from home with a gang of men to work upon a railroad in
Smolensk. This was a fearful experience, with filth and
bad food and cruelty and overwork; but Jurgis stood it
and came out in fine trim, and with eighty roubles sewed
up in his coat. He did not drink or fight, because he was
thinking all the time of Ona; and for the rest, he was a
quiet, steady man, who did what he was told to, did not
lose his temper often, and when he did lose it made the
offender anxious that he should not lose it again. When
they paid him off he dodged the company gamblers and
dramshops, and so they tried to kill him; but he escaped,
and tramped it home, working at odd jobs, and sleeping
always with one eye open.

So in the summer time they had all set out for America.
At the last moment there joined them Marija Berczynskas,
who was a cousin of Ona's. Marija was an orphan, and
had worked since childhood for a rich farmer of Vilna,
who beat her regularly. It was only at the age of twenty
that it had occurred to Marija to try her strength, when
she had risen up and nearly murdered the man, and then
come away.

There were twelve in all in the party, five adults and
six children -- and Ona, who was a little of both. They
had a hard time on the passage; there was an agent who
helped them, but he proved a scoundrel, and got them into
a trap with some officials, and cost them a good deal of
their precious money, which they clung to with such hor~
rible fear. This happened to them again in New York --
for, of course, they knew nothing about the country, and
had no one to tell them, and it was easy for a man in a
blue uniform to lead them away, and to take them to a
hotel and keep them there, and make them pay enormous
charges to get away. The law says that the rate card
shall be on the door of a hotel, but it does not say that it
shall be in Lithuanian.

It was in the stockyards that Jonas's friend had gotten
rich, and so to Chicago the party was bound. They knew
that one word, Chicago, -- and that was all they needed

[[26]]

p025 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p026w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p027

v?