CHAPTER 22

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

but he caught himself, and for half a minute stood in the middle

of the room, clenching his hands tightly and setting his teeth.

Then he pushed Aniele aside and strode into the next room and

climbed the ladder.

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

and beside it lay Elzbieta, whether crying or in a faint, Jurgis

could not tell. Marija was pacing the room, screaming and

wringing her hands. He clenched his hands tighter yet, and his

voice was hard as he spoke.

"How did it happen?" he asked.

Marija scarcely heard him in her agony. He repeated the

question, louder and yet more harshly. "He fell off the

sidewalk!" she wailed. The sidewalk in front of the house was a

platform made of half-rotten boards, about five feet above the

level of the sunken street.

"How did he come to be there?" he demanded.

"He went--he went out to play," Marija sobbed, her voice choking

her. "We couldn't make him stay in. He must have got caught in

the mud!"

"Are you sure that he is dead?" he demanded.

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

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

tear. He took one glance more at the blanket with the little

form beneath it, and then turned suddenly to the ladder and

climbed down again. A silence fell once more in the room as he

entered. He went straight to the door, passed out, and started

down the street.

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

he did not do that now, though he had his week's wages in his

pocket. He walked and walked, seeing nothing, splashing through

mud and water. Later on he sat down upon a step and hid his face

in his hands and for half an hour or so he did not move. Now and

then he would whisper to himself: "Dead! Dead!"

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

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

railroad crossing. The gates were down, and a long train of

freight cars was thundering by. He stood and watched it; and all

at once a wild impulse seized him, a thought that had been

lurking within him, unspoken, unrecognized, leaped into sudden

life. He started down the track, and when he was past the

gate-keeper's shanty he sprang forward and swung himself on to

one of the cars.

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

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

when the train started again, he fought a battle with his soul.

He gripped his hands and set his teeth together--he had not wept,

and he would not--not a tear! It was past and over, and he was

done with it--he would fling it off his shoulders, be free of it,

the whole business, that night. It should go like a black,

hateful nightmare, and in the morning he would be a new man. And

every time that a thought of it assailed him--a tender memory, a

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

down.

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

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

life, he had wrecked himself, with his accursed weakness; and now

he was done with it--he would tear it out of him, root and

branch! There should be no more tears and no more tenderness;

he had had enough of them--they had sold him into slavery! Now he

was going to be free, to tear off his shackles, to rise up and

fight. He was glad that the end had come--it had to come some

time, and it was just as well now. This was no world for women

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

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

suffer no more than he would have had he stayed upon earth.

And meantime his father had thought the last thought about him that

he meant to; he was going to think of himself, he was going to

fight for himself, against the world that had baffled him and

tortured him!

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

soul, and setting his heel upon them. The train thundered

deafeningly, and a storm of dust blew in his face; but though it

stopped now and then through the night, he clung where he was--

he would cling there until he was driven off, for every mile that he

got from Packingtown meant another load from his mind.

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

laden with the perfume of fresh fields, of honeysuckle and

clover. He snuffed it, and it made his heart beat wildly--he was

out in the country again! He was going to live in the country!

When the dawn came he was peering out with hungry eyes, getting

glimpses of meadows and woods and rivers. At last he could stand

it no longer, and when the train stopped again he crawled out.

Upon the top of the car was a brakeman, who shook his fist and

swore; Jurgis waved his hand derisively, and started across the

country.

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

three long years he had never seen a country sight nor heard a

country sound! Excepting for that one walk when he left jail,

when he was too much worried to notice anything, and for a few

times that he had rested in the city parks in the winter time

when he was out of work, he had literally never seen a tree!

And now he felt like a bird lifted up and borne away upon a gale;

he stopped and stared at each new sight of wonder--at a herd of

cows, and a meadow full of daisies, at hedgerows set thick with

June roses, at little birds singing in the trees.

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

for protection, he approached it. The farmer was greasing a

wagon in front of the barn, and Jurgis went to him. "I would

like to get some breakfast, please," he said.

"Do you want to work?" said the farmer.

"No," said Jurgis. "I don't."

"Then you can't get anything here," snapped the other.

"I meant to pay for it," said Jurgis.

"Oh," said the farmer; and then added sarcastically, "We don't

serve breakfast after 7 A.M."

"I am very hungry," said Jurgis gravely; "I would like to buy

some food."

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

"woman" was more tractable, and for a dime Jurgis secured two

thick sandwiches and a piece of pie and two apples. He walked

off eating the pie, as the least convenient thing to carry. In a

few minutes he came to a stream, and he climbed a fence and

walked down the bank, along a woodland path. By and by he found

a comfortable spot, and there he devoured his meal, slaking his

thirst at the stream. Then he lay for hours, just gazing and

drinking in joy; until at last he felt sleepy, and lay down in

the shade of a bush.

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

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

There was a deep pool, sheltered and silent, below him, and a

sudden wonderful idea rushed upon him. He might have a bath!

The water was free, and he might get into it--all the way into

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

the water since he left Lithuania!

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

as any workingman could well be. But later on, what with

sickness and cold and hunger and discouragement, and the

filthiness of his work, and the vermin in his home, he had given

up washing in winter, and in summer only as much of him as would

go into a basin. He had had a shower bath in jail, but nothing

since--and now he would have a swim!

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

glee. Afterward he sat down in the water near the bank, and

proceeded to scrub himself--soberly and methodically, scouring

every inch of him with sand. While he was doing it he would do

it thoroughly, and see how it felt to be clean. He even scrubbed

his head with sand, and combed what the men called "crumbs" out

of his long, black hair, holding his head under water as long as

he could, to see if he could not kill them all. Then, seeing

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

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

went floating off downstream he grunted with satisfaction and

soused the clothes again, venturing even to dream that he might

get rid of the fertilizer.

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

the sun and had another long sleep. They were hot and stiff as

boards on top, and a little damp on the underside, when he

awakened; but being hungry, he put them on and set out again.

He had no knife, but with some labor he broke himself a good stout

club, and, armed with this, he marched down the road again.

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

that led to it. It was just suppertime, and the farmer was

washing his hands at the kitchen door. "Please, sir," said

Jurgis, "can I have something to eat? I can pay." To which the

farmer responded promptly, "We don't feed tramps here. Get out!"

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

came to a freshly ploughed and harrowed field, in which the

farmer had set out some young peach trees; and as he walked he

jerked up a row of them by the roots, more than a hundred trees

in all, before he reached the end of the field. That was his

answer, and it showed his mood; from now on he was fighting,

and the man who hit him would get all that he gave, every time.

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

then a field of winter grain, and came at last to another road.

Before long he saw another farmhouse, and, as it was beginning

to cloud over a little, he asked here for shelter as well as food.

Seeing the farmer eying him dubiously, he added, "I'll be glad

to sleep in the barn."

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

"Sometimes," said Jurgis, "but I'll do it out of doors." When the

man had assented, he inquired, "How much will it cost me? I

haven't very much money."

"I reckon about twenty cents for supper," replied the farmer. "I

won't charge ye for the barn."

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

wife and half a dozen children. It was a bountiful meal--there

were baked beans and mashed potatoes and asparagus chopped and

stewed, and a dish of strawberries, and great, thick slices of

bread, and a pitcher of milk. Jurgis had not had such a feast

since his wedding day, and he made a mighty effort to put in his

twenty cents' worth.

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

upon the steps and smoked, and the farmer questioned his guest.

When Jurgis had explained that he was a workingman from Chicago,

and that he did not know just whither he was bound, the other

said, "Why don't you stay here and work for me?"

"I'm not looking for work just now," Jurgis answered.

"I'll pay ye good," said the other, eying his big form--"a dollar

a day and board ye. Help's terrible scarce round here."

"Is that winter as well as summer?" Jurgis demanded quickly.

"N--no," said the farmer; "I couldn't keep ye after November--I

ain't got a big enough place for that."

"I see," said the other, "that's what I thought. When you get

through working your horses this fall, will you turn them out in

the snow?" (Jurgis was beginning to think for himself nowadays.)

"It ain't quite the same," the farmer answered, seeing the point.

"There ought to be work a strong fellow like you can find to do,

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

"Yes," said Jurgis, "that's what they all think; and so they

crowd into the cities, and when they have to beg or steal to

live, then people ask 'em why they don't go into the country,

where help is scarce." The farmer meditated awhile.

"How about when your money's gone?" he inquired, finally.

"You'll have to, then, won't you?"

"Wait till she's gone," said Jurgis; "then I'll see."

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

coffee and bread and oatmeal and stewed cherries, for which the

man charged him only fifteen cents, perhaps having been

influenced by his arguments. Then Jurgis bade farewell, and went

on his way.

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

got as fair treatment as from this last farmer, and so as time

went on he learned to shun the houses and to prefer sleeping in

the fields. When it rained he would find a deserted building,

if he could, and if not, he would wait until after dark and then,

with his stick ready, begin a stealthy approach upon a barn.

Generally he could get in before the dog got scent of him, and

then he would hide in the hay and be safe until morning; if not,

and the dog attacked him, he would rise up and make a retreat in

battle order. Jurgis was not the mighty man he had once been,

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

needed to hit more than once.

Before long there came raspberries, and then blackberries, to

help him save his money; and there were apples in the orchards

and potatoes in the ground--he learned to note the places and

fill his pockets after dark. Twice he even managed to capture a

chicken, and had a feast, once in a deserted barn and the other

time in a lonely spot alongside of a stream. When all of these

things failed him he used his money carefully, but without worry

--for he saw that he could earn more whenever he chose. Half an

hour's chopping wood in his lively fashion was enough to bring

him a meal, and when the farmer had seen him working he would

sometimes try to bribe him to stay.

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

The old wanderlust had got into his blood, the joy of the unbound

life, the joy of seeking, of hoping without limit. There were

mishaps and discomforts--but at least there was always something

new; and only think what it meant to a man who for years had been

penned up in one place, seeing nothing but one dreary prospect of

shanties and factories, to be suddenly set loose beneath the open

sky, to behold new landscapes, new places, and new people every

hour! To a man whose whole life had consisted of doing one

certain thing all day, until he was so exhausted that he could

only lie down and sleep until the next day--and to be now his own

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

new adventure every hour!

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

vigor, his joy and power that he had mourned and forgotten!

It came with a sudden rush, bewildering him, startling him; it was

as if his dead childhood had come back to him, laughing and

calling! What with plenty to eat and fresh air and exercise that

was taken as it pleased him, he would waken from his sleep and

start off not knowing what to do with his energy, stretching his

arms, laughing, singing old songs of home that came back to him.

Now and then, of course, he could not help but think of little

Antanas, whom he should never see again, whose little voice he

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

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

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

the morning he would get up and shake himself, and stride away

again to battle with the world.

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

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

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

the asking--everywhere he went there were men living just as he

lived, and whom he was welcome to join. He was a stranger at the

business, but they were not clannish, and they taught him all

their tricks--what towns and villages it was best to keep away

from, and how to read the secret signs upon the fences, and when

to beg and when to steal, and just how to do both. They laughed

at his ideas of paying for anything with money or with work--for

they got all they wanted without either. Now and then Jurgis

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

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

them some one would "take a shine" to him, and they would go off

together and travel for a week, exchanging reminiscences.

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

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

them had been workingmen, had fought the long fight as Jurgis

had, and found that it was a losing fight, and given up. Later

on he encountered yet another sort of men, those from whose ranks

the tramps were recruited, men who were homeless and wandering,

but still seeking work--seeking it in the harvest fields. Of

these there was an army, the huge surplus labor army of society;

called into being under the stern system of nature, to do the

casual work of the world, the tasks which were transient and

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

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

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

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

north with the season, ending with the fall in Manitoba. Then

they would seek out the big lumber camps, where there was winter

work; or failing in this, would drift to the cities, and live

upon what they had managed to save, with the help of such

transient work as was there the loading and unloading of

steamships and drays, the digging of ditches and the shoveling

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

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

according to the stern system of nature.

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

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

worked for three or four months to prepare, and of which they

would lose nearly all unless they could find others to help them

for a week or two. So all over the land there was a cry for

labor--agencies were set up and all the cities were drained of

men, even college boys were brought by the carload, and hordes of

frantic farmers would hold up trains and carry off wagonloads of

men by main force. Not that they did not pay them well--any man

could get two dollars a day and his board, and the best men could

get two dollars and a half or three.

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

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

gang and worked from dawn till dark, eighteen hours a day, for

two weeks without a break. Then he had a sum of money that would

have been a fortune to him in the old days of misery--but what

could he do with it now? To be sure he might have put it in a

bank, and, if he were fortunate, get it back again when he wanted

it. But Jurgis was now a homeless man, wandering over a

continent; and what did he know about banking and drafts and

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

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

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

drifted into a town with his fellows; and because it was raining,

and there was no other place provided for him, he went to a

saloon. And there were some who treated him and whom he had to

treat, and there was laughter and singing and good cheer;

and then out of the rear part of the saloon a girl's face,

red-cheeked and merry, smiled at Jurgis, and his heart thumped

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

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

room with her, and the wild beast rose up within him and

screamed, as it has screamed in the Jungle from the dawn of time.

And then because of his memories and his shame, he was glad when

others joined them, men and women; and they had more drink and

spent the night in wild rioting and debauchery. In the van of

the surplus-labor army, there followed another, an army of women,

they also struggling for life under the stern system of nature.

Because there were rich men who sought pleasure, there had been

ease and plenty for them so long as they were young and

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

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

trail of the workingmen. Sometimes they came of themselves,

and the saloon-keepers shared with them; or sometimes they were

handled by agencies, the same as the labor army. They were in

the towns in harvest time, near the lumber camps in the winter,

in the cities when the men came there; if a regiment were

encamped, or a railroad or canal being made, or a great

exposition getting ready, the crowd of women were on hand, living

in shanties or saloons or tenement rooms, sometimes eight or ten

of them together.

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

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

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

himself, but he could not help it now--all he could do was to see

that it did not happen again. So he tramped on until exercise

and fresh air banished his headache, and his strength and joy

returned. This happened to him every time, for Jurgis was still

a creature of impulse, and his pleasures had not yet become

business. It would be a long time before he could be like the

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

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

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

spree.

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

made miserable by his conscience. It was the ghost that would

not down. It would come upon him in the most unexpected

places--sometimes it fairly drove him to drink.

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

in a little house just outside of a town. It was a working-man's

home, and the owner was a Slav like himself, a new emigrant from

White Russia; he bade Jurgis welcome in his home language, and

told him to come to the kitchen-fire and dry himself. He had no

bed for him, but there was straw in the garret, and he could make

out. The man's wife was cooking the supper, and their children

were playing about on the floor. Jurgis sat and exchanged

thoughts with him about the old country, and the places where

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

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

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

stopped, seeing that the woman had brought a big basin of water

and was proceeding to undress her youngest baby. The rest had

crawled into the closet where they slept, but the baby was to

have a bath, the workingman explained. The nights had begun to

be chilly, and his mother, ignorant as to the climate in America,

had sewed him up for the winter; then it had turned warm again,

and some kind of a rash had broken out on the child. The doctor

had said she must bathe him every night, and she, foolish woman,

believed him.

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

He was about a year old, and a sturdy little fellow, with soft

fat legs, and a round ball of a stomach, and eyes as black as

coals. His pimples did not seem to bother him much, and he was

wild with glee over the bath, kicking and squirming and chuckling

with delight, pulling at his mother's face and then at his own

little toes. When she put him into the basin he sat in the midst

of it and grinned, splashing the water over himself and squealing

like a little pig. He spoke in Russian, of which Jurgis knew

some; he spoke it with the quaintest of baby accents--and every

word of it brought back to Jurgis some word of his own dead

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

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

gathered in his bosom and a flood heaped itself up behind his

eyes. And in the end he could bear it no more, but buried his

face in his hands and burst into tears, to the alarm and

amazement of his hosts. Between the shame of this and his woe

Jurgis could not stand it, and got up and rushed out into the

rain.

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

where he hid and wept as if his heart would break. Ah, what

agony was that, what despair, when the tomb of memory was rent

open and the ghosts of his old life came forth to scourge him!

What terror to see what he had been and now could never be--to

see Ona and his child and his own dead self stretching out their

arms to him,calling to him across a bottomless abyss--and to know

that they were gone from him forever, and he writhing and

suffocating in the mire of his own vileness!

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