When she first came to Packingtown, Marija would have scorned such work as this.  She was in another canning factory, and her work was to trim the meat of those diseased cattle that Jurgis had been told about not long before.  She was shut up in one of the rooms where the people seldom saw the daylight; beneath her were the chilling rooms, where the meat was frozen, and above her were the cooking rooms; and so she stood on an ice-cold floor, while her head was often so hot that she could scarcely breathe.  Trimming beef off the bones by the hundred-weight, while standing up from early morning till late at night, with heavy boots on and the floor always damp and full of puddles, liable to be thrown out of work indefinitely because of a slackening in the trade, liable again to be kept overtime in rush seasons, and be worked till she trembled in every nerve and lost her grip on her slimy knife, and gave herself a poisoned wound—­that was the new life that unfolded itself before Marija.  But because Marija was a human horse she merely laughed and went at it; it would enable her to pay her board again, and keep the family going.  And as for Tamoszius—­well, they had waited a long time, and they could wait a little longer.  They could not possibly get along 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 the music of Tamoszius’ violin became more passionate and heartbreaking; and Marija would sit with her hands clasped and her cheeks wet and all her body atremble, hearing in the wailing melodies the voices of 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 reason than Marija.  She did not tell half of her story at home, because she saw 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 in her department, did not like her.  At first she thought it was the old-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 forelady a present occasionally—­she was the kind that took presents from the girls, Ona learned, and made all sorts of discriminations in favor of those who gave them.  In the end, however, Ona discovered that it was even worse than that.  Miss Henderson was a newcomer, and it was some time before rumor made her out; but finally it transpired that she was a kept woman, the former mistress of the superintendent of a department in the same building.  He had put her there to keep her quiet, it seemed—­and that not altogether with success, for once or 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 some of the girls who were