of a yet more dreadful accident. There was a row of
brick-furnaces, shining white through every crack with
the molten steel inside. Some of these were bulging dan~
gerously, yet men worked before them, wearing blue
glasses when they opened and shut the doors. One morn~
ing as Jurgis was passing, a furnace blew out, spraying
two men with a shower of liquid fire. As they lay scream~
ing and rolling upon the ground in agony, Jurgis rushed
to help them, and as a result he lost a good part of the
skin from the inside of one of his hands. The company
doctor bandaged it up, but he got no other thanks from
any one, and was laid up for eight working days without
any pay.

Most fortunately, at this juncture, Elzbieta got the
long-awaited chance to go at five o'clock in the morning
and help scrub the office-floors of one of the packers.
Jurgis came home and covered himself with blankets to
keep warm, and divided his time between sleeping and
playing with little Antanas. Juozapas was away raking
in the dump a good part of the time, and Elzbieta and
Marija were hunting for more work.

Antanas was now over a year and a half old, and was a
perfect talking-machine. He learned so fast that every
week when Jurgis came home it seemed to him as if
he had a new child. He would sit down and listen and
stare at him, and give vent to delighted exclamations, --
_"Palauk!_Muma!_Tu_mano_szirdele!"_ The little fellow
was now really the one delight that Jurgis had in the
world -- his one hope, his one victory. Thank God, An~
tanas was a boy! And he was as tough as a pine-knot,
and with the appetite of a wolf. Nothing had hurt him,
and nothing could hurt him; he had come through all
the suffering and deprivation unscathed -- only shriller-
voiced and more determined in his grip upon life. He
was a terrible child to manage, was Antanas, but his
father did not mind that -- he would watch him and smile
to himself with satisfaction. The more of a fighter he
was the better -- he would need to fight before he got
through.

[[249]]

p248 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p249w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p250

v?