of Jurgis also, for he knew that Ona was not fit to face
the cold and the snow-drifts this year. And suppose that
some day when a blizzard struck them and the cars were
not running, Ona should have to give it up, and should
come the next day to find that her place had been given
to someone who lived nearer and could be depended on?

It was the week before Christmas that the first great
storm came, and then the soul of Jurgis rose up within
him like a sleeping lion. There were four days that the
Ashland Avenue cars were stalled, and in those days, for
the first time in his life, Jurgis knew what it was to
be really opposed. He had faced difficulties before, but
they had been child's play; now there was a death strug~
gle, and all the furies were unchained within him. The
first morning they set out two hours before dawn, Ona
wrapped all in blankets and tossed upon his shoulder like
a sack of meal, and the little boy, bundled nearly out of
sight, hanging by his coat-tails. There was a raging blast
beating in his face, and the thermometer stood below zero;
the snow was never short of his knees, and in some of the
drifts it was nearly up to his armpits. It would catch
his feet and try to trip him; it would build itself into
a wall before him to beat him back; and he would fling
himself into it, plunging like a wounded buffalo, puffing
and snorting in rage. So foot by foot he drove his way,
and when at last he came to Durham's he was stagger~
ing and almost blind, and leaned against a pillar, gasping,
and thanking God that the cattle came late to the killing-
beds that day. In the evening the same thing had to be
done again; and because Jurgis could not tell what hour
of the night he would get off, he got a saloon-keeper to
let Ona sit and wait for him in a corner. Once it was
eleven o'clock at night, and black as the pit, but still they
got home.

That blizzard knocked many a man out, for the crowd
outside begging for work was never greater, and the
packers would not wait long for any one. When it was
over, the soul of Jurgis was a song, for he had met the
enemy and conquered, and felt himself the master of his

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