Chapter 10

by Upton Sinclair

　　During the early part of the winter the family had had money enoughto live and a little over to pay their debts with; but when theearnings of Jurgis fell from nine or ten dollars a week to five or six,there was no longer anything to spare. The winter went, and thespring came, and found them still living thus from hand to mouth,hanging on day by day, with literally not a month's wages betweenthem and starvation. Marija was in despair, for there was stillno word about the reopening of the canning factory, and her savingswere almost entirely gone. She had had to give up all idea ofmarrying then; the family could not get along without her--though forthat matter she was likely soon to become a burden even upon them,for when her money was all gone, they would have to pay back whatthey owed her in board. So Jurgis and Ona and Teta Elzbieta wouldhold anxious conferences until late at night, trying to figure howthey could manage this too without starving.Such were the cruel terms upon which their life was possible,that they might never have nor expect a single instant's respitefrom worry, a single instant in which they were not haunted by thethought of money. They would no sooner escape, as by a miracle,from one difficulty, than a new one would come into view. In additionto all their physical hardships, there was thus a constant strainupon their minds; they were harried all day and nearly all night byworry and fear. This was in truth not living; it was scarcely evenexisting, and they felt that it was too little for the price they paid.They were willing to work all the time; and when people did their best,ought they not to be able to keep alive?There seemed never to be an end to the things they had to buy and tothe unforeseen contingencies. Once their water pipes froze and burst;and when, in their ignorance, they thawed them out, they had aterrifying flood in their house. It happened while the men were away,and poor Elzbieta rushed out into the street screaming for help,for she did not even know whether the flood could be stopped, or whetherthey were ruined for life. It was nearly as bad as the latter, theyfound in the end, for the plumber charged them seventy-five centsan hour, and seventy-five cents for another man who had stood andwatched him, and included all the time the two had been going andcoming, and also a charge for all sorts of material and extras.And then again, when they went to pay their January's installment onthe house, the agent terrified them by asking them if they had had theinsurance attended to yet. In answer to their inquiry he showed thema clause in the deed which provided that they were to keep the houseinsured for one thousand dollars, as soon as the present policy ran out,which would happen in a few days. Poor Elzbieta, upon whom again fellthe blow, demanded how much it would cost them. Seven dollars, the mansaid; and that night came Jurgis, grim and determined, requesting thatthe agent would be good enough to inform him, once for all, as to allthe expenses they were liable for. The deed was signed now, he said,with sarcasm proper to the new way of life he had learned--the deed wassigned, and so the agent had no longer anything to gain by keeping quiet.And Jurgis looked the fellow squarely in the eye, and so the fellowwasted no time in conventional protests, but read him the deed.They would have to renew the insurance every year; they would have topay the taxes, about ten dollars a year; they would have to pay thewater tax, about six dollars a year--(Jurgis silently resolved toshut off the hydrant). This, besides the interest and the monthlyinstallments, would be all--unless by chance the city should happento decide to put in a sewer or to lay a sidewalk. Yes, said the agent,they would have to have these, whether they wanted them or not, if thecity said so. The sewer would cost them about twenty-two dollars,and the sidewalk fifteen if it were wood, twenty-five if it were cement.So Jurgis went home again; it was a relief to know the worst, at any rate,so that he could no more be surprised by fresh demands. He saw nowhow they had been plundered; but they were in for it, there was noturning back. They could only go on and make the fight and win--for defeat was a thing that could not even be thought of.When the springtime came, they were delivered from the dreadful cold,and that was a great deal; but in addition they had counted on themoney they would not have to pay for coal--and it was just at thistime that Marija's board began to fail. Then, too, the warm weatherbrought trials of its own; each season had its trials, as they found.In the spring there were cold rains, that turned the streets intocanals and bogs; the mud would be so deep that wagons would sinkup to the hubs, so that half a dozen horses could not move them.Then, of course, it was impossible for any one to get to work withdry feet; and this was bad for men that were poorly clad and shod,and still worse for women and children. Later came midsummer, with thestifling heat, when the dingy killing beds of Durham's became a verypurgatory; one time, in a single day, three men fell dead from sunstroke.All day long the rivers of hot blood poured forth, until, with the sunbeating down, and the air motionless, the stench was enough to knocka man over; all the old smells of a generation would be drawn out bythis heat--for there was never any washing of the walls and raftersand pillars, and they were caked with the filth of a lifetime.The men who worked on the killing beds would come to reek with foulness,so that you could smell one of them fifty feet away; there was simplyno such thing as keeping decent, the most careful man gave it up inthe end, and wallowed in uncleanness. There was not even a placewhere a man could wash his hands, and the men ate as much raw blood asfood at dinnertime. When they were at work they could not even wipe offtheir faces--they were as helpless as newly born babes in that respect;and it may seem like a small matter, but when the sweat began to rundown their necks and tickle them, or a fly to bother them, it was atorture like being burned alive. Whether it was the slaughterhousesor the dumps that were responsible, one could not say, but with thehot weather there descended upon Packingtown a veritable Egyptian plagueof flies; there could be no describing this--the houses would be blackwith them. There was no escaping; you might provide all your doorsand windows with screens, but their buzzing outside would be likethe swarming of bees, and whenever you opened the door they wouldrush in as if a storm of wind were driving them.Perhaps the summertime suggests to you thoughts of the country,visions of green fields and mountains and sparkling lakes. It hadno such suggestion for the people in the yards. The great packingmachine ground on remorselessly, without thinking of green fields;and the men and women and children who were part of it never sawany green thing, not even a flower. Four or five miles to the eastof them lay the blue waters of Lake Michigan; but for all the goodit did them it might have been as far away as the Pacific Ocean.They had only Sundays, and then they were too tired to walk.They were tied to the great packing machine, and tied to it for life.The managers and superintendents and clerks of Packingtown were allrecruited from another class, and never from the workers; they scornedthe workers, the very meanest of them. A poor devil of a bookkeeperwho had been working in Durham's for twenty years at a salary ofsix dollars a week, and might work there for twenty more and dono better, would yet consider himself a gentleman, as far removedas the poles from the most skilled worker on the killing beds;he would dress differently, and live in another part of the town,and come to work at a different hour of the day, and in every waymake sure that he never rubbed elbows with a laboring man. Perhapsthis was due to the repulsiveness of the work; at any rate, the peoplewho worked with their hands were a class apart, and were made to feel it.In the late spring the canning factory started up again, and soonce more Marija was heard to sing, and the love-music of Tamosziustook on a less melancholy tone. It was not for long, however;for a month or two later a dreadful calamity fell upon Marija.Just one year and three days after she had begun work as a can-painter,she lost her job.It was a long story. Marija insisted that it was because of heractivity in the union. The packers, of course, had spies in allthe unions, and in addition they made a practice of buying upa certain number of the union officials, as many as they thoughtthey needed. So every week they received reports as to what wasgoing on, and often they knew things before the members of theunion knew them. Any one who was considered to be dangerous by themwould find that he was not a favorite with his boss; and Marija hadbeen a great hand for going after the foreign people and preachingto them. However that might be, the known facts were that a fewweeks before the factory closed, Marija had been cheated out of herpay for three hundred cans. The girls worked at a long table,and behind them walked a woman with pencil and notebook, keeping countof the number they finished. This woman was, of course, only human,and sometimes made mistakes; when this happened, there was noredress--if on Saturday you got less money than you had earned,you had to make the best of it. But Marija did not understand this,and made a disturbance. Marija's disturbances did not mean anything,and while she had known only Lithuanian and Polish, they had done no harm,for people only laughed at her and made her cry. But now Marija wasable to call names in English, and so she got the woman who made themistake to disliking her. Probably, as Marija claimed, she mademistakes on purpose after that; at any rate, she made them, and thethird time it happened Marija went on the warpath and took the matterfirst to the forelady, and when she got no satisfaction there, to thesuperintendent. This was unheard-of presumption, but the superintendentsaid he would see about it, which Marija took to mean that she wasgoing to get her money; after waiting three days, she went to seethe superintendent again. This time the man frowned, and said that hehad not had time to attend to it; and when Marija, against the adviceand warning of every one, tried it once more, he ordered her back toher work in a passion. Just how things happened after that Marija wasnot sure, but that afternoon the forelady told her that her serviceswould not be any longer required. Poor Marija could not have beenmore dumfounded had the woman knocked her over the head; at first shecould not believe what she heard, and then she grew furious and sworethat she would come anyway, that her place belonged to her. In the endshe sat down in the middle of the floor and wept and wailed.It was a cruel lesson; but then Marija was headstrong--she shouldhave listened to those who had had experience. The next time shewould know her place, as the forelady expressed it; and so Marijawent out, and the family faced the problem of an existence again.It was especially hard this time, for Ona was to be confined before long,and Jurgis was trying hard to save up money for this. He had hearddreadful stories of the midwives, who grow as thick as fleas inPackingtown; and he had made up his mind that Ona must have aman-doctor. Jurgis could be very obstinate when he wanted to,and he was in this case, much to the dismay of the women, who feltthat a man-doctor was an impropriety, and that the matter reallybelonged to them. The cheapest doctor they could find would chargethem fifteen dollars, and perhaps more when the bill came in;and here was Jurgis, declaring that he would pay it, even if he hadto stop eating in the meantime!Marija had only about twenty-five dollars left. Day after day shewandered about the yards begging a job, but this time without hopeof finding it. Marija could do the work of an able-bodied man,when she was cheerful, but discouragement wore her out easily,and she would come home at night a pitiable object. She learnedher lesson this time, poor creature; she learned it ten times over.All the family learned it along with her--that when you have oncegot a job in Packingtown, you hang on to it, come what will.Four weeks Marija hunted, and half of a fifth week. Of course shestopped paying her dues to the union. She lost all interest in theunion, and cursed herself for a fool that she had ever been draggedinto one. She had about made up her mind that she was a lost soul,when somebody told her of an opening, and she went and got a placeas a "beef-trimmer." She got this because the boss saw that shehad the muscles of a man, and so he discharged a man and put Marijato do his work, paying her a little more than half what he had beenpaying before.When she first came to Packingtown, Marija would have scorned suchwork as this. She was in another canning factory, and her workwas to trim the meat of those diseased cattle that Jurgis had beentold about not long before. She was shut up in one of the roomswhere the people seldom saw the daylight; beneath her were thechilling rooms, where the meat was frozen, and above her werethe cooking rooms; and so she stood on an ice-cold floor, while herhead was often so hot that she could scarcely breathe. Trimming beefoff the bones by the hundred-weight, while standing up from earlymorning till late at night, with heavy boots on and the flooralways damp and full of puddles, liable to be thrown out of workindefinitely because of a slackening in the trade, liable againto be kept overtime in rush seasons, and be worked till she trembledin every nerve and lost her grip on her slimy knife, and gave herselfa poisoned wound--that was the new life that unfolded itself before Marija.But because Marija was a human horse she merely laughed and wentat it; it would enable her to pay her board again, and keep thefamily going. And as for Tamoszius--well, they had waited a long time,and they could wait a little longer. They could not possibly getalong upon his wages alone, and the family could not live without hers.He could come and visit her, and sit in the kitchen and hold her hand,and he must manage to be content with that. But day by day themusic of Tamoszius' violin became more passionate and heartbreaking;and Marija would sit with her hands clasped and her cheeks wet andall her body atremble, hearing in the wailing melodies the voicesof the unborn generations which cried out in her for life.Marija's lesson came just in time to save Ona from a similar fate.Ona, too, was dissatisfied with her place, and had far more reasonthan Marija. She did not tell half of her story at home, because shesaw it was a torment to Jurgis, and she was afraid of what he might do.For a long time Ona had seen that Miss Henderson, the forelady inher department, did not like her. At first she thought it was theold-time mistake she had made in asking for a holiday to get married.Then she concluded it must be because she did not give the foreladya present occasionally--she was the kind that took presents fromthe girls, Ona learned, and made all sorts of discriminations in favorof those who gave them. In the end, however, Ona discovered thatit was even worse than that. Miss Henderson was a newcomer, and it wassome time before rumor made her out; but finally it transpired thatshe was a kept woman, the former mistress of the superintendent ofa department in the same building. He had put her there to keepher quiet, it seemed--and that not altogether with success, for onceor twice they had been heard quarreling. She had the temper of a hyena,and soon the place she ran was a witch's caldron. There were someof the girls who were of her own sort, who were willing to toadyto her and flatter her; and these would carry tales about the rest,and so the furies were unchained in the place. Worse than this,the woman lived in a bawdyhouse downtown, with a coarse, red-facedIrishman named Connor, who was the boss of the loading-gang outside,and would make free with the girls as they went to and from their work.In the slack seasons some of them would go with Miss Henderson tothis house downtown--in fact, it would not be too much to say thatshe managed her department at Brown's in conjunction with it.Sometimes women from the house would be given places alongside ofdecent girls, and after other decent girls had been turned off tomake room for them. When you worked in this woman's departmentthe house downtown was never out of your thoughts all day--there werealways whiffs of it to be caught, like the odor of the Packingtownrendering plants at night, when the wind shifted suddenly. There wouldbe stories about it going the rounds; the girls opposite you would betelling them and winking at you. In such a place Ona would not havestayed a day, but for starvation; and, as it was, she was never surethat she could stay the next day. She understood now that the realreason that Miss Henderson hated her was that she was a decentmarried girl; and she knew that the talebearers and the toadieshated her for the same reason, and were doing their best to make herlife miserable.But there was no place a girl could go in Packingtown, if she wasparticular about things of this sort; there was no place in itwhere a prostitute could not get along better than a decent girl.Here was a population, low-class and mostly foreign, hanging alwayson the verge of starvation, and dependent for its opportunities oflife upon the whim of men every bit as brutal and unscrupulous asthe old-time slave drivers; under such circumstances immoralitywas exactly as inevitable, and as prevalent, as it was under thesystem of chattel slavery. Things that were quite unspeakablewent on there in the packing houses all the time, and were takenfor granted by everybody; only they did not show, as in the oldslavery times, because there was no difference in color betweenmaster and slave.One morning Ona stayed home, and Jurgis had the man-doctor,according to his whim, and she was safely delivered of a fine baby.It was an enormous big boy, and Ona was such a tiny creature herself,that it seemed quite incredible. Jurgis would stand and gaze at thestranger by the hour, unable to believe that it had really happened.The coming of this boy was a decisive event with Jurgis. It madehim irrevocably a family man; it killed the last lingering impulsethat he might have had to go out in the evenings and sit and talkwith the men in the saloons. There was nothing he cared for nowso much as to sit and look at the baby. This was very curious,for Jurgis had never been interested in babies before. But then,this was a very unusual sort of a baby. He had the brightestlittle black eyes, and little black ringlets all over his head;he was the living image of his father, everybody said--and Jurgisfound this a fascinating circumstance. It was sufficiently perplexingthat this tiny mite of life should have come into the world at allin the manner that it had; that it should have come with a comicalimitation of its father's nose was simply uncanny.Perhaps, Jurgis thought, this was intended to signify that it washis baby; that it was his and Ona's, to care for all its life.Jurgis had never possessed anything nearly so interesting--a baby was,when you came to think about it, assuredly a marvelous possession.It would grow up to be a man, a human soul, with a personality allits own, a will of its own! Such thoughts would keep haunting Jurgis,filling him with all sorts of strange and almost painful excitements.He was wonderfully proud of little Antanas; he was curious about allthe details of him--the washing and the dressing and the eating andthe sleeping of him, and asked all sorts of absurd questions. It tookhim quite a while to get over his alarm at the incredible shortnessof the little creature's legs.Jurgis had, alas, very little time to see his baby; he never feltthe chains about him more than just then. When he came home at night,the baby would be asleep, and it would be the merest chance if he awokebefore Jurgis had to go to sleep himself. Then in the morning therewas no time to look at him, so really the only chance the fatherhad was on Sundays. This was more cruel yet for Ona, who oughtto have stayed home and nursed him, the doctor said, for her ownhealth as well as the baby's; but Ona had to go to work, and leave himfor Teta Elzbieta to feed upon the pale blue poison that was calledmilk at the corner grocery. Ona's confinement lost her only aweek's wages--she would go to the factory the second Monday, and thebest that Jurgis could persuade her was to ride in the car, and lethim run along behind and help her to Brown's when she alighted.After that it would be all right, said Ona, it was no strain sittingstill sewing hams all day; and if she waited longer she might findthat her dreadful forelady had put some one else in her place.That would be a greater calamity than ever now, Ona continued,on account of the baby. They would all have to work harder nowon his account. It was such a responsibility--they must not havethe baby grow up to suffer as they had. And this indeed had beenthe first thing that Jurgis had thought of himself--he had clenchedhis hands and braced himself anew for the struggle, for the sake ofthat tiny mite of human possibility.And so Ona went back to Brown's and saved her place and a week's wages;and so she gave herself some one of the thousand ailments that womengroup under the title of "womb trouble," and was never again a wellperson as long as she lived. It is difficult to convey in words allthat this meant to Ona; it seemed such a slight offense, and thepunishment was so out of all proportion, that neither she nor any oneelse ever connected the two. "Womb trouble" to Ona did not meana specialist's diagnosis, and a course of treatment, and perhapsan operation or two; it meant simply headaches and pains in the back,and depression and heartsickness, and neuralgia when she had to go towork in the rain. The great majority of the women who worked inPackingtown suffered in the same way, and from the same cause,so it was not deemed a thing to see the doctor about; instead Onawould try patent medicines, one after another, as her friends toldher about them. As these all contained alcohol, or some otherstimulant, she found that they all did her good while she took them;and so she was always chasing the phantom of good health, and losingit because she was too poor to continue.