at this moment, if she could speak to him.  It was a terrible thing that she should have died as she had; but the life had been too hard for her, and she had to go.  It was terrible that they were not able to bury her, that he could not even have a day to mourn her—­but so it was.  Their fate was pressing; they had not a cent, and the children would perish—­some money must be had.  Could he not be a man for Ona’s sake, and pull himself together?  In a little while they would be out of danger—­now that they had given up the house they could live more cheaply, and with all the children working they could get along, if only he would not go to pieces.  So Elzbieta went on, with feverish intensity.  It was a struggle for life with her; she was not afraid that Jurgis would go on drinking, for he had no money for that, but she was wild with dread at the thought that he might desert them, might take to the road, as Jonas had done.

But with Ona’s dead body beneath his eyes, Jurgis could not well think of treason to his child.  Yes, he said, he would try, for the sake of Antanas.  He would give the little fellow his chance—­would get to work at once, yes, tomorrow, without even waiting for Ona to be buried.  They might trust him, he would keep his word, come what might.

And so he was out before daylight the next morning, headache, heartache, and all.  He went straight to Graham’s fertilizer mill, to see if he could get back his job.  But the boss shook his head when he saw him—­no, his place had been filled long ago, and there was no room for him.

“Do you think there will be?” Jurgis asked.  “I may have to wait.”

“No,” said the other, “it will not be worth your while to wait—­there will be nothing for you here.”

Jurgis stood gazing at him in perplexity.  “What is the matter?” he asked.  “Didn’t I do my work?”

The other met his look with one of cold indifference, and answered, “There will be nothing for you here, I said.”

Jurgis had his suspicions as to the dreadful meaning of that incident, and he went away with a sinking at the heart.  He went and took his stand with the mob of hungry wretches who were standing about in the snow before the time station.  Here he stayed, breakfastless, for two hours, until the throng was driven away by the clubs of the police.  There was no work for him that day.

Jurgis had made a good many acquaintances in his long services at the yards—­there were saloonkeepers who would trust him for a drink and a sandwich, and members of his old union who would lend him a dime at a pinch.  It was not a question of life and death for him, therefore; he might hunt all day, and come again on the morrow, and try hanging on thus for weeks, like hundreds and thousands of others.  Meantime, Teta Elzbieta would go and beg, over in the Hyde Park district, and the children would bring home enough to pacify Aniele, and keep them all alive.

It was at the end of a week of this sort of waiting, roaming about in the bitter winds or loafing in saloons, that Jurgis stumbled on a chance in one of the cellars of Jones’s big packing plant.  He saw a foreman passing the open doorway, and hailed him for a job.