a full hundred men were waiting at the gate where new
hands were taken on. Soon after daybreak whistles began
to blow, and then suddenly thousands of men appeared,
streaming from saloons and boarding-houses across the
way, leaping from trolley-cars that passed -- it seemed as
if they rose out of the ground, in the dim gray light. A
river of them poured in through the gate -- and then
gradually ebbed away again, until there were only a few
late ones running, and the watchman pacing up and down,
and the hungry strangers stamping and shivering.

Jurgis presented his precious letter. The gatekeeper
was surly, and put him through a catechism, but he in~
sisted that he knew nothing, and as he had taken the
precaution to seal his letter, there was nothing for the
gatekeeper to do but send it to the person to whom it was
addressed. A messenger came back to say that Jurgis
should wait, and so he came inside of the gate, perhaps
not sorry enough that there were others less fortunate
watching him with greedy eyes.

The great mills were getting under way -- one could
hear a vast stirring, a rolling and rumbling and hammer~
ing. Little by little the scene grew plain: towering,
black buildings here and there, long rows of shops and
sheds, little railways branching everywhere, bare gray
cinders underfoot and oceans of billowing black smoke
above. On one side of the grounds ran a railroad with a
dozen tracks, and on the other side lay the lake, where
steamers came to load.

Jurgis had time enough to stare and speculate, for it
was two hours before he was summoned. He went into
the office-building, where a company time-keeper inter~
viewed him. The superintendent was busy, he said, but
he (the time-keeper) would try to find Jurgis a job. He
had never worked in a steel-mill before? But he was
ready for anything? Well, then, they would go and see.

So they began a tour, among sights that made Jurgis
stare amazed. He wondered if ever he could get used to
working in a place like this, where the air shook with
deafening thunder, and whistles shrieked warnings on all

[[245]]

p244 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p245w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p246

v?