The Jungle
his hands clenched and beads of perspiration on his forehead, and there
was a great lump in Ona’s throat, choking her. Then suddenly Teta
Elzbieta broke the silence with a wail, and Marija began to wring her
hands and sob, “_Ai! Ai! Beda man!_”
All their outcry did them no good, of course. There sat Grandmother
Majauszkiene, unrelenting, typifying fate. No, of course it was not
fair, but then fairness had nothing to do with it. And of course they
had not known it. They had not been intended to know it. But it was in
the deed, and that was all that was necessary, as they would find when
the time came.
Somehow or other they got rid of their guest, and then they passed a
night of lamentation. The children woke up and found out that something
was wrong, and they wailed and would not be comforted. In the morning,
of course, most of them had to go to work, the packing houses would not
stop for their sorrows; but by seven o’clock Ona and her stepmother
were standing at the door of the office of the agent. Yes, he told
them, when he came, it was quite true that they would have to pay
interest. And then Teta Elzbieta broke forth into protestations and
reproaches, so that the people outside stopped and peered in at the
window. The agent was as bland as ever. He was deeply pained, he said.
He had not told them, simply because he had supposed they would
understand that they had to pay interest upon their debt, as a matter
of course.
So they came away, and Ona went down to the yards, and at noontime saw
Jurgis and told him. Jurgis took it stolidly—he had made up his mind to
it by this time. It was part of fate; they would manage it somehow—he
made his usual answer, “I will work harder.” It would upset their plans
for a time; and it would perhaps be necessary for Ona to get work after
all. Then Ona added that Teta Elzbieta had decided that little
Stanislovas would have to work too. It was not fair to let Jurgis and
her support the family—the family would have to help as it could.
Previously Jurgis had scouted this idea, but now knit his brows and
nodded his head slowly—yes, perhaps it would be best; they would all
have to make some sacrifices now.
So Ona set out that day to hunt for work; and at night Marija came home
saying that she had met a girl named Jasaityte who had a friend that
worked in one of the wrapping rooms in Brown’s, and might get a place
for Ona there; only the forelady was the kind that takes presents—it
was no use for any one to ask her for a place unless at the same time
they slipped a ten-dollar bill into her hand. Jurgis was not in the
least surprised at this now—he merely asked what the wages of the place
would be. So negotiations were opened, and after an interview Ona came
home and reported that the forelady seemed to like her, and had said
that, while she was not sure, she thought she might be able to put her
at work sewing covers on hams, a job at which she would earn as much as
eight or ten dollars a week. That was a bid, so Marija reported, after
consulting her friend; and then there was an anxious conference at
home. The work was done in one of the cellars, and Jurgis did not want
Ona to work in such a place; but then it was easy work, and one could
not have everything. So in the end Ona, with a ten-dollar bill burning
a hole in her palm, had another interview with the forelady.
Meantime Teta Elzbieta had taken Stanislovas to the priest and gotten a
certificate to the effect that he was two years older than he was; and
with it the little boy now sallied forth to make his fortune in the
world. It chanced that Durham had just put in a wonderful new lard
machine, and when the special policeman in front of the time station
saw Stanislovas and his document, he smiled to himself and told him to
go—“Czia! Czia!” pointing. And so Stanislovas went down a long stone
corridor, and up a flight of stairs, which took him into a room lighted
by electricity, with the new machines for filling lard cans at work in
it. The lard was finished on the floor above, and it came in little
jets, like beautiful, wriggling, snow-white snakes of unpleasant odor.
There were several kinds and sizes of jets, and after a certain precise
quantity had come out, each stopped automatically, and the wonderful
machine made a turn, and took the can under another jet, and so on,
until it was filled neatly to the brim, and pressed tightly, and
smoothed off. To attend to all this and fill several hundred cans of
lard per hour, there were necessary two human creatures, one of whom
knew how to place an empty lard can on a certain spot every few
seconds, and the other of whom knew how to take a full lard can off a
certain spot every few seconds and set it upon a tray.
And so, after little Stanislovas had stood gazing timidly about him for
a few minutes, a man approached him, and asked what he wanted, to which
Stanislovas said, “Job.” Then the man said “How old?” and Stanislovas
answered, “Sixtin.” Once or twice every year a state inspector would
come wandering through the packing plants, asking a child here and
there how old he was; and so the packers were very careful to comply
with the law, which cost them as much trouble as was now involved in
the boss’s taking the document from the little boy, and glancing at it,
and then sending it to the office to be filed away. Then he set some
one else at a different job, and showed the lad how to place a lard can
every time the empty arm of the remorseless machine came to him; and so
was decided the place in the universe of little Stanislovas, and his
destiny till the end of his days. Hour after hour, day after day, year
after year, it was fated that he should stand upon a certain square
foot of floor from seven in the morning until noon, and again from
half-past twelve till half-past five, making never a motion and
thinking never a thought, save for the setting of lard cans. In summer
the stench of the warm lard would be nauseating, and in winter the cans
would all but freeze to his naked little fingers in the unheated
cellar. Half the year it would be dark as night when he went in to
work, and dark as night again when he came out, and so he would never
know what the sun looked like on weekdays. And for this, at the end of
the week, he would carry home three dollars to his family, being his
pay at the rate of five cents per hour—just about his proper share of
the total earnings of the million and three-quarters of children who
are now engaged in earning their livings in the United States.
And meantime, because they were young, and hope is not to be stifled
before its time, Jurgis and Ona were again calculating; for they had
discovered that the wages of Stanislovas would a little more than pay
the interest, which left them just about as they had been before! It
would be but fair to them to say that the little boy was delighted with
his work, and at the idea of earning a lot of money; and also that the
two were very much in love with each other.
CHAPTER VII
All summer long the family toiled, and in the fall they had money
enough for Jurgis and Ona to be married according to home traditions of
decency. In the latter part of November they hired a hall, and invited
all their new acquaintances, who came and left them over a hundred
dollars in debt.
It was a bitter and cruel experience, and it plunged them into an agony
of despair. Such a time, of all times, for them to have it, when their
hearts were made tender! Such a pitiful beginning it was for their
married life; they loved each other so, and they could not have the
briefest respite! It was a time when everything cried out to them that
they ought to be happy; when wonder burned in their hearts, and leaped
into flame at the slightest breath. They were shaken to the depths of
them, with the awe of love realized—and was it so very weak of them
that they cried out for a little peace? They had opened their hearts,
like flowers to the springtime, and the merciless winter had fallen
upon them. They wondered if ever any love that had blossomed in the
world had been so crushed and trampled!
Over them, relentless and savage, there cracked the lash of want; the
morning after the wedding it sought them as they slept, and drove them
out before daybreak to work. Ona was scarcely able to stand with
exhaustion; but if she were to lose her place they would be ruined, and
she would surely lose it if she were not on time that day. They all had
to go, even little Stanislovas, who was ill from overindulgence in
sausages and sarsaparilla. All that day he stood at his lard machine,
rocking unsteadily, his eyes closing in spite of him; and he all but
lost his place even so, for the foreman booted him twice to waken him.
It was fully a week before they were all normal again, and meantime,
with whining children and cross adults, the house was not a pleasant
place to live in. Jurgis lost his temper very little, however, all
things considered. It was because of Ona; the least glance at her was
always enough to make him control himself. She was so sensitive—she was
not fitted for such a life as this; and a hundred times a day, when he
thought of her, he would clench his hands and fling himself again at
the task before him. She was too good for him, he told himself, and he
was afraid, because she was his. So long he had hungered to possess
her, but now that the time had come he knew that he had not earned the
right; that she trusted him so was all her own simple goodness, and no
virtue of his. But he was resolved that she should never find this out,
and so was always on the watch to see that he did not betray any of his
ugly self; he would take care even in little matters, such as his
manners, and his habit of swearing when things went wrong. The tears
came so easily into Ona’s eyes, and she would look at him so
appealingly—it kept Jurgis quite busy making resolutions, in addition
to all the other things he had on his mind. It was true that more
things were going on at this time in the mind of Jurgis than ever had
in all his life before.
He had to protect her, to do battle for her against the horror he saw
about them. He was all that she had to look to, and if he failed she
would be lost; he would wrap his arms about her, and try to hide her
from the world. He had learned the ways of things about him now. It was
a war of each against all, and the devil take the hindmost. You did not
give feasts to other people, you waited for them to give feasts to you.
You went about with your soul full of suspicion and hatred; you
understood that you were environed by hostile powers that were trying
to get your money, and who used all the virtues to bait their traps
with. The store-keepers plastered up their windows with all sorts of
lies to entice you; the very fences by the wayside, the lampposts and
telegraph poles, were pasted over with lies. The great corporation
which employed you lied to you, and lied to the whole country—from top
to bottom it was nothing but one gigantic lie.
So Jurgis said that he understood it; and yet it was really pitiful,
for the struggle was so unfair—some had so much the advantage! Here he
was, for instance, vowing upon his knees that he would save Ona from
harm, and only a week later she was suffering atrociously, and from the
blow of an enemy that he could not possibly have thwarted. There came a
day when the rain fell in torrents; and it being December, to be wet
with it and have to sit all day long in one of the cold cellars of
Brown’s was no laughing matter. Ona was a working girl, and did not own
waterproofs and such things, and so Jurgis took her and put her on the
streetcar. Now it chanced that this car line was owned by gentlemen who
were trying to make money. And the city having passed an ordinance