The Jungle
diseases that babies are heir to, in quick succession, scarlet fever,
mumps, and whooping cough in the first year, and now he was down with
the measles. There was no one to attend him but Kotrina; there was no
doctor to help him, because they were too poor, and children did not
die of the measles—at least not often. Now and then Kotrina would find
time to sob over his woes, but for the greater part of the time he had
to be left alone, barricaded upon the bed. The floor was full of
drafts, and if he caught cold he would die. At night he was tied down,
lest he should kick the covers off him, while the family lay in their
stupor of exhaustion. He would lie and scream for hours, almost in
convulsions; and then, when he was worn out, he would lie whimpering
and wailing in his torment. He was burning up with fever, and his eyes
were running sores; in the daytime he was a thing uncanny and impish to
behold, a plaster of pimples and sweat, a great purple lump of misery.
Yet all this was not really as cruel as it sounds, for, sick as he was,
little Antanas was the least unfortunate member of that family. He was
quite able to bear his sufferings—it was as if he had all these
complaints to show what a prodigy of health he was. He was the child of
his parents’ youth and joy; he grew up like the conjurer’s rosebush,
and all the world was his oyster. In general, he toddled around the
kitchen all day with a lean and hungry look—the portion of the family’s
allowance that fell to him was not enough, and he was unrestrainable in
his demand for more. Antanas was but little over a year old, and
already no one but his father could manage him.
It seemed as if he had taken all of his mother’s strength—had left
nothing for those that might come after him. Ona was with child again
now, and it was a dreadful thing to contemplate; even Jurgis, dumb and
despairing as he was, could not but understand that yet other agonies
were on the way, and shudder at the thought of them.
For Ona was visibly going to pieces. In the first place she was
developing a cough, like the one that had killed old Dede Antanas. She
had had a trace of it ever since that fatal morning when the greedy
streetcar corporation had turned her out into the rain; but now it was
beginning to grow serious, and to wake her up at night. Even worse than
that was the fearful nervousness from which she suffered; she would
have frightful headaches and fits of aimless weeping; and sometimes she
would come home at night shuddering and moaning, and would fling
herself down upon the bed and burst into tears. Several times she was
quite beside herself and hysterical; and then Jurgis would go half-mad
with fright. Elzbieta would explain to him that it could not be helped,
that a woman was subject to such things when she was pregnant; but he
was hardly to be persuaded, and would beg and plead to know what had
happened. She had never been like this before, he would argue—it was
monstrous and unthinkable. It was the life she had to live, the
accursed work she had to do, that was killing her by inches. She was
not fitted for it—no woman was fitted for it, no woman ought to be
allowed to do such work; if the world could not keep them alive any
other way it ought to kill them at once and be done with it. They ought
not to marry, to have children; no workingman ought to marry—if he,
Jurgis, had known what a woman was like, he would have had his eyes
torn out first. So he would carry on, becoming half hysterical himself,
which was an unbearable thing to see in a big man; Ona would pull
herself together and fling herself into his arms, begging him to stop,
to be still, that she would be better, it would be all right. So she
would lie and sob out her grief upon his shoulder, while he gazed at
her, as helpless as a wounded animal, the target of unseen enemies.
CHAPTER XV
The beginning of these perplexing things was in the summer; and each
time Ona would promise him with terror in her voice that it would not
happen again—but in vain. Each crisis would leave Jurgis more and more
frightened, more disposed to distrust Elzbieta’s consolations, and to
believe that there was some terrible thing about all this that he was
not allowed to know. Once or twice in these outbreaks he caught Ona’s
eye, and it seemed to him like the eye of a hunted animal; there were
broken phrases of anguish and despair now and then, amid her frantic
weeping. It was only because he was so numb and beaten himself that
Jurgis did not worry more about this. But he never thought of it,
except when he was dragged to it—he lived like a dumb beast of burden,
knowing only the moment in which he was.
The winter was coming on again, more menacing and cruel than ever. It
was October, and the holiday rush had begun. It was necessary for the
packing machines to grind till late at night to provide food that would
be eaten at Christmas breakfasts; and Marija and Elzbieta and Ona, as
part of the machine, began working fifteen or sixteen hours a day.
There was no choice about this—whatever work there was to be done they
had to do, if they wished to keep their places; besides that, it added
another pittance to their incomes. So they staggered on with the awful
load. They would start work every morning at seven, and eat their
dinners at noon, and then work until ten or eleven at night without
another mouthful of food. Jurgis wanted to wait for them, to help them
home at night, but they would not think of this; the fertilizer mill
was not running overtime, and there was no place for him to wait save
in a saloon. Each would stagger out into the darkness, and make her way
to the corner, where they met; or if the others had already gone, would
get into a car, and begin a painful struggle to keep awake. When they
got home they were always too tired either to eat or to undress; they
would crawl into bed with their shoes on, and lie like logs. If they
should fail, they would certainly be lost; if they held out, they might
have enough coal for the winter.
A day or two before Thanksgiving Day there came a snowstorm. It began
in the afternoon, and by evening two inches had fallen. Jurgis tried to
wait for the women, but went into a saloon to get warm, and took two
drinks, and came out and ran home to escape from the demon; there he
lay down to wait for them, and instantly fell asleep. When he opened
his eyes again he was in the midst of a nightmare, and found Elzbieta
shaking him and crying out. At first he could not realize what she was
saying—Ona had not come home. What time was it, he asked. It was
morning—time to be up. Ona had not been home that night! And it was
bitter cold, and a foot of snow on the ground.
Jurgis sat up with a start. Marija was crying with fright and the
children were wailing in sympathy—little Stanislovas in addition,
because the terror of the snow was upon him. Jurgis had nothing to put
on but his shoes and his coat, and in half a minute he was out of the
door. Then, however, he realized that there was no need of haste, that
he had no idea where to go. It was still dark as midnight, and the
thick snowflakes were sifting down—everything was so silent that he
could hear the rustle of them as they fell. In the few seconds that he
stood there hesitating he was covered white.
He set off at a run for the yards, stopping by the way to inquire in
the saloons that were open. Ona might have been overcome on the way; or
else she might have met with an accident in the machines. When he got
to the place where she worked he inquired of one of the watchmen—there
had not been any accident, so far as the man had heard. At the time
office, which he found already open, the clerk told him that Ona’s
check had been turned in the night before, showing that she had left
her work.
After that there was nothing for him to do but wait, pacing back and
forth in the snow, meantime, to keep from freezing. Already the yards
were full of activity; cattle were being unloaded from the cars in the
distance, and across the way the “beef-luggers” were toiling in the
darkness, carrying two-hundred-pound quarters of bullocks into the
refrigerator cars. Before the first streaks of daylight there came the
crowding throngs of workingmen, shivering, and swinging their dinner
pails as they hurried by. Jurgis took up his stand by the time-office
window, where alone there was light enough for him to see; the snow
fell so quick that it was only by peering closely that he could make
sure that Ona did not pass him.
Seven o’clock came, the hour when the great packing machine began to
move. Jurgis ought to have been at his place in the fertilizer mill;
but instead he was waiting, in an agony of fear, for Ona. It was
fifteen minutes after the hour when he saw a form emerge from the snow
mist, and sprang toward it with a cry. It was she, running swiftly; as
she saw him, she staggered forward, and half fell into his outstretched
arms.
“What has been the matter?” he cried, anxiously. “Where have you been?”
It was several seconds before she could get breath to answer him. “I
couldn’t get home,” she exclaimed. “The snow—the cars had stopped.”
“But where were you then?” he demanded.
“I had to go home with a friend,” she panted—“with Jadvyga.”
Jurgis drew a deep breath; but then he noticed that she was sobbing and
trembling—as if in one of those nervous crises that he dreaded so. “But
what’s the matter?” he cried. “What has happened?”
“Oh, Jurgis, I was so frightened!” she said, clinging to him wildly. “I
have been so worried!”
They were near the time station window, and people were staring at
them. Jurgis led her away. “How do you mean?” he asked, in perplexity.
“I was afraid—I was just afraid!” sobbed Ona. “I knew you wouldn’t know
where I was, and I didn’t know what you might do. I tried to get home,
but I was so tired. Oh, Jurgis, Jurgis!”
He was so glad to get her back that he could not think clearly about
anything else. It did not seem strange to him that she should be so
very much upset; all her fright and incoherent protestations did not
matter since he had her back. He let her cry away her tears; and then,
because it was nearly eight o’clock, and they would lose another hour
if they delayed, he left her at the packing house door, with her
ghastly white face and her haunted eyes of terror.
There was another brief interval. Christmas was almost come; and
because the snow still held, and the searching cold, morning after
morning Jurgis half carried his wife to her post, staggering with her
through the darkness; until at last, one night, came the end.
It lacked but three days of the holidays. About midnight Marija and
Elzbieta came home, exclaiming in alarm when they found that Ona had
not come. The two had agreed to meet her; and, after waiting, had gone
to the room where she worked; only to find that the ham-wrapping girls
had quit work an hour before, and left. There was no snow that night,
nor was it especially cold; and still Ona had not come! Something more
serious must be wrong this time.
They aroused Jurgis, and he sat up and listened crossly to the story.
She must have gone home again with Jadvyga, he said; Jadvyga lived only
two blocks from the yards, and perhaps she had been tired. Nothing
could have happened to her—and even if there had, there was nothing
could be done about it until morning. Jurgis turned over in his bed,
and was snoring again before the two had closed the door.
In the morning, however, he was up and out nearly an hour before the
usual time. Jadvyga Marcinkus lived on the other side of the yards,
beyond Halsted Street, with her mother and sisters, in a single
basement room—for Mikolas had recently lost one hand from blood