 CHAPTER XVI When Yurgis got up again, he went quietly enough. He was exhausted, and half dazed, and besides he saw the blue uniforms of the policeman. He drove in a patrol wagon with half a dozen of them watching him, keeping as far away as possible, however, on account of the fertilizer. Then he stood before the sergeant's desk and gave his name and address, and saw a charge of assault and battery entered against him. On his way to his cell, a burly policeman cursed him because he started down the wrong corridor, and then added a kick when he was not quick enough. Nevertheless, Yurgis did not even lift his eyes. He had lived two years and a half in Packingtown, and he knew what the police were. It was as much as a man's very like was worth to anger them, here in their inmost layer. Like as not a dozen would pile on to him at once and pound his face into a pulp. It would be nothing unusual if he had his skull cracked in the melee, in which case they would report that he had been drunk and had fallen down, and there would be no one to know the difference or to care. So a barred door clanged upon Yurgis and he sat down upon a bench and buried his face in his hands. He was alone. He had the afternoon and all of the night to himself. At first he was like a wild beast that has glutted itself. He was an adult stupor of satisfaction. He had done up the scoundrel pretty well. Not as well as he would have if they had given him a minute more, but pretty well all the same. The ends of his fingers were still tingling from their contact with the fellow's throat. But then, little by little, as his strength came back and his senses cleared, he began to see beyond his momentary gratification that he had nearly killed the boss would not help Onah, not the horrors that she had borne nor the memory that would haunt her all her days. It would not help defeat her and her child. She would certainly lose her place, while he, what was to happen to him, God only knew. Half the night he paced the floor, wrestling with this nightmare, and when he was exhausted he lay down, trying to sleep, but finding instead for the first time in his life that his brain was too much for him. In the cell next to him was a drunken wife-beater, and in the one beyond a yelling maniac. At night they opened the station house to the homeless wanderers who were crowded about the door, shivering in the winter blast, and they thronged into the corridor outside of the cells. Some of them stretched themselves out on the bare stone floor, and fell to snoring. Others sat up, laughing and talking, cursing and quarreling. The air was fetid with their breath, yet in spite of this some of them smelled and called down the torrents of hell upon him, while he lay in a far corner of his cell, counting the throbbing of the blood in his forehead. They had brought him his supper, which was duffers and dope, being hunks of dry bread on a tin plate, and coffee called dope because it was drugged to keep the prisoners quiet. Yurgis had not known this, for he would have swallowed the stuff in desperation, as it was every nerve of him was a quiver with shame and rage. Toward morning the place fell silent, and he got up and began to pace his cell, and then within the soul of him there rose up a fiend, red-eyed and cruel, and tore out the strings of his heart. It was not for himself that he suffered what did a man who worked in Durham's fertilizer mill care about anything that the world might do to him. What was any tyranny of prison compared with the tyranny of the past, of the thing that had happened and could not be recalled, of the memory that could never be afaced? The horror of it drove him mad. He stretched out his arms to heaven, crying out for deliverance from it. And there was no deliverance. There was no power, even in heaven, that could undo the past. It was a ghost that would not drown. It followed him, it seized upon him, and beat him to the ground. Ah, if only he could have foreseen it, but then he would have foreseen it if he had not been a fool. He smote his hands upon his forehead, cursing himself because he had ever allowed Ona to work where she had, because he had not stood between her and a fate which everyone knew to be so common. He should have taken her away, even if it were to lie down and die of starvation in the gutters of Chicago's streets. And now, oh, it could not be true, it was too monstrous, too horrible. It was a thing that could not be faced. A new shuddering seized him every time he tried to think of it. No, there was no bearing the load of it, there was no living under it, there would be none for her. He knew that he might pardon her, might plead with her on his knees, but she would never look him in the face again. She would never be his wife again. The shame of it would kill her. There could be no other deliverance, and it was best that she should die. This was simple and clear, and yet with cruel inconsistency, whenever he escaped from this nightmare, it was to suffer and cry out at the vision of Ona starving. They had put him in jail, and they would keep him here a long time, years maybe. And Ona would surely not go to work again, broken and crushed as she was. And Elsbeta and Maria too might lose their places. If that hell-fiend Connor chose to set to work to ruin them, they would all be turned out. And even if he did not, they could not live. Even if the boys left school again, they could surely not pay all the bills without him and Ona. They had only a few dollars now. They had just paid the rent of the house a week ago, and that after it was two weeks overdue. So it would be due again in a week. They would have no money to pay it then, and they would lose the house after all their long, heartbreaking struggle. Three times now the agent had warned him that he would not tolerate another delay. Perhaps it was very base of Yurgis to be thinking about the house when he had the other unspeakable thing to fill his mind. Yet how much he had suffered for this house, how much they had all of them suffered. It was their one hope of respite as long as they lived. They had put all their money into it, and they were working people, poor people, whose money was their strength, the very substance of them, body and soul, the thing by which they lived and for lack of which they died. And they would lose it all. They would be turned out into the streets, and have to hide in some icy garret, and live or die as best they could. Yurgis had all the night, and all of many more nights to think about this, and he saw the thing in its details. He lived it all as if he were there. They would sell their furniture, and then run into debt at the stores, and then be refused credit. They would borrow a little from the Chevilises, whose delicatessen store was tottering on the brink of ruin. The neighbors would come and help them a little. Poor, sick Yadviga would bring a few spare pennies, as she always did when people were starving, and Tamosias Kushlyka would bring them the proceeds of a night's fiddling. So they would struggle to hang on until he got out of jail. Or would they know that he was in jail? Would they be able to find out anything about him? Would they be allowed to see him? Or was it to be part of his punishment to be kept in ignorance about their fate? His mind would hang upon the worst possibilities. He saw Ona ill and tortured, Maria out of her place, little Stanislovis unable to get to work for the snow. The whole family turned out on the street. God Almighty, would they actually let them lie down in the street and die? Would there be no help even then? Would they wander about in the snow till they froze? Yurgis had never seen any dead bodies in the streets, but he had seen people evicted and disappear. No one knew where. And though the city had a relief bureau, though there was a charity organization society in the stockyard's district, in all his life there he had never heard of either of them. They did not advertise their activities, having more calls than they could attend to without that. So on until morning. Then he had another ride in the patrol wagon, along with the drunken wife veeter and the maniac, several plain drunks and saloon fighters, a burglar, and two men who had been arrested for stealing meat from the packing houses. Along with them he was driven into a large white-walled room stale-smelling and crowded. In front upon a raised platform behind a rail sat a stout, florid-faced personage, with a nose broken out in purple blotches. Our friend realized vaguely that he was about to be tried. He wondered what for, whether or not his victim might be dead, and if so, what they would do with him. Hang him, perhaps, or beat him to death. Nothing would have surprised Yurgis, who knew little of the laws. Yet he had picked up, gossiping up, to have it occur to him that the loud-voiced man upon the bench might be the notorious Justice Callahan about whom the people of Packingtown spoke with fated breath. Pat Callahan, growler Pat, as he had been known before he ascended the bench, had begun life as a butcher-boy and a bruiser of local reputation. He had gone into politics almost as soon as he had learned to talk, and had held two offices at once before he was old enough to vote. If Scully was the thumb, Pat Callahan was the first finger of the unseen hand whereby the packers held down the people of the district. No politician in Chicago ranked higher in their confidence. He had been at it a long time, had been the business agent in the city council of Old Durham, the self-made merchant way back in the early days, when the whole city of Chicago had been up at auction. Roller Pat had given up holding city offices very early in his career, caring only for party power and giving the rest of his time to superintending his dives and brothels. Of late years, however, since his children were growing up, he had begun to value respectability, and had himself made a magistrate, a position for which he was admirably fit it, because of his strong conservatism and his contempt for foreigners. Yorker sat gazing about the room for an hour or two. He was in hopes that someone of the family would come, but in this he was disappointed. Finally, he was led before the bar, and a lawyer for the company appeared against him. Connor was under the doctor's care, the lawyer explained briefly, and if his honor would hold the prisoner for a week, three hundred dollars, said his honor promptly, Yurgis was staring from the judge to the lawyer in perplexity. Have you anyone to go on your bond, demanded the judge, and then a clerk who stood at Yurgis' elbow explained to him what this meant. The latter shook his head, and before he realized what had happened, the policeman were leading him away again. They took him to a room where other prisoners were waiting, and here he stayed until court adjourned, when he had another long and bitterly cold ride in a patrol wagon to the county jail, which is on the north side of the city and nine or ten miles from the stockyards. Here they searched Yurgis, leaving him only his money, which consisted of fifteen cents. Then they led him to a room and told him to strip for a bath, after which he had to walk down a long gallery past the great cell doors of the inmates of the jail. This was a great event to the latter, the daily review of the new arrivals, all stark naked, and many and diverting were the comments. Yurgis was required to stay in the bath longer than anyone, in the vain hope of getting out of him a few of his phosphates and acids. The prisoners roomed two in a cell, but that day there was one left over, and he was the one. The cells were in tears, opening upon galleries. His cell was about five feet by seven in size, with a stone floor and a heavy wooden bench built into it. There was no window. The only light came from the windows near the roof at one end of the court outside. There were two bunks, one above the other, each with a straw mattress and a pair of gray blankets. The latter stiffed as boards with filth, and alive with fleas, bedbugs, and lice. When Yurgis lifted up the mattress, he discovered beneath it a layer of scurrying roaches, almost as badly frightened as himself. Here they brought him more duffers and dope, with the addition of a bowl of soup. Many of the prisoners had their meals brought in from a restaurant, but Yurgis had no money for that. Some had books to read, and cards to play, with candles to burn by night, but Yurgis was all alone in darkness and silence. He could not sleep again. There was the same maddening procession of plots that lashed him like whips upon his naked back. When night fell, he was pacing up and down his cell like a wild beast that breaks its teeth upon the bars of its cage. Now and then in his frenzy he would fling himself against the walls of the place, beating his hands upon them. They cut him and bruised him. They were cold and merciless as the men who had built them. In the distance there was a church-tower bell that told the hours one by one. When it came to midnight, Yurgis was lying upon the floor with his head in his hands, listening. Instead of falling silent at the end, the bell broke into a sudden clanger. Yurgis raised his head. What could that mean? A fire? God! Suppose there were to be a fire in this jail. But then he made out a melody in the ringing. There were chimes, and they seemed to waken the city. All around, far and near, there were bells ringing wild music. For fully a minute, Yurgis lay lost in wonder. Before, all at once, the meaning of it broke over him. That this was Christmas Eve. He had forgotten it entirely. There was a breaking of floodgates, a whirl of new memories and new griefs rushing into his mind. In far Lithuania they had celebrated Christmas, and it came to him as if it had been yesterday, himself a little child with his lost brother and his dead father in the cabin. In the deep black forest where the snow fell all day and all night and buried them from the world. It was too far off for Santa Claus in Lithuania, but it was not too far for peace and goodwill to men, for the wonder-bearing vision of the Christ child. And even in Packingtown they had not forgotten it. Some gleam of it had never failed to break their darkness. Last Christmas Eve and all Christmas day Yurgis had toiled on the killing beds and Ona at wrapping hands, and still they had found strength enough to take the children for a walk upon the avenue to see the store windows all decorated with Christmas trees and a blaze with electric lights. In one window there would be live geese, in another marbles and sugar, pink and white canes big enough for ogres, and cakes with cherubs upon them. In a third there would be rows of fat yellow turkeys decorated with rosettes and rabbits and squirrels hanging. In a fourth would be a fairyland of toys, lovely dowels with pink dresses and woolly sheep and drums and soldier hats. Nor did they have to go without their share of all this either. The last time they had had a big basket with them and all their Christmas marketing to do, a roast of pork and a cabbage and some rye bread and a pair of mittens for Ona and a rubber doll that squeaked and a little green cornucopia full of candy to be hung from the gas jet and gazed at by half a dozen pairs of longing eyes. Even half a year of the sausage machines and the fertilizer mill had not been able to kill the thought of Christmas in them. There was a choking in Jörga's throat as he recalled that the very night Ona had not come home, Teta Esbeta had taken him aside and shown him an old valentine that she had picked up in a paper store for three cents, dingy and shop-worn, but with bright colors and figures of angels and doves. She had wiped all the specks off this and was going to set it on the mantle where the children could see it. Great sobs shook Jörga's at this memory. They would spend their Christmas in misery and despair with him in prison and Ona ill and their home in desolation. I was too cruel. Why at least had they not left him alone? Why after they had shut him in jail? Must they be ringing Christmas chimes in his ears? But no, their bells were not ringing for him. Their Christmas was not meant for him. They were simply not counting him at all. He was of no consequence. He was flung aside like a bit of trash, the carcass of some animal. It was horrible, horrible. His wife might be dying, his baby might be starving, his whole family might be perishing in the cold, and all the while they were ringing their Christmas chimes and the bitter mockery of it, all this was punishment for him. They put him in a place where the snow could not feed in, where the cold could not eat through his bones. They brought him food and drink. Why in the name of heaven, if they must punish him, did they not put his family in jail and leave him outside? Why could they find no better way to punish him than to leave three weak women and six helpless children to starve and freeze? That was their law. That was their justice. Yurga stood upright, trembling with passion. His hands clenched and his arms upraised. His whole soul ablaze with hatred and defiance. Ten thousand curses upon them and their law. Their justice. It was a lie. It was a lie. A hideous, brutal lie. A thing too black and hateful for any world but a world of nightmares. It was a sham and a loathsome mockery. There was no justice. There was no right anywhere in it. It was only force. It was tyranny, the will and the power, reckless and unrestrained. They had ground him beneath their heel. They had devoured all his substance. They had murdered his old father. They had broken and wrecked his wife. They had crushed and cowed his whole family. And now they were through with him. They had no further use for him. And because he had interfered with them, had gotten in their way, this was what they had done to him. They had put him behind bars, as if he had been a wild beast. A thing without sense or reason, without rights, without affections, without feelings. Nay. They would not even have treated a beast as they had treated him. Would any man in his senses have trapped a wild thing in its lair and left its young behind to die? These midnight hours were fateful ones to Yurgis. In them was the beginning of his rebellion, of his outlawry and his unbelief. He had no whip to trace back the social crime to its far sources. He could not say that it was the thing men have called the system that was crushing him to the earth, that it was the Packers, his masters who had bought up the law of the land and had dealt out their brutal will to him from the seat of justice. He only knew that he was wronged, and that the world had wronged him, that the law, that society, with all its powers, had declared itself his foe. In every hour his soul grew blacker. Every hour he dreamed in new dreams of vengeance, of defiance, of raging, frenzy hate. The vilest deeds, like poison weeds, bloom well in prison air. It is only what is good in man that wastes and withers there. Real anguish keeps the heavy gate, and the water is despair. So wrote a poet to whom the world had dealt its justice. I know not whether laws be right or whether laws be wrong. All that we know who lie in jail is that the wall is strong, and they do well to hide their hell, for in it things are done, that son of God, nor son of man, ever should look upon. CHAPTER XVII. At seven o'clock the next morning Eurgus was led out to get water to wash his cell, a duty which he performed faithfully, but which most of the prisoners were accustomed to shirk until their cells became so filthy that the guards interposed. Then he had more duffers and dope, and afterward was allowed three hours for exercise in a long cement-walked court roofed with glass. Here were all the inmates of the jail crowded together. At one side of the court was a place for visitors, cut off by two heavy wire screens, a foot apart, so that nothing could be passed into the prisoners. Here Eurgus watched anxiously, but there came no one to see him. Soon after he went back to his cell a keeper opened the door to let in another prisoner. He was a dapper young fellow with a light-brown mustache and blue eyes and a graceful figure. He nodded to Eurgus, and then, as the keeper closed the door upon him, began gazing critically about him. "'Well, pal,' he said, as his glance encountered Eurgus again, "'Good morning,' said Eurgus. "'A rum go for Christmas, eh?' added the other, Eurgus nodded. The newcomer went to the bunks and inspected the blankets. He lifted up the mattress and then dropped it with an exclamation. "'My God,' he said, "'that's the worst yet!' He glanced at Eurgus again. Looks as if it hadn't been slept in last night. Couldn't stand it, eh?' "'I didn't want to sleep last night,' said Eurgus. "'When did you come in?' "'Yesterday.' The other had another look around and then wrinkled up his nose. "'There's the devil of a stinkin' here,' he said suddenly. "'What is it?' "'It's me,' said Eurgus. "'You?' "'Yes, me.' "'Didn't they make you wash?' "'Yes, but just don't wash.' "'What is it?' "'Fertilizer.' "'Fertilizer, the deuce! What are you?' "'I worked in the stockyards. At least I did until the other day. It's in my clothes.' "'That's a new one on me,' said the newcomer. "'I thought I'd been up against them all. What are you in for?' "'I hit my boss.' "'Oh, that's it. What did he do?' He—' He treated me mean. "'I see. You're what's called an honest working man.' "'What are you?' Eurgus asked. "'I,' the other laughed. "'They say I'm a cracksman,' he said. "'What's that?' asked Eurgus. "'Safeson such things,' answered the other. "'Oh,' said Eurgus, wonderingly, and stared at the speaker in awe. "'You mean you break into them. You—you—' "'Yes,' laughed the other. "'That's what they say.' He did not look to be over twenty-two or three, though as Eurgus found afterward, he was thirty. He spoke like a man of education, like what the world calls a gentleman. "'Is that what you're here for?' Eurgus inquired. "'Now,' was the answer, "'I'm here for disorderly conduct. They were mad because they couldn't get any evidence.' "'What's your name?' The young fellow continued after a pause. "'My name's Dwayne, Jack Dwayne. I'm more than a dozen, but that's my company one. He seated himself on the floor with his back to the wall and his legs crossed, and went on talking easily. He soon put Eurgus on a friendly footing. He was evidently a man of the world, used to getting on, and not too proud to hold conversation with a mere laboring man. He drew Eurgus out and heard all about his life, all but the one unmentionable thing. And then he told stories about his own life. He was a great one for stories, not always of the choicest. Being sent to jail had apparently not disturbed his cheerfulness. He had done time twice before, it seemed, and he took it all with a frolic welcome. What with women and wine and the excitement of his vocation, a man could afford to rest now and then. Naturally the aspect of prison life was changed for Eurgus by the arrival of a cellmate. He could not turn his face to the wall in sulk. He had to speak when he was spoken to. Nor could he help being interested in the conversation of Dwayne, the first educated man with whom he had ever talked. How could he help listening with wonder while the other told of midnight ventures and perilous escapes, of feastings and orgies, of fortunes squandered in a night? The young fellow had an amused contempt for Eurgus as a sort of working mule. He too had felt the world's injustice, but instead of bearing it patiently, he had struck back and struck hard. He was striking all the time. There was war between him and society. He was a genial freebooter, living off the enemy without fear or shame. He was not always victorious, but then defeat did not mean annihilation and need not break his spirit. With all he was a good-hearted fellow. Too much so it appeared. His story came out, not in the first day nor the second, but in the long hours that dragged by in which they had nothing to do but talk and nothing to talk of but themselves. Jack Dwayne was from the East. He was a college bread man, had been studying electrical engineering. Then his father had met with misfortune in business and killed himself, and there had been his mother and a younger brother and sister. Also there was an invention of Dwayne's. Eurgus could not understand it clearly, but it had to do with telegraphing, and it was a very important thing. There were fortunes in it, millions upon millions of dollars. And Dwayne had been robbed of it by a great company and got tangled up in lawsuits and lost all his money. Then somebody had given him a tip on a horse race, and he had tried to retrieve his fortune with another person's money and had to run away, and all the rest had come from that. The other asked him what had led him to safe-breaking, to Eurgus a wild and appalling occupation to think about. A man he had met, his cellmate had replied, one thing leads to another. Didn't he ever wonder about his family, Eurgus asked? Sometimes the other answered, but not often. He didn't allow it. Thinking about it would make it no better. This wasn't a world in which a man had any business with a family. Sooner or later, Eurgus would find that out also and give up the fight and shift for himself. Eurgus was so transparently what he pretended to be that his cellmate was as open with him as a child. It was pleasant to tell him at ventures. He was so full of wonder and admiration, he was so new to the ways of the country. Dwayne did not even bother to keep back names and places. He told all his tramps and his failures, his loves and his griefs. So he introduced Eurgus to many of the other prisoners, nearly half of whom he knew by name. The crowd had already given Eurgus a name. They called him, He Stinker. This was cruel, but they meant no harm by it, and he took it with a good-natured grin. Our friend had caught now and then a whiff from the sewers over which he lived, but this was the first time that he had ever been splashed by their filth. This jail was a Noah's Ark of the city's crime. There were murderers, hold-up men and burglars, embezzlers, counterfeiters and forgers, bigamists, shoplifters, confidence men, petty thieves and pickpockets, gamblers and procurers, brawlers, beggars, tramps and drunkards. They were black and white, old and young, Americans and natives of every nation under the sun. There were hardened criminals and innocent men too poor to give bail, old men and boys literally not yet in their teens. They were the drainage of the great festering ulcer of society. They were hideous to look upon, sickening to talk to. All life had turned to rottenness and stench in them. Love was a beastliness, joy was a snare, and God was an imprecation. They strolled here and there about the courtyard and Jurges listened to them. He was ignorant and they were wise. They had been everywhere and tried everything. They could tell the whole hateful story of it, set forth the inner soul of a city in which justice and honor, women's bodies and men's souls were for sale in the marketplace, and human beings writhed and fought and fell upon each other like wolves in a pit in which lusts were raging fires and men were fueled, and humanity was festering and stewing and wallowing in its own corruption. Into this wild beast-tangle these men had been born without their consent. They had taken part in it because they could not help it. That they were in jail was no disgrace to them, for the game had never been fair. The dice were loaded. They were swindlers and thieves of pennies and dimes, and they had been trapped and put out of the way by the swindlers and thieves of millions of dollars. To most of this Jurges tried not to listen. They frightened him with their savage mockery, and all the while his heart was far away where his loved ones were calling. Now and then in the midst of it his thoughts would take flight, and then the tears would come into his eyes, and he would be called back by the jeering laughter of his companions. He spent a week in this company, and during all that time he had no word from his home. He paid one of his fifteen cents for a postal card, and his companion wrote a note to the family telling them where he was and when he would be tried. There came no answer to it, however, and at last the day before New Year's Jurges bade goodbye to Jack Dwayne. The latter gave him his address, or rather the address of his mistress, and made Jurges promise to look him up. Maybe I could help you out of a wholesome day, he said, and added that he was sorry to have him go. Jurges rode in the patrol wagon back to Justice Callaghan's court for trial. One of the first things he made out, as he entered the room, was Teta Elzbita and little Cotrina looking pale and frightened, seated far in the rear. His heart began to pound, but he did not dare to try to signal to them, and neither did Elzbita. He took his seat in the prisoner's pen and sat gazing at them in helpless agony. He saw that Ona was not with them, and was full of foreboding as to what that might mean. He spent half an hour brooding over this, and then suddenly he straightened up, and the blood rushed into his face. A man had come in, Jurges could not see his features for the bandages that swathed him, but he knew the burly figure. It was Connor. A trembling seized him, and his limbs bent as if for a spring. Then suddenly he felt a hand on his collar, and heard a voice behind him. Sit down, you son of a— He subsided, but he never took his eyes off his enemy. The fellow was still alive, which was a disappointment in one way, and yet it was pleasant to see him, all in penitential plasters. He and the company lawyer who was with him came and took seats within the judge's railing, and a minute later the clerk called Jurges' name, and the policeman jerked him to his feet and led him before the bar, gripping him tightly by the arm, lest he should spring upon the boss. Jurges listened while the man entered the witness-chair, took the oath, and told his story. The wife of the prisoner had been employed in a department near him, and had been discharged for impudence to him. Half an hour later he had been violently attacked, knocked down, and almost choked to death. He had brought witnesses. They will probably not be necessary, observed the judge, and he turned to Jurges. You admit attacking the plaintiff? He asked. Him? inquired Jurges, pointing at the boss. Yes, said the judge. I hit him, sir, said Jurges. Say your honor, said the officer, pinching his arm hard. Your honor, said Jurges, obediently. You tried to choke him? Yes, sir, your honor. Ever been arrested before? No, sir, your honor. What have you to say for yourself? Jurges hesitated. What had he to say? In two years and a half he had learned to speak English for practical purposes, but these had never included the statement that someone had intimidated and seduced his wife. He tried once or twice, stammering and balking to the annoyance of the judge, who was gasping from the odor of fertilizer. Finally, the prisoner made it understood that his vocabulary was inadequate and there stepped up a dapper young man with waxed mustaches bidding him speak in any language he knew. Jurges began, supposing that he would be given time, he explained how the boss had taken advantage of his wife's position to make advances to her and had threatened her with the loss of her place. When the interpreter had translated this, the judge whose calendar was crowded and whose automobile was ordered for a certain hour interrupted with the remark, oh, I see, well, if he made love to your wife, why didn't she complain to the superintendent or leave the place? Jurges hesitated, somewhat taken aback. He began to explain that they were very poor, that work was hard to get. I see, said Justice Callahan, so instead you thought you would knock him down. He turned to the plaintiff inquiring. Is there any truth in this story, Mr. Conner? Not a particle, Your Honor, said the boss. It is very unpleasant. They tell some such tale every time you have to discharge a woman. Yes, I know, said the judge. I hear it often enough. The fellow seems to have handled you pretty roughly. Thirty days and costs, next case. Jurges had been listening in perplexity. It was only when the policeman who had him by the arm turned and started to lead him away that he realized that sentence had been passed. He gazed round him wildly. Thirty days, he panned it, and then he whirled upon the judge. What will my family do? He cried frantically. I have a wife and baby, sir, and they have no money. My God, they will starve to death. You would have done well to think about them before you committed the assault, said the judge, dryly, as he turned to look at the next prisoner. Jurges would have spoken again, but the policeman had seized him by the collar and was twisting it, and a second policeman was making for him with evidently hostile intentions. So he let them lead him away. Far down the room he saw Elspita and Cotrina risen from their seats, staring in fright. He made one effort to go to them and then, brought back by another twist at his throat, he bowed his head and gave up the struggle. They thrust him into a cell room where other prisoners were waiting, and as soon as court had adjourned they let him down with them into the Black Mariah and drove him away. This time Jurges was bound for the birdwell. A petty jail where Cook County prisoners served their time. It was even filthier and more crowded than the county jail. All the smaller fry of the latter had been sifted into it, the petty thieves and swindlers, the brawlers and vagrants. For his cellmate, Jurges had an Italian fruit seller who had refused to pay his graft to the policeman and been arrested for carrying a large pocket knife. As he did not understand a word of English, our friend was glad when he left. He gave place to a Norwegian sailor who had lost half an ear in a drunken brawl and who proved to be quarrelsome, cursing Jurges because he moved in his bunk and caused the roaches to drop upon the lower one. It would have been quite intolerable staying in a cell with this wild beast, but for the fact that all day long the prisoners were put at work breaking stone. Ten days of his thirty, Jurges spent thus, without hearing a word from his family. Then one day a keeper came and informed him that there was a visitor to see him. Jurges turned white and so weak at the knees that he could hardly leave his cell. The man let him down the corridor and a flight of steps to the visitor's room, which was barred like a cell. Through the grating Jurges could see someone sitting in a chair, and as he came into the room the person started up, and he saw that it was Little Stanislovis. At the sight of someone from home the big fellow nearly went to pieces. He had to steady himself by a chair, and he put his other hand to his forehead, as if to clear away a mist. Well, he said weakly. Little Stanislovis was also trembling, and all but too frightened to speak. They... They sent me to tell you, he said with a gulp. Well, Jurges repeated, he followed the boy's glance to where the keeper was standing, watching them. Never mind that, Jurges cried wildly. How are they? Ona is very sick, Stanislovis said, and we are almost starving. We can't get along. We thought you might be able to help us. Jurges ripped the chair tighter. There were beads of perspiration on his forehead, and his hand shook. I can't help you, he said. Ona lies in her room all day, the boy went on breathlessly. She won't eat anything, and she cries all the time. She won't tell what is the matter, and she won't go to work at all. Then a long time ago the man came for the rent. He was very cross. He came again last week. He said he would turn us out of the house. And then Maria. Asab choked Stanislovis, and he stopped. What's the matter with Maria? cried Jurges. She's cut her hand, said the boy. She's cut it bad this time worse than before. She can't work, and it's all turning green, and the company doctor says she may. She may have to have it cut off. And Maria cries all the time. Her money is nearly all gone, too, and we can't pay the rent and the interest on the house, and we have no coal and nothing more to eat. And the man at the store, he says, the little fellow stopped again, beginning to whimper. Go on, the other panted infrecy, go on. I, I will, sob Stanislovis. It's so, so cold all the time, and last Sunday it snowed again, a deep, deep snow. And I couldn't, couldn't get to work. God! Jurges half-shouted, and he took a step toward the child. There was an old hatred between them because of the snow, ever since that dreadful morning when the boy had had his fingers frozen, and Jurges had had to beat him to send him to work. Now he clenched his hands, looking as if he would try to break through the grading. You little villain, he cried. You didn't try. I did. I did. I told Stanislovis, shrinking from him in terror. I tried all day, two days. Elzbeta was with me, and she couldn't either. We couldn't walk at all. It was so deep, and we had nothing to eat, and, oh, it was so cold. I tried. And then the third day, Ona went with me. Ona? Yes, she tried to get to work, too. She had to. We were all starving. But she had lost her place. Jurges reeled and gave a gasp. She went back to that place, he screamed. She tried to, said Stanislovis, gazing at him in perplexity. Why not, Jurges? The man breathed hard three or four times. Go on, he panted, finally. I went with her, said Stanislovis, but Miss Henderson wouldn't take her back, and Connor saw her and cursed her. He was still banished up. Why did you hit him, Jurges? There was some fascinating mystery about this, the little fellow knew, but he could get no satisfaction. Jurges could not speak. He could only stare, his eyes starting out. She has been trying to get other work, the boy went on, but she's so weak, she can't keep up. And my boss would not take me back, either. Hannah says he knows Connor, and that's the reason. They've all got a grudge against us now. So I've got to go downtown and sell papers with the rest of the boys and Kothrina. Kothrina? Yes, she's been selling papers, too. She does best because she's a girl. Only the cold is so bad, it's terrible coming home at night, Jurges. Sometimes they can't come home at all. I'm going to try to find them tonight and sleep where they do, it's so late and it's such a long ways home. I've had to walk and I didn't know where it was. I don't know how to get back, either. Only mother said I must come because you would want to know, and maybe somebody would help your family when they had put you in jail so you couldn't work. And I walked all day to get here, and I only had a piece of bread for breakfast, Jurges. Mother hasn't any work, either, because the sausage department is shut down, and she goes and begs at houses with a basket, and people give her food. Only she didn't get much yesterday. It was too cold for her fingers, and today she was crying. So little Stanislovis went on, sobbing as he talked, and Jurges stood, gripping the table tightly, saying not a word, but feeling that his head would burst. It was like having weights piled upon him, one after another, crushing the life out of him. He struggled and fought within himself, as if in some terrible nightmare in which a man suffers an agony and cannot lift his hand nor cry out, but feels that he is going mad, that his brain is on fire, just when it seemed that another turn of the screw would kill him, little Stanislovis stopped. You cannot help us, he said, weakly. Jurges shook his head. They won't give you anything here? He shook it again. When are you coming out? Three weeks yet, Jurges answered, and the boy gazed around him uncertainly. Then I might as well go, he said. Jurges nodded, then suddenly, recollecting, he put his hand into his pocket and drew it out, shaking. Here, he said, holding out the fourteen cents. Take this to them. And Stanislovis took it, and after a little more hesitation started for the door. Good-bye, Jurges, he said, and the other noticed that he walked unsteadily as he passed out of sight. For a minute or so Jurges stood clinging to his chair, reeling and swaying. Then the keeper touched him on the arm, and he turned and went back to breaking stone. CHAPTER XVIII. Jurges did not get out of the bridewell quite as soon as he had expected. To his sentence there were added court costs of a dollar and a half. He was supposed to pay for the trouble of putting him in jail, and not having the money was obliged to work it off by three days more of toil. Nobody had taken the trouble to tell him this, only after counting the days and looking forward to the end in an agony of impatience. When the hour came that he expected to be free, he found himself still set at the Stoneheap, and laughed at when he ventured to protest. Then he concluded he must have counted wrong. But as another day passed he gave up all hope, and was sunk in the depths of despair when one morning after breakfast a keeper came to him with the word that his time was up at last. So he doffed his prison-garb and put on his old fertilizer-clothing, and heard the door of the prison clang behind him. He stood upon the steps bewildered. He could hardly believe that it was true, that the sky was above him again and the open streak before him, that he was a free man. But then the cold began to strike through his clothes, and he started quickly away. There had been a heavy snow, and now a thaw had set in. Fine, sleety rain was falling, driven by a wind that pierced Jorges to the bone. He had not stopped for his overcoat when he set out to do up Conner, and so his rides in the patrol wagons had been cruel experiences. His clothing was old and worn thin, and it never had been very warm. Now as he trudged on, the rain soon wed it through. There were six inches of watery slush on the sidewalks, so that his feet would soon have been soaked, even had there been no holes in his shoes. Jorges had had enough to eat in the jail, and the work had been the least trying of any that he had done since he came to Chicago. But even so, he had not grown strong. The fear and grief that had preyed upon his mind had worn him thin. Now he shivered and shrunk from the rain, hiding his hands in his pockets, and hunching his shoulders together. The bridewell grounds were on the outskirts of the city, and the country around them was unsettled and wild. On one side was the big drainage canal, and on the other a maze of railroad tracks, and so the wind had full sweep. After walking away, Jorges met a little ragamuffin whom he hailed. Hey, sonny! The boy cocked one eye at him. He knew that Jorges was a jailbird by his shaven head. What you want! He queried. How do you go to the stockyards? Jorges demanded. I don't go, replied the boy. Jorges hesitated a moment, non-plussed. Then he said, I mean, which is the way? Why don't your say so, then, was the response, and the boy pointed to the northwest across the tracks. That way. How far is it, Jorges asked? I don't know, said the other, maybe twenty miles or so? Twenty miles, Jorges echoed, and his face fell. He had to walk every foot of it, or they had turned him out of jail without a penny in his pockets. Yet when he once got started, and his blood warmed with walking, he forgot everything in the fever of his thoughts. All the dreadful imaginations that had haunted him in his cell now rushed into his mind at once. The agony was almost over. He was going to find out, and he clenched his hands in his pockets as he strode, following his flying desire almost at a run. Ona, the baby, the family, the house, he would know the truth about them all, and he was coming to the rescue. He was free again. His hands were his own, and he could help them. He could do battle for them against the world. For an hour or so he walked thus, and then he began to look about him. He seemed to be leaving the city altogether. The street was turning into a country road, leading out to the westward. There were snow-covered fields on either side of him. Soon he met a farmer driving a two-horse wagon loaded with straw, and he stopped him. "'Is this the way to the stockyards?' he asked. The farmer scratched his head. "'I don't know just where they be,' he said, but they're in the city somewhere, and you're going dead away from it now.' Yurgis looked dazed. I was told this was the way,' he said. "'Who told you?' "'A boy.' "'Well, maybe he was playing a joke on you. The best thing you can do is to go back, and when you get into town, ask a policeman. I'd take you in. Only I've come a long ways, and I'm loaded heavy. Get up!' So Yurgis turned and followed, and toward the end of the morning he began to see Chicago again. Past endless blocks of two-story shanties he walked, a long wooden sidewalks and unpaid pathways treacherous with deep slush holes. Every few blocks there would be a railroad crossing on the level with the sidewalk, a death trap for the unwary. Long freight trains would be passing, the cars clanking and crashing together, and Yurgis would pace without waiting, burning up with a fever of impatience. Occasionally the cars would stop for some minutes, and wagons and streetcars would crowd together waiting, the drivers squaring at each other or hiding beneath umbrellas out of the rain. At such times Yurgis would dodge under the gates and run across the tracks and between the cars, taking his life into his hands. He crossed a long bridge over a river frozen solid and covered with slush. Not even on the riverbank was the snow white. The rain which fell was a diluted solution of smoke, and Yurgis' hands and face were streaked with black. Then he came into the business part of the city, where the streets were sewers of inky blackness, with horses sleeping and plunging, and women and children flying across in panic-stricken droves. These streets were huge canyons formed by towering black buildings, echoing with the clang of car gongs and the shouts of drivers. The people who swarmed in them were as busy as ants, all hurrying breathlessly, never stopping to look at anything nor at each other. The solitary, trapish-looking foreigner, with water-soaked clothing and haggard face and anxious eyes, was as much alone as he hurried past them, as much unheeded and as lost as if he had been a thousand miles deep in a wilderness. A policeman gave him his direction and told him that he had five miles to go. He came again to the slum districts, to avenues of saloons and cheap stores with long, dingy red factory buildings and coal yards and railroad tracks. And then Yurgis lifted up his head and began to sniff the air like a startled animal, senting the far-off odor of home. It was late afternoon then, and he was hungry, but the dinner invitations hung out of the saloons were not for him. So he came at last to the stockyards, to the black volcanoes of smoke and the lowing cattle and the stench. Then seeing a crowded car, his impatience got the better of him, and he jumped aboard, hiding behind another man unnoticed by the conductor. In ten minutes more he had reached his street and home. He was half running as he came round the corner. There was the house at any rate, and then suddenly he stopped and stared. What was the matter with the house? Yurgis looked twice bewildered. Then he glanced at the house next door and at the one beyond, then at the saloon on the corner. Yes, it was the right place, quite certainly. He had not made any mistake, but the house. The house was a different color. He came a couple of steps nearer. Yes, it had been gray, and now it was yellow. The trimmings around the windows had been red, and now they were green. It was all newly painted. How strange it made it seem! Yurgis went closer yet, but keeping on the other side of the street. A sudden and horrible spasm of fear had come over him. His knees were shaking beneath him, and his mind was in a whirl. New paint on the house, and new weatherboards where the old had begun to rot off, and the agent had got after them. New shingles over the hole in the roof, too. The hole that had, for six months, been the bane of his soul. He having no money to have it fixed, and no time to fix it himself, and the rain leaking in, and overflowing the pots and pans he put to catch it, and flooding the attic and loosening the plaster. And now it was fixed, and the broken window pane replaced, and curtains in the windows knew white curtains, stiff and shiny. Then suddenly the front door opened. Yurgis stood, his chest heaving as he struggled to catch his breath. A boy had come out, a stranger to him, a big, fat, rosy-cheeked youngster, such as had never been seen in his home before. Yurgis stared at the boy, fascinated. He came down the steps whistling, picking off the snow. He stopped at the foot, and picked up some, and then leaned against the railing, making a snowball. A moment later he looked around, and saw Yurgis, and their eyes met. It was a hostile glance, the boy evidently thinking that the other had suspicions of the snowball. When Yurgis started slowly across the street toward him, he gave a quick glance about, meditating retreat. But then he concluded to stand his ground. Yurgis took hold of the railing of the steps, for he was a little unsteady. What are you doing here? He managed to gasp. Go on, said the boy. You, Yurgis, tried again. What do you want here? Me, answered the boy angrily, I live here. You live here, Yurgis panted. He turned white and clung more tightly to the railing. You live here. Then where is my family? The boy looked surprised. Your family, he echoed, and Yurgis started toward him. I, this is my house, he cried. Come off, said the boy. Then suddenly the door upstairs opened, and he called, hey ma, here's a fellow says he owns this house. A stout Irish woman came to the top of the steps. What's that, she demanded? Yurgis turned toward her. Where is my family, he cried wildly. I left them here. This is my home. What are you doing in my home? The woman stared at him in frightened wonder. She must have thought she was dealing with a maniac. Yurgis looked like one. Your home, she echoed. My home, he have shrieked. I lived here, I tell you. You must be mistaken, she answered him. No one ever lived here. This is a new house. They told us so. They, what have they done with my family, shouted Yurgis frantically. A light had begun to break upon the woman. Perhaps she had had doubts of what they had told her. I don't know where your family is, she said. I bought the house only three days ago, and there was nobody here, and they told me it was all new. Do you really mean you had ever rented it? Rented it, handed Yurgis. I bought it. I paid for it. I own it. And they, my God, can't you tell me where my people went? He made him understand, at last, that she knew nothing. Yurgis' brain was so confused that he could not grasp the situation. It was as if his family had been wiped out of existence, as if they were proving to be dream people who never had existed at all. He was quite lost, but then suddenly he thought of grandmother Myoskinnyi, who lived in the next block, she would know. He turned and started at a run. Grandmother Myoskinnyi came to the door herself. She cried out when she saw Yurgis wild-eyed and shaking. Yes, yes, she could tell him. The family had moved. They had not been able to pay the rent, and they had been turned out into the snow, and the house had been repainted and sold again the next week. No, she had not heard how they were, but she could tell him that they had gone back to Anile, Yuknynyi, with whom they had stayed when they first came to the yards. Wouldn't Yurgis come in and rest? It was certainly too bad, if only he had not got into jail, and so Yurgis turned and staggered away. He did not go very far round the corner he gave out completely, and sat down on the steps of a saloon, and hid his face in his hands, and shook all over with dry, racking psalms. Their home, their home they had lost it. Grief, despair, rage overwhelmed him. What was any imagination of the thing to this heartbreaking, crushing reality of it? To the sight of strange people living in his house, hanging their curtains to his windows, staring at him with hostile eyes. It was monstrous, it was unthinkable, they could not do it, it could not be true. They think what he had suffered for that house, what miseries they had all suffered for it, the price they had paid for it, the whole long agony came back to him, their sacrifices in the beginning, their three hundred dollars that they had scraped together, all they owned in the world, all that stood between them and starvation, and then their toil, month by month, to get together the twelve dollars and the interest as well. Now and then the taxes, and the other charges, and the repairs, and what not, why they had put their very souls into their payments on that house, they had paid for it with their sweat and tears. Yes, more, with their very life-blood. De De Antonas had died of the struggle to earn that money. He would have been alive and strong to-day if he had not had to work in Durham's dark cellars to earn his share. And Ona too had given her health and strength to pay for it. She was wrecked and ruined because of it, and so was he who had been a big, strong man three years ago, and now sat there shivering, broken, cowed, weeping like a hysterical child. Ah, they had cast their all into the fight, and they had lost, they had lost. All that they had paid was gone, every cent of it, and their house was gone. They were back where they had started from, flung out into the cold to starve and freeze. Jörges could see all the truth now, could see himself through the whole long course of events, the victim of ravenous vultures that had torn into his vitals and devoured him, of fiends that had wracked and tortured him, mocking him, meantime, jeering in his face. Ah, God, the horror of it, the monstrous, hideous, demoniacal wickedness of it. He and his family, helpless women and children, struggling to live, ignorant and defenseless and forlorn as they were, and the enemies that had been lurking for them, crouching upon their trail and thirsting for their blood. That first lying circular, that smooth-tongued, slippery agent, that trap of the extra payments, the interest, and all the other charges that they had not the means to pay and would never have attempted to pay. And then all the tricks and the packers, their masters, the tyrants who ruled them, the shutdowns and the scarcity of work, the irregular hours and the cruel speeding up, the lowering of wages, the raising of prices, the mercilessness of nature about them, of heat and cold, rain and snow, the mercilessness of the city, of the country in which they lived, of its laws and customs that they did not understand. All of these things had worked together for the company that had marked them for its prey and was waiting for its chance. And now, with this last hideous injustice, its time had come, and it had turned them out, bag and baggage, and taken their home and sold it again. And they could do nothing. They were tied, hand and foot. The law was against them. The whole machinery of society was at their oppressor's command. If Yurgis so much as raised a hand against him, back he would go into that wild beast pen from which he had just escaped. To get up and go away was to give up, to acknowledge defeat, to leave the strange family in possession, and Yurgis might have sat shivering in the rain for hours before he could do that, had it not been for the thought of his family. It might be that he had worse things yet to learn, and so he got to his feet and started away, walking on, virally, half days. To Anile's house in the back of the yards was a good two miles. The distance had never seemed longer to Yurgis, and when he saw the familiar dingy gray shanty his heart was beating fast. He ran up the steps and began to hammer upon the door. The old woman herself came to open it. She had shrunk all up with her rheumatism since Yurgis had seen her last, and her yellow parchment face stared up at him from a little above the level of the doorknob. She gave a start when she saw him. His owner here he cried breathlessly. Yes, was the answer she's here. How Yurgis began, and then he stopped short, clutching convulsively at the side of the door. From somewhere within the house had come a sudden cry, a wild, horrible scream of anguish, and the voice was Onas. For a moment Yurgis stood half paralyzed with fright. Then he bounded past the old woman and into the room. It was Anile's kitchen, and huddled round the stove for half a dozen women, pale and frightened. One of them started to her feet as Yurgis entered. She was haggard and frightfully thin, with one arm tied up in bandages. He hardly realized that it was Maria. He looked first for Onas, then, not seeing her, he stared at the women expecting them to speak. But they sat dumb, gazing back at him, panic-stricken, and a second later came another piercing scream. It was from the rear of the house and upstairs. Yurgis bound it to a door of the room and flung it open. There was a ladder leading through a trapdoor to the garret, and he was at the foot of it when suddenly he heard a voice behind him, and saw Maria at his heels. She seized him by the sleeve with her good hand, panting wildly. No, no, Yurgis, stop! What do you mean, he gasped. You mustn't go up, she cried. Yurgis was half-crazed with bewilderedment and fright. What's the matter? He shouted. What is it? Maria clung to him tightly. He could hear Onas sobbing and moaning above, and he fought to get away and climb up without waiting for her reply. No, no, she rushed on. Yurgis, you mustn't go up. It's—it's the child—the child—he echoed in perplexity. Antanas? Maria answered him in a whisper. The new one. And then Yurgis went limp and caught himself on the ladder. He stared at her as if she were a ghost. The new one, he gasped. But it isn't time he added wildly. Maria nodded. I know, she said, but it's come. Then again came Onas scream, smiting him like a blow in the face, making him wince and turn white. Her voice died away into a wail. Then he heard her sobbing again. My God, let me die! Let me die! And Maria hung her arms about him, crying. Come out! Come away! She dragged him back into the kitchen, half-carrying him, for he had gone all to pieces. It was as if the pillars of his soul had fallen in. He was blasted with horror. In the room he sank into a chair, trembling like a leaf, Maria still holding him, and the women staring at him in dumb, helpless fright. And then again Onas cried out. He could hear it nearly as plainly here, and he staggered to his feet. How long has this been going on, he panned it. Not very long, Maria answered, and then, at a signal from Anile, she rushed on. You go away, Yurgis, you can't help. Go away, and come back later. It's all right. It's, who's with her, Yurgis demanded. And then, seeing Maria hesitating, he cried again, who's with her? She's, she's all right, she answered, as Betas with her. But the doctor, he panned it, someone who knows. He seized Maria by the arm. She trembled, and her voice sank beneath the whisper, as she replied. We, we have no money. Then frightened at the look on his face, she exclaimed, It's all right, Yurgis. You don't understand. Go away. Go away. Ah! If only you had waited. Above her protest, Yurgis hurt Ona again. He was almost out of his mind. It was all new to him, raw and horrible. It had fallen upon him like a lightning stroke. When little Antonas was born, he had been at work, and had known nothing about it until it was over. And now he was not to be controlled. The frightened women were at their wit's end. One after another they tried to reason with him, to make him understand that this was a lot of woman. In the end they half drove him out into the rain where he began to pace up and down, bareheaded and frantic. Because he could hear Ona from the street, he would first go away to escape the sounds, and then come back because he could not help it. At the end of a quarter of an hour he rushed up the steps again, and for fear that he would break in the door, they had to open it and let him in. There was no arguing with him. They could not tell him that all was going well. How could they know he cried? Why, she was dying, she was being torn to pieces. Listen to her, listen. Why it was monstrous, it could not be allowed. There must be some help for it. Had they tried to get a doctor? They might pay him afterward. They could promise. We couldn't promise Yurgis, protested Maria. We had no money. We have scarcely been able to keep alive. But I can work, Yurgis exclaimed. I can earn money. Yes, she answered, but we thought you were in jail. How could we know when you would return? They will not work for nothing. Maria went on to tell how she had tried to find a midwife, and how they demanded ten, fifteen, even twenty-five dollars, and that in cash. And I only had a quarter, she said. I have spent every cent of my money, all that I had in the bank, and I owe the doctor who has been coming to see me, and he has stopped because he thinks I don't mean to pay him. And we owe Anile for two weeks' rent, and she is nearly starving and is afraid of being turned out. We have been borrowing and begging to keep alive, and there is nothing more we can do. And the children cried Yurgis. The children have not been home for three days. The weather has been so bad. They could not know what is happening. It came suddenly, two months before we expected it. Yurgis was standing by the table, and he caught himself with his hand. His head sank, and his arms shook. It looked as if he were going to collapse. Then suddenly Anile got up and came hobbling toward him, fumbling in her skirt pocket. She drew out a dirty rag, in one corner of which she had something tied. Here, Yurgis, she said, I have some money, ha-la, see? She unwrapped it and counted it out, thirty-four cents. You go now, she said, and try and get somebody yourself. And maybe the rest can help. Give him some money, you. He will pay you back some day, and it will do him good to have something to think about, even if he doesn't succeed. When he comes back, maybe it will be over. And so the other woman turned out the contents of their pocketbooks. Most of them had only pennies and nickels, but they gave him all. Mrs. Olzulski, who lived next door, and had a husband who was a skilled cattle butcher, but a drinking man, gave nearly half a dollar, enough to raise the whole sum to a dollar and a quarter. Then Yurgis thrust it into his pocket, still holding it tightly in his fist, and started away at a run. CHAPTER XIX Madam Haupt Hebaum ran a sign, swinging from a second-story window over a saloon on the avenue. At a side door was another sign, with a hand pointing up a dingy flight of stairs. Yurgis went up them, three at a time. Madam Haupt was frying pork and onions, and had her door half open to let out the smoke. When he tried to knock upon it, it swung open the rest of the way, and he had a glimpse of her with a black bottle turned up to her lips. Then he knocked louder, and she started and put it away. She was a Dutch woman, enormously fat. When she walked she rolled like a small boat on the ocean, and the dishes in the cupboard jostled each other. She wore a filthy blue wrapper, and her teeth were black. What is it, she said, when she saw Yurgis. He had run like mad all the way, and was so out of breath he could hardly speak. His hair was flying, and his eyes were wild. He looked like a man that had risen from the tomb. My wife, he panted, come quickly. Madam Haupt set the frying pan to one side, and wiped her hands on her wrapper. You want me to come for a case? She inquired. Yes, gassed Yurgis. I have just come back from a case, she said. I have had no time to eat my dinner. Still, if it is so bad, yes, it is, cried he. Well then, perhaps, what you pay? I—I—how much do you want, Yurgis stammered? Twenty-five dollars. His face fell. I can't pay that, he said. The woman was watching him narrowly. How much do you pay, she demanded. Must I pay now? Right away? Yes, all my customers do. I—I haven't much money, Yurgis began in an agony of dread. I've been in—in trouble, and my money is gone, but I'll pay you every cent just as soon as I can. I can work. That is your work. I have no place now. I must get one. But I—how much have you got now? He could hardly bring himself to reply. When he said a dollar and a quarter, the woman laughed in his face. I would not put on my hat for a dollar and a quarter, she said. It's all I've got, he pleaded, his voice breaking. I must get some one. My wife will die. I can't help it. I—Madame Haupt had put back her pork and onions on the stove. She turned to him and answered, out of the steam and noise, get me ten dollars cash, when so you can pay me the rest next month. I can't do it. I haven't got it, Yurgis protested. I tell you I have only a dollar and a quarter. The woman turned to her work. I don't believe you, she said. That is all to try to cheat me. That is the reason a big man like you has got only a dollar and a quarter. I've just been in jail, Yurgis cried. He was ready to get down upon his knees to the woman, and I had no money before, and my family has almost starved. Where is your friends? That ought to help you. They are all poor, he answered. They gave me this. I have done everything I can. Haven't you got nothing you could sell? I have nothing, I tell you. I have nothing, he cried, frantically. Can't you borrow it, then? Don't your store people trust you? Then as he shook his head, she went on, listen to me. If you get me, you will be glad of it. I will save your wife and baby for you, and it will not seem like mooch to you in the end. If you lose them now, how you think you feel them? One here is a lady that knows her business. I could send you to people in this block, and they would tell you. Madam Haupt was pointing her cooking fork at Yurgis persuasively, but her words were more than he could bear. He flung up his hands with a gesture of despair and turned and started away. It's no use, he exclaimed, but suddenly he heard the woman's voice behind him again. I will make it five dollars for you. She followed behind him, arguing with him, you will be foolish not to take such an offer, she said. You won't find nobody go out on a rainy day like this for less. Why, I have never took a case in my life, so sheep is that. I couldn't pay my room rent. Yurgis interrupted her with an oath of rage. If I haven't got it, he shouted, how can I pay it? Damn it, I would pay you if I could, but I tell you I haven't got it. I haven't got it. Do you hear me? I haven't got it. He turned and started away again. He was half way down the stairs before Madam Hout could shout to him, Faith, I will go meet you, come back. He went back into the room again. It is not good to think of anybody suffering, she said in a melancholy voice. I might as well go meet you for nothing as what you offer me, but I will try to help you. How far is it? Three or four blocks from here. Three or four, when so I shall get soaked, got in himmel, it ought to be worth more. One dollar and a quarter, and a day like this. But you understand now you will pay me the rest of twenty-five dollars soon. As soon as I can. Sometime this month, yes, within a month, said poor Yurgis, anything, hurry up. There is the dollar and a quarter, persisted Madam Hout relentlessly. Yurgis put the money on the table, and the woman counted it and stowed it away. Then she wiped her greasy hands again and proceeded to get ready, complaining all the time. She was so fat that it was painful for her to move, and she grunted and gassed at every step. She took off her wrapper without even taking the trouble to turn her back to Yurgis and put on her corsets and dress. Then there was a black bonnet which had to be adjusted carefully, and an umbrella which was mislaid, and a bag full of necessaries which had to be collected from here and there, the man being nearly crazy with anxiety in the meantime. When they were on the street he kept about four paces ahead of her, turning now and then, as if he could hurry her on by the force of his desire. But Madam Hout could only go so far at a step, and it took all her attention to get the needed breath for that. They came at last to the house and to the group of frightened women in the kitchen. It was not over yet, Yurgis learned. He heard Ona crying still, and meantime Madam Hout removed her bonnet and laid it on the mantelpiece, and got out of her bag first an old dress and then a saucer of goose grease which she proceeded to rub upon her hands. The more cases this goose grease is used in, the better luck it brings to the midwife, and so she keeps it upon her kitchen mantelpiece or stowed away in a cupboard with her dirty clothes for months and sometimes even for years. Then they escorted her to the ladder, and Yurgis heard her give an exclamation of dismay. God, in himmel, but for half you brought me to a place like this, I could not climb that ladder, I could not get through a trapdoor, I will not try it, by I might kill myself already. What sort of place is that for a woman to bear a child in, up in a garret, meet only a ladder to it? You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Yurgis stood in the doorway and listened to her scolding, half drowning out the horrible moans and screams of Ona. At last Anilay succeeded in pacifying her, and she essayed the ascent then, however she had to be stopped while the old woman cautioned her about the floor of the garret. They had no real floor, they had laid old boards in one part to make a place for the family to live. It was all right and safe there, but the other part of the garret had only the joists of the floor and the lath and plaster of the ceiling below, and if one stepped on this there would be a catastrophe. As it was half dark up above, perhaps one of the others had best go up first with a candle. Then there were more outcries and threatening, until at last Yurgis had a vision of a pair of elephantine legs disappearing through the trapdoor, and felt the house shake as Madam Halt started to walk. Then suddenly Anilay came to him and took him by the arm. Now she said, You go away. Do as I tell you. You have done all you can, and you are only in the way. Go away and stay away. But where shall I go, Yurgis asked helplessly. I don't know where she answered. Go on the street if there is no other place. Only go and stay all night. In the end she and Maria pushed him out the door and shut it behind him. It was just about sundown that it was turning cold. The rain had changed the snow and the slush was freezing. Yurgis shivered in his thin clothing and put his hands into his pockets and started away. He had not eaten since morning, and he felt weak and ill. With a sudden throb of hope he recollected he was only a few blocks from the saloon where he had been wont to eat his dinner. They might have mercy on him there, or he might meet a friend. He sat out for the place as fast as he could walk. Hello, Jack, said the saloonkeeper when he entered. They call all foreigners and unskilled men Jack in Packingtown. Where have you been? Yurgis went straight to the bar. I've been in jail, he said, and I've just got out. I walked home all the way, and I've not assent and had nothing to eat since this morning, and I've lost my home and my wife's ill, and I'm done up. The saloonkeeper gazed at him with his haggard white face and his blue trembling lips. Then he pushed a big bottle toward him. Fill her up, he said. Yurgis could hardly hold the bottle. His hands shook so. Don't be afraid, said the saloonkeeper. Fill her up. So Yurgis drank a large glass of whiskey, and then turned to the lunch counter, in obedience to the other's suggestion. He ate all he dared, stuffing it in as fast as he could, and then, after trying to speak his gratitude, he went and sat down by the big red stove in the middle of the room. It was too good to last, however, like all things in this hard world. His soaked clothing began to steam and the horrible stench of fertilizer to fill the room. In an hour or so the packing-houses would be closing, and the men coming in from their work, and they would not come into a place that smelt of Yurgis. So it was Saturday night, and in a couple of hours would come a violin and a cornet, and in the rear of the saloon the families of the neighborhood would dance and feast upon vineyards and lager, until two or three o'clock in the morning. The saloonkeeper coughed once or twice and then remarked, Say, Jack, I'm afraid you'll have to quit. He was used to the sight of human wrecks, this saloonkeeper. He fired dozens of them every night. Just as haggard and cold and forlorn as this one. But they were all men who had given up and been counted out, while Yurgis was still in the fight and had reminders of decency about him. As he got up meekly the other reflected that he had always been a steady man, and might soon be a good customer again. You've been up against it, I see, he said. Come this way. In the rear of the saloon were the cellar stairs. There was a door above and another below, both safely padlocked, making the stairs an admirable place to stow away a customer who might still chance to have money, or a political light whom it was not advisable to kick out of doors. So Yurgis spent the night. The whisky had only half warmed him, and he could not sleep exhausted as he was. He would nod forward and then start up shivering with the cold and begin to remember again, hour after hour passed, until he could only persuade himself that it was not morning by the sounds of music and laughter and singing that were to be heard from the room. When at last these ceased he expected that he would be turned out into the street. As this did not happen he fell to wondering whether the man had forgotten him. In the end, when the silence and suspense were no longer to be borne, he got up and hammered on the door, and the proprietor came yawning and rubbing his eyes. He was keeping open all night and dozing between customers. I want to go home, Yurgis said. I'm worried about my wife. I can't wait any longer. Why the hell didn't you say so before, said the man. I thought you didn't have any home to go to. This went outside. It was four o'clock in the morning and as black as night. There were three or four inches of fresh snow on the ground, and the flakes were falling thick and fast. He turned toward Anile's and started at a run. There was a light burning in the kitchen window, and the blinds were drawn. The door was unlocked, and Yurgis rushed in. Anile, Maria, and the rest of the women were huddled about the stove, exactly as before. With them were several newcomers Yurgis noticed. Also he noticed that the house was silent. Well, he said. No one answered him. They sat staring at him with their pale faces. He cried again. Well! And then, by the light of the smoky lamp, he saw Maria, who sat nearest him, shaking her head slowly. Not yet, she said, and Yurgis gave a cry of dismay. Not yet! Again Maria's head shook. The poor fellow stood dumbfounded. I don't hear her, he gasped. She's been quiet a long time, replied the other. There was another pause, broken suddenly by a voice from the attic. Hello there! All of the women ran into the next room, while Maria sprang toward Yurgis. Wait here, she cried, and the two stood, pale and trembling, listening. In a few moments it became clear that Madame Haup was engaged in descending the ladder, scolding and exhorting again while the ladder creaked in protest. In a moment or two she reached the ground, angry and breathless, and they heard her coming into the room. Yurgis gave one glance at her, and then turned white and reeled. She had her jacket off, like one of the workers on the killing beds. Her hands and arms were smeared with blood, and blood was splashed upon her clothing and her face. She was breathing hard and gazing about her. No one made a sound. I have done my best, she began suddenly. I can do nothing more. There is no use to try. Then there was silence. It ain't my fault, she said. You had ought to have had a doctor who would not wait it so long. It was too late already when I come. Once more there was death-like stillness. Maria was clutching Yurgis with all the power of her one well arm. Then suddenly Madame Haup turned to Annalay. You have not got something to drink, eh? She queried some brandy, Annalay shook her head. Here, God explained Madame Haup, such people, perhaps you will give me something to eat then. I have had nothing since yesterday morning, and I have worked myself near to death here. If I could have known it was like this, I would never have come for such money as you give me. At this moment she chanced to look round and saw Yurgis. She shook her finger at him. You understand me? She said. You pays me dot money, just the same. It is not my fault that you sent for me so late that I can't help your wife. It is not my fault if their baby comes with one arm first so that I can't save it. I have tried all night when in that place where it is not fit for dogs to be born, when with nothing to eat only what I brings in my own pockets. Here Madame Haup paused for a moment to get her breath, and Maria, seeing the beads of sweat on Yurgis' forehead and feeling the quivering of his frame, broke out in a low voice. How is Anna? How is she, echoed Madame Haup, how do you think she can be when you leave her to kill herself so? I told them dot when they sent for depraised. She is young, when she might have got over it, when been velled, when strong. If she had been treated right, she fight hard that girl. She is not yet quite dead, and Yurgis gave a frantic scream. Dead? She will die, of course, said the other angrily. Their baby is dead now. The garret was lighted by a candle, stuck upon a board. It had almost burned itself out, and was sputtering and smoking as Yurgis rushed up the ladder. He could make out dimly in one corner a pallet of rags and old blankets, spread upon the floor. At the foot of it was a crucifix, and near it a priest muttering a prayer. In a far corner crouched Elzbeta moaning and wailing. Upon the pallet lay Ona. She was covered with a blanket, but he could see her shoulders and one arm lying bare. She was so shrunken he would scarcely have known her. She was all but a skeleton, and as white as a piece of chalk. Her eyelids were closed, and she lay still as death. He staggered toward her and fell upon his knees with the cry of anguish. Ona! Ona! She did not stir. He caught her hand in his, and began to clasp it frantically, calling, Look at me! Answer me! It is Yurgis come back! Don't you hear me? There was a faintest quivering of the eyelids, and he called again in frenzy. Ona! Ona! Then suddenly her eyes opened one instant. One instant she looked at him. There was a flash of recognition between them. He saw her a far off as through a dim vista standing forlorn. He stretched out his arms to her. He called her in wild despair. A fearful yearning surged up in him, hunger for her that was agony, desire that was a new being born within him, tearing his heartstrings, torturing him. But it was all in vain. She faded from him. She slipped back, and was gone. And a wail of anguish burst from him. Great sobs shook all his frame, and hot tears ran down his cheeks, and fell upon her. He clutched her hands. He shook her. He caught her in his arms and pressed her to him. But she lay cold and still. She was gone. She was gone. The word rang through him like the sound of a bell echoing in the far depths of him, making forgotten chords to vibrate. Old shadowy fears the stir. Fears of the dark. Fears of the void. Fears of annihilation. She was dead. She was dead. He would never see her again, never hear her again. An icy horror of loneliness seized him. He saw himself standing apart and watching all the world fade away from him. A world of shadows, of fickle dreams. He was like a little child in his fright and grief. He called and called and got no answer, and his cries of despair echoed through the house, making the women downstairs draw nearer to each other in fear. He was inconsolable beside himself. The priest came and laid his hand upon his shoulder and whispered to him, but he heard not a sound. He was gone away himself, stumbling through the shadows and groping after the soul that had fled. So he lay. The gray dawn came up and crept into the attic. The priest left, the women left, and he was alone with the still white figure. Quieter now, but moaning and shuddering, wrestling with the grisly theme. Now and then he would raise himself and stare at the white mask before him, then hide his eyes because he could not bear it. Dead. And she was only a girl. She was barely a teen. Her life had hardly begun, and here she lay, murdered, mangled, tortured to death. It was morning when he rose up and came down into the kitchen, haggard and ashing gray, reeling and dazed. More of the neighbors had come in, and they stared at him in silence as he sank down upon a chair by the table and buried his face in his arms. A few minutes later the door opened, a blast of cold and snow rushed in, and behind it little Kothrina, breathless from running and blue with the cold. I'm home again, she exclaimed. I could hardly. And then seeing Jurgis, she stopped with an exclamation. Starting from one to another she saw that something had happened, and she asked, in a lower voice, What's the matter? Before anyone could reply, Jurgis started up. He went toward her, walking unsteadily, Where have you been? He demanded. Selling papers with the boys, she said, The snow. Have you any money? He demanded. Yes. How much? Three dollars, Jurgis? Give it to me. Kothrina, frightened by his manner, glanced at the others. Give it to me, he commanded again, and she put her hand into her pocket and pulled out a lump of coins tied in a bit of rag. Jurgis took it without a word, and went out of the door and down the street. Three doors away was a saloon. Whiskey, he said, as he entered, and as the man pushed him some, he tore at the rag with his teeth and pulled out half a dollar. How much is this bottle, he said? I want to get drunk.