Also Madame Haupt, the midwife, was after him for some
money. So he went out once more.

For another ten days he roamed the streets and alleys
of the huge city, sick and hungry, begging for any work.
He tried in stores and offices, in restaurants and hotels,
along the docks and in the railroad-yards, in warehouses
and mills and factories where they made products that
went to every corner of the world. There were often
one or two chances -- but there were always a hundred
men for every chance, and his turn would not come. At
night he crept into sheds and cellars and doorways -- until
there came a spell of belated winter weather, with a raging
gale, and the thermometer five degrees below zero at sun~
down and falling all night. Then Jurgis fought like
a wild beast to get into the big Harrison Street police-sta~
tion, and slept down in a corridor, crowded with two other
men upon a single step.

He had to fight often in these days -- to fight for a place
near the factory gates, and now and again with gangs on
the street. He found, for instance, that the business of
carrying satchels for railroad-passengers was a pre-empted
one -- whenever he essayed it, eight or ten men and boys
would fall upon him and force him to run for his life
They always had the policeman "squared," and so there
was no use in expecting protection.

That Jurgis did not starve to death was due solely to
the pittance the children brought him. And even this was
never certain. For one thing the cold was almost more
than the children could bear; and then they, too, were in
perpetual peril from rivals who plundered and beat them.
The law was against them, too -- little Vilimas, who was
really eleven, but did not look to be eight, was stopped on
the streets by a severe old lady in spectacles, who told him
that he was too young to be working and that if he did
not stop selling papers she would send a truant-officer after
him. Also one night a strange man caught little Kotrina
by the arm and tried to persuade her into a dark cellar-
way, an experience which filled her with such terror that
she was hardly to be kept at work.

[[242]]

p241 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p242w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p243

v?