plained to Elzbieta -- she lived around on Ashland Avenue.
Elzbieta knew the place, over a feed-store; somebody had
wanted her to go there, but she had not cared to, for she
thought that it must have something to do with religion,
and the priest did not like her to have anything to do with
strange religions. They were rich people who came to
live there to find out about the poor people; but what
good they expected it would do them to know, one could
not imagine. So spoke Elzbieta, naively, and the young
lady laughed and was rather at a loss for an answer -- she
stood and gazed about her, and thought of a cynical
remark that had been made to her, that she was standing
upon the brink of the pit of hell and throwing in snow~
balls to lower the temperature.

Elzbieta was glad to have somebody to listen, and she
told all their woes, -- what had happened to Ona, and the
jail, and the loss of their home, and Marija's accident, and
how Ona had died, and how Jurgis could get no work.
As she listened the pretty young lady's eyes filled with
tears, and in the midst of it she burst into weeping and
hid her face on Elzbieta's shoulder, quite regardless of the
fact that the woman had on a dirty old wrapper and that
the garret was full of fleas. Poor Elzbieta was ashamed
of herself for having told so woeful a tale, and the other
had to beg and plead with her to get her to go on. The
end of it was that the young lady sent them a basket of
things to eat, and left a letter that Jurgis was to take to a
gentleman who was superintendent in one of the mills of
the great steel-works in South Chicago. "He will get
Jurgis something to do," the young lady had said, and
added, smiling through her tears -- "If he doesn't, he will
never marry me."

The steel-works were fifteen miles away, and as usual it
was so contrived that one had to pay two fares to get there.
Far and wide the sky was flaring with the red glare that
leaped from rows of towering chimneys -- for it was pitch
dark when Jurgis arrived. The vast works, a city in
themselves, were surrounded by a stockade; and already

[[244]]

p243 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p244w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p245

v?