through.

When they had gotten him to sleep, however, they sat by the kitchen fire andtalked it over in frightened whispers. They were in for a siege, that wasplainly to be seen. Jurgis had only about sixty dollars in the bank, and theslack season was upon them. Both Jonas and Marija might soon be earning no morethan enough to pay their board, and besides that there were only the wages ofOna and the pittance of the little boy. There was the rent to pay, and stillsome on the furniture; there was the insurance just due, and every month therewas sack after sack of coal. It was January, midwinter, an awful time to haveto face privation. Deep snows would come again, and who would carry Ona to herwork now? She might lose her place—she was almost certain to lose it. Andthen little Stanislovas began to whimper—who would take care of him?

It was dreadful that an accident of this sort, that no man can help, shouldhave meant such suffering. The bitterness of it was the daily food and drink ofJurgis. It was of no use for them to try to deceive him; he knew as much aboutthe situation as they did, and he knew that the family might literally starveto death. The worry of it fairly ate him up—he began to look haggard thefirst two or three days of it. In truth, it was almost maddening for a strongman like him, a fighter, to have to lie there helpless on his back. It was forall the world the old story of Prometheus bound. As Jurgis lay on his bed, hourafter hour there came to him emotions that he had never known before. Beforethis he had met life with a welcome—it had its trials, but none that aman could not face. But now, in the nighttime, when he lay tossing about, therewould come stalking into his chamber a grisly phantom, the sight of which madehis flesh curl and his hair to bristle up. It was like seeing the world fallaway from underneath his feet; like plunging down into a bottomless abyss intoyawning caverns of despair. It might be true, then, after all, what others hadtold him about life, that the best powers of a man might not be equal to it! Itmight be true that, strive as he would, toil as he would, he might fail, and godown and be destroyed! The thought of this was like an icy hand at his heart;the thought that here, in this ghastly home of all horror, he and all those whowere dear to him might lie and perish of starvation and cold, and there wouldbe no ear to hear their cry, no hand to help them! It was true, it wastrue,—that here in this huge city, with its stores of heaped-up wealth,human creatures might be hunted down and destroyed by the wild-beast powers ofnature, just as truly as ever they were in the days of the cave men!

Ona was now making about thirty dollars a month, and Stanislovas aboutthirteen. To add to this there was the board of Jonas and Marija, aboutforty-five dollars. Deducting from this the rent, interest, and installments onthe furniture, they had left sixty dollars, and deducting the coal, they hadfifty. They did without everything that human beings could do without; theywent in old and ragged clothing, that left them at the mercy of the cold, andwhen the children’s shoes wore out, they tied them up with string. Halfinvalid as she was, Ona would do herself harm by walking in the rain and coldwhen she ought to have ridden; they bought literally nothing but food—andstill they could not keep alive on fifty dollars a month. They might have doneit, if only they could have gotten pure food, and at fair prices; or if onlythey had known what to get—if they had not been so pitifully ignorant!But they had come to a new country, where everything was different, includingthe food. They had always been accustomed to eat a great deal of smokedsausage, and how could they know that what they bought in America was not thesame—that its color was made by chemicals, and its smoky flavor by morechemicals, and that it was full of “potato flour” besides? Potatoflour is the waste of potato after the starch and alcohol have been extracted;it has no more food value than so much wood, and as its use as a foodadulterant is a penal offense in Europe, thousands of tons of it are shipped toAmerica every year. It was amazing what quantities of food such as this wereneeded every day, by eleven hungry persons. A dollar sixty-five a day wassimply not enough to feed them, and there was no use trying; and so each weekthey made an inroad upon the pitiful little bank account that Ona had begun.Because the account was in her name, it was possible for her to keep this asecret from her husband, and to keep the heartsickness of it for her own.

It would have been better if Jurgis had been really ill; if he had not beenable to think. For he had no resources such as most invalids have; all he coulddo was to lie there and toss about from side to side. Now and then he wouldbreak into cursing, regardless of everything; and now and then his impatiencewould get the better of him, and he would try to get up, and poor Teta Elzbietawould have to plead with him in a frenzy. Elzbieta was all alone with him thegreater part of the time. She would sit and smooth his forehead by the hour,and talk to him and try to make him forget. Sometimes it would be too cold forthe children to go to school, and they would have to play in the kitchen, whereJurgis was, because it was the only room that was half warm. These weredreadful times, for Jurgis would get as cross as any bear; he was scarcely tobe blamed, for he had enough to worry him, and it was hard when he was tryingto take a nap to be kept awake by noisy and peevish children.

Elzbieta’s only resource in those times was little Antanas; indeed, itwould be hard to say how they could have gotten along at all if it had not beenfor little Antanas. It was the one consolation of Jurgis’ longimprisonment that now he had time to look at his baby. Teta Elzbieta would putthe clothes-basket in which the baby slept alongside of his mattress, andJurgis would lie upon one elbow and watch him by the hour, imagining things.Then little Antanas would open his eyes—he was beginning to take noticeof things now; and he would smile—how he would smile! So Jurgis wouldbegin to forget and be happy because he was in a world where there was a thingso beautiful as the smile of little Antanas, and because such a world could notbut be good at the heart of it. He looked more like his father every hour,Elzbieta would say, and said it many times a day, because she saw that itpleased Jurgis; the poor little terror-stricken woman was planning all day andall night to soothe the prisoned giant who was intrusted to her care. Jurgis,who knew nothing about the age-long and everlasting hypocrisy of woman, wouldtake the bait and grin with delight; and then he would hold his finger in frontof little Antanas’ eyes, and move it this way and that, and laugh withglee to see the baby follow it. There is no pet quite so fascinating as a baby;he would look into Jurgis’ face with such uncanny seriousness, and Jurgiswould start and cry: “Palauk! Look, Muma, he knows his papa! Hedoes, he does! Tu mano szirdele, the little rascal!”

CHAPTER XII

For three weeks after his injury Jurgis never got up from bed. It was a veryobstinate sprain; the swelling would not go down, and the pain still continued.At the end of that time, however, he could contain himself no longer, and begantrying to walk a little every day, laboring to persuade himself that he wasbetter. No arguments could stop him, and three or four days later he declaredthat he was going back to work. He limped to the cars and got to Brown’s,where he found that the boss had kept his place—that is, was willing toturn out into the snow the poor devil he had hired in the meantime. Every nowand then the pain would force Jurgis to stop work, but he stuck it out tillnearly an hour before closing. Then he was forced to acknowledge that he couldnot go on without fainting; it almost broke his heart to do it, and he stoodleaning against a pillar and weeping like a child. Two of the men had to helphim to the car, and when he got out he had to sit down and wait in the snowtill some one came along.

So they put him to bed again, and sent for the doctor, as they ought to havedone in the beginning. It transpired that he had twisted a tendon out of place,and could never have gotten well without attention. Then he gripped the sidesof the bed, and shut his teeth together, and turned white with agony, while thedoctor pulled and wrenched away at his swollen ankle. When finally the doctorleft, he told him that he would have to lie quiet for two months, and that ifhe went to work before that time he might lame himself for life.

Three days later there came another heavy snowstorm, and Jonas and Marija andOna and little Stanislovas all set out together, an hour before daybreak, totry to get to the yards. About noon the last two came back, the boy screamingwith pain. His fingers were all frosted, it seemed. They had had to give uptrying to get to the yards, and had nearly perished in a drift. All that theyknew how to do was to hold the frozen fingers near the fire, and so littleStanislovas spent most of the day dancing about in horrible agony, till Jurgisflew into a passion of nervous rage and swore like a madman, declaring that hewould kill him if he did not stop. All that day and night the family washalf-crazed with fear that Ona and the boy had lost their places; and in themorning they set out earlier than ever, after the little fellow had been beatenwith a stick by Jurgis. There could be no trifling in a case like this, it wasa matter of life and death; little Stanislovas could not be expected to realizethat he might a great deal better freeze in the snowdrift than lose his job atthe lard machine. Ona was quite certain that she would find her place gone, andwas all unnerved when she finally got to Brown’s, and found that theforelady herself had failed to come, and was therefore compelled to be lenient.

One of the consequences of this episode was that the first joints of three ofthe little boy’s fingers were permanently disabled, and another thatthereafter he always had to be beaten before he set out to work, whenever therewas fresh snow on the ground. Jurgis was called upon to do the beating, and asit hurt his foot he did it with a vengeance; but it did not tend to add to thesweetness of his temper. They say that the best dog will turn cross if he bekept chained all the time, and it was the same with the man; he had not a thingto do all day but lie and curse his fate, and the time came when he wanted tocurse everything.

This was never for very long, however, for when Ona began to cry, Jurgis couldnot stay angry. The poor fellow looked like a homeless ghost, with his cheekssunken in and his long black hair straggling into his eyes; he was toodiscouraged to cut it, or to think about his appearance. His muscles werewasting away, and what were left were soft and flabby. He had no appetite, andthey could not afford to tempt him with delicacies. It was better, he said,that he should not eat, it was a saving. About the end of March he had got holdof Ona’s bankbook, and learned that there was only three dollars left tothem in the world.

But perhaps the worst of the consequences of this long siege was that they lostanother member of their family; Brother Jonas disappeared. One Saturday nighthe did not come home, and thereafter all their efforts to get trace of him werefutile. It was said by the boss at Durham’s that he had gotten hisweek’s money and left there. That might not be true, of course, forsometimes they would say that when a man had been killed; it was the easiestway out of it for all concerned. When, for instance, a man had fallen into oneof the rendering tanks and had been made into pure leaf lard and peerlessfertilizer, there was no use letting the fact out and making his familyunhappy. More probable, however, was the theory that Jonas had deserted them,and gone on the road, seeking happiness. He had been discontented for a longtime, and not without some cause. He paid good board, and was yet obliged tolive in a family where nobody had enough to eat. And Marija would keep givingthem all her money, and of course he could not but feel that he was called uponto do the same. Then there were crying brats, and all sorts of misery; a manwould have had to be a good deal of a hero to stand it all without grumbling,and Jonas was not in the least a hero—he was simply a weatherbeaten oldfellow who liked to have a good supper and sit in the corner by the fire andsmoke his pipe in peace before he went to bed. Here there was not room by thefire, and through the winter the kitchen had seldom been warm enough forcomfort. So, with the springtime, what was more likely than that the wild ideaof escaping had come to him? Two years he had been yoked like a horse to ahalf-ton truck in Durham’s dark cellars, with never a rest, save onSundays and four holidays in the year, and with never a word ofthanks—only kicks and blows and curses, such as no decent dog would havestood. And now the winter was over, and the spring winds were blowing—andwith a day’s walk a man might put the smoke of Packingtown behind himforever, and be where the grass was green and the flowers all the colors of therainbow!

But now the income of the family was cut down more than one-third, and the fooddemand was cut only one-eleventh, so that they were worse off than ever. Alsothey were borrowing money from Marija, and eating up her bank account, andspoiling once again her hopes of marriage and happiness. And they were evengoing into debt to Tamoszius Kuszleika and letting him impoverish himself. PoorTamoszius was a man without any relatives, and with a wonderful talent besides,and he ought to have made money and prospered; but he had fallen in love, andso given hostages to fortune, and was doomed to be dragged down too.

So it was finally decided that two more of the children would have to leaveschool. Next to Stanislovas, who was now fifteen, there was a girl, littleKotrina, who was two years younger, and then two boys, Vilimas, who was eleven,and Nikalojus, who was ten. Both of these last were bright boys, and there wasno reason why their family should starve when tens of thousands of children noolder were earning their own livings. So one morning they were given a quarterapiece and a roll with a sausage in it, and, with their minds top-heavy withgood advice, were sent out to make their way to the city and learn to sellnewspapers. They came back late at night in tears, having walked for the fiveor six miles to report that a man had offered to take them to a place wherethey sold newspapers, and had taken their money and gone into a store to getthem, and nevermore been seen. So they both received a whipping, and the nextmorning set out again. This time they found the newspaper place, and procuredtheir stock; and after wandering about till nearly noontime, saying“Paper?” to every one they saw, they had all their stock taken awayand received a thrashing besides from a big newsman upon whose territory theyhad trespassed. Fortunately, however, they had already sold some papers, andcame back with nearly as much as they started with.

After a week of mishaps such as these, the two little fellows began to learnthe ways of the trade—the names of the different papers, and how many ofeach to get, and what sort of people to offer them to, and where to go andwhere to stay away from. After this, leaving home at four o’clock in themorning, and running about the streets, first with morning papers and then withevening, they might come home late at night with twenty or thirty centsapiece—possibly as much as forty cents. From this they had to deducttheir carfare, since the distance was so great; but after a while they madefriends, and learned still more, and then they would save their carfare. Theywould get on a car when the conductor was not looking, and hide in the crowd;and three times out of four he would not ask for their fares, either not seeingthem, or thinking they had already paid; or if he did ask, they would huntthrough their pockets, and then begin to cry, and either have their fares paidby some kind old lady, or else try the trick again on a new car. All this wasfair play, they felt. Whose fault was it that at the hours when workingmen weregoing to their work and back, the cars were so crowded that the conductorscould not collect all the fares? And besides, the companies were thieves,people said—had stolen all their franchises with the help of scoundrellypoliticians!

Now that the winter was by, and there was no more danger of snow, and no morecoal to buy, and another room warm enough to put the children into when theycried, and enough money to get along from week to week with, Jurgis was lessterrible than he had been. A man can get used to anything in the course oftime, and Jurgis had gotten used to lying about the house. Ona saw this, andwas very careful not to destroy his peace of mind, by letting him know how verymuch pain she was suffering. It was now the time of the spring rains, and Onahad often to ride to her work, in spite of the expense; she was getting palerevery day, and sometimes, in spite of her good resolutions, it pained her thatJurgis did not notice it. She wondered if he cared for her as much as ever, ifall this misery was not wearing out his love. She had to be away from him allthe time, and bear her own troubles while he was bearing his; and then, whenshe came home, she was so worn out; and whenever they talked they had onlytheir worries to talk of—truly it was hard, in such a life, to keep anysentiment alive. The woe of this would flame up in Ona sometimes—at nightshe would suddenly clasp her big husband in her arms and break into passionateweeping, demanding to know if he really loved her. Poor Jurgis, who had intruth grown more matter-of-fact, under the endless pressure of penury, wouldnot know what to make of these things, and could only try to recollect when hehad last been cross; and so Ona would have to forgive him and sob herself tosleep.

The latter part of April Jurgis went to see the doctor, and was given a bandageto lace about his ankle, and told that he might go back to work. It needed morethan the permission of the doctor, however, for when he showed up on thekilling floor of Brown’s, he was told by the foreman that it had not beenpossible to keep his job for him. Jurgis knew that this meant simply that theforeman had found some one else to do the work as well and did not want tobother to make a change. He stood in the doorway, looking mournfully on, seeinghis friends and companions at work, and feeling like an outcast. Then he wentout and took his place with the mob of the unemployed.

This time, however, Jurgis did not have the same fine confidence, nor the samereason for it. He was no longer the finest-looking man in the throng, and thebosses no longer made for him; he was thin and haggard, and his clothes wereseedy, and he looked miserable. And there were hundreds who looked and feltjust like him, and who had been wandering about Packingtown for months beggingfor work. This was a critical time in Jurgis’ life, and if he had been aweaker man he would have gone the way the rest did. Those out-of-work wretcheswould stand about the packing houses every morning till the police drove themaway, and then they would scatter among the saloons. Very few of them had thenerve to face the rebuffs that they would encounter by trying to get into thebuildings to interview the bosses; if they did not get a chance in the morning,there would be nothing to do but hang about the saloons the rest of the day andnight. Jurgis was saved from all this—partly, to be sure, because it waspleasant weather, and there was no need to be indoors; but mainly because hecarried with him always the pitiful little face of his wife. He must get work,he told himself, fighting the battle with despair every hour of the day. Hemust get work! He must have a place again and some money saved up, before thenext winter came.

But there was no work for him. He sought out all the members of hisunion—Jurgis had stuck to the union through all this—and beggedthem to speak a word for him. He went to every one he knew, asking for achance, there or anywhere. He wandered all day through the buildings; and in aweek or two, when he had been all over the yards, and into every room to whichhe had access, and learned that there was not a job anywhere, he persuadedhimself that there might have been a change in the places he had first visited,and began the round all over; till finally the watchmen and the“spotters” of the companies came to know him by sight and to orderhim out with threats. Then there was nothing more for him to do but go with thecrowd in the morning, and keep in the front row and look eager, and when hefailed, go back home, and play with little Kotrina and the baby.

The peculiar bitterness of all this was that Jurgis saw so plainly the meaningof it. In the beginning he had been fresh and strong, and he had gotten a jobthe first day; but now he was second-hand, a damaged article, so to speak, andthey did not want him. They had got the best of him—they had worn himout, with their speeding-up and their carelessness, and now they had thrown himaway! And Jurgis would make the acquaintance of others of these unemployed menand find that they had all had the same experience. There were some, of course,who had wandered in from other places, who had been ground up in other mills;there were others who were out from their own fault—some, for instance,who had not been able to stand the awful grind without drink. The vastmajority, however, were simply the worn-out parts of the great mercilesspacking machine; they had toiled there, and kept up with the pace, some of themfor ten or twenty years, until finally the time had come when they could notkeep up with it any more. Some had been frankly told that they were too old,that a sprier man was needed; others had given occasion, by some act ofcarelessness or incompetence; with most, however, the occasion had been thesame as with Jurgis. They had been overworked and underfed so long, and finallysome disease had laid them on their backs; or they had cut themselves, and hadblood poisoning, or met with some other accident. When a man came back afterthat, he would get his place back only by the courtesy of the boss. To thisthere was no exception, save when the accident was one for which the firm wasliable; in that case they would send a slippery lawyer to see him, first to tryto get him to sign away his claims, but if he was too smart for that, topromise him that he and his should always be provided with work. This promisethey would keep, strictly and to the letter—for two years. Two years wasthe “statute of limitations,” and after that the victim could notsue.

What happened to a man after any of these things, all depended upon thecircumstances. If he were of the highly skilled workers, he would probably haveenough saved up to tide him over. The best paid men, the“splitters,” made fifty cents an hour, which would be five or sixdollars a day in the rush seasons, and one or two in the dullest. A man couldlive and save on that; but then there were only half a dozen splitters in eachplace, and one of them that Jurgis knew had a family of twenty-two children,all hoping to grow up to be splitters like their father. For an unskilled man,who made ten dollars a week in the rush seasons and five in the dull, it alldepended upon his age and the number he had dependent upon him. An unmarriedman could save, if he did not drink, and if he was absolutelyselfish—that is, if he paid no heed to the demands of his old parents, orof his little brothers and sisters, or of any other relatives he might have, aswell as of the members of his union, and his chums, and the people who might bestarving to death next door.

CHAPTER XIII

During this time that Jurgis was looking for work occurred the death of littleKristoforas, one of the children of Teta Elzbieta. Both Kristoforas and hisbrother, Juozapas, were cripples, the latter having lost one leg by having itrun over, and Kristoforas having congenital dislocation of the hip, which madeit impossible for him ever to walk. He was the last of Teta Elzbieta’schildren, and perhaps he had been intended by nature to let her know that shehad had enough. At any rate he was wretchedly sick and undersized; he had therickets, and though he was over three years old, he was no bigger than anordinary child of one. All day long he would crawl around the floor in a filthylittle dress, whining and fretting; because the floor was full of drafts he wasalways catching cold, and snuffling because his nose ran. This made him anuisance, and a source of endless trouble in the family. For his mother, withunnatural perversity, loved him best of all her children, and made a perpetualfuss over him—would let him do anything undisturbed, and would burst intotears when his fretting drove Jurgis wild.

And now he died. Perhaps it was the smoked sausage he had eaten thatmorning—which may have been made out of some of the tubercular pork thatwas condemned as unfit for export. At any rate, an hour after eating it, thechild had begun to cry with pain, and in another hour he was rolling about onthe floor in convulsions. Little Kotrina, who was all alone with him, ran outscreaming for help, and after a while a doctor came, but not until Kristoforashad howled his last howl. No one was really sorry about this except poorElzbieta, who was inconsolable. Jurgis announced that so far as he wasconcerned the child would have to be buried by the city, since they had nomoney for a funeral; and at this the poor woman almost went out of her senses,wringing her hands and screaming with grief and despair. Her child to be buriedin a pauper’s grave! And her stepdaughter to stand by and hear it saidwithout protesting! It was enough to make Ona’s father rise up out of hisgrave to rebuke her! If it had come to this, they might as well give up atonce, and be buried all of them together! . . . In the end Marija said that shewould help with ten dollars; and Jurgis being still obdurate, Elzbieta went intears and begged the money from the neighbors, and so little Kristoforas had amass and a hearse with white plumes on it, and a tiny plot in a graveyard witha wooden cross to mark the place. The poor mother was not the same for monthsafter that; the mere sight of the floor where little Kristoforas had crawledabout would make her weep. He had never had a fair chance, poor little fellow,she would say. He had been handicapped from his birth. If only she had heardabout it in time, so that she might have had that great doctor to cure him ofhis lameness! . . . Some time ago, Elzbieta was told, a Chicago billionaire hadpaid a fortune to bring a great European surgeon over to cure his littledaughter of the same disease from which Kristoforas had suffered. And becausethis surgeon had to have bodies to demonstrate upon, he announced that he wouldtreat the children of the poor, a piece of magnanimity over which the papersbecame quite eloquent. Elzbieta, alas, did not read the papers, and no one hadtold her; but perhaps it was as well, for just then they would not have had thecarfare to spare to go every day to wait upon the surgeon, nor for that matteranybody with the time to take the child.

All this while that he was seeking for work, there was a dark shadow hangingover Jurgis; as if a savage beast were lurking somewhere in the pathway of hislife, and he knew it, and yet could not help approaching the place. There areall stages of being out of work in Packingtown, and he faced in dread theprospect of reaching the lowest. There is a place that waits for the lowestman—the fertilizer plant!

The men would talk about it in awe-stricken whispers. Not more than one in tenhad ever really tried it; the other nine had contented themselves with hearsayevidence and a peep through the door. There were some things worse than evenstarving to death. They would ask Jurgis if he had worked there yet, and if hemeant to; and Jurgis would debate the matter with himself. As poor as theywere, and making all the sacrifices that they were, would he dare to refuse anysort of work that was offered to him, be it as horrible as ever it could? Wouldhe dare to go home and eat bread that had been earned by Ona, weak andcomplaining as she was, knowing that he had been given a chance, and had nothad the nerve to take it?—And yet he might argue that way with himselfall day, and one glimpse into the fertilizer works would send him away againshuddering. He was a man, and he would do his duty; he went and madeapplication—but surely he was not also required to hope for success!

The fertilizer works of Durham’s lay away from the rest of the plant. Fewvisitors ever saw them, and the few who did would come out looking like Dante,of whom the peasants declared that he had been into hell. To this part of theyards came all the “tankage” and the waste products of all sorts;here they dried out the bones,—and in suffocating cellars where thedaylight never came you might see men and women and children bending overwhirling machines and sawing bits of bone into all sorts of shapes, breathingtheir lungs full of the fine dust, and doomed to die, every one of them, withina certain definite time. Here they made the blood into albumen, and made otherfoul-smelling things into things still more foul-smelling. In the corridors andcaverns where it was done you might lose yourself as in the great caves ofKentucky. In the dust and the steam the electric lights would shine likefar-off twinkling stars—red and blue-green and purple stars, according tothe color of the mist and the brew from which it came. For the odors of theseghastly charnel houses there may be words in Lithuanian, but there are none inEnglish. The person entering would have to summon his courage as for acold-water plunge. He would go in like a man swimming under water; he would puthis handkerchief over his face, and begin to cough and choke; and then, if hewere still obstinate, he would find his head beginning to ring, and the veinsin his forehead to throb, until finally he would be assailed by an overpoweringblast of ammonia fumes, and would turn and run for his life, and come outhalf-dazed.

On top of this were the rooms where they dried the “tankage,” themass of brown stringy stuff that was left after the waste portions of thecarcasses had had the lard and tallow dried out of them. This dried materialthey would then grind to a fine powder, and after they had mixed it up wellwith a mysterious but inoffensive brown rock which they brought in and groundup by the hundreds of carloads for that purpose, the substance was ready to beput into bags and sent out to the world as any one of a hundred differentbrands of standard bone phosphate. And then the farmer in Maine or Californiaor Texas would buy this, at say twenty-five dollars a ton, and plant it withhis corn; and for several days after the operation the fields would have astrong odor, and the farmer and his wagon and the very horses that had hauledit would all have it too. In Packingtown the fertilizer is pure, instead ofbeing a flavoring, and instead of a ton or so spread out on several acres underthe open sky, there are hundreds and thousands of tons of it in one building,heaped here and there in haystack piles, covering the floor several inchesdeep, and filling the air with a choking dust that becomes a blinding sandstormwhen the wind stirs.

It was to this building that Jurgis came daily, as if dragged by an unseenhand. The month of May was an exceptionally cool one, and his secret prayerswere granted; but early in June there came a record-breaking hot spell, andafter that there were men wanted in the fertilizer mill.

The boss of the grinding room had come to know Jurgis by this time, and hadmarked him for a likely man; and so when he came to the door about twoo’clock this breathless hot day, he felt a sudden spasm of pain shootthrough him—the boss beckoned to him! In ten minutes more Jurgis hadpulled off his coat and overshirt, and set his teeth together and gone to work.Here was one more difficulty for him to meet and conquer!

His labor took him about one minute to learn. Before him was one of the ventsof the mill in which the fertilizer was being ground—rushing forth in agreat brown river, with a spray of the finest dust flung forth in clouds.Jurgis was given a shovel, and along with half a dozen others it was his taskto shovel this fertilizer into carts. That others were at work he knew by thesound, and by the fact that he sometimes collided with them; otherwise theymight as well not have been there, for in the blinding dust storm a man couldnot see six feet in front of his face. When he had filled one cart he had togrope around him until another came, and if there was none on hand he continuedto grope till one arrived. In five minutes he was, of course, a mass offertilizer from head to feet; they gave him a sponge to tie over his mouth, sothat he could breathe, but the sponge did not prevent his lips and eyelids fromcaking up with it and his ears from filling solid. He looked like a brown ghostat twilight—from hair to shoes he became the color of the building and ofeverything in it, and for that matter a hundred yards outside it. The buildinghad to be left open, and when the wind blew Durham and Company lost a greatdeal of fertilizer.

Working in his shirt sleeves, and with the thermometer at over a hundred, thephosphates soaked in through every pore of Jurgis’ skin, and in fiveminutes he had a headache, and in fifteen was almost dazed. The blood waspounding in his brain like an engine’s throbbing; there was a frightfulpain in the top of his skull, and he could hardly control his hands. Still,with the memory of his four months’ siege behind him, he fought on, in afrenzy of determination; and half an hour later he began to vomit—hevomited until it seemed as if his inwards must be torn into shreds. A man couldget used to the fertilizer mill, the boss had said, if he would make up hismind to it; but Jurgis now began to see that it was a question of making up hisstomach.

At the end of that day of horror, he could scarcely stand. He had to catchhimself now and then, and lean against a building and get his bearings. Most ofthe men, when they came out, made straight for a saloon—they seemed toplace fertilizer and rattlesnake poison in one class. But Jurgis was too ill tothink of drinking—he could only make his way to the street and stagger onto a car. He had a sense of humor, and later on, when he became an old hand, heused to think it fun to board a streetcar and see what happened. Now, however,he was too ill to notice it—how the people in the car began to gasp andsputter, to put their handkerchiefs to their noses, and transfix him withfurious glances. Jurgis only knew that a man in front of him immediately got upand gave him a seat; and that half a minute later the two people on each sideof him got up; and that in a full minute the crowded car was nearlyempty—those passengers who could not get room on the platform havinggotten out to walk.

Of course Jurgis had made his home a miniature fertilizer mill a minute afterentering. The stuff was half an inch deep in his skin—his whole systemwas full of it, and it would have taken a week not merely of scrubbing, but ofvigorous exercise, to get it out of him. As it was, he could be compared withnothing known to men, save that newest discovery of the savants, a substancewhich emits energy for an unlimited time, without being itself in the leastdiminished in power. He smelled so that he made all the food at the tabletaste, and set the whole family to vomiting; for himself it was three daysbefore he could keep anything upon his stomach—he might wash his hands,and use a knife and fork, but were not his mouth and throat filled with thepoison?

And still Jurgis stuck it out! In spite of splitting headaches he would staggerdown to the plant and take up his stand once more, and begin to shovel in theblinding clouds of dust. And so at the end of the week he was a fertilizer manfor life—he was able to eat again, and though his head never stoppedaching, it ceased to be so bad that he could not work.

So there passed another summer. It was a summer of prosperity, all over thecountry, and the country ate generously of packing house products, and therewas plenty of work for all the family, in spite of the packers’ effortsto keep a superfluity of labor. They were again able to pay their debts and tobegin to save a little sum; but there were one or two sacrifices theyconsidered too heavy to be made for long—it was too bad that the boysshould have to sell papers at their age. It was utterly useless to caution themand plead with them; quite without knowing it, they were taking on the tone oftheir new environment. They were learning to swear in voluble English; theywere learning to pick up cigar stumps and smoke them, to pass hours of theirtime gambling with pennies and dice and cigarette cards; they were learning thelocation of all the houses of prostitution on the “Lêvée,” and thenames of the “madames” who kept them, and the days when they gavetheir state banquets, which the police captains and the big politicians allattended. If a visiting “country customer” were to ask them, theycould show him which was “Hinkydink’s” famous saloon, andcould even point out to him by name the different gamblers and thugs and“hold-up men” who made the place their headquarters. And worse yet,the boys were getting out of the habit of coming home at night. What was theuse, they would ask, of wasting time and energy and a possible carfare ridingout to the stockyards every night when the weather was pleasant and they couldcrawl under a truck or into an empty doorway and sleep exactly as well? So longas they brought home a half dollar for each day, what mattered it when theybrought it? But Jurgis declared that from this to ceasing to come at all wouldnot be a very long step, and so it was decided that Vilimas and Nikalojusshould return to school in the fall, and that instead Elzbieta should go outand get some work, her place at home being taken by her younger daughter.

Little Kotrina was like most children of the poor, prematurely made old; shehad to take care of her little brother, who was a cripple, and also of thebaby; she had to cook the meals and wash the dishes and clean house, and havesupper ready when the workers came home in the evening. She was only thirteen,and small for her age, but she did all this without a murmur; and her motherwent out, and after trudging a couple of days about the yards, settled down asa servant of a “sausage machine.”

Elzbieta was used to working, but she found this change a hard one, for thereason that she had to stand motionless upon her feet from seven o’clockin the morning till half-past twelve, and again from one till half-past five.For the first few days it seemed to her that she could not stand it—shesuffered almost as much as Jurgis had from the fertilizer, and would come outat sundown with her head fairly reeling. Besides this, she was working in oneof the dark holes, by electric light, and the dampness, too, wasdeadly—there were always puddles of water on the floor, and a sickeningodor of moist flesh in the room. The people who worked here followed theancient custom of nature, whereby the ptarmigan is the color of dead leaves inthe fall and of snow in the winter, and the chameleon, who is black when helies upon a stump and turns green when he moves to a leaf. The men and womenwho worked in this department were precisely the color of the “freshcountry sausage” they made.

The sausage-room was an interesting place to visit, for two or three minutes,and provided that you did not look at the people; the machines were perhaps themost wonderful things in the entire plant. Presumably sausages were oncechopped and stuffed by hand, and if so it would be interesting to know how manyworkers had been displaced by these inventions. On one side of the room werethe hoppers, into which men shoveled loads of meat and wheelbarrows full ofspices; in these great bowls were whirling knives that made two thousandrevolutions a minute, and when the meat was ground fine and adulterated withpotato flour, and well mixed with water, it was forced to the stuffing machineson the other side of the room. The latter were tended by women; there was asort of spout, like the nozzle of a hose, and one of the women would take along string of “casing” and put the end over the nozzle and thenwork the whole thing on, as one works on the finger of a tight glove. Thisstring would be twenty or thirty feet long, but the woman would have it all onin a jiffy; and when she had several on, she would press a lever, and a streamof sausage meat would be shot out, taking the casing with it as it came. Thusone might stand and see appear, miraculously born from the machine, a wrigglingsnake of sausage of incredible length. In front was a big pan which caughtthese creatures, and two more women who seized them as fast as they appearedand twisted them into links. This was for the uninitiated the most perplexingwork of all; for all that the woman had to give was a single turn of the wrist;and in some way she contrived to give it so that instead of an endless chain ofsausages, one after another, there grew under her hands a bunch of strings, alldangling from a single center. It was quite like the feat of aprestidigitator—for the woman worked so fast that the eye could literallynot follow her, and there was only a mist of motion, and tangle after tangle ofsausages appearing. In the midst of the mist, however, the visitor wouldsuddenly notice the tense set face, with the two wrinkles graven in theforehead, and the ghastly pallor of the cheeks; and then he would suddenlyrecollect that it was time he was going on. The woman did not go on; she stayedright there—hour after hour, day after day, year after year, twistingsausage links and racing with death. It was piecework, and she was apt to havea family to keep alive; and stern and ruthless economic laws had arranged itthat she could only do this by working just as she did, with all her soul uponher work, and with never an instant for a glance at the well-dressed ladies andgentlemen who came to stare at her, as at some wild beast in a menagerie.

CHAPTER XIV

With one member trimming beef in a cannery, and another working in a sausagefactory, the family had a first-hand knowledge of the great majority ofPackingtown swindles. For it was the custom, as they found, whenever meat wasso spoiled that it could not be used for anything else, either to can it orelse to chop it up into sausage. With what had been told them by Jonas, who hadworked in the pickle rooms, they could now study the whole of the spoiled-meatindustry on the inside, and read a new and grim meaning into that oldPackingtown jest—that they use everything of the pig except the squeal.

Jonas had told them how the meat that was taken out of pickle would often befound sour, and how they would rub it up with soda to take away the smell, andsell it to be eaten on free-lunch counters; also of all the miracles ofchemistry which they performed, giving to any sort of meat, fresh or salted,whole or chopped, any color and any flavor and any odor they chose. In thepickling of hams they had an ingenious apparatus, by which they saved time andincreased the capacity of the plant—a machine consisting of a hollowneedle attached to a pump; by plunging this needle into the meat and workingwith his foot, a man could fill a ham with pickle in a few seconds. And yet, inspite of this, there would be hams found spoiled, some of them with an odor sobad that a man could hardly bear to be in the room with them. To pump intothese the packers had a second and much stronger pickle which destroyed theodor—a process known to the workers as “giving them thirty percent.” Also, after the hams had been smoked, there would be found somethat had gone to the bad. Formerly these had been sold as “Number ThreeGrade,” but later on some ingenious person had hit upon a new device, andnow they would extract the bone, about which the bad part generally lay, andinsert in the hole a white-hot iron. After this invention there was no longerNumber One, Two, and Three Grade—there was only Number One Grade. Thepackers were always originating such schemes—they had what they called“boneless hams,” which were all the odds and ends of pork stuffedinto casings; and “California hams,” which were the shoulders, withbig knuckle joints, and nearly all the meat cut out; and fancy “skinnedhams,” which were made of the oldest hogs, whose skins were so heavy andcoarse that no one would buy them—that is, until they had been cooked andchopped fine and labeled “head cheese!”

It was only when the whole ham was spoiled that it came into the department ofElzbieta. Cut up by the two-thousand-revolutions-a-minute flyers, and mixedwith half a ton of other meat, no odor that ever was in a ham could make anydifference. There was never the least attention paid to what was cut up forsausage; there would come all the way back from Europe old sausage that hadbeen rejected, and that was moldy and white—it would be dosed with boraxand glycerine, and dumped into the hoppers, and made over again for homeconsumption. There would be meat that had tumbled out on the floor, in the dirtand sawdust, where the workers had tramped and spit uncounted billions ofconsumption germs. There would be meat stored in great piles in rooms; and thewater from leaky roofs would drip over it, and thousands of rats would raceabout on it. It was too dark in these storage places to see well, but a mancould run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of the drieddung of rats. These rats were nuisances, and the packers would put poisonedbread out for them; they would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would gointo the hoppers together. This is no fairy story and no joke; the meat wouldbe shoveled into carts, and the man who did the shoveling would not trouble tolift out a rat even when he saw one—there were things that went into thesausage in comparison with which a poisoned rat was a tidbit. There was noplace for the men to wash their hands before they ate their dinner, and so theymade a practice of washing them in the water that was to be ladled into thesausage. There were the butt-ends of smoked meat, and the scraps of cornedbeef, and all the odds and ends of the waste of the plants, that would bedumped into old barrels in the cellar and left there. Under the system of rigideconomy which the packers enforced, there were some jobs that it only paid todo once in a long time, and among these was the cleaning out of the wastebarrels. Every spring they did it; and in the barrels would be dirt and rustand old nails and stale water—and cartload after cartload of it would betaken up and dumped into the hoppers with fresh meat, and sent out to thepublic’s breakfast. Some of it they would make into “smoked”sausage—but as the smoking took time, and was therefore expensive, theywould call upon their chemistry department, and preserve it with borax andcolor it with gelatine to make it brown. All of their sausage came out of thesame bowl, but when they came to wrap it they would stamp some of it“special,” and for this they would charge two cents more a pound.

Such were the new surroundings in which Elzbieta was placed, and such was thework she was compelled to do. It was stupefying, brutalizing work; it left herno time to think, no strength for anything. She was part of the machine shetended, and every faculty that was not needed for the machine was doomed to becrushed out of existence. There was only one mercy about the cruelgrind—that it gave her the gift of insensibility. Little by little shesank into a torpor—she fell silent. She would meet Jurgis and Ona in theevening, and the three would walk home together, often without saying a word.Ona, too, was falling into a habit of silence—Ona, who had once goneabout singing like a bird. She was sick and miserable, and often she wouldbarely have strength enough to drag herself home. And there they would eat whatthey had to eat, and afterward, because there was only their misery to talk of,they would crawl into bed and fall into a stupor and never stir until it wastime to get up again, and dress by candlelight, and go back to the machines.They were so numbed that they did not even suffer much from hunger, now; onlythe children continued to fret when the food ran short.

Yet the soul of Ona was not dead—the souls of none of them were dead, butonly sleeping; and now and then they would waken, and these were cruel times.The gates of memory would roll open—old joys would stretch out their armsto them, old hopes and dreams would call to them, and they would stir beneaththe burden that lay upon them, and feel its forever immeasurable weight. Theycould not even cry out beneath it; but anguish would seize them, more dreadfulthan the agony of death. It was a thing scarcely to be spoken—a thingnever spoken by all the world, that will not know its own defeat.

They were beaten; they had lost the game, they were swept aside. It was notless tragic because it was so sordid, because it had to do with wages andgrocery bills and rents. They had dreamed of freedom; of a chance to look aboutthem and learn something; to be decent and clean, to see their child grow up tobe strong. And now it was all gone—it would never be! They had played thegame and they had lost. Six years more of toil they had to face before theycould expect the least respite, the cessation of the payments upon the house;and how cruelly certain it was that they could never stand six years of such alife as they were living! They were lost, they were going down—and therewas no deliverance for them, no hope; for all the help it gave them the vastcity in which they lived might have been an ocean waste, a wilderness, adesert, a tomb. So often this mood would come to Ona, in the nighttime, whensomething wakened her; she would lie, afraid of the beating of her own heart,fronting the blood-red eyes of the old primeval terror of life. Once she criedaloud, and woke Jurgis, who was tired and cross. After that she learned to weepsilently—their moods so seldom came together now! It was as if theirhopes were buried in separate graves.

Jurgis, being a man, had troubles of his own. There was another specterfollowing him. He had never spoken of it, nor would he allow any one else tospeak of it—he had never acknowledged its existence to himself. Yet thebattle with it took all the manhood that he had—and once or twice, alas,a little more. Jurgis had discovered drink.

He was working in the steaming pit of hell; day after day, week afterweek—until now, there was not an organ of his body that did its workwithout pain, until the sound of ocean breakers echoed in his head day andnight, and the buildings swayed and danced before him as he went down thestreet. And from all the unending horror of this there was a respite, adeliverance—he could drink! He could forget the pain, he could slip offthe burden; he would see clearly again, he would be master of his brain, of histhoughts, of his will. His dead self would stir in him, and he would findhimself laughing and cracking jokes with his companions—he would be a managain, and master of his life.

It was not an easy thing for Jurgis to take more than two or three drinks. Withthe first drink he could eat a meal, and he could persuade himself that thatwas economy; with the second he could eat another meal—but there wouldcome a time when he could eat no more, and then to pay for a drink was anunthinkable extravagance, a defiance of the age-long instincts of hishunger-haunted class. One day, however, he took the plunge, and drank up allthat he had in his pockets, and went home half “piped,” as the menphrase it. He was happier than he had been in a year; and yet, because he knewthat the happiness would not last, he was savage, too with those who wouldwreck it, and with the world, and with his life; and then again, beneath this,he was sick with the shame of himself. Afterward, when he saw the despair ofhis family, and reckoned up the money he had spent, the tears came into hiseyes, and he began the long battle with the specter.

It was a battle that had no end, that never could have one. But Jurgis did notrealize that very clearly; he was not given much time for reflection. He simplyknew that he was always fighting. Steeped in misery and despair as he was,merely to walk down the street was to be put upon the rack. There was surely asaloon on the corner—perhaps on all four corners, and some in the middleof the block as well; and each one stretched out a hand to him each one had apersonality of its own, allurements unlike any other. Going andcoming—before sunrise and after dark—there was warmth and a glow oflight, and the steam of hot food, and perhaps music, or a friendly face, and aword of good cheer. Jurgis developed a fondness for having Ona on his armwhenever he went out on the street, and he would hold her tightly, and walkfast. It was pitiful to have Ona know of this—it drove him wild to thinkof it; the thing was not fair, for Ona had never tasted drink, and so could notunderstand. Sometimes, in desperate hours, he would find himself wishing thatshe might learn what it was, so that he need not be ashamed in her presence.They might drink together, and escape from the horror—escape for a while,come what would.

So there came a time when nearly all the conscious life of Jurgis consisted ofa struggle with the craving for liquor. He would have ugly moods, when he hatedOna and the whole family, because they stood in his way. He was a fool to havemarried; he had tied himself down, had made himself a slave. It was all becausehe was a married man that he was compelled to stay in the yards; if it had notbeen for that he might have gone off like Jonas, and to hell with the packers.There were few single men in the fertilizer mill—and those few wereworking only for a chance to escape. Meantime, too, they had something to thinkabout while they worked,—they had the memory of the last time they hadbeen drunk, and the hope of the time when they would be drunk again. As forJurgis, he was expected to bring home every penny; he could not even go withthe men at noontime—he was supposed to sit down and eat his dinner on apile of fertilizer dust.

This was not always his mood, of course; he still loved his family. But justnow was a time of trial. Poor little Antanas, for instance—who had neverfailed to win him with a smile—little Antanas was not smiling just now,being a mass of fiery red pimples. He had had all the diseases that babies areheir to, in quick succession, scarlet fever, mumps, and whooping cough in thefirst year, and now he was down with the measles. There was no one to attendhim but Kotrina; there was no doctor to help him, because they were too poor,and children did not die of the measles—at least not often. Now and thenKotrina would find time to sob over his woes, but for the greater part of thetime he had to be left alone, barricaded upon the bed. The floor was full ofdrafts, and if he caught cold he would die. At night he was tied down, lest heshould kick the covers off him, while the family lay in their stupor ofexhaustion. He would lie and scream for hours, almost in convulsions; and then,when he was worn out, he would lie whimpering and wailing in his torment. Hewas burning up with fever, and his eyes were running sores; in the daytime hewas a thing uncanny and impish to behold, a plaster of pimples and sweat, agreat purple lump of misery.

Yet all this was not really as cruel as it sounds, for, sick as he was, littleAntanas was the least unfortunate member of that family. He was quite able tobear his sufferings—it was as if he had all these complaints to show whata prodigy of health he was. He was the child of his parents’ youth andjoy; he grew up like the conjurer’s rosebush, and all the world was hisoyster. In general, he toddled around the kitchen all day with a lean andhungry look—the portion of the family’s allowance that fell to himwas not enough, and he was unrestrainable in his demand for more. Antanas wasbut little over a year old, and already no one but his father could manage him.

It seemed as if he had taken all of his mother’s strength—had leftnothing for those that might come after him. Ona was with child again now, andit was a dreadful thing to contemplate; even Jurgis, dumb and despairing as hewas, could not but understand that yet other agonies were on the way, andshudder at the thought of them.

For Ona was visibly going to pieces. In the first place she was developing acough, like the one that had killed old Dede Antanas. She had had a trace of itever since that fatal morning when the greedy streetcar corporation had turnedher out into the rain; but now it was beginning to grow serious, and to wakeher up at night. Even worse than that was the fearful nervousness from whichshe suffered; she would have frightful headaches and fits of aimless weeping;and sometimes she would come home at night shuddering and moaning, and wouldfling herself down upon the bed and burst into tears. Several times she wasquite beside herself and hysterical; and then Jurgis would go half-mad withfright. Elzbieta would explain to him that it could not be helped, that a womanwas subject to such things when she was pregnant; but he was hardly to bepersuaded, and would beg and plead to know what had happened. She had neverbeen like this before, he would argue—it was monstrous and unthinkable.It was the life she had to live, the accursed work she had to do, that waskilling her by inches. She was not fitted for it—no woman was fitted forit, no woman ought to be allowed to do such work; if the world could not keepthem alive any other way it ought to kill them at once and be done with it.They ought not to marry, to have children; no workingman ought tomarry—if he, Jurgis, had known what a woman was like, he would have hadhis eyes torn out first. So he would carry on, becoming half hystericalhimself, which was an unbearable thing to see in a big man; Ona would pullherself together and fling herself into his arms, begging him to stop, to bestill, that she would be better, it would be all right. So she would lie andsob out her grief upon his shoulder, while he gazed at her, as helpless as awounded animal, the target of unseen enemies.

CHAPTER XV

The beginning of these perplexing things was in the summer; and each time Onawould promise him with terror in her voice that it would not happenagain—but in vain. Each crisis would leave Jurgis more and morefrightened, more disposed to distrust Elzbieta’s consolations, and tobelieve that there was some terrible thing about all this that he was notallowed to know. Once or twice in these outbreaks he caught Ona’s eye,and it seemed to him like the eye of a hunted animal; there were broken phrasesof anguish and despair now and then, amid her frantic weeping. It was onlybecause he was so numb and beaten himself that Jurgis did not worry more aboutthis. But he never thought of it, except when he was dragged to it—helived like a dumb beast of burden, knowing only the moment in which he was.

The winter was coming on again, more menacing and cruel than ever. It wasOctober, and the holiday rush had begun. It was necessary for the packingmachines to grind till late at night to provide food that would be eaten atChristmas breakfasts; and Marija and Elzbieta and Ona, as part of the machine,began working fifteen or sixteen hours a day. There was no choice aboutthis—whatever work there was to be done they had to do, if they wished tokeep their places; besides that, it added another pittance to their incomes. Sothey staggered on with the awful load. They would start work every morning atseven, and eat their dinners at noon, and then work until ten or eleven atnight without another mouthful of food. Jurgis wanted to wait for them, to helpthem home at night, but they would not think of this; the fertilizer mill wasnot running overtime, and there was no place for him to wait save in a saloon.Each would stagger out into the darkness, and make her way to the corner, wherethey met; or if the others had already gone, would get into a car, and begin apainful struggle to keep awake. When they got home they were always too tiredeither to eat or to undress; they would crawl into bed with their shoes on, andlie like logs. If they should fail, they would certainly be lost; if they heldout, they might have enough coal for the winter.

A day or two before Thanksgiving Day there came a snowstorm. It began in theafternoon, and by evening two inches had fallen. Jurgis tried to wait for thewomen, but went into a saloon to get warm, and took two drinks, and came outand ran home to escape from the demon; there he lay down to wait for them, andinstantly fell asleep. When he opened his eyes again he was in the midst of anightmare, and found Elzbieta shaking him and crying out. At first he could notrealize what she was saying—Ona had not come home. What time was it, heasked. It was morning—time to be up. Ona had not been home that night!And it was bitter cold, and a foot of snow on the ground.

Jurgis sat up with a start. Marija was crying with fright and the children werewailing in sympathy—little Stanislovas in addition, because the terror ofthe snow was upon him. Jurgis had nothing to put on but his shoes and his coat,and in half a minute he was out of the door. Then, however, he realized thatthere was no need of haste, that he had no idea where to go. It was still darkas midnight, and the thick snowflakes were sifting down—everything was sosilent that he could hear the rustle of them as they fell. In the few secondsthat he stood there hesitating he was covered white.

He set off at a run for the yards, stopping by the way to inquire in thesaloons that were open. Ona might have been overcome on the way; or else shemight have met with an accident in the machines. When he got to the place whereshe worked he inquired of one of the watchmen—there had not been anyaccident, so far as the man had heard. At the time office, which he foundalready open, the clerk told him that Ona’s check had been turned in thenight before, showing that she had left her work.

After that there was nothing for him to do but wait, pacing back and forth inthe snow, meantime, to keep from freezing. Already the yards were full ofactivity; cattle were being unloaded from the cars in the distance, and acrossthe way the “beef-luggers” were toiling in the darkness, carryingtwo-hundred-pound quarters of bullocks into the refrigerator cars. Before thefirst streaks of daylight there came the crowding throngs of workingmen,shivering, and swinging their dinner pails as they hurried by. Jurgis took uphis stand by the time-office window, where alone there was light enough for himto see; the snow fell so quick that it was only by peering closely that hecould make sure that Ona did not pass him.

Seven o’clock came, the hour when the great packing machine began tomove. Jurgis ought to have been at his place in the fertilizer mill; butinstead he was waiting, in an agony of fear, for Ona. It was fifteen minutesafter the hour when he saw a form emerge from the snow mist, and sprang towardit with a cry. It was she, running swiftly; as she saw him, she staggeredforward, and half fell into his outstretched arms.

“What has been the matter?” he cried, anxiously. “Where haveyou been?”

It was several seconds before she could get breath to answer him. “Icouldn’t get home,” she exclaimed. “The snow—the carshad stopped.”

“But where were you then?” he demanded.

“I had to go home with a friend,” she panted—“withJadvyga.”

Jurgis drew a deep breath; but then he noticed that she was sobbing andtrembling—as if in one of those nervous crises that he dreaded so.“But what’s the matter?” he cried. “What hashappened?”

“Oh, Jurgis, I was so frightened!” she said, clinging to himwildly. “I have been so worried!”

They were near the time station window, and people were staring at them. Jurgisled her away. “How do you mean?” he asked, in perplexity.

“I was afraid—I was just afraid!” sobbed Ona. “I knewyou wouldn’t know where I was, and I didn’t know what you might do.I tried to get home, but I was so tired. Oh, Jurgis, Jurgis!”

He was so glad to get her back that he could not think clearly about anythingelse. It did not seem strange to him that she should be so very much upset; allher fright and incoherent protestations did not matter since he had her back.He let her cry away her tears; and then, because it was nearly eighto’clock, and they would lose another hour if they delayed, he left her atthe packing house door, with her ghastly white face and her haunted eyes ofterror.

There was another brief interval. Christmas was almost come; and because thesnow still held, and the searching cold, morning after morning Jurgis halfcarried his wife to her post, staggering with her through the darkness; untilat last, one night, came the end.

It lacked but three days of the holidays. About midnight Marija and Elzbietacame home, exclaiming in alarm when they found that Ona had not come. The twohad agreed to meet her; and, after waiting, had gone to the room where sheworked; only to find that the ham-wrapping girls had quit work an hour before,and left. There was no snow that night, nor was it especially cold; and stillOna had not come! Something more serious must be wrong this time.

They aroused Jurgis, and he sat up and listened crossly to the story. She musthave gone home again with Jadvyga, he said; Jadvyga lived only two blocks fromthe yards, and perhaps she had been tired. Nothing could have happened toher—and even if there had, there was nothing could be done about it untilmorning. Jurgis turned over in his bed, and was snoring again before the twohad closed the door.

In the morning, however, he was up and out nearly an hour before the usualtime. Jadvyga Marcinkus lived on the other side of the yards, beyond HalstedStreet, with her mother and sisters, in a single basement room—forMikolas had recently lost one hand from blood poisoning, and their marriage hadbeen put off forever. The door of the room was in the rear, reached by a narrowcourt, and Jurgis saw a light in the window and heard something frying as hepassed; he knocked, half expecting that Ona would answer.

Instead there was one of Jadvyga’s little sisters, who gazed at himthrough a crack in the door. “Where’s Ona?” he demanded; andthe child looked at him in perplexity. “Ona?” she said.

“Yes,” said Jurgis, “isn’t she here?”

“No,” said the child, and Jurgis gave a start. A moment later cameJadvyga, peering over the child’s head. When she saw who it was, she slidaround out of sight, for she was not quite dressed. Jurgis must excuse her, shebegan, her mother was very ill—

“Ona isn’t here?” Jurgis demanded, too alarmed to wait forher to finish.

“Why, no,” said Jadvyga. “What made you think she would behere? Had she said she was coming?”

“No,” he answered. “But she hasn’t come home—andI thought she would be here the same as before.”

“As before?” echoed Jadvyga, in perplexity.

“The time she spent the night here,” said Jurgis.

“There must be some mistake,” she answered, quickly. “Ona hasnever spent the night here.”

He was only half able to realize the words. “Why—why—”he exclaimed. “Two weeks ago. Jadvyga! She told me so the night itsnowed, and she could not get home.”

“There must be some mistake,” declared the girl, again; “shedidn’t come here.”

He steadied himself by the door-sill; and Jadvyga in her anxiety—for shewas fond of Ona—opened the door wide, holding her jacket across herthroat. “Are you sure you didn’t misunderstand her?” shecried. “She must have meant somewhere else. She—”

“She said here,” insisted Jurgis. “She told me all about you,and how you were, and what you said. Are you sure? You haven’t forgotten?You weren’t away?”

“No, no!” she exclaimed—and then came a peevishvoice—“Jadvyga, you are giving the baby a cold. Shut thedoor!” Jurgis stood for half a minute more, stammering his perplexitythrough an eighth of an inch of crack; and then, as there was really nothingmore to be said, he excused himself and went away.

He walked on half dazed, without knowing where he went. Ona had deceived him!She had lied to him! And what could it mean—where had she been? Where wasshe now? He could hardly grasp the thing—much less try to solve it; but ahundred wild surmises came to him, a sense of impending calamity overwhelmedhim.

Because there was nothing else to do, he went back to the time office to watchagain. He waited until nearly an hour after seven, and then went to the roomwhere Ona worked to make inquiries of Ona’s “forelady.” The“forelady,” he found, had not yet come; all the lines of cars thatcame from downtown were stalled—there had been an accident in thepowerhouse, and no cars had been running since last night. Meantime, however,the ham-wrappers were working away, with some one else in charge of them. Thegirl who answered Jurgis was busy, and as she talked she looked to see if shewere being watched. Then a man came up, wheeling a truck; he knew Jurgis forOna’s husband, and was curious about the mystery.

“Maybe the cars had something to do with it,” hesuggested—“maybe she had gone down-town.”

“No,” said Jurgis, “she never went down-town.”

“Perhaps not,” said the man. Jurgis thought he saw him exchange aswift glance with the girl as he spoke, and he demanded quickly. “What doyou know about it?”

But the man had seen that the boss was watching him; he started on again,pushing his truck. “I don’t know anything about it,” he said,over his shoulder. “How should I know where your wife goes?”

Then Jurgis went out again and paced up and down before the building. All themorning he stayed there, with no thought of his work. About noon he went to thepolice station to make inquiries, and then came back again for another anxiousvigil. Finally, toward the middle of the afternoon, he set out for home oncemore.

He was walking out Ashland Avenue. The streetcars had begun running again, andseveral passed him, packed to the steps with people. The sight of them setJurgis to thinking again of the man’s sarcastic remark; and halfinvoluntarily he found himself watching the cars—with the result that hegave a sudden startled exclamation, and stopped short in his tracks.

Then he broke into a run. For a whole block he tore after the car, only alittle ways behind. That rusty black hat with the drooping red flower, it mightnot be Ona’s, but there was very little likelihood of it. He would knowfor certain very soon, for she would get out two blocks ahead. He slowed down,and let the car go on.

She got out: and as soon as she was out of sight on the side street Jurgisbroke into a run. Suspicion was rife in him now, and he was not ashamed toshadow her: he saw her turn the corner near their home, and then he ran again,and saw her as she went up the porch steps of the house. After that he turnedback, and for five minutes paced up and down, his hands clenched tightly andhis lips set, his mind in a turmoil. Then he went home and entered.

As he opened the door, he saw Elzbieta, who had also been looking for Ona, andhad come home again. She was now on tiptoe, and had a finger on her lips.Jurgis waited until she was close to him.

“Don’t make any noise,” she whispered, hurriedly.

“What’s the matter’?” he asked. “Ona isasleep,” she panted. “She’s been very ill. I’m afraidher mind’s been wandering, Jurgis. She was lost on the street all night,and I’ve only just succeeded in getting her quiet.”

“When did she come in?” he asked.

“Soon after you left this morning,” said Elzbieta.

“And has she been out since?”

“No, of course not. She’s so weak, Jurgis, she—”

And he set his teeth hard together. “You are lying to me,” he said.

Elzbieta started, and turned pale. “Why!” she gasped. “Whatdo you mean?”

But Jurgis did not answer. He pushed her aside, and strode to the bedroom doorand opened it.

Ona was sitting on the bed. She turned a startled look upon him as he entered.He closed the door in Elzbieta’s face, and went toward his wife.“Where have you been?” he demanded.

She had her hands clasped tightly in her lap, and he saw that her face was aswhite as paper, and drawn with pain. She gasped once or twice as she tried toanswer him, and then began, speaking low, and swiftly. “Jurgis, I—Ithink I have been out of my mind. I started to come last night, and I could notfind the way. I walked—I walked all night, I think, and—and I onlygot home—this morning.”

“You needed a rest,” he said, in a hard tone. “Why did you goout again?”

He was looking her fairly in the face, and he could read the sudden fear andwild uncertainty that leaped into her eyes. “I—I had to goto—to the store,” she gasped, almost in a whisper, “I had togo—”

“You are lying to me,” said Jurgis. Then he clenched his hands andtook a step toward her. “Why do you lie to me?” he cried, fiercely.“What are you doing that you have to lie to me?”

“Jurgis!” she exclaimed, starting up in fright. “Oh, Jurgis,how can you?”

“You have lied to me, I say!” he cried. “You told me you hadbeen to Jadvyga’s house that other night, and you hadn’t. You hadbeen where you were last night—somewheres downtown, for I saw you get offthe car. Where were you?”

It was as if he had struck a knife into her. She seemed to go all to pieces.For half a second she stood, reeling and swaying, staring at him with horror inher eyes; then, with a cry of anguish, she tottered forward, stretching out herarms to him. But he stepped aside, deliberately, and let her fall. She caughtherself at the side of the bed, and then sank down, burying her face in herhands and bursting into frantic weeping.

There came one of those hysterical crises that had so often dismayed him. Onasobbed and wept, her fear and anguish building themselves up into longclimaxes. Furious gusts of emotion would come sweeping over her, shaking her asthe tempest shakes the trees upon the hills; all her frame would quiver andthrob with them—it was as if some dreadful thing rose up within her andtook possession of her, torturing her, tearing her. This thing had been wont toset Jurgis quite beside himself; but now he stood with his lips set tightly andhis hands clenched—she might weep till she killed herself, but she shouldnot move him this time—not an inch, not an inch. Because the sounds shemade set his blood to running cold and his lips to quivering in spite ofhimself, he was glad of the diversion when Teta Elzbieta, pale with fright,opened the door and rushed in; yet he turned upon her with an oath. “Goout!” he cried, “go out!” And then, as she stood hesitating,about to speak, he seized her by the arm, and half flung her from the room,slamming the door and barring it with a table. Then he turned again and facedOna, crying—“Now, answer me!”

Yet she did not hear him—she was still in the grip of the fiend. Jurgiscould see her outstretched hands, shaking and twitching, roaming here and thereover the bed at will, like living things; he could see convulsive shudderingsstart in her body and run through her limbs. She was sobbing andchoking—it was as if there were too many sounds for one throat, they camechasing each other, like waves upon the sea. Then her voice would begin to riseinto screams, louder and louder until it broke in wild, horrible peals oflaughter. Jurgis bore it until he could bear it no longer, and then he sprangat her, seizing her by the shoulders and shaking her, shouting into her ear:“Stop it, I say! Stop it!”

She looked up at him, out of her agony; then she fell forward at his feet. Shecaught them in her hands, in spite of his efforts to step aside, and with herface upon the floor lay writhing. It made a choking in Jurgis’ throat tohear her, and he cried again, more savagely than before: “Stop it, Isay!”

This time she heeded him, and caught her breath and lay silent, save for thegasping sobs that wrenched all her frame. For a long minute she lay there,perfectly motionless, until a cold fear seized her husband, thinking that shewas dying. Suddenly, however, he heard her voice, faintly: “Jurgis!Jurgis!”

“What is it?” he said.

He had to bend down to her, she was so weak. She was pleading with him, inbroken phrases, painfully uttered: “Have faith in me! Believe me!”

“Believe what?” he cried.

“Believe that I—that I know best—that I love you! And do notask me—what you did. Oh, Jurgis, please, please! It is for thebest—it is—”

He started to speak again, but she rushed on frantically, heading him off.“If you will only do it! If you will only—only believe me! Itwasn’t my fault—I couldn’t help it—it will be allright—it is nothing—it is no harm. Oh, Jurgis—please,please!”

She had hold of him, and was trying to raise herself to look at him; he couldfeel the palsied shaking of her hands and the heaving of the bosom she pressedagainst him. She managed to catch one of his hands and gripped it convulsively,drawing it to her face, and bathing it in her tears. “Oh, believe me,believe me!” she wailed again; and he shouted in fury, “I willnot!”

But still she clung to him, wailing aloud in her despair: “Oh, Jurgis,think what you are doing! It will ruin us—it will ruin us! Oh, no, youmust not do it! No, don’t, don’t do it. You must not do it! It willdrive me mad—it will kill me—no, no, Jurgis, I am crazy—it isnothing. You do not really need to know. We can be happy—we can love eachother just the same. Oh, please, please, believe me!”

Her words fairly drove him wild. He tore his hands loose, and flung her off.“Answer me,” he cried. “God damn it, I say—answerme!”

She sank down upon the floor, beginning to cry again. It was like listening tothe moan of a damned soul, and Jurgis could not stand it. He smote his fistupon the table by his side, and shouted again at her, “Answer me!”

She began to scream aloud, her voice like the voice of some wild beast:“Ah! Ah! I can’t! I can’t do it!”

“Why can’t you do it?” he shouted.

“I don’t know how!”

He sprang and caught her by the arm, lifting her up, and glaring into her face.“Tell me where you were last night!” he panted. “Quick, outwith it!”

Then she began to whisper, one word at a time: “I—was in—ahouse—downtown—”

“What house? What do you mean?”

She tried to hide her eyes away, but he held her. “Miss Henderson’shouse,” she gasped. He did not understand at first. “MissHenderson’s house,” he echoed. And then suddenly, as in anexplosion, the horrible truth burst over him, and he reeled and staggered backwith a scream. He caught himself against the wall, and put his hand to hisforehead, staring about him, and whispering, “Jesus! Jesus!”

An instant later he leaped at her, as she lay groveling at his feet. He seizedher by the throat. “Tell me!” he gasped, hoarsely. “Quick!Who took you to that place?”

She tried to get away, making him furious; he thought it was fear, of the painof his clutch—he did not understand that it was the agony of her shame.Still she answered him, “Connor.”

“Connor,” he gasped. “Who is Connor?”

“The boss,” she answered. “The man—”

He tightened his grip, in his frenzy, and only when he saw her eyes closing didhe realize that he was choking her. Then he relaxed his fingers, and crouched,waiting, until she opened her lids again. His breath beat hot into her face.

“Tell me,” he whispered, at last, “tell me about it.”

She lay perfectly motionless, and he had to hold his breath to catch her words.“I did not want—to do it,” she said; “I tried—Itried not to do it. I only did it—to save us. It was our onlychance.”

Again, for a space, there was no sound but his panting. Ona’s eyes closedand when she spoke again she did not open them. “He told me—hewould have me turned off. He told me he would—we would all of us lose ourplaces. We could never get anything to do—here—again. He—hemeant it—he would have ruined us.”

Jurgis’ arms were shaking so that he could scarcely hold himself up, andlurched forward now and then as he listened. “When—when did thisbegin?” he gasped.

“At the very first,” she said. She spoke as if in a trance.“It was all—it was their plot—Miss Henderson’s plot.She hated me. And he—he wanted me. He used to speak to me—out onthe platform. Then he began to—to make love to me. He offered me money.He begged me—he said he loved me. Then he threatened me. He knew allabout us, he knew we would starve. He knew your boss—he knewMarija’s. He would hound us to death, he said—then he said if Iwould—if I—we would all of us be sure of work—always. Thenone day he caught hold of me—he would not letgo—he—he—”

“Where was this?”

“In the hallway—at night—after every one had gone. I couldnot help it. I thought of you—of the baby—of mother and thechildren. I was afraid of him—afraid to cry out.”

A moment ago her face had been ashen gray, now it was scarlet. She wasbeginning to breathe hard again. Jurgis made not a sound.

“That was two months ago. Then he wanted me to come—to that house.He wanted me to stay there. He said all of us—that we would not have towork. He made me come there—in the evenings. I told you—you thoughtI was at the factory. Then—one night it snowed, and I couldn’t getback. And last night—the cars were stopped. It was such a littlething—to ruin us all. I tried to walk, but I couldn’t. Ididn’t want you to know. It would have—it would have been allright. We could have gone on—just the same—you need never haveknown about it. He was getting tired of me—he would have let me alonesoon. I am going to have a baby—I am getting ugly. He told methat—twice, he told me, last night. He kicked me—lastnight—too. And now you will kill him—you—you will killhim—and we shall die.”

All this she had said without a quiver; she lay still as death, not an eyelidmoving. And Jurgis, too, said not a word. He lifted himself by the bed, andstood up. He did not stop for another glance at her, but went to the door andopened it. He did not see Elzbieta, crouching terrified in the corner. He wentout, hatless, leaving the street door open behind him. The instant his feetwere on the sidewalk he broke into a run.

He ran like one possessed, blindly, furiously, looking neither to the right norleft. He was on Ashland Avenue before exhaustion compelled him to slow down,and then, noticing a car, he made a dart for it and drew himself aboard. Hiseyes were wild and his hair flying, and he was breathing hoarsely, like awounded bull; but the people on the car did not notice thisparticularly—perhaps it seemed natural to them that a man who smelled asJurgis smelled should exhibit an aspect to correspond. They began to give waybefore him as usual. The conductor took his nickel gingerly, with the tips ofhis fingers, and then left him with the platform to himself. Jurgis did noteven notice it—his thoughts were far away. Within his soul it was like aroaring furnace; he stood waiting, waiting, crouching as if for a spring.

He had some of his breath back when the car came to the entrance of the yards,and so he leaped off and started again, racing at full speed. People turned andstared at him, but he saw no one—there was the factory, and he boundedthrough the doorway and down the corridor. He knew the room where Ona worked,and he knew Connor, the boss of the loading-gang outside. He looked for the manas he sprang into the room.

The truckmen were hard at work, loading the freshly packed boxes and barrelsupon the cars. Jurgis shot one swift glance up and down the platform—theman was not on it. But then suddenly he heard a voice in the corridor, andstarted for it with a bound. In an instant more he fronted the boss.

He was a big, red-faced Irishman, coarse-featured, and smelling of liquor. Hesaw Jurgis as he crossed the threshold, and turned white. He hesitated onesecond, as if meaning to run; and in the next his assailant was upon him. Heput up his hands to protect his face, but Jurgis, lunging with all the power ofhis arm and body, struck him fairly between the eyes and knocked him backward.The next moment he was on top of him, burying his fingers in his throat.

To Jurgis this man’s whole presence reeked of the crime he had committed;the touch of his body was madness to him—it set every nerve of hima-tremble, it aroused all the demon in his soul. It had worked its will uponOna, this great beast—and now he had it, he had it! It was his turn now!Things swam blood before him, and he screamed aloud in his fury, lifting hisvictim and smashing his head upon the floor.

The place, of course, was in an uproar; women fainting and shrieking, and menrushing in. Jurgis was so bent upon his task that he knew nothing of this, andscarcely realized that people were trying to interfere with him; it was onlywhen half a dozen men had seized him by the legs and shoulders and were pullingat him, that he understood that he was losing his prey. In a flash he had bentdown and sunk his teeth into the man’s cheek; and when they tore him awayhe was dripping with blood, and little ribbons of skin were hanging in hismouth.

They got him down upon the floor, clinging to him by his arms and legs, andstill they could hardly hold him. He fought like a tiger, writhing andtwisting, half flinging them off, and starting toward his unconscious enemy.But yet others rushed in, until there was a little mountain of twisted limbsand bodies, heaving and tossing, and working its way about the room. In theend, by their sheer weight, they choked the breath out of him, and then theycarried him to the company police station, where he lay still until they hadsummoned a patrol wagon to take him away.

CHAPTER XVI

When Jurgis got up again he went quietly enough. He was exhausted andhalf-dazed, and besides he saw the blue uniforms of the policemen. He drove ina patrol wagon with half a dozen of them watching him; keeping as far away aspossible, however, on account of the fertilizer. Then he stood before thesergeant’s desk and gave his name and address, and saw a charge ofassault and battery entered against him. On his way to his cell a burlypoliceman cursed him because he started down the wrong corridor, and then addeda kick when he was not quick enough; nevertheless, Jurgis did not even lift hiseyes—he had lived two years and a half in Packingtown, and he knew whatthe police were. It was as much as a man’s very life was worth to angerthem, here in their inmost lair; like as not a dozen would pile on to him atonce, and pound his face into a pulp. It would be nothing unusual if he got hisskull cracked in the mêlée—in which case they would report that he hadbeen drunk and had fallen down, and there would be no one to know thedifference or to care.

So a barred door clanged upon Jurgis and he sat down upon a bench and buriedhis face in his hands. He was alone; he had the afternoon and all of the nightto himself.

At first he was like a wild beast that has glutted itself; he was in a dullstupor of satisfaction. He had done up the scoundrel pretty well—not aswell as he would have if they had given him a minute more, but pretty well, allthe same; the ends of his fingers were still tingling from their contact withthe fellow’s throat. But then, little by little, as his strength cameback and his senses cleared, he began to see beyond his momentarygratification; that he had nearly killed the boss would not help Ona—notthe horrors that she had borne, nor the memory that would haunt her all herdays. It would not help to feed her and her child; she would certainly lose herplace, while he—what was to happen to him God only knew.

Half the night he paced the floor, wrestling with this nightmare; and when hewas exhausted he lay down, trying to sleep, but finding instead, for the firsttime in his life, that his brain was too much for him. In the cell next to himwas a drunken wife-beater and in the one beyond a yelling maniac. At midnightthey opened the station house to the homeless wanderers who were crowded aboutthe door, shivering in the winter blast, and they thronged into the corridoroutside of the cells. Some of them stretched themselves out on the bare stonefloor and fell to snoring, others sat up, laughing and talking, cursing andquarreling. The air was fetid with their breath, yet in spite of this some ofthem smelled Jurgis and called down the torments of hell upon him, while he layin a far corner of his cell, counting the throbbings of the blood in hisforehead.

They had brought him his supper, which was “duffers anddope”—being hunks of dry bread on a tin plate, and coffee, called“dope” because it was drugged to keep the prisoners quiet. Jurgishad not known this, or he would have swallowed the stuff in desperation; as itwas, every nerve of him was a-quiver with shame and rage. Toward morning theplace fell silent, and he got up and began to pace his cell; and then withinthe soul of him there rose up a fiend, red-eyed and cruel, and tore out thestrings of his heart.

It was not for himself that he suffered—what did a man who worked inDurham’s fertilizer mill care about anything that the world might do tohim! What was any tyranny of prison compared with the tyranny of the past, ofthe thing that had happened and could not be recalled, of the memory that couldnever be effaced! The horror of it drove him mad; he stretched out his arms toheaven, crying out for deliverance from it—and there was no deliverance,there was no power even in heaven that could undo the past. It was a ghost thatwould not drown; it followed him, it seized upon him and beat him to theground. Ah, if only he could have foreseen it—but then, he would haveforeseen it, if he had not been a fool! He smote his hands upon his forehead,cursing himself because he had ever allowed Ona to work where she had, becausehe had not stood between her and a fate which every one knew to be so common.He should have taken her away, even if it were to lie down and die ofstarvation in the gutters of Chicago’s streets! And now—oh, itcould not be true; it was too monstrous, too horrible.

It was a thing that could not be faced; a new shuddering seized him every timehe tried to think of it. No, there was no bearing the load of it, there was noliving under it. There would be none for her—he knew that he might pardonher, might plead with her on his knees, but she would never look him in theface again, she would never be his wife again. The shame of it would killher—there could be no other deliverance, and it was best that she shoulddie.

This was simple and clear, and yet, with cruel inconsistency, whenever heescaped from this nightmare it was to suffer and cry out at the vision of Onastarving. They had put him in jail, and they would keep him here a long time,years maybe. And Ona would surely not go to work again, broken and crushed asshe was. And Elzbieta and Marija, too, might lose their places—if thathell fiend Connor chose to set to work to ruin them, they would all be turnedout. And even if he did not, they could not live—even if the boys leftschool again, they could surely not pay all the bills without him and Ona. Theyhad only a few dollars now—they had just paid the rent of the house aweek ago, and that after it was two weeks overdue. So it would be due again ina week! They would have no money to pay it then—and they would lose thehouse, after all their long, heartbreaking struggle. Three times now the agenthad warned him that he would not tolerate another delay. Perhaps it was verybase of Jurgis to be thinking about the house when he had the other unspeakablething to fill his mind; yet, how much he had suffered for this house, how muchthey had all of them suffered! It was their one hope of respite, as long asthey lived; they had put all their money into it—and they were workingpeople, poor people, whose money was their strength, the very substance ofthem, body and soul, the thing by which they lived and for lack of which theydied.

And they would lose it all; they would be turned out into the streets, and haveto hide in some icy garret, and live or die as best they could! Jurgis had allthe night—and all of many more nights—to think about this, and hesaw the thing in its details; he lived it all, as if he were there. They wouldsell their furniture, and then run into debt at the stores, and then be refusedcredit; they would borrow a little from the Szedvilases, whose delicatessenstore was tottering on the brink of ruin; the neighbors would come and helpthem a little—poor, sick Jadvyga would bring a few spare pennies, as shealways did when people were starving, and Tamoszius Kuszleika would bring themthe proceeds of a night’s fiddling. So they would struggle to hang onuntil he got out of jail—or would they know that he was in jail, wouldthey be able to find out anything about him? Would they be allowed to seehim—or was it to be part of his punishment to be kept in ignorance abouttheir fate?

His mind would hang upon the worst possibilities; he saw Ona ill and tortured,Marija out of her place, little Stanislovas unable to get to work for the snow,the whole family turned out on the street. God Almighty! would they actuallylet them lie down in the street and die? Would there be no help eventhen—would they wander about in the snow till they froze? Jurgis hadnever seen any dead bodies in the streets, but he had seen people evicted anddisappear, no one knew where; and though the city had a relief bureau, thoughthere was a charity organization society in the stockyards district, in all hislife there he had never heard of either of them. They did not advertise theiractivities, having more calls than they could attend to without that.

—So on until morning. Then he had another ride in the patrol wagon, alongwith the drunken wife-beater and the maniac, several “plain drunks”and “saloon fighters,” a burglar, and two men who had been arrestedfor stealing meat from the packing houses. Along with them he was driven into alarge, white-walled room, stale-smelling and crowded. In front, upon a raisedplatform behind a rail, sat a stout, florid-faced personage, with a nose brokenout in purple blotches.

Our friend realized vaguely that he was about to be tried. He wondered whatfor—whether or not his victim might be dead, and if so, what they woulddo with him. Hang him, perhaps, or beat him to death—nothing would havesurprised Jurgis, who knew little of the laws. Yet he had picked up gossipenough to have it occur to him that the loud-voiced man upon the bench might bethe notorious Justice Callahan, about whom the people of Packingtown spoke withbated breath.

“Pat” Callahan—“Growler” Pat, as he had beenknown before he ascended the bench—had begun life as a butcher boy and abruiser of local reputation; he had gone into politics almost as soon as he hadlearned to talk, and had held two offices at once before he was old enough tovote. If Scully was the thumb, Pat Callahan was the first finger of the unseenhand whereby the packers held down the people of the district. No politician inChicago ranked higher in their confidence; he had been at it a longtime—had been the business agent in the city council of old Durham, theself-made merchant, way back in the early days, when the whole city of Chicagohad been up at auction. “Growler” Pat had given up holding cityoffices very early in his career—caring only for party power, and givingthe rest of his time to superintending his dives and brothels. Of late years,however, since his children were growing up, he had begun to valuerespectability, and had had himself made a magistrate; a position for which hewas admirably fitted, because of his strong conservatism and his contempt for“foreigners.”

Jurgis sat gazing about the room for an hour or two; he was in hopes that someone of the family would come, but in this he was disappointed. Finally, he wasled before the bar, and a lawyer for the company appeared against him. Connorwas under the doctor’s care, the lawyer explained briefly, and if hisHonor would hold the prisoner for a week—“Three hundreddollars,” said his Honor, promptly.

Jurgis was staring from the judge to the lawyer in perplexity. “Have youany one to go on your bond?” demanded the judge, and then a clerk whostood at Jurgis’ elbow explained to him what this meant. The latter shookhis head, and before he realized what had happened the policemen were leadinghim away again. They took him to a room where other prisoners were waiting andhere he stayed until court adjourned, when he had another long and bitterlycold ride in a patrol wagon to the county jail, which is on the north side ofthe city, and nine or ten miles from the stockyards.

Here they searched Jurgis, leaving him only his money, which consisted offifteen cents. Then they led him to a room and told him to strip for a bath;after which he had to walk down a long gallery, past the grated cell doors ofthe inmates of the jail. This was a great event to the latter—the dailyreview of the new arrivals, all stark naked, and many and diverting were thecomments. Jurgis was required to stay in the bath longer than any one, in thevain hope of getting out of him a few of his phosphates and acids. Theprisoners roomed two in a cell, but that day there was one left over, and hewas the one.

The cells were in tiers, opening upon galleries. His cell was about five feetby seven in size, with a stone floor and a heavy wooden bench built into it.There was no window—the only light came from windows near the roof at oneend of the court outside. There were two bunks, one above the other, each witha straw mattress and a pair of gray blankets—the latter stiff as boardswith filth, and alive with fleas, bedbugs, and lice. When Jurgis lifted up themattress he discovered beneath it a layer of scurrying roaches, almost as badlyfrightened as himself.

Here they brought him more “duffers and dope,” with the addition ofa bowl of soup. Many of the prisoners had their meals brought in from arestaurant, but Jurgis had no money for that. Some had books to read and cardsto play, with candles to burn by night, but Jurgis was all alone in darknessand silence. He could not sleep again; there was the same maddening processionof thoughts that lashed him like whips upon his naked back. When night fell hewas pacing up and down his cell like a wild beast that breaks its teeth uponthe bars of its cage. Now and then in his frenzy he would fling himself againstthe walls of the place, beating his hands upon them. They cut him and bruisedhim—they were cold and merciless as the men who had built them.

In the distance there was a church-tower bell that tolled the hours one by one.When it came to midnight Jurgis was lying upon the floor with his head in hisarms, listening. Instead of falling silent at the end, the bell broke into asudden clangor. Jurgis raised his head; what could that mean—a fire? God!Suppose there were to be a fire in this jail! But then he made out a melody inthe ringing; there were chimes. And they seemed to waken the city—allaround, far and near, there were bells, ringing wild music; for fully a minuteJurgis lay lost in wonder, before, all at once, the meaning of it broke overhim—that this was Christmas Eve!

Christmas Eve—he had forgotten it entirely! There was a breaking offloodgates, a whirl of new memories and new griefs rushing into his mind. Infar Lithuania they had celebrated Christmas; and it came to him as if it hadbeen yesterday—himself a little child, with his lost brother and his deadfather in the cabin—in the deep black forest, where the snow fell all dayand all night and buried them from the world. It was too far off for SantaClaus in Lithuania, but it was not too far for peace and good will to men, forthe wonder-bearing vision of the Christ Child. And even in Packingtown they hadnot forgotten it—some gleam of it had never failed to break theirdarkness. Last Christmas Eve and all Christmas Day Jurgis had toiled on thekilling beds, and Ona at wrapping hams, and still they had found strengthenough to take the children for a walk upon the avenue, to see the storewindows all decorated with Christmas trees and ablaze with electric lights. Inone window there would be live geese, in another marvels in sugar—pinkand white canes big enough for ogres, and cakes with cherubs upon them; in athird there would be rows of fat yellow turkeys, decorated with rosettes, andrabbits and squirrels hanging; in a fourth would be a fairyland oftoys—lovely dolls with pink dresses, and woolly sheep and drums andsoldier hats. Nor did they have to go without their share of all this, either.The last time they had had a big basket with them and all their Christmasmarketing to do—a roast of pork and a cabbage and some rye bread, and apair of mittens for Ona, and a rubber doll that squeaked, and a little greencornucopia full of candy to be hung from the gas jet and gazed at by half adozen pairs of longing eyes.

Even half a year of the sausage machines and the fertilizer mill had not beenable to kill the thought of Christmas in them; there was a choking inJurgis’ throat as he recalled that the very night Ona had not come homeTeta Elzbieta had taken him aside and shown him an old valentine that she hadpicked up in a paper store for three cents—dingy and shopworn, but withbright colors, and figures of angels and doves. She had wiped all the specksoff this, and was going to set it on the mantel, where the children could seeit. Great sobs shook Jurgis at this memory—they would spend theirChristmas in misery and despair, with him in prison and Ona ill and their homein desolation. Ah, it was too cruel! Why at least had they not left himalone—why, after they had shut him in jail, must they be ringingChristmas chimes in his ears!

But no, their bells were not ringing for him—their Christmas was notmeant for him, they were simply not counting him at all. He was of noconsequence—he was flung aside, like a bit of trash, the carcass of someanimal. It was horrible, horrible! His wife might be dying, his baby might bestarving, his whole family might be perishing in the cold—and all thewhile they were ringing their Christmas chimes! And the bitter mockery ofit—all this was punishment for him! They put him in a place where thesnow could not beat in, where the cold could not eat through his bones; theybrought him food and drink—why, in the name of heaven, if they mustpunish him, did they not put his family in jail and leave him outside—whycould they find no better way to punish him than to leave three weak women andsix helpless children to starve and freeze? That was their law, that was theirjustice!

Jurgis stood upright; trembling with passion, his hands clenched and his armsupraised, his whole soul ablaze with hatred and defiance. Ten thousand cursesupon them and their law! Their justice—it was a lie, it was a lie, ahideous, brutal lie, a thing too black and hateful for any world but a world ofnightmares. It was a sham and a loathsome mockery. There was no justice, therewas no right, anywhere in it—it was only force, it was tyranny, the willand the power, reckless and unrestrained! They had ground him beneath theirheel, they had devoured all his substance; they had murdered his old father,they had broken and wrecked his wife, they had crushed and cowed his wholefamily; and now they were through with him, they had no further use forhim—and because he had interfered with them, had gotten in their way,this was what they had done to him! They had put him behind bars, as if he hadbeen a wild beast, a thing without sense or reason, without rights, withoutaffections, without feelings. Nay, they would not even have treated a beast asthey had treated him! Would any man in his senses have trapped a wild thing inits lair, and left its young behind to die?

These midnight hours were fateful ones to Jurgis; in them was the beginning ofhis rebellion, of his outlawry and his unbelief. He had no wit to trace backthe social crime to its far sources—he could not say that it was thething men have called “the system” that was crushing him to theearth; that it was the packers, his masters, who had bought up the law of theland, and had dealt out their brutal will to him from the seat of justice. Heonly knew that he was wronged, and that the world had wronged him; that thelaw, that society, with all its powers, had declared itself his foe. And everyhour his soul grew blacker, every hour he dreamed new dreams of vengeance, ofdefiance, of raging, frenzied hate.

The vilest deeds, like poison weeds,
Bloom well in prison air;
It is only what is good in Man
That wastes and withers there;
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,
And the Warder is Despair.

So wrote a poet, to whom the world had dealt its justice—

I know not whether Laws be right,
Or whether Laws be wrong;
All that we know who lie in gaol
Is that the wall is strong.
And they do well to hide their hell,
For in it things are done
That Son of God nor son of Man
Ever should look upon!

CHAPTER XVII

At seven o’clock the next morning Jurgis was let out to get water to washhis cell—a duty which he performed faithfully, but which most of theprisoners were accustomed to shirk, until their cells became so filthy that theguards interposed. Then he had more “duffers and dope,” andafterward was allowed three hours for exercise, in a long, cement-walked courtroofed with glass. Here were all the inmates of the jail crowded together. Atone side of the court was a place for visitors, cut off by two heavy wirescreens, a foot apart, so that nothing could be passed in to the prisoners;here Jurgis watched anxiously, but there came no one to see him.

Soon after he went back to his cell, a keeper opened the door to let in anotherprisoner. He was a dapper young fellow, with a light brown mustache and blueeyes, and a graceful figure. He nodded to Jurgis, and then, as the keeperclosed the door upon him, began gazing critically about him.

“Well, pal,” he said, as his glance encountered Jurgis again,“good morning.”

“Good morning,” said Jurgis.

“A rum go for Christmas, eh?” added the other.

Jurgis nodded.

The newcomer went to the bunks and inspected the blankets; he lifted up themattress, and then dropped it with an exclamation. “My God!” hesaid, “that’s the worst yet.”

He glanced at Jurgis again. “Looks as if it hadn’t been slept inlast night. Couldn’t stand it, eh?”

“I didn’t want to sleep last night,” said Jurgis.

“When did you come in?”

“Yesterday.”

The other had another look around, and then wrinkled up his nose.“There’s the devil of a stink in here,” he said, suddenly.“What is it?”

“It’s me,” said Jurgis.

“You?”

“Yes, me.”

“Didn’t they make you wash?”

“Yes, but this don’t wash.”

“What is it?”

“Fertilizer.”

“Fertilizer! The deuce! What are you?”

“I work in the stockyards—at least I did until the other day.It’s in my clothes.”

“That’s a new one on me,” said the newcomer. “I thoughtI’d been up against ‘em all. What are you in for?”

“I hit my boss.”

“Oh—that’s it. What did he do?”

“He—he treated me mean.”

“I see. You’re what’s called an honest workingman!”

“What are you?” Jurgis asked.

“I?” The other laughed. “They say I’m acracksman,” he said.

“What’s that?” asked Jurgis.

“Safes, and such things,” answered the other.

“Oh,” said Jurgis, wonderingly, and stared at the speaker in awe.“You mean you break into them—you—you—”

“Yes,” laughed the other, “that’s what they say.”

He did not look to be over twenty-two or three, though, as Jurgis foundafterward, he was thirty. He spoke like a man of education, like what the worldcalls a “gentleman.”

“Is that what you’re here for?” Jurgis inquired.

“No,” was the answer. “I’m here for disorderly conduct.They were mad because they couldn’t get any evidence.

“What’s your name?” the young fellow continued after a pause.“My name’s Duane—Jack Duane. I’ve more than a dozen,but that’s my company one.” He seated himself on the floor with hisback to the wall and his legs crossed, and went on talking easily; he soon putJurgis on a friendly footing—he was evidently a man of the world, used togetting on, and not too proud to hold conversation with a mere laboring man. Hedrew Jurgis out, and heard all about his life all but the one unmentionablething; and then he told stories about his own life. He was a great one forstories, not always of the choicest. Being sent to jail had apparently notdisturbed his cheerfulness; he had “done time” twice before, itseemed, and he took it all with a frolic welcome. What with women and wine andthe excitement of his vocation, a man could afford to rest now and then.

Naturally, the aspect of prison life was changed for Jurgis by the arrival of acell mate. He could not turn his face to the wall and sulk, he had to speakwhen he was spoken to; nor could he help being interested in the conversationof Duane—the first educated man with whom he had ever talked. How couldhe help listening with wonder while the other told of midnight ventures andperilous escapes, of feastings and orgies, of fortunes squandered in a night?The young fellow had an amused contempt for Jurgis, as a sort of working mule;he, too, had felt the world’s injustice, but instead of bearing itpatiently, he had struck back, and struck hard. He was striking all thetime—there was war between him and society. He was a genial freebooter,living off the enemy, without fear or shame. He was not always victorious, butthen defeat did not mean annihilation, and need not break his spirit.

Withal he was a goodhearted fellow—too much so, it appeared. His storycame out, not in the first day, nor the second, but in the long hours thatdragged by, in which they had nothing to do but talk and nothing to talk of butthemselves. Jack Duane was from the East; he was a college-bred man—hadbeen studying electrical engineering. Then his father had met with misfortunein business and killed himself; and there had been his mother and a youngerbrother and sister. Also, there was an invention of Duane’s; Jurgis couldnot understand it clearly, but it had to do with telegraphing, and it was avery important thing—there were fortunes in it, millions upon millions ofdollars. And Duane had been robbed of it by a great company, and got tangled upin lawsuits and lost all his money. Then somebody had given him a tip on ahorse race, and he had tried to retrieve his fortune with anotherperson’s money, and had to run away, and all the rest had come from that.The other asked him what had led him to safe-breaking—to Jurgis a wildand appalling occupation to think about. A man he had met, his cell mate hadreplied—one thing leads to another. Didn’t he ever wonder about hisfamily, Jurgis asked. Sometimes, the other answered, but not often—hedidn’t allow it. Thinking about it would make it no better. Thiswasn’t a world in which a man had any business with a family; sooner orlater Jurgis would find that out also, and give up the fight and shift forhimself.

Jurgis was so transparently what he pretended to be that his cell mate was asopen with him as a child; it was pleasant to tell him adventures, he was sofull of wonder and admiration, he was so new to the ways of the country. Duanedid not even bother to keep back names and places—he told all histriumphs and his failures, his loves and his griefs. Also he introduced Jurgisto many of the other prisoners, nearly half of whom he knew by name. The crowdhad already given Jurgis a name—they called him “thestinker.” This was cruel, but they meant no harm by it, and he took itwith a good-natured grin.

Our friend had caught now and then a whiff from the sewers over which he lived,but this was the first time that he had ever been splashed by their filth. Thisjail was a Noah’s ark of the city’s crime—there weremurderers, “hold-up men” and burglars, embezzlers, counterfeitersand forgers, bigamists, “shoplifters,” “confidencemen,” petty thieves and pickpockets, gamblers and procurers, brawlers,beggars, tramps and drunkards; they were black and white, old and young,Americans and natives of every nation under the sun. There were hardenedcriminals and innocent men too poor to give bail; old men, and boys literallynot yet in their teens. They were the drainage of the great festering ulcer ofsociety; they were hideous to look upon, sickening to talk to. All life hadturned to rottenness and stench in them—love was a beastliness, joy was asnare, and God was an imprecation. They strolled here and there about thecourtyard, and Jurgis listened to them. He was ignorant and they were wise;they had been everywhere and tried everything. They could tell the wholehateful story of it, set forth the inner soul of a city in which justice andhonor, women’s bodies and men’s souls, were for sale in themarketplace, and human beings writhed and fought and fell upon each other likewolves in a pit; in which lusts were raging fires, and men were fuel, andhumanity was festering and stewing and wallowing in its own corruption. Intothis wild-beast tangle these men had been born without their consent, they hadtaken part in it because they could not help it; that they were in jail was nodisgrace to them, for the game had never been fair, the dice were loaded. Theywere swindlers and thieves of pennies and dimes, and they had been trapped andput out of the way by the swindlers and thieves of millions of dollars.

To most of this Jurgis tried not to listen. They frightened him with theirsavage mockery; and all the while his heart was far away, where his loved oneswere calling. Now and then in the midst of it his thoughts would take flight;and then the tears would come into his eyes—and he would be called backby the jeering laughter of his companions.

He spent a week in this company, and during all that time he had no word fromhis home. He paid one of his fifteen cents for a postal card, and his companionwrote a note to the family, telling them where he was and when he would betried. There came no answer to it, however, and at last, the day before NewYear’s, Jurgis bade good-by to Jack Duane. The latter gave him hisaddress, or rather the address of his mistress, and made Jurgis promise to lookhim up. “Maybe I could help you out of a hole some day,” he said,and added that he was sorry to have him go. Jurgis rode in the patrol wagonback to Justice Callahan’s court for trial.

One of the first things he made out as he entered the room was Teta Elzbietaand little Kotrina, looking pale and frightened, seated far in the rear. Hisheart began to pound, but he did not dare to try to signal to them, and neitherdid Elzbieta. He took his seat in the prisoners’ pen and sat gazing atthem in helpless agony. He saw that Ona was not with them, and was full offoreboding as to what that might mean. He spent half an hour brooding overthis—and then suddenly he straightened up and the blood rushed into hisface. A man had come in—Jurgis could not see his features for thebandages that swathed him, but he knew the burly figure. It was Connor! Atrembling seized him, and his limbs bent as if for a spring. Then suddenly hefelt a hand on his collar, and heard a voice behind him: “Sit down, youson of a—!”

He subsided, but he never took his eyes off his enemy. The fellow was stillalive, which was a disappointment, in one way; and yet it was pleasant to seehim, all in penitential plasters. He and the company lawyer, who was with him,came and took seats within the judge’s railing; and a minute later theclerk called Jurgis’ name, and the policeman jerked him to his feet andled him before the bar, gripping him tightly by the arm, lest he should springupon the boss.

Jurgis listened while the man entered the witness chair, took the oath, andtold his story. The wife of the prisoner had been employed in a department nearhim, and had been discharged for impudence to him. Half an hour later he hadbeen violently attacked, knocked down, and almost choked to death. He hadbrought witnesses—

“They will probably not be necessary,” observed the judge and heturned to Jurgis. “You admit attacking the plaintiff?” he asked.

“Him?” inquired Jurgis, pointing at the boss.

“Yes,” said the judge. “I hit him, sir,” said Jurgis.

“Say ‘your Honor,’” said the officer, pinching his armhard.

“Your Honor,” said Jurgis, obediently.

“You tried to choke him?”

“Yes, sir, your Honor.”

“Ever been arrested before?”

“No, sir, your Honor.”

“What have you to say for yourself?”

Jurgis hesitated. What had he to say? In two years and a half he had learned tospeak English for practical purposes, but these had never included thestatement that some one had intimidated and seduced his wife. He tried once ortwice, stammering and balking, to the annoyance of the judge, who was gaspingfrom the odor of fertilizer. Finally, the prisoner made it understood that hisvocabulary was inadequate, and there stepped up a dapper young man with waxedmustaches, bidding him speak in any language he knew.

Jurgis began; supposing that he would be given time, he explained how the bosshad taken advantage of his wife’s position to make advances to her andhad threatened her with the loss of her place. When the interpreter hadtranslated this, the judge, whose calendar was crowded, and whose automobilewas ordered for a certain hour, interrupted with the remark: “Oh, I see.Well, if he made love to your wife, why didn’t she complain to thesuperintendent or leave the place?”

Jurgis hesitated, somewhat taken aback; he began to explain that they were verypoor—that work was hard to get—

“I see,” said Justice Callahan; “so instead you thought youwould knock him down.” He turned to the plaintiff, inquiring, “Isthere any truth in this story, Mr. Connor?”

“Not a particle, your Honor,” said the boss. “It is veryunpleasant—they tell some such tale every time you have to discharge awoman—”

“Yes, I know,” said the judge. “I hear it often enough. Thefellow seems to have handled you pretty roughly. Thirty days and costs. Nextcase.”

Jurgis had been listening in perplexity. It was only when the policeman who hadhim by the arm turned and started to lead him away that he realized thatsentence had been passed. He gazed round him wildly. “Thirty days!”he panted and then he whirled upon the judge. “What will my familydo?” he cried frantically. “I have a wife and baby, sir, and theyhave no money—my God, they will starve to death!”

“You would have done well to think about them before you committed theassault,” said the judge dryly, as he turned to look at the nextprisoner.

Jurgis would have spoken again, but the policeman had seized him by the collarand was twisting it, and a second policeman was making for him with evidentlyhostile intentions. So he let them lead him away. Far down the room he sawElzbieta and Kotrina, risen from their seats, staring in fright; he made oneeffort to go to them, and then, brought back by another twist at his throat, hebowed his head and gave up the struggle. They thrust him into a cell room,where other prisoners were waiting; and as soon as court had adjourned they ledhim down with them into the “Black Maria,” and drove him away.

This time Jurgis was bound for the “Bridewell,” a petty jail whereCook County prisoners serve their time. It was even filthier and more crowdedthan the county jail; all the smaller fry out of the latter had been siftedinto it—the petty thieves and swindlers, the brawlers and vagrants. Forhis cell mate Jurgis had an Italian fruit seller who had refused to pay hisgraft to the policeman, and been arrested for carrying a large pocketknife; ashe did not understand a word of English our friend was glad when he left. Hegave place to a Norwegian sailor, who had lost half an ear in a drunken brawl,and who proved to be quarrelsome, cursing Jurgis because he moved in his bunkand caused the roaches to drop upon the lower one. It would have been quiteintolerable, staying in a cell with this wild beast, but for the fact that allday long the prisoners were put at work breaking stone.

Ten days of his thirty Jurgis spent thus, without hearing a word from hisfamily; then one day a keeper came and informed him that there was a visitor tosee him. Jurgis turned white, and so weak at the knees that he could hardlyleave his cell.

The man led him down the corridor and a flight of steps to the visitors’room, which was barred like a cell. Through the grating Jurgis could see someone sitting in a chair; and as he came into the room the person started up, andhe saw that it was little Stanislovas. At the sight of some one from home thebig fellow nearly went to pieces—he had to steady himself by a chair, andhe put his other hand to his forehead, as if to clear away a mist.“Well?” he said, weakly.

Little Stanislovas was also trembling, and all but too frightened to speak.“They—they sent me to tell you—” he said, with a gulp.

“Well?” Jurgis repeated. He followed the boy’s glance towhere the keeper was standing watching them. “Never mind that,”Jurgis cried, wildly. “How are they?”

“Ona is very sick,” Stanislovas said; “and we are almoststarving. We can’t get along; we thought you might be able to helpus.”

Jurgis gripped the chair tighter; there were beads of perspiration on hisforehead, and his hand shook. “I—can’t help you,” hesaid.

“Ona lies in her room all day,” the boy went on, breathlessly.“She won’t eat anything, and she cries all the time. Shewon’t tell what is the matter and she won’t go to work at all. Thena long time ago the man came for the rent. He was very cross. He came againlast week. He said he would turn us out of the house. And thenMarija—”

A sob choked Stanislovas, and he stopped. “What’s the matter withMarija?” cried Jurgis.

“She’s cut her hand!” said the boy. “She’s cut itbad, this time, worse than before. She can’t work and it’s allturning green, and the company doctor says she may—she may have to haveit cut off. And Marija cries all the time—her money is nearly all gone,too, and we can’t pay the rent and the interest on the house; and we haveno coal and nothing more to eat, and the man at the store, hesays—”

The little fellow stopped again, beginning to whimper. “Go on!” theother panted in frenzy—“Go on!”

“I—I will,” sobbed Stanislovas. “It’s so—socold all the time. And last Sunday it snowed again—a deep, deepsnow—and I couldn’t—couldn’t get to work.”

“God!” Jurgis half shouted, and he took a step toward the child.There was an old hatred between them because of the snow—ever since thatdreadful morning when the boy had had his fingers frozen and Jurgis had had tobeat him to send him to work. Now he clenched his hands, looking as if he wouldtry to break through the grating. “You little villain,” he cried,“you didn’t try!”

“I did—I did!” wailed Stanislovas, shrinking from him interror. “I tried all day—two days. Elzbieta was with me, and shecouldn’t either. We couldn’t walk at all, it was so deep. And wehad nothing to eat, and oh, it was so cold! I tried, and then the third day Onawent with me—”

“Ona!”

“Yes. She tried to get to work, too. She had to. We were all starving.But she had lost her place—”

Jurgis reeled, and gave a gasp. “She went back to that place?” hescreamed. “She tried to,” said Stanislovas, gazing at him inperplexity. “Why not, Jurgis?”

The man breathed hard, three or four times. “Go—on,” hepanted, finally.

“I went with her,” said Stanislovas, “but Miss Hendersonwouldn’t take her back. And Connor saw her and cursed her. He was stillbandaged up—why did you hit him, Jurgis?” (There was somefascinating mystery about this, the little fellow knew; but he could get nosatisfaction.)

Jurgis could not speak; he could only stare, his eyes starting out. “Shehas been trying to get other work,” the boy went on; “butshe’s so weak she can’t keep up. And my boss would not take meback, either—Ona says he knows Connor, and that’s the reason;they’ve all got a grudge against us now. So I’ve got to go downtownand sell papers with the rest of the boys and Kotrina—”

“Kotrina!”

“Yes, she’s been selling papers, too. She does best, becauseshe’s a girl. Only the cold is so bad—it’s terrible cominghome at night, Jurgis. Sometimes they can’t come home atall—I’m going to try to find them tonight and sleep where they do,it’s so late and it’s such a long ways home. I’ve had towalk, and I didn’t know where it was—I don’t know how to getback, either. Only mother said I must come, because you would want to know, andmaybe somebody would help your family when they had put you in jail so youcouldn’t work. And I walked all day to get here—and I only had apiece of bread for breakfast, Jurgis. Mother hasn’t any work either,because the sausage department is shut down; and she goes and begs at houseswith a basket, and people give her food. Only she didn’t get muchyesterday; it was too cold for her fingers, and today she wascrying—”

So little Stanislovas went on, sobbing as he talked; and Jurgis stood, grippingthe table tightly, saying not a word, but feeling that his head would burst; itwas like having weights piled upon him, one after another, crushing the lifeout of him. He struggled and fought within himself—as if in some terriblenightmare, in which a man suffers an agony, and cannot lift his hand, nor cryout, but feels that he is going mad, that his brain is on fire—

Just when it seemed to him that another turn of the screw would kill him,little Stanislovas stopped. “You cannot help us?” he said weakly.

Jurgis shook his head.

“They won’t give you anything here?”

He shook it again.

“When are you coming out?”

“Three weeks yet,” Jurgis answered.

And the boy gazed around him uncertainly. “Then I might as wellgo,” he said.

Jurgis nodded. Then, suddenly recollecting, he put his hand into his pocket anddrew it out, shaking. “Here,” he said, holding out the fourteencents. “Take this to them.”

And Stanislovas took it, and after a little more hesitation, started for thedoor. “Good-by, Jurgis,” he said, and the other noticed that hewalked unsteadily as he passed out of sight.

For a minute or so Jurgis stood clinging to his chair, reeling and swaying;then the keeper touched him on the arm, and he turned and went back to breakingstone.

CHAPTER XVIII

Jurgis did not get out of the Bridewell quite as soon as he had expected. Tohis sentence there were added “court costs” of a dollar and ahalf—he was supposed to pay for the trouble of putting him in jail, andnot having the money, was obliged to work it off by three days more of toil.Nobody had taken the trouble to tell him this—only after counting thedays and looking forward to the end in an agony of impatience, when the hourcame that he expected to be free he found himself still set at the stone heap,and laughed at when he ventured to protest. Then he concluded he must havecounted wrong; but as another day passed, he gave up all hope—and wassunk in the depths of despair, when one morning after breakfast a keeper cameto him with the word that his time was up at last. So he doffed his prisongarb, and put on his old fertilizer clothing, and heard the door of the prisonclang behind him.

He stood upon the steps, bewildered; he could hardly believe that it wastrue,—that the sky was above him again and the open street before him;that he was a free man. But then the cold began to strike through his clothes,and he started quickly away.

There had been a heavy snow, and now a thaw had set in; fine sleety rain wasfalling, driven by a wind that pierced Jurgis to the bone. He had not stoppedfor his-overcoat when he set out to “do up” Connor, and so hisrides in the patrol wagons had been cruel experiences; his clothing was old andworn thin, and it never had been very warm. Now as he trudged on the rain soonwet it through; there were six inches of watery slush on the sidewalks, so thathis feet would soon have been soaked, even had there been no holes in hisshoes.

Jurgis had had enough to eat in the jail, and the work had been the leasttrying of any that he had done since he came to Chicago; but even so, he hadnot grown strong—the fear and grief that had preyed upon his mind hadworn him thin. Now he shivered and shrunk from the rain, hiding his hands inhis pockets and hunching his shoulders together. The Bridewell grounds were onthe outskirts of the city and the country around them was unsettled andwild—on one side was the big drainage canal, and on the other a maze ofrailroad tracks, and so the wind had full sweep.

After walking a ways, Jurgis met a little ragamuffin whom he hailed:“Hey, sonny!” The boy cocked one eye at him—he knew thatJurgis was a “jailbird” by his shaven head. “Wot yerwant?” he queried.

“How do you go to the stockyards?” Jurgis demanded.

“I don’t go,” replied the boy.

Jurgis hesitated a moment, nonplussed. Then he said, “I mean which is theway?”

“Why don’t yer say so then?” was the response, and the boypointed to the northwest, across the tracks. “That way.”

“How far is it?” Jurgis asked. “I dunno,” said theother. “Mebbe twenty miles or so.”

“Twenty miles!” Jurgis echoed, and his face fell. He had to walkevery foot of it, for they had turned him out of jail without a penny in hispockets.

Yet, when he once got started, and his blood had warmed with walking, he forgoteverything in the fever of his thoughts. All the dreadful imaginations that hadhaunted him in his cell now rushed into his mind at once. The agony was almostover—he was going to find out; and he clenched his hands in his pocketsas he strode, following his flying desire, almost at a run. Ona—thebaby—the family—the house—he would know the truth about themall! And he was coming to the rescue—he was free again! His hands werehis own, and he could help them, he could do battle for them against the world.

For an hour or so he walked thus, and then he began to look about him. Heseemed to be leaving the city altogether. The street was turning into a countryroad, leading out to the westward; there were snow-covered fields on eitherside of him. Soon he met a farmer driving a two-horse wagon loaded with straw,and he stopped him.

“Is this the way to the stockyards?” he asked.

The farmer scratched his head. “I dunno jest where they be,” hesaid. “But they’re in the city somewhere, and you’re goingdead away from it now.”

Jurgis looked dazed. “I was told this was the way,” he said.

“Who told you?”

“A boy.”

“Well, mebbe he was playing a joke on ye. The best thing ye kin do is togo back, and when ye git into town ask a policeman. I’d take ye in, onlyI’ve come a long ways an’ I’m loaded heavy. Git up!”

So Jurgis turned and followed, and toward the end of the morning he began tosee Chicago again. Past endless blocks of two-story shanties he walked, alongwooden sidewalks and unpaved pathways treacherous with deep slush holes. Everyfew blocks there would be a railroad crossing on the level with the sidewalk, adeathtrap for the unwary; long freight trains would be passing, the carsclanking and crashing together, and Jurgis would pace about waiting, burning upwith a fever of impatience. Occasionally the cars would stop for some minutes,and wagons and streetcars would crowd together waiting, the drivers swearing ateach other, or hiding beneath umbrellas out of the rain; at such times Jurgiswould dodge under the gates and run across the tracks and between the cars,taking his life into his hands.

He crossed a long bridge over a river frozen solid and covered with slush. Noteven on the river bank was the snow white—the rain which fell was adiluted solution of smoke, and Jurgis’ hands and face were streaked withblack. Then he came into the business part of the city, where the streets weresewers of inky blackness, with horses sleeping and plunging, and women andchildren flying across in panic-stricken droves. These streets were hugecanyons formed by towering black buildings, echoing with the clang of car gongsand the shouts of drivers; the people who swarmed in them were as busy asants—all hurrying breathlessly, never stopping to look at anything nor ateach other. The solitary trampish-looking foreigner, with water-soaked clothingand haggard face and anxious eyes, was as much alone as he hurried past them,as much unheeded and as lost, as if he had been a thousand miles deep in awilderness.

A policeman gave him his direction and told him that he had five miles to go.He came again to the slum districts, to avenues of saloons and cheap stores,with long dingy red factory buildings, and coal-yards and railroad tracks; andthen Jurgis lifted up his head and began to sniff the air like a startledanimal—scenting the far-off odor of home. It was late afternoon then, andhe was hungry, but the dinner invitations hung out of the saloons were not forhim.

So he came at last to the stockyards, to the black volcanoes of smoke and thelowing cattle and the stench. Then, seeing a crowded car, his impatience gotthe better of him and he jumped aboard, hiding behind another man, unnoticed bythe conductor. In ten minutes more he had reached his street, and home.

He was half running as he came round the corner. There was the house, at anyrate—and then suddenly he stopped and stared. What was the matter withthe house?

Jurgis looked twice, bewildered; then he glanced at the house next door and atthe one beyond—then at the saloon on the corner. Yes, it was the rightplace, quite certainly—he had not made any mistake. But thehouse—the house was a different color!

He came a couple of steps nearer. Yes; it had been gray and now it was yellow!The trimmings around the windows had been red, and now they were green! It wasall newly painted! How strange it made it seem!

Jurgis went closer yet, but keeping on the other side of the street. A suddenand horrible spasm of fear had come over him. His knees were shaking beneathhim, and his mind was in a whirl. New paint on the house, and newweatherboards, where the old had begun to rot off, and the agent had got afterthem! New shingles over the hole in the roof, too, the hole that had for sixmonths been the bane of his soul—he having no money to have it fixed andno time to fix it himself, and the rain leaking in, and overflowing the potsand pans he put to catch it, and flooding the attic and loosening the plaster.And now it was fixed! And the broken windowpane replaced! And curtains in thewindows! New, white curtains, stiff and shiny!

Then suddenly the front door opened. Jurgis stood, his chest heaving as hestruggled to catch his breath. A boy had come out, a stranger to him; a big,fat, rosy-cheeked youngster, such as had never been seen in his home before.

Jurgis stared at the boy, fascinated. He came down the steps whistling, kickingoff the snow. He stopped at the foot, and picked up some, and then leanedagainst the railing, making a snowball. A moment later he looked around and sawJurgis, and their eyes met; it was a hostile glance, the boy evidently thinkingthat the other had suspicions of the snowball. When Jurgis started slowlyacross the street toward him, he gave a quick glance about, meditating retreat,but then he concluded to stand his ground.

Jurgis took hold of the railing of the steps, for he was a little unsteady.“What—what are you doing here?” he managed to gasp.

“Go on!” said the boy.

“You—” Jurgis tried again. “What do you wanthere?”

“Me?” answered the boy, angrily. “I live here.”

“You live here!” Jurgis panted. He turned white and clung moretightly to the railing. “You live here! Then where’s myfamily?”

The boy looked surprised. “Your family!” he echoed.

And Jurgis started toward him. “I—this is my house!” hecried.

“Come off!” said the boy; then suddenly the door upstairs opened,and he called: “Hey, ma! Here’s a fellow says he owns thishouse.”

A stout Irishwoman came to the top of the steps. “What’sthat?” she demanded.

Jurgis turned toward her. “Where is my family?” he cried, wildly.“I left them here! This is my home! What are you doing in my home?”

The woman stared at him in frightened wonder, she must have thought she wasdealing with a maniac—Jurgis looked like one. “Your home!”she echoed.

“My home!” he half shrieked. “I lived here, I tellyou.”

“You must be mistaken,” she answered him. “No one ever livedhere. This is a new house. They told us so. They—”

“What have they done with my family?” shouted Jurgis, frantically.

A light had begun to break upon the woman; perhaps she had had doubts of what“they” had told her. “I don’t know where your familyis,” she said. “I bought the house only three days ago, and therewas nobody here, and they told me it was all new. Do you really mean you hadever rented it?”

“Rented it!” panted Jurgis. “I bought it! I paid for it! Iown it! And they—my God, can’t you tell me where my peoplewent?”

She made him understand at last that she knew nothing. Jurgis’ brain wasso confused that he could not grasp the situation. It was as if his family hadbeen wiped out of existence; as if they were proving to be dream people, whonever had existed at all. He was quite lost—but then suddenly he thoughtof Grandmother Majauszkiene, who lived in the next block. She would know! Heturned and started at a run.

Grandmother Majauszkiene came to the door herself. She cried out when she sawJurgis, wild-eyed and shaking. Yes, yes, she could tell him. The family hadmoved; they had not been able to pay the rent and they had been turned out intothe snow, and the house had been repainted and sold again the next week. No,she had not heard how they were, but she could tell him that they had gone backto Aniele Jukniene, with whom they had stayed when they first came to theyards. Wouldn’t Jurgis come in and rest? It was certainly toobad—if only he had not got into jail—

And so Jurgis turned and staggered away. He did not go very far round thecorner he gave out completely, and sat down on the steps of a saloon, and hidhis face in his hands, and shook all over with dry, racking sobs.

Their home! Their home! They had lost it! Grief, despair, rage, overwhelmedhim—what was any imagination of the thing to this heartbreaking, crushingreality of it—to the sight of strange people living in his house, hangingtheir curtains to his windows, staring at him with hostile eyes! It wasmonstrous, it was unthinkable—they could not do it—it could not betrue! Only think what he had suffered for that house—what miseries theyhad all suffered for it—the price they had paid for it!

The whole long agony came back to him. Their sacrifices in the beginning, theirthree hundred dollars that they had scraped together, all they owned in theworld, all that stood between them and starvation! And then their toil, monthby month, to get together the twelve dollars, and the interest as well, and nowand then the taxes, and the other charges, and the repairs, and what not! Why,they had put their very souls into their payments on that house, they had paidfor it with their sweat and tears—yes, more, with their very lifeblood.Dede Antanas had died of the struggle to earn that money—he would havebeen alive and strong today if he had not had to work in Durham’s darkcellars to earn his share. And Ona, too, had given her health and strength topay for it—she was wrecked and ruined because of it; and so was he, whohad been a big, strong man three years ago, and now sat here shivering, broken,cowed, weeping like a hysterical child. Ah! they had cast their all into thefight; and they had lost, they had lost! All that they had paid wasgone—every cent of it. And their house was gone—they were backwhere they had started from, flung out into the cold to starve and freeze!

Jurgis could see all the truth now—could see himself, through the wholelong course of events, the victim of ravenous vultures that had torn into hisvitals and devoured him; of fiends that had racked and tortured him, mockinghim, meantime, jeering in his face. Ah, God, the horror of it, the monstrous,hideous, demoniacal wickedness of it! He and his family, helpless women andchildren, struggling to live, ignorant and defenseless and forlorn as theywere—and the enemies that had been lurking for them, crouching upon theirtrail and thirsting for their blood! That first lying circular, thatsmooth-tongued slippery agent! That trap of the extra payments, the interest,and all the other charges that they had not the means to pay, and would neverhave attempted to pay! And then all the tricks of the packers, their masters,the tyrants who ruled them—the shutdowns and the scarcity of work, theirregular hours and the cruel speeding-up, the lowering of wages, the raisingof prices! The mercilessness of nature about them, of heat and cold, rain andsnow; the mercilessness of the city, of the country in which they lived, of itslaws and customs that they did not understand! All of these things had workedtogether for the company that had marked them for its prey and was waiting forits chance. And now, with this last hideous injustice, its time had come, andit had turned them out bag and baggage, and taken their house and sold itagain! And they could do nothing, they were tied hand and foot—the lawwas against them, the whole machinery of society was at their oppressors’command! If Jurgis so much as raised a hand against them, back he would go intothat wild-beast pen from which he had just escaped!

To get up and go away was to give up, to acknowledge defeat, to leave thestrange family in possession; and Jurgis might have sat shivering in the rainfor hours before he could do that, had it not been for the thought of hisfamily. It might be that he had worse things yet to learn—and so he gotto his feet and started away, walking on, wearily, half-dazed.

To Aniele’s house, in back of the yards, was a good two miles; thedistance had never seemed longer to Jurgis, and when he saw the familiardingy-gray shanty his heart was beating fast. He ran up the steps and began tohammer upon the door.

The old woman herself came to open it. She had shrunk all up with herrheumatism since Jurgis had seen her last, and her yellow parchment face staredup at him from a little above the level of the doorknob. She gave a start whenshe saw him. “Is Ona here?” he cried, breathlessly.

“Yes,” was the answer, “she’s here.”

“How—” Jurgis began, and then stopped short, clutchingconvulsively at the side of the door. From somewhere within the house had comea sudden cry, a wild, horrible scream of anguish. And the voice wasOna’s. For a moment Jurgis stood half-paralyzed with fright; then hebounded past the old woman and into the room.

It was Aniele’s kitchen, and huddled round the stove were half a dozenwomen, pale and frightened. One of them started to her feet as Jurgis entered;she was haggard and frightfully thin, with one arm tied up in bandages—hehardly realized that it was Marija. He looked first for Ona; then, not seeingher, he stared at the women, expecting them to speak. But they sat dumb, gazingback at him, panic-stricken; and a second later came another piercing scream.

It was from the rear of the house, and upstairs. Jurgis bounded to a door ofthe room and flung it open; there was a ladder leading through a trap door tothe garret, and he was at the foot of it when suddenly he heard a voice behindhim, and saw Marija at his heels. She seized him by the sleeve with her goodhand, panting wildly, “No, no, Jurgis! Stop!”

“What do you mean?” he gasped.

“You mustn’t go up,” she cried.

Jurgis was half-crazed with bewilderment and fright. “What’s thematter?” he shouted. “What is it?”

Marija clung to him tightly; he could hear Ona sobbing and moaning above, andhe fought to get away and climb up, without waiting for her reply. “No,no,” she rushed on. “Jurgis! You mustn’t go up!It’s—it’s the child!”

“The child?” he echoed in perplexity. “Antanas?”

Marija answered him, in a whisper: “The new one!”

And then Jurgis went limp, and caught himself on the ladder. He stared at heras if she were a ghost. “The new one!” he gasped. “But itisn’t time,” he added, wildly.

Marija nodded. “I know,” she said; “but it’scome.”

And then again came Ona’s scream, smiting him like a blow in the face,making him wince and turn white. Her voice died away into a wail—then heheard her sobbing again, “My God—let me die, let me die!” AndMarija hung her arms about him, crying: “Come out! Come away!”

She dragged him back into the kitchen, half carrying him, for he had gone allto pieces. It was as if the pillars of his soul had fallen in—he wasblasted with horror. In the room he sank into a chair, trembling like a leaf,Marija still holding him, and the women staring at him in dumb, helplessfright.

And then again Ona cried out; he could hear it nearly as plainly here, and hestaggered to his feet. “How long has this been going on?” hepanted.

“Not very long,” Marija answered, and then, at a signal fromAniele, she rushed on: “You go away, Jurgis you can’t help—goaway and come back later. It’s all right—it’s—”

“Who’s with her?” Jurgis demanded; and then, seeing Marijahesitating, he cried again, “Who’s with her?”

“She’s—she’s all right,” she answered.“Elzbieta’s with her.”

“But the doctor!” he panted. “Some one who knows!”

He seized Marija by the arm; she trembled, and her voice sank beneath a whisperas she replied, “We—we have no money.” Then, frightened atthe look on his face, she exclaimed: “It’s all right, Jurgis! Youdon’t understand—go away—go away! Ah, if you only hadwaited!”

Above her protests Jurgis heard Ona again; he was almost out of his mind. Itwas all new to him, raw and horrible—it had fallen upon him like alightning stroke. When little Antanas was born he had been at work, and hadknown nothing about it until it was over; and now he was not to be controlled.The frightened women were at their wits’ end; one after another theytried to reason with him, to make him understand that this was the lot ofwoman. In the end they half drove him out into the rain, where he began to paceup and down, bareheaded and frantic. Because he could hear Ona from the street,he would first go away to escape the sounds, and then come back because hecould not help it. At the end of a quarter of an hour he rushed up the stepsagain, and for fear that he would break in the door they had to open it and lethim in.

There was no arguing with him. They could not tell him that all was goingwell—how could they know, he cried—why, she was dying, she wasbeing torn to pieces! Listen to her—listen! Why, it wasmonstrous—it could not be allowed—there must be some help for it!Had they tried to get a doctor? They might pay him afterward—they couldpromise—

“We couldn’t promise, Jurgis,” protested Marija. “Wehad no money—we have scarcely been able to keep alive.”

“But I can work,” Jurgis exclaimed. “I can earn money!”

“Yes,” she answered—“but we thought you were in jail.How could we know when you would return? They will not work for nothing.”

Marija went on to tell how she had tried to find a midwife, and how they haddemanded ten, fifteen, even twenty-five dollars, and that in cash. “And Ihad only a quarter,” she said. “I have spent every cent of mymoney—all that I had in the bank; and I owe the doctor who has beencoming to see me, and he has stopped because he thinks I don’t mean topay him. And we owe Aniele for two weeks’ rent, and she is nearlystarving, and is afraid of being turned out. We have been borrowing and beggingto keep alive, and there is nothing more we can do—”

“And the children?” cried Jurgis.

“The children have not been home for three days, the weather has been sobad. They could not know what is happening—it came suddenly, two monthsbefore we expected it.”

Jurgis was standing by the table, and he caught himself with his hand; his headsank and his arms shook—it looked as if he were going to collapse. Thensuddenly Aniele got up and came hobbling toward him, fumbling in her skirtpocket. She drew out a dirty rag, in one corner of which she had somethingtied.

“Here, Jurgis!” she said, “I have some money. Palauk!See!”

She unwrapped it and counted it out—thirty-four cents. “You go,now,” she said, “and try and get somebody yourself. And maybe therest can help—give him some money, you; he will pay you back some day,and it will do him good to have something to think about, even if hedoesn’t succeed. When he comes back, maybe it will be over.”

And so the other women turned out the contents of their pocketbooks; most ofthem had only pennies and nickels, but they gave him all. Mrs. Olszewski, wholived next door, and had a husband who was a skilled cattle butcher, but adrinking man, gave nearly half a dollar, enough to raise the whole sum to adollar and a quarter. Then Jurgis thrust it into his pocket, still holding ittightly in his fist, and started away at a run.

CHAPTER XIX

“Madame Haupt Hebamme”, ran a sign, swinging from a second-storywindow over a saloon on the avenue; at a side door was another sign, with ahand pointing up a dingy flight of stairs. Jurgis went up them, three at atime.

Madame Haupt was frying pork and onions, and had her door half open to let outthe smoke. When he tried to knock upon it, it swung open the rest of the way,and he had a glimpse of her, with a black bottle turned up to her lips. Then heknocked louder, and she started and put it away. She was a Dutchwoman,enormously fat—when she walked she rolled like a small boat on the ocean,and the dishes in the cupboard jostled each other. She wore a filthy bluewrapper, and her teeth were black.

“Vot is it?” she said, when she saw Jurgis.

He had run like mad all the way and was so out of breath he could hardly speak.His hair was flying and his eyes wild—he looked like a man that had risenfrom the tomb. “My wife!” he panted. “Come quickly!”Madame Haupt set the frying pan to one side and wiped her hands on her wrapper.

“You vant me to come for a case?” she inquired.

“Yes,” gasped Jurgis.

“I haf yust come back from a case,” she said. “I haf had notime to eat my dinner. Still—if it is so bad—”

“Yes—it is!” cried he.

“Vell, den, perhaps—vot you pay?”

“I—I—how much do you want?” Jurgis stammered.

“Tventy-five dollars.” His face fell. “I can’t paythat,” he said.

The woman was watching him narrowly. “How much do you pay?” shedemanded.

“Must I pay now—right away?”

“Yes; all my customers do.”

“I—I haven’t much money,” Jurgis began in an agony ofdread. “I’ve been in—in trouble—and my money is gone.But I’ll pay you—every cent—just as soon as I can; I canwork—”

“Vot is your work?”

“I have no place now. I must get one. But I—”

“How much haf you got now?”

He could hardly bring himself to reply. When he said “A dollar and aquarter,” the woman laughed in his face.

“I vould not put on my hat for a dollar and a quarter,” she said.

“It’s all I’ve got,” he pleaded, his voice breaking.“I must get some one—my wife will die. I can’t helpit—I—”

Madame Haupt had put back her pork and onions on the stove. She turned to himand answered, out of the steam and noise: “Git me ten dollars cash, undso you can pay me the rest next mont’.”

“I can’t do it—I haven’t got it!” Jurgisprotested. “I tell you I have only a dollar and a quarter.”

The woman turned to her work. “I don’t believe you,” shesaid. “Dot is all to try to sheat me. Vot is de reason a big man like youhas got only a dollar und a quarter?”

“I’ve just been in jail,” Jurgis cried—he was ready toget down upon his knees to the woman—“and I had no money before,and my family has almost starved.”

“Vere is your friends, dot ought to help you?”

“They are all poor,” he answered. “They gave me this. I havedone everything I can—”

“Haven’t you got notting you can sell?”

“I have nothing, I tell you—I have nothing,” he cried,frantically.

“Can’t you borrow it, den? Don’t your store people trustyou?” Then, as he shook his head, she went on: “Listen tome—if you git me you vill be glad of it. I vill save your wife und babyfor you, and it vill not seem like mooch to you in de end. If you loose dem nowhow you tink you feel den? Und here is a lady dot knows her business—Icould send you to people in dis block, und dey vould tell you—”

Madame Haupt was pointing her cooking-fork at Jurgis persuasively; but herwords were more than he could bear. He flung up his hands with a gesture ofdespair and turned and started away. “It’s no use,” heexclaimed—but suddenly he heard the woman’s voice behind himagain—

“I vill make it five dollars for you.”

She followed behind him, arguing with him. “You vill be foolish not totake such an offer,” she said. “You von’t find nobody go outon a rainy day like dis for less. Vy, I haf never took a case in my life sosheap as dot. I couldn’t pay mine room rent—”

Jurgis interrupted her with an oath of rage. “If I haven’t gotit,” he shouted, “how can I pay it? Damn it, I would pay you if Icould, but I tell you I haven’t got it. I haven’t got it! Do youhear me—I haven’t got it!”

He turned and started away again. He was halfway down the stairs before MadameHaupt could shout to him: “Vait! I vill go mit you! Come back!”

He went back into the room again.

“It is not goot to tink of anybody suffering,” she said, in amelancholy voice. “I might as vell go mit you for noffing as vot youoffer me, but I vill try to help you. How far is it?”

“Three or four blocks from here.”

“Tree or four! Und so I shall get soaked! Gott in Himmel, it ought to bevorth more! Vun dollar und a quarter, und a day like dis!—But youunderstand now—you vill pay me de rest of twenty-five dollarssoon?”

“As soon as I can.”

“Some time dis mont’?”

“Yes, within a month,” said poor Jurgis. “Anything! Hurryup!”

“Vere is de dollar und a quarter?” persisted Madame Haupt,relentlessly.

Jurgis put the money on the table and the woman counted it and stowed it away.Then she wiped her greasy hands again and proceeded to get ready, complainingall the time; she was so fat that it was painful for her to move, and shegrunted and gasped at every step. She took off her wrapper without even takingthe trouble to turn her back to Jurgis, and put on her corsets and dress. Thenthere was a black bonnet which had to be adjusted carefully, and an umbrellawhich was mislaid, and a bag full of necessaries which had to be collected fromhere and there—the man being nearly crazy with anxiety in the meantime.When they were on the street he kept about four paces ahead of her, turning nowand then, as if he could hurry her on by the force of his desire. But MadameHaupt could only go so far at a step, and it took all her attention to get theneeded breath for that.

They came at last to the house, and to the group of frightened women in thekitchen. It was not over yet, Jurgis learned—he heard Ona crying still;and meantime Madame Haupt removed her bonnet and laid it on the mantelpiece,and got out of her bag, first an old dress and then a saucer of goose grease,which she proceeded to rub upon her hands. The more cases this goose grease isused in, the better luck it brings to the midwife, and so she keeps it upon herkitchen mantelpiece or stowed away in a cupboard with her dirty clothes, formonths, and sometimes even for years.

Then they escorted her to the ladder, and Jurgis heard her give an exclamationof dismay. “Gott in Himmel, vot for haf you brought me to a place likedis? I could not climb up dot ladder. I could not git troo a trap door! I villnot try it—vy, I might kill myself already. Vot sort of a place is dotfor a woman to bear a child in—up in a garret, mit only a ladder to it?You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!” Jurgis stood in the doorway andlistened to her scolding, half drowning out the horrible moans and screams ofOna.

At last Aniele succeeded in pacifying her, and she essayed the ascent; then,however, she had to be stopped while the old woman cautioned her about thefloor of the garret. They had no real floor—they had laid old boards inone part to make a place for the family to live; it was all right and safethere, but the other part of the garret had only the joists of the floor, andthe lath and plaster of the ceiling below, and if one stepped on this therewould be a catastrophe. As it was half dark up above, perhaps one of the othershad best go up first with a candle. Then there were more outcries andthreatening, until at last Jurgis had a vision of a pair of elephantine legsdisappearing through the trap door, and felt the house shake as Madame Hauptstarted to walk. Then suddenly Aniele came to him and took him by the arm.

“Now,” she said, “you go away. Do as I tell you—youhave done all you can, and you are only in the way. Go away and stayaway.”

“But where shall I go?” Jurgis asked, helplessly.

“I don’t know where,” she answered. “Go on the street,if there is no other place—only go! And stay all night!”

In the end she and Marija pushed him out of the door and shut it behind him. Itwas just about sundown, and it was turning cold—the rain had changed tosnow, and the slush was freezing. Jurgis shivered in his thin clothing, and puthis hands into his pockets and started away. He had not eaten since morning,and he felt weak and ill; with a sudden throb of hope he recollected he wasonly a few blocks from the saloon where he had been wont to eat his dinner.They might have mercy on him there, or he might meet a friend. He set out forthe place as fast as he could walk.

“Hello, Jack,” said the saloon-keeper, when he entered—theycall all foreigners and unskilled men “Jack” in Packingtown.“Where’ve you been?”

Jurgis went straight to the bar. “I’ve been in jail,” hesaid, “and I’ve just got out. I walked home all the way, andI’ve not a cent, and had nothing to eat since this morning. AndI’ve lost my home, and my wife’s ill, and I’m done up.”

The saloon-keeper gazed at him, with his haggard white face and his bluetrembling lips. Then he pushed a big bottle toward him. “Fill herup!” he said.

Jurgis could hardly hold the bottle, his hands shook so.

“Don’t be afraid,” said the saloon-keeper, “fill herup!”

So Jurgis drank a large glass of whisky, and then turned to the lunch counter,in obedience to the other’s suggestion. He ate all he dared, stuffing itin as fast as he could; and then, after trying to speak his gratitude, he wentand sat down by the big red stove in the middle of the room.

It was too good to last, however—like all things in this hard world. Hissoaked clothing began to steam, and the horrible stench of fertilizer to fillthe room. In an hour or so the packing houses would be closing and the mencoming in from their work; and they would not come into a place that smelt ofJurgis. Also it was Saturday night, and in a couple of hours would come aviolin and a cornet, and in the rear part of the saloon the families of theneighborhood would dance and feast upon wienerwurst and lager, until two orthree o’clock in the morning. The saloon-keeper coughed once or twice,and then remarked, “Say, Jack, I’m afraid you’ll have toquit.”

He was used to the sight of human wrecks, this saloon-keeper; he“fired” dozens of them every night, just as haggard and cold andforlorn as this one. But they were all men who had given up and been countedout, while Jurgis was still in the fight, and had reminders of decency abouthim. As he got up meekly, the other reflected that he had always been a steadyman, and might soon be a good customer again. “You’ve been upagainst it, I see,” he said. “Come this way.”

In the rear of the saloon were the cellar stairs. There was a door above andanother below, both safely padlocked, making the stairs an admirable place tostow away a customer who might still chance to have money, or a political lightwhom it was not advisable to kick out of doors.

So Jurgis spent the night. The whisky had only half warmed him, and he couldnot sleep, exhausted as he was; he would nod forward, and then start up,shivering with the cold, and begin to remember again. Hour after hour passed,until he could only persuade himself that it was not morning by the sounds ofmusic and laughter and singing that were to be heard from the room. When atlast these ceased, he expected that he would be turned out into the street; asthis did not happen, he fell to wondering whether the man had forgotten him.

In the end, when the silence and suspense were no longer to be borne, he got upand hammered on the door; and the proprietor came, yawning and rubbing hiseyes. He was keeping open all night, and dozing between customers.

“I want to go home,” Jurgis said. “I’m worried about mywife—I can’t wait any longer.”

“Why the hell didn’t you say so before?” said the man.“I thought you didn’t have any home to go to.” Jurgis wentoutside. It was four o’clock in the morning, and as black as night. Therewere three or four inches of fresh snow on the ground, and the flakes werefalling thick and fast. He turned toward Aniele’s and started at a run.

There was a light burning in the kitchen window and the blinds were drawn. Thedoor was unlocked and Jurgis rushed in.

Aniele, Marija, and the rest of the women were huddled about the stove, exactlyas before; with them were several newcomers, Jurgis noticed—also henoticed that the house was silent.

“Well?” he said.

No one answered him, they sat staring at him with their pale faces. He criedagain: “Well?”

And then, by the light of the smoky lamp, he saw Marija who sat nearest him,shaking her head slowly. “Not yet,” she said.

And Jurgis gave a cry of dismay. “Not yet?”

Again Marija’s head shook. The poor fellow stood dumfounded. “Idon’t hear her,” he gasped.

“She’s been quiet a long time,” replied the other.

There was another pause—broken suddenly by a voice from the attic:“Hello, there!”

Several of the women ran into the next room, while Marija sprang toward Jurgis.“Wait here!” she cried, and the two stood, pale and trembling,listening. In a few moments it became clear that Madame Haupt was engaged indescending the ladder, scolding and exhorting again, while the ladder creakedin protest. In a moment or two she reached the ground, angry and breathless,and they heard her coming into the room. Jurgis gave one glance at her, andthen turned white and reeled. She had her jacket off, like one of the workerson the killing beds. Her hands and arms were smeared with blood, and blood wassplashed upon her clothing and her face.

She stood breathing hard, and gazing about her; no one made a sound. “Ihaf done my best,” she began suddenly. “I can do noffingmore—dere is no use to try.”

Again there was silence.

“It ain’t my fault,” she said. “You had ought to hafhad a doctor, und not vaited so long—it vas too late already ven Icome.” Once more there was deathlike stillness. Marija was clutchingJurgis with all the power of her one well arm.

Then suddenly Madame Haupt turned to Aniele. “You haf not got somethingto drink, hey?” she queried. “Some brandy?”

Aniele shook her head.

“Herr Gott!” exclaimed Madame Haupt. “Such people! Perhapsyou vill give me someting to eat den—I haf had noffing since yesterdaymorning, und I haf vorked myself near to death here. If I could haf known itvas like dis, I vould never haf come for such money as you gif me.” Atthis moment she chanced to look round, and saw Jurgis: She shook her finger athim. “You understand me,” she said, “you pays me dot moneyyust de same! It is not my fault dat you send for me so late I can’t helpyour vife. It is not my fault if der baby comes mit one arm first, so dot Ican’t save it. I haf tried all night, und in dot place vere it is not fitfor dogs to be born, und mit notting to eat only vot I brings in mine ownpockets.”

Here Madame Haupt paused for a moment to get her breath; and Marija, seeing thebeads of sweat on Jurgis’s forehead, and feeling the quivering of hisframe, broke out in a low voice: “How is Ona?”

“How is she?” echoed Madame Haupt. “How do you tink she canbe ven you leave her to kill herself so? I told dem dot ven they send for depriest. She is young, und she might haf got over it, und been vell und strong,if she had been treated right. She fight hard, dot girl—she is not yetquite dead.”

And Jurgis gave a frantic scream. “Dead!”

“She vill die, of course,” said the other angrily. “Der babyis dead now.”

The garret was lighted by a candle stuck upon a board; it had almost burneditself out, and was sputtering and smoking as Jurgis rushed up the ladder. Hecould make out dimly in one corner a pallet of rags and old blankets, spreadupon the floor; at the foot of it was a crucifix, and near it a priestmuttering a prayer. In a far corner crouched Elzbieta, moaning and wailing.Upon the pallet lay Ona.

She was covered with a blanket, but he could see her shoulders and one armlying bare; she was so shrunken he would scarcely have known her—she wasall but a skeleton, and as white as a piece of chalk. Her eyelids were closed,and she lay still as death. He staggered toward her and fell upon his kneeswith a cry of anguish: “Ona! Ona!”

She did not stir. He caught her hand in his, and began to clasp it frantically,calling: “Look at me! Answer me! It is Jurgis come back—don’tyou hear me?”

There was the faintest quivering of the eyelids, and he called again in frenzy:“Ona! Ona!”

Then suddenly her eyes opened one instant. One instant she looked athim—there was a flash of recognition between them, he saw her afar off,as through a dim vista, standing forlorn. He stretched out his arms to her, hecalled her in wild despair; a fearful yearning surged up in him, hunger for herthat was agony, desire that was a new being born within him, tearing hisheartstrings, torturing him. But it was all in vain—she faded from him,she slipped back and was gone. And a wail of anguish burst from him, great sobsshook all his frame, and hot tears ran down his cheeks and fell upon her. Heclutched her hands, he shook her, he caught her in his arms and pressed her tohim but she lay cold and still—she was gone—she was gone!

The word rang through him like the sound of a bell, echoing in the far depthsof him, making forgotten chords to vibrate, old shadowy fears tostir—fears of the dark, fears of the void, fears of annihilation. She wasdead! She was dead! He would never see her again, never hear her again! An icyhorror of loneliness seized him; he saw himself standing apart and watching allthe world fade away from him—a world of shadows, of fickle dreams. He waslike a little child, in his fright and grief; he called and called, and got noanswer, and his cries of despair echoed through the house, making the womendownstairs draw nearer to each other in fear. He was inconsolable, besidehimself—the priest came and laid his hand upon his shoulder and whisperedto him, but he heard not a sound. He was gone away himself, stumbling throughthe shadows, and groping after the soul that had fled.

So he lay. The gray dawn came up and crept into the attic. The priest left, thewomen left, and he was alone with the still, white figure—quieter now,but moaning and shuddering, wrestling with the grisly fiend. Now and then hewould raise himself and stare at the white mask before him, then hide his eyesbecause he could not bear it. Dead! dead! And she was only a girl, shewas barely eighteen! Her life had hardly begun—and here she laymurdered—mangled, tortured to death!

It was morning when he rose up and came down into the kitchen—haggard andashen gray, reeling and dazed. More of the neighbors had come in, and theystared at him in silence as he sank down upon a chair by the table and buriedhis face in his arms.

A few minutes later the front door opened; a blast of cold and snow rushed in,and behind it little Kotrina, breathless from running, and blue with the cold.“I’m home again!” she exclaimed. “I couldhardly—”

And then, seeing Jurgis, she stopped with an exclamation. Looking from one toanother she saw that something had happened, and she asked, in a lower voice:“What’s the matter?”

Before anyone could reply, Jurgis started up; he went toward her, walkingunsteadily. “Where have you been?” he demanded.

“Selling papers with the boys,” she said. “Thesnow—”

“Have you any money?” he demanded.

“Yes.”

“How much?”

“Nearly three dollars, Jurgis.”

“Give it to me.”

Kotrina, frightened by his manner, glanced at the others. “Give it tome!” he commanded again, and she put her hand into her pocket and pulledout a lump of coins tied in a bit of rag. Jurgis took it without a word, andwent out of the door and down the street.

Three doors away was a saloon. “Whisky,” he said, as he entered,and as the man pushed him some, he tore at the rag with his teeth and pulledout half a dollar. “How much is the bottle?” he said. “I wantto get drunk.”

CHAPTER XX

But a big man cannot stay drunk very long on three dollars. That was Sundaymorning, and Monday night Jurgis came home, sober and sick, realizing that hehad spent every cent the family owned, and had not bought a singleinstant’s forgetfulness with it.

Ona was not yet buried; but the police had been notified, and on the morrowthey would put the body in a pine coffin and take it to the potter’sfield. Elzbieta was out begging now, a few pennies from each of the neighbors,to get enough to pay for a mass for her; and the children were upstairsstarving to death, while he, good-for-nothing rascal, had been spending theirmoney on drink. So spoke Aniele, scornfully, and when he started toward thefire she added the information that her kitchen was no longer for him to fillwith his phosphate stinks. She had crowded all her boarders into one room onOna’s account, but now he could go up in the garret where hebelonged—and not there much longer, either, if he did not pay her somerent.

Jurgis went without a word, and, stepping over half a dozen sleeping boardersin the next room, ascended the ladder. It was dark up above; they could notafford any light; also it was nearly as cold as outdoors. In a corner, as faraway from the corpse as possible, sat Marija, holding little Antanas in her onegood arm and trying to soothe him to sleep. In another corner crouched poorlittle Juozapas, wailing because he had had nothing to eat all day. Marija saidnot a word to Jurgis; he crept in like a whipped cur, and went and sat down bythe body.

Perhaps he ought to have meditated upon the hunger of the children, and uponhis own baseness; but he thought only of Ona, he gave himself up again to theluxury of grief. He shed no tears, being ashamed to make a sound; he satmotionless and shuddering with his anguish. He had never dreamed how much heloved Ona, until now that she was gone; until now that he sat here, knowingthat on the morrow they would take her away, and that he would never lay eyesupon her again—never all the days of his life. His old love, which hadbeen starved to death, beaten to death, awoke in him again; the floodgates ofmemory were lifted—he saw all their life together, saw her as he had seenher in Lithuania, the first day at the fair, beautiful as the flowers, singinglike a bird. He saw her as he had married her, with all her tenderness, withher heart of wonder; the very words she had spoken seemed to ring now in hisears, the tears she had shed to be wet upon his cheek. The long, cruel battlewith misery and hunger had hardened and embittered him, but it had not changedher—she had been the same hungry soul to the end, stretching out her armsto him, pleading with him, begging him for love and tenderness. And she hadsuffered—so cruelly she had suffered, such agonies, suchinfamies—ah, God, the memory of them was not to be borne. What a monsterof wickedness, of heartlessness, he had been! Every angry word that he had everspoken came back to him and cut him like a knife; every selfish act that he haddone—with what torments he paid for them now! And such devotion and aweas welled up in his soul—now that it could never be spoken, now that itwas too late, too late! His bosom-was choking with it, bursting with it; hecrouched here in the darkness beside her, stretching out his arms toher—and she was gone forever, she was dead! He could have screamed aloudwith the horror and despair of it; a sweat of agony beaded his forehead, yet hedared not make a sound—he scarcely dared to breathe, because of his shameand loathing of himself.

Late at night came Elzbieta, having gotten the money for a mass, and paid forit in advance, lest she should be tempted too sorely at home. She brought alsoa bit of stale rye bread that some one had given her, and with that theyquieted the children and got them to sleep. Then she came over to Jurgis andsat down beside him.

She said not a word of reproach—she and Marija had chosen that coursebefore; she would only plead with him, here by the corpse of his dead wife.Already Elzbieta had choked down her tears, grief being crowded out of her soulby fear. She had to bury one of her children—but then she had done itthree times before, and each time risen up and gone back to take up the battlefor the rest. Elzbieta was one of the primitive creatures: like the angleworm,which goes on living though cut in half; like a hen, which, deprived of herchickens one by one, will mother the last that is left her. She did thisbecause it was her nature—she asked no questions about the justice of it,nor the worth-whileness of life in which destruction and death ran riot.

And this old common-sense view she labored to impress upon Jurgis, pleadingwith him with tears in her eyes. Ona was dead, but the others were left andthey must be saved. She did not ask for her own children. She and Marija couldcare for them somehow, but there was Antanas, his own son. Ona had givenAntanas to him—the little fellow was the only remembrance of her that hehad; he must treasure it and protect it, he must show himself a man. He knewwhat Ona would have had him do, what she would ask of him at this moment, ifshe could speak to him. It was a terrible thing that she should have died asshe had; but the life had been too hard for her, and she had to go. It wasterrible that they were not able to bury her, that he could not even have a dayto mourn her—but so it was. Their fate was pressing; they had not a cent,and the children would perish—some money must be had. Could he not be aman for Ona’s sake, and pull himself together? In a little while theywould be out of danger—now that they had given up the house they couldlive more cheaply, and with all the children working they could get along, ifonly he would not go to pieces. So Elzbieta went on, with feverish intensity.It was a struggle for life with her; she was not afraid that Jurgis would go ondrinking, for he had no money for that, but she was wild with dread at thethought that he might desert them, might take to the road, as Jonas had done.

But with Ona’s dead body beneath his eyes, Jurgis could not well think oftreason to his child. Yes, he said, he would try, for the sake of Antanas. Hewould give the little fellow his chance—would get to work at once, yes,tomorrow, without even waiting for Ona to be buried. They might trust him, hewould keep his word, come what might.

And so he was out before daylight the next morning, headache, heartache, andall. He went straight to Graham’s fertilizer mill, to see if he could getback his job. But the boss shook his head when he saw him—no, his placehad been filled long ago, and there was no room for him.

“Do you think there will be?” Jurgis asked. “I may have towait.”

“No,” said the other, “it will not be worth your while towait—there will be nothing for you here.”

Jurgis stood gazing at him in perplexity. “What is the matter?” heasked. “Didn’t I do my work?”

The other met his look with one of cold indifference, and answered,“There will be nothing for you here, I said.”

Jurgis had his suspicions as to the dreadful meaning of that incident, and hewent away with a sinking at the heart. He went and took his stand with the mobof hungry wretches who were standing about in the snow before the time station.Here he stayed, breakfastless, for two hours, until the throng was driven awayby the clubs of the police. There was no work for him that day.

Jurgis had made a good many acquaintances in his long services at theyards—there were saloonkeepers who would trust him for a drink and asandwich, and members of his old union who would lend him a dime at a pinch. Itwas not a question of life and death for him, therefore; he might hunt all day,and come again on the morrow, and try hanging on thus for weeks, like hundredsand thousands of others. Meantime, Teta Elzbieta would go and beg, over in theHyde Park district, and the children would bring home enough to pacify Aniele,and keep them all alive.

It was at the end of a week of this sort of waiting, roaming about in thebitter winds or loafing in saloons, that Jurgis stumbled on a chance in one ofthe cellars of Jones’s big packing plant. He saw a foreman passing theopen doorway, and hailed him for a job.

“Push a truck?” inquired the man, and Jurgis answered, “Yes,sir!” before the words were well out of his mouth.

“What’s your name?” demanded the other.

“Jurgis Rudkus.”

“Worked in the yards before?”

“Yes.”

“Whereabouts?”

“Two places—Brown’s killing beds and Durham’sfertilizer mill.”

“Why did you leave there?”

“The first time I had an accident, and the last time I was sent up for amonth.”

“I see. Well, I’ll give you a trial. Come early tomorrow and askfor Mr. Thomas.”

So Jurgis rushed home with the wild tidings that he had a job—that theterrible siege was over. The remnants of the family had quite a celebrationthat night; and in the morning Jurgis was at the place half an hour before thetime of opening. The foreman came in shortly afterward, and when he saw Jurgishe frowned.

“Oh,” he said, “I promised you a job, didn’t I?”

“Yes, sir,” said Jurgis.

“Well, I’m sorry, but I made a mistake. I can’t useyou.”

Jurgis stared, dumfounded. “What’s the matter?” he gasped.

“Nothing,” said the man, “only I can’t use you.”

There was the same cold, hostile stare that he had had from the boss of thefertilizer mill. He knew that there was no use in saying a word, and he turnedand went away.

Out in the saloons the men could tell him all about the meaning of it; theygazed at him with pitying eyes—poor devil, he was blacklisted! What hadhe done? they asked—knocked down his boss? Good heavens, then he mighthave known! Why, he stood as much chance of getting a job in Packingtown as ofbeing chosen mayor of Chicago. Why had he wasted his time hunting? They had himon a secret list in every office, big and little, in the place. They had hisname by this time in St. Louis and New York, in Omaha and Boston, in KansasCity and St. Joseph. He was condemned and sentenced, without trial and withoutappeal; he could never work for the packers again—he could not even cleancattle pens or drive a truck in any place where they controlled. He might tryit, if he chose, as hundreds had tried it, and found out for themselves. Hewould never be told anything about it; he would never get any more satisfactionthan he had gotten just now; but he would always find when the time came thathe was not needed. It would not do for him to give any other name,either—they had company “spotters” for just that purpose, andhe wouldn’t keep a job in Packingtown three days. It was worth a fortuneto the packers to keep their blacklist effective, as a warning to the men and ameans of keeping down union agitation and political discontent.

Jurgis went home, carrying these new tidings to the family council. It was amost cruel thing; here in this district was his home, such as it was, the placehe was used to and the friends he knew—and now every possibility ofemployment in it was closed to him. There was nothing in Packingtown butpacking houses; and so it was the same thing as evicting him from his home.

He and the two women spent all day and half the night discussing it. It wouldbe convenient, downtown, to the children’s place of work; but then Marijawas on the road to recovery, and had hopes of getting a job in the yards; andthough she did not see her old-time lover once a month, because of the miseryof their state, yet she could not make up her mind to go away and give him upforever. Then, too, Elzbieta had heard something about a chance to scrub floorsin Durham’s offices and was waiting every day for word. In the end it wasdecided that Jurgis should go downtown to strike out for himself, and theywould decide after he got a job. As there was no one from whom he could borrowthere, and he dared not beg for fear of being arrested, it was arranged thatevery day he should meet one of the children and be given fifteen cents oftheir earnings, upon which he could keep going. Then all day he was to pace thestreets with hundreds and thousands of other homeless wretches inquiring atstores, warehouses, and factories for a chance; and at night he was to crawlinto some doorway or underneath a truck, and hide there until midnight, when hemight get into one of the station houses, and spread a newspaper upon thefloor, and lie down in the midst of a throng of “bums” and beggars,reeking with alcohol and tobacco, and filthy with vermin and disease.

So for two weeks more Jurgis fought with the demon of despair. Once he got achance to load a truck for half a day, and again he carried an oldwoman’s valise and was given a quarter. This let him into a lodging-houseon several nights when he might otherwise have frozen to death; and it alsogave him a chance now and then to buy a newspaper in the morning and hunt upjobs while his rivals were watching and waiting for a paper to be thrown away.This, however, was really not the advantage it seemed, for the newspaperadvertisements were a cause of much loss of precious time and of many wearyjourneys. A full half of these were “fakes,” put in by the endlessvariety of establishments which preyed upon the helpless ignorance of theunemployed. If Jurgis lost only his time, it was because he had nothing else tolose; whenever a smooth-tongued agent would tell him of the wonderful positionshe had on hand, he could only shake his head sorrowfully and say that he hadnot the necessary dollar to deposit; when it was explained to him what“big money” he and all his family could make by coloringphotographs, he could only promise to come in again when he had two dollars toinvest in the outfit.

In the end Jurgis got a chance through an accidental meeting with an old-timeacquaintance of his union days. He met this man on his way to work in the giantfactories of the Harvester Trust; and his friend told him to come along and hewould speak a good word for him to his boss, whom he knew well. So Jurgistrudged four or five miles, and passed through a waiting throng of unemployedat the gate under the escort of his friend. His knees nearly gave way beneathhim when the foreman, after looking him over and questioning him, told him thathe could find an opening for him.

How much this accident meant to Jurgis he realized only by stages; for he foundthat the harvester works were the sort of place to which philanthropists andreformers pointed with pride. It had some thought for its employees; itsworkshops were big and roomy, it provided a restaurant where the workmen couldbuy good food at cost, it had even a reading room, and decent places where itsgirl-hands could rest; also the work was free from many of the elements offilth and repulsiveness that prevailed at the stockyards. Day after day Jurgisdiscovered these things—things never expected nor dreamed of byhim—until this new place came to seem a kind of a heaven to him.

It was an enormous establishment, covering a hundred and sixty acres of ground,employing five thousand people, and turning out over three hundred thousandmachines every year—a good part of all the harvesting and mowing machinesused in the country. Jurgis saw very little of it, of course—it was allspecialized work, the same as at the stockyards; each one of the hundreds ofparts of a mowing machine was made separately, and sometimes handled byhundreds of men. Where Jurgis worked there was a machine which cut and stampeda certain piece of steel about two square inches in size; the pieces cametumbling out upon a tray, and all that human hands had to do was to pile themin regular rows, and change the trays at intervals. This was done by a singleboy, who stood with eyes and thought centered upon it, and fingers flying sofast that the sounds of the bits of steel striking upon each other was like themusic of an express train as one hears it in a sleeping car at night. This was“piece-work,” of course; and besides it was made certain that theboy did not idle, by setting the machine to match the highest possible speed ofhuman hands. Thirty thousand of these pieces he handled every day, nine or tenmillion every year—how many in a lifetime it rested with the gods to say.Near by him men sat bending over whirling grindstones, putting the finishingtouches to the steel knives of the reaper; picking them out of a basket withthe right hand, pressing first one side and then the other against the stoneand finally dropping them with the left hand into another basket. One of thesemen told Jurgis that he had sharpened three thousand pieces of steel a day forthirteen years. In the next room were wonderful machines that ate up long steelrods by slow stages, cutting them off, seizing the pieces, stamping heads uponthem, grinding them and polishing them, threading them, and finally droppingthem into a basket, all ready to bolt the harvesters together. From yet anothermachine came tens of thousands of steel burs to fit upon these bolts. In otherplaces all these various parts were dipped into troughs of paint and hung up todry, and then slid along on trolleys to a room where men streaked them with redand yellow, so that they might look cheerful in the harvest fields.

Jurgis’s friend worked upstairs in the casting rooms, and his task was tomake the molds of a certain part. He shoveled black sand into an ironreceptacle and pounded it tight and set it aside to harden; then it would betaken out, and molten iron poured into it. This man, too, was paid by themold—or rather for perfect castings, nearly half his work going fornaught. You might see him, along with dozens of others, toiling like onepossessed by a whole community of demons; his arms working like the drivingrods of an engine, his long, black hair flying wild, his eyes starting out, thesweat rolling in rivers down his face. When he had shoveled the mold full ofsand, and reached for the pounder to pound it with, it was after the manner ofa canoeist running rapids and seizing a pole at sight of a submerged rock. Allday long this man would toil thus, his whole being centered upon the purpose ofmaking twenty-three instead of twenty-two and a half cents an hour; and thenhis product would be reckoned up by the census taker, and jubilant captains ofindustry would boast of it in their banquet halls, telling how our workers arenearly twice as efficient as those of any other country. If we are the greatestnation the sun ever shone upon, it would seem to be mainly because we have beenable to goad our wage-earners to this pitch of frenzy; though there are a fewother things that are great among us including our drink-bill, which is abillion and a quarter of dollars a year, and doubling itself every decade.

There was a machine which stamped out the iron plates, and then another which,with a mighty thud, mashed them to the shape of the sitting-down portion of theAmerican farmer. Then they were piled upon a truck, and it was Jurgis’stask to wheel them to the room where the machines were “assembled.”This was child’s play for him, and he got a dollar and seventy-five centsa day for it; on Saturday he paid Aniele the seventy-five cents a week he owedher for the use of her garret, and also redeemed his overcoat, which Elzbietahad put in pawn when he was in jail.

This last was a great blessing. A man cannot go about in midwinter in Chicagowith no overcoat and not pay for it, and Jurgis had to walk or ride five or sixmiles back and forth to his work. It so happened that half of this was in onedirection and half in another, necessitating a change of cars; the law requiredthat transfers be given at all intersecting points, but the railway corporationhad gotten round this by arranging a pretense at separate ownership. Sowhenever he wished to ride, he had to pay ten cents each way, or over ten percent of his income to this power, which had gotten its franchises long ago bybuying up the city council, in the face of popular clamor amounting almost to arebellion. Tired as he felt at night, and dark and bitter cold as it was in themorning, Jurgis generally chose to walk; at the hours other workmen weretraveling, the streetcar monopoly saw fit to put on so few cars that therewould be men hanging to every foot of the backs of them and often crouchingupon the snow-covered roof. Of course the doors could never be closed, and sothe cars were as cold as outdoors; Jurgis, like many others, found it better tospend his fare for a drink and a free lunch, to give him strength to walk.

These, however, were all slight matters to a man who had escaped fromDurham’s fertilizer mill. Jurgis began to pick up heart again and to makeplans. He had lost his house but then the awful load of the rent and interestwas off his shoulders, and when Marija was well again they could start over andsave. In the shop where he worked was a man, a Lithuanian like himself, whomthe others spoke of in admiring whispers, because of the mighty feats he wasperforming. All day he sat at a machine turning bolts; and then in the eveninghe went to the public school to study English and learn to read. In addition,because he had a family of eight children to support and his earnings were notenough, on Saturdays and Sundays he served as a watchman; he was required topress two buttons at opposite ends of a building every five minutes, and as thewalk only took him two minutes, he had three minutes to study between eachtrip. Jurgis felt jealous of this fellow; for that was the sort of thing hehimself had dreamed of, two or three years ago. He might do it even yet, if hehad a fair chance—he might attract attention and become a skilled man ora boss, as some had done in this place. Suppose that Marija could get a job inthe big mill where they made binder twine—then they would move into thisneighborhood, and he would really have a chance. With a hope like that, therewas some use in living; to find a place where you were treated like a humanbeing—by God! he would show them how he could appreciate it. He laughedto himself as he thought how he would hang on to this job!

And then one afternoon, the ninth of his work in the place, when he went to gethis overcoat he saw a group of men crowded before a placard on the door, andwhen he went over and asked what it was, they told him that beginning with themorrow his department of the harvester works would be closed until furthernotice!

CHAPTER XXI

That was the way they did it! There was not half an hour’swarning—the works were closed! It had happened that way before, said themen, and it would happen that way forever. They had made all the harvestingmachines that the world needed, and now they had to wait till some wore out! Itwas nobody’s fault—that was the way of it; and thousands of men andwomen were turned out in the dead of winter, to live upon their savings if theyhad any, and otherwise to die. So many tens of thousands already in the city,homeless and begging for work, and now several thousand more added to them!

Jurgis walked home-with his pittance of pay in his pocket, heartbroken,overwhelmed. One more bandage had been torn from his eyes, one more pitfall wasrevealed to him! Of what help was kindness and decency on the part ofemployers—when they could not keep a job for him, when there were moreharvesting machines made than the world was able to buy! What a hellish mockeryit was, anyway, that a man should slave to make harvesting machines for thecountry, only to be turned out to starve for doing his duty too well!

It took him two days to get over this heart-sickening disappointment. He didnot drink anything, because Elzbieta got his money for safekeeping, and knewhim too well to be in the least frightened by his angry demands. He stayed upin the garret however, and sulked—what was the use of a man’shunting a job when it was taken from him before he had time to learn the work?But then their money was going again, and little Antanas was hungry, and cryingwith the bitter cold of the garret. Also Madame Haupt, the midwife, was afterhim for some money. So he went out once more.

For another ten days he roamed the streets and alleys of the huge city, sickand hungry, begging for any work. He tried in stores and offices, inrestaurants and hotels, along the docks and in the railroad yards, inwarehouses and mills and factories where they made products that went to everycorner of the world. There were often one or two chances—but there werealways a hundred men for every chance, and his turn would not come. At night hecrept into sheds and cellars and doorways—until there came a spell ofbelated winter weather, with a raging gale, and the thermometer five degreesbelow zero at sundown and falling all night. Then Jurgis fought like a wildbeast to get into the big Harrison Street police station, and slept down in acorridor, crowded with two other men upon a single step.

He had to fight often in these days to fight for a place near the factorygates, and now and again with gangs on the street. He found, for instance, thatthe business of carrying satchels for railroad passengers was a pre-emptedone—whenever he essayed it, eight or ten men and boys would fall upon himand force him to run for his life. They always had the policeman“squared,” and so there was no use in expecting protection.

That Jurgis did not starve to death was due solely to the pittance the childrenbrought him. And even this was never certain. For one thing the cold was almostmore than the children could bear; and then they, too, were in perpetual perilfrom rivals who plundered and beat them. The law was against them,too—little Vilimas, who was really eleven, but did not look to be eight,was stopped on the streets by a severe old lady in spectacles, who told himthat he was too young to be working and that if he did not stop selling papersshe would send a truant officer after him. Also one night a strange man caughtlittle Kotrina by the arm and tried to persuade her into a dark cellar-way, anexperience which filled her with such terror that she was hardly to be kept atwork.

At last, on a Sunday, as there was no use looking for work, Jurgis went home bystealing rides on the cars. He found that they had been waiting for him forthree days—there was a chance of a job for him.

It was quite a story. Little Juozapas, who was near crazy with hunger thesedays, had gone out on the street to beg for himself. Juozapas had only one leg,having been run over by a wagon when a little child, but he had got himself abroomstick, which he put under his arm for a crutch. He had fallen in with someother children and found the way to Mike Scully’s dump, which lay threeor four blocks away. To this place there came every day many hundreds ofwagon-loads of garbage and trash from the lake front, where the rich peoplelived; and in the heaps the children raked for food—there were hunks ofbread and potato peelings and apple cores and meat bones, all of it half frozenand quite unspoiled. Little Juozapas gorged himself, and came home with anewspaper full, which he was feeding to Antanas when his mother came in.Elzbieta was horrified, for she did not believe that the food out of the dumpswas fit to eat. The next day, however, when no harm came of it and Juozapasbegan to cry with hunger, she gave in and said that he might go again. And thatafternoon he came home with a story of how while he had been digging away witha stick, a lady upon the street had called him. A real fine lady, the littleboy explained, a beautiful lady; and she wanted to know all about him, andwhether he got the garbage for chickens, and why he walked with a broomstick,and why Ona had died, and how Jurgis had come to go to jail, and what was thematter with Marija, and everything. In the end she had asked where he lived,and said that she was coming to see him, and bring him a new crutch to walkwith. She had on a hat with a bird upon it, Juozapas added, and a long fursnake around her neck.

She really came, the very next morning, and climbed the ladder to the garret,and stood and stared about her, turning pale at the sight of the blood stainson the floor where Ona had died. She was a “settlement worker,” sheexplained to Elzbieta—she lived around on Ashland Avenue. Elzbieta knewthe place, over a feed store; somebody had wanted her to go there, but she hadnot cared to, for she thought that it must have something to do with religion,and the priest did not like her to have anything to do with strange religions.They were rich people who came to live there to find out about the poor people;but what good they expected it would do them to know, one could not imagine. Sospoke Elzbieta, naïvely, and the young lady laughed and was rather at a lossfor an answer—she stood and gazed about her, and thought of a cynicalremark that had been made to her, that she was standing upon the brink of thepit of hell and throwing in snowballs to lower the temperature.

Elzbieta was glad to have somebody to listen, and she told all theirwoes—what had happened to Ona, and the jail, and the loss of their home,and Marija’s accident, and how Ona had died, and how Jurgis could get nowork. As she listened the pretty young lady’s eyes filled with tears, andin the midst of it she burst into weeping and hid her face on Elzbieta’sshoulder, quite regardless of the fact that the woman had on a dirty oldwrapper and that the garret was full of fleas. Poor Elzbieta was ashamed ofherself for having told so woeful a tale, and the other had to beg and pleadwith her to get her to go on. The end of it was that the young lady sent them abasket of things to eat, and left a letter that Jurgis was to take to agentleman who was superintendent in one of the mills of the great steelworks inSouth Chicago. “He will get Jurgis something to do,” the young ladyhad said, and added, smiling through her tears—“If hedoesn’t, he will never marry me.”

The steel-works were fifteen miles away, and as usual it was so contrived thatone had to pay two fares to get there. Far and wide the sky was flaring withthe red glare that leaped from rows of towering chimneys—for it was pitchdark when Jurgis arrived. The vast works, a city in themselves, were surroundedby a stockade; and already a full hundred men were waiting at the gate wherenew hands were taken on. Soon after daybreak whistles began to blow, and thensuddenly thousands of men appeared, streaming from saloons and boardinghousesacross the way, leaping from trolley cars that passed—it seemed as ifthey rose out of the ground, in the dim gray light. A river of them poured inthrough the gate—and then gradually ebbed away again, until there wereonly a few late ones running, and the watchman pacing up and down, and thehungry strangers stamping and shivering.

Jurgis presented his precious letter. The gatekeeper was surly, and put himthrough a catechism, but he insisted that he knew nothing, and as he had takenthe precaution to seal his letter, there was nothing for the gatekeeper to dobut send it to the person to whom it was addressed. A messenger came back tosay that Jurgis should wait, and so he came inside of the gate, perhaps notsorry enough that there were others less fortunate watching him with greedyeyes. The great mills were getting under way—one could hear a vaststirring, a rolling and rumbling and hammering. Little by little the scene grewplain: towering, black buildings here and there, long rows of shops and sheds,little railways branching everywhere, bare gray cinders underfoot and oceans ofbillowing black smoke above. On one side of the grounds ran a railroad with adozen tracks, and on the other side lay the lake, where steamers came to load.

Jurgis had time enough to stare and speculate, for it was two hours before hewas summoned. He went into the office building, where a company timekeeperinterviewed him. The superintendent was busy, he said, but he (the timekeeper)would try to find Jurgis a job. He had never worked in a steel mill before? Buthe was ready for anything? Well, then, they would go and see.

So they began a tour, among sights that made Jurgis stare amazed. He wonderedif ever he could get used to working in a place like this, where the air shookwith deafening thunder, and whistles shrieked warnings on all sides of him atonce; where miniature steam engines came rushing upon him, and sizzling,quivering, white-hot masses of metal sped past him, and explosions of fire andflaming sparks dazzled him and scorched his face. The men in these mills wereall black with soot, and hollow-eyed and gaunt; they worked with fierceintensity, rushing here and there, and never lifting their eyes from theirtasks. Jurgis clung to his guide like a scared child to its nurse, and whilethe latter hailed one foreman after another to ask if they could use anotherunskilled man, he stared about him and marveled.

He was taken to the Bessemer furnace, where they made billets of steel—adome-like building, the size of a big theater. Jurgis stood where the balconyof the theater would have been, and opposite, by the stage, he saw three giantcaldrons, big enough for all the devils of hell to brew their broth in, full ofsomething white and blinding, bubbling and splashing, roaring as if volcanoeswere blowing through it—one had to shout to be heard in the place. Liquidfire would leap from these caldrons and scatter like bombs below—and menwere working there, seeming careless, so that Jurgis caught his breath withfright. Then a whistle would toot, and across the curtain of the theater wouldcome a little engine with a carload of something to be dumped into one of thereceptacles; and then another whistle would toot, down by the stage, andanother train would back up—and suddenly, without an instant’swarning, one of the giant kettles began to tilt and topple, flinging out a jetof hissing, roaring flame. Jurgis shrank back appalled, for he thought it wasan accident; there fell a pillar of white flame, dazzling as the sun, swishinglike a huge tree falling in the forest. A torrent of sparks swept all the wayacross the building, overwhelming everything, hiding it from sight; and thenJurgis looked through the fingers of his hands, and saw pouring out of thecaldron a cascade of living, leaping fire, white with a whiteness not of earth,scorching the eyeballs. Incandescent rainbows shone above it, blue, red, andgolden lights played about it; but the stream itself was white, ineffable. Outof regions of wonder it streamed, the very river of life; and the soul leapedup at the sight of it, fled back upon it, swift and resistless, back intofar-off lands, where beauty and terror dwell. Then the great caldron tiltedback again, empty, and Jurgis saw to his relief that no one was hurt, andturned and followed his guide out into the sunlight.

They went through the blast furnaces, through rolling mills where bars of steelwere tossed about and chopped like bits of cheese. All around and above giantmachine arms were flying, giant wheels were turning, great hammers crashing;traveling cranes creaked and groaned overhead, reaching down iron hands andseizing iron prey—it was like standing in the center of the earth, wherethe machinery of time was revolving.

By and by they came to the place where steel rails were made; and Jurgis hearda toot behind him, and jumped out of the way of a car with a white-hot ingotupon it, the size of a man’s body. There was a sudden crash and the carcame to a halt, and the ingot toppled out upon a moving platform, where steelfingers and arms seized hold of it, punching it and prodding it into place, andhurrying it into the grip of huge rollers. Then it came out upon the otherside, and there were more crashings and clatterings, and over it was flopped,like a pancake on a gridiron, and seized again and rushed back at you throughanother squeezer. So amid deafening uproar it clattered to and fro, growingthinner and flatter and longer. The ingot seemed almost a living thing; it didnot want to run this mad course, but it was in the grip of fate, it was tumbledon, screeching and clanking and shivering in protest. By and by it was long andthin, a great red snake escaped from purgatory; and then, as it slid throughthe rollers, you would have sworn that it was alive—it writhed andsquirmed, and wriggles and shudders passed out through its tail, all butflinging it off by their violence. There was no rest for it until it was coldand black—and then it needed only to be cut and straightened to be readyfor a railroad.

It was at the end of this rail’s progress that Jurgis got his chance.They had to be moved by men with crowbars, and the boss here could use anotherman. So he took off his coat and set to work on the spot.

It took him two hours to get to this place every day and cost him a dollar andtwenty cents a week. As this was out of the question, he wrapped his bedding ina bundle and took it with him, and one of his fellow workingmen introduced himto a Polish lodging-house, where he might have the privilege of sleeping uponthe floor for ten cents a night. He got his meals at free-lunch counters, andevery Saturday night he went home—bedding and all—and took thegreater part of his money to the family. Elzbieta was sorry for thisarrangement, for she feared that it would get him into the habit of livingwithout them, and once a week was not very often for him to see his baby; butthere was no other way of arranging it. There was no chance for a woman at thesteelworks, and Marija was now ready for work again, and lured on from day today by the hope of finding it at the yards.

In a week Jurgis got over his sense of helplessness and bewilderment in therail mill. He learned to find his way about and to take all the miracles andterrors for granted, to work without hearing the rumbling and crashing. Fromblind fear he went to the other extreme; he became reckless and indifferent,like all the rest of the men, who took but little thought of themselves in theardor of their work. It was wonderful, when one came to think of it, that thesemen should have taken an interest in the work they did—they had no sharein it—they were paid by the hour, and paid no more for being interested.Also they knew that if they were hurt they would be flung aside andforgotten—and still they would hurry to their task by dangerous shortcuts, would use methods that were quicker and more effective in spite of thefact that they were also risky. His fourth day at his work Jurgis saw a manstumble while running in front of a car, and have his foot mashed off, andbefore he had been there three weeks he was witness of a yet more dreadfulaccident. There was a row of brick furnaces, shining white through every crackwith the molten steel inside. Some of these were bulging dangerously, yet menworked before them, wearing blue glasses when they opened and shut the doors.One morning as Jurgis was passing, a furnace blew out, spraying two men with ashower of liquid fire. As they lay screaming and rolling upon the ground inagony, Jurgis rushed to help them, and as a result he lost a good part of theskin from the inside of one of his hands. The company doctor bandaged it up,but he got no other thanks from any one, and was laid up for eight working dayswithout any pay.

Most fortunately, at this juncture, Elzbieta got the long-awaited chance to goat five o’clock in the morning and help scrub the office floors of one ofthe packers. Jurgis came home and covered himself with blankets to keep warm,and divided his time between sleeping and playing with little Antanas. Juozapaswas away raking in the dump a good part of the time, and Elzbieta and Marijawere hunting for more work.

Antanas was now over a year and a half old, and was a perfect talking machine.He learned so fast that every week when Jurgis came home it seemed to him as ifhe had a new child. He would sit down and listen and stare at him, and givevent to delighted exclamations—“Palauk! Muma! Tu manoszirdele!” The little fellow was now really the one delight that Jurgishad in the world—his one hope, his one victory. Thank God, Antanas was aboy! And he was as tough as a pine knot, and with the appetite of a wolf.Nothing had hurt him, and nothing could hurt him; he had come through all thesuffering and deprivation unscathed—only shriller-voiced and moredetermined in his grip upon life. He was a terrible child to manage, wasAntanas, but his father did not mind that—he would watch him and smile tohimself with satisfaction. The more of a fighter he was the better—hewould need to fight before he got through.

Jurgis had got the habit of buying the Sunday paper whenever he had the money;a most wonderful paper could be had for only five cents, a whole armful, withall the news of the world set forth in big headlines, that Jurgis could spellout slowly, with the children to help him at the long words. There was battleand murder and sudden death—it was marvelous how they ever heard about somany entertaining and thrilling happenings; the stories must be all true, forsurely no man could have made such things up, and besides, there were picturesof them all, as real as life. One of these papers was as good as a circus, andnearly as good as a spree—certainly a most wonderful treat for aworkingman, who was tired out and stupefied, and had never had any education,and whose work was one dull, sordid grind, day after day, and year after year,with never a sight of a green field nor an hour’s entertainment, noranything but liquor to stimulate his imagination. Among other things, thesepapers had pages full of comical pictures, and these were the main joy in lifeto little Antanas. He treasured them up, and would drag them out and make hisfather tell him about them; there were all sorts of animals among them, andAntanas could tell the names of all of them, lying upon the floor for hours andpointing them out with his chubby little fingers. Whenever the story was plainenough for Jurgis to make out, Antanas would have it repeated to him, and thenhe would remember it, prattling funny little sentences and mixing it up withother stories in an irresistible fashion. Also his quaint pronunciation ofwords was such a delight—and the phrases he would pick up and remember,the most outlandish and impossible things! The first time that the littlerascal burst out with “God damn,” his father nearly rolled off thechair with glee; but in the end he was sorry for this, for Antanas was soon“God-damning” everything and everybody.

And then, when he was able to use his hands, Jurgis took his bedding again andwent back to his task of shifting rails. It was now April, and the snow hadgiven place to cold rains, and the unpaved street in front of Aniele’shouse was turned into a canal. Jurgis would have to wade through it to gethome, and if it was late he might easily get stuck to his waist in the mire.But he did not mind this much—it was a promise that summer was coming.Marija had now gotten a place as beef-trimmer in one of the smaller packingplants; and he told himself that he had learned his lesson now, and would meetwith no more accidents—so that at last there was prospect of an end totheir long agony. They could save money again, and when another winter camethey would have a comfortable place; and the children would be off the streetsand in school again, and they might set to work to nurse back into life theirhabits of decency and kindness. So once more Jurgis began to make plans anddream dreams.

And then one Saturday night he jumped off the car and started home, with thesun shining low under the edge of a bank of clouds that had been pouring floodsof water into the mud-soaked street. There was a rainbow in the sky, andanother in his breast—for he had thirty-six hours’ rest before him,and a chance to see his family. Then suddenly he came in sight of the house,and noticed that there was a crowd before the door. He ran up the steps andpushed his way in, and saw Aniele’s kitchen crowded with excited women.It reminded him so vividly of the time when he had come home from jail andfound Ona dying, that his heart almost stood still. “What’s thematter?” he cried.

A dead silence had fallen in the room, and he saw that every one was staring athim. “What’s the matter?” he exclaimed again.

And then, up in the garret, he heard sounds of wailing, in Marija’svoice. He started for the ladder—and Aniele seized him by the arm.“No, no!” she exclaimed. “Don’t go up there!”

“What is it?” he shouted.

And the old woman answered him weakly: “It’s Antanas. He’sdead. He was drowned out in the street!”

CHAPTER XXII

Jurgis took the news in a peculiar way. He turned deadly pale, but he caughthimself, and for half a minute stood in the middle of the room, clenching hishands tightly and setting his teeth. Then he pushed Aniele aside and strodeinto the next room and climbed the ladder.

In the corner was a blanket, with a form half showing beneath it; and beside itlay Elzbieta, whether crying or in a faint, Jurgis could not tell. Marija waspacing the room, screaming and wringing her hands. He clenched his handstighter yet, and his voice was hard as he spoke.

“How did it happen?” he asked.

Marija scarcely heard him in her agony. He repeated the question, louder andyet more harshly. “He fell off the sidewalk!” she wailed. Thesidewalk in front of the house was a platform made of half-rotten boards, aboutfive feet above the level of the sunken street.

“How did he come to be there?” he demanded.

“He went—he went out to play,” Marija sobbed, her voicechoking her. “We couldn’t make him stay in. He must have got caughtin the mud!”

“Are you sure that he is dead?” he demanded.

“Ai! ai!” she wailed. “Yes; we had the doctor.”

Then Jurgis stood a few seconds, wavering. He did not shed a tear. He took oneglance more at the blanket with the little form beneath it, and then turnedsuddenly to the ladder and climbed down again. A silence fell once more in theroom as he entered. He went straight to the door, passed out, and started downthe street.

When his wife had died, Jurgis made for the nearest saloon, but he did not dothat now, though he had his week’s wages in his pocket. He walked andwalked, seeing nothing, splashing through mud and water. Later on he sat downupon a step and hid his face in his hands and for half an hour or so he did notmove. Now and then he would whisper to himself: “Dead!Dead!”

Finally, he got up and walked on again. It was about sunset, and he went on andon until it was dark, when he was stopped by a railroad crossing. The gateswere down, and a long train of freight cars was thundering by. He stood andwatched it; and all at once a wild impulse seized him, a thought that had beenlurking within him, unspoken, unrecognized, leaped into sudden life. He starteddown the track, and when he was past the gate-keeper’s shanty he sprangforward and swung himself on to one of the cars.

By and by the train stopped again, and Jurgis sprang down and ran under thecar, and hid himself upon the truck. Here he sat, and when the train startedagain, he fought a battle with his soul. He gripped his hands and set his teethtogether—he had not wept, and he would not—not a tear! It was pastand over, and he was done with it—he would fling it off his shoulders, befree of it, the whole business, that night. It should go like a black, hatefulnightmare, and in the morning he would be a new man. And every time that athought of it assailed him—a tender memory, a trace of a tear—herose up, cursing with rage, and pounded it down.

He was fighting for his life; he gnashed his teeth together in his desperation.He had been a fool, a fool! He had wasted his life, he had wrecked himself,with his accursed weakness; and now he was done with it—he would tear itout of him, root and branch! There should be no more tears and no moretenderness; he had had enough of them—they had sold him into slavery! Nowhe was going to be free, to tear off his shackles, to rise up and fight. He wasglad that the end had come—it had to come some time, and it was just aswell now. This was no world for women and children, and the sooner they got outof it the better for them. Whatever Antanas might suffer where he was, he couldsuffer no more than he would have had he stayed upon earth. And meantime hisfather had thought the last thought about him that he meant to; he was going tothink of himself, he was going to fight for himself, against the world that hadbaffled him and tortured him!

So he went on, tearing up all the flowers from the garden of his soul, andsetting his heel upon them. The train thundered deafeningly, and a storm ofdust blew in his face; but though it stopped now and then through the night, heclung where he was—he would cling there until he was driven off, forevery mile that he got from Packingtown meant another load from his mind.

Whenever the cars stopped a warm breeze blew upon him, a breeze laden with theperfume of fresh fields, of honeysuckle and clover. He snuffed it, and it madehis heart beat wildly—he was out in the country again! He was going tolive in the country! When the dawn came he was peering out with hungryeyes, getting glimpses of meadows and woods and rivers. At last he could standit no longer, and when the train stopped again he crawled out. Upon the top ofthe car was a brakeman, who shook his fist and swore; Jurgis waved his handderisively, and started across the country.

Only think that he had been a countryman all his life; and for three long yearshe had never seen a country sight nor heard a country sound! Excepting for thatone walk when he left jail, when he was too much worried to notice anything,and for a few times that he had rested in the city parks in the winter timewhen he was out of work, he had literally never seen a tree! And now he feltlike a bird lifted up and borne away upon a gale; he stopped and stared at eachnew sight of wonder—at a herd of cows, and a meadow full of daisies, athedgerows set thick with June roses, at little birds singing in the trees.

Then he came to a farm-house, and after getting himself a stick for protection,he approached it. The farmer was greasing a wagon in front of the barn, andJurgis went to him. “I would like to get some breakfast, please,”he said.

“Do you want to work?” said the farmer.

“No,” said Jurgis. “I don’t.”

“Then you can’t get anything here,” snapped the other.

“I meant to pay for it,” said Jurgis.

“Oh,” said the farmer; and then added sarcastically, “Wedon’t serve breakfast after 7 A.M.”

“I am very hungry,” said Jurgis gravely; “I would like to buysome food.”

“Ask the woman,” said the farmer, nodding over his shoulder. The“woman” was more tractable, and for a dime Jurgis secured two thicksandwiches and a piece of pie and two apples. He walked off eating the pie, asthe least convenient thing to carry. In a few minutes he came to a stream, andhe climbed a fence and walked down the bank, along a woodland path. By and byhe found a comfortable spot, and there he devoured his meal, slaking his thirstat the stream. Then he lay for hours, just gazing and drinking in joy; until atlast he felt sleepy, and lay down in the shade of a bush.

When he awoke the sun was shining hot in his face. He sat up and stretched hisarms, and then gazed at the water sliding by. There was a deep pool, shelteredand silent, below him, and a sudden wonderful idea rushed upon him. He mighthave a bath! The water was free, and he might get into it—all the wayinto it! It would be the first time that he had been all the way into the watersince he left Lithuania!

When Jurgis had first come to the stockyards he had been as clean as anyworkingman could well be. But later on, what with sickness and cold and hungerand discouragement, and the filthiness of his work, and the vermin in his home,he had given up washing in winter, and in summer only as much of him as wouldgo into a basin. He had had a shower bath in jail, but nothing since—andnow he would have a swim!

The water was warm, and he splashed about like a very boy in his glee.Afterward he sat down in the water near the bank, and proceeded to scrubhimself—soberly and methodically, scouring every inch of him with sand.While he was doing it he would do it thoroughly, and see how it felt to beclean. He even scrubbed his head with sand, and combed what the men called“crumbs” out of his long, black hair, holding his head under wateras long as he could, to see if he could not kill them all. Then, seeing thatthe sun was still hot, he took his clothes from the bank and proceeded to washthem, piece by piece; as the dirt and grease went floating off downstream hegrunted with satisfaction and soused the clothes again, venturing even to dreamthat he might get rid of the fertilizer.

He hung them all up, and while they were drying he lay down in the sun and hadanother long sleep. They were hot and stiff as boards on top, and a little dampon the underside, when he awakened; but being hungry, he put them on and setout again. He had no knife, but with some labor he broke himself a good stoutclub, and, armed with this, he marched down the road again.

Before long he came to a big farmhouse, and turned up the lane that led to it.It was just supper-time, and the farmer was washing his hands at the kitchendoor. “Please, sir,” said Jurgis, “can I have something toeat? I can pay.” To which the farmer responded promptly, “Wedon’t feed tramps here. Get out!”

Jurgis went without a word; but as he passed round the barn he came to afreshly ploughed and harrowed field, in which the farmer had set out some youngpeach trees; and as he walked he jerked up a row of them by the roots, morethan a hundred trees in all, before he reached the end of the field. That washis answer, and it showed his mood; from now on he was fighting, and the manwho hit him would get all that he gave, every time.

Beyond the orchard Jurgis struck through a patch of woods, and then a field ofwinter grain, and came at last to another road. Before long he saw anotherfarmhouse, and, as it was beginning to cloud over a little, he asked here forshelter as well as food. Seeing the farmer eying him dubiously, he added,“I’ll be glad to sleep in the barn.”

“Well, I dunno,” said the other. “Do you smoke?”

“Sometimes,” said Jurgis, “but I’ll do it out ofdoors.” When the man had assented, he inquired, “How much will itcost me? I haven’t very much money.”

“I reckon about twenty cents for supper,” replied the farmer.“I won’t charge ye for the barn.”

So Jurgis went in, and sat down at the table with the farmer’s wife andhalf a dozen children. It was a bountiful meal—there were baked beans andmashed potatoes and asparagus chopped and stewed, and a dish of strawberries,and great, thick slices of bread, and a pitcher of milk. Jurgis had not hadsuch a feast since his wedding day, and he made a mighty effort to put in histwenty cents’ worth.

They were all of them too hungry to talk; but afterward they sat upon the stepsand smoked, and the farmer questioned his guest. When Jurgis had explained thathe was a workingman from Chicago, and that he did not know just whither he wasbound, the other said, “Why don’t you stay here and work forme?”

“I’m not looking for work just now,” Jurgis answered.

“I’ll pay ye good,” said the other, eying his bigform—“a dollar a day and board ye. Help’s terrible scarceround here.”

“Is that winter as well as summer?” Jurgis demanded quickly.

“N—no,” said the farmer; “I couldn’t keep yeafter November—I ain’t got a big enough place for that.”

“I see,” said the other, “that’s what I thought. Whenyou get through working your horses this fall, will you turn them out in thesnow?” (Jurgis was beginning to think for himself nowadays.)

“It ain’t quite the same,” the farmer answered, seeing thepoint. “There ought to be work a strong fellow like you can find to do,in the cities, or some place, in the winter time.”

“Yes,” said Jurgis, “that’s what they all think; and sothey crowd into the cities, and when they have to beg or steal to live, thenpeople ask ’em why they don’t go into the country, where help isscarce.” The farmer meditated awhile.

“How about when your money’s gone?” he inquired, finally.“You’ll have to, then, won’t you?”

“Wait till she’s gone,” said Jurgis; “then I’llsee.”

He had a long sleep in the barn and then a big breakfast of coffee and breadand oatmeal and stewed cherries, for which the man charged him only fifteencents, perhaps having been influenced by his arguments. Then Jurgis badefarewell, and went on his way.

Such was the beginning of his life as a tramp. It was seldom he got as fairtreatment as from this last farmer, and so as time went on he learned to shunthe houses and to prefer sleeping in the fields. When it rained he would find adeserted building, if he could, and if not, he would wait until after dark andthen, with his stick ready, begin a stealthy approach upon a barn. Generally hecould get in before the dog got scent of him, and then he would hide in the hayand be safe until morning; if not, and the dog attacked him, he would rise upand make a retreat in battle order. Jurgis was not the mighty man he had oncebeen, but his arms were still good, and there were few farm dogs he needed tohit more than once.

Before long there came raspberries, and then blackberries, to help him save hismoney; and there were apples in the orchards and potatoes in theground—he learned to note the places and fill his pockets after dark.Twice he even managed to capture a chicken, and had a feast, once in a desertedbarn and the other time in a lonely spot alongside of a stream. When all ofthese things failed him he used his money carefully, but withoutworry—for he saw that he could earn more whenever he chose. Half anhour’s chopping wood in his lively fashion was enough to bring him ameal, and when the farmer had seen him working he would sometimes try to bribehim to stay.

But Jurgis was not staying. He was a free man now, a buccaneer. The oldWanderlust had got into his blood, the joy of the unbound life, the joyof seeking, of hoping without limit. There were mishaps anddiscomforts—but at least there was always something new; and only thinkwhat it meant to a man who for years had been penned up in one place, seeingnothing but one dreary prospect of shanties and factories, to be suddenly setloose beneath the open sky, to behold new landscapes, new places, and newpeople every hour! To a man whose whole life had consisted of doing one certainthing all day, until he was so exhausted that he could only lie down and sleepuntil the next day—and to be now his own master, working as he pleasedand when he pleased, and facing a new adventure every hour!

Then, too, his health came back to him, all his lost youthful vigor, his joyand power that he had mourned and forgotten! It came with a sudden rush,bewildering him, startling him; it was as if his dead childhood had come backto him, laughing and calling! What with plenty to eat and fresh air andexercise that was taken as it pleased him, he would waken from his sleep andstart off not knowing what to do with his energy, stretching his arms,laughing, singing old songs of home that came back to him. Now and then, ofcourse, he could not help but think of little Antanas, whom he should never seeagain, whose little voice he should never hear; and then he would have tobattle with himself. Sometimes at night he would waken dreaming of Ona, andstretch out his arms to her, and wet the ground with his tears. But in themorning he would get up and shake himself, and stride away again to battle withthe world.

He never asked where he was nor where he was going; the country was big enough,he knew, and there was no danger of his coming to the end of it. And of coursehe could always have company for the asking—everywhere he went there weremen living just as he lived, and whom he was welcome to join. He was a strangerat the business, but they were not clannish, and they taught him all theirtricks—what towns and villages it was best to keep away from, and how toread the secret signs upon the fences, and when to beg and when to steal, andjust how to do both. They laughed at his ideas of paying for anything withmoney or with work—for they got all they wanted without either. Now andthen Jurgis camped out with a gang of them in some woodland haunt, and foragedwith them in the neighborhood at night. And then among them some one would“take a shine” to him, and they would go off together and travelfor a week, exchanging reminiscences.

Of these professional tramps a great many had, of course, been shiftless andvicious all their lives. But the vast majority of them had been workingmen, hadfought the long fight as Jurgis had, and found that it was a losing fight, andgiven up. Later on he encountered yet another sort of men, those from whoseranks the tramps were recruited, men who were homeless and wandering, but stillseeking work—seeking it in the harvest fields. Of these there was anarmy, the huge surplus labor army of society; called into being under the sternsystem of nature, to do the casual work of the world, the tasks which weretransient and irregular, and yet which had to be done. They did not know thatthey were such, of course; they only knew that they sought the job, and thatthe job was fleeting. In the early summer they would be in Texas, and as thecrops were ready they would follow north with the season, ending with the fallin Manitoba. Then they would seek out the big lumber camps, where there waswinter work; or failing in this, would drift to the cities, and live upon whatthey had managed to save, with the help of such transient work as was there theloading and unloading of steamships and drays, the digging of ditches and theshoveling of snow. If there were more of them on hand than chanced to beneeded, the weaker ones died off of cold and hunger, again according to thestern system of nature.

It was in the latter part of July, when Jurgis was in Missouri, that he cameupon the harvest work. Here were crops that men had worked for three or fourmonths to prepare, and of which they would lose nearly all unless they couldfind others to help them for a week or two. So all over the land there was acry for labor—agencies were set up and all the cities were drained ofmen, even college boys were brought by the carload, and hordes of franticfarmers would hold up trains and carry off wagon-loads of men by main force.Not that they did not pay them well—any man could get two dollars a dayand his board, and the best men could get two dollars and a half or three.

The harvest-fever was in the very air, and no man with any spirit in him couldbe in that region and not catch it. Jurgis joined a gang and worked from dawntill dark, eighteen hours a day, for two weeks without a break. Then he had asum of money that would have been a fortune to him in the old days ofmisery—but what could he do with it now? To be sure he might have put itin a bank, and, if he were fortunate, get it back again when he wanted it. ButJurgis was now a homeless man, wandering over a continent; and what did he knowabout banking and drafts and letters of credit? If he carried the money aboutwith him, he would surely be robbed in the end; and so what was there for himto do but enjoy it while he could? On a Saturday night he drifted into a townwith his fellows; and because it was raining, and there was no other placeprovided for him, he went to a saloon. And there were some who treated him andwhom he had to treat, and there was laughter and singing and good cheer; andthen out of the rear part of the saloon a girl’s face, red-cheeked andmerry, smiled at Jurgis, and his heart thumped suddenly in his throat. Henodded to her, and she came and sat by him, and they had more drink, and thenhe went upstairs into a room with her, and the wild beast rose up within himand screamed, as it has screamed in the Jungle from the dawn of time. And thenbecause of his memories and his shame, he was glad when others joined them, menand women; and they had more drink and spent the night in wild rioting anddebauchery. In the van of the surplus-labor army, there followed another, anarmy of women, they also struggling for life under the stern system of nature.Because there were rich men who sought pleasure, there had been ease and plentyfor them so long as they were young and beautiful; and later on, when they werecrowded out by others younger and more beautiful, they went out to follow uponthe trail of the workingmen. Sometimes they came of themselves, and thesaloon-keepers shared with them; or sometimes they were handled by agencies,the same as the labor army. They were in the towns in harvest time, near thelumber camps in the winter, in the cities when the men came there; if aregiment were encamped, or a railroad or canal being made, or a greatexposition getting ready, the crowd of women were on hand, living in shantiesor saloons or tenement rooms, sometimes eight or ten of them together.

In the morning Jurgis had not a cent, and he went out upon the road again. Hewas sick and disgusted, but after the new plan of his life, he crushed hisfeelings down. He had made a fool of himself, but he could not help itnow—all he could do was to see that it did not happen again. So hetramped on until exercise and fresh air banished his headache, and his strengthand joy returned. This happened to him every time, for Jurgis was still acreature of impulse, and his pleasures had not yet become business. It would bea long time before he could be like the majority of these men of the road, whoroamed until the hunger for drink and for women mastered them, and then went towork with a purpose in mind, and stopped when they had the price of a spree.

On the contrary, try as he would, Jurgis could not help being made miserable byhis conscience. It was the ghost that would not down. It would come upon him inthe most unexpected places—sometimes it fairly drove him to drink.

One night he was caught by a thunderstorm, and he sought shelter in a littlehouse just outside of a town. It was a working-man’s home, and the ownerwas a Slav like himself, a new emigrant from White Russia; he bade Jurgiswelcome in his home language, and told him to come to the kitchen-fire and dryhimself. He had no bed for him, but there was straw in the garret, and he couldmake out. The man’s wife was cooking the supper, and their children wereplaying about on the floor. Jurgis sat and exchanged thoughts with him aboutthe old country, and the places where they had been and the work they had done.Then they ate, and afterward sat and smoked and talked more about America, andhow they found it. In the middle of a sentence, however, Jurgis stopped, seeingthat the woman had brought a big basin of water and was proceeding to undressher youngest baby. The rest had crawled into the closet where they slept, butthe baby was to have a bath, the workingman explained. The nights had begun tobe chilly, and his mother, ignorant as to the climate in America, had sewed himup for the winter; then it had turned warm again, and some kind of a rash hadbroken out on the child. The doctor had said she must bathe him every night,and she, foolish woman, believed him.

Jurgis scarcely heard the explanation; he was watching the baby. He was about ayear old, and a sturdy little fellow, with soft fat legs, and a round ball of astomach, and eyes as black as coals. His pimples did not seem to bother himmuch, and he was wild with glee over the bath, kicking and squirming andchuckling with delight, pulling at his mother’s face and then at his ownlittle toes. When she put him into the basin he sat in the midst of it andgrinned, splashing the water over himself and squealing like a little pig. Hespoke in Russian, of which Jurgis knew some; he spoke it with the quaintest ofbaby accents—and every word of it brought back to Jurgis some word of hisown dead little one, and stabbed him like a knife. He sat perfectly motionless,silent, but gripping his hands tightly, while a storm gathered in his bosom anda flood heaped itself up behind his eyes. And in the end he could bear it nomore, but buried his face in his hands and burst into tears, to the alarm andamazement of his hosts. Between the shame of this and his woe Jurgis could notstand it, and got up and rushed out into the rain.

He went on and on down the road, finally coming to a black woods, where he hidand wept as if his heart would break. Ah, what agony was that, what despair,when the tomb of memory was rent open and the ghosts of his old life came forthto scourge him! What terror to see what he had been and now could neverbe—to see Ona and his child and his own dead self stretching out theirarms to him, calling to him across a bottomless abyss—and to know thatthey were gone from him forever, and he writhing and suffocating in the mire ofhis own vileness!

CHAPTER XXIII

Early in the fall Jurgis set out for Chicago again. All the joy went out oftramping as soon as a man could not keep warm in the hay; and, like manythousands of others, he deluded himself with the hope that by coming early hecould avoid the rush. He brought fifteen dollars with him, hidden away in oneof his shoes, a sum which had been saved from the saloon-keepers, not so muchby his conscience, as by the fear which filled him at the thought of being outof work in the city in the winter time.

He traveled upon the railroad with several other men, hiding in freight cars atnight, and liable to be thrown off at any time, regardless of the speed of thetrain. When he reached the city he left the rest, for he had money and they didnot, and he meant to save himself in this fight. He would bring to it all theskill that practice had brought him, and he would stand, whoever fell. On fairnights he would sleep in the park or on a truck or an empty barrel or box, andwhen it was rainy or cold he would stow himself upon a shelf in a ten-centlodging-house, or pay three cents for the privileges of a“squatter” in a tenement hallway. He would eat at free lunches,five cents a meal, and never a cent more—so he might keep alive for twomonths and more, and in that time he would surely find a job. He would have tobid farewell to his summer cleanliness, of course, for he would come out of thefirst night’s lodging with his clothes alive with vermin. There was noplace in the city where he could wash even his face, unless he went down to thelake front—and there it would soon be all ice.

First he went to the steel mill and the harvester works, and found that hisplaces there had been filled long ago. He was careful to keep away from thestockyards—he was a single man now, he told himself, and he meant to stayone, to have his wages for his own when he got a job. He began the long, wearyround of factories and warehouses, tramping all day, from one end of the cityto the other, finding everywhere from ten to a hundred men ahead of him. Hewatched the newspapers, too—but no longer was he to be taken in bysmooth-spoken agents. He had been told of all those tricks while “on theroad.”

In the end it was through a newspaper that he got a job, after nearly a monthof seeking. It was a call for a hundred laborers, and though he thought it wasa “fake,” he went because the place was near by. He found a line ofmen a block long, but as a wagon chanced to come out of an alley and break theline, he saw his chance and sprang to seize a place. Men threatened him andtried to throw him out, but he cursed and made a disturbance to attract apoliceman, upon which they subsided, knowing that if the latter interfered itwould be to “fire” them all.

An hour or two later he entered a room and confronted a big Irishman behind adesk.

“Ever worked in Chicago before?” the man inquired; and whether itwas a good angel that put it into Jurgis’s mind, or an intuition of hissharpened wits, he was moved to answer, “No, sir.”

“Where do you come from?”

“Kansas City, sir.”

“Any references?”

“No, sir. I’m just an unskilled man. I’ve got goodarms.”

“I want men for hard work—it’s all underground, diggingtunnels for telephones. Maybe it won’t suit you.”

“I’m willing, sir—anything for me. What’s thepay?”

“Fifteen cents an hour.”

“I’m willing, sir.”

“All right; go back there and give your name.”

So within half an hour he was at work, far underneath the streets of the city.The tunnel was a peculiar one for telephone wires; it was about eight feethigh, and with a level floor nearly as wide. It had innumerablebranches—a perfect spider web beneath the city; Jurgis walked over half amile with his gang to the place where they were to work. Stranger yet, thetunnel was lighted by electricity, and upon it was laid a double-tracked,narrow-gauge railroad!

But Jurgis was not there to ask questions, and he did not give the matter athought. It was nearly a year afterward that he finally learned the meaning ofthis whole affair. The City Council had passed a quiet and innocent little billallowing a company to construct telephone conduits under the city streets; andupon the strength of this, a great corporation had proceeded to tunnel allChicago with a system of railway freight-subways. In the city there was acombination of employers, representing hundreds of millions of capital, andformed for the purpose of crushing the labor unions. The chief union whichtroubled it was the teamsters’; and when these freight tunnels werecompleted, connecting all the big factories and stores with the railroaddepots, they would have the teamsters’ union by the throat. Now and thenthere were rumors and murmurs in the Board of Aldermen, and once there was acommittee to investigate—but each time another small fortune was paidover, and the rumors died away; until at last the city woke up with a start tofind the work completed. There was a tremendous scandal, of course; it wasfound that the city records had been falsified and other crimes committed, andsome of Chicago’s big capitalists got into jail—figurativelyspeaking. The aldermen declared that they had had no idea of it all, in spiteof the fact that the main entrance to the work had been in the rear of thesaloon of one of them.

It was in a newly opened cut that Jurgis worked, and so he knew that he had anall-winter job. He was so rejoiced that he treated himself to a spree thatnight, and with the balance of his money he hired himself a place in a tenementroom, where he slept upon a big homemade straw mattress along with four otherworkingmen. This was one dollar a week, and for four more he got his food in aboardinghouse near his work. This would leave him four dollars extra each week,an unthinkable sum for him. At the outset he had to pay for his digging tools,and also to buy a pair of heavy boots, since his shoes were falling to pieces,and a flannel shirt, since the one he had worn all summer was in shreds. Hespent a week meditating whether or not he should also buy an overcoat. Therewas one belonging to a Hebrew collar button peddler, who had died in the roomnext to him, and which the landlady was holding for her rent; in the end,however, Jurgis decided to do without it, as he was to be underground by dayand in bed at night.

This was an unfortunate decision, however, for it drove him more quickly thanever into the saloons. From now on Jurgis worked from seven o’clock untilhalf-past five, with half an hour for dinner; which meant that he never saw thesunlight on weekdays. In the evenings there was no place for him to go except abarroom; no place where there was light and warmth, where he could hear alittle music or sit with a companion and talk. He had now no home to go to; hehad no affection left in his life—only the pitiful mockery of it in thecamaraderie of vice. On Sundays the churches were open—but wherewas there a church in which an ill-smelling workingman, with vermin crawlingupon his neck, could sit without seeing people edge away and look annoyed? Hehad, of course, his corner in a close though unheated room, with a windowopening upon a blank wall two feet away; and also he had the bare streets, withthe winter gales sweeping through them; besides this he had only thesaloons—and, of course, he had to drink to stay in them. If he drank nowand then he was free to make himself at home, to gamble with dice or a pack ofgreasy cards, to play at a dingy pool table for money, or to look at abeer-stained pink “sporting paper,” with pictures of murderers andhalf-naked women. It was for such pleasures as these that he spent his money;and such was his life during the six weeks and a half that he toiled for themerchants of Chicago, to enable them to break the grip of theirteamsters’ union.

In a work thus carried out, not much thought was given to the welfare of thelaborers. On an average, the tunneling cost a life a day and several manglings;it was seldom, however, that more than a dozen or two men heard of any oneaccident. The work was all done by the new boring machinery, with as littleblasting as possible; but there would be falling rocks and crushed supports,and premature explosions—and in addition all the dangers of railroading.So it was that one night, as Jurgis was on his way out with his gang, an engineand a loaded car dashed round one of the innumerable right-angle branches andstruck him upon the shoulder, hurling him against the concrete wall andknocking him senseless.

When he opened his eyes again it was to the clanging of the bell of anambulance. He was lying in it, covered by a blanket, and it was threading itsway slowly through the holiday-shopping crowds. They took him to the countyhospital, where a young surgeon set his arm; then he was washed and laid upon abed in a ward with a score or two more of maimed and mangled men.

Jurgis spent his Christmas in this hospital, and it was the pleasantestChristmas he had had in America. Every year there were scandals andinvestigations in this institution, the newspapers charging that doctors wereallowed to try fantastic experiments upon the patients; but Jurgis knew nothingof this—his only complaint was that they used to feed him upon tinnedmeat, which no man who had ever worked in Packingtown would feed to his dog.Jurgis had often wondered just who ate the canned corned beef and “roastbeef” of the stockyards; now he began to understand—that it waswhat you might call “graft meat,” put up to be sold to publicofficials and contractors, and eaten by soldiers and sailors, prisoners andinmates of institutions, “shantymen” and gangs of railroadlaborers.

Jurgis was ready to leave the hospital at the end of two weeks. This did notmean that his arm was strong and that he was able to go back to work, butsimply that he could get along without further attention, and that his placewas needed for some one worse off than he. That he was utterly helpless, andhad no means of keeping himself alive in the meantime, was something which didnot concern the hospital authorities, nor any one else in the city.

As it chanced, he had been hurt on a Monday, and had just paid for his lastweek’s board and his room rent, and spent nearly all the balance of hisSaturday’s pay. He had less than seventy-five cents in his pockets, and adollar and a half due him for the day’s work he had done before he washurt. He might possibly have sued the company, and got some damages for hisinjuries, but he did not know this, and it was not the company’s businessto tell him. He went and got his pay and his tools, which he left in a pawnshopfor fifty cents. Then he went to his landlady, who had rented his place and hadno other for him; and then to his boardinghouse keeper, who looked him over andquestioned him. As he must certainly be helpless for a couple of months, andhad boarded there only six weeks, she decided very quickly that it would not beworth the risk to keep him on trust.

So Jurgis went out into the streets, in a most dreadful plight. It was bitterlycold, and a heavy snow was falling, beating into his face. He had no overcoat,and no place to go, and two dollars and sixty-five cents in his pocket, withthe certainty that he could not earn another cent for months. The snow meant nochance to him now; he must walk along and see others shoveling, vigorous andactive—and he with his left arm bound to his side! He could not hope totide himself over by odd jobs of loading trucks; he could not even sellnewspapers or carry satchels, because he was now at the mercy of any rival.Words could not paint the terror that came over him as he realized all this. Hewas like a wounded animal in the forest; he was forced to compete with hisenemies upon unequal terms. There would be no consideration for him because ofhis weakness—it was no one’s business to help him in such distress,to make the fight the least bit easier for him. Even if he took to begging, hewould be at a disadvantage, for reasons which he was to discover in good time.

In the beginning he could not think of anything except getting out of the awfulcold. He went into one of the saloons he had been wont to frequent and bought adrink, and then stood by the fire shivering and waiting to be ordered out.According to an unwritten law, the buying a drink included the privilege ofloafing for just so long; then one had to buy another drink or move on. ThatJurgis was an old customer entitled him to a somewhat longer stop; but then hehad been away two weeks, and was evidently “on the bum.” He mightplead and tell his “hard luck story,” but that would not help himmuch; a saloon-keeper who was to be moved by such means would soon have hisplace jammed to the doors with “hoboes” on a day like this.

So Jurgis went out into another place, and paid another nickel. He was sohungry this time that he could not resist the hot beef stew, an indulgencewhich cut short his stay by a considerable time. When he was again told to moveon, he made his way to a “tough” place in the “Lêvée”district, where now and then he had gone with a certain rat-eyed Bohemianworkingman of his acquaintance, seeking a woman. It was Jurgis’s vainhope that here the proprietor would let him remain as a “sitter.”In low-class places, in the dead of winter, saloon-keepers would often allowone or two forlorn-looking bums who came in covered with snow or soaked withrain to sit by the fire and look miserable to attract custom. A workingmanwould come in, feeling cheerful after his day’s work was over, and itwould trouble him to have to take his glass with such a sight under his nose;and so he would call out: “Hello, Bub, what’s the matter? You lookas if you’d been up against it!” And then the other would begin topour out some tale of misery, and the man would say, “Come have a glass,and maybe that’ll brace you up.” And so they would drink together,and if the tramp was sufficiently wretched-looking, or good enough at the“gab,” they might have two; and if they were to discover that theywere from the same country, or had lived in the same city or worked at the sametrade, they might sit down at a table and spend an hour or two intalk—and before they got through the saloon-keeper would have taken in adollar. All of this might seem diabolical, but the saloon-keeper was in no wiseto blame for it. He was in the same plight as the manufacturer who has toadulterate and misrepresent his product. If he does not, some one else will;and the saloon-keeper, unless he is also an alderman, is apt to be in debt tothe big brewers, and on the verge of being sold out.

The market for “sitters” was glutted that afternoon, however, andthere was no place for Jurgis. In all he had to spend six nickels in keeping ashelter over him that frightful day, and then it was just dark, and the stationhouses would not open until midnight! At the last place, however, there was abartender who knew him and liked him, and let him doze at one of the tablesuntil the boss came back; and also, as he was going out, the man gave him atip—on the next block there was a religious revival of some sort, withpreaching and singing, and hundreds of hoboes would go there for the shelterand warmth.

Jurgis went straightway, and saw a sign hung out, saying that the door wouldopen at seven-thirty; then he walked, or half ran, a block, and hid awhile in adoorway and then ran again, and so on until the hour. At the end he was all butfrozen, and fought his way in with the rest of the throng (at the risk ofhaving his arm broken again), and got close to the big stove.

By eight o’clock the place was so crowded that the speakers ought to havebeen flattered; the aisles were filled halfway up, and at the door men werepacked tight enough to walk upon. There were three elderly gentlemen in blackupon the platform, and a young lady who played the piano in front. First theysang a hymn, and then one of the three, a tall, smooth-shaven man, very thin,and wearing black spectacles, began an address. Jurgis heard smatterings of it,for the reason that terror kept him awake—he knew that he snoredabominably, and to have been put out just then would have been like a sentenceof death to him.

The evangelist was preaching “sin and redemption,” the infinitegrace of God and His pardon for human frailty. He was very much in earnest, andhe meant well, but Jurgis, as he listened, found his soul filled with hatred.What did he know about sin and suffering—with his smooth, black coat andhis neatly starched collar, his body warm, and his belly full, and money in hispocket—and lecturing men who were struggling for their lives, men at thedeath grapple with the demon powers of hunger and cold!—This, of course,was unfair; but Jurgis felt that these men were out of touch with the life theydiscussed, that they were unfitted to solve its problems; nay, they themselveswere part of the problem—they were part of the order established that wascrushing men down and beating them! They were of the triumphant and insolentpossessors; they had a hall, and a fire, and food and clothing and money, andso they might preach to hungry men, and the hungry men must be humble andlisten! They were trying to save their souls—and who but a fool couldfail to see that all that was the matter with their souls was that they had notbeen able to get a decent existence for their bodies?

At eleven the meeting closed, and the desolate audience filed out into thesnow, muttering curses upon the few traitors who had got repentance and gone upon the platform. It was yet an hour before the station house would open, andJurgis had no overcoat—and was weak from a long illness. During that hourhe nearly perished. He was obliged to run hard to keep his blood moving atall—and then he came back to the station house and found a crowd blockingthe street before the door! This was in the month of January, 1904, when thecountry was on the verge of “hard times,” and the newspapers werereporting the shutting down of factories every day—it was estimated thata million and a half men were thrown out of work before the spring. So all thehiding places of the city were crowded, and before that station house door menfought and tore each other like savage beasts. When at last the place wasjammed and they shut the doors, half the crowd was still outside; and Jurgis,with his helpless arm, was among them. There was no choice then but to go to alodging-house and spend another dime. It really broke his heart to do this, athalf-past twelve o’clock, after he had wasted the night at the meetingand on the street. He would be turned out of the lodging-house promptly atseven—they had the shelves which served as bunks so contrived that theycould be dropped, and any man who was slow about obeying orders could betumbled to the floor.

This was one day, and the cold spell lasted for fourteen of them. At the end ofsix days every cent of Jurgis’ money was gone; and then he went out onthe streets to beg for his life.

He would begin as soon as the business of the city was moving. He would sallyforth from a saloon, and, after making sure there was no policeman in sight,would approach every likely-looking person who passed him, telling his woefulstory and pleading for a nickel or a dime. Then when he got one, he would dartround the corner and return to his base to get warm; and his victim, seeing himdo this, would go away, vowing that he would never give a cent to a beggaragain. The victim never paused to ask where else Jurgis could have gone underthe circumstances—where he, the victim, would have gone. At the saloonJurgis could not only get more food and better food than he could buy in anyrestaurant for the same money, but a drink in the bargain to warm him up. Alsohe could find a comfortable seat by a fire, and could chat with a companionuntil he was as warm as toast. At the saloon, too, he felt at home. Part of thesaloon-keeper’s business was to offer a home and refreshments to beggarsin exchange for the proceeds of their foragings; and was there any one else inthe whole city who would do this—would the victim have done it himself?

Poor Jurgis might have been expected to make a successful beggar. He was justout of the hospital, and desperately sick-looking, and with a helpless arm;also he had no overcoat, and shivered pitifully. But, alas, it was again thecase of the honest merchant, who finds that the genuine and unadulteratedarticle is driven to the wall by the artistic counterfeit. Jurgis, as a beggar,was simply a blundering amateur in competition with organized and scientificprofessionalism. He was just out of the hospital—but the story was wornthreadbare, and how could he prove it? He had his arm in a sling—and itwas a device a regular beggar’s little boy would have scorned. He waspale and shivering—but they were made up with cosmetics, and had studiedthe art of chattering their teeth. As to his being without an overcoat, amongthem you would meet men you could swear had on nothing but a ragged linenduster and a pair of cotton trousers—so cleverly had they concealed theseveral suits of all-wool underwear beneath. Many of these professionalmendicants had comfortable homes, and families, and thousands of dollars in thebank; some of them had retired upon their earnings, and gone into the businessof fitting out and doctoring others, or working children at the trade. Therewere some who had both their arms bound tightly to their sides, and paddedstumps in their sleeves, and a sick child hired to carry a cup for them. Therewere some who had no legs, and pushed themselves upon a wheeledplatform—some who had been favored with blindness, and were led by prettylittle dogs. Some less fortunate had mutilated themselves or burned themselves,or had brought horrible sores upon themselves with chemicals; you mightsuddenly encounter upon the street a man holding out to you a finger rottingand discolored with gangrene—or one with livid scarlet wounds halfescaped from their filthy bandages. These desperate ones were the dregs of thecity’s cesspools, wretches who hid at night in the rain-soaked cellars ofold ramshackle tenements, in “stale-beer dives” and opium joints,with abandoned women in the last stages of the harlot’sprogress—women who had been kept by Chinamen and turned away at last todie. Every day the police net would drag hundreds of them off the streets, andin the detention hospital you might see them, herded together in a miniatureinferno, with hideous, beastly faces, bloated and leprous with disease,laughing, shouting, screaming in all stages of drunkenness, barking like dogs,gibbering like apes, raving and tearing themselves in delirium.

CHAPTER XXIV

In the face of all his handicaps, Jurgis was obliged to make the price of alodging, and of a drink every hour or two, under penalty of freezing to death.Day after day he roamed about in the arctic cold, his soul filled full ofbitterness and despair. He saw the world of civilization then more plainly thanever he had seen it before; a world in which nothing counted but brutal might,an order devised by those who possessed it for the subjugation of those who didnot. He was one of the latter; and all outdoors, all life, was to him onecolossal prison, which he paced like a pent-up tiger, trying one bar afteranother, and finding them all beyond his power. He had lost in the fiercebattle of greed, and so was doomed to be exterminated; and all society wasbusied to see that he did not escape the sentence. Everywhere that he turnedwere prison bars, and hostile eyes following him; the well-fed, sleekpolicemen, from whose glances he shrank, and who seemed to grip their clubsmore tightly when they saw him; the saloon-keepers, who never ceased to watchhim while he was in their places, who were jealous of every moment he lingeredafter he had paid his money; the hurrying throngs upon the streets, who weredeaf to his entreaties, oblivious of his very existence—and savage andcontemptuous when he forced himself upon them. They had their own affairs, andthere was no place for him among them. There was no place for himanywhere—every direction he turned his gaze, this fact was forced uponhim: Everything was built to express it to him: the residences, with theirheavy walls and bolted doors, and basement windows barred with iron; the greatwarehouses filled with the products of the whole world, and guarded by ironshutters and heavy gates; the banks with their unthinkable billions of wealth,all buried in safes and vaults of steel.

And then one day there befell Jurgis the one adventure of his life. It was lateat night, and he had failed to get the price of a lodging. Snow was falling,and he had been out so long that he was covered with it, and was chilled to thebone. He was working among the theater crowds, flitting here and there, takinglarge chances with the police, in his desperation half hoping to be arrested.When he saw a blue-coat start toward him, however, his heart failed him, and hedashed down a side street and fled a couple of blocks. When he stopped again hesaw a man coming toward him, and placed himself in his path.

“Please, sir,” he began, in the usual formula, “will you giveme the price of a lodging? I’ve had a broken arm, and I can’t work,and I’ve not a cent in my pocket. I’m an honest working-man, sir,and I never begged before! It’s not my fault, sir—”

Jurgis usually went on until he was interrupted, but this man did notinterrupt, and so at last he came to a breathless stop. The other had halted,and Jurgis suddenly noticed that he stood a little unsteadily. “Whuzzatyou say?” he queried suddenly, in a thick voice.

Jurgis began again, speaking more slowly and distinctly; before he was halfthrough the other put out his hand and rested it upon his shoulder. “Poorole chappie!” he said. “Been up—hic—up—againstit, hey?”

Then he lurched toward Jurgis, and the hand upon his shoulder became an armabout his neck. “Up against it myself, ole sport,” he said.“She’s a hard ole world.”

They were close to a lamppost, and Jurgis got a glimpse of the other. He was ayoung fellow—not much over eighteen, with a handsome boyish face. He worea silk hat and a rich soft overcoat with a fur collar; and he smiled at Jurgiswith benignant sympathy. “I’m hard up, too, my goo’fren’,” he said. “I’ve got cruel parents, or I’dset you up. Whuzzamatter whizyer?”

“I’ve been in the hospital.”

“Hospital!” exclaimed the young fellow, still smiling sweetly,“thass too bad! Same’s my Aunt Polly—hic—my AuntPolly’s in the hospital, too—ole auntie’s been havin’twins! Whuzzamatter whiz you?”

“I’ve got a broken arm—” Jurgis began.

“So,” said the other, sympathetically. “That ain’t sobad—you get over that. I wish somebody’d break my arm, olechappie—damfidon’t! Then they’d treat mebetter—hic—hole me up, ole sport! Whuzzit you wamme do?”

“I’m hungry, sir,” said Jurgis.

“Hungry! Why don’t you hassome supper?”

“I’ve got no money, sir.”

“No money! Ho, ho—less be chums, ole boy—jess like me! Nomoney, either—a’most busted! Why don’t you go home, then,same’s me?”

“I haven’t any home,” said Jurgis.

“No home! Stranger in the city, hey? Goo’ God, thass bad! Bettercome home wiz me—yes, by Harry, thass the trick, you’ll come homean’ hassome supper—hic—wiz me! Awful lonesome—nobodyhome! Guv’ner gone abroad—Bubby on’s honeymoon—Pollyhavin’ twins—every damn soul gone away! Nuff—hic—nuffto drive a feller to drink, I say! Only ole Ham standin’ by,passin’ plates—damfican eat like that, no sir! The club for meevery time, my boy, I say. But then they won’t lemme sleepthere—guv’ner’s orders, by Harry—home every night, sir!Ever hear anythin’ like that? ‘Every mornin’ do?’ Iasked him. ‘No, sir, every night, or no allowance at all, sir.’Thass my guv’ner—‘nice as nails, by Harry! Tole ole Ham towatch me, too—servants spyin’ on me—whuzyer think that, myfren’? A nice, quiet—hic—goodhearted young feller like me,an’ his daddy can’t go to Europe—hup!—an’ leavehim in peace! Ain’t that a shame, sir? An’ I gotter go home everyevenin’ an’ miss all the fun, by Harry! Thass whuzzamatternow—thass why I’m here! Hadda come away an’ leaveKitty—hic—left her cryin’, too—whujja think of that,ole sport? ‘Lemme go, Kittens,’ says I—‘come earlyan’ often—I go where duty—hic—calls me. Farewell,farewell, my own true love—farewell, farewehell, my—owntrue—love!’”

This last was a song, and the young gentleman’s voice rose mournful andwailing, while he swung upon Jurgis’s neck. The latter was glancing aboutnervously, lest some one should approach. They were still alone, however.

“But I came all right, all right,” continued the youngster,aggressively, “I can—hic—I can have my own way when I wantit, by Harry—Freddie Jones is a hard man to handle when he getsgoin’! ‘No, sir,’ says I, ‘by thunder, and Idon’t need anybody goin’ home with me, either—whujja take mefor, hey? Think I’m drunk, dontcha, hey?—I know you! But I’mno more drunk than you are, Kittens,’ says I to her. And then says she,‘Thass true, Freddie dear’ (she’s a smart one, is Kitty),‘but I’m stayin’ in the flat, an’ you’regoin’ out into the cold, cold night!’ ‘Put it in a pome,lovely Kitty,’ says I. ‘No jokin’, Freddie, my boy,’says she. ‘Lemme call a cab now, like a good dear’—but I cancall my own cabs, dontcha fool yourself—and I know what I’ma-doin’, you bet! Say, my fren’, whatcha say—willye come homean’ see me, an’ hassome supper? Come ’long like a goodfeller—don’t be haughty! You’re up against it, same as me,an’ you can unerstan’ a feller; your heart’s in the rightplace, by Harry—come ’long, ole chappie, an’ we’lllight up the house, an’ have some fizz, an’ we’ll raise hell,we will—whoop-la! S’long’s I’m inside the house I cando as I please—the guv’ner’s own very orders, b’God!Hip! hip!”

They had started down the street, arm in arm, the young man pushing Jurgisalong, half dazed. Jurgis was trying to think what to do—he knew he couldnot pass any crowded place with his new acquaintance without attractingattention and being stopped. It was only because of the falling snow thatpeople who passed here did not notice anything wrong.

Suddenly, therefore, Jurgis stopped. “Is it very far?” he inquired.

“Not very,” said the other, “Tired, are you, though? Well,we’ll ride—whatcha say? Good! Call a cab!”

And then, gripping Jurgis tight with one hand, the young fellow began searchinghis pockets with the other. “You call, ole sport, an’ I’llpay,” he suggested. “How’s that, hey?”

And he pulled out from somewhere a big roll of bills. It was more money thanJurgis had ever seen in his life before, and he stared at it with startledeyes.

“Looks like a lot, hey?” said Master Freddie, fumbling with it.“Fool you, though, ole chappie—they’re all little ones!I’ll be busted in one week more, sure thing—word of honor.An’ not a cent more till the first—hic—guv’ner’sorders—hic—not a cent, by Harry! Nuff to set a feller crazy,it is. I sent him a cable, this af’noon—thass one reason more whyI’m goin’ home. ‘Hangin’ on the verge ofstarvation,’ I says—‘for the honor of thefamily—hic—sen’ me some bread. Hunger will compel me to joinyou—Freddie.’ Thass what I wired him, by Harry, an’ I meanit—I’ll run away from school, b’God, if he don’tsen’ me some.”

After this fashion the young gentleman continued to prattle on—andmeantime Jurgis was trembling with excitement. He might grab that wad of billsand be out of sight in the darkness before the other could collect his wits.Should he do it? What better had he to hope for, if he waited longer? ButJurgis had never committed a crime in his life, and now he hesitated half asecond too long. “Freddie” got one bill loose, and then stuffed therest back into his trousers’ pocket.

“Here, ole man,” he said, “you take it.” He held it outfluttering. They were in front of a saloon; and by the light of the windowJurgis saw that it was a hundred-dollar bill! “You take it,” theother repeated. “Pay the cabbie an’ keep thechange—I’ve got—hic—no head for business! Guv’nersays so hisself, an’ the guv’ner knows—theguv’ner’s got a head for business, you bet! ‘All right,guv’ner,’ I told him, ‘you run the show, and I’ll takethe tickets!’ An’ so he set Aunt Polly to watchme—hic—an’ now Polly’s off in the hospital havin’twins, an’ me out raisin’ Cain! Hello, there! Hey! Call him!”

A cab was driving by; and Jurgis sprang and called, and it swung round to thecurb. Master Freddie clambered in with some difficulty, and Jurgis had startedto follow, when the driver shouted: “Hi, there! Get out—you!”

Jurgis hesitated, and was half obeying; but his companion broke out:“Whuzzat? Whuzzamatter wiz you, hey?”

And the cabbie subsided, and Jurgis climbed in. Then Freddie gave a number onthe Lake Shore Drive, and the carriage started away. The youngster leaned backand snuggled up to Jurgis, murmuring contentedly; in half a minute he was soundasleep, Jurgis sat shivering, speculating as to whether he might not still beable to get hold of the roll of bills. He was afraid to try to go through hiscompanion’s pockets, however; and besides the cabbie might be on thewatch. He had the hundred safe, and he would have to be content with that.

At the end of half an hour or so the cab stopped. They were out on thewaterfront, and from the east a freezing gale was blowing off the ice-boundlake. “Here we are,” called the cabbie, and Jurgis awakened hiscompanion.

Master Freddie sat up with a start.

“Hello!” he said. “Where are we? Whuzzis? Who are you, hey?Oh, yes, sure nuff! Mos’ forgot you—hic—ole chappie! Home,are we? Lessee! Br-r-r—it’s cold! Yes—come’long—we’re home—it everso—hic—humble!”

Before them there loomed an enormous granite pile, set far back from thestreet, and occupying a whole block. By the light of the driveway lamps Jurgiscould see that it had towers and huge gables, like a mediæval castle. Hethought that the young fellow must have made a mistake—it wasinconceivable to him that any person could have a home like a hotel or the cityhall. But he followed in silence, and they went up the long flight of steps,arm in arm.

“There’s a button here, ole sport,” said Master Freddie.“Hole my arm while I find her! Steady, now—oh, yes, here she is!Saved!”

A bell rang, and in a few seconds the door was opened. A man in blue liverystood holding it, and gazing before him, silent as a statue.

They stood for a moment blinking in the light. Then Jurgis felt his companionpulling, and he stepped in, and the blue automaton closed the door.Jurgis’s heart was beating wildly; it was a bold thing for him todo—into what strange unearthly place he was venturing he had no idea.Aladdin entering his cave could not have been more excited.

The place where he stood was dimly lighted; but he could see a vast hall, withpillars fading into the darkness above, and a great staircase opening at thefar end of it. The floor was of tesselated marble, smooth as glass, and fromthe walls strange shapes loomed out, woven into huge portieres in rich,harmonious colors, or gleaming from paintings, wonderful and mysterious-lookingin the half-light, purple and red and golden, like sunset glimmers in a shadowyforest.

The man in livery had moved silently toward them; Master Freddie took off hishat and handed it to him, and then, letting go of Jurgis’ arm, tried toget out of his overcoat. After two or three attempts he accomplished this, withthe lackey’s help, and meantime a second man had approached, a tall andportly personage, solemn as an executioner. He bore straight down upon Jurgis,who shrank away nervously; he seized him by the arm without a word, and startedtoward the door with him. Then suddenly came Master Freddie’s voice,“Hamilton! My fren’ will remain wiz me.”

The man paused and half released Jurgis. “Come ’long olechappie,” said the other, and Jurgis started toward him.

“Master Frederick!” exclaimed the man.

“See that the cabbie—hic—is paid,” was theother’s response; and he linked his arm in Jurgis’. Jurgis wasabout to say, “I have the money for him,” but he restrainedhimself. The stout man in uniform signaled to the other, who went out to thecab, while he followed Jurgis and his young master.

They went down the great hall, and then turned. Before them were two hugedoors.

“Hamilton,” said Master Freddie.

“Well, sir?” said the other.

“Whuzzamatter wizze dinin’-room doors?”

“Nothing is the matter, sir.”

“Then why dontcha openum?”

The man rolled them back; another vista lost itself in the darkness.“Lights,” commanded Master Freddie; and the butler pressed abutton, and a flood of brilliant incandescence streamed from above,half-blinding Jurgis. He stared; and little by little he made out the greatapartment, with a domed ceiling from which the light poured, and walls thatwere one enormous painting—nymphs and dryads dancing in a flower-strewnglade—Diana with her hounds and horses, dashing headlong through amountain streamlet—a group of maidens bathing in a forest pool—alllife-size, and so real that Jurgis thought that it was some work ofenchantment, that he was in a dream palace. Then his eye passed to the longtable in the center of the hall, a table black as ebony, and gleaming withwrought silver and gold. In the center of it was a huge carven bowl, with theglistening gleam of ferns and the red and purple of rare orchids, glowing froma light hidden somewhere in their midst.

“This’s the dinin’ room,” observed Master Freddie.“How you like it, hey, ole sport?”

He always insisted on having an answer to his remarks, leaning over Jurgis andsmiling into his face. Jurgis liked it.

“Rummy ole place to feed in all ’lone, though,” wasFreddie’s comment—“rummy’s hell! Whuzya think,hey?” Then another idea occurred to him and he went on, without waiting:“Maybe you never saw anythin—hic—like this ’fore? Hey,ole chappie?”

“No,” said Jurgis.

“Come from country, maybe—hey?”

“Yes,” said Jurgis.

“Aha! I thosso! Lossa folks from country never saw such a place.Guv’ner brings ’em—free show—hic—reg’larcircus! Go home tell folks about it. Ole man Jones’s place—Jonesthe packer—beef-trust man. Made it all out of hogs, too, damn olescoundrel. Now we see where our pennies go—rebates, an’ private carlines—hic—by Harry! Bully place, though—worth seein’!Ever hear of Jones the packer, hey, ole chappie?”

Jurgis had started involuntarily; the other, whose sharp eyes missed nothing,demanded: “Whuzzamatter, hey? Heard of him?”

And Jurgis managed to stammer out: “I have worked for him in theyards.”

“What!” cried Master Freddie, with a yell. “You! Inthe yards? Ho, ho! Why, say, thass good! Shake hands on it, ole man—byHarry! Guv’ner ought to be here—glad to see you. Great fren’swith the men, guv’ner—labor an’ capital, commun’ty’f int’rests, an’ all that—hic! Funny things happen inthis world, don’t they, ole man? Hamilton, lemme interduceyou—fren’ the family—ole fren’ theguv’ner’s—works in the yards. Come to spend the night wiz me,Hamilton—have a hot time. Me fren’, Mr.—whuzya name, olechappie? Tell us your name.”

“Rudkus—Jurgis Rudkus.”

“My fren’, Mr. Rednose, Hamilton—shake han’s.”

The stately butler bowed his head, but made not a sound; and suddenly MasterFreddie pointed an eager finger at him. “I know whuzzamatter wiz you,Hamilton—lay you a dollar I know! You think—hic—you thinkI’m drunk! Hey, now?”

And the butler again bowed his head. “Yes, sir,” he said, at whichMaster Freddie hung tightly upon Jurgis’s neck and went into a fit oflaughter. “Hamilton, you damn ole scoundrel,” he roared,“I’ll ’scharge you for impudence, you see ’f Idon’t! Ho, ho, ho! I’m drunk! Ho, ho!”

The two waited until his fit had spent itself, to see what new whim would seizehim. “Whatcha wanta do?” he queried suddenly. “Wanta see theplace, ole chappie? Wamme play the guv’ner—show you roun’?State parlors—Looee Cans—Looee Sez—chairs cost three thousandapiece. Tea room Maryanntnet—picture of shepherdsdancing—Ruysdael—twenty-three thousan’!Ballroom—balc’ny pillars—hic—imported—specialship—sixty-eight thousan’! Ceilin’ painted inRome—whuzzat feller’s name, Hamilton—Mattatoni? Macaroni?Then this place—silver bowl—Benvenuto Cellini—rummy ole Dago!An’ the organ—thirty thousan’ dollars, sir—starter up,Hamilton, let Mr. Rednose hear it. No—never mind—cleanforgot—says he’s hungry, Hamilton—less have some supper.Only—hic—don’t less have it here—come up to my place,ole sport—nice an’ cosy. This way—steady now, don’tslip on the floor. Hamilton, we’ll have a cole spread, an’ somefizz—don’t leave out the fizz, by Harry. We’ll have some ofthe eighteen-thirty Madeira. Hear me, sir?”

“Yes, sir,” said the butler, “but, Master Frederick, yourfather left orders—”

And Master Frederick drew himself up to a stately height. “Myfather’s orders were left to me—hic—an’ not toyou,” he said. Then, clasping Jurgis tightly by the neck, he staggeredout of the room; on the way another idea occurred to him, and he asked:“Any—hic—cable message for me, Hamilton?”

“No, sir,” said the butler.

“Guv’ner must be travelin’. An’ how’s the twins,Hamilton?”

“They are doing well, sir.”

“Good!” said Master Freddie; and added fervently: “God bless’em, the little lambs!”

They went up the great staircase, one step at a time; at the top of it theregleamed at them out of the shadows the figure of a nymph crouching by afountain, a figure ravishingly beautiful, the flesh warm and glowing with thehues of life. Above was a huge court, with domed roof, the various apartmentsopening into it. The butler had paused below but a few minutes to give orders,and then followed them; now he pressed a button, and the hall blazed withlight. He opened a door before them, and then pressed another button, as theystaggered into the apartment.

It was fitted up as a study. In the center was a mahogany table, covered withbooks, and smokers’ implements; the walls were decorated with collegetrophies and colors—flags, posters, photographs andknickknacks—tennis rackets, canoe paddles, golf clubs, and polo sticks.An enormous moose head, with horns six feet across, faced a buffalo head on theopposite wall, while bear and tiger skins covered the polished floor. Therewere lounging chairs and sofas, window seats covered with soft cushions offantastic designs; there was one corner fitted in Persian fashion, with a hugecanopy and a jeweled lamp beneath. Beyond, a door opened upon a bedroom, andbeyond that was a swimming pool of the purest marble, that had cost about fortythousand dollars.

Master Freddie stood for a moment or two, gazing about him; then out of thenext room a dog emerged, a monstrous bulldog, the most hideous object thatJurgis had ever laid eyes upon. He yawned, opening a mouth like adragon’s; and he came toward the young man, wagging his tail.“Hello, Dewey!” cried his master. “Been havin’ asnooze, ole boy? Well, well—hello there, whuzzamatter?” (The dogwas snarling at Jurgis.) “Why, Dewey—this’ my fren’,Mr. Rednose—ole fren’ the guv’ner’s! Mr. Rednose,Admiral Dewey; shake han’s—hic. Ain’t he a daisy,though—blue ribbon at the New York show—eighty-five hundred at aclip! How’s that, hey?”

The speaker sank into one of the big armchairs, and Admiral Dewey crouchedbeneath it; he did not snarl again, but he never took his eyes off Jurgis. Hewas perfectly sober, was the Admiral.

The butler had closed the door, and he stood by it, watching Jurgis everysecond. Now there came footsteps outside, and, as he opened the door a man inlivery entered, carrying a folding table, and behind him two men with coveredtrays. They stood like statues while the first spread the table and set out thecontents of the trays upon it. There were cold pates, and thin slices of meat,tiny bread and butter sandwiches with the crust cut off, a bowl of slicedpeaches and cream (in January), little fancy cakes, pink and green and yellowand white, and half a dozen ice-cold bottles of wine.

“Thass the stuff for you!” cried Master Freddie, exultantly, as hespied them. “Come ’long, ole chappie, move up.”

And he seated himself at the table; the waiter pulled a cork, and he took thebottle and poured three glasses of its contents in succession down his throat.Then he gave a long-drawn sigh, and cried again to Jurgis to seat himself.

The butler held the chair at the opposite side of the table, and Jurgis thoughtit was to keep him out of it; but finally he understand that it was theother’s intention to put it under him, and so he sat down, cautiously andmistrustingly. Master Freddie perceived that the attendants embarrassed him,and he remarked with a nod to them, “You may go.”

They went, all save the butler.

“You may go too, Hamilton,” he said.

“Master Frederick—” the man began.

“Go!” cried the youngster, angrily. “Damn you, don’tyou hear me?”

The man went out and closed the door; Jurgis, who was as sharp as he, observedthat he took the key out of the lock, in order that he might peer through thekeyhole.

Master Frederick turned to the table again. “Now,” he said,“go for it.”

Jurgis gazed at him doubtingly. “Eat!” cried the other. “Pilein, ole chappie!”

“Don’t you want anything?” Jurgis asked.

“Ain’t hungry,” was the reply—“only thirsty.Kitty and me had some candy—you go on.”

So Jurgis began, without further parley. He ate as with two shovels, his forkin one hand and his knife in the other; when he once got started hiswolf-hunger got the better of him, and he did not stop for breath until he hadcleared every plate. “Gee whiz!” said the other, who had beenwatching him in wonder.

Then he held Jurgis the bottle. “Lessee you drink now,” he said;and Jurgis took the bottle and turned it up to his mouth, and a wonderfullyunearthly liquid ecstasy poured down his throat, tickling every nerve of him,thrilling him with joy. He drank the very last drop of it, and then he gavevent to a long-drawn “Ah!”

“Good stuff, hey?” said Freddie, sympathetically; he had leanedback in the big chair, putting his arm behind his head and gazing at Jurgis.

And Jurgis gazed back at him. He was clad in spotless evening dress, wasFreddie, and looked very handsome—he was a beautiful boy, with lightgolden hair and the head of an Antinous. He smiled at Jurgis confidingly, andthen started talking again, with his blissful insouciance. This time hetalked for ten minutes at a stretch, and in the course of the speech he toldJurgis all of his family history. His big brother Charlie was in love with theguileless maiden who played the part of “Little Bright-Eyes” in“The Kaliph of Kamskatka.” He had been on the verge of marrying heronce, only “the guv’ner” had sworn to disinherit him, and hadpresented him with a sum that would stagger the imagination, and that hadstaggered the virtue of “Little Bright-Eyes.” Now Charlie had gotleave from college, and had gone away in his automobile on the next best thingto a honeymoon. “The guv’ner” had made threats to disinheritanother of his children also, sister Gwendolen, who had married an Italianmarquis with a string of titles and a dueling record. They lived in hischateau, or rather had, until he had taken to firing the breakfast dishes ather; then she had cabled for help, and the old gentleman had gone over to findout what were his Grace’s terms. So they had left Freddie all alone, andhe with less than two thousand dollars in his pocket. Freddie was up in armsand meant serious business, as they would find in the end—if there was noother way of bringing them to terms he would have his “Kittens”wire that she was about to marry him, and see what happened then.

So the cheerful youngster rattled on, until he was tired out. He smiled hissweetest smile at Jurgis, and then he closed his eyes, sleepily. Then he openedthem again, and smiled once more, and finally closed them and forgot to openthem.

For several minutes Jurgis sat perfectly motionless, watching him, and revelingin the strange sensation of the champagne. Once he stirred, and the doggrowled; after that he sat almost holding his breath—until after a whilethe door of the room opened softly, and the butler came in.

He walked toward Jurgis upon tiptoe, scowling at him; and Jurgis rose up, andretreated, scowling back. So until he was against the wall, and then the butlercame close, and pointed toward the door. “Get out of here!” hewhispered.

Jurgis hesitated, giving a glance at Freddie, who was snoring softly. “Ifyou do, you son of a—” hissed the butler, “I’ll mash inyour face for you before you get out of here!”

And Jurgis wavered but an instant more. He saw “Admiral Dewey”coming up behind the man and growling softly, to back up his threats. Then hesurrendered and started toward the door.

They went out without a sound, and down the great echoing staircase, andthrough the dark hall. At the front door he paused, and the butler strode closeto him.

“Hold up your hands,” he snarled. Jurgis took a step back,clinching his one well fist.

“What for?” he cried; and then understanding that the fellowproposed to search him, he answered, “I’ll see you in hellfirst.”

“Do you want to go to jail?” demanded the butler, menacingly.“I’ll have the police—”

“Have ’em!” roared Jurgis, with fierce passion. “Butyou won’t put your hands on me till you do! I haven’t touchedanything in your damned house, and I’ll not have you touch me!”

So the butler, who was terrified lest his young master should waken, steppedsuddenly to the door, and opened it. “Get out of here!” he said;and then as Jurgis passed through the opening, he gave him a ferocious kickthat sent him down the great stone steps at a run, and landed him sprawling inthe snow at the bottom.

CHAPTER XXV

Jurgis got up, wild with rage, but the door was shut and the great castle wasdark and impregnable. Then the icy teeth of the blast bit into him, and heturned and went away at a run.

When he stopped again it was because he was coming to frequented streets anddid not wish to attract attention. In spite of that last humiliation, his heartwas thumping fast with triumph. He had come out ahead on that deal! He put hishand into his trousers’ pocket every now and then, to make sure that theprecious hundred-dollar bill was still there.

Yet he was in a plight—a curious and even dreadful plight, when he cameto realize it. He had not a single cent but that one bill! And he had to findsome shelter that night he had to change it!

Jurgis spent half an hour walking and debating the problem. There was no one hecould go to for help—he had to manage it all alone. To get it changed ina lodging-house would be to take his life in his hands—he would almostcertainly be robbed, and perhaps murdered, before morning. He might go to somehotel or railroad depot and ask to have it changed; but what would they think,seeing a “bum” like him with a hundred dollars? He would probablybe arrested if he tried it; and what story could he tell? On the morrow FreddieJones would discover his loss, and there would be a hunt for him, and he wouldlose his money. The only other plan he could think of was to try in a saloon.He might pay them to change it, if it could not be done otherwise.

He began peering into places as he walked; he passed several as being toocrowded—then finally, chancing upon one where the bartender was allalone, he gripped his hands in sudden resolution and went in.

“Can you change me a hundred-dollar bill?” he demanded.

The bartender was a big, husky fellow, with the jaw of a prize fighter, and athree weeks’ stubble of hair upon it. He stared at Jurgis.“What’s that youse say?” he demanded.

“I said, could you change me a hundred-dollar bill?”

“Where’d youse get it?” he inquired incredulously.

“Never mind,” said Jurgis; “I’ve got it, and I want itchanged. I’ll pay you if you’ll do it.”

The other stared at him hard. “Lemme see it,” he said.

“Will you change it?” Jurgis demanded, gripping it tightly in hispocket.

“How the hell can I know if it’s good or not?” retorted thebartender. “Whatcher take me for, hey?”

Then Jurgis slowly and warily approached him; he took out the bill, and fumbledit for a moment, while the man stared at him with hostile eyes across thecounter. Then finally he handed it over.

The other took it, and began to examine it; he smoothed it between his fingers,and held it up to the light; he turned it over, and upside down, and edgeways.It was new and rather stiff, and that made him dubious. Jurgis was watching himlike a cat all the time.

“Humph,” he said, finally, and gazed at the stranger, sizing himup—a ragged, ill-smelling tramp, with no overcoat and one arm in asling—and a hundred-dollar bill! “Want to buy anything?” hedemanded.

“Yes,” said Jurgis, “I’ll take a glass of beer.”

“All right,” said the other, “I’ll change it.”And he put the bill in his pocket, and poured Jurgis out a glass of beer, andset it on the counter. Then he turned to the cash register, and punched up fivecents, and began to pull money out of the drawer. Finally, he faced Jurgis,counting it out—two dimes, a quarter, and fifty cents.“There,” he said.

For a second Jurgis waited, expecting to see him turn again. “Myninety-nine dollars,” he said.

“What ninety-nine dollars?” demanded the bartender.

“My change!” he cried—“the rest of my hundred!”

“Go on,” said the bartender, “you’re nutty!”

And Jurgis stared at him with wild eyes. For an instant horror reigned inhim—black, paralyzing, awful horror, clutching him at the heart; and thencame rage, in surging, blinding floods—he screamed aloud, and seized theglass and hurled it at the other’s head. The man ducked, and it missedhim by half an inch; he rose again and faced Jurgis, who was vaulting over thebar with his one well arm, and dealt him a smashing blow in the face, hurlinghim backward upon the floor. Then, as Jurgis scrambled to his feet again andstarted round the counter after him, he shouted at the top of his voice,“Help! help!”

Jurgis seized a bottle off the counter as he ran; and as the bartender made aleap he hurled the missile at him with all his force. It just grazed his head,and shivered into a thousand pieces against the post of the door. Then Jurgisstarted back, rushing at the man again in the middle of the room. This time, inhis blind frenzy, he came without a bottle, and that was all the bartenderwanted—he met him halfway and floored him with a sledgehammer drivebetween the eyes. An instant later the screen doors flew open, and two menrushed in—just as Jurgis was getting to his feet again, foaming at themouth with rage, and trying to tear his broken arm out of its bandages.

“Look out!” shouted the bartender. “He’s got aknife!” Then, seeing that the two were disposed to join the fray, he madeanother rush at Jurgis, and knocked aside his feeble defense and sent himtumbling again; and the three flung themselves upon him, rolling and kickingabout the place.

A second later a policeman dashed in, and the bartender yelled oncemore—“Look out for his knife!” Jurgis had fought himself halfto his knees, when the policeman made a leap at him, and cracked him across theface with his club. Though the blow staggered him, the wild-beast frenzy stillblazed in him, and he got to his feet, lunging into the air. Then again theclub descended, full upon his head, and he dropped like a log to the floor.

The policeman crouched over him, clutching his stick, waiting for him to try torise again; and meantime the barkeeper got up, and put his hand to his head.“Christ!” he said, “I thought I was done for that time. Didhe cut me?”

“Don’t see anything, Jake,” said the policeman.“What’s the matter with him?”

“Just crazy drunk,” said the other. “A lame duck,too—but he ’most got me under the bar. Youse had better call thewagon, Billy.”

“No,” said the officer. “He’s got no more fight in him,I guess—and he’s only got a block to go.” He twisted his handin Jurgis’s collar and jerked at him. “Git up here, you!” hecommanded.

But Jurgis did not move, and the bartender went behind the bar, and afterstowing the hundred-dollar bill away in a safe hiding place, came and poured aglass of water over Jurgis. Then, as the latter began to moan feebly, thepoliceman got him to his feet and dragged him out of the place. The stationhouse was just around the corner, and so in a few minutes Jurgis was in a cell.

He spent half the night lying unconscious, and the balance moaning in torment,with a blinding headache and a racking thirst. Now and then he cried aloud fora drink of water, but there was no one to hear him. There were others in thatsame station house with split heads and a fever; there were hundreds of them inthe great city, and tens of thousands of them in the great land, and there wasno one to hear any of them.

In the morning Jurgis was given a cup of water and a piece of bread, and thenhustled into a patrol wagon and driven to the nearest police court. He sat inthe pen with a score of others until his turn came.

The bartender—who proved to be a well-known bruiser—was called tothe stand. He took the oath and told his story. The prisoner had come into hissaloon after midnight, fighting drunk, and had ordered a glass of beer andtendered a dollar bill in payment. He had been given ninety-five cents’change, and had demanded ninety-nine dollars more, and before the plaintiffcould even answer had hurled the glass at him and then attacked him with abottle of bitters, and nearly wrecked the place.

Then the prisoner was sworn—a forlorn object, haggard and unshorn, withan arm done up in a filthy bandage, a cheek and head cut, and bloody, and oneeye purplish black and entirely closed. “What have you to say foryourself?” queried the magistrate.

“Your Honor,” said Jurgis, “I went into his place and askedthe man if he could change me a hundred-dollar bill. And he said he would if Ibought a drink. I gave him the bill and then he wouldn’t give me thechange.”

The magistrate was staring at him in perplexity. “You gave him ahundred-dollar bill!” he exclaimed.

“Yes, your Honor,” said Jurgis.

“Where did you get it?”

“A man gave it to me, your Honor.”

“A man? What man, and what for?”

“A young man I met upon the street, your Honor. I had beenbegging.”

There was a titter in the courtroom; the officer who was holding Jurgis put uphis hand to hide a smile, and the magistrate smiled without trying to hide it.“It’s true, your Honor!” cried Jurgis, passionately.

“You had been drinking as well as begging last night, had you not?”inquired the magistrate. “No, your Honor—” protested Jurgis.“I—”

“You had not had anything to drink?”

“Why, yes, your Honor, I had—”

“What did you have?”

“I had a bottle of something—I don’t know what itwas—something that burned—”

There was again a laugh round the courtroom, stopping suddenly as themagistrate looked up and frowned. “Have you ever been arrestedbefore?” he asked abruptly.

The question took Jurgis aback. “I—I—” he stammered.

“Tell me the truth, now!” commanded the other, sternly.

“Yes, your Honor,” said Jurgis.

“How often?”

“Only once, your Honor.”

“What for?”

“For knocking down my boss, your Honor. I was working in the stockyards,and he—”

“I see,” said his Honor; “I guess that will do. You ought tostop drinking if you can’t control yourself. Ten days and costs. Nextcase.”

Jurgis gave vent to a cry of dismay, cut off suddenly by the policeman, whoseized him by the collar. He was jerked out of the way, into a room with theconvicted prisoners, where he sat and wept like a child in his impotent rage.It seemed monstrous to him that policemen and judges should esteem his word asnothing in comparison with the bartender’s—poor Jurgis could notknow that the owner of the saloon paid five dollars each week to the policemanalone for Sunday privileges and general favors—nor that the pugilistbartender was one of the most trusted henchmen of the Democratic leader of thedistrict, and had helped only a few months before to hustle out arecord-breaking vote as a testimonial to the magistrate, who had been made thetarget of odious kid-gloved reformers.

Jurgis was driven out to the Bridewell for the second time. In his tumblingaround he had hurt his arm again, and so could not work, but had to be attendedby the physician. Also his head and his eye had to be tied up—and so hewas a pretty-looking object when, the second day after his arrival, he went outinto the exercise court and encountered—Jack Duane!

The young fellow was so glad to see Jurgis that he almost hugged him. “ByGod, if it isn’t ‘the Stinker’!” he cried. “Andwhat is it—have you been through a sausage machine?”

“No,” said Jurgis, “but I’ve been in a railroad wreckand a fight.” And then, while some of the other prisoners gathered roundhe told his wild story; most of them were incredulous, but Duane knew thatJurgis could never have made up such a yarn as that.

“Hard luck, old man,” he said, when they were alone; “butmaybe it’s taught you a lesson.”

“I’ve learned some things since I saw you last,” said Jurgismournfully. Then he explained how he had spent the last summer, “hoboingit,” as the phrase was. “And you?” he asked finally.“Have you been here ever since?”

“Lord, no!” said the other. “I only came in the day beforeyesterday. It’s the second time they’ve sent me up on a trumped-upcharge—I’ve had hard luck and can’t pay them what they want.Why don’t you quit Chicago with me, Jurgis?”

“I’ve no place to go,” said Jurgis, sadly.

“Neither have I,” replied the other, laughing lightly. “Butwe’ll wait till we get out and see.”

In the Bridewell Jurgis met few who had been there the last time, but he metscores of others, old and young, of exactly the same sort. It was like breakersupon a beach; there was new water, but the wave looked just the same. Hestrolled about and talked with them, and the biggest of them told tales oftheir prowess, while those who were weaker, or younger and inexperienced,gathered round and listened in admiring silence. The last time he was there,Jurgis had thought of little but his family; but now he was free to listen tothese men, and to realize that he was one of them—that their point ofview was his point of view, and that the way they kept themselves alive in theworld was the way he meant to do it in the future.

And so, when he was turned out of prison again, without a penny in his pocket,he went straight to Jack Duane. He went full of humility and gratitude; forDuane was a gentleman, and a man with a profession—and it was remarkablethat he should be willing to throw in his lot with a humble workingman, one whohad even been a beggar and a tramp. Jurgis could not see what help he could beto him; but he did not understand that a man like himself—who could betrusted to stand by any one who was kind to him—was as rare amongcriminals as among any other class of men.

The address Jurgis had was a garret room in the Ghetto district, the home of apretty little French girl, Duane’s mistress, who sewed all day, and ekedout her living by prostitution. He had gone elsewhere, she told Jurgis—hewas afraid to stay there now, on account of the police. The new address was acellar dive, whose proprietor said that he had never heard of Duane; but afterhe had put Jurgis through a catechism he showed him a back stairs which led toa “fence” in the rear of a pawnbroker’s shop, and thence to anumber of assignation rooms, in one of which Duane was hiding.

Duane was glad to see him; he was without a cent of money, he said, and hadbeen waiting for Jurgis to help him get some. He explained his plan—infact he spent the day in laying bare to his friend the criminal world of thecity, and in showing him how he might earn himself a living in it. That winterhe would have a hard time, on account of his arm, and because of an unwontedfit of activity of the police; but so long as he was unknown to them he wouldbe safe if he were careful. Here at “Papa” Hanson’s (so theycalled the old man who kept the dive) he might rest at ease, for“Papa” Hanson was “square”—would stand by him solong as he paid, and gave him an hour’s notice if there were to be apolice raid. Also Rosensteg, the pawnbroker, would buy anything he had for athird of its value, and guarantee to keep it hidden for a year.

There was an oil stove in the little cupboard of a room, and they had somesupper; and then about eleven o’clock at night they sallied forthtogether, by a rear entrance to the place, Duane armed with a slingshot. Theycame to a residence district, and he sprang up a lamppost and blew out thelight, and then the two dodged into the shelter of an area step and hid insilence.

Pretty soon a man came by, a workingman—and they let him go. Then after along interval came the heavy tread of a policeman, and they held their breathtill he was gone. Though half-frozen, they waited a full quarter of an hourafter that—and then again came footsteps, walking briskly. Duane nudgedJurgis, and the instant the man had passed they rose up. Duane stole out assilently as a shadow, and a second later Jurgis heard a thud and a stifled cry.He was only a couple of feet behind, and he leaped to stop the man’smouth, while Duane held him fast by the arms, as they had agreed. But the manwas limp and showed a tendency to fall, and so Jurgis had only to hold him bythe collar, while the other, with swift fingers, went through hispockets—ripping open, first his overcoat, and then his coat, and then hisvest, searching inside and outside, and transferring the contents into his ownpockets. At last, after feeling of the man’s fingers and in his necktie,Duane whispered, “That’s all!” and they dragged him to thearea and dropped him in. Then Jurgis went one way and his friend the other,walking briskly.

The latter arrived first, and Jurgis found him examining the“swag.” There was a gold watch, for one thing, with a chain andlocket; there was a silver pencil, and a matchbox, and a handful of smallchange, and finally a card-case. This last Duane opened feverishly—therewere letters and checks, and two theater-tickets, and at last, in the backpart, a wad of bills. He counted them—there was a twenty, five tens, fourfives, and three ones. Duane drew a long breath. “That lets usout!” he said.

After further examination, they burned the card-case and its contents, all butthe bills, and likewise the picture of a little girl in the locket. Then Duanetook the watch and trinkets downstairs, and came back with sixteen dollars.“The old scoundrel said the case was filled,” he said.“It’s a lie, but he knows I want the money.”

They divided up the spoils, and Jurgis got as his share fifty-five dollars andsome change. He protested that it was too much, but the other had agreed todivide even. That was a good haul, he said, better than average.

When they got up in the morning, Jurgis was sent out to buy a paper; one of thepleasures of committing a crime was the reading about it afterward. “Ihad a pal that always did it,” Duane remarked,laughing—“until one day he read that he had left three thousanddollars in a lower inside pocket of his party’s vest!”

There was a half-column account of the robbery—it was evident that a gangwas operating in the neighborhood, said the paper, for it was the third withina week, and the police were apparently powerless. The victim was an insuranceagent, and he had lost a hundred and ten dollars that did not belong to him. Hehad chanced to have his name marked on his shirt, otherwise he would not havebeen identified yet. His assailant had hit him too hard, and he was sufferingfrom concussion of the brain; and also he had been half-frozen when found, andwould lose three fingers on his right hand. The enterprising newspaper reporterhad taken all this information to his family, and told how they had receivedit.

Since it was Jurgis’s first experience, these details naturally causedhim some worriment; but the other laughed coolly—it was the way of thegame, and there was no helping it. Before long Jurgis would think no more of itthan they did in the yards of knocking out a bullock. “It’s a caseof us or the other fellow, and I say the other fellow, every time,” heobserved.

“Still,” said Jurgis, reflectively, “he never did us anyharm.”

“He was doing it to somebody as hard as he could, you can be sure ofthat,” said his friend.

Duane had already explained to Jurgis that if a man of their trade were knownhe would have to work all the time to satisfy the demands of the police.Therefore it would be better for Jurgis to stay in hiding and never be seen inpublic with his pal. But Jurgis soon got very tired of staying in hiding. In acouple of weeks he was feeling strong and beginning to use his arm, and then hecould not stand it any longer. Duane, who had done a job of some sort byhimself, and made a truce with the powers, brought over Marie, his littleFrench girl, to share with him; but even that did not avail for long, and inthe end he had to give up arguing, and take Jurgis out and introduce him to thesaloons and “sporting houses” where the big crooks and“holdup men” hung out.

And so Jurgis got a glimpse of the high-class criminal world of Chicago. Thecity, which was owned by an oligarchy of business men, being nominally ruled bythe people, a huge army of graft was necessary for the purpose of effecting thetransfer of power. Twice a year, in the spring and fall elections, millions ofdollars were furnished by the business men and expended by this army; meetingswere held and clever speakers were hired, bands played and rockets sizzled,tons of documents and reservoirs of drinks were distributed, and tens ofthousands of votes were bought for cash. And this army of graft had, of course,to be maintained the year round. The leaders and organizers were maintained bythe business men directly—aldermen and legislators by means of bribes,party officials out of the campaign funds, lobbyists and corporation lawyers inthe form of salaries, contractors by means of jobs, labor union leaders bysubsidies, and newspaper proprietors and editors by advertisements. The rankand file, however, were either foisted upon the city, or else lived off thepopulation directly. There was the police department, and the fire and waterdepartments, and the whole balance of the civil list, from the meanest officeboy to the head of a city department; and for the horde who could find no roomin these, there was the world of vice and crime, there was license to seduce,to swindle and plunder and prey. The law forbade Sunday drinking; and this haddelivered the saloon-keepers into the hands of the police, and made an alliancebetween them necessary. The law forbade prostitution; and this had brought the“madames” into the combination. It was the same with thegambling-house keeper and the poolroom man, and the same with any other man orwoman who had a means of getting “graft,” and was willing to payover a share of it: the green-goods man and the highwayman, the pickpocket andthe sneak thief, and the receiver of stolen goods, the seller of adulteratedmilk, of stale fruit and diseased meat, the proprietor of unsanitary tenements,the fake doctor and the usurer, the beggar and the “pushcart man,”the prize fighter and the professional slugger, the race-track“tout,” the procurer, the white-slave agent, and the expert seducerof young girls. All of these agencies of corruption were banded together, andleagued in blood brotherhood with the politician and the police; more oftenthan not they were one and the same person,—the police captain would ownthe brothel he pretended to raid, the politician would open his headquarters inhis saloon. “Hinkydink” or “Bathhouse John,” or othersof that ilk, were proprietors of the most notorious dives in Chicago, and alsothe “gray wolves” of the city council, who gave away the streets ofthe city to the business men; and those who patronized their places were thegamblers and prize fighters who set the law at defiance, and the burglars andholdup men who kept the whole city in terror. On election day all these powersof vice and crime were one power; they could tell within one per cent what thevote of their district would be, and they could change it at an hour’snotice.

A month ago Jurgis had all but perished of starvation upon the streets; and nowsuddenly, as by the gift of a magic key, he had entered into a world wheremoney and all the good things of life came freely. He was introduced by hisfriend to an Irishman named “Buck” Halloran, who was a political“worker” and on the inside of things. This man talked with Jurgisfor a while, and then told him that he had a little plan by which a man wholooked like a workingman might make some easy money; but it was a privateaffair, and had to be kept quiet. Jurgis expressed himself as agreeable, andthe other took him that afternoon (it was Saturday) to a place where citylaborers were being paid off. The paymaster sat in a little booth, with a pileof envelopes before him, and two policemen standing by. Jurgis went, accordingto directions, and gave the name of “Michael O’Flaherty,” andreceived an envelope, which he took around the corner and delivered toHalloran, who was waiting for him in a saloon. Then he went again; and gave thename of “Johann Schmidt,” and a third time, and give the name of“Serge Reminitsky.” Halloran had quite a list of imaginaryworkingmen, and Jurgis got an envelope for each one. For this work he receivedfive dollars, and was told that he might have it every week, so long as he keptquiet. As Jurgis was excellent at keeping quiet, he soon won the trust of“Buck” Halloran, and was introduced to others as a man who could bedepended upon.

This acquaintance was useful to him in another way, also before long Jurgismade his discovery of the meaning of “pull,” and just why his boss,Connor, and also the pugilist bartender, had been able to send him to jail. Onenight there was given a ball, the “benefit” of “One-eyedLarry,” a lame man who played the violin in one of the big“high-class” houses of prostitution on Clark Street, and was a wagand a popular character on the “Lêvée.” This ball was held in a bigdance hall, and was one of the occasions when the city’s powers ofdebauchery gave themselves up to madness. Jurgis attended and got half insanewith drink, and began quarreling over a girl; his arm was pretty strong bythen, and he set to work to clean out the place, and ended in a cell in thepolice station. The police station being crowded to the doors, and stinkingwith “bums,” Jurgis did not relish staying there to sleep off hisliquor, and sent for Halloran, who called up the district leader and had Jurgisbailed out by telephone at four o’clock in the morning. When he wasarraigned that same morning, the district leader had already seen the clerk ofthe court and explained that Jurgis Rudkus was a decent fellow, who had beenindiscreet; and so Jurgis was fined ten dollars and the fine was“suspended”—which meant that he did not have to pay for it,and never would have to pay it, unless somebody chose to bring it up againsthim in the future.

Among the people Jurgis lived with now money was valued according to anentirely different standard from that of the people of Packingtown; yet,strange as it may seem, he did a great deal less drinking than he had as aworkingman. He had not the same provocations of exhaustion and hopelessness; hehad now something to work for, to struggle for. He soon found that if he kepthis wits about him, he would come upon new opportunities; and being naturallyan active man, he not only kept sober himself, but helped to steady his friend,who was a good deal fonder of both wine and women than he.

One thing led to another. In the saloon where Jurgis met “Buck”Halloran he was sitting late one night with Duane, when a “countrycustomer” (a buyer for an out-of-town merchant) came in, a little morethan half “piped.” There was no one else in the place but thebartender, and as the man went out again Jurgis and Duane followed him; he wentround the corner, and in a dark place made by a combination of the elevatedrailroad and an unrented building, Jurgis leaped forward and shoved a revolverunder his nose, while Duane, with his hat pulled over his eyes, went throughthe man’s pockets with lightning fingers. They got his watch and his“wad,” and were round the corner again and into the saloon beforehe could shout more than once. The bartender, to whom they had tipped the wink,had the cellar door open for them, and they vanished, making their way by asecret entrance to a brothel next door. From the roof of this there was accessto three similar places beyond. By means of these passages the customers of anyone place could be gotten out of the way, in case a falling out with the policechanced to lead to a raid; and also it was necessary to have a way of getting agirl out of reach in case of an emergency. Thousands of them came to Chicagoanswering advertisements for “servants” and “factoryhands,” and found themselves trapped by fake employment agencies, andlocked up in a bawdy-house. It was generally enough to take all their clothesaway from them; but sometimes they would have to be “doped” andkept prisoners for weeks; and meantime their parents might be telegraphing thepolice, and even coming on to see why nothing was done. Occasionally there wasno way of satisfying them but to let them search the place to which the girlhad been traced.

For his help in this little job, the bartender received twenty out of thehundred and thirty odd dollars that the pair secured; and naturally this putthem on friendly terms with him, and a few days later he introduced them to alittle “sheeny” named Goldberger, one of the “runners”of the “sporting house” where they had been hidden. After a fewdrinks Goldberger began, with some hesitation, to narrate how he had had aquarrel over his best girl with a professional “cardsharp,” who hadhit him in the jaw. The fellow was a stranger in Chicago, and if he was foundsome night with his head cracked there would be no one to care very much.Jurgis, who by this time would cheerfully have cracked the heads of all thegamblers in Chicago, inquired what would be coming to him; at which the Jewbecame still more confidential, and said that he had some tips on the NewOrleans races, which he got direct from the police captain of the district,whom he had got out of a bad scrape, and who “stood in” with a bigsyndicate of horse owners. Duane took all this in at once, but Jurgis had tohave the whole race-track situation explained to him before he realized theimportance of such an opportunity.

There was the gigantic Racing Trust. It owned the legislatures in every statein which it did business; it even owned some of the big newspapers, and madepublic opinion—there was no power in the land that could oppose itunless, perhaps, it were the Poolroom Trust. It built magnificent racing parksall over the country, and by means of enormous purses it lured the people tocome, and then it organized a gigantic shell game, whereby it plundered them ofhundreds of millions of dollars every year. Horse racing had once been a sport,but nowadays it was a business; a horse could be “doped” anddoctored, undertrained or overtrained; it could be made to fall at anymoment—or its gait could be broken by lashing it with the whip, which allthe spectators would take to be a desperate effort to keep it in the lead.There were scores of such tricks; and sometimes it was the owners who playedthem and made fortunes, sometimes it was the jockeys and trainers, sometimes itwas outsiders, who bribed them—but most of the time it was the chiefs ofthe trust. Now for instance, they were having winter racing in New Orleans anda syndicate was laying out each day’s program in advance, and its agentsin all the Northern cities were “milking” the poolrooms. The wordcame by long-distance telephone in a cipher code, just a little while beforeeach race; and any man who could get the secret had as good as a fortune. IfJurgis did not believe it, he could try it, said the little Jew—let themmeet at a certain house on the morrow and make a test. Jurgis was willing, andso was Duane, and so they went to one of the high-class poolrooms where brokersand merchants gambled (with society women in a private room), and they put upten dollars each upon a horse called “Black Beldame,” a six to oneshot, and won. For a secret like that they would have done a good manysluggings—but the next day Goldberger informed them that the offendinggambler had got wind of what was coming to him, and had skipped the town.

There were ups and downs at the business; but there was always a living, insideof a jail, if not out of it. Early in April the city elections were due, andthat meant prosperity for all the powers of graft. Jurgis, hanging round indives and gambling houses and brothels, met with the heelers of both parties,and from their conversation he came to understand all the ins and outs of thegame, and to hear of a number of ways in which he could make himself usefulabout election time. “Buck” Halloran was a “Democrat,”and so Jurgis became a Democrat also; but he was not a bitter one—theRepublicans were good fellows, too, and were to have a pile of money in thisnext campaign. At the last election the Republicans had paid four dollars avote to the Democrats’ three; and “Buck” Halloran sat onenight playing cards with Jurgis and another man, who told how Halloran had beencharged with the job voting a “bunch” of thirty-seven newly landedItalians, and how he, the narrator, had met the Republican worker who was afterthe very same gang, and how the three had effected a bargain, whereby theItalians were to vote half and half, for a glass of beer apiece, while thebalance of the fund went to the conspirators!

Not long after this, Jurgis, wearying of the risks and vicissitudes ofmiscellaneous crime, was moved to give up the career for that of a politician.Just at this time there was a tremendous uproar being raised concerning thealliance between the criminals and the police. For the criminal graft was onein which the business men had no direct part—it was what is called a“side line,” carried by the police. “Wide open”gambling and debauchery made the city pleasing to “trade,” butburglaries and holdups did not. One night it chanced that while Jack Duane wasdrilling a safe in a clothing store he was caught red-handed by the nightwatchman, and turned over to a policeman, who chanced to know him well, and whotook the responsibility of letting him make his escape. Such a howl from thenewspapers followed this that Duane was slated for sacrifice, and barely gotout of town in time. And just at that juncture it happened that Jurgis wasintroduced to a man named Harper whom he recognized as the night watchman atBrown’s, who had been instrumental in making him an American citizen, thefirst year of his arrival at the yards. The other was interested in thecoincidence, but did not remember Jurgis—he had handled too many“green ones” in his time, he said. He sat in a dance hall withJurgis and Halloran until one or two in the morning, exchanging experiences. Hehad a long story to tell of his quarrel with the superintendent of hisdepartment, and how he was now a plain workingman, and a good union man aswell. It was not until some months afterward that Jurgis understood that thequarrel with the superintendent had been prearranged, and that Harper was inreality drawing a salary of twenty dollars a week from the packers for aninside report of his union’s secret proceedings. The yards were seethingwith agitation just then, said the man, speaking as a unionist. The people ofPackingtown had borne about all that they would bear, and it looked as if astrike might begin any week.

After this talk the man made inquiries concerning Jurgis, and a couple of dayslater he came to him with an interesting proposition. He was not absolutelycertain, he said, but he thought that he could get him a regular salary if hewould come to Packingtown and do as he was told, and keep his mouth shut.Harper—“Bush” Harper, he was called—was a right-handman of Mike Scully, the Democratic boss of the stockyards; and in the comingelection there was a peculiar situation. There had come to Scully a propositionto nominate a certain rich brewer who lived upon a swell boulevard that skirtedthe district, and who coveted the big badge and the “honorable” ofan alderman. The brewer was a Jew, and had no brains, but he was harmless, andwould put up a rare campaign fund. Scully had accepted the offer, and then goneto the Republicans with a proposition. He was not sure that he could manage the“sheeny,” and he did not mean to take any chances with hisdistrict; let the Republicans nominate a certain obscure but amiable friend ofScully’s, who was now setting tenpins in the cellar of an Ashland Avenuesaloon, and he, Scully, would elect him with the “sheeny’s”money, and the Republicans might have the glory, which was more than they wouldget otherwise. In return for this the Republicans would agree to put up nocandidate the following year, when Scully himself came up for reelection as theother alderman from the ward. To this the Republicans had assented at once; butthe hell of it was—so Harper explained—that the Republicans wereall of them fools—a man had to be a fool to be a Republican in thestockyards, where Scully was king. And they didn’t know how to work, andof course it would not do for the Democratic workers, the noble redskins of theWar Whoop League, to support the Republican openly. The difficulty would nothave been so great except for another fact—there had been a curiousdevelopment in stockyards politics in the last year or two, a new party havingleaped into being. They were the Socialists; and it was a devil of a mess, said“Bush” Harper. The one image which the word “Socialist”brought to Jurgis was of poor little Tamoszius Kuszleika, who had calledhimself one, and would go out with a couple of other men and a soap-box, andshout himself hoarse on a street corner Saturday nights. Tamoszius had tried toexplain to Jurgis what it was all about, but Jurgis, who was not of animaginative turn, had never quite got it straight; at present he was contentwith his companion’s explanation that the Socialists were the enemies ofAmerican institutions—could not be bought, and would not combine or makeany sort of a “dicker.” Mike Scully was very much worried over theopportunity which his last deal gave to them—the stockyards Democratswere furious at the idea of a rich capitalist for their candidate, and whilethey were changing they might possibly conclude that a Socialist firebrand waspreferable to a Republican bum. And so right here was a chance for Jurgis tomake himself a place in the world, explained “Bush” Harper; he hadbeen a union man, and he was known in the yards as a workingman; he must havehundreds of acquaintances, and as he had never talked politics with them hemight come out as a Republican now without exciting the least suspicion. Therewere barrels of money for the use of those who could deliver the goods; andJurgis might count upon Mike Scully, who had never yet gone back on a friend.Just what could he do? Jurgis asked, in some perplexity, and the otherexplained in detail. To begin with, he would have to go to the yards and work,and he mightn’t relish that; but he would have what he earned, as well asthe rest that came to him. He would get active in the union again, and perhapstry to get an office, as he, Harper, had; he would tell all his friends thegood points of Doyle, the Republican nominee, and the bad ones of the“sheeny”; and then Scully would furnish a meeting place, and hewould start the “Young Men’s Republican Association,” orsomething of that sort, and have the rich brewer’s best beer by thehogshead, and fireworks and speeches, just like the War Whoop League. SurelyJurgis must know hundreds of men who would like that sort of fun; and therewould be the regular Republican leaders and workers to help him out, and theywould deliver a big enough majority on election day.

When he had heard all this explanation to the end, Jurgis demanded: “Buthow can I get a job in Packingtown? I’m blacklisted.”

At which “Bush” Harper laughed. “I’ll attend to thatall right,” he said.

And the other replied, “It’s a go, then; I’m your man.”So Jurgis went out to the stockyards again, and was introduced to the politicallord of the district, the boss of Chicago’s mayor. It was Scully whoowned the brick-yards and the dump and the ice pond—though Jurgis did notknow it. It was Scully who was to blame for the unpaved street in whichJurgis’s child had been drowned; it was Scully who had put into officethe magistrate who had first sent Jurgis to jail; it was Scully who wasprincipal stockholder in the company which had sold him the ramshackletenement, and then robbed him of it. But Jurgis knew none of thesethings—any more than he knew that Scully was but a tool and puppet of thepackers. To him Scully was a mighty power, the “biggest” man he hadever met.

He was a little, dried-up Irishman, whose hands shook. He had a brief talk withhis visitor, watching him with his ratlike eyes, and making up his mind abouthim; and then he gave him a note to Mr. Harmon, one of the head managers ofDurham’s—

“The bearer, Jurgis Rudkus, is a particular friend of mine, and I wouldlike you to find him a good place, for important reasons. He was onceindiscreet, but you will perhaps be so good as to overlook that.”

Mr. Harmon looked up inquiringly when he read this. “What does he mean by‘indiscreet’?” he asked.

“I was blacklisted, sir,” said Jurgis.

At which the other frowned. “Blacklisted?” he said. “How doyou mean?” And Jurgis turned red with embarrassment.

He had forgotten that a blacklist did not exist. “I—that is—Ihad difficulty in getting a place,” he stammered.

“What was the matter?”

“I got into a quarrel with a foreman—not my own boss, sir—andstruck him.”

“I see,” said the other, and meditated for a few moments.“What do you wish to do?” he asked.

“Anything, sir,” said Jurgis—“only I had a broken armthis winter, and so I have to be careful.”

“How would it suit you to be a night watchman?”

“That wouldn’t do, sir. I have to be among the men at night.”

“I see—politics. Well, would it suit you to trim hogs?”

“Yes, sir,” said Jurgis.

And Mr. Harmon called a timekeeper and said, “Take this man to Pat Murphyand tell him to find room for him somehow.”

And so Jurgis marched into the hog-killing room, a place where, in the daysgone by, he had come begging for a job. Now he walked jauntily, and smiled tohimself, seeing the frown that came to the boss’s face as the timekeepersaid, “Mr. Harmon says to put this man on.” It would overcrowd hisdepartment and spoil the record he was trying to make—but he said not aword except “All right.”

And so Jurgis became a workingman once more; and straightway he sought out hisold friends, and joined the union, and began to “root” for“Scotty” Doyle. Doyle had done him a good turn once, he explained,and was really a bully chap; Doyle was a workingman himself, and wouldrepresent the workingmen—why did they want to vote for a millionaire“sheeny,” and what the hell had Mike Scully ever done for them thatthey should back his candidates all the time? And meantime Scully had givenJurgis a note to the Republican leader of the ward, and he had gone there andmet the crowd he was to work with. Already they had hired a big hall, with someof the brewer’s money, and every night Jurgis brought in a dozen newmembers of the “Doyle Republican Association.” Pretty soon they hada grand opening night; and there was a brass band, which marched through thestreets, and fireworks and bombs and red lights in front of the hall; and therewas an enormous crowd, with two overflow meetings—so that the pale andtrembling candidate had to recite three times over the little speech which oneof Scully’s henchmen had written, and which he had been a month learningby heart. Best of all, the famous and eloquent Senator Spareshanks,presidential candidate, rode out in an automobile to discuss the sacredprivileges of American citizenship, and protection and prosperity for theAmerican workingman. His inspiriting address was quoted to the extent of half acolumn in all the morning newspapers, which also said that it could be statedupon excellent authority that the unexpected popularity developed by Doyle, theRepublican candidate for alderman, was giving great anxiety to Mr. Scully, thechairman of the Democratic City Committee.

The chairman was still more worried when the monster torchlight procession cameoff, with the members of the Doyle Republican Association all in red capes andhats, and free beer for every voter in the ward—the best beer ever givenaway in a political campaign, as the whole electorate testified. During thisparade, and at innumerable cart-tail meetings as well, Jurgis laboredtirelessly. He did not make any speeches—there were lawyers and otherexperts for that—but he helped to manage things; distributing notices andposting placards and bringing out the crowds; and when the show was on heattended to the fireworks and the beer. Thus in the course of the campaign hehandled many hundreds of dollars of the Hebrew brewer’s money,administering it with naïve and touching fidelity. Toward the end, however, helearned that he was regarded with hatred by the rest of the “boys,”because he compelled them either to make a poorer showing than he or to dowithout their share of the pie. After that Jurgis did his best to please them,and to make up for the time he had lost before he discovered the extrabungholes of the campaign barrel.

He pleased Mike Scully, also. On election morning he was out at fouro’clock, “getting out the vote”; he had a two-horse carriageto ride in, and he went from house to house for his friends, and escorted themin triumph to the polls. He voted half a dozen times himself, and voted some ofhis friends as often; he brought bunch after bunch of the newestforeigners—Lithuanians, Poles, Bohemians, Slovaks—and when he hadput them through the mill he turned them over to another man to take to thenext polling place. When Jurgis first set out, the captain of the precinct gavehim a hundred dollars, and three times in the course of the day he came foranother hundred, and not more than twenty-five out of each lot got stuck in hisown pocket. The balance all went for actual votes, and on a day of Democraticlandslides they elected “Scotty” Doyle, the ex-tenpin setter, bynearly a thousand plurality—and beginning at five o’clock in theafternoon, and ending at three the next morning, Jurgis treated himself to amost unholy and horrible “jag.” Nearly every one else inPackingtown did the same, however, for there was universal exultation over thistriumph of popular government, this crushing defeat of an arrogant plutocrat bythe power of the common people.

CHAPTER XXVI

After the elections Jurgis stayed on in Packingtown and kept his job. Theagitation to break up the police protection of criminals was continuing, and itseemed to him best to “lay low” for the present. He had nearlythree hundred dollars in the bank, and might have considered himself entitledto a vacation; but he had an easy job, and force of habit kept him at it.Besides, Mike Scully, whom he consulted, advised him that something might“turn up” before long.

Jurgis got himself a place in a boardinghouse with some congenial friends. Hehad already inquired of Aniele, and learned that Elzbieta and her family hadgone downtown, and so he gave no further thought to them. He went with a newset, now, young unmarried fellows who were “sporty.” Jurgis hadlong ago cast off his fertilizer clothing, and since going into politics he haddonned a linen collar and a greasy red necktie. He had some reason for thinkingof his dress, for he was making about eleven dollars a week, and two-thirds ofit he might spend upon his pleasures without ever touching his savings.

Sometimes he would ride down-town with a party of friends to the cheap theatersand the music halls and other haunts with which they were familiar. Many of thesaloons in Packingtown had pool tables, and some of them bowling alleys, bymeans of which he could spend his evenings in petty gambling. Also, there werecards and dice. One time Jurgis got into a game on a Saturday night and wonprodigiously, and because he was a man of spirit he stayed in with the rest andthe game continued until late Sunday afternoon, and by that time he was“out” over twenty dollars. On Saturday nights, also, a number ofballs were generally given in Packingtown; each man would bring his“girl” with him, paying half a dollar for a ticket, and severaldollars additional for drinks in the course of the festivities, which continueduntil three or four o’clock in the morning, unless broken up by fighting.During all this time the same man and woman would dance together,half-stupefied with sensuality and drink.

Before long Jurgis discovered what Scully had meant by something “turningup.” In May the agreement between the packers and the unions expired, anda new agreement had to be signed. Negotiations were going on, and the yardswere full of talk of a strike. The old scale had dealt with the wages of theskilled men only; and of the members of the Meat Workers’ Union abouttwo-thirds were unskilled men. In Chicago these latter were receiving, for themost part, eighteen and a half cents an hour, and the unions wished to makethis the general wage for the next year. It was not nearly so large a wage asit seemed—in the course of the negotiations the union officers examinedtime checks to the amount of ten thousand dollars, and they found that thehighest wages paid had been fourteen dollars a week, and the lowest two dollarsand five cents, and the average of the whole, six dollars and sixty-five cents.And six dollars and sixty-five cents was hardly too much for a man to keep afamily on, considering the fact that the price of dressed meat had increasednearly fifty per cent in the last five years, while the price of “beef onthe hoof” had decreased as much, it would have seemed that the packersought to be able to pay it; but the packers were unwilling to pay it—theyrejected the union demand, and to show what their purpose was, a week or twoafter the agreement expired they put down the wages of about a thousand men tosixteen and a half cents, and it was said that old man Jones had vowed he wouldput them to fifteen before he got through. There were a million and a half ofmen in the country looking for work, a hundred thousand of them right inChicago; and were the packers to let the union stewards march into their placesand bind them to a contract that would lose them several thousand dollars a dayfor a year? Not much!

All this was in June; and before long the question was submitted to areferendum in the unions, and the decision was for a strike. It was the same inall the packing house cities; and suddenly the newspapers and public woke up toface the gruesome spectacle of a meat famine. All sorts of pleas for areconsideration were made, but the packers were obdurate; and all the whilethey were reducing wages, and heading off shipments of cattle, and rushing inwagon-loads of mattresses and cots. So the men boiled over, and one nighttelegrams went out from the union headquarters to all the big packingcenters—to St. Paul, South Omaha, Sioux City, St. Joseph, Kansas City,East St. Louis, and New York—and the next day at noon between fifty andsixty thousand men drew off their working clothes and marched out of thefactories, and the great “Beef Strike” was on.

Jurgis went to his dinner, and afterward he walked over to see Mike Scully, wholived in a fine house, upon a street which had been decently paved and lightedfor his especial benefit. Scully had gone into semi-retirement, and lookednervous and worried. “What do you want?” he demanded, when he sawJurgis.

“I came to see if maybe you could get me a place during thestrike,” the other replied.

And Scully knit his brows and eyed him narrowly. In that morning’s papersJurgis had read a fierce denunciation of the packers by Scully, who haddeclared that if they did not treat their people better the city authoritieswould end the matter by tearing down their plants. Now, therefore, Jurgis wasnot a little taken aback when the other demanded suddenly, “See here,Rudkus, why don’t you stick by your job?”

Jurgis started. “Work as a scab?” he cried.

“Why not?” demanded Scully. “What’s that to you?”

“But—but—” stammered Jurgis. He had somehow taken itfor granted that he should go out with his union. “The packers need goodmen, and need them bad,” continued the other, “and they’lltreat a man right that stands by them. Why don’t you take your chance andfix yourself?”

“But,” said Jurgis, “how could I ever be of any use toyou—in politics?”

“You couldn’t be it anyhow,” said Scully, abruptly.

“Why not?” asked Jurgis.

“Hell, man!” cried the other. “Don’t you knowyou’re a Republican? And do you think I’m always going to electRepublicans? My brewer has found out already how we served him, and there isthe deuce to pay.”

Jurgis looked dumfounded. He had never thought of that aspect of it before.“I could be a Democrat,” he said.

“Yes,” responded the other, “but not right away; a mancan’t change his politics every day. And besides, I don’t needyou—there’d be nothing for you to do. And it’s a long time toelection day, anyhow; and what are you going to do meantime?”

“I thought I could count on you,” began Jurgis.

“Yes,” responded Scully, “so you could—I never yet wentback on a friend. But is it fair to leave the job I got you and come to me foranother? I have had a hundred fellows after me today, and what can I do?I’ve put seventeen men on the city payroll to clean streets this oneweek, and do you think I can keep that up forever? It wouldn’t do for meto tell other men what I tell you, but you’ve been on the inside, and youought to have sense enough to see for yourself. What have you to gain by astrike?”

“I hadn’t thought,” said Jurgis.

“Exactly,” said Scully, “but you’d better. Take my wordfor it, the strike will be over in a few days, and the men will be beaten; andmeantime what you can get out of it will belong to you. Do you see?”

And Jurgis saw. He went back to the yards, and into the workroom. The men hadleft a long line of hogs in various stages of preparation, and the foreman wasdirecting the feeble efforts of a score or two of clerks and stenographers andoffice boys to finish up the job and get them into the chilling rooms. Jurgiswent straight up to him and announced, “I have come back to work, Mr.Murphy.”

The boss’s face lighted up. “Good man!” he cried. “Comeahead!”

“Just a moment,” said Jurgis, checking his enthusiasm. “Ithink I ought to get a little more wages.”

“Yes,” replied the other, “of course. What do youwant?”

Jurgis had debated on the way. His nerve almost failed him now, but he clenchedhis hands. “I think I ought to have’ three dollars a day,” hesaid.

“All right,” said the other, promptly; and before the day was outour friend discovered that the clerks and stenographers and office boys weregetting five dollars a day, and then he could have kicked himself!

So Jurgis became one of the new “American heroes,” a man whosevirtues merited comparison with those of the martyrs of Lexington and ValleyForge. The resemblance was not complete, of course, for Jurgis was generouslypaid and comfortably clad, and was provided with a spring cot and a mattressand three substantial meals a day; also he was perfectly at ease, and safe fromall peril of life and limb, save only in the case that a desire for beer shouldlead him to venture outside of the stockyards gates. And even in the exerciseof this privilege he was not left unprotected; a good part of the inadequatepolice force of Chicago was suddenly diverted from its work of huntingcriminals, and rushed out to serve him. The police, and the strikers also, weredetermined that there should be no violence; but there was another partyinterested which was minded to the contrary—and that was the press. Onthe first day of his life as a strikebreaker Jurgis quit work early, and in aspirit of bravado he challenged three men of his acquaintance to go outside andget a drink. They accepted, and went through the big Halsted Street gate, whereseveral policemen were watching, and also some union pickets, scanning sharplythose who passed in and out. Jurgis and his companions went south on HalstedStreet; past the hotel, and then suddenly half a dozen men started across thestreet toward them and proceeded to argue with them concerning the error oftheir ways. As the arguments were not taken in the proper spirit, they went onto threats; and suddenly one of them jerked off the hat of one of the four andflung it over the fence. The man started after it, and then, as a cry of“Scab!” was raised and a dozen people came running out of saloonsand doorways, a second man’s heart failed him and he followed. Jurgis andthe fourth stayed long enough to give themselves the satisfaction of a quickexchange of blows, and then they, too, took to their heels and fled back of thehotel and into the yards again. Meantime, of course, policemen were coming on arun, and as a crowd gathered other police got excited and sent in a riot call.Jurgis knew nothing of this, but went back to “Packers’Avenue,” and in front of the “Central Time Station” he sawone of his companions, breathless and wild with excitement, narrating to anever growing throng how the four had been attacked and surrounded by a howlingmob, and had been nearly torn to pieces. While he stood listening, smilingcynically, several dapper young men stood by with notebooks in their hands, andit was not more than two hours later that Jurgis saw newsboys running aboutwith armfuls of newspapers, printed in red and black letters six inches high:

VIOLENCE IN THE YARDS! STRIKEBREAKERS SURROUNDED BY FRENZIED MOB!

If he had been able to buy all of the newspapers of the United States the nextmorning, he might have discovered that his beer-hunting exploit was beingperused by some two score millions of people, and had served as a text foreditorials in half the staid and solemn business-men’s newspapers in theland.

Jurgis was to see more of this as time passed. For the present, his work beingover, he was free to ride into the city, by a railroad direct from the yards,or else to spend the night in a room where cots had been laid in rows. He chosethe latter, but to his regret, for all night long gangs of strikebreakers keptarriving. As very few of the better class of workingmen could be got for suchwork, these specimens of the new American hero contained an assortment of thecriminals and thugs of the city, besides Negroes and the lowestforeigners—Greeks, Roumanians, Sicilians, and Slovaks. They had beenattracted more by the prospect of disorder than by the big wages; and they madethe night hideous with singing and carousing, and only went to sleep when thetime came for them to get up to work.

In the morning before Jurgis had finished his breakfast, “Pat”Murphy ordered him to one of the superintendents, who questioned him as to hisexperience in the work of the killing room. His heart began to thump withexcitement, for he divined instantly that his hour had come—that he wasto be a boss!

Some of the foremen were union members, and many who were not had gone out withthe men. It was in the killing department that the packers had been left mostin the lurch, and precisely here that they could least afford it; the smokingand canning and salting of meat might wait, and all the by-products might bewasted—but fresh meats must be had, or the restaurants and hotels andbrownstone houses would feel the pinch, and then “public opinion”would take a startling turn.

An opportunity such as this would not come twice to a man; and Jurgis seizedit. Yes, he knew the work, the whole of it, and he could teach it to others.But if he took the job and gave satisfaction he would expect to keepit—they would not turn him off at the end of the strike? To which thesuperintendent replied that he might safely trust Durham’s forthat—they proposed to teach these unions a lesson, and most of all thoseforemen who had gone back on them. Jurgis would receive five dollars a dayduring the strike, and twenty-five a week after it was settled.

So our friend got a pair of “slaughter pen” boots and“jeans,” and flung himself at his task. It was a weird sight, thereon the killing beds—a throng of stupid black Negroes, and foreigners whocould not understand a word that was said to them, mixed with pale-faced,hollow-chested bookkeepers and clerks, half-fainting for the tropical heat andthe sickening stench of fresh blood—and all struggling to dress a dozenor two cattle in the same place where, twenty-four hours ago, the old killinggang had been speeding, with their marvelous precision, turning out fourhundred carcasses every hour!

The Negroes and the “toughs” from the Lêvée did not want to work,and every few minutes some of them would feel obliged to retire and recuperate.In a couple of days Durham and Company had electric fans up to cool off therooms for them, and even couches for them to rest on; and meantime they couldgo out and find a shady corner and take a “snooze,” and as therewas no place for any one in particular, and no system, it might be hours beforetheir boss discovered them. As for the poor office employees, they did theirbest, moved to it by terror; thirty of them had been “fired” in abunch that first morning for refusing to serve, besides a number of womenclerks and typewriters who had declined to act as waitresses.

It was such a force as this that Jurgis had to organize. He did his best,flying here and there, placing them in rows and showing them the tricks; he hadnever given an order in his life before, but he had taken enough of them toknow, and he soon fell into the spirit of it, and roared and stormed like anyold stager. He had not the most tractable pupils, however. “See hyar,boss,” a big black “buck” would begin, “ef youdoan’ like de way Ah does dis job, you kin get somebody else to doit.” Then a crowd would gather and listen, muttering threats. After thefirst meal nearly all the steel knives had been missing, and now every Negrohad one, ground to a fine point, hidden in his boots.

There was no bringing order out of such a chaos, Jurgis soon discovered; and hefell in with the spirit of the thing—there was no reason why he shouldwear himself out with shouting. If hides and guts were slashed and rendereduseless there was no way of tracing it to any one; and if a man lay off andforgot to come back there was nothing to be gained by seeking him, for all therest would quit in the meantime. Everything went, during the strike, and thepackers paid. Before long Jurgis found that the custom of resting had suggestedto some alert minds the possibility of registering at more than one place andearning more than one five dollars a day. When he caught a man at this he“fired” him, but it chanced to be in a quiet corner, and the mantendered him a ten-dollar bill and a wink, and he took them. Of course, beforelong this custom spread, and Jurgis was soon making quite a good income fromit.

In the face of handicaps such as these the packers counted themselves lucky ifthey could kill off the cattle that had been crippled in transit and the hogsthat had developed disease. Frequently, in the course of a two or threedays’ trip, in hot weather and without water, some hog would developcholera, and die; and the rest would attack him before he had ceased kicking,and when the car was opened there would be nothing of him left but the bones.If all the hogs in this carload were not killed at once, they would soon bedown with the dread disease, and there would be nothing to do but make theminto lard. It was the same with cattle that were gored and dying, or werelimping with broken bones stuck through their flesh—they must be killed,even if brokers and buyers and superintendents had to take off their coats andhelp drive and cut and skin them. And meantime, agents of the packers weregathering gangs of Negroes in the country districts of the far South, promisingthem five dollars a day and board, and being careful not to mention there was astrike; already carloads of them were on the way, with special rates from therailroads, and all traffic ordered out of the way. Many towns and cities weretaking advantage of the chance to clear out their jails and workhouses—inDetroit the magistrates would release every man who agreed to leave town withintwenty-four hours, and agents of the packers were in the courtrooms to shipthem right. And meantime trainloads of supplies were coming in for theiraccommodation, including beer and whisky, so that they might not be tempted togo outside. They hired thirty young girls in Cincinnati to “packfruit,” and when they arrived put them at work canning corned beef, andput cots for them to sleep in a public hallway, through which the men passed.As the gangs came in day and night, under the escort of squads of police, theystowed away in unused workrooms and storerooms, and in the car sheds, crowdedso closely together that the cots touched. In some places they would use thesame room for eating and sleeping, and at night the men would put their cotsupon the tables, to keep away from the swarms of rats.

But with all their best efforts, the packers were demoralized. Ninety per centof the men had walked out; and they faced the task of completely remaking theirlabor force—and with the price of meat up thirty per cent, and the publicclamoring for a settlement. They made an offer to submit the whole question atissue to arbitration; and at the end of ten days the unions accepted it, andthe strike was called off. It was agreed that all the men were to bere-employed within forty-five days, and that there was to be “nodiscrimination against union men.”

This was an anxious time for Jurgis. If the men were taken back “withoutdiscrimination,” he would lose his present place. He sought out thesuperintendent, who smiled grimly and bade him “wait and see.”Durham’s strikebreakers were few of them leaving.

Whether or not the “settlement” was simply a trick of the packersto gain time, or whether they really expected to break the strike and cripplethe unions by the plan, cannot be said; but that night there went out from theoffice of Durham and Company a telegram to all the big packing centers,“Employ no union leaders.” And in the morning, when the twentythousand men thronged into the yards, with their dinner pails and workingclothes, Jurgis stood near the door of the hog-trimming room, where he hadworked before the strike, and saw a throng of eager men, with a score or two ofpolicemen watching them; and he saw a superintendent come out and walk down theline, and pick out man after man that pleased him; and one after another came,and there were some men up near the head of the line who were neverpicked—they being the union stewards and delegates, and the men Jurgishad heard making speeches at the meetings. Each time, of course, there werelouder murmurings and angrier looks. Over where the cattle butchers werewaiting, Jurgis heard shouts and saw a crowd, and he hurried there. One bigbutcher, who was president of the Packing Trades Council, had been passed overfive times, and the men were wild with rage; they had appointed a committee ofthree to go in and see the superintendent, and the committee had made threeattempts, and each time the police had clubbed them back from the door. Thenthere were yells and hoots, continuing until at last the superintendent came tothe door. “We all go back or none of us do!” cried a hundredvoices. And the other shook his fist at them, and shouted, “You went outof here like cattle, and like cattle you’ll come back!”

Then suddenly the big butcher president leaped upon a pile of stones andyelled: “It’s off, boys. We’ll all of us quit again!”And so the cattle butchers declared a new strike on the spot; and gatheringtheir members from the other plants, where the same trick had been played, theymarched down Packers’ Avenue, which was thronged with a dense mass ofworkers, cheering wildly. Men who had already got to work on the killing bedsdropped their tools and joined them; some galloped here and there on horseback,shouting the tidings, and within half an hour the whole of Packingtown was onstrike again, and beside itself with fury.

There was quite a different tone in Packingtown after this—the place wasa seething caldron of passion, and the “scab” who ventured into itfared badly. There were one or two of these incidents each day, the newspapersdetailing them, and always blaming them upon the unions. Yet ten years before,when there were no unions in Packingtown, there was a strike, and nationaltroops had to be called, and there were pitched battles fought at night, by thelight of blazing freight trains. Packingtown was always a center of violence;in “Whisky Point,” where there were a hundred saloons and one gluefactory, there was always fighting, and always more of it in hot weather. Anyone who had taken the trouble to consult the station house blotter would havefound that there was less violence that summer than ever before—and thiswhile twenty thousand men were out of work, and with nothing to do all day butbrood upon bitter wrongs. There was no one to picture the battle the unionleaders were fighting—to hold this huge army in rank, to keep it fromstraggling and pillaging, to cheer and encourage and guide a hundred thousandpeople, of a dozen different tongues, through six long weeks of hunger anddisappointment and despair.

Meantime the packers had set themselves definitely to the task of making a newlabor force. A thousand or two of strikebreakers were brought in every night,and distributed among the various plants. Some of them were experiencedworkers,—butchers, salesmen, and managers from the packers’ branchstores, and a few union men who had deserted from other cities; but the vastmajority were “green” Negroes from the cotton districts of the farSouth, and they were herded into the packing plants like sheep. There was a lawforbidding the use of buildings as lodginghouses unless they were licensed forthe purpose, and provided with proper windows, stairways, and fire escapes; buthere, in a “paint room,” reached only by an enclosed“chute,” a room without a single window and only one door, ahundred men were crowded upon mattresses on the floor. Up on the third story ofthe “hog house” of Jones’s was a storeroom, without a window,into which they crowded seven hundred men, sleeping upon the bare springs ofcots, and with a second shift to use them by day. And when the clamor of thepublic led to an investigation into these conditions, and the mayor of the citywas forced to order the enforcement of the law, the packers got a judge toissue an injunction forbidding him to do it!

Just at this time the mayor was boasting that he had put an end to gambling andprize fighting in the city; but here a swarm of professional gamblers hadleagued themselves with the police to fleece the strikebreakers; and any night,in the big open space in front of Brown’s, one might see brawny Negroesstripped to the waist and pounding each other for money, while a howling throngof three or four thousand surged about, men and women, young white girls fromthe country rubbing elbows with big buck Negroes with daggers in their boots,while rows of woolly heads peered down from every window of the surroundingfactories. The ancestors of these black people had been savages in Africa; andsince then they had been chattel slaves, or had been held down by a communityruled by the traditions of slavery. Now for the first time they werefree—free to gratify every passion, free to wreck themselves. They werewanted to break a strike, and when it was broken they would be shipped away,and their present masters would never see them again; and so whisky and womenwere brought in by the carload and sold to them, and hell was let loose in theyards. Every night there were stabbings and shootings; it was said that thepackers had blank permits, which enabled them to ship dead bodies from the citywithout troubling the authorities. They lodged men and women on the same floor;and with the night there began a saturnalia of debauchery—scenes such asnever before had been witnessed in America. And as the women were the dregsfrom the brothels of Chicago, and the men were for the most part ignorantcountry Negroes, the nameless diseases of vice were soon rife; and this wherefood was being handled which was sent out to every corner of the civilizedworld.

The “Union Stockyards” were never a pleasant place; but now theywere not only a collection of slaughterhouses, but also the camping place of anarmy of fifteen or twenty thousand human beasts. All day long the blazingmidsummer sun beat down upon that square mile of abominations: upon tens ofthousands of cattle crowded into pens whose wooden floors stank and steamedcontagion; upon bare, blistering, cinder-strewn railroad tracks, and hugeblocks of dingy meat factories, whose labyrinthine passages defied a breath offresh air to penetrate them; and there were not merely rivers of hot blood, andcar-loads of moist flesh, and rendering vats and soap caldrons, glue factoriesand fertilizer tanks, that smelt like the craters of hell—there were alsotons of garbage festering in the sun, and the greasy laundry of the workershung out to dry, and dining rooms littered with food and black with flies, andtoilet rooms that were open sewers.

And then at night, when this throng poured out into the streets toplay—fighting, gambling, drinking and carousing, cursing and screaming,laughing and singing, playing banjoes and dancing! They were worked in theyards all the seven days of the week, and they had their prize fights and crapgames on Sunday nights as well; but then around the corner one might see abonfire blazing, and an old, gray-headed Negress, lean and witchlike, her hairflying wild and her eyes blazing, yelling and chanting of the fires ofperdition and the blood of the “Lamb,” while men and women lay downupon the ground and moaned and screamed in convulsions of terror and remorse.

Such were the stockyards during the strike; while the unions watched in sullendespair, and the country clamored like a greedy child for its food, and thepackers went grimly on their way. Each day they added new workers, and could bemore stern with the old ones—could put them on piecework, and dismissthem if they did not keep up the pace. Jurgis was now one of their agents inthis process; and he could feel the change day by day, like the slow startingup of a huge machine. He had gotten used to being a master of men; and becauseof the stifling heat and the stench, and the fact that he was a“scab” and knew it and despised himself. He was drinking, anddeveloping a villainous temper, and he stormed and cursed and raged at his men,and drove them until they were ready to drop with exhaustion.

Then one day late in August, a superintendent ran into the place and shouted toJurgis and his gang to drop their work and come. They followed him outside, towhere, in the midst of a dense throng, they saw several two-horse truckswaiting, and three patrol-wagon loads of police. Jurgis and his men sprang uponone of the trucks, and the driver yelled to the crowd, and they went thunderingaway at a gallop. Some steers had just escaped from the yards, and the strikershad got hold of them, and there would be the chance of a scrap!

They went out at the Ashland Avenue gate, and over in the direction of the“dump.” There was a yell as soon as they were sighted, men andwomen rushing out of houses and saloons as they galloped by. There were eightor ten policemen on the truck, however, and there was no disturbance until theycame to a place where the street was blocked with a dense throng. Those on theflying truck yelled a warning and the crowd scattered pell-mell, disclosing oneof the steers lying in its blood. There were a good many cattle butchers aboutjust then, with nothing much to do, and hungry children at home; and so someone had knocked out the steer—and as a first-class man can kill and dressone in a couple of minutes, there were a good many steaks and roasts alreadymissing. This called for punishment, of course; and the police proceeded toadminister it by leaping from the truck and cracking at every head they saw.There were yells of rage and pain, and the terrified people fled into housesand stores, or scattered helter-skelter down the street. Jurgis and his gangjoined in the sport, every man singling out his victim, and striving to bringhim to bay and punch him. If he fled into a house his pursuer would smash inthe flimsy door and follow him up the stairs, hitting every one who came withinreach, and finally dragging his squealing quarry from under a bed or a pile ofold clothes in a closet.

Jurgis and two policemen chased some men into a bar-room. One of them tookshelter behind the bar, where a policeman cornered him and proceeded to whackhim over the back and shoulders, until he lay down and gave a chance at hishead. The others leaped a fence in the rear, balking the second policeman, whowas fat; and as he came back, furious and cursing, a big Polish woman, theowner of the saloon, rushed in screaming, and received a poke in the stomachthat doubled her up on the floor. Meantime Jurgis, who was of a practicaltemper, was helping himself at the bar; and the first policeman, who had laidout his man, joined him, handing out several more bottles, and filling hispockets besides, and then, as he started to leave, cleaning off all the balancewith a sweep of his club. The din of the glass crashing to the floor broughtthe fat Polish woman to her feet again, but another policeman came up behindher and put his knee into her back and his hands over her eyes—and thencalled to his companion, who went back and broke open the cash drawer andfilled his pockets with the contents. Then the three went outside, and the manwho was holding the woman gave her a shove and dashed out himself. The ganghaving already got the carcass on to the truck, the party set out at a trot,followed by screams and curses, and a shower of bricks and stones from unseenenemies. These bricks and stones would figure in the accounts of the“riot” which would be sent out to a few thousand newspapers withinan hour or two; but the episode of the cash drawer would never be mentionedagain, save only in the heartbreaking legends of Packingtown.

It was late in the afternoon when they got back, and they dressed out theremainder of the steer, and a couple of others that had been killed, and thenknocked off for the day. Jurgis went downtown to supper, with three friends whohad been on the other trucks, and they exchanged reminiscences on the way.Afterward they drifted into a roulette parlor, and Jurgis, who was never luckyat gambling, dropped about fifteen dollars. To console himself he had to drinka good deal, and he went back to Packingtown about two o’clock in themorning, very much the worse for his excursion, and, it must be confessed,entirely deserving the calamity that was in store for him.

As he was going to the place where he slept, he met a painted-cheeked woman ina greasy “kimono,” and she put her arm about his waist to steadyhim; they turned into a dark room they were passing—but scarcely had theytaken two steps before suddenly a door swung open, and a man entered, carryinga lantern. “Who’s there?” he called sharply. And Jurgisstarted to mutter some reply; but at the same instant the man raised his light,which flashed in his face, so that it was possible to recognize him. Jurgisstood stricken dumb, and his heart gave a leap like a mad thing. The man wasConnor!

Connor, the boss of the loading gang! The man who had seduced hiswife—who had sent him to prison, and wrecked his home, ruined his life!He stood there, staring, with the light shining full upon him.

Jurgis had often thought of Connor since coming back to Packingtown, but it hadbeen as of something far off, that no longer concerned him. Now, however, whenhe saw him, alive and in the flesh, the same thing happened to him that hadhappened before—a flood of rage boiled up in him, a blind frenzy seizedhim. And he flung himself at the man, and smote him between the eyes—andthen, as he fell, seized him by the throat and began to pound his head upon thestones.

The woman began screaming, and people came rushing in. The lantern had beenupset and extinguished, and it was so dark they could not see a thing; but theycould hear Jurgis panting, and hear the thumping of his victim’s skull,and they rushed there and tried to pull him off. Precisely as before, Jurgiscame away with a piece of his enemy’s flesh between his teeth; and, asbefore, he went on fighting with those who had interfered with him, until apoliceman had come and beaten him into insensibility.

And so Jurgis spent the balance of the night in the stockyards station house.This time, however, he had money in his pocket, and when he came to his senseshe could get something to drink, and also a messenger to take word of hisplight to “Bush” Harper. Harper did not appear, however, untilafter the prisoner, feeling very weak and ill, had been hailed into court andremanded at five hundred dollars’ bail to await the result of hisvictim’s injuries. Jurgis was wild about this, because a differentmagistrate had chanced to be on the bench, and he had stated that he had neverbeen arrested before, and also that he had been attacked first—and ifonly someone had been there to speak a good word for him, he could have beenlet off at once.

But Harper explained that he had been downtown, and had not got the message.“What’s happened to you?” he asked.

“I’ve been doing a fellow up,” said Jurgis, “andI’ve got to get five hundred dollars’ bail.”

“I can arrange that all right,” said the other—“thoughit may cost you a few dollars, of course. But what was the trouble?”

“It was a man that did me a mean trick once,” answered Jurgis.

“Who is he?”

“He’s a foreman in Brown’s or used to be. His name’sConnor.”

And the other gave a start. “Connor!” he cried. “Not PhilConnor!”

“Yes,” said Jurgis, “that’s the fellow. Why?”

“Good God!” exclaimed the other, “then you’re in forit, old man! I can’t help you!”

“Not help me! Why not?”

“Why, he’s one of Scully’s biggest men—he’s amember of the War-Whoop League, and they talked of sending him to thelegislature! Phil Connor! Great heavens!”

Jurgis sat dumb with dismay.

“Why, he can send you to Joliet, if he wants to!” declared theother.

“Can’t I have Scully get me off before he finds out aboutit?” asked Jurgis, at length.

“But Scully’s out of town,” the other answered. “Idon’t even know where he is—he’s run away to dodge thestrike.”

That was a pretty mess, indeed. Poor Jurgis sat half-dazed. His pull had run upagainst a bigger pull, and he was down and out! “But what am I going todo?” he asked, weakly.

“How should I know?” said the other. “I shouldn’t evendare to get bail for you—why, I might ruin myself for life!”

Again there was silence. “Can’t you do it for me,” Jurgisasked, “and pretend that you didn’t know who I’d hit?”

“But what good would that do you when you came to stand trial?”asked Harper. Then he sat buried in thought for a minute or two.“There’s nothing—unless it’s this,” he said.“I could have your bail reduced; and then if you had the money you couldpay it and skip.”

“How much will it be?” Jurgis asked, after he had had thisexplained more in detail.

“I don’t know,” said the other. “How much do youown?”

“I’ve got about three hundred dollars,” was the answer.

“Well,” was Harper’s reply, “I’m not sure, butI’ll try and get you off for that. I’ll take the risk forfriendship’s sake—for I’d hate to see you sent tostate’s prison for a year or two.”

And so finally Jurgis ripped out his bankbook—which was sewed up in histrousers—and signed an order, which “Bush” Harper wrote, forall the money to be paid out. Then the latter went and got it, and hurried tothe court, and explained to the magistrate that Jurgis was a decent fellow anda friend of Scully’s, who had been attacked by a strike-breaker. So thebail was reduced to three hundred dollars, and Harper went on it himself; hedid not tell this to Jurgis, however—nor did he tell him that when thetime for trial came it would be an easy matter for him to avoid the forfeitingof the bail, and pocket the three hundred dollars as his reward for the risk ofoffending Mike Scully! All that he told Jurgis was that he was now free, andthat the best thing he could do was to clear out as quickly as possible; and soJurgis overwhelmed with gratitude and relief, took the dollar and fourteencents that was left him out of all his bank account, and put it with the twodollars and quarter that was left from his last night’s celebration, andboarded a streetcar and got off at the other end of Chicago.

CHAPTER XXVII

Poor Jurgis was now an outcast and a tramp once more. He was crippled—hewas as literally crippled as any wild animal which has lost its claws, or beentorn out of its shell. He had been shorn, at one cut, of all those mysteriousweapons whereby he had been able to make a living easily and to escape theconsequences of his actions. He could no longer command a job when he wantedit; he could no longer steal with impunity—he must take his chances withthe common herd. Nay worse, he dared not mingle with the herd—he musthide himself, for he was one marked out for destruction. His old companionswould betray him, for the sake of the influence they would gain thereby; and hewould be made to suffer, not merely for the offense he had committed, but forothers which would be laid at his door, just as had been done for some poordevil on the occasion of that assault upon the “country customer”by him and Duane.

And also he labored under another handicap now. He had acquired new standardsof living, which were not easily to be altered. When he had been out of workbefore, he had been content if he could sleep in a doorway or under a truck outof the rain, and if he could get fifteen cents a day for saloon lunches. Butnow he desired all sorts of other things, and suffered because he had to dowithout them. He must have a drink now and then, a drink for its own sake, andapart from the food that came with it. The craving for it was strong enough tomaster every other consideration—he would have it, though it were hislast nickel and he had to starve the balance of the day in consequence.

Jurgis became once more a besieger of factory gates. But never since he hadbeen in Chicago had he stood less chance of getting a job than just then. Forone thing, there was the economic crisis, the million or two of men who hadbeen out of work in the spring and summer, and were not yet all back, by anymeans. And then there was the strike, with seventy thousand men and women allover the country idle for a couple of months—twenty thousand in Chicago,and many of them now seeking work throughout the city. It did not remedymatters that a few days later the strike was given up and about half thestrikers went back to work; for every one taken on, there was a“scab” who gave up and fled. The ten or fifteen thousand“green” Negroes, foreigners, and criminals were now being turnedloose to shift for themselves. Everywhere Jurgis went he kept meeting them, andhe was in an agony of fear lest some one of them should know that he was“wanted.” He would have left Chicago, only by the time he hadrealized his danger he was almost penniless; and it would be better to go tojail than to be caught out in the country in the winter time.

At the end of about ten days Jurgis had only a few pennies left; and he had notyet found a job—not even a day’s work at anything, not a chance tocarry a satchel. Once again, as when he had come out of the hospital, he wasbound hand and foot, and facing the grisly phantom of starvation. Raw, nakedterror possessed him, a maddening passion that would never leave him, and thatwore him down more quickly than the actual want of food. He was going to die ofhunger! The fiend reached out its scaly arms for him—it touched him, itsbreath came into his face; and he would cry out for the awfulness of it, hewould wake up in the night, shuddering, and bathed in perspiration, and startup and flee. He would walk, begging for work, until he was exhausted; he couldnot remain still—he would wander on, gaunt and haggard, gazing about himwith restless eyes. Everywhere he went, from one end of the vast city to theother, there were hundreds of others like him; everywhere was the sight ofplenty and the merciless hand of authority waving them away. There is one kindof prison where the man is behind bars, and everything that he desires isoutside; and there is another kind where the things are behind the bars, andthe man is outside.

When he was down to his last quarter, Jurgis learned that before the bakeshopsclosed at night they sold out what was left at half price, and after that hewould go and get two loaves of stale bread for a nickel, and break them up andstuff his pockets with them, munching a bit from time to time. He would notspend a penny save for this; and, after two or three days more, he even becamesparing of the bread, and would stop and peer into the ash barrels as he walkedalong the streets, and now and then rake out a bit of something, shake it freefrom dust, and count himself just so many minutes further from the end.

So for several days he had been going about, ravenous all the time, and growingweaker and weaker, and then one morning he had a hideous experience, thatalmost broke his heart. He was passing down a street lined with warehouses, anda boss offered him a job, and then, after he had started to work, turned himoff because he was not strong enough. And he stood by and saw another man putinto his place, and then picked up his coat, and walked off, doing all that hecould to keep from breaking down and crying like a baby. He was lost! He wasdoomed! There was no hope for him! But then, with a sudden rush, his fear gaveplace to rage. He fell to cursing. He would come back there after dark, and hewould show that scoundrel whether he was good for anything or not!

He was still muttering this when suddenly, at the corner, he came upon agreen-grocery, with a tray full of cabbages in front of it. Jurgis, after oneswift glance about him, stooped and seized the biggest of them, and dartedround the corner with it. There was a hue and cry, and a score of men and boysstarted in chase of him; but he came to an alley, and then to another branchingoff from it and leading him into another street, where he fell into a walk, andslipped his cabbage under his coat and went off unsuspected in the crowd. Whenhe had gotten a safe distance away he sat down and devoured half the cabbageraw, stowing the balance away in his pockets till the next day.

Just about this time one of the Chicago newspapers, which made much of the“common people,” opened a “free-soup kitchen” for thebenefit of the unemployed. Some people said that they did this for the sake ofthe advertising it gave them, and some others said that their motive was a fearlest all their readers should be starved off; but whatever the reason, the soupwas thick and hot, and there was a bowl for every man, all night long. WhenJurgis heard of this, from a fellow “hobo,” he vowed that he wouldhave half a dozen bowls before morning; but, as it proved, he was lucky to getone, for there was a line of men two blocks long before the stand, and therewas just as long a line when the place was finally closed up.

This depot was within the danger line for Jurgis—in the“Lêvée” district, where he was known; but he went there, all thesame, for he was desperate, and beginning to think of even the Bridewell as aplace of refuge. So far the weather had been fair, and he had slept out everynight in a vacant lot; but now there fell suddenly a shadow of the advancingwinter, a chill wind from the north and a driving storm of rain. That dayJurgis bought two drinks for the sake of the shelter, and at night he spent hislast two pennies in a “stale-beer dive.” This was a place kept by aNegro, who went out and drew off the old dregs of beer that lay in barrels setoutside of the saloons; and after he had doctored it with chemicals to make it“fizz,” he sold it for two cents a can, the purchase of a canincluding the privilege of sleeping the night through upon the floor, with amass of degraded outcasts, men and women.

All these horrors afflicted Jurgis all the more cruelly, because he was alwayscontrasting them with the opportunities he had lost. For instance, just now itwas election time again—within five or six weeks the voters of thecountry would select a President; and he heard the wretches with whom heassociated discussing it, and saw the streets of the city decorated withplacards and banners—and what words could describe the pangs of grief anddespair that shot through him?

For instance, there was a night during this cold spell. He had begged all day,for his very life, and found not a soul to heed him, until toward evening hesaw an old lady getting off a streetcar and helped her down with her umbrellasand bundles and then told her his “hard-luck story,” and afteranswering all her suspicious questions satisfactorily, was taken to arestaurant and saw a quarter paid down for a meal. And so he had soup andbread, and boiled beef and potatoes and beans, and pie and coffee, and came outwith his skin stuffed tight as a football. And then, through the rain and thedarkness, far down the street he saw red lights flaring and heard the thumpingof a bass drum; and his heart gave a leap, and he made for the place on therun—knowing without the asking that it meant a political meeting.

The campaign had so far been characterized by what the newspapers termed“apathy.” For some reason the people refused to get excited overthe struggle, and it was almost impossible to get them to come to meetings, orto make any noise when they did come. Those which had been held in Chicago sofar had proven most dismal failures, and tonight, the speaker being no less apersonage than a candidate for the vice-presidency of the nation, the politicalmanagers had been trembling with anxiety. But a merciful providence had sentthis storm of cold rain—and now all it was necessary to do was to set offa few fireworks, and thump awhile on a drum, and all the homeless wretches froma mile around would pour in and fill the hall! And then on the morrow thenewspapers would have a chance to report the tremendous ovation, and to addthat it had been no “silk-stocking” audience, either, provingclearly that the high tariff sentiments of the distinguished candidate werepleasing to the wage-earners of the nation.

So Jurgis found himself in a large hall, elaborately decorated with flags andbunting; and after the chairman had made his little speech, and the orator ofthe evening rose up, amid an uproar from the band—only fancy the emotionsof Jurgis upon making the discovery that the personage was none other than thefamous and eloquent Senator Spareshanks, who had addressed the “DoyleRepublican Association” at the stockyards, and helped to elect MikeScully’s tenpin setter to the Chicago Board of Aldermen!

In truth, the sight of the senator almost brought the tears into Jurgis’seyes. What agony it was to him to look back upon those golden hours, when he,too, had a place beneath the shadow of the plum tree! When he, too, had been ofthe elect, through whom the country is governed—when he had had a bung inthe campaign barrel for his own! And this was another election in which theRepublicans had all the money; and but for that one hideous accident he mighthave had a share of it, instead of being where he was!

The eloquent senator was explaining the system of protection; an ingeniousdevice whereby the workingman permitted the manufacturer to charge him higherprices, in order that he might receive higher wages; thus taking his money outof his pocket with one hand, and putting a part of it back with the other. Tothe senator this unique arrangement had somehow become identified with thehigher verities of the universe. It was because of it that Columbia was the gemof the ocean; and all her future triumphs, her power and good repute among thenations, depended upon the zeal and fidelity with which each citizen held upthe hands of those who were toiling to maintain it. The name of this heroiccompany was “the Grand Old Party”—

And here the band began to play, and Jurgis sat up with a violent start.Singular as it may seem, Jurgis was making a desperate effort to understandwhat the senator was saying—to comprehend the extent of Americanprosperity, the enormous expansion of American commerce, and theRepublic’s future in the Pacific and in South America, and wherever elsethe oppressed were groaning. The reason for it was that he wanted to keepawake. He knew that if he allowed himself to fall asleep he would begin tosnore loudly; and so he must listen—he must be interested! But he hadeaten such a big dinner, and he was so exhausted, and the hall was so warm, andhis seat was so comfortable! The senator’s gaunt form began to grow dimand hazy, to tower before him and dance about, with figures of exports andimports. Once his neighbor gave him a savage poke in the ribs, and he sat upwith a start and tried to look innocent; but then he was at it again, and menbegan to stare at him with annoyance, and to call out in vexation. Finally oneof them called a policeman, who came and grabbed Jurgis by the collar, andjerked him to his feet, bewildered and terrified. Some of the audience turnedto see the commotion, and Senator Spareshanks faltered in his speech; but avoice shouted cheerily: “We’re just firing a bum! Go ahead, oldsport!” And so the crowd roared, and the senator smiled genially, andwent on; and in a few seconds poor Jurgis found himself landed out in the rain,with a kick and a string of curses.

He got into the shelter of a doorway and took stock of himself. He was nothurt, and he was not arrested—more than he had any right to expect. Heswore at himself and his luck for a while, and then turned his thoughts topractical matters. He had no money, and no place to sleep; he must beginbegging again.

He went out, hunching his shoulders together and shivering at the touch of theicy rain. Coming down the street toward him was a lady, well dressed, andprotected by an umbrella; and he turned and walked beside her. “Please,ma’am,” he began, “could you lend me the price of anight’s lodging? I’m a poor working-man—”

Then, suddenly, he stopped short. By the light of a street lamp he had caughtsight of the lady’s face. He knew her.

It was Alena Jasaityte, who had been the belle of his wedding feast! AlenaJasaityte, who had looked so beautiful, and danced with such a queenly air,with Juozas Raczius, the teamster! Jurgis had only seen her once or twiceafterward, for Juozas had thrown her over for another girl, and Alena had goneaway from Packingtown, no one knew where. And now he met her here!

She was as much surprised as he was. “Jurgis Rudkus!” she gasped.“And what in the world is the matter with you?”

“I—I’ve had hard luck,” he stammered. “I’mout of work, and I’ve no home and no money. And you, Alena—are youmarried?”

“No,” she answered, “I’m not married, but I’vegot a good place.”

They stood staring at each other for a few moments longer. Finally Alena spokeagain. “Jurgis,” she said, “I’d help you if I could,upon my word I would, but it happens that I’ve come out without my purse,and I honestly haven’t a penny with me: I can do something better foryou, though—I can tell you how to get help. I can tell you where Marijais.”

Jurgis gave a start. “Marija!” he exclaimed.

“Yes,” said Alena; “and she’ll help you. She’sgot a place, and she’s doing well; she’ll be glad to seeyou.”

It was not much more than a year since Jurgis had left Packingtown, feelinglike one escaped from jail; and it had been from Marija and Elzbieta that hewas escaping. But now, at the mere mention of them, his whole being cried outwith joy. He wanted to see them; he wanted to go home! They would helphim—they would be kind to him. In a flash he had thought over thesituation. He had a good excuse for running away—his grief at the deathof his son; and also he had a good excuse for not returning—the fact thatthey had left Packingtown. “All right,” he said, “I’llgo.”

So she gave him a number on Clark Street, adding, “There’s no needto give you my address, because Marija knows it.” And Jurgis set out,without further ado. He found a large brownstone house of aristocraticappearance, and rang the basement bell. A young colored girl came to the door,opening it about an inch, and gazing at him suspiciously.

“What do you want?” she demanded.

“Does Marija Berczynskas live here?” he inquired.

“I dunno,” said the girl. “What you want wid her?”

“I want to see her,” said he; “she’s a relative ofmine.”

The girl hesitated a moment. Then she opened the door and said, “Comein.” Jurgis came and stood in the hall, and she continued:“I’ll go see. What’s yo’ name?”

“Tell her it’s Jurgis,” he answered, and the girl wentupstairs. She came back at the end of a minute or two, and replied, “Deyain’t no sich person here.”

Jurgis’s heart went down into his boots. “I was told this was whereshe lived!” he cried. But the girl only shook her head. “De ladysays dey ain’t no sich person here,” she said.

And he stood for a moment, hesitating, helpless with dismay. Then he turned togo to the door. At the same instant, however, there came a knock upon it, andthe girl went to open it. Jurgis heard the shuffling of feet, and then heardher give a cry; and the next moment she sprang back, and past him, her eyesshining white with terror, and bounded up the stairway, screaming at the top ofher lungs: “Police! Police! We’re pinched!”

Jurgis stood for a second, bewildered. Then, seeing blue-coated forms rushingupon him, he sprang after the Negress. Her cries had been the signal for a wilduproar above; the house was full of people, and as he entered the hallway hesaw them rushing hither and thither, crying and screaming with alarm. Therewere men and women, the latter clad for the most part in wrappers, the formerin all stages of déshabille. At one side Jurgis caught a glimpse of abig apartment with plush-covered chairs, and tables covered with trays andglasses. There were playing cards scattered all over the floor—one of thetables had been upset, and bottles of wine were rolling about, their contentsrunning out upon the carpet. There was a young girl who had fainted, and twomen who were supporting her; and there were a dozen others crowding toward thefront door.

Suddenly, however, there came a series of resounding blows upon it, causing thecrowd to give back. At the same instant a stout woman, with painted cheeks anddiamonds in her ears, came running down the stairs, panting breathlessly:“To the rear! Quick!”

She led the way to a back staircase, Jurgis following; in the kitchen shepressed a spring, and a cupboard gave way and opened, disclosing a darkpassageway. “Go in!” she cried to the crowd, which now amounted totwenty or thirty, and they began to pass through. Scarcely had the last onedisappeared, however, before there were cries from in front, and then thepanic-stricken throng poured out again, exclaiming: “They’re theretoo! We’re trapped!”

“Upstairs!” cried the woman, and there was another rush of the mob,women and men cursing and screaming and fighting to be first. One flight, two,three—and then there was a ladder to the roof, with a crowd packed at thefoot of it, and one man at the top, straining and struggling to lift the trapdoor. It was not to be stirred, however, and when the woman shouted up tounhook it, he answered: “It’s already unhooked. There’ssomebody sitting on it!”

And a moment later came a voice from downstairs: “You might as well quit,you people. We mean business, this time.”

So the crowd subsided; and a few moments later several policemen came up,staring here and there, and leering at their victims. Of the latter the menwere for the most part frightened and sheepish-looking. The women took it as ajoke, as if they were used to it—though if they had been pale, one couldnot have told, for the paint on their cheeks. One black-eyed young girl perchedherself upon the top of the balustrade, and began to kick with her slipperedfoot at the helmets of the policemen, until one of them caught her by the ankleand pulled her down. On the floor below four or five other girls sat upontrunks in the hall, making fun of the procession which filed by them. They werenoisy and hilarious, and had evidently been drinking; one of them, who wore abright red kimono, shouted and screamed in a voice that drowned out all theother sounds in the hall—and Jurgis took a glance at her, and then gave astart, and a cry, “Marija!”

She heard him, and glanced around; then she shrank back and half sprang to herfeet in amazement. “Jurgis!” she gasped.

For a second or two they stood staring at each other. “How did you comehere?” Marija exclaimed.

“I came to see you,” he answered.

“When?”

“Just now.”

“But how did you know—who told you I was here?”

“Alena Jasaityte. I met her on the street.”

Again there was a silence, while they gazed at each other. The rest of thecrowd was watching them, and so Marija got up and came closer to him.“And you?” Jurgis asked. “You live here?”

“Yes,” said Marija, “I live here.” Then suddenly came ahail from below: “Get your clothes on now, girls, and come along.You’d best begin, or you’ll be sorry—it’s rainingoutside.”

“Br-r-r!” shivered some one, and the women got up and entered thevarious doors which lined the hallway.

“Come,” said Marija, and took Jurgis into her room, which was atiny place about eight by six, with a cot and a chair and a dressing stand andsome dresses hanging behind the door. There were clothes scattered about on thefloor, and hopeless confusion everywhere—boxes of rouge and bottles ofperfume mixed with hats and soiled dishes on the dresser, and a pair ofslippers and a clock and a whisky bottle on a chair.

Marija had nothing on but a kimono and a pair of stockings; yet she proceededto dress before Jurgis, and without even taking the trouble to close the door.He had by this time divined what sort of a place he was in; and he had seen agreat deal of the world since he had left home, and was not easy toshock—and yet it gave him a painful start that Marija should do this.They had always been decent people at home, and it seemed to him that thememory of old times ought to have ruled her. But then he laughed at himself fora fool. What was he, to be pretending to decency!

“How long have you been living here?” he asked.

“Nearly a year,” she answered.

“Why did you come?”

“I had to live,” she said; “and I couldn’t see thechildren starve.”

He paused for a moment, watching her. “You were out of work?” heasked, finally.

“I got sick,” she replied, “and after that I had no money.And then Stanislovas died—”

“Stanislovas dead!”

“Yes,” said Marija, “I forgot. You didn’t know aboutit.”

“How did he die?”

“Rats killed him,” she answered.

Jurgis gave a gasp. “Rats killed him!”

“Yes,” said the other; she was bending over, lacing her shoes asshe spoke. “He was working in an oil factory—at least he was hiredby the men to get their beer. He used to carry cans on a long pole; andhe’d drink a little out of each can, and one day he drank too much, andfell asleep in a corner, and got locked up in the place all night. When theyfound him the rats had killed him and eaten him nearly all up.”

Jurgis sat, frozen with horror. Marija went on lacing up her shoes. There was along silence.

Suddenly a big policeman came to the door. “Hurry up, there,” hesaid.

“As quick as I can,” said Marija, and she stood up and beganputting on her corsets with feverish haste.

“Are the rest of the people alive?” asked Jurgis, finally.

“Yes,” she said.

“Where are they?”

“They live not far from here. They’re all right now.”

“They are working?” he inquired.

“Elzbieta is,” said Marija, “when she can. I take care ofthem most of the time—I’m making plenty of money now.”

Jurgis was silent for a moment. “Do they know you live here—how youlive?” he asked.

“Elzbieta knows,” answered Marija. “I couldn’t lie toher. And maybe the children have found out by this time. It’s nothing tobe ashamed of—we can’t help it.”

“And Tamoszius?” he asked. “Does he know?”

Marija shrugged her shoulders. “How do I know?” she said. “Ihaven’t seen him for over a year. He got blood poisoning and lost onefinger, and couldn’t play the violin any more; and then he wentaway.”

Marija was standing in front of the glass fastening her dress. Jurgis satstaring at her. He could hardly believe that she was the same woman he hadknown in the old days; she was so quiet—so hard! It struck fear to hisheart to watch her.

Then suddenly she gave a glance at him. “You look as if you had beenhaving a rough time of it yourself,” she said.

“I have,” he answered. “I haven’t a cent in my pockets,and nothing to do.”

“Where have you been?”

“All over. I’ve been hoboing it. Then I went back to theyards—just before the strike.” He paused for a moment, hesitating.“I asked for you,” he added. “I found you had gone away, noone knew where. Perhaps you think I did you a dirty trick running away as Idid, Marija—”

“No,” she answered, “I don’t blame you. We neverhave—any of us. You did your best—the job was too much forus.” She paused a moment, then added: “We were tooignorant—that was the trouble. We didn’t stand any chance. IfI’d known what I know now we’d have won out.”

“You’d have come here?” said Jurgis.

“Yes,” she answered; “but that’s not what I meant. Imeant you—how differently you would have behaved—about Ona.”

Jurgis was silent; he had never thought of that aspect of it.

“When people are starving,” the other continued, “and theyhave anything with a price, they ought to sell it, I say. I guess you realizeit now when it’s too late. Ona could have taken care of us all, in thebeginning.” Marija spoke without emotion, as one who had come to regardthings from the business point of view.

“I—yes, I guess so,” Jurgis answered hesitatingly. He did notadd that he had paid three hundred dollars, and a foreman’s job, for thesatisfaction of knocking down “Phil” Connor a second time.

The policeman came to the door again just then. “Come on, now,” hesaid. “Lively!”

“All right,” said Marija, reaching for her hat, which was bigenough to be a drum major’s, and full of ostrich feathers. She went outinto the hall and Jurgis followed, the policeman remaining to look under thebed and behind the door.

“What’s going to come of this?” Jurgis asked, as they starteddown the steps.

“The raid, you mean? Oh, nothing—it happens to us every now andthen. The madame’s having some sort of time with the police; Idon’t know what it is, but maybe they’ll come to terms beforemorning. Anyhow, they won’t do anything to you. They always let the menoff.”

“Maybe so,” he responded, “but not me—I’m afraidI’m in for it.”

“How do you mean?”

“I’m wanted by the police,” he said, lowering his voice,though of course their conversation was in Lithuanian. “They’llsend me up for a year or two, I’m afraid.”

“Hell!” said Marija. “That’s too bad. I’ll see ifI can’t get you off.”

Downstairs, where the greater part of the prisoners were now massed, she soughtout the stout personage with the diamond earrings, and had a few whisperedwords with her. The latter then approached the police sergeant who was incharge of the raid. “Billy,” she said, pointing to Jurgis,“there’s a fellow who came in to see his sister. He’d justgot in the door when you knocked. You aren’t taking hoboes, areyou?”

The sergeant laughed as he looked at Jurgis. “Sorry,” he said,“but the orders are every one but the servants.”

So Jurgis slunk in among the rest of the men, who kept dodging behind eachother like sheep that have smelled a wolf. There were old men and young men,college boys and gray-beards old enough to be their grandfathers; some of themwore evening dress—there was no one among them save Jurgis who showed anysigns of poverty.

When the roundup was completed, the doors were opened and the party marchedout. Three patrol wagons were drawn up at the curb, and the whole neighborhoodhad turned out to see the sport; there was much chaffing, and a universalcraning of necks. The women stared about them with defiant eyes, or laughed andjoked, while the men kept their heads bowed, and their hats pulled over theirfaces. They were crowded into the patrol wagons as if into streetcars, and thenoff they went amid a din of cheers. At the station house Jurgis gave a Polishname and was put into a cell with half a dozen others; and while these sat andtalked in whispers, he lay down in a corner and gave himself up to histhoughts.

Jurgis had looked into the deepest reaches of the social pit, and grown used tothe sights in them. Yet when he had thought of all humanity as vile andhideous, he had somehow always excepted his own family that he had loved; andnow this sudden horrible discovery—Marija a whore, and Elzbieta and thechildren living off her shame! Jurgis might argue with himself all he chose,that he had done worse, and was a fool for caring—but still he could notget over the shock of that sudden unveiling, he could not help being sunk ingrief because of it. The depths of him were troubled and shaken, memories werestirred in him that had been sleeping so long he had counted them dead.Memories of the old life—his old hopes and his old yearnings, his olddreams of decency and independence! He saw Ona again, he heard her gentle voicepleading with him. He saw little Antanas, whom he had meant to make a man. Hesaw his trembling old father, who had blessed them all with his wonderful love.He lived again through that day of horror when he had discovered Ona’sshame—God, how he had suffered, what a madman he had been! How dreadfulit had all seemed to him; and now, today, he had sat and listened, and halfagreed when Marija told him he had been a fool! Yes—told him that heought to have sold his wife’s honor and lived by it!—And then therewas Stanislovas and his awful fate—that brief story which Marija hadnarrated so calmly, with such dull indifference! The poor little fellow, withhis frostbitten fingers and his terror of the snow—his wailing voice rangin Jurgis’s ears, as he lay there in the darkness, until the sweatstarted on his forehead. Now and then he would quiver with a sudden spasm ofhorror, at the picture of little Stanislovas shut up in the deserted buildingand fighting for his life with the rats!

All these emotions had become strangers to the soul of Jurgis; it was so longsince they had troubled him that he had ceased to think they might ever troublehim again. Helpless, trapped, as he was, what good did they do him—whyshould he ever have allowed them to torment him? It had been the task of hisrecent life to fight them down, to crush them out of him; never in his lifewould he have suffered from them again, save that they had caught him unawares,and overwhelmed him before he could protect himself. He heard the old voices ofhis soul, he saw its old ghosts beckoning to him, stretching out their arms tohim! But they were far-off and shadowy, and the gulf between them was black andbottomless; they would fade away into the mists of the past once more. Theirvoices would die, and never again would he hear them—and so the lastfaint spark of manhood in his soul would flicker out.

CHAPTER XXVIII

After breakfast Jurgis was driven to the court, which was crowded with theprisoners and those who had come out of curiosity or in the hope of recognizingone of the men and getting a case for blackmail. The men were called up first,and reprimanded in a bunch, and then dismissed; but, Jurgis, to his terror, wascalled separately, as being a suspicious-looking case. It was in this very samecourt that he had been tried, that time when his sentence had been“suspended”; it was the same judge, and the same clerk. The latternow stared at Jurgis, as if he half thought that he knew him; but the judge hadno suspicions—just then his thoughts were upon a telephone message he wasexpecting from a friend of the police captain of the district, telling whatdisposition he should make of the case of “Polly” Simpson, as the“madame” of the house was known. Meantime, he listened to the storyof how Jurgis had been looking for his sister, and advised him dryly to keephis sister in a better place; then he let him go, and proceeded to fine each ofthe girls five dollars, which fines were paid in a bunch from a wad of billswhich Madame Polly extracted from her stocking.

Jurgis waited outside and walked home with Marija. The police had left thehouse, and already there were a few visitors; by evening the place would berunning again, exactly as if nothing had happened. Meantime, Marija took Jurgisupstairs to her room, and they sat and talked. By daylight, Jurgis was able toobserve that the color on her cheeks was not the old natural one of aboundinghealth; her complexion was in reality a parchment yellow, and there were blackrings under her eyes.

“Have you been sick?” he asked.

“Sick?” she said. “Hell!” (Marija had learned toscatter her conversation with as many oaths as a longshoreman or a muledriver.) “How can I ever be anything but sick, at this life?”

She fell silent for a moment, staring ahead of her gloomily. “It’smorphine,” she said, at last. “I seem to take more of it everyday.”

“What’s that for?” he asked.

“It’s the way of it; I don’t know why. If it isn’tthat, it’s drink. If the girls didn’t booze they couldn’tstand it any time at all. And the madame always gives them dope when they firstcome, and they learn to like it; or else they take it for headaches and suchthings, and get the habit that way. I’ve got it, I know; I’ve triedto quit, but I never will while I’m here.”

“How long are you going to stay?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Always, I guess. What elsecould I do?”

“Don’t you save any money?”

“Save!” said Marija. “Good Lord, no! I get enough, I suppose,but it all goes. I get a half share, two dollars and a half for each customer,and sometimes I make twenty-five or thirty dollars a night, and you’dthink I ought to save something out of that! But then I am charged for my roomand my meals—and such prices as you never heard of; and then for extras,and drinks—for everything I get, and some I don’t. My laundry billis nearly twenty dollars each week alone—think of that! Yet what can Ido? I either have to stand it or quit, and it would be the same anywhere else.It’s all I can do to save the fifteen dollars I give Elzbieta each week,so the children can go to school.”

Marija sat brooding in silence for a while; then, seeing that Jurgis wasinterested, she went on: “That’s the way they keep thegirls—they let them run up debts, so they can’t get away. A younggirl comes from abroad, and she doesn’t know a word of English, and shegets into a place like this, and when she wants to go the madame shows her thatshe is a couple of hundred dollars in debt, and takes all her clothes away, andthreatens to have her arrested if she doesn’t stay and do as she’stold. So she stays, and the longer she stays, the more in debt she gets. Often,too, they are girls that didn’t know what they were coming to, that hadhired out for housework. Did you notice that little French girl with the yellowhair, that stood next to me in the court?”

Jurgis answered in the affirmative.

“Well, she came to America about a year ago. She was a store clerk, andshe hired herself to a man to be sent here to work in a factory. There were sixof them, all together, and they were brought to a house just down the streetfrom here, and this girl was put into a room alone, and they gave her some dopein her food, and when she came to she found that she had been ruined. Shecried, and screamed, and tore her hair, but she had nothing but a wrapper, andcouldn’t get away, and they kept her half insensible with drugs all thetime, until she gave up. She never got outside of that place for ten months,and then they sent her away, because she didn’t suit. I guessthey’ll put her out of here, too—she’s getting to have crazyfits, from drinking absinthe. Only one of the girls that came out with her gotaway, and she jumped out of a second-story window one night. There was a greatfuss about that—maybe you heard of it.”

“I did,” said Jurgis, “I heard of it afterward.” (Ithad happened in the place where he and Duane had taken refuge from their“country customer.” The girl had become insane, fortunately for thepolice.)

“There’s lots of money in it,” said Marija—“theyget as much as forty dollars a head for girls, and they bring them from allover. There are seventeen in this place, and nine different countries amongthem. In some places you might find even more. We have half a dozen Frenchgirls—I suppose it’s because the madame speaks the language. Frenchgirls are bad, too, the worst of all, except for the Japanese. There’s aplace next door that’s full of Japanese women, but I wouldn’t livein the same house with one of them.”

Marija paused for a moment or two, and then she added: “Most of the womenhere are pretty decent—you’d be surprised. I used to think they didit because they liked to; but fancy a woman selling herself to every kind ofman that comes, old or young, black or white—and doing it because shelikes to!”

“Some of them say they do,” said Jurgis.

“I know,” said she; “they say anything. They’re in, andthey know they can’t get out. But they didn’t like it when theybegan—you’d find out—it’s always misery! There’sa little Jewish girl here who used to run errands for a milliner, and got sickand lost her place; and she was four days on the streets without a mouthful offood, and then she went to a place just around the corner and offered herself,and they made her give up her clothes before they would give her a bite toeat!”

Marija sat for a minute or two, brooding somberly. “Tell me aboutyourself, Jurgis,” she said, suddenly. “Where have you been?”

So he told her the long story of his adventures since his flight from home; hislife as a tramp, and his work in the freight tunnels, and the accident; andthen of Jack Duane, and of his political career in the stockyards, and hisdownfall and subsequent failures. Marija listened with sympathy; it was easy tobelieve the tale of his late starvation, for his face showed it all. “Youfound me just in the nick of time,” she said. “I’ll stand byyou—I’ll help you till you can get some work.”

“I don’t like to let you—” he began.

“Why not? Because I’m here?”

“No, not that,” he said. “But I went off and leftyou—”

“Nonsense!” said Marija. “Don’t think about it. Idon’t blame you.”

“You must be hungry,” she said, after a minute or two. “Youstay here to lunch—I’ll have something up in the room.”

She pressed a button, and a colored woman came to the door and took her order.“It’s nice to have somebody to wait on you,” she observed,with a laugh, as she lay back on the bed.

As the prison breakfast had not been liberal, Jurgis had a good appetite, andthey had a little feast together, talking meanwhile of Elzbieta and thechildren and old times. Shortly before they were through, there came anothercolored girl, with the message that the “madame” wantedMarija—“Lithuanian Mary,” as they called her here.

“That means you have to go,” she said to Jurgis.

So he got up, and she gave him the new address of the family, a tenement overin the Ghetto district. “You go there,” she said.“They’ll be glad to see you.”

But Jurgis stood hesitating.

“I—I don’t like to,” he said. “Honest, Marija,why don’t you just give me a little money and let me look for workfirst?”

“How do you need money?” was her reply. “All you want issomething to eat and a place to sleep, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said; “but then I don’t like to go thereafter I left them—and while I have nothing to do, and whileyou—you—”

“Go on!” said Marija, giving him a push. “What are youtalking?—I won’t give you money,” she added, as she followedhim to the door, “because you’ll drink it up, and do yourself harm.Here’s a quarter for you now, and go along, and they’ll be so gladto have you back, you won’t have time to feel ashamed. Good-by!”

So Jurgis went out, and walked down the street to think it over. He decidedthat he would first try to get work, and so he put in the rest of the daywandering here and there among factories and warehouses without success. Then,when it was nearly dark, he concluded to go home, and set out; but he came to arestaurant, and went in and spent his quarter for a meal; and when he came outhe changed his mind—the night was pleasant, and he would sleep somewhereoutside, and put in the morrow hunting, and so have one more chance of a job.So he started away again, when suddenly he chanced to look about him, and foundthat he was walking down the same street and past the same hall where he hadlistened to the political speech the night before. There was no red fire and noband now, but there was a sign out, announcing a meeting, and a stream ofpeople pouring in through the entrance. In a flash Jurgis had decided that hewould chance it once more, and sit down and rest while making up his mind whatto do. There was no one taking tickets, so it must be a free show again.

He entered. There were no decorations in the hall this time; but there wasquite a crowd upon the platform, and almost every seat in the place was filled.He took one of the last, far in the rear, and straightway forgot all about hissurroundings. Would Elzbieta think that he had come to sponge off her, or wouldshe understand that he meant to get to work again and do his share? Would shebe decent to him, or would she scold him? If only he could get some sort of ajob before he went—if that last boss had only been willing to try him!

—Then suddenly Jurgis looked up. A tremendous roar had burst from thethroats of the crowd, which by this time had packed the hall to the very doors.Men and women were standing up, waving handkerchiefs, shouting, yelling.Evidently the speaker had arrived, thought Jurgis; what fools they were makingof themselves! What were they expecting to get out of it anyhow—what hadthey to do with elections, with governing the country? Jurgis had been behindthe scenes in politics.

He went back to his thoughts, but with one further fact to reckonwith—that he was caught here. The hall was now filled to the doors; andafter the meeting it would be too late for him to go home, so he would have tomake the best of it outside. Perhaps it would be better to go home in themorning, anyway, for the children would be at school, and he and Elzbieta couldhave a quiet explanation. She always had been a reasonable person; and hereally did mean to do right. He would manage to persuade her of it—andbesides, Marija was willing, and Marija was furnishing the money. If Elzbietawere ugly, he would tell her that in so many words.

So Jurgis went on meditating; until finally, when he had been an hour or two inthe hall, there began to prepare itself a repetition of the dismal catastropheof the night before. Speaking had been going on all the time, and the audiencewas clapping its hands and shouting, thrilling with excitement; and little bylittle the sounds were beginning to blur in Jurgis’s ears, and histhoughts were beginning to run together, and his head to wobble and nod. Hecaught himself many times, as usual, and made desperate resolutions; but thehall was hot and close, and his long walk and his dinner were too much forhim—in the end his head sank forward and he went off again.

And then again someone nudged him, and he sat up with his old terrified start!He had been snoring again, of course! And now what? He fixed his eyes ahead ofhim, with painful intensity, staring at the platform as if nothing else everhad interested him, or ever could interest him, all his life. He imagined theangry exclamations, the hostile glances; he imagined the policeman stridingtoward him—reaching for his neck. Or was he to have one more chance? Werethey going to let him alone this time? He sat trembling; waiting—

And then suddenly came a voice in his ear, a woman’s voice, gentle andsweet, “If you would try to listen, comrade, perhaps you would beinterested.”

Jurgis was more startled by that than he would have been by the touch of apoliceman. He still kept his eyes fixed ahead, and did not stir; but his heartgave a great leap. Comrade! Who was it that called him “comrade”?

He waited long, long; and at last, when he was sure that he was no longerwatched, he stole a glance out of the corner of his eyes at the woman who satbeside him. She was young and beautiful; she wore fine clothes, and was what iscalled a “lady.” And she called him “comrade”!

He turned a little, carefully, so that he could see her better; then he beganto watch her, fascinated. She had apparently forgotten all about him, and waslooking toward the platform. A man was speaking there—Jurgis heard hisvoice vaguely; but all his thoughts were for this woman’s face. A feelingof alarm stole over him as he stared at her. It made his flesh creep. What wasthe matter with her, what could be going on, to affect any one like that? Shesat as one turned to stone, her hands clenched tightly in her lap, so tightlythat he could see the cords standing out in her wrists. There was a look ofexcitement upon her face, of tense effort, as of one struggling mightily, orwitnessing a struggle. There was a faint quivering of her nostrils; and now andthen she would moisten her lips with feverish haste. Her bosom rose and fell asshe breathed, and her excitement seemed to mount higher and higher, and then tosink away again, like a boat tossing upon ocean surges. What was it? What wasthe matter? It must be something that the man was saying, up there on theplatform. What sort of a man was he? And what sort of thing was this,anyhow?—So all at once it occurred to Jurgis to look at the speaker.

It was like coming suddenly upon some wild sight of nature—a mountainforest lashed by a tempest, a ship tossed about upon a stormy sea. Jurgis hadan unpleasant sensation, a sense of confusion, of disorder, of wild andmeaningless uproar. The man was tall and gaunt, as haggard as his auditorhimself; a thin black beard covered half of his face, and one could see onlytwo black hollows where the eyes were. He was speaking rapidly, in greatexcitement; he used many gestures—as he spoke he moved here and thereupon the stage, reaching with his long arms as if to seize each person in hisaudience. His voice was deep, like an organ; it was some time, however, beforeJurgis thought of the voice—he was too much occupied with his eyes tothink of what the man was saying. But suddenly it seemed as if the speaker hadbegun pointing straight at him, as if he had singled him out particularly forhis remarks; and so Jurgis became suddenly aware of his voice, trembling,vibrant with emotion, with pain and longing, with a burden of thingsunutterable, not to be compassed by words. To hear it was to be suddenlyarrested, to be gripped, transfixed.

“You listen to these things,” the man was saying, “and yousay, ‘Yes, they are true, but they have been that way always.’ Oryou say, ‘Maybe it will come, but not in my time—it will not helpme.’ And so you return to your daily round of toil, you go back to beground up for profits in the world-wide mill of economic might! To toil longhours for another’s advantage; to live in mean and squalid homes, to workin dangerous and unhealthful places; to wrestle with the specters of hunger andprivation, to take your chances of accident, disease, and death. And each daythe struggle becomes fiercer, the pace more cruel; each day you have to toil alittle harder, and feel the iron hand of circumstance close upon you a littletighter. Months pass, years maybe—and then you come again; and again I amhere to plead with you, to know if want and misery have yet done their workwith you, if injustice and oppression have yet opened your eyes! I shall stillbe waiting—there is nothing else that I can do. There is no wildernesswhere I can hide from these things, there is no haven where I can escape them;though I travel to the ends of the earth, I find the same accursedsystem—I find that all the fair and noble impulses of humanity, thedreams of poets and the agonies of martyrs, are shackled and bound in theservice of organized and predatory Greed! And therefore I cannot rest, I cannotbe silent; therefore I cast aside comfort and happiness, health and goodrepute—and go out into the world and cry out the pain of my spirit!Therefore I am not to be silenced by poverty and sickness, not by hatred andobloquy, by threats and ridicule—not by prison and persecution, if theyshould come—not by any power that is upon the earth or above the earth,that was, or is, or ever can be created. If I fail tonight, I can only trytomorrow; knowing that the fault must be mine—that if once the vision ofmy soul were spoken upon earth, if once the anguish of its defeat were utteredin human speech, it would break the stoutest barriers of prejudice, it wouldshake the most sluggish soul to action! It would abash the most cynical, itwould terrify the most selfish; and the voice of mockery would be silenced, andfraud and falsehood would slink back into their dens, and the truth would standforth alone! For I speak with the voice of the millions who are voiceless! Ofthem that are oppressed and have no comforter! Of the disinherited of life, forwhom there is no respite and no deliverance, to whom the world is a prison, adungeon of torture, a tomb! With the voice of the little child who toilstonight in a Southern cotton mill, staggering with exhaustion, numb with agony,and knowing no hope but the grave! Of the mother who sews by candlelight in hertenement garret, weary and weeping, smitten with the mortal hunger of herbabes! Of the man who lies upon a bed of rags, wrestling in his last sicknessand leaving his loved ones to perish! Of the young girl who, somewhere at thismoment, is walking the streets of this horrible city, beaten and starving, andmaking her choice between the brothel and the lake! With the voice of those,whoever and wherever they may be, who are caught beneath the wheels of theJuggernaut of Greed! With the voice of humanity, calling for deliverance! Ofthe everlasting soul of Man, arising from the dust; breaking its way out of itsprison—rending the bands of oppression and ignorance—groping itsway to the light!”

The speaker paused. There was an instant of silence, while men caught theirbreaths, and then like a single sound there came a cry from a thousand people.Through it all Jurgis sat still, motionless and rigid, his eyes fixed upon thespeaker; he was trembling, smitten with wonder.

Suddenly the man raised his hands, and silence fell, and he began again.

“I plead with you,” he said, “whoever you may be, providedthat you care about the truth; but most of all I plead with working-man, withthose to whom the evils I portray are not mere matters of sentiment, to bedallied and toyed with, and then perhaps put aside and forgotten—to whomthey are the grim and relentless realities of the daily grind, the chains upontheir limbs, the lash upon their backs, the iron in their souls. To you,working-men! To you, the toilers, who have made this land, and have no voice inits councils! To you, whose lot it is to sow that others may reap, to labor andobey, and ask no more than the wages of a beast of burden, the food and shelterto keep you alive from day to day. It is to you that I come with my message ofsalvation, it is to you that I appeal. I know how much it is to ask ofyou—I know, for I have been in your place, I have lived your life, andthere is no man before me here tonight who knows it better. I have known whatit is to be a street-waif, a bootblack, living upon a crust of bread andsleeping in cellar stairways and under empty wagons. I have known what it is todare and to aspire, to dream mighty dreams and to see them perish—to seeall the fair flowers of my spirit trampled into the mire by the wild-beastpowers of my life. I know what is the price that a working-man pays forknowledge—I have paid for it with food and sleep, with agony of body andmind, with health, almost with life itself; and so, when I come to you with astory of hope and freedom, with the vision of a new earth to be created, of anew labor to be dared, I am not surprised that I find you sordid and material,sluggish and incredulous. That I do not despair is because I know also theforces that are driving behind you—because I know the raging lash ofpoverty, the sting of contempt and mastership, ‘the insolence of officeand the spurns.’ Because I feel sure that in the crowd that has come tome tonight, no matter how many may be dull and heedless, no matter how many mayhave come out of idle curiosity, or in order to ridicule—there will besome one man whom pain and suffering have made desperate, whom some chancevision of wrong and horror has startled and shocked into attention. And to himmy words will come like a sudden flash of lightning to one who travels indarkness—revealing the way before him, the perils and theobstacles—solving all problems, making all difficulties clear! The scaleswill fall from his eyes, the shackles will be torn from his limbs—he willleap up with a cry of thankfulness, he will stride forth a free man at last! Aman delivered from his self-created slavery! A man who will never more betrapped—whom no blandishments will cajole, whom no threats will frighten;who from tonight on will move forward, and not backward, who will study andunderstand, who will gird on his sword and take his place in the army of hiscomrades and brothers. Who will carry the good tidings to others, as I havecarried them to him—priceless gift of liberty and light that is neithermine nor his, but is the heritage of the soul of man! Working-men,working-men—comrades! open your eyes and look about you! You have livedso long in the toil and heat that your senses are dulled, your souls arenumbed; but realize once in your lives this world in which you dwell—tearoff the rags of its customs and conventions—behold it as it is, in allits hideous nakedness! Realize it, realize it! Realize that out upon theplains of Manchuria tonight two hostile armies are facing each other—thatnow, while we are seated here, a million human beings may be hurled at eachother’s throats, striving with the fury of maniacs to tear each other topieces! And this in the twentieth century, nineteen hundred years since thePrince of Peace was born on earth! Nineteen hundred years that his words havebeen preached as divine, and here two armies of men are rending and tearingeach other like the wild beasts of the forest! Philosophers have reasoned,prophets have denounced, poets have wept and pleaded—and still thishideous Monster roams at large! We have schools and colleges, newspapers andbooks; we have searched the heavens and the earth, we have weighed and probedand reasoned—and all to equip men to destroy each other! We call it War,and pass it by—but do not put me off with platitudes andconventions—come with me, come with me—realize it! See thebodies of men pierced by bullets, blown into pieces by bursting shells! Hearthe crunching of the bayonet, plunged into human flesh; hear the groans andshrieks of agony, see the faces of men crazed by pain, turned into fiends byfury and hate! Put your hand upon that piece of flesh—it is hot andquivering—just now it was a part of a man! This blood is stillsteaming—it was driven by a human heart! Almighty God! and this goeson—it is systematic, organized, premeditated! And we know it, and read ofit, and take it for granted; our papers tell of it, and the presses are notstopped—our churches know of it, and do not close their doors—thepeople behold it, and do not rise up in horror and revolution!

“Or perhaps Manchuria is too far away for you—come home with methen, come here to Chicago. Here in this city to-night ten thousand women areshut up in foul pens, and driven by hunger to sell their bodies to live. And weknow it, we make it a jest! And these women are made in the image of yourmothers, they may be your sisters, your daughters; the child whom you left athome tonight, whose laughing eyes will greet you in the morning—that fatemay be waiting for her! To-night in Chicago there are ten thousand men,homeless and wretched, willing to work and begging for a chance, yet starving,and fronting in terror the awful winter cold! Tonight in Chicago there are ahundred thousand children wearing out their strength and blasting their livesin the effort to earn their bread! There are a hundred thousand mothers who areliving in misery and squalor, struggling to earn enough to feed their littleones! There are a hundred thousand old people, cast off and helpless, waitingfor death to take them from their torments! There are a million people, men andwomen and children, who share the curse of the wage-slave; who toil every hourthey can stand and see, for just enough to keep them alive; who are condemnedtill the end of their days to monotony and weariness, to hunger and misery, toheat and cold, to dirt and disease, to ignorance and drunkenness and vice! Andthen turn over the page with me, and gaze upon the other side of the picture.There are a thousand—ten thousand, maybe—who are the masters ofthese slaves, who own their toil. They do nothing to earn what they receive,they do not even have to ask for it—it comes to them of itself, theironly care is to dispose of it. They live in palaces, they riot in luxury andextravagance—such as no words can describe, as makes the imagination reeland stagger, makes the soul grow sick and faint. They spend hundreds of dollarsfor a pair of shoes, a handkerchief, a garter; they spend millions for horsesand automobiles and yachts, for palaces and banquets, for little shiny stoneswith which to deck their bodies. Their life is a contest among themselves forsupremacy in ostentation and recklessness, in the destroying of useful andnecessary things, in the wasting of the labor and the lives of their fellowcreatures, the toil and anguish of the nations, the sweat and tears and bloodof the human race! It is all theirs—it comes to them; just as all thesprings pour into streamlets, and the streamlets into rivers, and the riversinto the oceans—so, automatically and inevitably, all the wealth ofsociety comes to them. The farmer tills the soil, the miner digs in the earth,the weaver tends the loom, the mason carves the stone; the clever man invents,the shrewd man directs, the wise man studies, the inspired man sings—andall the result, the products of the labor of brain and muscle, are gatheredinto one stupendous stream and poured into their laps! The whole of society isin their grip, the whole labor of the world lies at their mercy—and likefierce wolves they rend and destroy, like ravening vultures they devour andtear! The whole power of mankind belongs to them, forever and beyondrecall—do what it can, strive as it will, humanity lives for them anddies for them! They own not merely the labor of society, they have bought thegovernments; and everywhere they use their raped and stolen power to intrenchthemselves in their privileges, to dig wider and deeper the channels throughwhich the river of profits flows to them!—And you, workingmen,workingmen! You have been brought up to it, you plod on like beasts of burden,thinking only of the day and its pain—yet is there a man among you whocan believe that such a system will continue forever—is there a man herein this audience tonight so hardened and debased that he dare rise up before meand say that he believes it can continue forever; that the product of the laborof society, the means of existence of the human race, will always belong toidlers and parasites, to be spent for the gratification of vanity andlust—to be spent for any purpose whatever, to be at the disposal of anyindividual will whatever—that somehow, somewhere, the labor of humanitywill not belong to humanity, to be used for the purposes of humanity, to becontrolled by the will of humanity? And if this is ever to be, how is it tobe—what power is there that will bring it about? Will it be the task ofyour masters, do you think—will they write the charter of your liberties?Will they forge you the sword of your deliverance, will they marshal you thearmy and lead it to the fray? Will their wealth be spent for thepurpose—will they build colleges and churches to teach you, will theyprint papers to herald your progress, and organize political parties to guideand carry on the struggle? Can you not see that the task is yourtask—yours to dream, yours to resolve, yours to execute? That if ever itis carried out, it will be in the face of every obstacle that wealth andmastership can oppose—in the face of ridicule and slander, of hatred andpersecution, of the bludgeon and the jail? That it will be by the power of yournaked bosoms, opposed to the rage of oppression! By the grim and bitterteaching of blind and merciless affliction! By the painful gropings of theuntutored mind, by the feeble stammerings of the uncultured voice! By the sadand lonely hunger of the spirit; by seeking and striving and yearning, byheartache and despairing, by agony and sweat of blood! It will be by money paidfor with hunger, by knowledge stolen from sleep, by thoughts communicated underthe shadow of the gallows! It will be a movement beginning in the far-off past,a thing obscure and unhonored, a thing easy to ridicule, easy to despise; athing unlovely, wearing the aspect of vengeance and hate—but to you, theworking-man, the wage-slave, calling with a voice insistent,imperious—with a voice that you cannot escape, wherever upon the earthyou may be! With the voice of all your wrongs, with the voice of all yourdesires; with the voice of your duty and your hope—of everything in theworld that is worth while to you! The voice of the poor, demanding that povertyshall cease! The voice of the oppressed, pronouncing the doom of oppression!The voice of power, wrought out of suffering—of resolution, crushed outof weakness—of joy and courage, born in the bottomless pit of anguish anddespair! The voice of Labor, despised and outraged; a mighty giant, lyingprostrate—mountainous, colossal, but blinded, bound, and ignorant of hisstrength. And now a dream of resistance haunts him, hope battling with fear;until suddenly he stirs, and a fetter snaps—and a thrill shoots throughhim, to the farthest ends of his huge body, and in a flash the dream becomes anact! He starts, he lifts himself; and the bands are shattered, the burdens rolloff him—he rises—towering, gigantic; he springs to his feet, heshouts in his newborn exultation—”

And the speaker’s voice broke suddenly, with the stress of his feelings;he stood with his arms stretched out above him, and the power of his visionseemed to lift him from the floor. The audience came to its feet with a yell;men waved their arms, laughing aloud in their excitement. And Jurgis was withthem, he was shouting to tear his throat; shouting because he could not helpit, because the stress of his feeling was more than he could bear. It was notmerely the man’s words, the torrent of his eloquence. It was hispresence, it was his voice: a voice with strange intonations that rang throughthe chambers of the soul like the clanging of a bell—that gripped thelistener like a mighty hand about his body, that shook him and startled himwith sudden fright, with a sense of things not of earth, of mysteries neverspoken before, of presences of awe and terror! There was an unfolding of vistasbefore him, a breaking of the ground beneath him, an upheaving, a stirring, atrembling; he felt himself suddenly a mere man no longer—there werepowers within him undreamed of, there were demon forces contending, age-longwonders struggling to be born; and he sat oppressed with pain and joy, while atingling stole down into his finger tips, and his breath came hard and fast.The sentences of this man were to Jurgis like the crashing of thunder in hissoul; a flood of emotions surged up in him—all his old hopes andlongings, his old griefs and rages and despairs. All that he had ever felt inhis whole life seemed to come back to him at once, and with one new emotion,hardly to be described. That he should have suffered such oppressions and suchhorrors was bad enough; but that he should have been crushed and beaten bythem, that he should have submitted, and forgotten, and lived inpeace—ah, truly that was a thing not to be put into words, a thing not tobe borne by a human creature, a thing of terror and madness!“What,” asks the prophet, “is the murder of them that killthe body, to the murder of them that kill the soul?” And Jurgis was a manwhose soul had been murdered, who had ceased to hope and to struggle—whohad made terms with degradation and despair; and now, suddenly, in one awfulconvulsion, the black and hideous fact was made plain to him! There was afalling in of all the pillars of his soul, the sky seemed to split abovehim—he stood there, with his clenched hands upraised, his eyes bloodshot,and the veins standing out purple in his face, roaring in the voice of a wildbeast, frantic, incoherent, maniacal. And when he could shout no more he stillstood there, gasping, and whispering hoarsely to himself: “By God! ByGod! By God!”

CHAPTER XXIX

The man had gone back to a seat upon the platform, and Jurgis realized that hisspeech was over. The applause continued for several minutes; and then some onestarted a song, and the crowd took it up, and the place shook with it. Jurgishad never heard it, and he could not make out the words, but the wild andwonderful spirit of it seized upon him—it was the“Marseillaise!” As stanza after stanza of it thundered forth, hesat with his hands clasped, trembling in every nerve. He had never been sostirred in his life—it was a miracle that had been wrought in him. Hecould not think at all, he was stunned; yet he knew that in the mighty upheavalthat had taken place in his soul, a new man had been born. He had been torn outof the jaws of destruction, he had been delivered from the thraldom of despair;the whole world had been changed for him—he was free, he was free! Evenif he were to suffer as he had before, even if he were to beg and starve,nothing would be the same to him; he would understand it, and bear it. He wouldno longer be the sport of circumstances, he would be a man, with a will and apurpose; he would have something to fight for, something to die for, if needbe! Here were men who would show him and help him; and he would have friendsand allies, he would dwell in the sight of justice, and walk arm in arm withpower.

The audience subsided again, and Jurgis sat back. The chairman of the meetingcame forward and began to speak. His voice sounded thin and futile after theother’s, and to Jurgis it seemed a profanation. Why should any one elsespeak, after that miraculous man—why should they not all sit in silence?The chairman was explaining that a collection would now be taken up to defraythe expenses of the meeting, and for the benefit of the campaign fund of theparty. Jurgis heard; but he had not a penny to give, and so his thoughts wentelsewhere again.

He kept his eyes fixed on the orator, who sat in an armchair, his head leaningon his hand and his attitude indicating exhaustion. But suddenly he stood upagain, and Jurgis heard the chairman of the meeting saying that the speakerwould now answer any questions which the audience might care to put to him. Theman came forward, and some one—a woman—arose and asked about someopinion the speaker had expressed concerning Tolstoy. Jurgis had never heard ofTolstoy, and did not care anything about him. Why should any one want to asksuch questions, after an address like that? The thing was not to talk, but todo; the thing was to get bold of others and rouse them, to organize them andprepare for the fight! But still the discussion went on, in ordinaryconversational tones, and it brought Jurgis back to the everyday world. A fewminutes ago he had felt like seizing the hand of the beautiful lady by hisside, and kissing it; he had felt like flinging his arms about the neck of theman on the other side of him. And now he began to realize again that he was a“hobo,” that he was ragged and dirty, and smelled bad, and had noplace to sleep that night!

And so, at last, when the meeting broke up, and the audience started to leave,poor Jurgis was in an agony of uncertainty. He had not thought ofleaving—he had thought that the vision must last forever, that he hadfound comrades and brothers. But now he would go out, and the thing would fadeaway, and he would never be able to find it again! He sat in his seat,frightened and wondering; but others in the same row wanted to get out, and sohe had to stand up and move along. As he was swept down the aisle he lookedfrom one person to another, wistfully; they were all excitedly discussing theaddress—but there was nobody who offered to discuss it with him. He wasnear enough to the door to feel the night air, when desperation seized him. Heknew nothing at all about that speech he had heard, not even the name of theorator; and he was to go away—no, no, it was preposterous, he must speakto some one; he must find that man himself and tell him. He would not despisehim, tramp as he was!

So he stepped into an empty row of seats and watched, and when the crowd hadthinned out, he started toward the platform. The speaker was gone; but therewas a stage door that stood open, with people passing in and out, and no one onguard. Jurgis summoned up his courage and went in, and down a hallway, and tothe door of a room where many people were crowded. No one paid any attention tohim, and he pushed in, and in a corner he saw the man he sought. The orator satin a chair, with his shoulders sunk together and his eyes half closed; his facewas ghastly pale, almost greenish in hue, and one arm lay limp at his side. Abig man with spectacles on stood near him, and kept pushing back the crowd,saying, “Stand away a little, please; can’t you see the comrade isworn out?”

So Jurgis stood watching, while five or ten minutes passed. Now and then theman would look up, and address a word or two to those who were near him; and,at last, on one of these occasions, his glance rested on Jurgis. There seemedto be a slight hint of inquiry about it, and a sudden impulse seized the other.He stepped forward.

“I wanted to thank you, sir!” he began, in breathless haste.“I could not go away without telling you how much—how glad I am Iheard you. I—I didn’t know anything about it all—”

The big man with the spectacles, who had moved away, came back at this moment.“The comrade is too tired to talk to any one—” he began; butthe other held up his hand.

“Wait,” he said. “He has something to say to me.” Andthen he looked into Jurgis’s face. “You want to know more aboutSocialism?” he asked.

Jurgis started. “I—I—” he stammered. “Is itSocialism? I didn’t know. I want to know about what you spoke of—Iwant to help. I have been through all that.”

“Where do you live?” asked the other.

“I have no home,” said Jurgis, “I am out of work.”

“You are a foreigner, are you not?”

“Lithuanian, sir.”

The man thought for a moment, and then turned to his friend. “Who isthere, Walters?” he asked. “There is Ostrinski—but he is aPole—”

“Ostrinski speaks Lithuanian,” said the other. “All right,then; would you mind seeing if he has gone yet?”

The other started away, and the speaker looked at Jurgis again. He had deep,black eyes, and a face full of gentleness and pain. “You must excuse me,comrade,” he said. “I am just tired out—I have spoken everyday for the last month. I will introduce you to some one who will be able tohelp you as well as I could—”

The messenger had had to go no further than the door, he came back, followed bya man whom he introduced to Jurgis as “Comrade Ostrinski.” ComradeOstrinski was a little man, scarcely up to Jurgis’s shoulder, wizened andwrinkled, very ugly, and slightly lame. He had on a long-tailed black coat,worn green at the seams and the buttonholes; his eyes must have been weak, forhe wore green spectacles that gave him a grotesque appearance. But hishandclasp was hearty, and he spoke in Lithuanian, which warmed Jurgis to him.

“You want to know about Socialism?” he said. “Surely. Let usgo out and take a stroll, where we can be quiet and talk some.”

And so Jurgis bade farewell to the master wizard, and went out. Ostrinski askedwhere he lived, offering to walk in that direction; and so he had to explainonce more that he was without a home. At the other’s request he told hisstory; how he had come to America, and what had happened to him in thestockyards, and how his family had been broken up, and how he had become awanderer. So much the little man heard, and then he pressed Jurgis’s armtightly. “You have been through the mill, comrade!” he said.“We will make a fighter out of you!”

Then Ostrinski in turn explained his circumstances. He would have asked Jurgisto his home—but he had only two rooms, and had no bed to offer. He wouldhave given up his own bed, but his wife was ill. Later on, when he understoodthat otherwise Jurgis would have to sleep in a hallway, he offered him hiskitchen floor, a chance which the other was only too glad to accept.“Perhaps tomorrow we can do better,” said Ostrinski. “We trynot to let a comrade starve.”

Ostrinski’s home was in the Ghetto district, where he had two rooms inthe basement of a tenement. There was a baby crying as they entered, and heclosed the door leading into the bedroom. He had three young children, heexplained, and a baby had just come. He drew up two chairs near the kitchenstove, adding that Jurgis must excuse the disorder of the place, since at sucha time one’s domestic arrangements were upset. Half of the kitchen wasgiven up to a workbench, which was piled with clothing, and Ostrinski explainedthat he was a “pants finisher.” He brought great bundles ofclothing here to his home, where he and his wife worked on them. He made aliving at it, but it was getting harder all the time, because his eyes werefailing. What would come when they gave out he could not tell; there had beenno saving anything—a man could barely keep alive by twelve or fourteenhours’ work a day. The finishing of pants did not take much skill, andanybody could learn it, and so the pay was forever getting less. That was thecompetitive wage system; and if Jurgis wanted to understand what Socialism was,it was there he had best begin. The workers were dependent upon a job to existfrom day to day, and so they bid against each other, and no man could get morethan the lowest man would consent to work for. And thus the mass of the peoplewere always in a life-and-death struggle with poverty. That was“competition,” so far as it concerned the wage-earner, the man whohad only his labor to sell; to those on top, the exploiters, it appeared verydifferently, of course—there were few of them, and they could combine anddominate, and their power would be unbreakable. And so all over the world twoclasses were forming, with an unbridged chasm between them—the capitalistclass, with its enormous fortunes, and the proletariat, bound into slavery byunseen chains. The latter were a thousand to one in numbers, but they wereignorant and helpless, and they would remain at the mercy of their exploitersuntil they were organized—until they had become“class-conscious.” It was a slow and weary process, but it would goon—it was like the movement of a glacier, once it was started it couldnever be stopped. Every Socialist did his share, and lived upon the vision ofthe “good time coming,”—when the working class should go tothe polls and seize the powers of government, and put an end to privateproperty in the means of production. No matter how poor a man was, or how muchhe suffered, he could never be really unhappy while he knew of that future;even if he did not live to see it himself, his children would, and, to aSocialist, the victory of his class was his victory. Also he had always theprogress to encourage him; here in Chicago, for instance, the movement wasgrowing by leaps and bounds. Chicago was the industrial center of the country,and nowhere else were the unions so strong; but their organizations did theworkers little good, for the employers were organized, also; and so the strikesgenerally failed, and as fast as the unions were broken up the men were comingover to the Socialists.

Ostrinski explained the organization of the party, the machinery by which theproletariat was educating itself. There were “locals” in every bigcity and town, and they were being organized rapidly in the smaller places; alocal had anywhere from six to a thousand members, and there were fourteenhundred of them in all, with a total of about twenty-five thousand members, whopaid dues to support the organization. “Local Cook County,” as thecity organization was called, had eighty branch locals, and it alone wasspending several thousand dollars in the campaign. It published a weekly inEnglish, and one each in Bohemian and German; also there was a monthlypublished in Chicago, and a cooperative publishing house, that issued a millionand a half of Socialist books and pamphlets every year. All this was the growthof the last few years—there had been almost nothing of it when Ostrinskifirst came to Chicago.

Ostrinski was a Pole, about fifty years of age. He had lived in Silesia, amember of a despised and persecuted race, and had taken part in the proletarianmovement in the early seventies, when Bismarck, having conquered France, hadturned his policy of blood and iron upon the “International.”Ostrinski himself had twice been in jail, but he had been young then, and hadnot cared. He had had more of his share of the fight, though, for just whenSocialism had broken all its barriers and become the great political force ofthe empire, he had come to America, and begun all over again. In America everyone had laughed at the mere idea of Socialism then—in America all menwere free. As if political liberty made wage slavery any the more tolerable!said Ostrinski.

The little tailor sat tilted back in his stiff kitchen chair, with his feetstretched out upon the empty stove, and speaking in low whispers, so as not towaken those in the next room. To Jurgis he seemed a scarcely less wonderfulperson than the speaker at the meeting; he was poor, the lowest of the low,hunger-driven and miserable—and yet how much he knew, how much he haddared and achieved, what a hero he had been! There were others like him,too—thousands like him, and all of them workingmen! That all thiswonderful machinery of progress had been created by his fellows—Jurgiscould not believe it, it seemed too good to be true.

That was always the way, said Ostrinski; when a man was first converted toSocialism he was like a crazy person—he could not understand how otherscould fail to see it, and he expected to convert all the world the first week.After a while he would realize how hard a task it was; and then it would befortunate that other new hands kept coming, to save him from settling down intoa rut. Just now Jurgis would have plenty of chance to vent his excitement, fora presidential campaign was on, and everybody was talking politics. Ostrinskiwould take him to the next meeting of the branch local, and introduce him, andhe might join the party. The dues were five cents a week, but any one who couldnot afford this might be excused from paying. The Socialist party was a reallydemocratic political organization—it was controlled absolutely by its ownmembership, and had no bosses. All of these things Ostrinski explained, as alsothe principles of the party. You might say that there was really but oneSocialist principle—that of “no compromise,” which was theessence of the proletarian movement all over the world. When a Socialist waselected to office he voted with old party legislators for any measure that waslikely to be of help to the working class, but he never forgot that theseconcessions, whatever they might be, were trifles compared with the greatpurpose—the organizing of the working class for the revolution. So far,the rule in America had been that one Socialist made another Socialist onceevery two years; and if they should maintain the same rate they would carry thecountry in 1912—though not all of them expected to succeed as quickly asthat.

The Socialists were organized in every civilized nation; it was aninternational political party, said Ostrinski, the greatest the world had everknown. It numbered thirty million of adherents, and it cast eight millionvotes. It had started its first newspaper in Japan, and elected its firstdeputy in Argentina; in France it named members of cabinets, and in Italy andAustralia it held the balance of power and turned out ministries. In Germany,where its vote was more than a third of the total vote of the empire, all otherparties and powers had united to fight it. It would not do, Ostrinskiexplained, for the proletariat of one nation to achieve the victory, for thatnation would be crushed by the military power of the others; and so theSocialist movement was a world movement, an organization of all mankind toestablish liberty and fraternity. It was the new religion of humanity—oryou might say it was the fulfillment of the old religion, since it implied butthe literal application of all the teachings of Christ.

Until long after midnight Jurgis sat lost in the conversation of his newacquaintance. It was a most wonderful experience to him—an almostsupernatural experience. It was like encountering an inhabitant of the fourthdimension of space, a being who was free from all one’s own limitations.For four years, now, Jurgis had been wondering and blundering in the depths ofa wilderness; and here, suddenly, a hand reached down and seized him, andlifted him out of it, and set him upon a mountain-top, from which he couldsurvey it all—could see the paths from which he had wandered, themorasses into which he had stumbled, the hiding places of the beasts of preythat had fallen upon him. There were his Packingtown experiences, forinstance—what was there about Packingtown that Ostrinski could notexplain! To Jurgis the packers had been equivalent to fate; Ostrinski showedhim that they were the Beef Trust. They were a gigantic combination of capital,which had crushed all opposition, and overthrown the laws of the land, and waspreying upon the people. Jurgis recollected how, when he had first come toPackingtown, he had stood and watched the hog-killing, and thought how crueland savage it was, and come away congratulating himself that he was not a hog;now his new acquaintance showed him that a hog was just what he hadbeen—one of the packers’ hogs. What they wanted from a hog was allthe profits that could be got out of him; and that was what they wanted fromthe workingman, and also that was what they wanted from the public. What thehog thought of it, and what he suffered, were not considered; and no more wasit with labor, and no more with the purchaser of meat. That was true everywherein the world, but it was especially true in Packingtown; there seemed to besomething about the work of slaughtering that tended to ruthlessness andferocity—it was literally the fact that in the methods of the packers ahundred human lives did not balance a penny of profit. When Jurgis had madehimself familiar with the Socialist literature, as he would very quickly, hewould get glimpses of the Beef Trust from all sorts of aspects, and he wouldfind it everywhere the same; it was the incarnation of blind and insensateGreed. It was a monster devouring with a thousand mouths, trampling with athousand hoofs; it was the Great Butcher—it was the spirit of Capitalismmade flesh. Upon the ocean of commerce it sailed as a pirate ship; it hadhoisted the black flag and declared war upon civilization. Bribery andcorruption were its everyday methods. In Chicago the city government was simplyone of its branch offices; it stole billions of gallons of city water openly,it dictated to the courts the sentences of disorderly strikers, it forbade themayor to enforce the building laws against it. In the national capital it hadpower to prevent inspection of its product, and to falsify government reports;it violated the rebate laws, and when an investigation was threatened it burnedits books and sent its criminal agents out of the country. In the commercialworld it was a Juggernaut car; it wiped out thousands of businesses every year,it drove men to madness and suicide. It had forced the price of cattle so lowas to destroy the stock-raising industry, an occupation upon which whole statesexisted; it had ruined thousands of butchers who had refused to handle itsproducts. It divided the country into districts, and fixed the price of meat inall of them; and it owned all the refrigerator cars, and levied an enormoustribute upon all poultry and eggs and fruit and vegetables. With the millionsof dollars a week that poured in upon it, it was reaching out for the controlof other interests, railroads and trolley lines, gas and electric lightfranchises—it already owned the leather and the grain business of thecountry. The people were tremendously stirred up over its encroachments, butnobody had any remedy to suggest; it was the task of Socialists to teach andorganize them, and prepare them for the time when they were to seize the hugemachine called the Beef Trust, and use it to produce food for human beings andnot to heap up fortunes for a band of pirates. It was long after midnight whenJurgis lay down upon the floor of Ostrinski’s kitchen; and yet it was anhour before he could get to sleep, for the glory of that joyful vision of thepeople of Packingtown marching in and taking possession of the UnionStockyards!

CHAPTER XXX

Jurgis had breakfast with Ostrinski and his family, and then he went home toElzbieta. He was no longer shy about it—when he went in, instead ofsaying all the things he had been planning to say, he started to tell Elzbietaabout the revolution! At first she thought he was out of his mind, and it washours before she could really feel certain that he was himself. When, however,she had satisfied herself that he was sane upon all subjects except politics,she troubled herself no further about it. Jurgis was destined to find thatElzbieta’s armor was absolutely impervious to Socialism. Her soul hadbeen baked hard in the fire of adversity, and there was no altering it now;life to her was the hunt for daily bread, and ideas existed for her only asthey bore upon that. All that interested her in regard to this new frenzy whichhad seized hold of her son-in-law was whether or not it had a tendency to makehim sober and industrious; and when she found he intended to look for work andto contribute his share to the family fund, she gave him full rein to convinceher of anything. A wonderfully wise little woman was Elzbieta; she could thinkas quickly as a hunted rabbit, and in half an hour she had chosen herlife-attitude to the Socialist movement. She agreed in everything with Jurgis,except the need of his paying his dues; and she would even go to a meeting withhim now and then, and sit and plan her next day’s dinner amid the storm.

For a week after he became a convert Jurgis continued to wander about all day,looking for work; until at last he met with a strange fortune. He was passingone of Chicago’s innumerable small hotels, and after some hesitation heconcluded to go in. A man he took for the proprietor was standing in the lobby,and he went up to him and tackled him for a job.

“What can you do?” the man asked.

“Anything, sir,” said Jurgis, and added quickly: “I’vebeen out of work for a long time, sir. I’m an honest man, and I’mstrong and willing—”

The other was eying him narrowly. “Do you drink?” he asked.

“No, sir,” said Jurgis.

“Well, I’ve been employing a man as a porter, and he drinks.I’ve discharged him seven times now, and I’ve about made up my mindthat’s enough. Would you be a porter?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s hard work. You’ll have to clean floors and washspittoons and fill lamps and handle trunks—”

“I’m willing, sir.”

“All right. I’ll pay you thirty a month and board, and you canbegin now, if you feel like it. You can put on the other fellow’srig.”

And so Jurgis fell to work, and toiled like a Trojan till night. Then he wentand told Elzbieta, and also, late as it was, he paid a visit to Ostrinski tolet him know of his good fortune. Here he received a great surprise, for whenhe was describing the location of the hotel Ostrinski interrupted suddenly,“Not Hinds’s!”

“Yes,” said Jurgis, “that’s the name.”

To which the other replied, “Then you’ve got the best boss inChicago—he’s a state organizer of our party, and one of ourbest-known speakers!”

So the next morning Jurgis went to his employer and told him; and the manseized him by the hand and shook it. “By Jove!” he cried,“that lets me out. I didn’t sleep all last night because I haddischarged a good Socialist!”

So, after that, Jurgis was known to his “boss” as “ComradeJurgis,” and in return he was expected to call him “ComradeHinds.” “Tommy” Hinds, as he was known to his intimates, wasa squat little man, with broad shoulders and a florid face, decorated with grayside whiskers. He was the kindest-hearted man that ever lived, and theliveliest—inexhaustible in his enthusiasm, and talking Socialism all dayand all night. He was a great fellow to jolly along a crowd, and would keep ameeting in an uproar; when once he got really waked up, the torrent of hiseloquence could be compared with nothing save Niagara.

Tommy Hinds had begun life as a blacksmith’s helper, and had run away tojoin the Union army, where he had made his first acquaintance with“graft,” in the shape of rotten muskets and shoddy blankets. To amusket that broke in a crisis he always attributed the death of his onlybrother, and upon worthless blankets he blamed all the agonies of his own oldage. Whenever it rained, the rheumatism would get into his joints, and then hewould screw up his face and mutter: “Capitalism, my boy, capitalism!‘Écrasez l’Infâme!’” He had one unfailing remedyfor all the evils of this world, and he preached it to every one; no matterwhether the person’s trouble was failure in business, or dyspepsia, or aquarrelsome mother-in-law, a twinkle would come into his eyes and he would say,“You know what to do about it—vote the Socialist ticket!”

Tommy Hinds had set out upon the trail of the Octopus as soon as the war wasover. He had gone into business, and found himself in competition with thefortunes of those who had been stealing while he had been fighting. The citygovernment was in their hands and the railroads were in league with them, andhonest business was driven to the wall; and so Hinds had put all his savingsinto Chicago real estate, and set out singlehanded to dam the river of graft.He had been a reform member of the city council, he had been a Greenbacker, aLabor Unionist, a Populist, a Bryanite—and after thirty years offighting, the year 1896 had served to convince him that the power ofconcentrated wealth could never be controlled, but could only be destroyed. Hehad published a pamphlet about it, and set out to organize a party of his own,when a stray Socialist leaflet had revealed to him that others had been aheadof him. Now for eight years he had been fighting for the party, anywhere,everywhere—whether it was a G.A.R. reunion, or a hotel-keepers’convention, or an Afro-American business-men’s banquet, or a Biblesociety picnic, Tommy Hinds would manage to get himself invited to explain therelations of Socialism to the subject in hand. After that he would start offupon a tour of his own, ending at some place between New York and Oregon; andwhen he came back from there, he would go out to organize new locals for thestate committee; and finally he would come home to rest—and talkSocialism in Chicago. Hinds’s hotel was a very hot-bed of the propaganda;all the employees were party men, and if they were not when they came, theywere quite certain to be before they went away. The proprietor would get into adiscussion with some one in the lobby, and as the conversation grew animated,others would gather about to listen, until finally every one in the place wouldbe crowded into a group, and a regular debate would be under way. This went onevery night—when Tommy Hinds was not there to do it, his clerk did it;and when his clerk was away campaigning, the assistant attended to it, whileMrs. Hinds sat behind the desk and did the work. The clerk was an old crony ofthe proprietor’s, an awkward, rawboned giant of a man, with a lean,sallow face, a broad mouth, and whiskers under his chin, the very type and bodyof a prairie farmer. He had been that all his life—he had fought therailroads in Kansas for fifty years, a Granger, a Farmers’ Alliance man,a “middle-of-the-road” Populist. Finally, Tommy Hinds had revealedto him the wonderful idea of using the trusts instead of destroying them, andhe had sold his farm and come to Chicago.

That was Amos Struver; and then there was Harry Adams, the assistant clerk, apale, scholarly-looking man, who came from Massachusetts, of Pilgrim stock.Adams had been a cotton operative in Fall River, and the continued depressionin the industry had worn him and his family out, and he had emigrated to SouthCarolina. In Massachusetts the percentage of white illiteracy is eight-tenthsof one per cent, while in South Carolina it is thirteen and six-tenths percent; also in South Carolina there is a property qualification forvoters—and for these and other reasons child labor is the rule, and sothe cotton mills were driving those of Massachusetts out of the business. Adamsdid not know this, he only knew that the Southern mills were running; but whenhe got there he found that if he was to live, all his family would have towork, and from six o’clock at night to six o’clock in the morning.So he had set to work to organize the mill hands, after the fashion inMassachusetts, and had been discharged; but he had gotten other work, and stuckat it, and at last there had been a strike for shorter hours, and Harry Adamshad attempted to address a street meeting, which was the end of him. In thestates of the far South the labor of convicts is leased to contractors, andwhen there are not convicts enough they have to be supplied. Harry Adams wassent up by a judge who was a cousin of the mill owner with whose business hehad interfered; and though the life had nearly killed him, he had been wiseenough not to murmur, and at the end of his term he and his family had left thestate of South Carolina—hell’s back yard, as he called it. He hadno money for carfare, but it was harvest-time, and they walked one day andworked the next; and so Adams got at last to Chicago, and joined the Socialistparty. He was a studious man, reserved, and nothing of an orator; but he alwayshad a pile of books under his desk in the hotel, and articles from his pen werebeginning to attract attention in the party press.

Contrary to what one would have expected, all this radicalism did not hurt thehotel business; the radicals flocked to it, and the commercial travelers allfound it diverting. Of late, also, the hotel had become a favorite stoppingplace for Western cattlemen. Now that the Beef Trust had adopted the trick ofraising prices to induce enormous shipments of cattle, and then dropping themagain and scooping in all they needed, a stock raiser was very apt to findhimself in Chicago without money enough to pay his freight bill; and so he hadto go to a cheap hotel, and it was no drawback to him if there was an agitatortalking in the lobby. These Western fellows were just “meat” forTommy Hinds—he would get a dozen of them around him and paint littlepictures of “the System.” Of course, it was not a week before hehad heard Jurgis’s story, and after that he would not have let his newporter go for the world. “See here,” he would say, in the middle ofan argument, “I’ve got a fellow right here in my place who’sworked there and seen every bit of it!” And then Jurgis would drop hiswork, whatever it was, and come, and the other would say, “ComradeJurgis, just tell these gentlemen what you saw on the killing-beds.” Atfirst this request caused poor Jurgis the most acute agony, and it was likepulling teeth to get him to talk; but gradually he found out what was wanted,and in the end he learned to stand up and speak his piece with enthusiasm. Hisemployer would sit by and encourage him with exclamations and shakes of thehead; when Jurgis would give the formula for “potted ham,” or tellabout the condemned hogs that were dropped into the “destructors”at the top and immediately taken out again at the bottom, to be shipped intoanother state and made into lard, Tommy Hinds would bang his knee and cry,“Do you think a man could make up a thing like that out of hishead?”

And then the hotel-keeper would go on to show how the Socialists had the onlyreal remedy for such evils, how they alone “meant business” withthe Beef Trust. And when, in answer to this, the victim would say that thewhole country was getting stirred up, that the newspapers were full ofdenunciations of it, and the government taking action against it, Tommy Hindshad a knock-out blow all ready. “Yes,” he would say, “allthat is true—but what do you suppose is the reason for it? Are youfoolish enough to believe that it’s done for the public? There are othertrusts in the country just as illegal and extortionate as the Beef Trust: thereis the Coal Trust, that freezes the poor in winter—there is the SteelTrust, that doubles the price of every nail in your shoes—there is theOil Trust, that keeps you from reading at night—and why do you suppose itis that all the fury of the press and the government is directed against theBeef Trust?” And when to this the victim would reply that there wasclamor enough over the Oil Trust, the other would continue: “Ten yearsago Henry D. Lloyd told all the truth about the Standard Oil Company in hisWealth versus Commonwealth; and the book was allowed to die, and you hardlyever hear of it. And now, at last, two magazines have the courage to tackle‘Standard Oil’ again, and what happens? The newspapers ridicule theauthors, the churches defend the criminals, and the government—doesnothing. And now, why is it all so different with the Beef Trust?”

Here the other would generally admit that he was “stuck”; and TommyHinds would explain to him, and it was fun to see his eyes open. “If youwere a Socialist,” the hotel-keeper would say, “you wouldunderstand that the power which really governs the United States today is theRailroad Trust. It is the Railroad Trust that runs your state government,wherever you live, and that runs the United States Senate. And all of thetrusts that I have named are railroad trusts—save only the Beef Trust!The Beef Trust has defied the railroads—it is plundering them day by daythrough the Private Car; and so the public is roused to fury, and the papersclamor for action, and the government goes on the war-path! And you poor commonpeople watch and applaud the job, and think it’s all done for you, andnever dream that it is really the grand climax of the century-long battle ofcommercial competition—the final death grapple between the chiefs of theBeef Trust and ‘Standard Oil,’ for the prize of the mastery andownership of the United States of America!”

Such was the new home in which Jurgis lived and worked, and in which hiseducation was completed. Perhaps you would imagine that he did not do much workthere, but that would be a great mistake. He would have cut off one hand forTommy Hinds; and to keep Hinds’s hotel a thing of beauty was his joy inlife. That he had a score of Socialist arguments chasing through his brain inthe meantime did not interfere with this; on the contrary, Jurgis scrubbed thespittoons and polished the banisters all the more vehemently because at thesame time he was wrestling inwardly with an imaginary recalcitrant. It would bepleasant to record that he swore off drinking immediately, and all the rest ofhis bad habits with it; but that would hardly be exact. These revolutionistswere not angels; they were men, and men who had come up from the social pit,and with the mire of it smeared over them. Some of them drank, and some of themswore, and some of them ate pie with their knives; there was only onedifference between them and all the rest of the populace—that they weremen with a hope, with a cause to fight for and suffer for. There came times toJurgis when the vision seemed far-off and pale, and a glass of beer loomedlarge in comparison; but if the glass led to another glass, and to too manyglasses, he had something to spur him to remorse and resolution on the morrow.It was so evidently a wicked thing to spend one’s pennies for drink, whenthe working class was wandering in darkness, and waiting to be delivered; theprice of a glass of beer would buy fifty copies of a leaflet, and one couldhand these out to the unregenerate, and then get drunk upon the thought of thegood that was being accomplished. That was the way the movement had been made,and it was the only way it would progress; it availed nothing to know of it,without fighting for it—it was a thing for all, not for a few! Acorollary of this proposition of course was, that any one who refused toreceive the new gospel was personally responsible for keeping Jurgis from hisheart’s desire; and this, alas, made him uncomfortable as anacquaintance. He met some neighbors with whom Elzbieta had made friends in herneighborhood, and he set out to make Socialists of them by wholesale, andseveral times he all but got into a fight.

It was all so painfully obvious to Jurgis! It was so incomprehensible how a mancould fail to see it! Here were all the opportunities of the country, the land,and the buildings upon the land, the railroads, the mines, the factories, andthe stores, all in the hands of a few private individuals, called capitalists,for whom the people were obliged to work for wages. The whole balance of whatthe people produced went to heap up the fortunes of these capitalists, to heap,and heap again, and yet again—and that in spite of the fact that they,and every one about them, lived in unthinkable luxury! And was it not plainthat if the people cut off the share of those who merely “owned,”the share of those who worked would be much greater? That was as plain as twoand two makes four; and it was the whole of it, absolutely the whole of it; andyet there were people who could not see it, who would argue about everythingelse in the world. They would tell you that governments could not manage thingsas economically as private individuals; they would repeat and repeat that, andthink they were saying something! They could not see that“economical” management by masters meant simply that they, thepeople, were worked harder and ground closer and paid less! They werewage-earners and servants, at the mercy of exploiters whose one thought was toget as much out of them as possible; and they were taking an interest in theprocess, were anxious lest it should not be done thoroughly enough! Was it nothonestly a trial to listen to an argument such as that?

And yet there were things even worse. You would begin talking to some poordevil who had worked in one shop for the last thirty years, and had never beenable to save a penny; who left home every morning at six o’clock, to goand tend a machine, and come back at night too tired to take his clothes off;who had never had a week’s vacation in his life, had never traveled,never had an adventure, never learned anything, never hoped anything—andwhen you started to tell him about Socialism he would sniff and say,“I’m not interested in that—I’m anindividualist!” And then he would go on to tell you that Socialism was“paternalism,” and that if it ever had its way the world would stopprogressing. It was enough to make a mule laugh, to hear arguments like that;and yet it was no laughing matter, as you found out—for how many millionsof such poor deluded wretches there were, whose lives had been so stunted bycapitalism that they no longer knew what freedom was! And they really thoughtthat it was “individualism” for tens of thousands of them to herdtogether and obey the orders of a steel magnate, and produce hundreds ofmillions of dollars of wealth for him, and then let him give them libraries;while for them to take the industry, and run it to suit themselves, and buildtheir own libraries—that would have been “Paternalism”!

Sometimes the agony of such things as this was almost more than Jurgis couldbear; yet there was no way of escape from it, there was nothing to do but todig away at the base of this mountain of ignorance and prejudice. You must keepat the poor fellow; you must hold your temper, and argue with him, and watchfor your chance to stick an idea or two into his head. And the rest of the timeyou must sharpen up your weapons—you must think out new replies to hisobjections, and provide yourself with new facts to prove to him the folly ofhis ways.

So Jurgis acquired the reading habit. He would carry in his pocket a tract or apamphlet which some one had loaned him, and whenever he had an idle momentduring the day he would plod through a paragraph, and then think about it whilehe worked. Also he read the newspapers, and asked questions about them. One ofthe other porters at Hinds’s was a sharp little Irishman, who kneweverything that Jurgis wanted to know; and while they were busy he wouldexplain to him the geography of America, and its history, its constitution andits laws; also he gave him an idea of the business system of the country, thegreat railroads and corporations, and who owned them, and the labor unions, andthe big strikes, and the men who had led them. Then at night, when he could getoff, Jurgis would attend the Socialist meetings. During the campaign one wasnot dependent upon the street corner affairs, where the weather and the qualityof the orator were equally uncertain; there were hall meetings every night, andone could hear speakers of national prominence. These discussed the politicalsituation from every point of view, and all that troubled Jurgis was theimpossibility of carrying off but a small part of the treasures they offeredhim.

There was a man who was known in the party as the “Little Giant.”The Lord had used up so much material in the making of his head that there hadnot been enough to complete his legs; but he got about on the platform, andwhen he shook his raven whiskers the pillars of capitalism rocked. He hadwritten a veritable encyclopedia upon the subject, a book that was nearly asbig as himself—And then there was a young author, who came fromCalifornia, and had been a salmon fisher, an oyster-pirate, a longshoreman, asailor; who had tramped the country and been sent to jail, had lived in theWhitechapel slums, and been to the Klondike in search of gold. All these thingshe pictured in his books, and because he was a man of genius he forced theworld to hear him. Now he was famous, but wherever he went he still preachedthe gospel of the poor. And then there was one who was known at the“millionaire Socialist.” He had made a fortune in business, andspent nearly all of it in building up a magazine, which the post officedepartment had tried to suppress, and had driven to Canada. He was aquiet-mannered man, whom you would have taken for anything in the world but aSocialist agitator. His speech was simple and informal—he could notunderstand why any one should get excited about these things. It was a processof economic evolution, he said, and he exhibited its laws and methods. Life wasa struggle for existence, and the strong overcame the weak, and in turn wereovercome by the strongest. Those who lost in the struggle were generallyexterminated; but now and then they had been known to save themselves bycombination—which was a new and higher kind of strength. It was so thatthe gregarious animals had overcome the predaceous; it was so, in humanhistory, that the people had mastered the kings. The workers were simply thecitizens of industry, and the Socialist movement was the expression of theirwill to survive. The inevitability of the revolution depended upon this fact,that they had no choice but to unite or be exterminated; this fact, grim andinexorable, depended upon no human will, it was the law of the economicprocess, of which the editor showed the details with the most marvelousprecision.

And later on came the evening of the great meeting of the campaign, when Jurgisheard the two standard-bearers of his party. Ten years before there had been inChicago a strike of a hundred and fifty thousand railroad employees, and thugshad been hired by the railroads to commit violence, and the President of theUnited States had sent in troops to break the strike, by flinging the officersof the union into jail without trial. The president of the union came out ofhis cell a ruined man; but also he came out a Socialist; and now for just tenyears he had been traveling up and down the country, standing face to face withthe people, and pleading with them for justice. He was a man of electricpresence, tall and gaunt, with a face worn thin by struggle and suffering. Thefury of outraged manhood gleamed in it—and the tears of suffering littlechildren pleaded in his voice. When he spoke he paced the stage, lithe andeager, like a panther. He leaned over, reaching out for his audience; hepointed into their souls with an insistent finger. His voice was husky frommuch speaking, but the great auditorium was as still as death, and every oneheard him.

And then, as Jurgis came out from this meeting, some one handed him a paperwhich he carried home with him and read; and so he became acquainted with the“Appeal to Reason.” About twelve years previously a Coloradoreal-estate speculator had made up his mind that it was wrong to gamble in thenecessities of life of human beings: and so he had retired and begun thepublication of a Socialist weekly. There had come a time when he had to set hisown type, but he had held on and won out, and now his publication was aninstitution. It used a carload of paper every week, and the mail trains wouldbe hours loading up at the depot of the little Kansas town. It was a four-pageweekly, which sold for less than half a cent a copy; its regular subscriptionlist was a quarter of a million, and it went to every crossroads post office inAmerica.

The “Appeal” was a “propaganda” paper. It had a mannerall its own—it was full of ginger and spice, of Western slang and hustle:It collected news of the doings of the “plutes,” and served it upfor the benefit of the “American working-mule.” It would havecolumns of the deadly parallel—the million dollars’ worth ofdiamonds, or the fancy pet-poodle establishment of a society dame, beside thefate of Mrs. Murphy of San Francisco, who had starved to death on the streets,or of John Robinson, just out of the hospital, who had hanged himself in NewYork because he could not find work. It collected the stories of graft andmisery from the daily press, and made a little pungent paragraphs out of them.“Three banks of Bungtown, South Dakota, failed, and more savings of theworkers swallowed up!” “The mayor of Sandy Creek, Oklahoma, hasskipped with a hundred thousand dollars. That’s the kind of rulers theold partyites give you!” “The president of the Florida FlyingMachine Company is in jail for bigamy. He was a prominent opponent ofSocialism, which he said would break up the home!” The“Appeal” had what it called its “Army,” about thirtythousand of the faithful, who did things for it; and it was always exhortingthe “Army” to keep its dander up, and occasionally encouraging itwith a prize competition, for anything from a gold watch to a private yacht oran eighty-acre farm. Its office helpers were all known to the“Army” by quaint titles—“Inky Ike,” “theBald-headed Man,” “the Redheaded Girl,” “theBulldog,” “the Office Goat,” and “the One Hoss.”

But sometimes, again, the “Appeal” would be desperately serious. Itsent a correspondent to Colorado, and printed pages describing the overthrow ofAmerican institutions in that state. In a certain city of the country it hadover forty of its “Army” in the headquarters of the TelegraphTrust, and no message of importance to Socialists ever went through that a copyof it did not go to the “Appeal.” It would print great broadsidesduring the campaign; one copy that came to Jurgis was a manifesto addressed tostriking workingmen, of which nearly a million copies had been distributed inthe industrial centers, wherever the employers’ associations had beencarrying out their “open shop” program. “You have lost thestrike!” it was headed. “And now what are you going to do aboutit?” It was what is called an “incendiary” appeal—itwas written by a man into whose soul the iron had entered. When this editionappeared, twenty thousand copies were sent to the stockyards district; and theywere taken out and stowed away in the rear of a little cigar store, and everyevening, and on Sundays, the members of the Packingtown locals would getarmfuls and distribute them on the streets and in the houses. The people ofPackingtown had lost their strike, if ever a people had, and so they read thesepapers gladly, and twenty thousand were hardly enough to go round. Jurgis hadresolved not to go near his old home again, but when he heard of this it wastoo much for him, and every night for a week he would get on the car and rideout to the stockyards, and help to undo his work of the previous year, when hehad sent Mike Scully’s ten-pin setter to the city Board of Aldermen.

It was quite marvelous to see what a difference twelve months had made inPackingtown—the eyes of the people were getting opened! The Socialistswere literally sweeping everything before them that election, and Scully andthe Cook County machine were at their wits’ end for an“issue.” At the very close of the campaign they bethoughtthemselves of the fact that the strike had been broken by Negroes, and so theysent for a South Carolina fire-eater, the “pitchfork senator,” ashe was called, a man who took off his coat when he talked to workingmen, anddamned and swore like a Hessian. This meeting they advertised extensively, andthe Socialists advertised it too—with the result that about a thousand ofthem were on hand that evening. The “pitchfork senator” stood theirfusillade of questions for about an hour, and then went home in disgust, andthe balance of the meeting was a strictly party affair. Jurgis, who hadinsisted upon coming, had the time of his life that night; he danced about andwaved his arms in his excitement—and at the very climax he broke loosefrom his friends, and got out into the aisle, and proceeded to make a speechhimself! The senator had been denying that the Democratic party was corrupt; itwas always the Republicans who bought the votes, he said—and here wasJurgis shouting furiously, “It’s a lie! It’s a lie!”After which he went on to tell them how he knew it—that he knew itbecause he had bought them himself! And he would have told the “pitchforksenator” all his experiences, had not Harry Adams and a friend grabbedhim about the neck and shoved him into a seat.

CHAPTER XXXI

One of the first things that Jurgis had done after he got a job was to go andsee Marija. She came down into the basement of the house to meet him, and hestood by the door with his hat in his hand, saying, “I’ve got worknow, and so you can leave here.”

But Marija only shook her head. There was nothing else for her to do, she said,and nobody to employ her. She could not keep her past a secret—girls hadtried it, and they were always found out. There were thousands of men who cameto this place, and sooner or later she would meet one of them. “Andbesides,” Marija added, “I can’t do anything. I’m nogood—I take dope. What could you do with me?”

“Can’t you stop?” Jurgis cried.

“No,” she answered, “I’ll never stop. What’s theuse of talking about it—I’ll stay here till I die, I guess.It’s all I’m fit for.” And that was all that he could get herto say—there was no use trying. When he told her he would not letElzbieta take her money, she answered indifferently: “Then it’ll bewasted here—that’s all.” Her eyelids looked heavy and herface was red and swollen; he saw that he was annoying her, that she only wantedhim to go away. So he went, disappointed and sad.

Poor Jurgis was not very happy in his home-life. Elzbieta was sick a good dealnow, and the boys were wild and unruly, and very much the worse for their lifeupon the streets. But he stuck by the family nevertheless, for they remindedhim of his old happiness; and when things went wrong he could solace himselfwith a plunge into the Socialist movement. Since his life had been caught upinto the current of this great stream, things which had before been the wholeof life to him came to seem of relatively slight importance; his interests wereelsewhere, in the world of ideas. His outward life was commonplace anduninteresting; he was just a hotel-porter, and expected to remain one while helived; but meantime, in the realm of thought, his life was a perpetualadventure. There was so much to know—so many wonders to be discovered!Never in all his life did Jurgis forget the day before election, when therecame a telephone message from a friend of Harry Adams, asking him to bringJurgis to see him that night; and Jurgis went, and met one of the minds of themovement.

The invitation was from a man named Fisher, a Chicago millionaire who had givenup his life to settlement work, and had a little home in the heart of thecity’s slums. He did not belong to the party, but he was in sympathy withit; and he said that he was to have as his guest that night the editor of a bigEastern magazine, who wrote against Socialism, but really did not know what itwas. The millionaire suggested that Adams bring Jurgis along, and then start upthe subject of “pure food,” in which the editor was interested.

Young Fisher’s home was a little two-story brick house, dingy andweather-beaten outside, but attractive within. The room that Jurgis saw washalf lined with books, and upon the walls were many pictures, dimly visible inthe soft, yellow light; it was a cold, rainy night, so a log fire was cracklingin the open hearth. Seven or eight people were gathered about it when Adams andhis friend arrived, and Jurgis saw to his dismay that three of them wereladies. He had never talked to people of this sort before, and he fell into anagony of embarrassment. He stood in the doorway clutching his hat tightly inhis hands, and made a deep bow to each of the persons as he was introduced;then, when he was asked to have a seat, he took a chair in a dark corner, andsat down upon the edge of it, and wiped the perspiration off his forehead withhis sleeve. He was terrified lest they should expect him to talk.

There was the host himself, a tall, athletic young man, clad in evening dress,as also was the editor, a dyspeptic-looking gentleman named Maynard. There wasthe former’s frail young wife, and also an elderly lady, who taughtkindergarten in the settlement, and a young college student, a beautiful girlwith an intense and earnest face. She only spoke once or twice while Jurgis wasthere—the rest of the time she sat by the table in the center of theroom, resting her chin in her hands and drinking in the conversation. Therewere two other men, whom young Fisher had introduced to Jurgis as Mr. Lucas andMr. Schliemann; he heard them address Adams as “Comrade,” and so heknew that they were Socialists.

The one called Lucas was a mild and meek-looking little gentleman of clericalaspect; he had been an itinerant evangelist, it transpired, and had seen thelight and become a prophet of the new dispensation. He traveled all over thecountry, living like the apostles of old, upon hospitality, and preaching uponstreet-corners when there was no hall. The other man had been in the midst of adiscussion with the editor when Adams and Jurgis came in; and at the suggestionof the host they resumed it after the interruption. Jurgis was soon sittingspellbound, thinking that here was surely the strangest man that had ever livedin the world.

Nicholas Schliemann was a Swede, a tall, gaunt person, with hairy hands andbristling yellow beard; he was a university man, and had been a professor ofphilosophy—until, as he said, he had found that he was selling hischaracter as well as his time. Instead he had come to America, where he livedin a garret room in this slum district, and made volcanic energy take the placeof fire. He studied the composition of food-stuffs, and knew exactly how manyproteids and carbohydrates his body needed; and by scientific chewing he saidthat he tripled the value of all he ate, so that it cost him eleven cents aday. About the first of July he would leave Chicago for his vacation, on foot;and when he struck the harvest fields he would set to work for two dollars anda half a day, and come home when he had another year’s supply—ahundred and twenty-five dollars. That was the nearest approach to independencea man could make “under capitalism,” he explained; he would nevermarry, for no sane man would allow himself to fall in love until after therevolution.

He sat in a big arm-chair, with his legs crossed, and his head so far in theshadow that one saw only two glowing lights, reflected from the fire on thehearth. He spoke simply, and utterly without emotion; with the manner of ateacher setting forth to a group of scholars an axiom in geometry, he wouldenunciate such propositions as made the hair of an ordinary person rise on end.And when the auditor had asserted his non-comprehension, he would proceed toelucidate by some new proposition, yet more appalling. To Jurgis the Herr Dr.Schliemann assumed the proportions of a thunderstorm or an earthquake. And yet,strange as it might seem, there was a subtle bond between them, and he couldfollow the argument nearly all the time. He was carried over the difficultplaces in spite of himself; and he went plunging away in mad career—avery Mazeppa-ride upon the wild horse Speculation.

Nicholas Schliemann was familiar with all the universe, and with man as a smallpart of it. He understood human institutions, and blew them about like soapbubbles. It was surprising that so much destructiveness could be contained inone human mind. Was it government? The purpose of government was the guardingof property-rights, the perpetuation of ancient force and modern fraud. Or wasit marriage? Marriage and prostitution were two sides of one shield, thepredatory man’s exploitation of the sex-pleasure. The difference betweenthem was a difference of class. If a woman had money she might dictate her ownterms: equality, a life contract, and the legitimacy—that is, theproperty-rights—of her children. If she had no money, she was aproletarian, and sold herself for an existence. And then the subject becameReligion, which was the Archfiend’s deadliest weapon. Governmentoppressed the body of the wage-slave, but Religion oppressed his mind, andpoisoned the stream of progress at its source. The working-man was to fix hishopes upon a future life, while his pockets were picked in this one; he wasbrought up to frugality, humility, obedience—in short to all thepseudo-virtues of capitalism. The destiny of civilization would be decided inone final death struggle between the Red International and the Black, betweenSocialism and the Roman Catholic Church; while here at home, “the stygianmidnight of American evangelicalism—”

And here the ex-preacher entered the field, and there was a lively tussle.“Comrade” Lucas was not what is called an educated man; he knewonly the Bible, but it was the Bible interpreted by real experience. And whatwas the use, he asked, of confusing Religion with men’s perversions ofit? That the church was in the hands of the merchants at the moment was obviousenough; but already there were signs of rebellion, and if Comrade Schliemanncould come back a few years from now—

“Ah, yes,” said the other, “of course, I have no doubt thatin a hundred years the Vatican will be denying that it ever opposed Socialism,just as at present it denies that it ever tortured Galileo.”

“I am not defending the Vatican,” exclaimed Lucas, vehemently.“I am defending the word of God—which is one long cry of the humanspirit for deliverance from the sway of oppression. Take the twenty-fourthchapter of the Book of Job, which I am accustomed to quote in my addresses as‘the Bible upon the Beef Trust’; or take the words ofIsaiah—or of the Master himself! Not the elegant prince of our debauchedand vicious art, not the jeweled idol of our society churches—but theJesus of the awful reality, the man of sorrow and pain, the outcast, despisedof the world, who had nowhere to lay his head—”

“I will grant you Jesus,” interrupted the other.

“Well, then,” cried Lucas, “and why should Jesus have nothingto do with his church—why should his words and his life be of noauthority among those who profess to adore him? Here is a man who was theworld’s first revolutionist, the true founder of the Socialist movement;a man whose whole being was one flame of hatred for wealth, and all that wealthstands for,—for the pride of wealth, and the luxury of wealth, and thetyranny of wealth; who was himself a beggar and a tramp, a man of the people,an associate of saloon-keepers and women of the town; who again and again, inthe most explicit language, denounced wealth and the holding of wealth:‘Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth!’—‘Sellthat ye have and give alms!’—‘Blessed are ye poor, for yoursis the kingdom of Heaven!’—‘Woe unto you that are rich, forye have received your consolation!’—‘Verily, I say unto you,that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of Heaven!’ Whodenounced in unmeasured terms the exploiters of his own time: ‘Woe untoyou, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites!’—‘Woe unto you also,you lawyers!’—‘Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how canye escape the damnation of hell?’ Who drove out the business men andbrokers from the temple with a whip! Who was crucified—think ofit—for an incendiary and a disturber of the social order! And this manthey have made into the high priest of property and smug respectability, adivine sanction of all the horrors and abominations of modern commercialcivilization! Jeweled images are made of him, sensual priests burn incense tohim, and modern pirates of industry bring their dollars, wrung from the toil ofhelpless women and children, and build temples to him, and sit in cushionedseats and listen to his teachings expounded by doctors of dustydivinity—”

“Bravo!” cried Schliemann, laughing. But the other was in fullcareer—he had talked this subject every day for five years, and had neveryet let himself be stopped. “This Jesus of Nazareth!” he cried.“This class-conscious working-man! This union carpenter! This agitator,law-breaker, firebrand, anarchist! He, the sovereign lord and master of a worldwhich grinds the bodies and souls of human beings into dollars—if hecould come into the world this day and see the things that men have made in hisname, would it not blast his soul with horror? Would he not go mad at the sightof it, he the Prince of Mercy and Love! That dreadful night when he lay in theGarden of Gethsemane and writhed in agony until he sweat blood—do youthink that he saw anything worse than he might see tonight upon the plains ofManchuria, where men march out with a jeweled image of him before them, to dowholesale murder for the benefit of foul monsters of sensuality and cruelty? Doyou not know that if he were in St. Petersburg now, he would take the whip withwhich he drove out the bankers from his temple—”

Here the speaker paused an instant for breath. “No, comrade,” saidthe other, dryly, “for he was a practical man. He would take prettylittle imitation lemons, such as are now being shipped into Russia, handy forcarrying in the pockets, and strong enough to blow a whole temple out ofsight.”

Lucas waited until the company had stopped laughing over this; then he beganagain: “But look at it from the point of view of practical politics,comrade. Here is an historical figure whom all men reverence and love, whomsome regard as divine; and who was one of us—who lived our life, andtaught our doctrine. And now shall we leave him in the hands of hisenemies—shall we allow them to stifle and stultify his example? We havehis words, which no one can deny; and shall we not quote them to the people,and prove to them what he was, and what he taught, and what he did? No, no, athousand times no!—we shall use his authority to turn out the knaves andsluggards from his ministry, and we shall yet rouse the people toaction!—”

Lucas halted again; and the other stretched out his hand to a paper on thetable. “Here, comrade,” he said, with a laugh, “here is aplace for you to begin. A bishop whose wife has just been robbed of fiftythousand dollars’ worth of diamonds! And a most unctuous and oily ofbishops! An eminent and scholarly bishop! A philanthropist and friend of laborbishop—a Civic Federation decoy duck for the chloroforming of thewage-working-man!”

To this little passage of arms the rest of the company sat as spectators. Butnow Mr. Maynard, the editor, took occasion to remark, somewhat naïvely, that hehad always understood that Socialists had a cut-and-dried program for thefuture of civilization; whereas here were two active members of the party, who,from what he could make out, were agreed about nothing at all. Would the two,for his enlightenment, try to ascertain just what they had in common, and whythey belonged to the same party? This resulted, after much debating, in theformulating of two carefully worded propositions: First, that a Socialistbelieves in the common ownership and democratic management of the means ofproducing the necessities of life; and, second, that a Socialist believes thatthe means by which this is to be brought about is the class conscious politicalorganization of the wage-earners. Thus far they were at one; but no farther. ToLucas, the religious zealot, the co-operative commonwealth was the NewJerusalem, the kingdom of Heaven, which is “within you.” To theother, Socialism was simply a necessary step toward a far-distant goal, a stepto be tolerated with impatience. Schliemann called himself a “philosophicanarchist”; and he explained that an anarchist was one who believed thatthe end of human existence was the free development of every personality,unrestricted by laws save those of its own being. Since the same kind of matchwould light every one’s fire and the same-shaped loaf of bread would fillevery one’s stomach, it would be perfectly feasible to submit industry tothe control of a majority vote. There was only one earth, and the quantity ofmaterial things was limited. Of intellectual and moral things, on the otherhand, there was no limit, and one could have more without another’shaving less; hence “Communism in material production, anarchism inintellectual,” was the formula of modern proletarian thought. As soon asthe birth agony was over, and the wounds of society had been healed, therewould be established a simple system whereby each man was credited with hislabor and debited with his purchases; and after that the processes ofproduction, exchange, and consumption would go on automatically, and withoutour being conscious of them, any more than a man is conscious of the beating ofhis heart. And then, explained Schliemann, society would break up intoindependent, self-governing communities of mutually congenial persons; examplesof which at present were clubs, churches, and political parties. After therevolution, all the intellectual, artistic, and spiritual activities of menwould be cared for by such “free associations”; romantic novelistswould be supported by those who liked to read romantic novels, andimpressionist painters would be supported by those who liked to look atimpressionist pictures—and the same with preachers and scientists,editors and actors and musicians. If any one wanted to work or paint or pray,and could find no one to maintain him, he could support himself by working partof the time. That was the case at present, the only difference being that thecompetitive wage system compelled a man to work all the time to live, while,after the abolition of privilege and exploitation, any one would be able tosupport himself by an hour’s work a day. Also the artist’s audienceof the present was a small minority of people, all debased and vulgarized bythe effort it had cost them to win in the commercial battle, of theintellectual and artistic activities which would result when the whole ofmankind was set free from the nightmare of competition, we could at presentform no conception whatever.

And then the editor wanted to know upon what ground Dr. Schliemann assertedthat it might be possible for a society to exist upon an hour’s toil byeach of its members. “Just what,” answered the other, “wouldbe the productive capacity of society if the present resources of science wereutilized, we have no means of ascertaining; but we may be sure it would exceedanything that would sound reasonable to minds inured to the ferociousbarbarities of capitalism. After the triumph of the international proletariat,war would of course be inconceivable; and who can figure the cost of war tohumanity—not merely the value of the lives and the material that itdestroys, not merely the cost of keeping millions of men in idleness, of armingand equipping them for battle and parade, but the drain upon the vital energiesof society by the war attitude and the war terror, the brutality and ignorance,the drunkenness, prostitution, and crime it entails, the industrial impotenceand the moral deadness? Do you think that it would be too much to say that twohours of the working time of every efficient member of a community goes to feedthe red fiend of war?”

And then Schliemann went on to outline some of the wastes of competition: thelosses of industrial warfare; the ceaseless worry and friction; thevices—such as drink, for instance, the use of which had nearly doubled intwenty years, as a consequence of the intensification of the economic struggle;the idle and unproductive members of the community, the frivolous rich and thepauperized poor; the law and the whole machinery of repression; the wastes ofsocial ostentation, the milliners and tailors, the hairdressers, dancingmasters, chefs and lackeys. “You understand,” he said, “thatin a society dominated by the fact of commercial competition, money isnecessarily the test of prowess, and wastefulness the sole criterion of power.So we have, at the present moment, a society with, say, thirty per cent of thepopulation occupied in producing useless articles, and one per cent occupied indestroying them. And this is not all; for the servants and panders of theparasites are also parasites, the milliners and the jewelers and the lackeyshave also to be supported by the useful members of the community. And bear inmind also that this monstrous disease affects not merely the idlers and theirmenials, its poison penetrates the whole social body. Beneath the hundredthousand women of the elite are a million middle-class women, miserable becausethey are not of the elite, and trying to appear of it in public; and beneaththem, in turn, are five million farmers’ wives reading ‘fashionpapers’ and trimming bonnets, and shop-girls and serving-maids sellingthemselves into brothels for cheap jewelry and imitation seal-skin robes. Andthen consider that, added to this competition in display, you have, like oil onthe flames, a whole system of competition in selling! You have manufacturerscontriving tens of thousands of catchpenny devices, storekeepers displayingthem, and newspapers and magazines filled up with advertisements ofthem!”

“And don’t forget the wastes of fraud,” put in young Fisher.

“When one comes to the ultra-modern profession of advertising,”responded Schliemann—“the science of persuading people to buy whatthey do not want—he is in the very center of the ghastly charnel house ofcapitalist destructiveness, and he scarcely knows which of a dozen horrors topoint out first. But consider the waste in time and energy incidental to makingten thousand varieties of a thing for purposes of ostentation and snobbishness,where one variety would do for use! Consider all the waste incidental to themanufacture of cheap qualities of goods, of goods made to sell and deceive theignorant; consider the wastes of adulteration,—the shoddy clothing, thecotton blankets, the unstable tenements, the ground-cork life-preservers, theadulterated milk, the aniline soda water, the potato-floursausages—”

“And consider the moral aspects of the thing,” put in theex-preacher.

“Precisely,” said Schliemann; “the low knavery and theferocious cruelty incidental to them, the plotting and the lying and thebribing, the blustering and bragging, the screaming egotism, the hurrying andworrying. Of course, imitation and adulteration are the essence ofcompetition—they are but another form of the phrase ‘to buy in thecheapest market and sell in the dearest.’ A government official hasstated that the nation suffers a loss of a billion and a quarter dollars a yearthrough adulterated foods; which means, of course, not only materials wastedthat might have been useful outside of the human stomach, but doctors andnurses for people who would otherwise have been well, and undertakers for thewhole human race ten or twenty years before the proper time. Then again,consider the waste of time and energy required to sell these things in a dozenstores, where one would do. There are a million or two of business firms in thecountry, and five or ten times as many clerks; and consider the handling andrehandling, the accounting and reaccounting, the planning and worrying, thebalancing of petty profit and loss. Consider the whole machinery of the civillaw made necessary by these processes; the libraries of ponderous tomes, thecourts and juries to interpret them, the lawyers studying to circumvent them,the pettifogging and chicanery, the hatreds and lies! Consider the wastesincidental to the blind and haphazard production of commodities—thefactories closed, the workers idle, the goods spoiling in storage; consider theactivities of the stock manipulator, the paralyzing of whole industries, theoverstimulation of others, for speculative purposes; the assignments and bankfailures, the crises and panics, the deserted towns and the starvingpopulations! Consider the energies wasted in the seeking of markets, thesterile trades, such as drummer, solicitor, bill-poster, advertising agent.Consider the wastes incidental to the crowding into cities, made necessary bycompetition and by monopoly railroad rates; consider the slums, the bad air,the disease and the waste of vital energies; consider the office buildings, thewaste of time and material in the piling of story upon story, and the burrowingunderground! Then take the whole business of insurance, the enormous mass ofadministrative and clerical labor it involves, and all utterwaste—”

“I do not follow that,” said the editor. “The CooperativeCommonwealth is a universal automatic insurance company and savings bank forall its members. Capital being the property of all, injury to it is shared byall and made up by all. The bank is the universal government credit-account,the ledger in which every individual’s earnings and spendings arebalanced. There is also a universal government bulletin, in which are listedand precisely described everything which the commonwealth has for sale. As noone makes any profit by the sale, there is no longer any stimulus toextravagance, and no misrepresentation; no cheating, no adulteration orimitation, no bribery or ‘grafting.’”

“How is the price of an article determined?”

“The price is the labor it has cost to make and deliver it, and it isdetermined by the first principles of arithmetic. The million workers in thenation’s wheat fields have worked a hundred days each, and the totalproduct of the labor is a billion bushels, so the value of a bushel of wheat isthe tenth part of a farm labor-day. If we employ an arbitrary symbol, and pay,say, five dollars a day for farm work, then the cost of a bushel of wheat isfifty cents.”

“You say ‘for farm work,’” said Mr. Maynard.“Then labor is not to be paid alike?”

“Manifestly not, since some work is easy and some hard, and we shouldhave millions of rural mail carriers, and no coal miners. Of course the wagesmay be left the same, and the hours varied; one or the other will have to bevaried continually, according as a greater or less number of workers is neededin any particular industry. That is precisely what is done at present, exceptthat the transfer of the workers is accomplished blindly and imperfectly, byrumors and advertisements, instead of instantly and completely, by a universalgovernment bulletin.”

“How about those occupations in which time is difficult to calculate?What is the labor cost of a book?”

“Obviously it is the labor cost of the paper, printing, and binding ofit—about a fifth of its present cost.”

“And the author?”

“I have already said that the state could not control intellectualproduction. The state might say that it had taken a year to write the book, andthe author might say it had taken thirty. Goethe said that every bon motof his had cost a purse of gold. What I outline here is a national, or ratherinternational, system for the providing of the material needs of men. Since aman has intellectual needs also, he will work longer, earn more, and providefor them to his own taste and in his own way. I live on the same earth as themajority, I wear the same kind of shoes and sleep in the same kind of bed; butI do not think the same kind of thoughts, and I do not wish to pay for suchthinkers as the majority selects. I wish such things to be left to free effort,as at present. If people want to listen to a certain preacher, they gettogether and contribute what they please, and pay for a church and support thepreacher, and then listen to him; I, who do not want to listen to him, stayaway, and it costs me nothing. In the same way there are magazines aboutEgyptian coins, and Catholic saints, and flying machines, and athletic records,and I know nothing about any of them. On the other hand, if wage slavery wereabolished, and I could earn some spare money without paying tribute to anexploiting capitalist, then there would be a magazine for the purpose ofinterpreting and popularizing the gospel of Friedrich Nietzsche, the prophet ofEvolution, and also of Horace Fletcher, the inventor of the noble science ofclean eating; and incidentally, perhaps, for the discouraging of long skirts,and the scientific breeding of men and women, and the establishing of divorceby mutual consent.”

Dr. Schliemann paused for a moment. “That was a lecture,” he saidwith a laugh, “and yet I am only begun!”

“What else is there?” asked Maynard.

“I have pointed out some of the negative wastes of competition,”answered the other. “I have hardly mentioned the positive economies ofco-operation. Allowing five to a family, there are fifteen million families inthis country; and at least ten million of these live separately, the domesticdrudge being either the wife or a wage slave. Now set aside the modern systemof pneumatic house-cleaning, and the economies of co-operative cooking; andconsider one single item, the washing of dishes. Surely it is moderate to saythat the dish-washing for a family of five takes half an hour a day; with tenhours as a day’s work, it takes, therefore, half a million able-bodiedpersons—mostly women to do the dish-washing of the country. And note thatthis is most filthy and deadening and brutalizing work; that it is a cause ofanemia, nervousness, ugliness, and ill-temper; of prostitution, suicide, andinsanity; of drunken husbands and degenerate children—for all of whichthings the community has naturally to pay. And now consider that in each of mylittle free communities there would be a machine which would wash and dry thedishes, and do it, not merely to the eye and the touch, butscientifically—sterilizing them—and do it at a saving of all thedrudgery and nine-tenths of the time! All of these things you may find in thebooks of Mrs. Gilman; and then take Kropotkin’s Fields, Factories, andWorkshops, and read about the new science of agriculture, which has been builtup in the last ten years; by which, with made soils and intensive culture, agardener can raise ten or twelve crops in a season, and two hundred tons ofvegetables upon a single acre; by which the population of the whole globe couldbe supported on the soil now cultivated in the United States alone! It isimpossible to apply such methods now, owing to the ignorance and poverty of ourscattered farming population; but imagine the problem of providing the foodsupply of our nation once taken in hand systematically and rationally, byscientists! All the poor and rocky land set apart for a national timberreserve, in which our children play, and our young men hunt, and our poetsdwell! The most favorable climate and soil for each product selected; the exactrequirements of the community known, and the acreage figured accordingly; themost improved machinery employed, under the direction of expert agriculturalchemists! I was brought up on a farm, and I know the awful deadliness of farmwork; and I like to picture it all as it will be after the revolution. Topicture the great potato-planting machine, drawn by four horses, or an electricmotor, ploughing the furrow, cutting and dropping and covering the potatoes,and planting a score of acres a day! To picture the great potato-diggingmachine, run by electricity, perhaps, and moving across a thousand-acre field,scooping up earth and potatoes, and dropping the latter into sacks! To everyother kind of vegetable and fruit handled in the same way—apples andoranges picked by machinery, cows milked by electricity—things which arealready done, as you may know. To picture the harvest fields of the future, towhich millions of happy men and women come for a summer holiday, brought byspecial trains, the exactly needful number to each place! And to contrast allthis with our present agonizing system of independent small farming,—astunted, haggard, ignorant man, mated with a yellow, lean, and sad-eyed drudge,and toiling from four o’clock in the morning until nine at night, workingthe children as soon as they are able to walk, scratching the soil with itsprimitive tools, and shut out from all knowledge and hope, from all theirbenefits of science and invention, and all the joys of the spirit—held toa bare existence by competition in labor, and boasting of his freedom becausehe is too blind to see his chains!”

Dr. Schliemann paused a moment. “And then,” he continued,“place beside this fact of an unlimited food supply, the newest discoveryof physiologists, that most of the ills of the human system are due tooverfeeding! And then again, it has been proven that meat is unnecessary as afood; and meat is obviously more difficult to produce than vegetable food, lesspleasant to prepare and handle, and more likely to be unclean. But what ofthat, so long as it tickles the palate more strongly?”

“How would Socialism change that?” asked the girl-student, quickly.It was the first time she had spoken.

“So long as we have wage slavery,” answered Schliemann, “itmatters not in the least how debasing and repulsive a task may be, it is easyto find people to perform it. But just as soon as labor is set free, then theprice of such work will begin to rise. So one by one the old, dingy, andunsanitary factories will come down—it will be cheaper to build new; andso the steamships will be provided with stoking machinery, and so the dangeroustrades will be made safe, or substitutes will be found for their products. Inexactly the same way, as the citizens of our Industrial Republic becomerefined, year by year the cost of slaughterhouse products will increase; untileventually those who want to eat meat will have to do their ownkilling—and how long do you think the custom would survive then?—Togo on to another item—one of the necessary accompaniments of capitalismin a democracy is political corruption; and one of the consequences of civicadministration by ignorant and vicious politicians, is that preventablediseases kill off half our population. And even if science were allowed to try,it could do little, because the majority of human beings are not yet humanbeings at all, but simply machines for the creating of wealth for others. Theyare penned up in filthy houses and left to rot and stew in misery, and theconditions of their life make them ill faster than all the doctors in the worldcould heal them; and so, of course, they remain as centers of contagion,poisoning the lives of all of us, and making happiness impossible for even themost selfish. For this reason I would seriously maintain that all the medicaland surgical discoveries that science can make in the future will be of lessimportance than the application of the knowledge we already possess, when thedisinherited of the earth have established their right to a humanexistence.”

And here the Herr Doctor relapsed into silence again. Jurgis had noticed thatthe beautiful young girl who sat by the center-table was listening withsomething of the same look that he himself had worn, the time when he had firstdiscovered Socialism. Jurgis would have liked to talk to her, he felt sure thatshe would have understood him. Later on in the evening, when the group brokeup, he heard Mrs. Fisher say to her, in a low voice, “I wonder if Mr.Maynard will still write the same things about Socialism”; to which sheanswered, “I don’t know—but if he does we shall know that heis a knave!”

And only a few hours after this came election day—when the long campaignwas over, and the whole country seemed to stand still and hold its breath,awaiting the issue. Jurgis and the rest of the staff of Hinds’s Hotelcould hardly stop to finish their dinner, before they hurried off to the bighall which the party had hired for that evening.

But already there were people waiting, and already the telegraph instrument onthe stage had begun clicking off the returns. When the final accounts were madeup, the Socialist vote proved to be over four hundred thousand—anincrease of something like three hundred and fifty per cent in four years. Andthat was doing well; but the party was dependent for its early returns uponmessages from the locals, and naturally those locals which had been mostsuccessful were the ones which felt most like reporting; and so that nightevery one in the hall believed that the vote was going to be six, or seven, oreven eight hundred thousand. Just such an incredible increase had actually beenmade in Chicago, and in the state; the vote of the city had been 6,700 in 1900,and now it was 47,000; that of Illinois had been 9,600, and now it was 69,000!So, as the evening waxed, and the crowd piled in, the meeting was a sight to beseen. Bulletins would be read, and the people would shout themselveshoarse—and then some one would make a speech, and there would be moreshouting; and then a brief silence, and more bulletins. There would comemessages from the secretaries of neighboring states, reporting theirachievements; the vote of Indiana had gone from 2,300 to 12,000, of Wisconsinfrom 7,000 to 28,000; of Ohio from 4,800 to 36,000! There were telegrams to thenational office from enthusiastic individuals in little towns which had madeamazing and unprecedented increases in a single year: Benedict, Kansas, from 26to 260; Henderson, Kentucky, from 19 to 111; Holland, Michigan, from 14 to 208;Cleo, Oklahoma, from 0 to 104; Martin’s Ferry, Ohio, from 0 to296—and many more of the same kind. There were literally hundreds of suchtowns; there would be reports from half a dozen of them in a single batch oftelegrams. And the men who read the despatches off to the audience were oldcampaigners, who had been to the places and helped to make the vote, and couldmake appropriate comments: Quincy, Illinois, from 189 to 831—that waswhere the mayor had arrested a Socialist speaker! Crawford County, Kansas, from285 to 1,975; that was the home of the “Appeal to Reason”! BattleCreek, Michigan, from 4,261 to 10,184; that was the answer of labor to theCitizens’ Alliance Movement!

And then there were official returns from the various precincts and wards ofthe city itself! Whether it was a factory district or one of the“silk-stocking” wards seemed to make no particular difference inthe increase; but one of the things which surprised the party leaders most wasthe tremendous vote that came rolling in from the stockyards. Packingtowncomprised three wards of the city, and the vote in the spring of 1903 had been500, and in the fall of the same year, 1,600. Now, only one year later, it wasover 6,300—and the Democratic vote only 8,800! There were other wards inwhich the Democratic vote had been actually surpassed, and in two districts,members of the state legislature had been elected. Thus Chicago now led thecountry; it had set a new standard for the party, it had shown the workingmenthe way!

—So spoke an orator upon the platform; and two thousand pairs of eyeswere fixed upon him, and two thousand voices were cheering his every sentence.The orator had been the head of the city’s relief bureau in thestockyards, until the sight of misery and corruption had made him sick. He wasyoung, hungry-looking, full of fire; and as he swung his long arms and beat upthe crowd, to Jurgis he seemed the very spirit of the revolution.“Organize! Organize! Organize!”—that was his cry. He wasafraid of this tremendous vote, which his party had not expected, and which ithad not earned. “These men are not Socialists!” he cried.“This election will pass, and the excitement will die, and people willforget about it; and if you forget about it, too, if you sink back and restupon your oars, we shall lose this vote that we have polled to-day, and ourenemies will laugh us to scorn! It rests with you to take yourresolution—now, in the flush of victory, to find these men who have votedfor us, and bring them to our meetings, and organize them and bind them to us!We shall not find all our campaigns as easy as this one. Everywhere in thecountry tonight the old party politicians are studying this vote, and settingtheir sails by it; and nowhere will they be quicker or more cunning than herein our own city. Fifty thousand Socialist votes in Chicago means amunicipal-ownership Democracy in the spring! And then they will fool the votersonce more, and all the powers of plunder and corruption will be swept intooffice again! But whatever they may do when they get in, there is one thingthey will not do, and that will be the thing for which they were elected! Theywill not give the people of our city municipal ownership—they will notmean to do it, they will not try to do it; all that they will do is give ourparty in Chicago the greatest opportunity that has ever come to Socialism inAmerica! We shall have the sham reformers self-stultified and self-convicted;we shall have the radical Democracy left without a lie with which to cover itsnakedness! And then will begin the rush that will never be checked, the tidethat will never turn till it has reached its flood—that will beirresistible, overwhelming—the rallying of the outraged workingmen ofChicago to our standard! And we shall organize them, we shall drill them, weshall marshal them for the victory! We shall bear down the opposition, we shallsweep if before us—and Chicago will be ours! Chicago will be ours!CHICAGO WILL BE OURS!”