windows with all sorts of lies to entice you; the very
fences by the wayside, the lamp posts and telegraph-poles,
were pasted over with lies. The great corporation which
employed you lied to you, and lied to the whole country --
from top to bottom it was nothing but one gigantic lie.

So Jurgis said that he understood it; and yet it was
really pitiful, for the struggle was so unfair -- some had
so much the advantage! Here he was, for instance, vow~
ing upon his knees that he would save Ona from harm, and
only a week later she was suffering atrociously, and from
the blow of an enemy that he could not possibly have
thwarted. There came a day when the rain fell in tor~
rents; and it being December, to be wet with it and have
to sit all day long in one of the cold cellars of Brown's was
no laughing matter. Ona was a working-girl, and did not
own waterproofs and such things, and so Jurgis took her
and put her on the street-car. Now it chanced that this
car-line was owned by gentlemen who were trying to make
money. And the city having passed an ordinance requir~
ing them to give transfers, they had fallen into a rage;
and first they had made a rule that transfers could be had
only when the fare was paid; and later, growing still uglier,
they had made another -- that the passenger must ask for
the transfer, the conductor was not allowed to offer it.
Now Ona had been told that she was to get a transfer; but
it was not her way to speak up, and so she merely waited,
following the conductor about with her eyes, wondering
when he would think of her. When at last the time came for
her to get out, she asked for the transfer, and was refused.
Not knowing what to make of this, she began to argue with
the conductor, in a language of which he did not under~
stand a word. After warning her several times, he pulled
the bell and the car went on -- at which Ona burst into
tears. At the next corner she got out, of course; and as
she had no more money, she had to walk the rest of the
way to the yards in the pouring rain. And so all day long
she sat shivering, and came home at night with her teeth
chattering and pains in her head and back. For two weeks
afterward she suffered cruelly -- and yet every day she

[[88]]

p087 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p088w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p089

v?