heaven at once. The saloon-keeper stood in with all the
big politics men in the district; and when you had once
found out what it meant to get into trouble with such
people, you would know enough to pay what you were
told to pay and shut up.

What made all this the more painful was that it was so
hard on the few that had really done their best. There
was poor old ponas Jokubas, for instance -- he had already
given five dollars, and did not everyone know that Jokubas
Szedvilas had just mortgaged his delicatessen store for two
hundred dollars to meet several months' overdue rent?
And then there was withered old poni Aniele -- who was
a widow, and had three children, and the rheumatism be~
sides, and did washing for the tradespeople on Halsted
Street at prices it would break your heart to hear named.
Aniele had given the entire profit of her chickens for sev~
eral months. Eight of them she owned, and she kept them
in a little place fenced around on her backstairs. All day
long the children of Aniele were raking in the dump for
food for these chickens; and sometimes, when the compe~
tition there was too fierce, you might see them on Halsted
Street, walking close to the gutters, and with their mother
following to see that no one robbed them of their finds.
Money could not tell the value of these chickens to old
Mrs. Jukniene -- she valued them differently, for she had
a feeling that she was getting something for nothing by
means of them -- that with them she was getting the
better of a world that was getting the better of her in so
many other ways. So she watched them every hour of the
day, and had learned to see like an owl at night to watch
them then. One of them had been stolen long ago, and
not a month passed that someone did not try to steal
another. As the frustrating of this one attempt involved
a score of false alarms, it will be understood what a trib~
ute old Mrs. Jukniene brought, just because Teta Elzbieta
had once loaned her some money for a few days and saved
her from being turned out of her house.

More and more friends gathered round while the lamen~

[[18]]

p017 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p018w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p019

v?