baby -- the family -- the house -- he would know the
truth about them all! And he was coming to the rescue
-- he was free again! His hands were his own, and he
could help them, he could do battle for them against the
world.

For an hour or so he walked thus, and then he began
to look about him. He seemed to be leaving the city alto~
gether. The street was turning into a country road, lead~
ing out to the westward; there were snow-covered fields
on either side of him. Soon he met a farmer driving a
two-horse wagon loaded with straw, and he stopped him.

"Is this the way to the stockyards?" he asked.

The farmer scratched his head. "I dunno jest where
they be," he said. "But they're in the city somewhere,
and you're going dead away from it now."

Jurgis looked dazed. "I was told this was the way,"
he said.

"Who told you?"

"A boy."

"Well, mebbe he was playing a joke on ye. The best
thing ye kin do is to go back, and when ye git into town
ask a policeman. I'd take ye in, only I've come a long
ways an' I'm loaded heavy. Git up!"

So Jurgis turned and followed, and toward the end of
the morning he began to see Chicago again. Past endless
blocks of two-story shanties he walked, along wooden
sidewalks and unpaved pathways treacherous with deep
slush-holes. Every few blocks there would be a railroad
crossing on the level with the sidewalk, a death-trap for
the unwary; long freight-trains would be passing, the cars
clanking and crashing together, and Jurgis would pace
about waiting, burning up with a fever of impatience.
Occasionally the cars would stop for some minutes, and
wagons and street-cars would crowd together waiting, the
drivers swearing at each other, or hiding beneath umbrellas
out of the rain; at such times Jurgis would dodge under
the gates and run across the tracks and between the cars,
taking his life into his hands.

He crossed a long bridge over a river frozen solid and

[[207]]

p206 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p207w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p208

v?