CHAPTER 18

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

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

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

in jail, and not having the money, was obliged to work it off by

three days more of toil. Nobody had taken the trouble to tell him

this--only after counting the days and looking forward to the end

in an agony of impatience, when the hour came that he expected to

be free he found himself still set at the stone heap, and laughed

at when he ventured to protest. Then he concluded he must have

counted wrong; but as another day passed, he gave up all hope--

and was sunk in the depths of despair, when one morning after

breakfast a keeper came to him with the word that his time was up

at last. So he doffed his prison garb, and put on his old fertilizer

clothing, and heard the door of the prison clang behind him.

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

it was true,--that the sky was above him again and the open street

before him; that he was a free man. But then the cold began to

strike through his clothes, and he started quickly away.

There had been a heavy snow, and now a thaw had set in; fine sleety

rain was falling, driven by a wind that pierced Jurgis to the bone.

He had not stopped for his-overcoat when he set out to "do up" Connor,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

but even so, he had not grown strong--the fear and grief that had

preyed upon his mind had worn him thin. Now he shivered and shrunk

from the rain, hiding his hands in his pockets and hunching his

shoulders together. The Bridewell grounds were on the outskirts

of the city and the country around them was unsettled and wild--

on one side was the big drainage canal, and on the other a maze of

railroad tracks, and so the wind had full sweep.

After walking a ways, Jurgis met a little ragamuffin whom he hailed:

"Hey, sonny!" The boy cocked one eye at him--he knew that Jurgis

was a "jailbird" by his shaven head. "Wot yer want?" he queried.

"How do you go to the stockyards?" Jurgis demanded.

"I don't go," replied the boy.

Jurgis hesitated a moment, nonplussed. Then he said, "I mean which

is the way?"

"Why don't yer say so then?" was the response, and the boy pointed

to the northwest, across the tracks. "That way."

"How far is it?" Jurgis asked. "I dunno," said the other.

"Mebbe twenty miles or so."

"Twenty miles!" Jurgis echoed, and his face fell. He had to walk

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

in his pockets.

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

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

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

mind at once. The agony was almost over--he was going to find out;

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

flying desire, almost at a run. Ona--the baby--the family--the house--

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

rescue--he was free again! His hands were his own, and he could

help them, he could do battle for them against the world.

For an hour or so he walked thus, and then he began to look about him.

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

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

snow-covered fields on either side of him. Soon he met a farmer

driving a two-horse wagon loaded with straw, and he stopped him.

"Is this the way to the stockyards?" he asked.

The farmer scratched his head. "I dunno jest where they be," he said.

"But they're in the city somewhere, and you're going dead away from

it now."

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

"Who told you?"

"A boy."

"Well, mebbe he was playing a joke on ye. The best thing ye kin do

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

ye in, only I've come a long ways an' I'm loaded heavy. Git up!"

So Jurgis turned and followed, and toward the end of the morning

he began to see Chicago again. Past endless blocks of two-story

shanties he walked, along wooden sidewalks and unpaved pathways

treacherous with deep slush holes. Every few blocks there would be

a railroad crossing on the level with the sidewalk, a deathtrap for

the unwary; long freight trains would be passing, the cars clanking

and crashing together, and Jurgis would pace about waiting, burning up

with a fever of impatience. Occasionally the cars would stop for

some minutes, and wagons and streetcars would crowd together waiting,

the drivers swearing at each other, or hiding beneath umbrellas out

of the rain; at such times Jurgis would dodge under the gates and run

across the tracks and between the cars, taking his life into his hands.

He crossed a long bridge over a river frozen solid and covered

with slush. Not even on the river bank was the snow white--the rain

which fell was a diluted solution of smoke, and Jurgis' hands and

face were streaked with black. Then he came into the business

part of the city, where the streets were sewers of inky blackness,

with horses sleeping and plunging, and women and children flying

across in panic-stricken droves. These streets were huge canyons

formed by towering black buildings, echoing with the clang of car

gongs and the shouts of drivers; the people who swarmed in them were

as busy as ants--all hurrying breathlessly, never stopping to look at

anything nor at each other. The solitary trampish-looking foreigner,

with water-soaked clothing and haggard face and anxious eyes, was as

much alone as he hurried past them, as much unheeded and as lost,

as if he had been a thousand miles deep in a wilderness.

A policeman gave him his direction and told him that he had five miles

to go. He came again to the slum districts, to avenues of saloons

and cheap stores, with long dingy red factory buildings, and coalyards

and railroad tracks; and then Jurgis lifted up his head and began

to sniff the air like a startled animal--scenting the far-off odor

of home. It was late afternoon then, and he was hungry, but the dinner

invitations hung out of the saloons were not for him.

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

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

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

behind another man, unnoticed by the conductor. In ten minutes more

he had reached his street, and home.

He was half running as he came round the corner. There was the house,

at any rate--and then suddenly he stopped and stared. What was the

matter with the house?

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

door and at the one beyond--then at the saloon on the corner.

Yes, it was the right place, quite certainly--he had not made

any mistake. But the house--the house was a different color!

He came a couple of steps nearer. Yes; it had been gray and now it

was yellow! The trimmings around the windows had been red, and now

they were green! It was all newly painted! How strange it made it seem!

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

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

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

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

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

the roof, too, the hole that had for six months been the bane of his

soul--he having no money to have it fixed and no time to fix it himself,

and the rain leaking in, and overflowing the pots and pans he put to

catch it, and flooding the attic and loosening the plaster. And now

it was fixed! And the broken windowpane replaced! And curtains in

the windows! New, white curtains, stiff and shiny!

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

as he struggled to catch his breath. A boy had come out, a stranger

to him; a big, fat, rosy-cheeked youngster, such as had never been

seen in his home before.

Jurgis stared at the boy, fascinated. He came down the steps

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

up some, and then leaned against the railing, making a snowball.

A moment later he looked around and saw Jurgis, and their eyes met;

it was a hostile glance, the boy evidently thinking that the other

had suspicions of the snowball. When Jurgis started slowly across

the street toward him, he gave a quick glance about, meditating

retreat, but then he concluded to stand his ground.

Jurgis took hold of the railing of the steps, for he was a little

unsteady. "What--what are you doing here?" he managed to gasp.

"Go on!" said the boy.

"You--" Jurgis tried again. "What do you want here?"

"Me?" answered the boy, angrily. "I live here."

"You live here!" Jurgis panted. He turned white and clung more

tightly to the railing. "You live here! Then where's my family?"

The boy looked surprised. "Your family!" he echoed.

And Jurgis started toward him. "I--this is my house!" he cried.

"Come off!" said the boy; then suddenly the door upstairs opened,

and he called: "Hey, ma! Here's a fellow says he owns this house."

A stout Irishwoman came to the top of the steps. "What's that?"

she demanded.

Jurgis turned toward her. "Where is my family?" he cried, wildly.

"I left them here! This is my home! What are you doing in my home?"

The woman stared at him in frightened wonder, she must have thought

she was dealing with a maniac--Jurgis looked like one. "Your home!"

she echoed.

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

"You must be mistaken," she answered him. "No one ever lived here.

This is a new house. They told us so. They--"

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

A light had begun to break upon the woman; perhaps she had had doubts

of what "they" had told her. "I don't know where your family is,"

she said. "I bought the house only three days ago, and there was

nobody here, and they told me it was all new. Do you really mean

you had ever rented it?"

"Rented it!" panted Jurgis. "I bought it! I paid for it! I own it!

And they--my God, can't you tell me where my people went?"

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

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

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

to be dream people, who never had existed at all. He was quite

lost--but then suddenly he thought of Grandmother Majauszkiene,

who lived in the next block. She would know! He turned and

started at a run.

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

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

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

had been turned out into the snow, and the house had been repainted

and sold again the next week. No, she had not heard how they were,

but she could tell him that they had gone back to Aniele Jukniene,

with whom they had stayed when they first came to the yards.

Wouldn't Jurgis come in and rest? It was certainly too bad--if only

he had not got into jail--

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

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

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

racking sobs.

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

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

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

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

at him with hostile eyes! It was monstrous, it was unthinkable--

they could not do it--it could not be true! Only think what he

had suffered for that house--what miseries they had all suffered

for it--the price they had paid for it!

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

beginning, their three hundred dollars that they had scraped

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

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

the twelve dollars, and the interest as well, and now and then the

taxes, and the other charges, and the repairs, and what not! Why,

they had put their very souls into their payments on that house,

they had paid for it with their sweat and tears--yes, more, with their

very lifeblood. Dede Antanas had died of the struggle to earn that

money--he would have been alive and strong today if he had not had

to work in Durham's dark cellars to earn his share. And Ona, too,

had given her health and strength to pay for it--she was wrecked and

ruined because of it; and so was he, who had been a big, strong man

three years ago, and now sat here shivering, broken, cowed, weeping

like a hysterical child. Ah! they had cast their all into the fight;

and they had lost, they had lost! All that they had paid was gone--

every cent of it. And their house was gone--they were back where

they had started from, flung out into the cold to starve and freeze!

Jurgis could see all the truth now--could see himself, through the

whole long course of events, the victim of ravenous vultures that

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

racked and tortured him, mocking him, meantime, jeering in his face.

Ah, God, the horror of it, the monstrous, hideous, demoniacal

wickedness of it! He and his family, helpless women and children,

struggling to live, ignorant and defenseless and forlorn as they

were--and the enemies that had been lurking for them, crouching upon

their trail and thirsting for their blood! That first lying circular,

that smooth-tongued slippery agent! That trap of the extra payments,

the interest, and all the other charges that they had not the means

to pay, and would never have attempted to pay! And then all the

tricks of the packers, their masters, the tyrants who ruled them--

the shutdowns and the scarcity of work, the irregular hours and

the cruel speeding-up, the lowering of wages, the raising of prices!

The mercilessness of nature about them, of heat and cold, rain and snow;

the mercilessness of the city, of the country in which they lived,

of its laws and customs that they did not understand! All of these

things had worked together for the company that had marked them for

its prey and was waiting for its chance. And now, with this last

hideous injustice, its time had come, and it had turned them out

bag and baggage, and taken their house and sold it again! And they

could do nothing, they were tied hand and foot--the law was against

them, the whole machinery of society was at their oppressors' command!

If Jurgis so much as raised a hand against them, back he would go

into that wild-beast pen from which he had just escaped!

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

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

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

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

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

wearily, half-dazed.

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

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

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

up the steps and began to hammer upon the door.

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

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

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

the doorknob. She gave a start when she saw him. "Is Ona here?"

he cried, breathlessly.

"Yes," was the answer, "she's here."

"How--" Jurgis began, and then stopped short, clutching convulsively

at the side of the door. From somewhere within the house had come

a sudden cry, a wild, horrible scream of anguish. And the voice

was Ona's. For a moment Jurgis stood half-paralyzed with fright;

then he bounded past the old woman and into the room.

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

dozen women, pale and frightened. One of them started to her feet

as Jurgis entered; she was haggard and frightfully thin, with one

arm tied up in bandages--he hardly realized that it was Marija.

He looked first for Ona; then, not seeing her, he stared at the women,

expecting them to speak. But they sat dumb, gazing back at him,

panic-stricken; and a second later came another piercing scream.

It was from the rear of the house, and upstairs. Jurgis bounded to

a door of the room and flung it open; there was a ladder leading

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

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

She seized him by the sleeve with her good hand, panting wildly,

"No, no, Jurgis! Stop!"

"What do you mean?" he gasped.

"You mustn't go up," she cried.

Jurgis was half-crazed with bewilderment and fright. "What's the

matter?" he shouted. "What is it?"

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

above, and he fought to get away and climb up, without waiting for

her reply. "No, no," she rushed on. "Jurgis! You mustn't go up!

It's--it's the child!"

"The child?" he echoed in perplexity. "Antanas?"

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

And then Jurgis went limp, and caught himself on the ladder. He stared

at her as if she were a ghost. "The new one!" he gasped. "But it

isn't time," he added, wildly.

Marija nodded. "I know," she said; "but it's come."

And then again came Ona's scream, smiting him like a blow in the face,

making him wince and turn white. Her voice died away into a wail--

then he heard her sobbing again, "My God--let me die, let me die!"

And Marija hung her arms about him, crying: "Come out! Come away!"

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

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

in--he was blasted with horror. In the room he sank into a chair,

trembling like a leaf, Marija still holding him, and the women staring

at him in dumb, helpless fright.

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

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

he panted.

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

she rushed on: "You go away, Jurgis you can't help--go away and come

back later. It's all right--it's--"

"Who's with her?" Jurgis demanded; and then, seeing Marija hesitating,

he cried again, "Who's with her?"

"She's--she's all right," she answered. "Elzbieta's with her."

"But the doctor!" he panted. "Some one who knows!"

He seized Marija by the arm; she trembled, and her voice sank beneath

a whisper as she replied, "We--we have no money." Then, frightened

at the look on his face, she exclaimed: "It's all right, Jurgis!

You don't understand--go away--go away! Ah, if you only had waited!"

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

his mind. It was all new to him, raw and horrible--it had fallen

upon him like a lightning stroke. When little Antanas was born he

had been at work, and had known nothing about it until it was over;

and now he was not to be controlled. The frightened women were at

their wits' end; one after another they tried to reason with him,

to make him understand that this was the lot of woman. In the end

they half drove him out into the rain, where he began to pace up

and down, bareheaded and frantic. Because he could hear Ona from

the street, he would first go away to escape the sounds, and then

come back because he could not help it. At the end of a quarter

of an hour he rushed up the steps again, and for fear that he would

break in the door they had to open it and let him in.

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

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

she was being torn to pieces! Listen to her--listen! Why, it was

monstrous--it could not be allowed--there must be some help for it!

Had they tried to get a doctor? They might pay him afterward--they

could promise--

"We couldn't promise, Jurgis," protested Marija. "We had no money--

we have scarcely been able to keep alive."

"But I can work," Jurgis exclaimed. "I can earn money!"

"Yes," she answered--"but we thought you were in jail. How could we

know when you would return? They will not work for nothing."

Marija went on to tell how she had tried to find a midwife, and how

they had demanded ten, fifteen, even twenty-five dollars, and that

in cash. "And I had only a quarter," she said. "I have spent every

cent of my money--all that I had in the bank; and I owe the doctor

who has been coming to see me, and he has stopped because he thinks

I don't mean to pay him. And we owe Aniele for two weeks' rent,

and she is nearly starving, and is afraid of being turned out.

We have been borrowing and begging to keep alive, and there is nothing

more we can do--"

"And the children?" cried Jurgis.

"The children have not been home for three days, the weather has been

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

two months before we expected it."

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

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

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

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

of which she had something tied.

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

She unwrapped it and counted it out--thirty-four cents. "You go, now,"

she said, "and try and get somebody yourself. And maybe the rest can

help--give him some money, you; he will pay you back some day, and it

will do him good to have something to think about, even if he doesn't

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

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

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

Mrs. Olszewski, who lived next door, and had a husband who was a

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

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

thrust it into his pocket, still holding it tightly in his fist,

and started away at a run.

Read next: CHAPTER 19

Read previous: CHAPTER 17

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