their ears, and so tied up that you could hardly find them
-- and still there would be accidents. One bitter morn~
ing in February the little boy who worked at the lard-
machine with Stanislovas came about an hour late, and
screaming with pain. They unwrapped him, and a man
began vigorously rubbing his ears; and as they were
frozen stiff, it took only two or three rubs to break them
short off. As a result of this, little Stanislovas conceived
a terror of the cold that was almost a mania. Every
morning, when it came time to start for the yards, he
would begin to cry and protest. Nobody knew quite
how to manage him, for threats did no good -- it seemed
to be something that he could not control, and they feared
sometimes that he would go into convulsions. In the end
it had to be arranged that he always went with Jurgis,
and came home with him again; and often, when the
snow was deep, the man would carry him the whole way
on his shoulders. Sometimes Jurgis would be working
until late at night, and then it was pitiful, for there was
no place for the little fellow to wait, save in the doorways
or in a corner of the killing-beds, and he would all but
fall asleep there, and freeze to death.

There was no heat upon the killing-beds; the men
might exactly as well have worked out of doors all
winter. For that matter, there was very little heat
anywhere in the building, except in the cooking-rooms
and such places -- and it was the men who worked in
these who ran the most risk of all, because whenever
they had to pass to another room they had to go through
ice-cold corridors, and sometimes with nothing on above
the waist except a sleeveless undershirt. On the killing-
beds you were apt to be covered with blood, and it would
freeze solid; if you leaned against a pillar, you would
freeze to that, and if you put your hand upon the blade
of your knife, you would run a chance of leaving your
skin on it. The men would tie up their feet in news~
papers and old sacks, and these would be soaked in blood
and frozen, and then soaked again, and so on, until by
night-time a man would be walking on great lumps the

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p093 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p094w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p095

v?