Chapter 21

by Upton Sinclair

　　That was the way they did it! There was not half an hour'swarning--the works were closed! It had happened that way before,said the men, and it would happen that way forever. They hadmade all the harvesting machines that the world needed, and nowthey had to wait till some wore out! It was nobody's fault--that was the way of it; and thousands of men and women were turned outin the dead of winter, to live upon their savings if they hadany, and otherwise to die. So many tens of thousands already inthe city, homeless and begging for work, and now several thousandmore added to them!Jurgis walked home-with his pittance of pay in his pocket,heartbroken, overwhelmed. One more bandage had been torn fromhis eyes, one more pitfall was revealed to him! Of what help waskindness and decency on the part of employers--when they couldnot keep a job for him, when there were more harvesting machinesmade than the world was able to buy! What a hellish mockery itwas, anyway, that a man should slave to make harvesting machinesfor the country, only to be turned out to starve for doing hisduty too well!It took him two days to get over this heartsickeningdisappointment. He did not drink anything, because Elzbieta gothis money for safekeeping, and knew him too well to be in theleast frightened by his angry demands. He stayed up in thegarret however, and sulked--what was the use of a man's hunting ajob when it was taken from him before he had time to learn thework? But then their money was going again, and little Antanaswas hungry, and crying with the bitter cold of the garret.Also Madame Haupt, the midwife, was after him for some money.So he went out once more.For another ten days he roamed the streets and alleys of the hugecity, sick and hungry, begging for any work. He tried in storesand offices, in restaurants and hotels, along the docks and inthe railroad yards, in warehouses and mills and factories wherethey made products that went to every corner of the world. Therewere often one or two chances--but there were always a hundredmen for every chance, and his turn would not come. At night hecrept into sheds and cellars and doorways--until there came aspell of belated winter weather, with a raging gale, and thethermometer five degrees below zero at sundown and falling allnight. Then Jurgis fought like a wild beast to get into the bigHarrison Street police station, and slept down in a corridor,crowded with two other men upon a single step.He had to fight often in these days to fight for a place near thefactory gates, and now and again with gangs on the street. Hefound, for instance, that the business of carrying satchels forrailroad passengers was a pre-empted one--whenever he essayed it,eight or ten men and boys would fall upon him and force him torun for his life. They always had the policeman "squared," andso there was no use in expecting protection.That Jurgis did not starve to death was due solely to thepittance the children brought him. And even this was nevercertain. For one thing the cold was almost more than thechildren could bear; and then they, too, were in perpetual perilfrom rivals who plundered and beat them. The law was againstthem, too--little Vilimas, who was really eleven, but did notlook to be eight, was stopped on the streets by a severe old ladyin spectacles, who told him that he was too young to be workingand that if he did not stop selling papers she would send atruant officer after him. Also one night a strange man caughtlittle Kotrina by the arm and tried to persuade her into a darkcellarway, an experience which filled her with such terror thatshe was hardly to be kept at work.At last, on a Sunday, as there was no use looking for work,Jurgis went home by stealing rides on the cars. He found thatthey had been waiting for him for three days--there was a chanceof a job for him.It was quite a story. Little Juozapas, who was near crazy withhunger these days, had gone out on the street to beg for himself.Juozapas had only one leg, having been run over by a wagon when alittle child, but he had got himself a broomstick, which he putunder his arm for a crutch. He had fallen in with some otherchildren and found the way to Mike Scully's dump, which lay threeor four blocks away. To this place there came every day manyhundreds of wagonloads of garbage and trash from the lake front,where the rich people lived; and in the heaps the children rakedfor food--there were hunks of bread and potato peelings and applecores and meat bones, all of it half frozen and quite unspoiled.Little Juozapas gorged himself, and came home with a newspaperfull, which he was feeding to Antanas when his mother came in.Elzbieta was horrified, for she did not believe that the food outof the dumps was fit to eat. The next day, however, when no harmcame of it and Juozapas began to cry with hunger, she gave in andsaid that he might go again. And that afternoon he came homewith a story of how while he had been digging away with a stick,a lady upon the street had called him. A real fine lady,the little boy explained, a beautiful lady; and she wanted to knowall about him, and whether he got the garbage for chickens,and why he walked with a broomstick, and why Ona had died, and howJurgis had come to go to jail, and what was the matter withMarija, and everything. In the end she had asked where he lived,and said that she was coming to see him, and bring him a newcrutch to walk with. She had on a hat with a bird upon it,Juozapas added, and a long fur snake around her neck.She really came, the very next morning, and climbed the ladder tothe garret, and stood and stared about her, turning pale at thesight of the blood stains on the floor where Ona had died. Shewas a "settlement worker," she explained to Elzbieta--she livedaround on Ashland Avenue. Elzbieta knew the place, over a feedstore; somebody had wanted her to go there, but she had not caredto, for she thought that it must have something to do withreligion, and the priest did not like her to have anything to dowith strange religions. They were rich people who came to livethere to find out about the poor people; but what good theyexpected it would do them to know, one could not imagine. Sospoke Elzbieta, naively, and the young lady laughed and wasrather at a loss for an answer--she stood and gazed about her,and thought of a cynical remark that had been made to her, thatshe was standing upon the brink of the pit of hell and throwingin snowballs to lower the temperature.Elzbieta was glad to have somebody to listen, and she told alltheir woes--what had happened to Ona, and the jail, and the lossof their home, and Marija's accident, and how Ona had died, andhow Jurgis could get no work. As she listened the pretty younglady's eyes filled with tears, and in the midst of it she burstinto weeping and hid her face on Elzbieta's shoulder, quiteregardless of the fact that the woman had on a dirty old wrapperand that the garret was full of fleas. Poor Elzbieta was ashamedof herself for having told so woeful a tale, and the other had tobeg and plead with her to get her to go on. The end of it wasthat the young lady sent them a basket of things to eat, and lefta letter that Jurgis was to take to a gentleman who wassuperintendent in one of the mills of the great steelworks inSouth Chicago. "He will get Jurgis something to do," the younglady had said, and added, smiling through her tears--"If hedoesn't, he will never marry me."The steel-works were fifteen miles away, and as usual it was socontrived that one had to pay two fares to get there. Far andwide the sky was flaring with the red glare that leaped from rowsof towering chimneys--for it was pitch dark when Jurgis arrived.The vast works, a city in themselves, were surrounded by astockade; and already a full hundred men were waiting at the gatewhere new hands were taken on. Soon after daybreak whistlesbegan to blow, and then suddenly thousands of men appeared,streaming from saloons and boardinghouses across the way, leapingfrom trolley cars that passed--it seemed as if they rose out ofthe ground, in the dim gray light. A river of them poured inthrough the gate--and then gradually ebbed away again, untilthere were only a few late ones running, and the watchman pacingup and down, and the hungry strangers stamping and shivering.Jurgis presented his precious letter. The gatekeeper was surly,and put him through a catechism, but he insisted that he knewnothing, and as he had taken the precaution to seal his letter,there was nothing for the gatekeeper to do but send it to theperson to whom it was addressed. A messenger came back to saythat Jurgis should wait, and so he came inside of the gate,perhaps not sorry enough that there were others less fortunatewatching him with greedy eyes. The great mills were gettingunder way--one could hear a vast stirring, a rolling and rumblingand hammering. Little by little the scene grew plain: towering,black buildings here and there, long rows of shops and sheds,little railways branching everywhere, bare gray cinders underfootand oceans of billowing black smoke above. On one side of thegrounds ran a railroad with a dozen tracks, and on the other sidelay the lake, where steamers came to load.Jurgis had time enough to stare and speculate, for it was twohours before he was summoned. He went into the office building,where a company timekeeper interviewed him. The superintendentwas busy, he said, but he (the timekeeper) would try to findJurgis a job. He had never worked in a steel mill before? Buthe was ready for anything? Well, then, they would go and see.So they began a tour, among sights that made Jurgis stare amazed.He wondered if ever he could get used to working in a place likethis, where the air shook with deafening thunder, and whistlesshrieked warnings on all sides of him at once; where miniaturesteam engines came rushing upon him, and sizzling, quivering,white-hot masses of metal sped past him, and explosions of fireand flaming sparks dazzled him and scorched his face. Then menin these mills were all black with soot, and hollow-eyed andgaunt; they worked with fierce intensity, rushing here and there,and never lifting their eyes from their tasks. Jurgis clung tohis guide like a scared child to its nurse, and while the latterhailed one foreman after another to ask if they could use anotherunskilled man, he stared about him and marveled.He was taken to the Bessemer furnace, where they made billets ofsteel--a domelike building, the size of a big theater. Jurgisstood where the balcony of the theater would have been,and opposite, by the stage, he saw three giant caldrons, big enoughfor all the devils of hell to brew their broth in, full ofsomething white and blinding, bubbling and splashing, roaring asif volcanoes were blowing through it--one had to shout to beheard in the place. Liquid fire would leap from these caldronsand scatter like bombs below--and men were working there, seemingcareless, so that Jurgis caught his breath with fright. Then awhistle would toot, and across the curtain of the theater wouldcome a little engine with a carload of something to be dumpedinto one of the receptacles; and then another whistle would toot,down by the stage, and another train would back up--and suddenly,without an instant's warning, one of the giant kettles began totilt and topple, flinging out a jet of hissing, roaring flame.Jurgis shrank back appalled, for he thought it was an accident;there fell a pillar of white flame, dazzling as the sun, swishinglike a huge tree falling in the forest. A torrent of sparksswept all the way across the building, overwhelming everything,hiding it from sight; and then Jurgis looked through the fingersof his hands, and saw pouring out of the caldron a cascade ofliving, leaping fire, white with a whiteness not of earth,scorching the eyeballs. Incandescent rainbows shone above it,blue, red, and golden lights played about it; but the streamitself was white, ineffable. Out of regions of wonder itstreamed, the very river of life; and the soul leaped up at thesight of it, fled back upon it, swift and resistless, back intofar-off lands, where beauty and terror dwell. Then the greatcaldron tilted back again, empty, and Jurgis saw to his reliefthat no one was hurt, and turned and followed his guide out intothe sunlight.They went through the blast furnaces, through rolling mills wherebars of steel were tossed about and chopped like bits of cheese.All around and above giant machine arms were flying, giant wheelswere turning, great hammers crashing; traveling cranes creakedand groaned overhead, reaching down iron hands and seizing ironprey--it was like standing in the center of the earth, where themachinery of time was revolving.By and by they came to the place where steel rails were made; andJurgis heard a toot behind him, and jumped out of the way of acar with a white-hot ingot upon it, the size of a man's body.There was a sudden crash and the car came to a halt, and theingot toppled out upon a moving platform, where steel fingers andarms seized hold of it, punching it and prodding it into place,and hurrying it into the grip of huge rollers. Then it came outupon the other side, and there were more crashings andclatterings, and over it was flopped, like a pancake on agridiron, and seized again and rushed back at you through anothersqueezer. So amid deafening uproar it clattered to and fro,growing thinner and flatter and longer. The ingot seemed almosta living thing; it did not want to run this mad course, but itwas in the grip of fate, it was tumbled on, screeching andclanking and shivering in protest. By and by it was long andthin, a great red snake escaped from purgatory; and then, as itslid through the rollers, you would have sworn that it wasalive--it writhed and squirmed, and wriggles and shudders passedout through its tail, all but flinging it off by their violence.There was no rest for it until it was cold and black--and then itneeded only to be cut and straightened to be ready for arailroad.It was at the end of this rail's progress that Jurgis got hischance. They had to be moved by men with crowbars, and the bosshere could use another man. So he took off his coat and set towork on the spot.It took him two hours to get to this place every day and cost hima dollar and twenty cents a week. As this was out of thequestion, he wrapped his bedding in a bundle and took it withhim, and one of his fellow workingmen introduced him to a Polishlodginghouse, where he might have the privilege of sleeping uponthe floor for ten cents a night. He got his meals at free-lunchcounters, and every Saturday night he went home--bedding andall--and took the greater part of his money to the family.Elzbieta was sorry for this arrangement, for she feared that itwould get him into the habit of living without them, and once aweek was not very often for him to see his baby; but there was noother way of arranging it. There was no chance for a woman atthe steelworks, and Marija was now ready for work again, andlured on from day to day by the hope of finding it at the yards.In a week Jurgis got over his sense of helplessness andbewilderment in the rail mill. He learned to find his way aboutand to take all the miracles and terrors for granted, to workwithout hearing the rumbling and crashing. From blind fear hewent to the other extreme; he became reckless and indifferent,like all the rest of the men, who took but little thought ofthemselves in the ardor of their work. It was wonderful, whenone came to think of it, that these men should have taken aninterest in the work they did--they had no share in it--they werepaid by the hour, and paid no more for being interested. Alsothey knew that if they were hurt they would be flung aside andforgotten--and still they would hurry to their task by dangerousshort cuts, would use methods that were quicker and moreeffective in spite of the fact that they were also risky. Hisfourth day at his work Jurgis saw a man stumble while running infront of a car, and have his foot mashed off, and before he hadbeen there three weeks he was witness of a yet more dreadfulaccident. There was a row of brick furnaces, shining whitethrough every crack with the molten steel inside. Some of thesewere bulging dangerously, yet men worked before them, wearingblue glasses when they opened and shut the doors. One morning asJurgis was passing, a furnace blew out, spraying two men with ashower of liquid fire. As they lay screaming and rolling uponthe ground in agony, Jurgis rushed to help them, and as a resulthe lost a good part of the skin from the inside of one of hishands. The company doctor bandaged it up, but he got no otherthanks from any one, and was laid up for eight working dayswithout any pay.Most fortunately, at this juncture, Elzbieta got the long-awaitedchance to go at five o'clock in the morning and help scrub theoffice floors of one of the packers. Jurgis came home andcovered himself with blankets to keep warm, and divided his timebetween sleeping and playing with little Antanas. Juozapas wasaway raking in the dump a good part of the time, and Elzbieta andMarija were hunting for more work.Antanas was now over a year and a half old, and was a perfecttalking machine. He learned so fast that every week when Jurgiscame home it seemed to him as if he had a new child. He wouldsit down and listen and stare at him, and give vent to delightedexclamations--"Palauk! Muma! Tu mano szirdele!" The littlefellow was now really the one delight that Jurgis had in theworld--his one hope, his one victory. Thank God, Antanas was aboy! And he was as tough as a pine knot, and with the appetiteof a wolf. Nothing had hurt him, and nothing could hurt him; hehad come through all the suffering and deprivationunscathed--only shriller-voiced and more determined in his gripupon life. He was a terrible child to manage, was Antanas, buthis father did not mind that--he would watch him and smile tohimself with satisfaction. The more of a fighter he was thebetter--he would need to fight before he got through.Jurgis had got the habit of buying the Sunday paper whenever hehad the money; a most wonderful paper could be had for only fivecents, a whole armful, with all the news of the world set forthin big headlines, that Jurgis could spell out slowly, with thechildren to help him at the long words. There was battle andmurder and sudden death--it was marvelous how they ever heardabout so many entertaining and thrilling happenings; the storiesmust be all true, for surely no man could have made such thingsup, and besides, there were pictures of them all, as real aslife. One of these papers was as good as a circus, and nearly asgood as a spree--certainly a most wonderful treat for a workingman,who was tired out and stupefied, and had never had anyeducation, and whose work was one dull, sordid grind, dayafter day, and year after year, with never a sight of a greenfield nor an hour's entertainment, nor anything but liquor tostimulate his imagination. Among other things, these papers hadpages full of comical pictures, and these were the main joy inlife to little Antanas. He treasured them up, and would dragthem out and make his father tell him about them; there were allsorts of animals among them, and Antanas could tell the names ofall of them, lying upon the floor for hours and pointing them outwith his chubby little fingers. Whenever the story was plainenough for Jurgis to make out, Antanas would have it repeated tohim, and then he would remember it, prattling funny littlesentences and mixing it up with other stories in an irresistiblefashion. Also his quaint pronunciation of words was such adelight--and the phrases he would pick up and remember, the mostoutlandish and impossible things! The first time that the littlerascal burst out with "God damn," his father nearly rolled offthe chair with glee; but in the end he was sorry for this, forAntanas was soon "God-damning" everything and everybody.And then, when he was able to use his hands, Jurgis took hisbedding again and went back to his task of shifting rails. Itwas now April, and the snow had given place to cold rains, andthe unpaved street in front of Aniele's house was turned into acanal. Jurgis would have to wade through it to get home, and ifit was late he might easily get stuck to his waist in the mire.But he did not mind this much--it was a promise that summer wascoming. Marija had now gotten a place as beef-trimmer in one ofthe smaller packing plants; and he told himself that he hadlearned his lesson now, and would meet with no more accidents--so that at last there was prospect of an end to their long agony.They could save money again, and when another winter came theywould have a comfortable place; and the children would be off thestreets and in school again, and they might set to work to nurseback into life their habits of decency and kindness. So oncemore Jurgis began to make plans and dream dreams.And then one Saturday night he jumped off the car and startedhome, with the sun shining low under the edge of a bank of cloudsthat had been pouring floods of water into the mud-soaked street.There was a rainbow in the sky, and another in his breast--for hehad thirty-six hours' rest before him, and a chance to see hisfamily. Then suddenly he came in sight of the house, and noticedthat there was a crowd before the door. He ran up the steps andpushed his way in, and saw Aniele's kitchen crowded with excitedwomen. It reminded him so vividly of the time when he had comehome from jail and found Ona dying, that his heart almost stoodstill. "What's the matter?" he cried.A dead silence had fallen in the room, and he saw that every onewas staring at him. "What's the matter?" he exclaimed again.And then, up in the garret, he heard sounds of wailing, inMarija's voice. He started for the ladder--and Aniele seized himby the arm. "No, no!" she exclaimed. "Don't go up there!""What is it?" he shouted.And the old woman answered him weakly: "It's Antanas. He's dead.He was drowned out in the street!"