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He was a big, red-faced Irishman, coarse-featured, and smelling of liquor. He saw Jurgis as he crossed the threshold, and turned white. He hesitated one second, as if meaning to run; and in the next his assailant was upon him. He put up his hands to protect his face, but Jurgis, lunging with all the power of his arm and body, struck him fairly between the eyes and knocked him backward.
He smiled at Jurgis confidingly, and then started talking again, with his blissful insouciance. This time he talked for ten minutes at a stretch, and in the course of the speech he told Jurgis all of his family history. His big brother Charlie was in love with the guileless maiden who played the part of "Little Bright-Eyes" in "The Kaliph of Kamskatka."
What time was it, he asked. It was morning time to be up. Ona had not been home that night! And it was bitter cold, and a foot of snow on the ground. Jurgis sat up with a start. Marija was crying with fright and the children were wailing in sympathy little Stanislovas in addition, because the terror of the snow was upon him.
There is Teta Elzbieta, and Marija, sobbing loudly; and then there is only the silent night, with the stars beginning to pale a little in the east. Jurgis, without a word, lifts Ona in his arms, and strides out with her, and she sinks her head upon his shoulder with a moan.
Then Ostrinski in turn explained his circumstances. He would have asked Jurgis to his home but he had only two rooms, and had no bed to offer. He would have given up his own bed, but his wife was ill. Later on, when he understood that otherwise Jurgis would have to sleep in a hallway, he offered him his kitchen floor, a chance which the other was only too glad to accept.
And they seemed to waken the city all around, far and near, there were bells, ringing wild music; for fully a minute Jurgis lay lost in wonder, before, all at once, the meaning of it broke over him that this was Christmas Eve! Christmas Eve he had forgotten it entirely! There was a breaking of floodgates, a whirl of new memories and new griefs rushing into his mind.
"Yes, sir." "It's hard work. You'll have to clean floors and wash spittoons and fill lamps and handle trunks " "I'm willing, sir." "All right. I'll pay you thirty a month and board, and you can begin now, if you feel like it. You can put on the other fellow's rig." And so Jurgis fell to work, and toiled like a Trojan till night.
Where Jurgis worked there was a machine which cut and stamped a certain piece of steel about two square inches in size; the pieces came tumbling out upon a tray, and all that human hands had to do was to pile them in regular rows, and change the trays at intervals.
So often this mood would come to Ona, in the nighttime, when something wakened her; she would lie, afraid of the beating of her own heart, fronting the blood-red eyes of the old primeval terror of life. Once she cried aloud, and woke Jurgis, who was tired and cross. After that she learned to weep silently their moods so seldom came together now!
And then, as Jurgis came out from this meeting, some one handed him a paper which he carried home with him and read; and so he became acquainted with the "Appeal to Reason."
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