Very frequently a lodging-house keeper would rent the
same beds to double shifts of men.

Mrs. Jukniene was a wizened-up little woman, with a
wrinkled face. Her home was unthinkably filthy; you
could not enter by the front door at all, owing to the
mattresses, and when you tried to go up the backstairs
you found that she had walled up most of the porch with
old boards to make a place to keep her chickens. It was
a standing jest of the boarders that Aniele cleaned house
by letting the chickens loose in the rooms. Undoubtedly
this did keep down the vermin, but it seemed probable, in
view of all the circumstances, that the old lady regarded
it rather as feeding the chickens than as cleaning the
rooms. The truth was that she had definitely given up
the idea of cleaning anything, under pressure of an attack
of rheumatism, which had kept her doubled up in one
corner of her room for over a week; during which time
eleven of her boarders, heavily in her debt, had concluded
to try their chances of employment in Kansas City. This
was July, and the fields were green. One never saw the
fields, nor any green thing whatever, in Packingtown; but
one could go out on the road and "hobo it," as the men
phrased it, and see the country, and have a long rest, and
an easy time riding on the freight-cars.

Such was the home to which the new arrivals were wel~
comed. There was nothing better to be had -- they might
not do so well by looking further, for Mrs. Jukniene had
at least kept one room for herself and her three little chil~
dren, and now offered to share this with the women and
the girls of the party. They could get bedding at a
second-hand store, she explained; and they would not
need any, while the weather was so hot -- doubtless they
would all sleep on the sidewalk such nights as this, as did
nearly all of her guests. "Tomorrow," Jurgis said, when
they were left alone, "tomorrow I will get a job, and
perhaps Jonas will get one also; and then we can get
a place of our own."

Later that afternoon he and Ona went out to take a

[[31]]

p030 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p031w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p032

v?