It was not for himself that he suffered—what did a man who worked in

Durham’s fertilizer mill care about anything that the world might do to

him! What was any tyranny of prison compared with the tyranny of the

past, of the thing that had happened and could not be recalled, of the

memory that could never be effaced! The horror of it drove him mad; he

stretched out his arms to heaven, 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 that would not drown; it followed

him, it seized upon him and beat him to the ground. Ah, if only he

could have foreseen it—but then, he would have foreseen 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, because he 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 of

starvation in the gutters of Chicago’s streets! And now—oh, it could

not be true; it was too monstrous, too horrible.

It was a thing that could not be faced; a new shuddering seized him

every time he tried to think of it. No, there was no bearing the load

of it, there was no living under it. There would be none for her—he

knew that he might pardon her, might plead with her on his knees, but

she would never look him in the face again, she would never be his wife

again. The shame of it would kill her—there could be no other

deliverance, and it was best that she should die.

This was simple and clear, and yet, with cruel inconsistency, whenever

he escaped from this nightmare it was to suffer and cry out at the

vision of Ona starving. 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 as she was. And Elzbieta and Marija, too,

might lose their places—if that hell fiend Connor chose to set to work

to ruin them, they would all be turned out. And even if he did not,

they could not live—even if the boys left school again, they could

surely not pay all the bills without him and Ona. They had only a few

dollars now—they had just paid the rent of the house a week ago, and

that after it was two weeks overdue. So it would be due again in a

week! They would have no money to pay it then—and they would lose the

house, after all their long, heartbreaking struggle. Three times now

the agent had warned him that he would not tolerate another delay.

Perhaps it was very base of Jurgis to be thinking about the house when

he had the other unspeakable thing to fill his mind; yet, how much he

had suffered for this house, how much they had all of them suffered! It

was their one hope of respite, as long as they lived; they had put all

their money into it—and they were working people, poor people, whose

money was their strength, the very substance of them, body and soul,

the thing by which they lived and for lack of which they died.

And they would lose it all; they would be turned out into the streets,

and have to hide in some icy garret, and live or die as best they

could! Jurgis had all the night—and all of many more nights—to think

about this, and he saw the thing in its details; he lived it all, as if

he were there. They would sell their furniture, and then run into debt

at the stores, and then be refused credit; they would borrow a little

from the Szedvilases, whose delicatessen store was tottering on the

brink of ruin; the neighbors would come and help them a little—poor,

sick Jadvyga would bring a few spare pennies, as she always did when

people were starving, and Tamoszius Kuszleika would bring them the

proceeds of a night’s fiddling. So they would struggle to hang on until

he got out of jail—or would they know that he was in jail, would they

be able to find out anything about him? Would they be allowed to see

him—or was it to be part of his punishment to be kept in ignorance

about their 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 actually let them lie down in the street and die?

Would there be no help even then—would they wander about in the snow

till they froze? Jurgis had never seen any dead bodies in the streets,

but he had seen people evicted and disappear, no one knew where; and

though the city had a relief bureau, though there was a charity

organization society in the stockyards district, in all his life there

he had never heard of either of them. They did not advertise their

activities, having more calls than they could attend to without that.

—So on until morning. Then he had another ride in the patrol wagon,

along with the drunken wife-beater and the maniac, several “plain

drunks” and “saloon fighters,” a burglar, and two men who had been

arrested for stealing meat from the packing houses. Along with them he

was driven into a large, white-walled room, stale-smelling and crowded.

In front, upon a raised platform behind a rail, sat a stout,

florid-faced personage, with a nose broken out in purple blotches.

Our friend realized vaguely that he was about to be tried. He wondered

what for—whether or not his victim might be dead, and if so, what they

would do with him. Hang him, perhaps, or beat him to death—nothing

would have surprised Jurgis, who knew little of the laws. Yet he had

picked up gossip enough to have it occur to him that the loud-voiced

man upon the bench might be the notorious Justice Callahan, about whom

the people of Packingtown spoke with bated breath.

“Pat” Callahan—“Growler” Pat, as he had been known before he ascended

the bench—had begun life as a butcher boy and a bruiser of local

reputation; he had gone into politics almost as soon as he had learned

to talk, and had held two offices at once before he was old enough to

vote. If Scully was the thumb, Pat Callahan was the first finger of the

unseen hand whereby the packers held down the people of the district.

No politician in Chicago ranked higher in their confidence; he had been

at it a long time—had been the business agent in the city council of

old Durham, the self-made merchant, way back in the early days, when

the whole city of Chicago had been up at auction. “Growler” Pat had

given up holding city offices very early in his career—caring only for

party power, and giving the rest of his time to superintending his

dives and brothels. Of late years, however, since his children were

growing up, he had begun to value respectability, and had had himself

made a magistrate; a position for which he was 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 some one of the family would come, but in this he was

disappointed. Finally, he was led before the bar, and a lawyer for the

company appeared against him. Connor was under the doctor’s care, the

lawyer explained briefly, and if his Honor would hold the prisoner for

a week—“Three hundred dollars,” said his Honor, promptly.

Jurgis was staring from the judge to the lawyer in perplexity. “Have

you any one to go on your bond?” demanded the judge, and then a clerk

who stood at Jurgis’ elbow explained to him what this meant. The latter

shook his head, and before he realized what had happened the policemen

were leading him away again. They took him to a room where other

prisoners were waiting and here he stayed until court adjourned, when

he had another long and bitterly cold ride in a patrol wagon to the

county jail, which is on the north side of the city, and nine or ten

miles from the stockyards.

Here they searched Jurgis, leaving him only his money, which consisted

of fifteen 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 of the inmates of the jail. This was a great event to the

latter—the daily review of the new arrivals, all stark naked, and many

and diverting were the comments. Jurgis was required to stay in the

bath longer than any one, in the vain hope of getting out of him a few

of his phosphates and acids. The prisoners roomed two in a cell, but

that day there was one left over, and he was the one.

The cells were in tiers, opening upon galleries. His cell was about

five feet by 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 one end of the court outside. There were two bunks,

one above the other, each with a straw mattress and a pair of gray

blankets—the latter stiff as boards with filth, and alive with fleas,

bedbugs, and lice. When Jurgis lifted up the mattress he discovered

beneath it a layer of scurrying roaches, almost as badly frightened as

himself.

Here they brought him more “duffers and dope,” with the addition of a

bowl of soup. Many of the prisoners had their meals brought in from a

restaurant, but Jurgis had no money for that. Some had books to read

and cards to play, with candles to burn by night, but Jurgis was all

alone in darkness and silence. He could not sleep again; there was the

same maddening procession of thoughts that lashed him like whips upon

his naked back. When night fell he was pacing up and down his cell like

a wild beast that breaks its teeth upon the bars of its cage. Now and

then in his frenzy he would fling himself against the walls of the

place, beating his hands upon them. They cut him and bruised him—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 his arms, listening. Instead of falling silent at the end,

the bell broke into a sudden 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 in the ringing; there were chimes.

And they seemed to waken the city—all around, far and near, there were

bells, ringing wild music; for fully a minute Jurgis lay lost in

wonder, before, all at once, the meaning of it broke over him—that this

was Christmas Eve!

Christmas Eve—he had forgotten it entirely! There was a breaking of

floodgates, a whirl of new memories and new griefs rushing into his

mind. In far Lithuania they had celebrated Christmas; and it came to

him as if it had been yesterday—himself a little child, with his lost

brother and his dead father in the cabin—in the deep black forest,

where the snow fell all day and all night and buried them from the

world. It was too far off for Santa Claus in Lithuania, but it was not

too far for peace and good will to men, for the wonder-bearing vision

of the Christ Child. And even in Packingtown they had not forgotten

it—some gleam of it had never failed to break their darkness. Last

Christmas Eve and all Christmas Day Jurgis had toiled on the killing

beds, and Ona at wrapping hams, and still they had found strength

enough to take the children for a walk upon the avenue, to see the

store windows all decorated with Christmas trees and ablaze with

electric lights. In one window there would be live geese, in another

marvels in sugar—pink and white canes big enough for ogres, and cakes

with cherubs upon them; in a third there would be rows of fat yellow

turkeys, decorated with rosettes, and rabbits and squirrels hanging; in

a fourth would be a fairyland of toys—lovely dolls with pink dresses,

and woolly sheep and drums and soldier 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 Christmas marketing to do—a roast of

pork and a cabbage and some rye bread, and a pair of mittens for Ona,

and a rubber doll that squeaked, and a little green cornucopia full of

candy to be hung from the gas jet and gazed at by half a dozen pairs of

longing eyes.

Even half a year of the sausage machines and the fertilizer mill had

not been able to kill the thought of Christmas in them; there was a

choking in Jurgis’ throat as he recalled that the very night Ona had

not come home Teta Elzbieta had taken him aside and shown him an old

valentine that she had picked up in a paper store for three cents—dingy

and shopworn, but with bright colors, and figures of angels and doves.

She had wiped all the specks off this, and was going to set it on the

mantel, where the children could see it. Great sobs shook Jurgis at

this memory—they would spend their Christmas in misery and despair,

with him in prison and Ona ill and their home in desolation. Ah, it was

too cruel! Why at least had they not left him alone—why, after they had

shut him in jail, must they be ringing Christmas chimes in his ears!

But no, their bells were not ringing for him—their Christmas was not

meant for him, they were simply not counting him at all. He was of no

consequence—he was flung aside, like a bit of trash, the carcass of

some animal. It was horrible, horrible! His wife might be dying, his

baby might be starving, his whole family might be perishing in the

cold—and all the while they were ringing their Christmas chimes! And

the bitter mockery of it—all this was punishment for him! They put him

in a place where the snow could not beat in, where the cold could not

eat through his bones; they brought him food and drink—why, in the name

of heaven, if they must punish him, did they not put his family in jail

and leave him outside—why could they find no better way to punish him

than to leave three weak women and six helpless children to starve and

freeze? That was their law, that was their justice!

Jurgis stood upright; trembling with passion, his hands clenched and

his arms upraised, his whole soul ablaze with hatred and defiance. Ten

thousand curses upon them and their law! Their justice—it was a lie, it

was a lie, a hideous, brutal lie, a thing too black and hateful for any

world but a world of nightmares. It was a sham and a loathsome mockery.

There was no justice, there was no right, anywhere in it—it was only

force, it was tyranny, the will and the power, reckless and

unrestrained! They had ground him beneath their heel, 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 whole family; and

now they were through with him, they had no further use for him—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 had

been a wild beast, a thing without sense or reason, without rights,

without affections, without feelings. Nay, they would not even have

treated a beast as they had treated him! Would any man in his senses

have trapped a wild thing in its lair, and left its young behind to

die?

These midnight hours were fateful ones to Jurgis; in them was the

beginning of his rebellion, of his outlawry and his unbelief. He had no

wit to trace back the social crime to its far sources—he could not say

that it was the thing men have called “the system” that was crushing

him to the earth; that it was the packers, his masters, who had bought

up the law of the land, and had dealt out their brutal will to him from

the seat of justice. He only knew that he was wronged, and that the

world had wronged him; that the law, that society, with all its powers,

had declared itself his foe. And every hour his soul grew blacker,

every hour he dreamed new dreams of vengeance, of defiance, 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

wash his cell—a duty which he performed faithfully, but which most of

the prisoners were accustomed to shirk, until their cells became so

filthy that the guards interposed. Then he had more “duffers and dope,”

and afterward was allowed three hours for exercise, in a long,

cement-walked court roofed with glass. Here were all the inmates of the

jail crowded together. At one side of the court was a place for

visitors, cut off by two heavy wire screens, 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

another prisoner. He was a dapper young fellow, with a light brown

mustache and blue eyes, and a graceful figure. He nodded to Jurgis, and

then, as the keeper closed 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

the mattress, and then dropped it with an exclamation. “My God!” he

said, “that’s the worst yet.”

He glanced at Jurgis again. “Looks as if it hadn’t been slept in last

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 thought I’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 a cracksman,” 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 found

afterward, he was thirty. He spoke like a man of education, like what

the world calls 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 his back to the wall and his

legs crossed, and went on talking easily; he soon put Jurgis on a

friendly footing—he was evidently a man of the world, used to getting

on, and not too proud to hold conversation with a mere laboring man. He

drew Jurgis out, and heard all about his life all but the one

unmentionable thing; and then he told stories about his own life. He

was a great one for stories, not always of the choicest. Being sent to

jail had apparently not disturbed his cheerfulness; he had “done time”

twice before, it seemed, and he took it all with a frolic welcome. What

with women and wine and the 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 a cell mate. He could not turn his face to the wall and

sulk, he had to speak when he was spoken to; nor could he help being

interested in the conversation of Duane—the first educated man with

whom he had ever talked. How could he help listening with wonder while

the other told of midnight ventures and perilous 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 it patiently, he had

struck back, and struck hard. He was striking all the time—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, but then

defeat did not mean annihilation, and need not break his spirit.

Withal he was a goodhearted fellow—too much so, it appeared. His story

came out, not in the first day, nor the second, but in the long hours

that dragged by, in which they had nothing to do but talk and nothing

to talk of but themselves. Jack Duane was from the East; he was a

college-bred man—had been studying electrical engineering. Then his

father had met with misfortune in business and killed himself; and

there had been his mother and a younger brother and sister. Also, there

was an invention of Duane’s; Jurgis could not understand it clearly,

but it had to do with telegraphing, and it was a very important

thing—there were fortunes in it, millions upon millions of dollars. And

Duane had been robbed of it by a great company, and got tangled up in

lawsuits and lost all his money. Then somebody had given him a tip on a

horse race, and he had tried to retrieve his fortune with another

person’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

wild and appalling occupation to think about. A man he had met, his

cell mate had replied—one thing leads to another. Didn’t he ever wonder

about his family, Jurgis asked. Sometimes, the other answered, but not

often—he didn’t allow it. Thinking about it would make it no better.

This wasn’t a world in which a man had any business with a family;

sooner or later Jurgis would find that out also, and give up the fight

and shift for himself.

Jurgis was so transparently what he pretended to be that his cell mate

was as open with him as a child; it was pleasant to tell him

adventures, he was so full of wonder and admiration, he was so new to

the ways of the country. Duane did not even bother to keep back names

and places—he told all his triumphs and his failures, his loves and his

griefs. Also he introduced Jurgis to many of the other prisoners,

nearly half of whom he knew by name. The crowd had already given Jurgis

a name—they called him “the stinker.” This was cruel, but they meant no

harm by it, and he took it with 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. This jail was a Noah’s ark of the city’s crime—there were

murderers, “hold-up men” and burglars, embezzlers, counterfeiters and

forgers, bigamists, “shoplifters,” “confidence men,” 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 hardened criminals

and innocent men too poor to give bail; old men, and boys literally not

yet in their teens. They were the drainage of the great festering ulcer

of society; they were hideous to look upon, sickening to talk to. All

life had turned to rottenness and stench in them—love was a

beastliness, joy was a snare, and God was an imprecation. They strolled

here and there about the courtyard, and Jurgis listened to them. He was

ignorant and they were wise; they had been everywhere and tried

everything. They could tell the whole hateful story of it, set forth

the inner soul of a city in which justice and honor, women’s bodies and

men’s souls, were for sale in the marketplace, and human beings writhed

and fought and fell upon each other like wolves in a pit; in which

lusts were raging fires, and men were fuel, and humanity was festering

and stewing and wallowing in its own corruption. Into this wild-beast

tangle these men had been born without their consent, they had taken

part in it because they could not help it; that they were in jail was

no disgrace to them, for the game had never been fair, the dice were

loaded. They were swindlers and thieves of pennies and dimes, and they

had been trapped and put 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

their savage mockery; and all the while his heart was far away, where

his loved ones were 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 back by the jeering laughter of his

companions.

He spent a week in this company, and during all that time he had no

word from his home. He paid one of his fifteen cents for a postal card,

and his companion wrote a note to the family, telling them where he was

and when he would be tried. There came no answer to it, however, and at

last, the day before New Year’s, Jurgis bade good-by to Jack Duane. The

latter gave him his address, or rather the address of his mistress, and

made Jurgis promise to look him 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 wagon back to Justice Callahan’s court for

trial.

One of the first things he made out as he entered the room was Teta

Elzbieta and little Kotrina, looking pale and frightened, seated far in

the rear. His heart began to pound, but he did not dare to try to

signal to them, and neither did Elzbieta. He took his seat in the

prisoners’ pen and sat gazing at them in helpless agony. He saw that

Ona was not with them, and was full of foreboding as to what that might

mean. He spent half an hour brooding over this—and then suddenly he

straightened up and the blood rushed into his face. A man had come

in—Jurgis could not see his features for the bandages that swathed him,

but he knew the burly figure. It was Connor! A trembling seized him,

and his limbs bent as if for a spring. Then suddenly he felt a hand on

his collar, and heard a voice behind him: “Sit down, you son of a—!”

He subsided, but he never took his eyes off his enemy. The fellow was

still alive, which was a disappointment, in one way; and yet it was

pleasant to see him, 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 the clerk called Jurgis’ name, and the

policeman jerked him to his feet and led him before the bar, gripping

him tightly by the arm, lest he should spring upon the boss.

Jurgis listened while the man entered the witness chair, took the oath,

and told his story. The wife of the prisoner had been employed in a

department near him, and had been discharged for impudence to him. Half

an hour later he had been violently attacked, knocked down, and almost

choked to death. He had brought witnesses—

“They will probably not be necessary,” observed the judge and he turned

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 arm hard.

“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 to speak English for practical purposes, but these had never

included the statement that some one had intimidated and seduced his

wife. He tried once or twice, stammering and balking, to the annoyance

of the judge, who was gasping from the odor of fertilizer. Finally, the

prisoner made it understood that his vocabulary was inadequate, and

there stepped up a dapper young man with waxed mustaches, bidding him

speak in any language he knew.

Jurgis began; supposing that he would be given time, he explained how

the boss had taken advantage of his wife’s position to make advances to

her and had threatened her with the loss of her place. When the

interpreter had translated this, the judge, whose calendar was crowded,

and whose automobile was 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 the superintendent or leave the place?”

Jurgis hesitated, somewhat taken aback; he began to explain that they

were very poor—that work was hard to get—

“I see,” said Justice Callahan; “so instead you thought you would knock

him down.” He turned to the plaintiff, inquiring, “Is there any truth

in this story, Mr. Connor?”

“Not a particle, your Honor,” said the boss. “It is very

unpleasant—they tell some such tale every time you have to discharge a

woman—”

“Yes, I know,” said the judge. “I hear it often enough. The fellow

seems to have handled you pretty roughly. Thirty days and costs. Next

case.”

Jurgis had been listening in perplexity. It was only when the policeman

who had him by the arm turned and started to lead him away that he

realized that sentence had been passed. He gazed round him wildly.

“Thirty days!” he panted and then he whirled upon the judge. “What will

my family do?” he cried frantically. “I have a wife and baby, sir, and

they have no money—my God, they will starve to death!”

“You would have done well to think about them before you committed the

assault,” said the judge dryly, as he turned to look at the next

prisoner.

Jurgis would have spoken again, but the policeman had seized him by the

collar and was twisting it, and a second policeman was making for him

with evidently hostile intentions. So he let them lead him away. Far

down the room he saw Elzbieta and Kotrina, risen from their seats,

staring in fright; he made one effort to go to them, and then, brought

back by another twist at his throat, he bowed 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 led him down with them

into the “Black Maria,” and drove him away.

This time Jurgis was bound for the “Bridewell,” a petty jail where Cook

County prisoners serve their time. It was even filthier and more

crowded than the county jail; all the smaller fry out of the latter had

been sifted into it—the petty thieves and swindlers, the brawlers and

vagrants. For his cell mate Jurgis had an Italian fruit seller who had

refused to pay his graft to the policeman, and been arrested for

carrying a large pocketknife; as he did not understand a word of

English our friend was glad when he left. He gave 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 bunk and caused

the roaches to drop upon the lower one. It would have been quite

intolerable, staying in a cell with this wild beast, but for the fact

that all day long the prisoners were put at work breaking stone.

Ten days of his thirty Jurgis spent thus, without hearing a word from

his family; then one day a keeper came and informed him that there was

a visitor to see him. Jurgis turned white, and so weak at the knees

that he could hardly leave 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 some one sitting in a chair; and as he came into the

room the person started up, and he saw that it was little Stanislovas.

At the sight of some one from home the big fellow nearly went to

pieces—he had to steady himself by a chair, and he 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 to where the

keeper was standing watching them. “Never mind that,” Jurgis cried,

wildly. “How are they?”

“Ona is very sick,” Stanislovas said; “and we are almost starving. We

can’t get along; we thought you might be able to help us.”

Jurgis gripped the chair tighter; there were beads of perspiration on

his forehead, and his hand shook. “I—can’t help you,” he said.

“Ona lies in her room all day,” the boy went on, breathlessly. “She

won’t eat anything, and she cries all the time. She won’t tell what is

the matter and she won’t go to work at all. Then a long time ago the

man came for the rent. He was very cross. He came again last week. He

said he would turn us out of the house. And then Marija—”

A sob choked Stanislovas, and he stopped. “What’s the matter with

Marija?” cried Jurgis.

“She’s cut her hand!” said the boy. “She’s cut it bad, this time, worse

than before. She can’t work and it’s all turning green, and the company

doctor says she may—she may have to have it 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 have no coal and nothing

more to eat, and the man at the store, he says—”

The little fellow stopped again, beginning to whimper. “Go on!” the

other panted in frenzy—“Go on!”

“I—I will,” sobbed Stanislovas. “It’s so—so cold all the time. And last

Sunday it snowed again—a deep, deep snow—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 that

dreadful morning when the boy had had his fingers frozen and Jurgis had

had to beat him to send him to work. Now he clenched his hands, looking

as if he would try to break through the grating. “You little villain,”

he cried, “you didn’t try!”

“I did—I did!” wailed Stanislovas, shrinking from him in terror. “I

tried all day—two days. Elzbieta was with me, and she couldn’t either.

We couldn’t walk at all, it was so deep. And we had nothing to eat, and

oh, it was so cold! I tried, and then the third day Ona went 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?” he

screamed. “She tried to,” said Stanislovas, gazing at him in

perplexity. “Why not, Jurgis?”

The man breathed hard, three or four times. “Go—on,” he panted,

finally.

“I went with her,” said Stanislovas, “but Miss Henderson wouldn’t take

her back. And Connor saw her and cursed her. He was still bandaged

up—why did you hit him, Jurgis?” (There was some fascinating mystery

about this, the little fellow knew; but he could get no satisfaction.)

Jurgis could not speak; he could only stare, his eyes starting out.

“She has been trying to get other work,” the boy went on; “but she’s so

weak she can’t keep up. And my boss would not take me back, 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 downtown and sell papers with the

rest of the boys and Kotrina—”

“Kotrina!”

“Yes, she’s been selling papers, too. She does best, because she’s a

girl. Only the cold is so bad—it’s terrible coming home at night,

Jurgis. Sometimes they can’t come home at all—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 to walk, and I didn’t know where it was—I don’t

know how to get back, either. Only mother said I must come, because you

would want to know, and maybe somebody would help your family when they

had put you in jail so you couldn’t work. And I walked all day to get

here—and I only had a piece of bread for breakfast, Jurgis. Mother

hasn’t any work either, because the sausage department is shut down;

and she goes and begs at houses with a basket, and people give her

food. Only she didn’t get much yesterday; it was too cold for her

fingers, and today she was crying—”

So little Stanislovas went on, sobbing as he talked; and Jurgis stood,

gripping the table tightly, saying not a word, but feeling that his

head would burst; it was like having weights piled upon him, one after

another, crushing the life out of him. He struggled and fought within

himself—as if in some terrible nightmare, in which a man suffers an

agony, and cannot lift his hand, nor cry out, 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 well go,” he

said.

Jurgis nodded. Then, suddenly recollecting, he put his hand into his

pocket and drew it out, shaking. “Here,” he said, holding out the

fourteen cents. “Take this to them.”

And Stanislovas took it, and after a little more hesitation, started

for the door. “Good-by, Jurgis,” he said, and the other noticed that he

walked 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 breaking stone.

CHAPTER XVIII

Jurgis did not get out of the Bridewell quite as soon as he had

expected. To his sentence there were added “court costs” of a dollar

and a half—he was supposed to pay for the trouble of putting him in

jail, and not 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 the days and looking forward to the end in an agony of

impatience, when the hour came 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 have counted wrong; but as another

day passed, he gave up all hope—and was sunk in the depths of despair,

when one morning after breakfast a keeper came to him with the word

that his time was up at last. So he doffed his prison garb, and put on

his old fertilizer clothing, and heard the door of the prison clang

behind him.

He stood upon the steps, bewildered; he could hardly believe that it

was true,—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 was falling, driven by a wind that pierced Jurgis to the bone. He

had not stopped for his-overcoat when he set out to “do up” Connor, and

so his rides in the patrol wagons had been cruel experiences; his

clothing was old and worn thin, and it never had been very warm. Now as

he trudged on the rain soon wet it through; there were six inches of

watery slush on the sidewalks, so that his feet would soon have been

soaked, even had there been no holes in his shoes.

Jurgis had had enough to eat in the jail, and the work had been the

least trying of any that he had done since he came to Chicago; but even

so, he had not grown strong—the fear and grief that had preyed upon his

mind had worn him thin. Now he shivered and shrunk from the rain,

hiding his hands in his pockets and hunching his shoulders together.

The Bridewell grounds were on the outskirts of the city and the country

around them was unsettled and wild—on one side was the big drainage

canal, and on the other a maze of railroad 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 that Jurgis was a

“jailbird” by his shaven head. “Wot yer want?” 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

the way?”

“Why don’t yer say so then?” was the response, and the boy pointed to

the northwest, across the tracks. “That way.”

“How far is it?” Jurgis asked. “I dunno,” said the other. “Mebbe twenty

miles or so.”

“Twenty miles!” Jurgis echoed, and his face fell. He had to walk every

foot of it, for they had turned him out of jail without a penny in his

pockets.

Yet, when he once got started, and his blood had warmed with walking,

he forgot everything in the fever of his thoughts. All the dreadful

imaginations that had haunted him in his cell now rushed into his mind

at once. The agony was almost over—he was going to find out; and he

clenched his hands in his pockets as he strode, following his flying

desire, almost at a run. Ona—the baby—the family—the house—he would

know the truth about them all! And he was coming to the rescue—he was

free again! His hands were his 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.

He seemed to be leaving the city altogether. The street was turning

into a country road, leading out to the westward; there were

snow-covered fields on either side 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,” he said.

“But they’re in the city somewhere, and you’re going dead 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

to go back, and when ye git into town ask a policeman. I’d take ye in,

only I’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 to see Chicago again. Past endless blocks of two-story shanties

he walked, along wooden sidewalks and unpaved pathways treacherous with

deep slush holes. Every few blocks there would be a railroad crossing

on the level with the sidewalk, a deathtrap for the unwary; long

freight trains would be passing, the cars clanking and crashing

together, and Jurgis would pace about waiting, burning up with a fever

of impatience. Occasionally the cars would stop for some minutes, and

wagons and streetcars would crowd together waiting, the drivers

swearing at each other, or hiding beneath umbrellas out of the rain; at

such times Jurgis would 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. Not even on the river bank was the snow white—the rain which

fell was a diluted solution of smoke, and Jurgis’ hands and face were

streaked with black. Then he came into the business part of the city,

where the streets were sewers of inky blackness, with horses sleeping

and plunging, and women and children flying across in panic-stricken

droves. These streets were huge canyons formed by towering black

buildings, echoing with the clang of car gongs and the shouts of

drivers; the people who swarmed in them were as busy as ants—all

hurrying breathlessly, never stopping to look at anything nor at each

other. The solitary trampish-looking foreigner, with water-soaked

clothing and 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 a wilderness.

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; and then Jurgis lifted up his head and began to sniff

the air like a startled animal—scenting the far-off odor of home. It

was late afternoon then, and he was hungry, but the dinner invitations

hung out of the saloons were not for him.

So he came at last to the stockyards, to the black volcanoes of smoke

and the lowing cattle and the stench. Then, seeing a crowded car, his

impatience got the better of him and he jumped aboard, hiding behind

another man, unnoticed by the 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 any rate—and then suddenly he stopped and stared. What was the

matter with the house?

Jurgis looked twice, bewildered; then he glanced at the house next door

and at the one beyond—then at the saloon on the corner. Yes, it was the

right place, quite certainly—he had not made any mistake. But the

house—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 was all newly painted! How strange it made it seem!

Jurgis went closer yet, but keeping on the other side of the street. A

sudden and horrible spasm of fear had come over him. His knees were

shaking beneath him, and his mind was in a whirl. New paint on the

house, and new weatherboards, where the old had begun to rot off, and

the agent had got after them! New shingles over the hole in the roof,

too, the hole that had for six months been the bane of his soul—he

having no money to have it fixed and no time to fix it himself, and the

rain leaking in, and overflowing the pots and 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 the windows! New,

white curtains, stiff and shiny!

Then suddenly the front door opened. Jurgis stood, his chest heaving as

he struggled 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,

kicking off the snow. He stopped at the foot, and picked up some, and

then leaned against the railing, making a snowball. A moment later he

looked around and saw Jurgis, and their eyes met; it was a hostile

glance, the boy evidently thinking that the other had suspicions of the

snowball. When Jurgis started slowly across 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 want here?”

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

“You live here!” Jurgis panted. He turned white and clung more tightly

to the railing. “You live here! Then where’s my family?”

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

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

“Come off!” said the boy; then suddenly the door upstairs opened, and

he called: “Hey, ma! Here’s a fellow says he owns this house.”

A stout Irishwoman came to the top of the steps. “What’s that?” 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

was dealing with a maniac—Jurgis looked like one. “Your home!” she

echoed.

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

“You must be mistaken,” she answered him. “No one ever lived here. 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 family is,” she

said. “I bought the house only three days ago, and there was nobody

here, and they told me it was all new. Do you really mean you had ever

rented it?”

“Rented it!” panted Jurgis. “I bought it! I paid for it! I own it! And

they—my God, can’t you tell me where my people went?”

She made him understand at last that she knew nothing. Jurgis’ brain

was so confused that he could not grasp the situation. It was as if his

family had been wiped out of existence; as if they were proving to be

dream people, who never had existed at all. He was quite lost—but then

suddenly he thought of Grandmother Majauszkiene, who lived in the next

block. She would know! He turned and started at a run.

Grandmother Majauszkiene came to the door herself. She cried out when

she saw Jurgis, wild-eyed and shaking. Yes, yes, she could tell him.

The family had moved; they had not been able to pay the rent and they

had been turned out into the 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 back to Aniele Jukniene, with whom

they had stayed when they first came to the yards. Wouldn’t Jurgis come

in and rest? It was certainly too bad—if only he had not got into jail—

And so Jurgis turned and staggered away. He did not go very far round

the corner he gave out completely, and sat down on the steps of a

saloon, and hid his face in his hands, and shook all over with dry,

racking sobs.

Their home! Their home! They had lost it! Grief, despair, rage,

overwhelmed him—what was any imagination of the thing to this

heartbreaking, crushing reality of it—to the sight of strange people

living in his house, hanging their curtains to his windows, staring at

him with hostile eyes! It was monstrous, it was unthinkable—they could

not do it—it could not be true! Only think what he had suffered for

that house—what miseries they had all suffered for it—the price they

had paid for it!

The whole long agony came back to him. Their sacrifices in the

beginning, their three hundred dollars that they had scraped together,

all they owned in the world, all that stood between them and

starvation! And then their toil, month by month, to get together the

twelve dollars, and the interest as well, and now and 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 paid for

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 have

been alive and strong today if he had not had to work in Durham’s dark

cellars to earn his share. And Ona, too, had given her health and

strength to pay for it—she was wrecked and ruined because of it; and so

was he, who had 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 the fight; and they had lost, they had

lost! All that they had paid was gone—every cent of it. And their house

was gone—they were back where 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 whole

long course of events, the victim of ravenous vultures that had torn

into his vitals and devoured him; of fiends that had racked and

tortured him, mocking him, meantime, jeering in his face. Ah, God, the

horror of it, the monstrous, hideous, demoniacal wickedness of it! He

and his family, helpless women and children, struggling to live,

ignorant and defenseless and forlorn as they were—and the enemies that

had been lurking for them, crouching upon their trail and thirsting for

their blood! That first lying circular, that smooth-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 never have

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, the irregular hours and the cruel speeding-up, the lowering of

wages, the raising of prices! The mercilessness of nature about them,

of heat and cold, rain and snow; the mercilessness of the city, of the

country in which they lived, of its laws and customs that they did not

understand! All of these things had worked together for the company

that had marked them for its prey and was waiting for its chance. And

now, with this last hideous injustice, its time had come, and it had

turned them out bag and baggage, and taken their house and sold it

again! And they could do nothing, they were tied hand and foot—the law

was 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 into that wild-beast pen from which he had just

escaped!

To get up and go away was to give up, to acknowledge defeat, to leave

the strange family in possession; and Jurgis might have sat shivering

in the rain for hours before he could do that, had it not been for the

thought of his family. It might be that he had worse things yet to

learn—and so he got to his feet and started away, walking on, wearily,

half-dazed.

To Aniele’s house, in back of the yards, was a good two miles; the

distance had never seemed longer to Jurgis, and when he saw the

familiar dingy-gray shanty his heart was beating fast. He ran up the

steps and began to hammer upon the door.

The old woman herself came to open it. She had shrunk all up with her

rheumatism since Jurgis had seen her last, and her yellow parchment

face stared up at him from a little above the level of the doorknob.

She gave a start when she saw him. “Is Ona here?” he cried,

breathlessly.

“Yes,” was the answer, “she’s here.”

“How—” Jurgis began, and then stopped short, clutching convulsively at

the side of the door. From somewhere within the house had come a sudden

cry, a wild, horrible scream of anguish. And the voice was Ona’s. For a

moment Jurgis stood half-paralyzed with fright; then he bounded past

the old woman and into the room.

It was Aniele’s kitchen, and huddled round the stove were half a dozen

women, 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—he hardly realized that it was Marija. He looked first for

Ona; then, not seeing her, he stared at the women, expecting them to

speak. But they sat dumb, gazing back 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 of the room and flung it open; there was a ladder leading through

a trap door to the garret, and he was at the foot of it when suddenly

he heard a voice behind him, and saw Marija at his heels. She seized

him by the sleeve with her good hand, 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 the

matter?” he shouted. “What is it?”

Marija clung to him tightly; he could hear Ona sobbing and moaning

above, and he 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 her as if she were a ghost. “The new one!” he gasped. “But it isn’t

time,” he added, wildly.

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

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

he heard her sobbing again, “My God—let me die, let me die!” And Marija

hung her arms about him, crying: “Come out! Come away!”

She dragged him back into the kitchen, half carrying him, for he had

gone all to pieces. It was as if the pillars of his soul had fallen

in—he was blasted 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, helpless fright.

And then again Ona cried out; he could hear it nearly as plainly here,

and he staggered to his feet. “How long has this been going on?” he

panted.

“Not very long,” Marija answered, and then, at a signal from Aniele,

she rushed on: “You go away, Jurgis you can’t help—go away and come

back later. It’s all right—it’s—”

“Who’s with her?” Jurgis demanded; and then, seeing Marija hesitating,

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

whisper as she replied, “We—we have no money.” Then, frightened at the

look on his face, she exclaimed: “It’s all right, Jurgis! You don’t

understand—go away—go away! Ah, if you only had waited!”

Above her protests Jurgis heard Ona again; he was almost out of his

mind. It was all new to him, raw and horrible—it had fallen upon him

like a lightning stroke. When little Antanas was born he had been at

work, and had known 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 they tried to reason with him, to make him understand

that this was the lot of woman. In the end they half drove him out into

the rain, where he began to pace up 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 he could not help it. At

the end of a quarter of an hour he rushed up the steps again, and for

fear that he would break in the door they had to open it and let him

in.

There was no arguing with him. They could not tell him that all was

going well—how could they know, he cried—why, she was dying, she was

being torn to pieces! Listen to her—listen! Why, it was monstrous—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 could promise—

“We couldn’t promise, Jurgis,” protested Marija. “We had 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 had demanded ten, fifteen, even twenty-five dollars, and that in

cash. “And I had only a quarter,” she said. “I have spent every cent of

my money—all that I had in the bank; and I owe the doctor who has been

coming to see me, and he has stopped because he thinks I don’t mean to

pay him. And we owe Aniele for two weeks’ rent, and she is nearly

starving, and is afraid of being turned out. We have been borrowing and

begging to 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

so bad. They could not know what is happening—it came suddenly, two

months before we expected it.”

Jurgis was standing by the table, and he caught himself with his hand;

his head sank and his arms shook—it looked as if he were going to

collapse. Then suddenly Aniele got up and came hobbling toward him,

fumbling in her skirt pocket. She drew out a dirty rag, in one corner

of which she had something tied.

“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 the rest 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 he doesn’t

succeed. When he comes back, maybe it will be over.”

And so the other women turned out the contents of their pocketbooks;

most of them had only pennies and nickels, but they gave him all. Mrs.

Olszewski, who lived next door, and had a husband who was a skilled

cattle butcher, but a drinking man, gave nearly half a dollar, enough

to raise the whole sum to a dollar and a quarter. Then Jurgis thrust it

into his pocket, still holding it tightly in his fist, and started away

at a run.

CHAPTER XIX

“Madame Haupt Hebamme”, ran a sign, swinging from a second-story window

over a saloon on the avenue; at a side door was another sign, with a

hand pointing up a dingy flight of stairs. Jurgis went up them, three

at a time.

Madame Haupt was frying pork and onions, and had her door half open to

let out the 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 he knocked 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 blue wrapper, 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 risen from 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 no time 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 pay that,” he said.

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

demanded.

“Must I pay now—right away?”

“Yes; all my customers do.”

“I—I haven’t much money,” Jurgis began in an agony of dread. “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 can work—”

“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 a

quarter,” 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 help it—I—”

Madame Haupt had put back her pork and onions on the stove. She turned

to him and answered, out of the steam and noise: “Git me ten dollars

cash, und so you can pay me the rest next mont’.”

“I can’t do it—I haven’t got it!” Jurgis protested. “I tell you I have

only a dollar and a quarter.”

The woman turned to her work. “I don’t believe you,” she said. “Dot is

all to try to sheat me. Vot is de reason a big man like you has got

only a dollar und a quarter?”

“I’ve just been in jail,” Jurgis cried—he was ready to get 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 have done

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 trust you?” Then, as

he shook his head, she went on: “Listen to me—if you git me you vill be

glad of it. I vill save your wife und baby for you, and it vill not

seem like mooch to you in de end. If you loose dem now how you tink you

feel den? Und here is a lady dot knows her business—I could send you to

people in dis block, und dey vould tell you—”

Madame Haupt was pointing her cooking-fork at Jurgis persuasively; but

her words were more than he could bear. He flung up his hands with a

gesture of despair and turned and started away. “It’s no use,” he

exclaimed—but suddenly he heard the woman’s voice behind him again—

“I vill make it five dollars for you.”

She followed behind him, arguing with him. “You vill be foolish not to

take such an offer,” she said. “You von’t find nobody go out on a rainy

day like dis for less. Vy, I haf never took a case in my life so sheap

as dot. I couldn’t pay mine room rent—”

Jurgis interrupted her with an oath of rage. “If I haven’t got it,” he

shouted, “how can I pay it? Damn it, I would pay you if I could, but I

tell you I haven’t got it. I haven’t got it! Do you hear me—_I haven’t

got it!_”

He turned and started away again. He was halfway down the stairs before

Madame Haupt 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 a

melancholy voice. “I might as vell go mit you for noffing as vot you

offer 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

be vorth more! Vun dollar und a quarter, und a day like dis!—But you

understand now—you vill pay me de rest of twenty-five dollars soon?”

“As soon as I can.”

“Some time dis mont’?”

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

“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, complaining all the time; she was so fat that it was painful for

her to move, and she grunted and gasped at every step. She took off her

wrapper without even taking the trouble to turn her back to Jurgis, and

put on her corsets and dress. Then there was a black bonnet which had

to be adjusted carefully, and an umbrella which was mislaid, and a bag

full of necessaries which had to be collected from here 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 now and then,

as if he could hurry her on by the force of his desire. But Madame

Haupt could only go so far at a step, and it took all her attention to

get the needed breath for that.

They came at last to the house, and to the group of frightened women in

the kitchen. 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 is used in, the better luck it brings to

the midwife, and so she keeps it upon her kitchen mantelpiece or stowed

away in a cupboard with her dirty clothes, for months, and sometimes

even for years.

Then they escorted her to the ladder, and Jurgis heard her give an

exclamation of dismay. “Gott in Himmel, vot for haf you brought me to a

place like dis? I could not climb up dot ladder. I could not git troo a

trap door! I vill not try it—vy, I might kill myself already. Vot sort

of a place is dot for 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 and listened to her scolding, half drowning out

the horrible moans and screams of Ona.

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 the floor of the garret. They had no real floor—they had laid old

boards in one part to make a place for the family to live; it was all

right and safe there, but the other part of the garret had only the

joists of the floor, and the lath and plaster of the ceiling below, and

if one stepped on this there would be a catastrophe. As it was half

dark up above, perhaps one of the others had best go up first with a

candle. Then there were more outcries and threatening, until at last

Jurgis had a vision of a pair of elephantine legs disappearing through

the trap door, and felt the house shake as Madame Haupt started 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—you have done all you

can, and you are only in the way. Go away and stay away.”

“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. It was just about sundown, and it was turning cold—the rain had

changed to snow, and the slush was freezing. Jurgis shivered in his

thin clothing, and put his 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 was only 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 for the place as fast as

he could walk.

“Hello, Jack,” said the saloon-keeper, when he entered—they call all

foreigners and unskilled men “Jack” in Packingtown. “Where’ve you

been?”

Jurgis went straight to the bar. “I’ve been in jail,” he said, “and

I’ve just got out. I walked home all the way, and I’ve not a cent, and

had nothing to eat since this morning. And I’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

blue trembling lips. Then he pushed a big bottle toward him. “Fill her

up!” he said.

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

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

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 it in as fast as he could; and then, after trying to speak his

gratitude, he went and 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.

His soaked clothing began to steam, and the horrible stench of

fertilizer to fill the room. In an hour or so the packing houses would

be closing and the men coming in from their work; and they would not

come into a place that smelt of Jurgis. Also it was Saturday night, and

in a couple of hours would come a violin and a cornet, and in the rear

part of the saloon the families of the neighborhood would dance and

feast upon wienerwurst and lager, until two or three o’clock in the

morning. The saloon-keeper coughed once or twice, and then remarked,

“Say, Jack, I’m afraid you’ll have to quit.”

He was used to the sight of human wrecks, this saloon-keeper; he

“fired” dozens of them every night, just as haggard and cold and

forlorn as this one. But they were all men who had given up and been

counted out, while Jurgis was still in the fight, and had reminders of

decency about him. As he got up meekly, the other reflected that he had

always been a steady man, and might soon be a good customer again.

“You’ve been up against it, I see,” he said. “Come this way.”

In the rear of the saloon were the cellar stairs. There was a door

above and another below, both safely padlocked, making the stairs an

admirable place to stow away a customer who might still chance to have

money, or a political light whom it was not advisable to kick out of

doors.

So Jurgis spent the night. The whisky had only half warmed him, and he

could not 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 of music and laughter and singing that were to be

heard from the room. When at last these ceased, he expected that he

would be turned out into the street; as this 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 up and hammered on the door; and the proprietor came, yawning

and rubbing his eyes. He was keeping open all night, and dozing between

customers.

“I want to go home,” Jurgis said. “I’m worried about my wife—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 went outside. It was four

o’clock in the morning, and as black as night. There were three or four

inches of fresh snow on the ground, and the flakes were falling 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. The door was unlocked and Jurgis rushed in.

Aniele, Marija, and the rest of the women were huddled about the stove,

exactly as before; with them were several newcomers, Jurgis

noticed—also he noticed that the house was silent.

“Well?” he said.

No one answered him, they sat staring at him with their pale faces. He

cried again: “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. “I don’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 in descending the ladder, scolding and exhorting again, while

the ladder creaked in 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, and then turned white and reeled. She

had her jacket off, like one of the workers on the killing beds. Her

hands and arms were smeared with blood, and blood was splashed upon her

clothing and her face.

She stood breathing hard, and gazing about her; no one made a sound. “I

haf done my best,” she began suddenly. “I can do noffing more—dere is

no use to try.”

Again there was silence.

“It ain’t my fault,” she said. “You had ought to haf had a doctor, und

not vaited so long—it vas too late already ven I come.” Once more there

was deathlike stillness. Marija was clutching Jurgis with all the power

of her one well arm.

Then suddenly Madame Haupt turned to Aniele. “You haf not got something

to drink, hey?” she queried. “Some brandy?”

Aniele shook her head.

“Herr Gott!” exclaimed Madame Haupt. “Such people! Perhaps you vill

give me someting to eat den—I haf had noffing since yesterday morning,

und I haf vorked myself near to death here. If I could haf known it vas

like dis, I vould never haf come for such money as you gif me.” At this

moment she chanced to look round, and saw Jurgis: She shook her finger

at him. “You understand me,” she said, “you pays me dot money yust de

same! It is not my fault dat you send for me so late I can’t help your

vife. It is not my fault if der baby comes mit one arm first, so dot I

can’t save it. I haf tried all night, und in dot place vere it is not

fit for dogs to be born, und mit notting to eat only vot I brings in

mine own pockets.”

Here Madame Haupt paused for a moment to get her breath; and Marija,

seeing the beads of sweat on Jurgis’s forehead, and feeling the

quivering of his frame, broke out in a low voice: “How is Ona?”

“How is she?” echoed Madame Haupt. “How do you tink she can be ven you

leave her to kill herself so? I told dem dot ven they send for de

priest. 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 yet quite dead.”

And Jurgis gave a frantic scream. “_Dead!_”

“She vill die, of course,” said the other angrily. “Der baby is dead

now.”

The garret was lighted by a candle stuck upon a board; it had almost

burned itself out, and was sputtering and smoking as Jurgis rushed up

the ladder. He could make out dimly in one corner a pallet of rags and

old blankets, spread upon the floor; at the foot of it was a crucifix,

and near it a priest muttering 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

arm lying bare; she was so shrunken he would scarcely have known

her—she was all 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 knees with 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’t you 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 at

him—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, he called her in wild despair; a fearful yearning surged up in

him, hunger for her that was agony, desire that was a new being born

within him, tearing his heartstrings, 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 sobs shook all his frame, and hot tears

ran down his cheeks and fell upon her. He clutched her hands, he shook

her, he caught her in his arms and pressed her to him 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

depths of him, making forgotten chords to vibrate, old shadowy fears to

stir—fears of the dark, fears of the void, fears of annihilation. She

was dead! She was dead! He would never see her again, never hear her

again! An icy horror of loneliness seized him; he saw himself standing

apart and watching all the world fade away from him—a world of shadows,

of fickle dreams. He was like a little child, in his fright and grief;

he called and called, and got no answer, and his cries of despair

echoed through the house, making the women downstairs draw nearer to

each other in fear. He was inconsolable, beside himself—the priest came

and laid his hand upon his shoulder and whispered to him, but he heard

not a sound. He was gone away himself, stumbling through the 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, the women left, and he was alone with the still, white

figure—quieter now, but moaning and shuddering, wrestling with the

grisly fiend. Now and then he would raise himself and stare at the

white mask before him, then hide his eyes because he could not bear it.

Dead! _dead!_ And she was only a girl, she was barely eighteen! Her

life had hardly begun—and here she lay murdered—mangled, tortured to

death!

It was morning when he rose up and came down into the kitchen—haggard

and ashen gray, reeling and dazed. More of the neighbors had come in,

and they stared at him in silence as he sank down upon a chair by the

table and buried his 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 could hardly—”

And then, seeing Jurgis, she stopped with an exclamation. Looking from

one to another 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,

walking unsteadily. “Where have you been?” he demanded.

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

“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 to

me!” he commanded again, and she put her hand into her pocket and

pulled out a lump of coins tied in a bit of rag. Jurgis took it without

a word, and went 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 pulled

out half a dollar. “How much is the bottle?” he said. “I want to get

drunk.”

CHAPTER XX

But a big man cannot stay drunk very long on three dollars. That was

Sunday morning, and Monday night Jurgis came home, sober and sick,

realizing that he had spent every cent the family owned, and had not

bought a single instant’s forgetfulness with it.

Ona was not yet buried; but the police had been notified, and on the

morrow they would put the body in a pine coffin and take it to the

potter’s field. 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 upstairs starving to death, while he, good-for-nothing

rascal, had been spending their money on drink. So spoke Aniele,

scornfully, and when he started toward the fire she added the

information that her kitchen was no longer for him to fill with his

phosphate stinks. She had crowded all her boarders into one room on

Ona’s account, but now he could go up in the garret where he

belonged—and not there much longer, either, if he did not pay her some

rent.

Jurgis went without a word, and, stepping over half a dozen sleeping

boarders in the next room, ascended the ladder. It was dark up above;

they could not afford any light; also it was nearly as cold as

outdoors. In a corner, as far away from the corpse as possible, sat

Marija, holding little Antanas in her one good arm and trying to soothe

him to sleep. In another corner crouched poor little Juozapas, wailing

because he had had nothing to eat all day. Marija said not a word to

Jurgis; he crept in like a whipped cur, and went and sat down by the

body.

Perhaps he ought to have meditated upon the hunger of the children, and

upon his own baseness; but he thought only of Ona, he gave himself up

again to the luxury of grief. He shed no tears, being ashamed to make a

sound; he sat motionless and shuddering with his anguish. He had never

dreamed how much he loved Ona, until now that she was gone; until now

that he sat here, knowing that on the morrow they would take her away,

and that he would never lay eyes upon her again—never all the days of

his life. His old love, which had been starved to death, beaten to

death, awoke in him again; the floodgates of memory were lifted—he saw

all their life together, saw her as he had seen her in Lithuania, the

first day at the fair, beautiful as the flowers, singing like a bird.

He saw her as he had married her, with all her tenderness, with her

heart of wonder; the very words she had spoken seemed to ring now in

his ears, the tears she had shed to be wet upon his cheek. The long,

cruel battle with misery and hunger had hardened and embittered him,

but it had not changed her—she had been the same hungry soul to the

end, stretching out her arms to him, pleading with him, begging him for

love and tenderness. And she had suffered—so cruelly she had suffered,

such agonies, such infamies—ah, God, the memory of them was not to be

borne. What a monster of wickedness, of heartlessness, he had been!

Every angry word that he had ever spoken came back to him and cut him

like a knife; every selfish act that he had done—with what torments he

paid for them now! And such devotion and awe as welled up in his

soul—now that it could never be spoken, now that it was too late, too

late! His bosom-was choking with it, bursting with it; he crouched here

in the darkness beside her, stretching out his arms to her—and she was

gone forever, she was dead! He could have screamed aloud with the

horror and despair of it; a sweat of agony beaded his forehead, yet he

dared not make a sound—he scarcely dared to breathe, because of his

shame and loathing of himself.

Late at night came Elzbieta, having gotten the money for a mass, and

paid for it in advance, lest she should be tempted too sorely at home.

She brought also a bit of stale rye bread that some one had given her,

and with that they quieted the children and got them to sleep. Then she

came over to Jurgis and sat down beside him.

She said not a word of reproach—she and Marija had chosen that course

before; 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 soul by fear. She had to bury one of her children—but then

she had done it three times before, and each time risen up and gone

back to take up the battle for 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 her chickens one by one,

will mother the last that is left her. She did this because 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,

pleading with him with tears in her eyes. Ona was dead, but the others

were left and they must be saved. She did not ask for her own children.

She and Marija could care for them somehow, but there was Antanas, his

own son. Ona had given Antanas to him—the little fellow was the only

remembrance of her that he had; he must treasure it and protect it, he

must show himself a man. He knew what Ona would have had him do, what

she would ask of him at this moment, if she could speak to him. It was

a terrible thing that she should have died as she had; but the life had

been too hard for her, and she had to go. It was terrible that they

were not able to bury her, that he could not even have a day to 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 a man

for Ona’s sake, and pull himself together? In a little while they would

be out of danger—now that they had given up the house they could live

more cheaply, and with all the children working they could get along,

if only 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 on drinking, for he had no money for that, but she was

wild with dread at the thought 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

of treason to his child. Yes, he said, he would try, for the sake of

Antanas. He would 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, he would keep his word, come what might.

And so he was out before daylight the next morning, headache,

heartache, and all. He went straight to Graham’s fertilizer mill, to

see if he could get back his job. But the boss shook his head when he

saw him—no, his place had been filled long ago, and there was no room

for him.

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

“No,” said the other, “it will not be worth your while to wait—there

will be nothing for you here.”

Jurgis stood gazing at him in perplexity. “What is the matter?” he

asked. “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 he went away with a sinking at the heart. He went and took his

stand with the mob of 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 away by 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 the

yards—there were saloonkeepers who would trust him for a drink and a

sandwich, and members of his old union who would lend him a dime at a

pinch. It was 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 hundreds and thousands of others. Meantime, Teta

Elzbieta would go and beg, over in the Hyde 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

the bitter winds or loafing in saloons, that Jurgis stumbled on a

chance in one of the cellars of Jones’s big packing plant. He saw a

foreman passing the open 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’s fertilizer mill.”

“Why did you leave there?”

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

a month.”

“I see. Well, I’ll give you a trial. Come early tomorrow and ask for

Mr. Thomas.”

So Jurgis rushed home with the wild tidings that he had a job—that the

terrible siege was over. The remnants of the family had quite a

celebration that night; and in the morning Jurgis was at the place half

an hour before the time of opening. The foreman came in shortly

afterward, and when he saw Jurgis he 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 use you.”

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

the fertilizer mill. He knew that there was no use in saying a word,

and he turned and went away.

Out in the saloons the men could tell him all about the meaning of it;

they gazed at him with pitying eyes—poor devil, he was blacklisted!

What had he done? they asked—knocked down his boss? Good heavens, then

he might have known! Why, he stood as much chance of getting a job in

Packingtown as of being chosen mayor of Chicago. Why had he wasted his

time hunting? They had him on a secret list in every office, big and

little, in the place. They had his name by this time in St. Louis and

New York, in Omaha and Boston, in Kansas City and St. Joseph. He was

condemned and sentenced, without trial and without appeal; he could

never work for the packers again—he could not even clean cattle pens or

drive a truck in any place where they controlled. He might try it, if

he chose, as hundreds had tried it, and found out for themselves. He

would never be told anything about it; he would never get any more

satisfaction than he had gotten just now; but he would always find when

the time came that he was not needed. It would not do for him to give

any other name, either—they had company “spotters” for just that

purpose, and he wouldn’t keep a job in Packingtown three days. It was

worth a fortune to the packers to keep their blacklist effective, as a

warning to the men and a means of keeping down union agitation and

political discontent.

Jurgis went home, carrying these new tidings to the family council. It

was a most cruel thing; here in this district was his home, such as it

was, the place he was used to and the friends he knew—and now every

possibility of employment in it was closed to him. There was nothing in

Packingtown but packing 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

would be convenient, downtown, to the children’s place of work; but

then Marija was on the road to recovery, and had hopes of getting a job

in the yards; and though she did not see her old-time lover once a

month, because of the misery of their state, yet she could not make up

her mind to go away and give him up forever. Then, too, Elzbieta had

heard something about a chance to scrub floors in Durham’s offices and

was waiting every day for word. In the end it was decided that Jurgis

should go downtown to strike out for himself, and they would decide

after he got a job. As there was no one from whom he could borrow

there, and he dared not beg for fear of being arrested, it was arranged

that every day he should meet one of the children and be given fifteen

cents of their earnings, upon which he could keep going. Then all day

he was to pace the streets with hundreds and thousands of other

homeless wretches inquiring at stores, warehouses, and factories for a

chance; and at night he was to crawl into some doorway or underneath a

truck, and hide there until midnight, when he might get into one of the

station houses, and spread a newspaper upon the floor, 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 a chance to load a truck for half a day, and again he carried an

old woman’s valise and was given a quarter. This let him into a

lodging-house on several nights when he might otherwise have frozen to

death; and it also gave him a chance now and then to buy a newspaper in

the morning and hunt up jobs 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 newspaper advertisements were a cause of

much loss of precious time and of many weary journeys. A full half of

these were “fakes,” put in by the endless variety of establishments

which preyed upon the helpless ignorance of the unemployed. If Jurgis

lost only his time, it was because he had nothing else to lose;

whenever a smooth-tongued agent would tell him of the wonderful

positions he had on hand, he could only shake his head sorrowfully and

say that he had not the necessary dollar to deposit; when it was

explained to him what “big money” he and all his family could make by

coloring photographs, he could only promise to come in again when he

had two dollars to invest in the outfit.

In the end Jurgis got a chance through an accidental meeting with an

old-time acquaintance of his union days. He met this man on his way to

work in the giant factories of the Harvester Trust; and his friend told

him to come along and he would speak a good word for him to his boss,

whom he knew well. So Jurgis trudged four or five miles, and passed

through a waiting throng of unemployed at the gate under the escort of

his friend. His knees nearly gave way beneath him when the foreman,

after looking him over and questioning him, told him that he could find

an opening for him.

How much this accident meant to Jurgis he realized only by stages; for

he found that the harvester works were the sort of place to which

philanthropists and reformers pointed with pride. It had some thought

for its employees; its workshops were big and roomy, it provided a

restaurant where the workmen could buy good food at cost, it had even a

reading room, and decent places where its girl-hands could rest; also

the work was free from many of the elements of filth and repulsiveness

that prevailed at the stockyards. Day after day Jurgis discovered these

things—things never expected nor dreamed of by him—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 thousand machines every year—a good part of all the harvesting

and mowing machines used in the country. Jurgis saw very little of it,

of course—it was all specialized work, the same as at the stockyards;

each one of the hundreds of parts of a mowing machine was made

separately, and sometimes handled by hundreds of men. Where Jurgis

worked there was a machine which cut and stamped a certain piece of

steel about two square inches in size; the pieces came tumbling out

upon a tray, and all that human hands had to do was to pile them in

regular rows, and change the trays at intervals. This was done by a

single boy, who stood with eyes and thought centered upon it, and

fingers flying so fast that the sounds of the bits of steel striking

upon each other was like the music 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 the boy did not idle, by setting the

machine to match the highest possible speed of human hands. Thirty

thousand of these pieces he handled every day, nine or ten million

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 finishing

touches to the steel knives of the reaper; picking them out of a basket

with the right hand, pressing first one side and then the other against

the stone and finally dropping them with the left hand into another

basket. One of these men told Jurgis that he had sharpened three

thousand pieces of steel a day for thirteen years. In the next room

were wonderful machines that ate up long steel rods by slow stages,

cutting them off, seizing the pieces, stamping heads upon them,

grinding them and polishing them, threading them, and finally dropping

them into a basket, all ready to bolt the harvesters together. From yet

another machine came tens of thousands of steel burs to fit upon these

bolts. In other places all these various parts were dipped into troughs

of paint and hung up to dry, and then slid along on trolleys to a room

where men streaked them with red and yellow, so that they might look

cheerful in the harvest fields.

Jurgis’s friend worked upstairs in the casting rooms, and his task was

to make the molds of a certain part. He shoveled black sand into an

iron receptacle and pounded it tight and set it aside to harden; then

it would be taken out, and molten iron poured into it. This man, too,

was paid by the mold—or rather for perfect castings, nearly half his

work going for naught. You might see him, along with dozens of others,

toiling like one possessed by a whole community of demons; his arms

working like the driving rods of an engine, his long, black hair flying

wild, his eyes starting out, the sweat rolling in rivers down his face.

When he had shoveled the mold full of sand, and reached for the pounder

to pound it with, it was after the manner of a canoeist running rapids

and seizing a pole at sight of a submerged rock. All day long this man

would toil thus, his whole being centered upon the purpose of making

twenty-three instead of twenty-two and a half cents an hour; and then

his product would be reckoned up by the census taker, and jubilant

captains of industry would boast of it in their banquet halls, telling

how our workers are nearly twice as efficient as those of any other

country. If we are the greatest nation the sun ever shone upon, it

would seem to be mainly because we have been able to goad our

wage-earners to this pitch of frenzy; though there are a few other

things that are great among us including our drink-bill, which is a

billion 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 the American farmer. Then they were piled upon a truck, and

it was Jurgis’s task 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 cents a day for it; on Saturday he paid Aniele the

seventy-five cents a week he owed her for the use of her garret, and

also redeemed his overcoat, which Elzbieta had put in pawn when he was

in jail.