The Jungle
screaming with pain. They unwrapped him, and a man began vigorously
rubbing his ears; and as they were frozen stiff, it took only two or
three rubs to break them short off. As a result of this, little
Stanislovas conceived a terror of the cold that was almost a mania.
Every morning, when it came time to start for the yards, he would begin
to cry and protest. Nobody knew quite how to manage him, for threats
did no good—it seemed to be something that he could not control, and
they feared sometimes that he would go into convulsions. In the end it
had to be arranged that he always went with Jurgis, and came home with
him again; and often, when the snow was deep, the man would carry him
the whole way on his shoulders. Sometimes Jurgis would be working until
late at night, and then it was pitiful, for there was no place for the
little fellow to wait, save in the doorways or in a corner of the
killing beds, and he would all but fall asleep there, and freeze to
death.
There was no heat upon the killing beds; the men might exactly as well
have worked out of doors all winter. For that matter, there was very
little heat anywhere in the building, except in the cooking rooms and
such places—and it was the men who worked in these who ran the most
risk of all, because whenever they had to pass to another room they had
to go through ice-cold corridors, and sometimes with nothing on above
the waist except a sleeveless undershirt. On the killing beds you were
apt to be covered with blood, and it would freeze solid; if you leaned
against a pillar, you would freeze to that, and if you put your hand
upon the blade of your knife, you would run a chance of leaving your
skin on it. The men would tie up their feet in newspapers and old
sacks, and these would be soaked in blood and frozen, and then soaked
again, and so on, until by nighttime a man would be walking on great
lumps the size of the feet of an elephant. Now and then, when the
bosses were not looking, you would see them plunging their feet and
ankles into the steaming hot carcass of the steer, or darting across
the room to the hot-water jets. The cruelest thing of all was that
nearly all of them—all of those who used knives—were unable to wear
gloves, and their arms would be white with frost and their hands would
grow numb, and then of course there would be accidents. Also the air
would be full of steam, from the hot water and the hot blood, so that
you could not see five feet before you; and then, with men rushing
about at the speed they kept up on the killing beds, and all with
butcher knives, like razors, in their hands—well, it was to be counted
as a wonder that there were not more men slaughtered than cattle.
And yet all this inconvenience they might have put up with, if only it
had not been for one thing—if only there had been some place where they
might eat. Jurgis had either to eat his dinner amid the stench in which
he had worked, or else to rush, as did all his companions, to any one
of the hundreds of liquor stores which stretched out their arms to him.
To the west of the yards ran Ashland Avenue, and here was an unbroken
line of saloons—“Whiskey Row,” they called it; to the north was
Forty-seventh Street, where there were half a dozen to the block, and
at the angle of the two was “Whiskey Point,” a space of fifteen or
twenty acres, and containing one glue factory and about two hundred
saloons.
One might walk among these and take his choice: “Hot pea-soup and
boiled cabbage today.” “Sauerkraut and hot frankfurters. Walk in.”
“Bean soup and stewed lamb. Welcome.” All of these things were printed
in many languages, as were also the names of the resorts, which were
infinite in their variety and appeal. There was the “Home Circle” and
the “Cosey Corner”; there were “Firesides” and “Hearthstones” and
“Pleasure Palaces” and “Wonderlands” and “Dream Castles” and “Love’s
Delights.” Whatever else they were called, they were sure to be called
“Union Headquarters,” and to hold out a welcome to workingmen; and
there was always a warm stove, and a chair near it, and some friends to
laugh and talk with. There was only one condition attached,—you must
drink. If you went in not intending to drink, you would be put out in
no time, and if you were slow about going, like as not you would get
your head split open with a beer bottle in the bargain. But all of the
men understood the convention and drank; they believed that by it they
were getting something for nothing—for they did not need to take more
than one drink, and upon the strength of it they might fill themselves
up with a good hot dinner. This did not always work out in practice,
however, for there was pretty sure to be a friend who would treat you,
and then you would have to treat him. Then some one else would come
in—and, anyhow, a few drinks were good for a man who worked hard. As he
went back he did not shiver so, he had more courage for his task; the
deadly brutalizing monotony of it did not afflict him so,—he had ideas
while he worked, and took a more cheerful view of his circumstances. On
the way home, however, the shivering was apt to come on him again; and
so he would have to stop once or twice to warm up against the cruel
cold. As there were hot things to eat in this saloon too, he might get
home late to his supper, or he might not get home at all. And then his
wife might set out to look for him, and she too would feel the cold;
and perhaps she would have some of the children with her—and so a whole
family would drift into drinking, as the current of a river drifts
downstream. As if to complete the chain, the packers all paid their men
in checks, refusing all requests to pay in coin; and where in
Packingtown could a man go to have his check cashed but to a saloon,
where he could pay for the favor by spending a part of the money?
From all of these things Jurgis was saved because of Ona. He never
would take but the one drink at noontime; and so he got the reputation
of being a surly fellow, and was not quite welcome at the saloons, and
had to drift about from one to another. Then at night he would go
straight home, helping Ona and Stanislovas, or often putting the former
on a car. And when he got home perhaps he would have to trudge several
blocks, and come staggering back through the snowdrifts with a bag of
coal upon his shoulder. Home was not a very attractive place—at least
not this winter. They had only been able to buy one stove, and this was
a small one, and proved not big enough to warm even the kitchen in the
bitterest weather. This made it hard for Teta Elzbieta all day, and for
the children when they could not get to school. At night they would sit
huddled round this stove, while they ate their supper off their laps;
and then Jurgis and Jonas would smoke a pipe, after which they would
all crawl into their beds to get warm, after putting out the fire to
save the coal. Then they would have some frightful experiences with the
cold. They would sleep with all their clothes on, including their
overcoats, and put over them all the bedding and spare clothing they
owned; the children would sleep all crowded into one bed, and yet even
so they could not keep warm. The outside ones would be shivering and
sobbing, crawling over the others and trying to get down into the
center, and causing a fight. This old house with the leaky
weatherboards was a very different thing from their cabins at home,
with great thick walls plastered inside and outside with mud; and the
cold which came upon them was a living thing, a demon-presence in the
room. They would waken in the midnight hours, when everything was
black; perhaps they would hear it yelling outside, or perhaps there
would be deathlike stillness—and that would be worse yet. They could
feel the cold as it crept in through the cracks, reaching out for them
with its icy, death-dealing fingers; and they would crouch and cower,
and try to hide from it, all in vain. It would come, and it would come;
a grisly thing, a specter born in the black caverns of terror; a power
primeval, cosmic, shadowing the tortures of the lost souls flung out to
chaos and destruction. It was cruel iron-hard; and hour after hour they
would cringe in its grasp, alone, alone. There would be no one to hear
them if they cried out; there would be no help, no mercy. And so on
until morning—when they would go out to another day of toil, a little
weaker, a little nearer to the time when it would be their turn to be
shaken from the tree.
CHAPTER VIII
Yet even by this deadly winter the germ of hope was not to be kept from
sprouting in their hearts. It was just at this time that the great
adventure befell Marija.
The victim was Tamoszius Kuszleika, who played the violin. Everybody
laughed at them, for Tamoszius was petite and frail, and Marija could
have picked him up and carried him off under one arm. But perhaps that
was why she fascinated him; the sheer volume of Marija’s energy was
overwhelming. That first night at the wedding Tamoszius had hardly
taken his eyes off her; and later on, when he came to find that she had
really the heart of a baby, her voice and her violence ceased to
terrify him, and he got the habit of coming to pay her visits on Sunday
afternoons. There was no place to entertain company except in the
kitchen, in the midst of the family, and Tamoszius would sit there with
his hat between his knees, never saying more than half a dozen words at
a time, and turning red in the face before he managed to say those;
until finally Jurgis would clap him upon the back, in his hearty way,
crying, “Come now, brother, give us a tune.” And then Tamoszius’ face
would light up and he would get out his fiddle, tuck it under his chin,
and play. And forthwith the soul of him would flame up and become
eloquent—it was almost an impropriety, for all the while his gaze would
be fixed upon Marija’s face, until she would begin to turn red and
lower her eyes. There was no resisting the music of Tamoszius, however;
even the children would sit awed and wondering, and the tears would run
down Teta Elzbieta’s cheeks. A wonderful privilege it was to be thus
admitted into the soul of a man of genius, to be allowed to share the
ecstasies and the agonies of his inmost life.
Then there were other benefits accruing to Marija from this
friendship—benefits of a more substantial nature. People paid Tamoszius
big money to come and make music on state occasions; and also they
would invite him to parties and festivals, knowing well that he was too
good-natured to come without his fiddle, and that having brought it, he
could be made to play while others danced. Once he made bold to ask
Marija to accompany him to such a party, and Marija accepted, to his
great delight—after which he never went anywhere without her, while if
the celebration were given by friends of his, he would invite the rest
of the family also. In any case Marija would bring back a huge
pocketful of cakes and sandwiches for the children, and stories of all
the good things she herself had managed to consume. She was compelled,
at these parties, to spend most of her time at the refreshment table,
for she could not dance with anybody except other women and very old
men; Tamoszius was of an excitable temperament, and afflicted with a
frantic jealousy, and any unmarried man who ventured to put his arm
about the ample waist of Marija would be certain to throw the orchestra
out of tune.
It was a great help to a person who had to toil all the week to be able
to look forward to some such relaxation as this on Saturday nights. The
family was too poor and too hardworked to make many acquaintances; in
Packingtown, as a rule, people know only their near neighbors and
shopmates, and so the place is like a myriad of little country