This last was a great blessing. A man cannot go about in midwinter in

Chicago with no overcoat and not pay for it, and Jurgis had to walk or

ride five or six miles back and forth to his work. It so happened that

half of this was in one direction and half in another, necessitating a

change of cars; the law required that transfers be given at all

intersecting points, but the railway corporation had gotten round this

by arranging a pretense at separate ownership. So whenever he wished to

ride, he had to pay ten cents each way, or over ten per cent of his

income to this power, which had gotten its franchises long ago by

buying up the city council, in the face of popular clamor amounting

almost to a rebellion. Tired as he felt at night, and dark and bitter

cold as it was in the morning, Jurgis generally chose to walk; at the

hours other workmen were traveling, the streetcar monopoly saw fit to

put on so few cars that there would be men hanging to every foot of the

backs of them and often crouching upon the snow-covered roof. Of course

the doors could never be closed, and so the cars were as cold as

outdoors; Jurgis, like many others, found it better to spend his fare

for a drink and a free lunch, to give him strength to walk.

These, however, were all slight matters to a man who had escaped from

Durham’s fertilizer mill. Jurgis began to pick up heart again and to

make plans. He had lost his house but then the awful load of the rent

and interest was off his shoulders, and when Marija was well again they

could start over and save. In the shop where he worked was a man, a

Lithuanian like himself, whom the others spoke of in admiring whispers,

because of the mighty feats he was performing. All day he sat at a

machine turning bolts; and then in the evening he went to the public

school to study English and learn to read. In addition, because he had

a family of eight children to support and his earnings were not enough,

on Saturdays and Sundays he served as a watchman; he was required to

press two buttons at opposite ends of a building every five minutes,

and as the walk only took him two minutes, he had three minutes to

study between each trip. Jurgis felt jealous of this fellow; for that

was the sort of thing he himself had dreamed of, two or three years

ago. He might do it even yet, if he had a fair chance—he might attract

attention and become a skilled man or a boss, as some had done in this

place. Suppose that Marija could get a job in the big mill where they

made binder twine—then they would move into this neighborhood, and he

would really have a chance. With a hope like that, there was some use

in living; to find a place where you were treated like a human being—by

God! he would show them how he could appreciate it. He laughed to

himself as he thought how he would hang on to this job!

And then one afternoon, the ninth of his work in the place, when he

went to get his overcoat he saw a group of men crowded before a placard

on the door, and when he went over and asked what it was, they told him

that beginning with the morrow his department of the harvester works

would be closed until further notice!

CHAPTER XXI

That was the way they did it! There was not half an hour’s warning—the

works were closed! It had happened that way before, said the men, and

it would happen that way forever. They had made all the harvesting

machines that the world needed, and now they had to wait till some wore

out! It was nobody’s fault—that was the way of it; and thousands of men

and women were turned out in the dead of winter, to live upon their

savings if they had any, and otherwise to die. So many tens of

thousands already in the city, homeless and begging for work, and now

several thousand more added to them!

Jurgis walked home-with his pittance of pay in his pocket, heartbroken,

overwhelmed. One more bandage had been torn from his eyes, one more

pitfall was revealed to him! Of what help was kindness and decency on

the part of employers—when they could not keep a job for him, when

there were more harvesting machines made than the world was able to

buy! What a hellish mockery it was, anyway, that a man should slave to

make harvesting machines for the country, only to be turned out to

starve for doing his duty too well!

It took him two days to get over this heart-sickening disappointment.

He did not drink anything, because Elzbieta got his money for

safekeeping, and knew him too well to be in the least frightened by his

angry demands. He stayed up in the garret however, and sulked—what was

the use of a man’s hunting a job when it was taken from him before he

had time to learn the work? But then their money was going again, and

little Antanas was hungry, and crying with the bitter cold of the

garret. Also Madame Haupt, the midwife, was after him for some money.

So he went out once more.

For another ten days he roamed the streets and alleys of the huge city,

sick and hungry, begging for any work. He tried in stores and offices,

in restaurants and hotels, along the docks and in the railroad yards,

in warehouses and mills and factories where they made products that

went to every corner of the world. There were often one or two

chances—but there were always a hundred men for every chance, and his

turn would not come. At night he crept into sheds and cellars and

doorways—until there came a spell of belated winter weather, with a

raging gale, and the thermometer five degrees below zero at sundown and

falling all night. Then Jurgis fought like a wild beast to get into the

big Harrison Street police station, and slept down in a corridor,

crowded with two other men upon a single step.

He had to fight often in these days to fight for a place near the

factory gates, and now and again with gangs on the street. He found,

for instance, that the business of carrying satchels for railroad

passengers was a pre-empted one—whenever he essayed it, eight or ten

men and boys would fall upon him and force him to run for his life.

They always had the policeman “squared,” and so there was no use in

expecting protection.

That Jurgis did not starve to death was due solely to the pittance the

children brought him. And even this was never certain. For one thing

the cold was almost more than the children could bear; and then they,

too, were in perpetual peril from rivals who plundered and beat them.

The law was against them, too—little Vilimas, who was really eleven,

but did not look to be eight, was stopped on the streets by a severe

old lady in spectacles, who told him that he was too young to be

working and that if he did not stop selling papers she would send a

truant officer after him. Also one night a strange man caught little

Kotrina by the arm and tried to persuade her into a dark cellar-way, an

experience which filled her with such terror that she was hardly to be

kept at work.

At last, on a Sunday, as there was no use looking for work, Jurgis went

home by stealing rides on the cars. He found that they had been waiting

for him for three days—there was a chance of a job for him.

It was quite a story. Little Juozapas, who was near crazy with hunger

these days, had gone out on the street to beg for himself. Juozapas had

only one leg, having been run over by a wagon when a little child, but

he had got himself a broomstick, which he put under his arm for a

crutch. He had fallen in with some other children and found the way to

Mike Scully’s dump, which lay three or four blocks away. To this place

there came every day many hundreds of wagon-loads of garbage and trash

from the lake front, where the rich people lived; and in the heaps the

children raked for food—there were hunks of bread and potato peelings

and apple cores and meat bones, all of it half frozen and quite

unspoiled. Little Juozapas gorged himself, and came home with a

newspaper full, which he was feeding to Antanas when his mother came

in. Elzbieta was horrified, for she did not believe that the food out

of the dumps was fit to eat. The next day, however, when no harm came

of it and Juozapas began to cry with hunger, she gave in and said that

he might go again. And that afternoon he came home with a story of how

while he had been digging away with a stick, a lady upon the street had

called him. A real fine lady, the little boy explained, a beautiful

lady; and she wanted to know all about him, and whether he got the

garbage for chickens, and why he walked with a broomstick, and why Ona

had died, and how Jurgis had come to go to jail, and what was the

matter with Marija, and everything. In the end she had asked where he

lived, and said that she was coming to see him, and bring him a new

crutch to walk with. She had on a hat with a bird upon it, Juozapas

added, and a long fur snake around her neck.

She really came, the very next morning, and climbed the ladder to the

garret, and stood and stared about her, turning pale at the sight of

the blood stains on the floor where Ona had died. She was a “settlement

worker,” she explained to Elzbieta—she lived around on Ashland Avenue.

Elzbieta knew the place, over a feed store; somebody had wanted her to

go there, but she had not cared to, for she thought that it must have

something to do with religion, and the priest did not like her to have

anything to do with strange religions. They were rich people who came

to live there to find out about the poor people; but what good they

expected it would do them to know, one could not imagine. So spoke

Elzbieta, naïvely, and the young lady laughed and was rather at a loss

for an answer—she stood and gazed about her, and thought of a cynical

remark that had been made to her, that she was standing upon the brink

of the pit of hell and throwing in snowballs to lower the temperature.

Elzbieta was glad to have somebody to listen, and she told all their

woes—what had happened to Ona, and the jail, and the loss of their

home, and Marija’s accident, and how Ona had died, and how Jurgis could

get no work. As she listened the pretty young lady’s eyes filled with

tears, and in the midst of it she burst into weeping and hid her face

on Elzbieta’s shoulder, quite regardless of the fact that the woman had

on a dirty old wrapper and that the garret was full of fleas. Poor

Elzbieta was ashamed of herself for having told so woeful a tale, and

the other had to beg and plead with her to get her to go on. The end of

it was that the young lady sent them a basket of things to eat, and

left a letter that Jurgis was to take to a gentleman who was

superintendent in one of the mills of the great steelworks in South

Chicago. “He will get Jurgis something to do,” the young lady had said,

and added, smiling through her tears—“If he doesn’t, he will never

marry me.”

The steel-works were fifteen miles away, and as usual it was so

contrived that one had to pay two fares to get there. Far and wide the

sky was flaring with the red glare that leaped from rows of towering

chimneys—for it was pitch dark when Jurgis arrived. The vast works, a

city in themselves, were surrounded by a stockade; and already a full

hundred men were waiting at the gate where new hands were taken on.

Soon after daybreak whistles began to blow, and then suddenly thousands

of men appeared, streaming from saloons and boardinghouses across the

way, leaping from trolley cars that passed—it seemed as if they rose

out of the ground, in the dim gray light. A river of them poured in

through the gate—and then gradually ebbed away again, until there were

only a few late ones running, and the watchman pacing up and down, and

the hungry strangers stamping and shivering.

Jurgis presented his precious letter. The gatekeeper was surly, and put

him through a catechism, but he insisted that he knew nothing, and as

he had taken the precaution to seal his letter, there was nothing for

the gatekeeper to do but send it to the person to whom it was

addressed. A messenger came back to say that Jurgis should wait, and so

he came inside of the gate, perhaps not sorry enough that there were

others less fortunate watching him with greedy eyes. The great mills

were getting under way—one could hear a vast stirring, a rolling and

rumbling and hammering. Little by little the scene grew plain:

towering, black buildings here and there, long rows of shops and sheds,

little railways branching everywhere, bare gray cinders underfoot and

oceans of billowing black smoke above. On one side of the grounds ran a

railroad with a dozen tracks, and on the other side lay the lake, where

steamers came to load.

Jurgis had time enough to stare and speculate, for it was two hours

before he was summoned. He went into the office building, where a

company timekeeper interviewed him. The superintendent was busy, he

said, but he (the timekeeper) would try to find Jurgis a job. He had

never worked in a steel mill before? But he was ready for anything?

Well, then, they would go and see.

So they began a tour, among sights that made Jurgis stare amazed. He

wondered if ever he could get used to working in a place like this,

where the air shook with deafening thunder, and whistles shrieked

warnings on all sides of him at once; where miniature steam engines

came rushing upon him, and sizzling, quivering, white-hot masses of

metal sped past him, and explosions of fire and flaming sparks dazzled

him and scorched his face. The men in these mills were all black with

soot, and hollow-eyed and gaunt; they worked with fierce intensity,

rushing here and there, and never lifting their eyes from their tasks.

Jurgis clung to his guide like a scared child to its nurse, and while

the latter hailed one foreman after another to ask if they could use

another unskilled man, he stared about him and marveled.

He was taken to the Bessemer furnace, where they made billets of

steel—a dome-like building, the size of a big theater. Jurgis stood

where the balcony of the theater would have been, and opposite, by the

stage, he saw three giant caldrons, big enough for all the devils of

hell to brew their broth in, full of something white and blinding,

bubbling and splashing, roaring as if volcanoes were blowing through

it—one had to shout to be heard in the place. Liquid fire would leap

from these caldrons and scatter like bombs below—and men were working

there, seeming careless, so that Jurgis caught his breath with fright.

Then a whistle would toot, and across the curtain of the theater would

come a little engine with a carload of something to be dumped into one

of the receptacles; and then another whistle would toot, down by the

stage, and another train would back up—and suddenly, without an

instant’s warning, one of the giant kettles began to tilt and topple,

flinging out a jet of hissing, roaring flame. Jurgis shrank back

appalled, for he thought it was an accident; there fell a pillar of

white flame, dazzling as the sun, swishing like a huge tree falling in

the forest. A torrent of sparks swept all the way across the building,

overwhelming everything, hiding it from sight; and then Jurgis looked

through the fingers of his hands, and saw pouring out of the caldron a

cascade of living, leaping fire, white with a whiteness not of earth,

scorching the eyeballs. Incandescent rainbows shone above it, blue,

red, and golden lights played about it; but the stream itself was

white, ineffable. Out of regions of wonder it streamed, the very river

of life; and the soul leaped up at the sight of it, fled back upon it,

swift and resistless, back into far-off lands, where beauty and terror

dwell. Then the great caldron tilted back again, empty, and Jurgis saw

to his relief that no one was hurt, and turned and followed his guide

out into the sunlight.

They went through the blast furnaces, through rolling mills where bars

of steel were tossed about and chopped like bits of cheese. All around

and above giant machine arms were flying, giant wheels were turning,

great hammers crashing; traveling cranes creaked and groaned overhead,

reaching down iron hands and seizing iron prey—it was like standing in

the center of the earth, where the machinery of time was revolving.

By and by they came to the place where steel rails were made; and

Jurgis heard a toot behind him, and jumped out of the way of a car with

a white-hot ingot upon it, the size of a man’s body. There was a sudden

crash and the car came to a halt, and the ingot toppled out upon a

moving platform, where steel fingers and arms seized hold of it,

punching it and prodding it into place, and hurrying it into the grip

of huge rollers. Then it came out upon the other side, and there were

more crashings and clatterings, and over it was flopped, like a pancake

on a gridiron, and seized again and rushed back at you through another

squeezer. So amid deafening uproar it clattered to and fro, growing

thinner and flatter and longer. The ingot seemed almost a living thing;

it did not want to run this mad course, but it was in the grip of fate,

it was tumbled on, screeching and clanking and shivering in protest. By

and by it was long and thin, a great red snake escaped from purgatory;

and then, as it slid through the rollers, you would have sworn that it

was alive—it writhed and squirmed, and wriggles and shudders passed out

through its tail, all but flinging it off by their violence. There was

no rest for it until it was cold and black—and then it needed only to

be cut and straightened to be ready for a railroad.

It was at the end of this rail’s progress that Jurgis got his chance.

They had to be moved by men with crowbars, and the boss here could use

another man. So he took off his coat and set to work on the spot.

It took him two hours to get to this place every day and cost him a

dollar and twenty cents a week. As this was out of the question, he

wrapped his bedding in a bundle and took it with him, and one of his

fellow workingmen introduced him to a Polish lodging-house, where he

might have the privilege of sleeping upon the floor for ten cents a

night. He got his meals at free-lunch counters, and every Saturday

night he went home—bedding and all—and took the greater part of his

money to the family. Elzbieta was sorry for this arrangement, for she

feared that it would get him into the habit of living without them, and

once a week was not very often for him to see his baby; but there was

no other way of arranging it. There was no chance for a woman at the

steelworks, and Marija was now ready for work again, and lured on from

day to day by the hope of finding it at the yards.

In a week Jurgis got over his sense of helplessness and bewilderment in

the rail mill. He learned to find his way about and to take all the

miracles and terrors for granted, to work without hearing the rumbling

and crashing. From blind fear he went to the other extreme; he became

reckless and indifferent, like all the rest of the men, who took but

little thought of themselves in the ardor of their work. It was

wonderful, when one came to think of it, that these men should have

taken an interest in the work they did—they had no share in it—they

were paid by the hour, and paid no more for being interested. Also they

knew that if they were hurt they would be flung aside and forgotten—and

still they would hurry to their task by dangerous short cuts, would use

methods that were quicker and more effective in spite of the fact that

they were also risky. His fourth day at his work Jurgis saw a man

stumble while running in front of a car, and have his foot mashed off,

and before he had been there three weeks he was witness of a yet more

dreadful accident. There was a row of brick furnaces, shining white

through every crack with the molten steel inside. Some of these were

bulging dangerously, yet men worked before them, wearing blue glasses

when they opened and shut the doors. One morning as Jurgis was passing,

a furnace blew out, spraying two men with a shower of liquid fire. As

they lay screaming and rolling upon the ground in agony, Jurgis rushed

to help them, and as a result he lost a good part of the skin from the

inside of one of his hands. The company doctor bandaged it up, but he

got no other thanks from any one, and was laid up for eight working

days without any pay.

Most fortunately, at this juncture, Elzbieta got the long-awaited

chance to go at five o’clock in the morning and help scrub the office

floors of one of the packers. Jurgis came home and covered himself with

blankets to keep warm, and divided his time between sleeping and

playing with little Antanas. Juozapas was away raking in the dump a

good part of the time, and Elzbieta and Marija were hunting for more

work.

Antanas was now over a year and a half old, and was a perfect talking

machine. He learned so fast that every week when Jurgis came home it

seemed to him as if he had a new child. He would sit down and listen

and stare at him, and give vent to delighted exclamations—“_Palauk!

Muma! Tu mano szirdele!_” The little fellow was now really the one

delight that Jurgis had in the world—his one hope, his one victory.

Thank God, Antanas was a boy! And he was as tough as a pine knot, and

with the appetite of a wolf. Nothing had hurt him, and nothing could

hurt him; he had come through all the suffering and deprivation

unscathed—only shriller-voiced and more determined in his grip upon

life. He was a terrible child to manage, was Antanas, but his father

did not mind that—he would watch him and smile to himself with

satisfaction. The more of a fighter he was the better—he would need to

fight before he got through.

Jurgis had got the habit of buying the Sunday paper whenever he had the

money; a most wonderful paper could be had for only five cents, a whole

armful, with all the news of the world set forth in big headlines, that

Jurgis could spell out slowly, with the children to help him at the

long words. There was battle and murder and sudden death—it was

marvelous how they ever heard about so many entertaining and thrilling

happenings; the stories must be all true, for surely no man could have

made such things up, and besides, there were pictures of them all, as

real as life. One of these papers was as good as a circus, and nearly

as good as a spree—certainly a most wonderful treat for a workingman,

who was tired out and stupefied, and had never had any education, and

whose work was one dull, sordid grind, day after day, and year after

year, with never a sight of a green field nor an hour’s entertainment,

nor anything but liquor to stimulate his imagination. Among other

things, these papers had pages full of comical pictures, and these were

the main joy in life to little Antanas. He treasured them up, and would

drag them out and make his father tell him about them; there were all

sorts of animals among them, and Antanas could tell the names of all of

them, lying upon the floor for hours and pointing them out with his

chubby little fingers. Whenever the story was plain enough for Jurgis

to make out, Antanas would have it repeated to him, and then he would

remember it, prattling funny little sentences and mixing it up with

other stories in an irresistible fashion. Also his quaint pronunciation

of words was such a delight—and the phrases he would pick up and

remember, the most outlandish and impossible things! The first time

that the little rascal burst out with “God damn,” his father nearly

rolled off the chair with glee; but in the end he was sorry for this,

for Antanas was soon “God-damning” everything and everybody.

And then, when he was able to use his hands, Jurgis took his bedding

again and went back to his task of shifting rails. It was now April,

and the snow had given place to cold rains, and the unpaved street in

front of Aniele’s house was turned into a canal. Jurgis would have to

wade through it to get home, and if it was late he might easily get

stuck to his waist in the mire. But he did not mind this much—it was a

promise that summer was coming. Marija had now gotten a place as

beef-trimmer in one of the smaller packing plants; and he told himself

that he had learned his lesson now, and would meet with no more

accidents—so that at last there was prospect of an end to their long

agony. They could save money again, and when another winter came they

would have a comfortable place; and the children would be off the

streets and in school again, and they might set to work to nurse back

into life their habits of decency and kindness. So once more Jurgis

began to make plans and dream dreams.

And then one Saturday night he jumped off the car and started home,

with the sun shining low under the edge of a bank of clouds that had

been pouring floods of water into the mud-soaked street. There was a

rainbow in the sky, and another in his breast—for he had thirty-six

hours’ rest before him, and a chance to see his family. Then suddenly

he came in sight of the house, and noticed that there was a crowd

before the door. He ran up the steps and pushed his way in, and saw

Aniele’s kitchen crowded with excited women. It reminded him so vividly

of the time when he had come home from jail and found Ona dying, that

his heart almost stood still. “What’s the matter?” he cried.

A dead silence had fallen in the room, and he saw that every one was

staring at him. “What’s the matter?” he exclaimed again.

And then, up in the garret, he heard sounds of wailing, in Marija’s

voice. He started for the ladder—and Aniele seized him by the arm. “No,

no!” she exclaimed. “Don’t go up there!”

“What is it?” he shouted.

And the old woman answered him weakly: “It’s Antanas. He’s dead. He was

drowned out in the street!”

CHAPTER XXII

Jurgis took the news in a peculiar way. He turned deadly pale, but he

caught himself, and for half a minute stood in the middle of the room,

clenching his hands tightly and setting his teeth. Then he pushed

Aniele aside and strode into the next room and climbed the ladder.

In the corner was a blanket, with a form half showing beneath it; and

beside it lay Elzbieta, whether crying or in a faint, Jurgis could not

tell. Marija was pacing the room, screaming and wringing her hands. He

clenched his hands tighter yet, and his voice was hard as he spoke.

“How did it happen?” he asked.

Marija scarcely heard him in her agony. He repeated the question,

louder and yet more harshly. “He fell off the sidewalk!” she wailed.

The sidewalk in front of the house was a platform made of half-rotten

boards, about five feet above the level of the sunken street.

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

“He went—he went out to play,” Marija sobbed, her voice choking her.

“We couldn’t make him stay in. He must have got caught in the mud!”

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

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

Then Jurgis stood a few seconds, wavering. He did not shed a tear. He

took one glance more at the blanket with the little form beneath it,

and then turned suddenly to the ladder and climbed down again. A

silence fell once more in the room as he entered. He went straight to

the door, passed out, and started down the street.

When his wife had died, Jurgis made for the nearest saloon, but he did

not do that now, though he had his week’s wages in his pocket. He

walked and walked, seeing nothing, splashing through mud and water.

Later on he sat down upon a step and hid his face in his hands and for

half an hour or so he did not move. Now and then he would whisper to

himself: “Dead! _Dead!_”

Finally, he got up and walked on again. It was about sunset, and he

went on and on until it was dark, when he was stopped by a railroad

crossing. The gates were down, and a long train of freight cars was

thundering by. He stood and watched it; and all at once a wild impulse

seized him, a thought that had been lurking within him, unspoken,

unrecognized, leaped into sudden life. He started down the track, and

when he was past the gate-keeper’s shanty he sprang forward and swung

himself on to one of the cars.

By and by the train stopped again, and Jurgis sprang down and ran under

the car, and hid himself upon the truck. Here he sat, and when the

train started again, he fought a battle with his soul. He gripped his

hands and set his teeth together—he had not wept, and he would not—not

a tear! It was past and over, and he was done with it—he would fling it

off his shoulders, be free of it, the whole business, that night. It

should go like a black, hateful nightmare, and in the morning he would

be a new man. And every time that a thought of it assailed him—a tender

memory, a trace of a tear—he rose up, cursing with rage, and pounded it

down.

He was fighting for his life; he gnashed his teeth together in his

desperation. He had been a fool, a fool! He had wasted his life, he had

wrecked himself, with his accursed weakness; and now he was done with

it—he would tear it out of him, root and branch! There should be no

more tears and no more tenderness; he had had enough of them—they had

sold him into slavery! Now he was going to be free, to tear off his

shackles, to rise up and fight. He was glad that the end had come—it

had to come some time, and it was just as well now. This was no world

for women and children, and the sooner they got out of it the better

for them. Whatever Antanas might suffer where he was, he could suffer

no more than he would have had he stayed upon earth. And meantime his

father had thought the last thought about him that he meant to; he was

going to think of himself, he was going to fight for himself, against

the world that had baffled him and tortured him!

So he went on, tearing up all the flowers from the garden of his soul,

and setting his heel upon them. The train thundered deafeningly, and a

storm of dust blew in his face; but though it stopped now and then

through the night, he clung where he was—he would cling there until he

was driven off, for every mile that he got from Packingtown meant

another load from his mind.

Whenever the cars stopped a warm breeze blew upon him, a breeze laden

with the perfume of fresh fields, of honeysuckle and clover. He snuffed

it, and it made his heart beat wildly—he was out in the country again!

He was going to _live_ in the country! When the dawn came he was

peering out with hungry eyes, getting glimpses of meadows and woods and

rivers. At last he could stand it no longer, and when the train stopped

again he crawled out. Upon the top of the car was a brakeman, who shook

his fist and swore; Jurgis waved his hand derisively, and started

across the country.

Only think that he had been a countryman all his life; and for three

long years he had never seen a country sight nor heard a country sound!

Excepting for that one walk when he left jail, when he was too much

worried to notice anything, and for a few times that he had rested in

the city parks in the winter time when he was out of work, he had

literally never seen a tree! And now he felt like a bird lifted up and

borne away upon a gale; he stopped and stared at each new sight of

wonder—at a herd of cows, and a meadow full of daisies, at hedgerows

set thick with June roses, at little birds singing in the trees.

Then he came to a farm-house, and after getting himself a stick for

protection, he approached it. The farmer was greasing a wagon in front

of the barn, and Jurgis went to him. “I would like to get some

breakfast, please,” he said.

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

“No,” said Jurgis. “I don’t.”

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

“I meant to pay for it,” said Jurgis.

“Oh,” said the farmer; and then added sarcastically, “We don’t serve

breakfast after 7 A.M.”

“I am very hungry,” said Jurgis gravely; “I would like to buy some

food.”

“Ask the woman,” said the farmer, nodding over his shoulder. The

“woman” was more tractable, and for a dime Jurgis secured two thick

sandwiches and a piece of pie and two apples. He walked off eating the

pie, as the least convenient thing to carry. In a few minutes he came

to a stream, and he climbed a fence and walked down the bank, along a

woodland path. By and by he found a comfortable spot, and there he

devoured his meal, slaking his thirst at the stream. Then he lay for

hours, just gazing and drinking in joy; until at last he felt sleepy,

and lay down in the shade of a bush.

When he awoke the sun was shining hot in his face. He sat up and

stretched his arms, and then gazed at the water sliding by. There was a

deep pool, sheltered and silent, below him, and a sudden wonderful idea

rushed upon him. He might have a bath! The water was free, and he might

get into it—all the way into it! It would be the first time that he had

been all the way into the water since he left Lithuania!

When Jurgis had first come to the stockyards he had been as clean as

any workingman could well be. But later on, what with sickness and cold

and hunger and discouragement, and the filthiness of his work, and the

vermin in his home, he had given up washing in winter, and in summer

only as much of him as would go into a basin. He had had a shower bath

in jail, but nothing since—and now he would have a swim!

The water was warm, and he splashed about like a very boy in his glee.

Afterward he sat down in the water near the bank, and proceeded to

scrub himself—soberly and methodically, scouring every inch of him with

sand. While he was doing it he would do it thoroughly, and see how it

felt to be clean. He even scrubbed his head with sand, and combed what

the men called “crumbs” out of his long, black hair, holding his head

under water as long as he could, to see if he could not kill them all.

Then, seeing that the sun was still hot, he took his clothes from the

bank and proceeded to wash them, piece by piece; as the dirt and grease

went floating off downstream he grunted with satisfaction and soused

the clothes again, venturing even to dream that he might get rid of the

fertilizer.

He hung them all up, and while they were drying he lay down in the sun

and had another long sleep. They were hot and stiff as boards on top,

and a little damp on the underside, when he awakened; but being hungry,

he put them on and set out again. He had no knife, but with some labor

he broke himself a good stout club, and, armed with this, he marched

down the road again.

Before long he came to a big farmhouse, and turned up the lane that led

to it. It was just supper-time, and the farmer was washing his hands at

the kitchen door. “Please, sir,” said Jurgis, “can I have something to

eat? I can pay.” To which the farmer responded promptly, “We don’t feed

tramps here. Get out!”

Jurgis went without a word; but as he passed round the barn he came to

a freshly ploughed and harrowed field, in which the farmer had set out

some young peach trees; and as he walked he jerked up a row of them by

the roots, more than a hundred trees in all, before he reached the end

of the field. That was his answer, and it showed his mood; from now on

he was fighting, and the man who hit him would get all that he gave,

every time.

Beyond the orchard Jurgis struck through a patch of woods, and then a

field of winter grain, and came at last to another road. Before long he

saw another farmhouse, and, as it was beginning to cloud over a little,

he asked here for shelter as well as food. Seeing the farmer eying him

dubiously, he added, “I’ll be glad to sleep in the barn.”

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

“Sometimes,” said Jurgis, “but I’ll do it out of doors.” When the man

had assented, he inquired, “How much will it cost me? I haven’t very

much money.”

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

charge ye for the barn.”

So Jurgis went in, and sat down at the table with the farmer’s wife and

half a dozen children. It was a bountiful meal—there were baked beans

and mashed potatoes and asparagus chopped and stewed, and a dish of

strawberries, and great, thick slices of bread, and a pitcher of milk.

Jurgis had not had such a feast since his wedding day, and he made a

mighty effort to put in his twenty cents’ worth.

They were all of them too hungry to talk; but afterward they sat upon

the steps and smoked, and the farmer questioned his guest. When Jurgis

had explained that he was a workingman from Chicago, and that he did

not know just whither he was bound, the other said, “Why don’t you stay

here and work for me?”

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

“I’ll pay ye good,” said the other, eying his big form—“a dollar a day

and board ye. Help’s terrible scarce round here.”

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

“N—no,” said the farmer; “I couldn’t keep ye after November—I ain’t got

a big enough place for that.”

“I see,” said the other, “that’s what I thought. When you get through

working your horses this fall, will you turn them out in the snow?”

(Jurgis was beginning to think for himself nowadays.)

“It ain’t quite the same,” the farmer answered, seeing the point.

“There ought to be work a strong fellow like you can find to do, in the

cities, or some place, in the winter time.”

“Yes,” said Jurgis, “that’s what they all think; and so they crowd into

the cities, and when they have to beg or steal to live, then people ask

’em why they don’t go into the country, where help is scarce.” The

farmer meditated awhile.

“How about when your money’s gone?” he inquired, finally. “You’ll have

to, then, won’t you?”

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

He had a long sleep in the barn and then a big breakfast of coffee and

bread and oatmeal and stewed cherries, for which the man charged him

only fifteen cents, perhaps having been influenced by his arguments.

Then Jurgis bade farewell, and went on his way.

Such was the beginning of his life as a tramp. It was seldom he got as

fair treatment as from this last farmer, and so as time went on he

learned to shun the houses and to prefer sleeping in the fields. When

it rained he would find a deserted building, if he could, and if not,

he would wait until after dark and then, with his stick ready, begin a

stealthy approach upon a barn. Generally he could get in before the dog

got scent of him, and then he would hide in the hay and be safe until

morning; if not, and the dog attacked him, he would rise up and make a

retreat in battle order. Jurgis was not the mighty man he had once

been, but his arms were still good, and there were few farm dogs he

needed to hit more than once.

Before long there came raspberries, and then blackberries, to help him

save his money; and there were apples in the orchards and potatoes in

the ground—he learned to note the places and fill his pockets after

dark. Twice he even managed to capture a chicken, and had a feast, once

in a deserted barn and the other time in a lonely spot alongside of a

stream. When all of these things failed him he used his money

carefully, but without worry—for he saw that he could earn more

whenever he chose. Half an hour’s chopping wood in his lively fashion

was enough to bring him a meal, and when the farmer had seen him

working he would sometimes try to bribe him to stay.

But Jurgis was not staying. He was a free man now, a buccaneer. The old

_Wanderlust_ had got into his blood, the joy of the unbound life, the

joy of seeking, of hoping without limit. There were mishaps and

discomforts—but at least there was always something new; and only think

what it meant to a man who for years had been penned up in one place,

seeing nothing but one dreary prospect of shanties and factories, to be

suddenly set loose beneath the open sky, to behold new landscapes, new

places, and new people every hour! To a man whose whole life had

consisted of doing one certain thing all day, until he was so exhausted

that he could only lie down and sleep until the next day—and to be now

his own master, working as he pleased and when he pleased, and facing a

new adventure every hour!

Then, too, his health came back to him, all his lost youthful vigor,

his joy and power that he had mourned and forgotten! It came with a

sudden rush, bewildering him, startling him; it was as if his dead

childhood had come back to him, laughing and calling! What with plenty

to eat and fresh air and exercise that was taken as it pleased him, he

would waken from his sleep and start off not knowing what to do with

his energy, stretching his arms, laughing, singing old songs of home

that came back to him. Now and then, of course, he could not help but

think of little Antanas, whom he should never see again, whose little

voice he should never hear; and then he would have to battle with

himself. Sometimes at night he would waken dreaming of Ona, and stretch

out his arms to her, and wet the ground with his tears. But in the

morning he would get up and shake himself, and stride away again to

battle with the world.

He never asked where he was nor where he was going; the country was big

enough, he knew, and there was no danger of his coming to the end of

it. And of course he could always have company for the

asking—everywhere he went there were men living just as he lived, and

whom he was welcome to join. He was a stranger at the business, but

they were not clannish, and they taught him all their tricks—what towns

and villages it was best to keep away from, and how to read the secret

signs upon the fences, and when to beg and when to steal, and just how

to do both. They laughed at his ideas of paying for anything with money

or with work—for they got all they wanted without either. Now and then

Jurgis camped out with a gang of them in some woodland haunt, and

foraged with them in the neighborhood at night. And then among them

some one would “take a shine” to him, and they would go off together

and travel for a week, exchanging reminiscences.

Of these professional tramps a great many had, of course, been

shiftless and vicious all their lives. But the vast majority of them

had been workingmen, had fought the long fight as Jurgis had, and found

that it was a losing fight, and given up. Later on he encountered yet

another sort of men, those from whose ranks the tramps were recruited,

men who were homeless and wandering, but still seeking work—seeking it

in the harvest fields. Of these there was an army, the huge surplus

labor army of society; called into being under the stern system of

nature, to do the casual work of the world, the tasks which were

transient and irregular, and yet which had to be done. They did not

know that they were such, of course; they only knew that they sought

the job, and that the job was fleeting. In the early summer they would

be in Texas, and as the crops were ready they would follow north with

the season, ending with the fall in Manitoba. Then they would seek out

the big lumber camps, where there was winter work; or failing in this,

would drift to the cities, and live upon what they had managed to save,

with the help of such transient work as was there the loading and

unloading of steamships and drays, the digging of ditches and the

shoveling of snow. If there were more of them on hand than chanced to

be needed, the weaker ones died off of cold and hunger, again according

to the stern system of nature.

It was in the latter part of July, when Jurgis was in Missouri, that he

came upon the harvest work. Here were crops that men had worked for

three or four months to prepare, and of which they would lose nearly

all unless they could find others to help them for a week or two. So

all over the land there was a cry for labor—agencies were set up and

all the cities were drained of men, even college boys were brought by

the carload, and hordes of frantic farmers would hold up trains and

carry off wagon-loads of men by main force. Not that they did not pay

them well—any man could get two dollars a day and his board, and the

best men could get two dollars and a half or three.

The harvest-fever was in the very air, and no man with any spirit in

him could be in that region and not catch it. Jurgis joined a gang and

worked from dawn till dark, eighteen hours a day, for two weeks without

a break. Then he had a sum of money that would have been a fortune to

him in the old days of misery—but what could he do with it now? To be

sure he might have put it in a bank, and, if he were fortunate, get it

back again when he wanted it. But Jurgis was now a homeless man,

wandering over a continent; and what did he know about banking and

drafts and letters of credit? If he carried the money about with him,

he would surely be robbed in the end; and so what was there for him to

do but enjoy it while he could? On a Saturday night he drifted into a

town with his fellows; and because it was raining, and there was no

other place provided for him, he went to a saloon. And there were some

who treated him and whom he had to treat, and there was laughter and

singing and good cheer; and then out of the rear part of the saloon a

girl’s face, red-cheeked and merry, smiled at Jurgis, and his heart

thumped suddenly in his throat. He nodded to her, and she came and sat

by him, and they had more drink, and then he went upstairs into a room

with her, and the wild beast rose up within him and screamed, as it has

screamed in the Jungle from the dawn of time. And then because of his

memories and his shame, he was glad when others joined them, men and

women; and they had more drink and spent the night in wild rioting and

debauchery. In the van of the surplus-labor army, there followed

another, an army of women, they also struggling for life under the

stern system of nature. Because there were rich men who sought

pleasure, there had been ease and plenty for them so long as they were

young and beautiful; and later on, when they were crowded out by others

younger and more beautiful, they went out to follow upon the trail of

the workingmen. Sometimes they came of themselves, and the

saloon-keepers shared with them; or sometimes they were handled by

agencies, the same as the labor army. They were in the towns in harvest

time, near the lumber camps in the winter, in the cities when the men

came there; if a regiment were encamped, or a railroad or canal being

made, or a great exposition getting ready, the crowd of women were on

hand, living in shanties or saloons or tenement rooms, sometimes eight

or ten of them together.

In the morning Jurgis had not a cent, and he went out upon the road

again. He was sick and disgusted, but after the new plan of his life,

he crushed his feelings down. He had made a fool of himself, but he

could not help it now—all he could do was to see that it did not happen

again. So he tramped on until exercise and fresh air banished his

headache, and his strength and joy returned. This happened to him every

time, for Jurgis was still a creature of impulse, and his pleasures had

not yet become business. It would be a long time before he could be

like the majority of these men of the road, who roamed until the hunger

for drink and for women mastered them, and then went to work with a

purpose in mind, and stopped when they had the price of a spree.

On the contrary, try as he would, Jurgis could not help being made

miserable by his conscience. It was the ghost that would not down. It

would come upon him in the most unexpected places—sometimes it fairly

drove him to drink.

One night he was caught by a thunderstorm, and he sought shelter in a

little house just outside of a town. It was a working-man’s home, and

the owner was a Slav like himself, a new emigrant from White Russia; he

bade Jurgis welcome in his home language, and told him to come to the

kitchen-fire and dry himself. He had no bed for him, but there was

straw in the garret, and he could make out. The man’s wife was cooking

the supper, and their children were playing about on the floor. Jurgis

sat and exchanged thoughts with him about the old country, and the

places where they had been and the work they had done. Then they ate,

and afterward sat and smoked and talked more about America, and how

they found it. In the middle of a sentence, however, Jurgis stopped,

seeing that the woman had brought a big basin of water and was

proceeding to undress her youngest baby. The rest had crawled into the

closet where they slept, but the baby was to have a bath, the

workingman explained. The nights had begun to be chilly, and his

mother, ignorant as to the climate in America, had sewed him up for the

winter; then it had turned warm again, and some kind of a rash had

broken out on the child. The doctor had said she must bathe him every

night, and she, foolish woman, believed him.

Jurgis scarcely heard the explanation; he was watching the baby. He was

about a year old, and a sturdy little fellow, with soft fat legs, and a

round ball of a stomach, and eyes as black as coals. His pimples did

not seem to bother him much, and he was wild with glee over the bath,

kicking and squirming and chuckling with delight, pulling at his

mother’s face and then at his own little toes. When she put him into

the basin he sat in the midst of it and grinned, splashing the water

over himself and squealing like a little pig. He spoke in Russian, of

which Jurgis knew some; he spoke it with the quaintest of baby

accents—and every word of it brought back to Jurgis some word of his

own dead little one, and stabbed him like a knife. He sat perfectly

motionless, silent, but gripping his hands tightly, while a storm

gathered in his bosom and a flood heaped itself up behind his eyes. And

in the end he could bear it no more, but buried his face in his hands

and burst into tears, to the alarm and amazement of his hosts. Between

the shame of this and his woe Jurgis could not stand it, and got up and

rushed out into the rain.

He went on and on down the road, finally coming to a black woods, where

he hid and wept as if his heart would break. Ah, what agony was that,

what despair, when the tomb of memory was rent open and the ghosts of

his old life came forth to scourge him! What terror to see what he had

been and now could never be—to see Ona and his child and his own dead

self stretching out their arms to him, calling to him across a

bottomless abyss—and to know that they were gone from him forever, and

he writhing and suffocating in the mire of his own vileness!

CHAPTER XXIII

Early in the fall Jurgis set out for Chicago again. All the joy went

out of tramping as soon as a man could not keep warm in the hay; and,

like many thousands of others, he deluded himself with the hope that by

coming early he could avoid the rush. He brought fifteen dollars with

him, hidden away in one of his shoes, a sum which had been saved from

the saloon-keepers, not so much by his conscience, as by the fear which

filled him at the thought of being out of work in the city in the

winter time.

He traveled upon the railroad with several other men, hiding in freight

cars at night, and liable to be thrown off at any time, regardless of

the speed of the train. When he reached the city he left the rest, for

he had money and they did not, and he meant to save himself in this

fight. He would bring to it all the skill that practice had brought

him, and he would stand, whoever fell. On fair nights he would sleep in

the park or on a truck or an empty barrel or box, and when it was rainy

or cold he would stow himself upon a shelf in a ten-cent lodging-house,

or pay three cents for the privileges of a “squatter” in a tenement

hallway. He would eat at free lunches, five cents a meal, and never a

cent more—so he might keep alive for two months and more, and in that

time he would surely find a job. He would have to bid farewell to his

summer cleanliness, of course, for he would come out of the first

night’s lodging with his clothes alive with vermin. There was no place

in the city where he could wash even his face, unless he went down to

the lake front—and there it would soon be all ice.

First he went to the steel mill and the harvester works, and found that

his places there had been filled long ago. He was careful to keep away

from the stockyards—he was a single man now, he told himself, and he

meant to stay one, to have his wages for his own when he got a job. He

began the long, weary round of factories and warehouses, tramping all

day, from one end of the city to the other, finding everywhere from ten

to a hundred men ahead of him. He watched the newspapers, too—but no

longer was he to be taken in by smooth-spoken agents. He had been told

of all those tricks while “on the road.”

In the end it was through a newspaper that he got a job, after nearly a

month of seeking. It was a call for a hundred laborers, and though he

thought it was a “fake,” he went because the place was near by. He

found a line of men a block long, but as a wagon chanced to come out of

an alley and break the line, he saw his chance and sprang to seize a

place. Men threatened him and tried to throw him out, but he cursed and

made a disturbance to attract a policeman, upon which they subsided,

knowing that if the latter interfered it would be to “fire” them all.

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

behind a desk.

“Ever worked in Chicago before?” the man inquired; and whether it was a

good angel that put it into Jurgis’s mind, or an intuition of his

sharpened wits, he was moved to answer, “No, sir.”

“Where do you come from?”

“Kansas City, sir.”

“Any references?”

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

“I want men for hard work—it’s all underground, digging tunnels for

telephones. Maybe it won’t suit you.”

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

“Fifteen cents an hour.”

“I’m willing, sir.”

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

So within half an hour he was at work, far underneath the streets of

the city. The tunnel was a peculiar one for telephone wires; it was

about eight feet high, and with a level floor nearly as wide. It had

innumerable branches—a perfect spider web beneath the city; Jurgis

walked over half a mile with his gang to the place where they were to

work. Stranger yet, the tunnel was lighted by electricity, and upon it

was laid a double-tracked, narrow-gauge railroad!

But Jurgis was not there to ask questions, and he did not give the

matter a thought. It was nearly a year afterward that he finally

learned the meaning of this whole affair. The City Council had passed a

quiet and innocent little bill allowing a company to construct

telephone conduits under the city streets; and upon the strength of

this, a great corporation had proceeded to tunnel all Chicago with a

system of railway freight-subways. In the city there was a combination

of employers, representing hundreds of millions of capital, and formed

for the purpose of crushing the labor unions. The chief union which

troubled it was the teamsters’; and when these freight tunnels were

completed, connecting all the big factories and stores with the

railroad depots, they would have the teamsters’ union by the throat.

Now and then there were rumors and murmurs in the Board of Aldermen,

and once there was a committee to investigate—but each time another

small fortune was paid over, and the rumors died away; until at last

the city woke up with a start to find the work completed. There was a

tremendous scandal, of course; it was found that the city records had

been falsified and other crimes committed, and some of Chicago’s big

capitalists got into jail—figuratively speaking. The aldermen declared

that they had had no idea of it all, in spite of the fact that the main

entrance to the work had been in the rear of the saloon of one of them.

It was in a newly opened cut that Jurgis worked, and so he knew that he

had an all-winter job. He was so rejoiced that he treated himself to a

spree that night, and with the balance of his money he hired himself a

place in a tenement room, where he slept upon a big homemade straw

mattress along with four other workingmen. This was one dollar a week,

and for four more he got his food in a boardinghouse near his work.

This would leave him four dollars extra each week, an unthinkable sum

for him. At the outset he had to pay for his digging tools, and also to

buy a pair of heavy boots, since his shoes were falling to pieces, and

a flannel shirt, since the one he had worn all summer was in shreds. He

spent a week meditating whether or not he should also buy an overcoat.

There was one belonging to a Hebrew collar button peddler, who had died

in the room next to him, and which the landlady was holding for her

rent; in the end, however, Jurgis decided to do without it, as he was

to be underground by day and in bed at night.

This was an unfortunate decision, however, for it drove him more

quickly than ever into the saloons. From now on Jurgis worked from

seven o’clock until half-past five, with half an hour for dinner; which

meant that he never saw the sunlight on weekdays. In the evenings there

was no place for him to go except a barroom; no place where there was

light and warmth, where he could hear a little music or sit with a

companion and talk. He had now no home to go to; he had no affection

left in his life—only the pitiful mockery of it in the _camaraderie_ of

vice. On Sundays the churches were open—but where was there a church in

which an ill-smelling workingman, with vermin crawling upon his neck,

could sit without seeing people edge away and look annoyed? He had, of

course, his corner in a close though unheated room, with a window

opening upon a blank wall two feet away; and also he had the bare

streets, with the winter gales sweeping through them; besides this he

had only the saloons—and, of course, he had to drink to stay in them.

If he drank now and then he was free to make himself at home, to gamble

with dice or a pack of greasy cards, to play at a dingy pool table for

money, or to look at a beer-stained pink “sporting paper,” with

pictures of murderers and half-naked women. It was for such pleasures

as these that he spent his money; and such was his life during the six

weeks and a half that he toiled for the merchants of Chicago, to enable

them to break the grip of their teamsters’ union.

In a work thus carried out, not much thought was given to the welfare

of the laborers. On an average, the tunneling cost a life a day and

several manglings; it was seldom, however, that more than a dozen or

two men heard of any one accident. The work was all done by the new

boring machinery, with as little blasting as possible; but there would

be falling rocks and crushed supports, and premature explosions—and in

addition all the dangers of railroading. So it was that one night, as

Jurgis was on his way out with his gang, an engine and a loaded car

dashed round one of the innumerable right-angle branches and struck him

upon the shoulder, hurling him against the concrete wall and knocking

him senseless.

When he opened his eyes again it was to the clanging of the bell of an

ambulance. He was lying in it, covered by a blanket, and it was

threading its way slowly through the holiday-shopping crowds. They took

him to the county hospital, where a young surgeon set his arm; then he

was washed and laid upon a bed in a ward with a score or two more of

maimed and mangled men.

Jurgis spent his Christmas in this hospital, and it was the pleasantest

Christmas he had had in America. Every year there were scandals and

investigations in this institution, the newspapers charging that

doctors were allowed to try fantastic experiments upon the patients;

but Jurgis knew nothing of this—his only complaint was that they used

to feed him upon tinned meat, which no man who had ever worked in

Packingtown would feed to his dog. Jurgis had often wondered just who

ate the canned corned beef and “roast beef” of the stockyards; now he

began to understand—that it was what you might call “graft meat,” put

up to be sold to public officials and contractors, and eaten by

soldiers and sailors, prisoners and inmates of institutions,

“shantymen” and gangs of railroad laborers.

Jurgis was ready to leave the hospital at the end of two weeks. This

did not mean that his arm was strong and that he was able to go back to

work, but simply that he could get along without further attention, and

that his place was needed for some one worse off than he. That he was

utterly helpless, and had no means of keeping himself alive in the

meantime, was something which did not concern the hospital authorities,

nor any one else in the city.

As it chanced, he had been hurt on a Monday, and had just paid for his

last week’s board and his room rent, and spent nearly all the balance

of his Saturday’s pay. He had less than seventy-five cents in his

pockets, and a dollar and a half due him for the day’s work he had done

before he was hurt. He might possibly have sued the company, and got

some damages for his injuries, but he did not know this, and it was not

the company’s business to tell him. He went and got his pay and his

tools, which he left in a pawnshop for fifty cents. Then he went to his

landlady, who had rented his place and had no other for him; and then

to his boardinghouse keeper, who looked him over and questioned him. As

he must certainly be helpless for a couple of months, and had boarded

there only six weeks, she decided very quickly that it would not be

worth the risk to keep him on trust.

So Jurgis went out into the streets, in a most dreadful plight. It was

bitterly cold, and a heavy snow was falling, beating into his face. He

had no overcoat, and no place to go, and two dollars and sixty-five

cents in his pocket, with the certainty that he could not earn another

cent for months. The snow meant no chance to him now; he must walk

along and see others shoveling, vigorous and active—and he with his

left arm bound to his side! He could not hope to tide himself over by

odd jobs of loading trucks; he could not even sell newspapers or carry

satchels, because he was now at the mercy of any rival. Words could not

paint the terror that came over him as he realized all this. He was

like a wounded animal in the forest; he was forced to compete with his

enemies upon unequal terms. There would be no consideration for him

because of his weakness—it was no one’s business to help him in such

distress, to make the fight the least bit easier for him. Even if he

took to begging, he would be at a disadvantage, for reasons which he

was to discover in good time.

In the beginning he could not think of anything except getting out of

the awful cold. He went into one of the saloons he had been wont to

frequent and bought a drink, and then stood by the fire shivering and

waiting to be ordered out. According to an unwritten law, the buying a

drink included the privilege of loafing for just so long; then one had

to buy another drink or move on. That Jurgis was an old customer

entitled him to a somewhat longer stop; but then he had been away two

weeks, and was evidently “on the bum.” He might plead and tell his

“hard luck story,” but that would not help him much; a saloon-keeper

who was to be moved by such means would soon have his place jammed to

the doors with “hoboes” on a day like this.

So Jurgis went out into another place, and paid another nickel. He was

so hungry this time that he could not resist the hot beef stew, an

indulgence which cut short his stay by a considerable time. When he was

again told to move on, he made his way to a “tough” place in the

“Lêvée” district, where now and then he had gone with a certain

rat-eyed Bohemian workingman of his acquaintance, seeking a woman. It

was Jurgis’s vain hope that here the proprietor would let him remain as

a “sitter.” In low-class places, in the dead of winter, saloon-keepers

would often allow one or two forlorn-looking bums who came in covered

with snow or soaked with rain to sit by the fire and look miserable to

attract custom. A workingman would come in, feeling cheerful after his

day’s work was over, and it would trouble him to have to take his glass

with such a sight under his nose; and so he would call out: “Hello,

Bub, what’s the matter? You look as if you’d been up against it!” And

then the other would begin to pour out some tale of misery, and the man

would say, “Come have a glass, and maybe that’ll brace you up.” And so

they would drink together, and if the tramp was sufficiently

wretched-looking, or good enough at the “gab,” they might have two; and

if they were to discover that they were from the same country, or had

lived in the same city or worked at the same trade, they might sit down

at a table and spend an hour or two in talk—and before they got through

the saloon-keeper would have taken in a dollar. All of this might seem

diabolical, but the saloon-keeper was in no wise to blame for it. He

was in the same plight as the manufacturer who has to adulterate and

misrepresent his product. If he does not, some one else will; and the

saloon-keeper, unless he is also an alderman, is apt to be in debt to

the big brewers, and on the verge of being sold out.

The market for “sitters” was glutted that afternoon, however, and there

was no place for Jurgis. In all he had to spend six nickels in keeping

a shelter over him that frightful day, and then it was just dark, and

the station houses would not open until midnight! At the last place,

however, there was a bartender who knew him and liked him, and let him

doze at one of the tables until the boss came back; and also, as he was

going out, the man gave him a tip—on the next block there was a

religious revival of some sort, with preaching and singing, and

hundreds of hoboes would go there for the shelter and warmth.

Jurgis went straightway, and saw a sign hung out, saying that the door

would open at seven-thirty; then he walked, or half ran, a block, and

hid awhile in a doorway and then ran again, and so on until the hour.

At the end he was all but frozen, and fought his way in with the rest

of the throng (at the risk of having his arm broken again), and got

close to the big stove.

By eight o’clock the place was so crowded that the speakers ought to

have been flattered; the aisles were filled halfway up, and at the door

men were packed tight enough to walk upon. There were three elderly

gentlemen in black upon the platform, and a young lady who played the

piano in front. First they sang a hymn, and then one of the three, a

tall, smooth-shaven man, very thin, and wearing black spectacles, began

an address. Jurgis heard smatterings of it, for the reason that terror

kept him awake—he knew that he snored abominably, and to have been put

out just then would have been like a sentence of death to him.

The evangelist was preaching “sin and redemption,” the infinite grace

of God and His pardon for human frailty. He was very much in earnest,

and he meant well, but Jurgis, as he listened, found his soul filled

with hatred. What did he know about sin and suffering—with his smooth,

black coat and his neatly starched collar, his body warm, and his belly

full, and money in his pocket—and lecturing men who were struggling for

their lives, men at the death grapple with the demon powers of hunger

and cold!—This, of course, was unfair; but Jurgis felt that these men

were out of touch with the life they discussed, that they were unfitted

to solve its problems; nay, they themselves were part of the

problem—they were part of the order established that was crushing men

down and beating them! They were of the triumphant and insolent

possessors; they had a hall, and a fire, and food and clothing and

money, and so they might preach to hungry men, and the hungry men must

be humble and listen! They were trying to save their souls—and who but

a fool could fail to see that all that was the matter with their souls

was that they had not been able to get a decent existence for their

bodies?

At eleven the meeting closed, and the desolate audience filed out into

the snow, muttering curses upon the few traitors who had got repentance

and gone up on the platform. It was yet an hour before the station

house would open, and Jurgis had no overcoat—and was weak from a long

illness. During that hour he nearly perished. He was obliged to run

hard to keep his blood moving at all—and then he came back to the

station house and found a crowd blocking the street before the door!

This was in the month of January, 1904, when the country was on the

verge of “hard times,” and the newspapers were reporting the shutting

down of factories every day—it was estimated that a million and a half

men were thrown out of work before the spring. So all the hiding places

of the city were crowded, and before that station house door men fought

and tore each other like savage beasts. When at last the place was

jammed and they shut the doors, half the crowd was still outside; and

Jurgis, with his helpless arm, was among them. There was no choice then

but to go to a lodging-house and spend another dime. It really broke

his heart to do this, at half-past twelve o’clock, after he had wasted

the night at the meeting and on the street. He would be turned out of

the lodging-house promptly at seven—they had the shelves which served

as bunks so contrived that they could be dropped, and any man who was

slow about obeying orders could be tumbled to the floor.

This was one day, and the cold spell lasted for fourteen of them. At

the end of six days every cent of Jurgis’ money was gone; and then he

went out on the streets to beg for his life.

He would begin as soon as the business of the city was moving. He would

sally forth from a saloon, and, after making sure there was no

policeman in sight, would approach every likely-looking person who

passed him, telling his woeful story and pleading for a nickel or a

dime. Then when he got one, he would dart round the corner and return

to his base to get warm; and his victim, seeing him do this, would go

away, vowing that he would never give a cent to a beggar again. The

victim never paused to ask where else Jurgis could have gone under the

circumstances—where he, the victim, would have gone. At the saloon

Jurgis could not only get more food and better food than he could buy

in any restaurant for the same money, but a drink in the bargain to

warm him up. Also he could find a comfortable seat by a fire, and could

chat with a companion until he was as warm as toast. At the saloon,

too, he felt at home. Part of the saloon-keeper’s business was to offer

a home and refreshments to beggars in exchange for the proceeds of

their foragings; and was there any one else in the whole city who would

do this—would the victim have done it himself?

Poor Jurgis might have been expected to make a successful beggar. He

was just out of the hospital, and desperately sick-looking, and with a

helpless arm; also he had no overcoat, and shivered pitifully. But,

alas, it was again the case of the honest merchant, who finds that the

genuine and unadulterated article is driven to the wall by the artistic

counterfeit. Jurgis, as a beggar, was simply a blundering amateur in

competition with organized and scientific professionalism. He was just

out of the hospital—but the story was worn threadbare, and how could he

prove it? He had his arm in a sling—and it was a device a regular

beggar’s little boy would have scorned. He was pale and shivering—but

they were made up with cosmetics, and had studied the art of chattering

their teeth. As to his being without an overcoat, among them you would

meet men you could swear had on nothing but a ragged linen duster and a

pair of cotton trousers—so cleverly had they concealed the several

suits of all-wool underwear beneath. Many of these professional

mendicants had comfortable homes, and families, and thousands of

dollars in the bank; some of them had retired upon their earnings, and

gone into the business of fitting out and doctoring others, or working

children at the trade. There were some who had both their arms bound

tightly to their sides, and padded stumps in their sleeves, and a sick

child hired to carry a cup for them. There were some who had no legs,

and pushed themselves upon a wheeled platform—some who had been favored

with blindness, and were led by pretty little dogs. Some less fortunate

had mutilated themselves or burned themselves, or had brought horrible

sores upon themselves with chemicals; you might suddenly encounter upon

the street a man holding out to you a finger rotting and discolored

with gangrene—or one with livid scarlet wounds half escaped from their

filthy bandages. These desperate ones were the dregs of the city’s

cesspools, wretches who hid at night in the rain-soaked cellars of old

ramshackle tenements, in “stale-beer dives” and opium joints, with

abandoned women in the last stages of the harlot’s progress—women who

had been kept by Chinamen and turned away at last to die. Every day the

police net would drag hundreds of them off the streets, and in the

detention hospital you might see them, herded together in a miniature

inferno, with hideous, beastly faces, bloated and leprous with disease,

laughing, shouting, screaming in all stages of drunkenness, barking

like dogs, gibbering like apes, raving and tearing themselves in

delirium.

CHAPTER XXIV

In the face of all his handicaps, Jurgis was obliged to make the price

of a lodging, and of a drink every hour or two, under penalty of

freezing to death. Day after day he roamed about in the arctic cold,

his soul filled full of bitterness and despair. He saw the world of

civilization then more plainly than ever he had seen it before; a world

in which nothing counted but brutal might, an order devised by those

who possessed it for the subjugation of those who did not. He was one

of the latter; and all outdoors, all life, was to him one colossal

prison, which he paced like a pent-up tiger, trying one bar after

another, and finding them all beyond his power. He had lost in the

fierce battle of greed, and so was doomed to be exterminated; and all

society was busied to see that he did not escape the sentence.

Everywhere that he turned were prison bars, and hostile eyes following

him; the well-fed, sleek policemen, from whose glances he shrank, and

who seemed to grip their clubs more tightly when they saw him; the

saloon-keepers, who never ceased to watch him while he was in their

places, who were jealous of every moment he lingered after he had paid

his money; the hurrying throngs upon the streets, who were deaf to his

entreaties, oblivious of his very existence—and savage and contemptuous

when he forced himself upon them. They had their own affairs, and there

was no place for him among them. There was no place for him

anywhere—every direction he turned his gaze, this fact was forced upon

him: Everything was built to express it to him: the residences, with

their heavy walls and bolted doors, and basement windows barred with

iron; the great warehouses filled with the products of the whole world,

and guarded by iron shutters and heavy gates; the banks with their

unthinkable billions of wealth, all buried in safes and vaults of

steel.

And then one day there befell Jurgis the one adventure of his life. It

was late at night, and he had failed to get the price of a lodging.

Snow was falling, and he had been out so long that he was covered with

it, and was chilled to the bone. He was working among the theater

crowds, flitting here and there, taking large chances with the police,

in his desperation half hoping to be arrested. When he saw a blue-coat

start toward him, however, his heart failed him, and he dashed down a

side street and fled a couple of blocks. When he stopped again he saw a

man coming toward him, and placed himself in his path.

“Please, sir,” he began, in the usual formula, “will you give me the

price of a lodging? I’ve had a broken arm, and I can’t work, and I’ve

not a cent in my pocket. I’m an honest working-man, sir, and I never

begged before! It’s not my fault, sir—”

Jurgis usually went on until he was interrupted, but this man did not

interrupt, and so at last he came to a breathless stop. The other had

halted, and Jurgis suddenly noticed that he stood a little unsteadily.

“Whuzzat you say?” he queried suddenly, in a thick voice.

Jurgis began again, speaking more slowly and distinctly; before he was

half through the other put out his hand and rested it upon his

shoulder. “Poor ole chappie!” he said. “Been up—hic—up—against it,

hey?”

Then he lurched toward Jurgis, and the hand upon his shoulder became an

arm about his neck. “Up against it myself, ole sport,” he said. “She’s

a hard ole world.”

They were close to a lamppost, and Jurgis got a glimpse of the other.

He was a young fellow—not much over eighteen, with a handsome boyish

face. He wore a silk hat and a rich soft overcoat with a fur collar;

and he smiled at Jurgis with benignant sympathy. “I’m hard up, too, my

goo’ fren’,” he said. “I’ve got cruel parents, or I’d set you up.

Whuzzamatter whizyer?”

“I’ve been in the hospital.”

“Hospital!” exclaimed the young fellow, still smiling sweetly, “thass

too bad! Same’s my Aunt Polly—hic—my Aunt Polly’s in the hospital,

too—ole auntie’s been havin’ twins! Whuzzamatter whiz you?”

“I’ve got a broken arm—” Jurgis began.

“So,” said the other, sympathetically. “That ain’t so bad—you get over

that. I wish somebody’d break _my_ arm, ole chappie—damfidon’t! Then

they’d treat me better—hic—hole me up, ole sport! Whuzzit you wamme

do?”

“I’m hungry, sir,” said Jurgis.

“Hungry! Why don’t you hassome supper?”

“I’ve got no money, sir.”

“No money! Ho, ho—less be chums, ole boy—jess like me! No money,

either—a’most busted! Why don’t you go home, then, same’s me?”

“I haven’t any home,” said Jurgis.

“No home! Stranger in the city, hey? Goo’ God, thass bad! Better come

home wiz me—yes, by Harry, thass the trick, you’ll come home an’

hassome supper—hic—wiz me! Awful lonesome—nobody home! Guv’ner gone

abroad—Bubby on’s honeymoon—Polly havin’ twins—every damn soul gone

away! Nuff—hic—nuff to drive a feller to drink, I say! Only ole Ham

standin’ by, passin’ plates—damfican eat like that, no sir! The club

for me every time, my boy, I say. But then they won’t lemme sleep

there—guv’ner’s orders, by Harry—home every night, sir! Ever hear

anythin’ like that? ‘Every mornin’ do?’ I asked him. ‘No, sir, every

night, or no allowance at all, sir.’ Thass my guv’ner—‘nice as nails,

by Harry! Tole ole Ham to watch me, too—servants spyin’ on me—whuzyer

think that, my fren’? A nice, quiet—hic—goodhearted young feller like

me, an’ his daddy can’t go to Europe—hup!—an’ leave him in peace! Ain’t

that a shame, sir? An’ I gotter go home every evenin’ an’ miss all the

fun, by Harry! Thass whuzzamatter now—thass why I’m here! Hadda come

away an’ leave Kitty—hic—left her cryin’, too—whujja think of that, ole

sport? ‘Lemme go, Kittens,’ says I—‘come early an’ often—I go where

duty—hic—calls me. Farewell, farewell, my own true love—farewell,

farewehell, my—own true—love!’”

This last was a song, and the young gentleman’s voice rose mournful and

wailing, while he swung upon Jurgis’s neck. The latter was glancing

about nervously, lest some one should approach. They were still alone,

however.

“But I came all right, all right,” continued the youngster,

aggressively, “I can—hic—I can have my own way when I want it, by

Harry—Freddie Jones is a hard man to handle when he gets goin’! ‘No,

sir,’ says I, ‘by thunder, and I don’t need anybody goin’ home with me,

either—whujja take me for, hey? Think I’m drunk, dontcha, hey?—I know

you! But I’m no more drunk than you are, Kittens,’ says I to her. And

then says she, ‘Thass true, Freddie dear’ (she’s a smart one, is

Kitty), ‘but I’m stayin’ in the flat, an’ you’re goin’ out into the

cold, cold night!’ ‘Put it in a pome, lovely Kitty,’ says I. ‘No

jokin’, Freddie, my boy,’ says she. ‘Lemme call a cab now, like a good

dear’—but I can call my own cabs, dontcha fool yourself—and I know what

I’m a-doin’, you bet! Say, my fren’, whatcha say—willye come home an’

see me, an’ hassome supper? Come ’long like a good feller—don’t be

haughty! You’re up against it, same as me, an’ you can unerstan’ a

feller; your heart’s in the right place, by Harry—come ’long, ole

chappie, an’ we’ll light up the house, an’ have some fizz, an’ we’ll

raise hell, we will—whoop-la! S’long’s I’m inside the house I can do as

I please—the guv’ner’s own very orders, b’God! Hip! hip!”

They had started down the street, arm in arm, the young man pushing

Jurgis along, half dazed. Jurgis was trying to think what to do—he knew

he could not pass any crowded place with his new acquaintance without

attracting attention and being stopped. It was only because of the

falling snow that people who passed here did not notice anything wrong.

Suddenly, therefore, Jurgis stopped. “Is it very far?” he inquired.

“Not very,” said the other, “Tired, are you, though? Well, we’ll

ride—whatcha say? Good! Call a cab!”

And then, gripping Jurgis tight with one hand, the young fellow began

searching his pockets with the other. “You call, ole sport, an’ I’ll

pay,” he suggested. “How’s that, hey?”

And he pulled out from somewhere a big roll of bills. It was more money

than Jurgis had ever seen in his life before, and he stared at it with

startled eyes.

“Looks like a lot, hey?” said Master Freddie, fumbling with it. “Fool

you, though, ole chappie—they’re all little ones! I’ll be busted in one

week more, sure thing—word of honor. An’ not a cent more till the

first—hic—guv’ner’s orders—hic—not a _cent_, by Harry! Nuff to set a

feller crazy, it is. I sent him a cable, this af’noon—thass one reason

more why I’m goin’ home. ‘Hangin’ on the verge of starvation,’ I

says—‘for the honor of the family—hic—sen’ me some bread. Hunger will

compel me to join you—Freddie.’ Thass what I wired him, by Harry, an’ I

mean it—I’ll run away from school, b’God, if he don’t sen’ me some.”

After this fashion the young gentleman continued to prattle on—and

meantime Jurgis was trembling with excitement. He might grab that wad

of bills and be out of sight in the darkness before the other could

collect his wits. Should he do it? What better had he to hope for, if

he waited longer? But Jurgis had never committed a crime in his life,

and now he hesitated half a second too long. “Freddie” got one bill

loose, and then stuffed the rest back into his trousers’ pocket.

“Here, ole man,” he said, “you take it.” He held it out fluttering.

They were in front of a saloon; and by the light of the window Jurgis

saw that it was a hundred-dollar bill! “You take it,” the other

repeated. “Pay the cabbie an’ keep the change—I’ve got—hic—no head for

business! Guv’ner says so hisself, an’ the guv’ner knows—the guv’ner’s

got a head for business, you bet! ‘All right, guv’ner,’ I told him,

‘you run the show, and I’ll take the tickets!’ An’ so he set Aunt Polly

to watch me—hic—an’ now Polly’s off in the hospital havin’ twins, an’

me out raisin’ Cain! Hello, there! Hey! Call him!”

A cab was driving by; and Jurgis sprang and called, and it swung round

to the curb. Master Freddie clambered in with some difficulty, and

Jurgis had started to follow, when the driver shouted: “Hi, there! Get

out—you!”

Jurgis hesitated, and was half obeying; but his companion broke out:

“Whuzzat? Whuzzamatter wiz you, hey?”

And the cabbie subsided, and Jurgis climbed in. Then Freddie gave a

number on the Lake Shore Drive, and the carriage started away. The

youngster leaned back and snuggled up to Jurgis, murmuring contentedly;

in half a minute he was sound asleep, Jurgis sat shivering, speculating

as to whether he might not still be able to get hold of the roll of

bills. He was afraid to try to go through his companion’s pockets,

however; and besides the cabbie might be on the watch. He had the

hundred safe, and he would have to be content with that.

At the end of half an hour or so the cab stopped. They were out on the

waterfront, and from the east a freezing gale was blowing off the

ice-bound lake. “Here we are,” called the cabbie, and Jurgis awakened

his companion.

Master Freddie sat up with a start.

“Hello!” he said. “Where are we? Whuzzis? Who are you, hey? Oh, yes,

sure nuff! Mos’ forgot you—hic—ole chappie! Home, are we? Lessee!

Br-r-r—it’s cold! Yes—come ’long—we’re home—it ever so—hic—humble!”

Before them there loomed an enormous granite pile, set far back from

the street, and occupying a whole block. By the light of the driveway

lamps Jurgis could see that it had towers and huge gables, like a

mediæval castle. He thought that the young fellow must have made a

mistake—it was inconceivable to him that any person could have a home

like a hotel or the city hall. But he followed in silence, and they

went up the long flight of steps, arm in arm.

“There’s a button here, ole sport,” said Master Freddie. “Hole my arm

while I find her! Steady, now—oh, yes, here she is! Saved!”

A bell rang, and in a few seconds the door was opened. A man in blue

livery stood holding it, and gazing before him, silent as a statue.

They stood for a moment blinking in the light. Then Jurgis felt his

companion pulling, and he stepped in, and the blue automaton closed the

door. Jurgis’s heart was beating wildly; it was a bold thing for him to

do—into what strange unearthly place he was venturing he had no idea.

Aladdin entering his cave could not have been more excited.

The place where he stood was dimly lighted; but he could see a vast

hall, with pillars fading into the darkness above, and a great

staircase opening at the far end of it. The floor was of tesselated

marble, smooth as glass, and from the walls strange shapes loomed out,

woven into huge portieres in rich, harmonious colors, or gleaming from

paintings, wonderful and mysterious-looking in the half-light, purple

and red and golden, like sunset glimmers in a shadowy forest.

The man in livery had moved silently toward them; Master Freddie took

off his hat and handed it to him, and then, letting go of Jurgis’ arm,

tried to get out of his overcoat. After two or three attempts he

accomplished this, with the lackey’s help, and meantime a second man

had approached, a tall and portly personage, solemn as an executioner.

He bore straight down upon Jurgis, who shrank away nervously; he seized

him by the arm without a word, and started toward the door with him.

Then suddenly came Master Freddie’s voice, “Hamilton! My fren’ will

remain wiz me.”

The man paused and half released Jurgis. “Come ’long ole chappie,” said

the other, and Jurgis started toward him.

“Master Frederick!” exclaimed the man.

“See that the cabbie—hic—is paid,” was the other’s response; and he

linked his arm in Jurgis’. Jurgis was about to say, “I have the money

for him,” but he restrained himself. The stout man in uniform signaled

to the other, who went out to the cab, while he followed Jurgis and his

young master.

They went down the great hall, and then turned. Before them were two

huge doors.

“Hamilton,” said Master Freddie.

“Well, sir?” said the other.

“Whuzzamatter wizze dinin’-room doors?”

“Nothing is the matter, sir.”

“Then why dontcha openum?”

The man rolled them back; another vista lost itself in the darkness.

“Lights,” commanded Master Freddie; and the butler pressed a button,

and a flood of brilliant incandescence streamed from above,

half-blinding Jurgis. He stared; and little by little he made out the

great apartment, with a domed ceiling from which the light poured, and

walls that were one enormous painting—nymphs and dryads dancing in a

flower-strewn glade—Diana with her hounds and horses, dashing headlong

through a mountain streamlet—a group of maidens bathing in a forest

pool—all life-size, and so real that Jurgis thought that it was some

work of enchantment, that he was in a dream palace. Then his eye passed

to the long table in the center of the hall, a table black as ebony,

and gleaming with wrought silver and gold. In the center of it was a

huge carven bowl, with the glistening gleam of ferns and the red and

purple of rare orchids, glowing from a light hidden somewhere in their

midst.

“This’s the dinin’ room,” observed Master Freddie. “How you like it,

hey, ole sport?”

He always insisted on having an answer to his remarks, leaning over

Jurgis and smiling into his face. Jurgis liked it.

“Rummy ole place to feed in all ’lone, though,” was Freddie’s

comment—“rummy’s hell! Whuzya think, hey?” Then another idea occurred

to him and he went on, without waiting: “Maybe you never saw

anythin—hic—like this ’fore? Hey, ole chappie?”

“No,” said Jurgis.

“Come from country, maybe—hey?”

“Yes,” said Jurgis.

“Aha! I thosso! Lossa folks from country never saw such a place.

Guv’ner brings ’em—free show—hic—reg’lar circus! Go home tell folks

about it. Ole man Jones’s place—Jones the packer—beef-trust man. Made

it all out of hogs, too, damn ole scoundrel. Now we see where our

pennies go—rebates, an’ private car lines—hic—by Harry! Bully place,

though—worth seein’! Ever hear of Jones the packer, hey, ole chappie?”

Jurgis had started involuntarily; the other, whose sharp eyes missed

nothing, demanded: “Whuzzamatter, hey? Heard of him?”

And Jurgis managed to stammer out: “I have worked for him in the

yards.”

“What!” cried Master Freddie, with a yell. “_You!_ In the yards? Ho,

ho! Why, say, thass good! Shake hands on it, ole man—by Harry! Guv’ner

ought to be here—glad to see you. Great fren’s with the men,

guv’ner—labor an’ capital, commun’ty ’f int’rests, an’ all that—hic!

Funny things happen in this world, don’t they, ole man? Hamilton, lemme

interduce you—fren’ the family—ole fren’ the guv’ner’s—works in the

yards. Come to spend the night wiz me, Hamilton—have a hot time. Me

fren’, Mr.—whuzya name, ole chappie? Tell us your name.”

“Rudkus—Jurgis Rudkus.”

“My fren’, Mr. Rednose, Hamilton—shake han’s.”

The stately butler bowed his head, but made not a sound; and suddenly

Master Freddie pointed an eager finger at him. “I know whuzzamatter wiz

you, Hamilton—lay you a dollar I know! You think—hic—you think I’m

drunk! Hey, now?”

And the butler again bowed his head. “Yes, sir,” he said, at which

Master Freddie hung tightly upon Jurgis’s neck and went into a fit of

laughter. “Hamilton, you damn ole scoundrel,” he roared, “I’ll ’scharge

you for impudence, you see ’f I don’t! Ho, ho, ho! I’m drunk! Ho, ho!”

The two waited until his fit had spent itself, to see what new whim

would seize him. “Whatcha wanta do?” he queried suddenly. “Wanta see

the place, ole chappie? Wamme play the guv’ner—show you roun’? State

parlors—Looee Cans—Looee Sez—chairs cost three thousand apiece. Tea

room Maryanntnet—picture of shepherds dancing—Ruysdael—twenty-three

thousan’! Ballroom—balc’ny pillars—hic—imported—special

ship—sixty-eight thousan’! Ceilin’ painted in Rome—whuzzat feller’s

name, Hamilton—Mattatoni? Macaroni? Then this place—silver

bowl—Benvenuto Cellini—rummy ole Dago! An’ the organ—thirty thousan’

dollars, sir—starter up, Hamilton, let Mr. Rednose hear it. No—never

mind—clean forgot—says he’s hungry, Hamilton—less have some supper.

Only—hic—don’t less have it here—come up to my place, ole sport—nice

an’ cosy. This way—steady now, don’t slip on the floor. Hamilton, we’ll

have a cole spread, an’ some fizz—don’t leave out the fizz, by Harry.

We’ll have some of the eighteen-thirty Madeira. Hear me, sir?”

“Yes, sir,” said the butler, “but, Master Frederick, your father left

orders—”

And Master Frederick drew himself up to a stately height. “My father’s

orders were left to me—hic—an’ not to you,” he said. Then, clasping

Jurgis tightly by the neck, he staggered out of the room; on the way

another idea occurred to him, and he asked: “Any—hic—cable message for

me, Hamilton?”

“No, sir,” said the butler.

“Guv’ner must be travelin’. An’ how’s the twins, Hamilton?”

“They are doing well, sir.”

“Good!” said Master Freddie; and added fervently: “God bless ’em, the

little lambs!”

They went up the great staircase, one step at a time; at the top of it

there gleamed at them out of the shadows the figure of a nymph

crouching by a fountain, a figure ravishingly beautiful, the flesh warm

and glowing with the hues of life. Above was a huge court, with domed

roof, the various apartments opening into it. The butler had paused

below but a few minutes to give orders, and then followed them; now he

pressed a button, and the hall blazed with light. He opened a door

before them, and then pressed another button, as they staggered into

the apartment.

It was fitted up as a study. In the center was a mahogany table,

covered with books, and smokers’ implements; the walls were decorated

with college trophies and colors—flags, posters, photographs and

knickknacks—tennis rackets, canoe paddles, golf clubs, and polo sticks.

An enormous moose head, with horns six feet across, faced a buffalo

head on the opposite wall, while bear and tiger skins covered the

polished floor. There were lounging chairs and sofas, window seats

covered with soft cushions of fantastic designs; there was one corner

fitted in Persian fashion, with a huge canopy and a jeweled lamp

beneath. Beyond, a door opened upon a bedroom, and beyond that was a

swimming pool of the purest marble, that had cost about forty thousand

dollars.

Master Freddie stood for a moment or two, gazing about him; then out of

the next room a dog emerged, a monstrous bulldog, the most hideous

object that Jurgis had ever laid eyes upon. He yawned, opening a mouth

like a dragon’s; and he came toward the young man, wagging his tail.

“Hello, Dewey!” cried his master. “Been havin’ a snooze, ole boy? Well,

well—hello there, whuzzamatter?” (The dog was snarling at Jurgis.)

“Why, Dewey—this’ my fren’, Mr. Rednose—ole fren’ the guv’ner’s! Mr.

Rednose, Admiral Dewey; shake han’s—hic. Ain’t he a daisy, though—blue

ribbon at the New York show—eighty-five hundred at a clip! How’s that,

hey?”

The speaker sank into one of the big armchairs, and Admiral Dewey

crouched beneath it; he did not snarl again, but he never took his eyes

off Jurgis. He was perfectly sober, was the Admiral.

The butler had closed the door, and he stood by it, watching Jurgis

every second. Now there came footsteps outside, and, as he opened the

door a man in livery entered, carrying a folding table, and behind him

two men with covered trays. They stood like statues while the first

spread the table and set out the contents of the trays upon it. There

were cold pates, and thin slices of meat, tiny bread and butter

sandwiches with the crust cut off, a bowl of sliced peaches and cream

(in January), little fancy cakes, pink and green and yellow and white,

and half a dozen ice-cold bottles of wine.

“Thass the stuff for you!” cried Master Freddie, exultantly, as he

spied them. “Come ’long, ole chappie, move up.”

And he seated himself at the table; the waiter pulled a cork, and he

took the bottle and poured three glasses of its contents in succession

down his throat. Then he gave a long-drawn sigh, and cried again to

Jurgis to seat himself.

The butler held the chair at the opposite side of the table, and Jurgis

thought it was to keep him out of it; but finally he understand that it

was the other’s intention to put it under him, and so he sat down,

cautiously and mistrustingly. Master Freddie perceived that the

attendants embarrassed him, and he remarked with a nod to them, “You

may go.”

They went, all save the butler.

“You may go too, Hamilton,” he said.

“Master Frederick—” the man began.

“Go!” cried the youngster, angrily. “Damn you, don’t you hear me?”

The man went out and closed the door; Jurgis, who was as sharp as he,

observed that he took the key out of the lock, in order that he might

peer through the keyhole.

Master Frederick turned to the table again. “Now,” he said, “go for

it.”

Jurgis gazed at him doubtingly. “Eat!” cried the other. “Pile in, ole

chappie!”

“Don’t you want anything?” Jurgis asked.

“Ain’t hungry,” was the reply—“only thirsty. Kitty and me had some

candy—you go on.”

So Jurgis began, without further parley. He ate as with two shovels,

his fork in one hand and his knife in the other; when he once got

started his wolf-hunger got the better of him, and he did not stop for

breath until he had cleared every plate. “Gee whiz!” said the other,

who had been watching him in wonder.

Then he held Jurgis the bottle. “Lessee you drink now,” he said; and

Jurgis took the bottle and turned it up to his mouth, and a wonderfully

unearthly liquid ecstasy poured down his throat, tickling every nerve

of him, thrilling him with joy. He drank the very last drop of it, and

then he gave vent to a long-drawn “Ah!”

“Good stuff, hey?” said Freddie, sympathetically; he had leaned back in

the big chair, putting his arm behind his head and gazing at Jurgis.

And Jurgis gazed back at him. He was clad in spotless evening dress,

was Freddie, and looked very handsome—he was a beautiful boy, with

light golden hair and the head of an Antinous. He smiled at Jurgis

confidingly, and then started talking again, with his blissful

_insouciance_. This time he talked for ten minutes at a stretch, and in

the course of the speech he told Jurgis all of his family history. His

big brother Charlie was in love with the guileless maiden who played

the part of “Little Bright-Eyes” in “The Kaliph of Kamskatka.” He had

been on the verge of marrying her once, only “the guv’ner” had sworn to

disinherit him, and had presented him with a sum that would stagger the

imagination, and that had staggered the virtue of “Little Bright-Eyes.”

Now Charlie had got leave from college, and had gone away in his

automobile on the next best thing to a honeymoon. “The guv’ner” had

made threats to disinherit another of his children also, sister

Gwendolen, who had married an Italian marquis with a string of titles

and a dueling record. They lived in his chateau, or rather had, until

he had taken to firing the breakfast dishes at her; then she had cabled

for help, and the old gentleman had gone over to find out what were his

Grace’s terms. So they had left Freddie all alone, and he with less

than two thousand dollars in his pocket. Freddie was up in arms and

meant serious business, as they would find in the end—if there was no

other way of bringing them to terms he would have his “Kittens” wire

that she was about to marry him, and see what happened then.

So the cheerful youngster rattled on, until he was tired out. He smiled

his sweetest smile at Jurgis, and then he closed his eyes, sleepily.

Then he opened them again, and smiled once more, and finally closed

them and forgot to open them.

For several minutes Jurgis sat perfectly motionless, watching him, and

reveling in the strange sensation of the champagne. Once he stirred,

and the dog growled; after that he sat almost holding his breath—until

after a while the door of the room opened softly, and the butler came

in.

He walked toward Jurgis upon tiptoe, scowling at him; and Jurgis rose

up, and retreated, scowling back. So until he was against the wall, and

then the butler came close, and pointed toward the door. “Get out of

here!” he whispered.

Jurgis hesitated, giving a glance at Freddie, who was snoring softly.

“If you do, you son of a—” hissed the butler, “I’ll mash in your face

for you before you get out of here!”

And Jurgis wavered but an instant more. He saw “Admiral Dewey” coming

up behind the man and growling softly, to back up his threats. Then he

surrendered and started toward the door.

They went out without a sound, and down the great echoing staircase,

and through the dark hall. At the front door he paused, and the butler

strode close to him.

“Hold up your hands,” he snarled. Jurgis took a step back, clinching

his one well fist.

“What for?” he cried; and then understanding that the fellow proposed

to search him, he answered, “I’ll see you in hell first.”

“Do you want to go to jail?” demanded the butler, menacingly. “I’ll

have the police—”

“Have ’em!” roared Jurgis, with fierce passion. “But you won’t put your

hands on me till you do! I haven’t touched anything in your damned

house, and I’ll not have you touch me!”

So the butler, who was terrified lest his young master should waken,

stepped suddenly to the door, and opened it. “Get out of here!” he

said; and then as Jurgis passed through the opening, he gave him a

ferocious kick that sent him down the great stone steps at a run, and

landed him sprawling in the snow at the bottom.

CHAPTER XXV

Jurgis got up, wild with rage, but the door was shut and the great

castle was dark and impregnable. Then the icy teeth of the blast bit

into him, and he turned and went away at a run.

When he stopped again it was because he was coming to frequented

streets and did not wish to attract attention. In spite of that last

humiliation, his heart was thumping fast with triumph. He had come out

ahead on that deal! He put his hand into his trousers’ pocket every now

and then, to make sure that the precious hundred-dollar bill was still

there.

Yet he was in a plight—a curious and even dreadful plight, when he came

to realize it. He had not a single cent but that one bill! And he had

to find some shelter that night he had to change it!

Jurgis spent half an hour walking and debating the problem. There was

no one he could go to for help—he had to manage it all alone. To get it

changed in a lodging-house would be to take his life in his hands—he

would almost certainly be robbed, and perhaps murdered, before morning.

He might go to some hotel or railroad depot and ask to have it changed;

but what would they think, seeing a “bum” like him with a hundred

dollars? He would probably be arrested if he tried it; and what story

could he tell? On the morrow Freddie Jones would discover his loss, and

there would be a hunt for him, and he would lose his money. The only

other plan he could think of was to try in a saloon. He might pay them

to change it, if it could not be done otherwise.

He began peering into places as he walked; he passed several as being

too crowded—then finally, chancing upon one where the bartender was all

alone, he gripped his hands in sudden resolution and went in.

“Can you change me a hundred-dollar bill?” he demanded.

The bartender was a big, husky fellow, with the jaw of a prize fighter,

and a three weeks’ stubble of hair upon it. He stared at Jurgis.

“What’s that youse say?” he demanded.

“I said, could you change me a hundred-dollar bill?”

“Where’d youse get it?” he inquired incredulously.

“Never mind,” said Jurgis; “I’ve got it, and I want it changed. I’ll

pay you if you’ll do it.”

The other stared at him hard. “Lemme see it,” he said.

“Will you change it?” Jurgis demanded, gripping it tightly in his

pocket.

“How the hell can I know if it’s good or not?” retorted the bartender.

“Whatcher take me for, hey?”

Then Jurgis slowly and warily approached him; he took out the bill, and

fumbled it for a moment, while the man stared at him with hostile eyes

across the counter. Then finally he handed it over.

The other took it, and began to examine it; he smoothed it between his

fingers, and held it up to the light; he turned it over, and upside

down, and edgeways. It was new and rather stiff, and that made him

dubious. Jurgis was watching him like a cat all the time.

“Humph,” he said, finally, and gazed at the stranger, sizing him up—a

ragged, ill-smelling tramp, with no overcoat and one arm in a sling—and

a hundred-dollar bill! “Want to buy anything?” he demanded.

“Yes,” said Jurgis, “I’ll take a glass of beer.”

“All right,” said the other, “I’ll change it.” And he put the bill in

his pocket, and poured Jurgis out a glass of beer, and set it on the

counter. Then he turned to the cash register, and punched up five

cents, and began to pull money out of the drawer. Finally, he faced

Jurgis, counting it out—two dimes, a quarter, and fifty cents. “There,”

he said.

For a second Jurgis waited, expecting to see him turn again. “My

ninety-nine dollars,” he said.

“What ninety-nine dollars?” demanded the bartender.

“My change!” he cried—“the rest of my hundred!”

“Go on,” said the bartender, “you’re nutty!”

And Jurgis stared at him with wild eyes. For an instant horror reigned

in him—black, paralyzing, awful horror, clutching him at the heart; and

then came rage, in surging, blinding floods—he screamed aloud, and

seized the glass and hurled it at the other’s head. The man ducked, and

it missed him by half an inch; he rose again and faced Jurgis, who was

vaulting over the bar with his one well arm, and dealt him a smashing

blow in the face, hurling him backward upon the floor. Then, as Jurgis

scrambled to his feet again and started round the counter after him, he

shouted at the top of his voice, “Help! help!”

Jurgis seized a bottle off the counter as he ran; and as the bartender

made a leap he hurled the missile at him with all his force. It just

grazed his head, and shivered into a thousand pieces against the post

of the door. Then Jurgis started back, rushing at the man again in the

middle of the room. This time, in his blind frenzy, he came without a

bottle, and that was all the bartender wanted—he met him halfway and

floored him with a sledgehammer drive between the eyes. An instant

later the screen doors flew open, and two men rushed in—just as Jurgis

was getting to his feet again, foaming at the mouth with rage, and

trying to tear his broken arm out of its bandages.

“Look out!” shouted the bartender. “He’s got a knife!” Then, seeing

that the two were disposed to join the fray, he made another rush at

Jurgis, and knocked aside his feeble defense and sent him tumbling

again; and the three flung themselves upon him, rolling and kicking

about the place.

A second later a policeman dashed in, and the bartender yelled once

more—“Look out for his knife!” Jurgis had fought himself half to his

knees, when the policeman made a leap at him, and cracked him across

the face with his club. Though the blow staggered him, the wild-beast

frenzy still blazed in him, and he got to his feet, lunging into the

air. Then again the club descended, full upon his head, and he dropped

like a log to the floor.

The policeman crouched over him, clutching his stick, waiting for him

to try to rise again; and meantime the barkeeper got up, and put his

hand to his head. “Christ!” he said, “I thought I was done for that

time. Did he cut me?”

“Don’t see anything, Jake,” said the policeman. “What’s the matter with

him?”

“Just crazy drunk,” said the other. “A lame duck, too—but he ’most got

me under the bar. Youse had better call the wagon, Billy.”

“No,” said the officer. “He’s got no more fight in him, I guess—and

he’s only got a block to go.” He twisted his hand in Jurgis’s collar

and jerked at him. “Git up here, you!” he commanded.

But Jurgis did not move, and the bartender went behind the bar, and

after stowing the hundred-dollar bill away in a safe hiding place, came

and poured a glass of water over Jurgis. Then, as the latter began to

moan feebly, the policeman got him to his feet and dragged him out of

the place. The station house was just around the corner, and so in a

few minutes Jurgis was in a cell.

He spent half the night lying unconscious, and the balance moaning in

torment, with a blinding headache and a racking thirst. Now and then he

cried aloud for a drink of water, but there was no one to hear him.

There were others in that same station house with split heads and a

fever; there were hundreds of them in the great city, and tens of

thousands of them in the great land, and there was no one to hear any

of them.

In the morning Jurgis was given a cup of water and a piece of bread,

and then hustled into a patrol wagon and driven to the nearest police

court. He sat in the pen with a score of others until his turn came.

The bartender—who proved to be a well-known bruiser—was called to the

stand. He took the oath and told his story. The prisoner had come into

his saloon after midnight, fighting drunk, and had ordered a glass of

beer and tendered a dollar bill in payment. He had been given

ninety-five cents’ change, and had demanded ninety-nine dollars more,

and before the plaintiff could even answer had hurled the glass at him

and then attacked him with a bottle of bitters, and nearly wrecked the

place.

Then the prisoner was sworn—a forlorn object, haggard and unshorn, with

an arm done up in a filthy bandage, a cheek and head cut, and bloody,

and one eye purplish black and entirely closed. “What have you to say

for yourself?” queried the magistrate.

“Your Honor,” said Jurgis, “I went into his place and asked the man if

he could change me a hundred-dollar bill. And he said he would if I

bought a drink. I gave him the bill and then he wouldn’t give me the

change.”

The magistrate was staring at him in perplexity. “You gave him a

hundred-dollar bill!” he exclaimed.

“Yes, your Honor,” said Jurgis.

“Where did you get it?”

“A man gave it to me, your Honor.”

“A man? What man, and what for?”

“A young man I met upon the street, your Honor. I had been begging.”

There was a titter in the courtroom; the officer who was holding Jurgis

put up his hand to hide a smile, and the magistrate smiled without

trying to hide it. “It’s true, your Honor!” cried Jurgis, passionately.

“You had been drinking as well as begging last night, had you not?”

inquired the magistrate. “No, your Honor—” protested Jurgis. “I—”

“You had not had anything to drink?”

“Why, yes, your Honor, I had—”

“What did you have?”

“I had a bottle of something—I don’t know what it was—something that

burned—”

There was again a laugh round the courtroom, stopping suddenly as the

magistrate looked up and frowned. “Have you ever been arrested before?”

he asked abruptly.

The question took Jurgis aback. “I—I—” he stammered.