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"Just a moment," said Jurgis, checking his enthusiasm. "I think I ought to get a little more wages." "Yes," replied the other, "of course. What do you want?" Jurgis had debated on the way. His nerve almost failed him now, but he clenched his hands. "I think I ought to have' three dollars a day," he said.
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.
The former had been drafted into the army; that had been over ten years ago, but since that day nothing had ever been heard of him. The sister was married, and her husband had bought the place when old Antanas had decided to go with his son. It was nearly a year and a half ago that Jurgis had met Ona, at a horse fair a hundred miles from home.
So Jurgis rushed home with the wild tidings that he had a job that the terrible siege was over. The remnants of the family had quite a celebration that night; and in the morning Jurgis was at the place half an hour before the time of opening. The foreman came in shortly afterward, and when he saw Jurgis he frowned. "Oh," he said, "I promised you a job, didn't I?" "Yes, sir," said Jurgis.
"Hurry up, there," he said. "As quick as I can," said Marija, and she stood up and began putting on her corsets with feverish haste. "Are the rest of the people alive?" asked Jurgis, finally. "Yes," she said. "Where are they?" "They live not far from here. They're all right now." "They are working?" he inquired. "Elzbieta is," said Marija, "when she can.
Passing down the avenue to work that morning he had seen two boys leaving an advertisement from house to house; and seeing that there were pictures upon it, Jurgis had asked for one, and had rolled it up and tucked it into his shirt. At noontime a man with whom he had been talking had read it to him and told him a little about it, with the result that Jurgis had conceived a wild idea.
It was as if their hopes were buried in separate graves. Jurgis, being a man, had troubles of his own. There was another specter following him. He had never spoken of it, nor would he allow any one else to speak of it he had never acknowledged its existence to himself. Yet the battle with it took all the manhood that he had and once or twice, alas, a little more. Jurgis had discovered drink.
But he answers her again: "Leave it to me; leave it to me. I will earn more money I will work harder." Jurgis talked lightly about work, because he was young. They told him stories about the breaking down of men, there in the stockyards of Chicago, and of what had happened to them afterward stories to make your flesh creep, but Jurgis would only laugh.
When, however, she had satisfied herself that he was sane upon all subjects except politics, she troubled herself no further about it. Jurgis was destined to find that Elzbieta's armor was absolutely impervious to Socialism.
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 Jurgis' throat as he recalled that the very night Ona had not come home Teta Elzbieta had taken him aside and shown him an old valentine that she had picked up in a paper store for three cents dingy and shopworn, but with bright colors, and figures of angels and doves.
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