another, an army of women, they also struggling for life
under the stern system of nature. Because there were
rich men who sought pleasure, there had been ease and
plenty for them so long as they were young and beautiful;
and later on, when they were crowded out by others
younger and more beautiful, they went out to follow upon
the trail of the working-men. Sometimes they came of
themselves, and the saloon-keepers shared with them; or
sometimes they were handled by agencies, the same as the
labor army. They were in the towns in harvest-time,
near the lumber-camps in the winter, in the cities when
the men came there; if a regiment were encamped, or a
railroad or canal being made, or a great exposition getting
ready, the crowd of women were on hand, living in shanties
or saloons or tenement-rooms, sometimes eight or ten of
them together.

In the morning Jurgis had not a cent, and he went out
upon the road again. He was sick and disgusted, but
after the new plan of his life, he crushed his feelings
down. He had made a fool of himself, but he could not
help it now -- all he could do was to see that it did not
happen again. So he tramped on until exercise and fresh
air banished his headache, and his strength and joy re~
turned. This happened to him every time, for Jurgis
was still a creature of impulse, and his pleasures had not
yet become business. It would be a long time before he
could be like the majority of these men of the road, who
roamed until the hunger for drink and for women mas~
tered them, and then went to work with a purpose in
mind, and stopped when they had the price of a spree.

On the contrary, try as he would, Jurgis could not help
being made miserable by his conscience. It was the ghost
that would not down. It would come upon him in the
most unexpected places -- sometimes it fairly drove him
to drink.

One night he was caught by a thunder-storm, and he
sought shelter in a little house just outside of a town. It
was a working-man's home, and the owner was a Slav like
himself, a new emigrant from White Russia; he bade

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p261 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p262w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p263

v?