When he opened his eyes again it was to the clanging of the bell of an ambulance.  He was lying in it, covered by a blanket, and it was threading its way slowly through the holiday-shopping crowds.  They took him to the county hospital, where a young surgeon set his arm; then he was washed and laid upon a bed in a ward with a score or two more of maimed and mangled men.

Jurgis spent his Christmas in this hospital, and it was the pleasantest Christmas he had had in America.  Every year there were scandals and investigations in this institution, the newspapers charging that doctors were allowed to try fantastic experiments upon the patients; but Jurgis knew nothing of this—­his only complaint was that they used to feed him upon tinned meat, which no man who had ever worked in Packingtown would feed to his dog.  Jurgis had often wondered just who ate the canned corned beef and “roast beef” of the stockyards; now he began to understand—­that it was what you might call “graft meat,” put up to be sold to public officials and contractors, and eaten by soldiers and sailors, prisoners and inmates of institutions, “shantymen” and gangs of railroad laborers.

Jurgis was ready to leave the hospital at the end of two weeks.  This did not mean that his arm was strong and that he was able to go back to work, but simply that he could get along without further attention, and that his place was needed for some one worse off than he.  That he was utterly helpless, and had no means of keeping himself alive in the meantime, was something which did not concern the hospital authorities, nor any one else in the city.

As it chanced, he had been hurt on a Monday, and had just paid for his last week’s board and his room rent, and spent nearly all the balance of his Saturday’s pay.  He had less than seventy-five cents in his pockets, and a dollar and a half due him for the day’s work he had done before he was hurt.  He might possibly have sued the company, and got some damages for his injuries, but he did not know this, and it was not the company’s business to tell him.  He went and got his pay and his tools, which he left in a pawnshop for fifty cents.  Then he went to his landlady, who had rented his place and had no other for him; and then to his boardinghouse keeper, who looked him over and questioned him.  As he must certainly be helpless for a couple of months, and had boarded there only six weeks, she decided very quickly that it would not be worth the risk to keep him on trust.

So Jurgis went out into the streets, in a most dreadful plight.  It was bitterly cold, and a heavy snow was falling, beating into his face.  He had no overcoat, and no place to go, and two dollars and sixty-five cents in his pocket, with the certainty that he could not earn another cent for months.  The snow meant no chance to him now; he must walk along and see others shoveling, vigorous and active—­and he with his left arm bound to his side!  He could not