"Me?" answered the boy, angrily. "I live here."

"You live here!" Jurgis panted. He turned white, and
clung more tightly to the railing. "You live here!
Then where's my family?"

The boy looked surprised. "Your family!" he echoed.

And Jurgis started toward him. "I -- this is my
house!" he cried.

"Come off!" said the boy; then suddenly the door up~
stairs opened, and he called: "Hey, ma! Here's a fellow
says he owns this house."

A stout Irish woman came to the top of the steps.
"What's that?" she demanded.

Jurgis turned toward her. "Where is my family?"
he cried, wildly. "I left them here! This is my home!
What are you doing in my home?"

The woman stared at him in frightened wonder, she
must have thought she was dealing with a maniac --
Jurgis looked like one. "Your home!" she echoed.

"My home!" he half shrieked. "I lived here, I tell
you."

"You must be mistaken," she answered him. "No one
ever lived here. This is a new house. They told us so.
They--"

"What have they done with my family?" shouted
Jurgis, frantically.

A light had begun to break upon the woman; perhaps
she had had doubts of what "they" had told her. "I
don't know where your family is," she said. "I bought
the house only three days ago, and there was nobody here,
and they told me it was all new. Do you really mean you
had ever rented it?"

"Rented it!" panted Jurgis. "I bought it! I paid
for it! I own it! And they -- my God, can't you tell
me where my people went?"

She made him understand at last that she knew nothing.
Jurgis's brain was so confused that he could not grasp the
situation. It was as if his family had been wiped out of
existence; as if they were proving to be dream people, who
never had existed at all. He was quite lost -- but then

[[210]]

p209 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p210w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p211

v?