of his hand chopped off. There were the “hoisters,”
as they were called, whose task it was to press the
lever which lifted the dead cattle off the floor.
They ran along upon a rafter, peering down through
the damp and the steam; and as old Durham’s
architects had not built the killing room for the
convenience of the hoisters, at every few feet they
would have to stoop under a beam, say four feet above
the one they ran on; which got them into the habit
of stooping, so that in a few years they would be walking
like chimpanzees. Worst of any, however, were
the fertilizer men, and those who served in the cooking
rooms. These people could not be shown to the
visitor,—for the odor of a fertilizer man
would scare any ordinary visitor at a hundred yards,
and as for the other men, who worked in tank rooms
full of steam, and in some of which there were open
vats near the level of the floor, their peculiar trouble
was that they fell into the vats; and when they were
fished out, there was never enough of them left to
be worth exhibiting,—sometimes they would
be overlooked for days, till all but the bones of
them had gone out to the world as Durham’s Pure
Leaf Lard!
During the early part of the winter the family had
had money enough to live and a little over to pay
their debts with; but when the earnings of Jurgis
fell from nine or ten dollars a week to five or six,
there was no longer anything to spare. The winter
went, and the spring came, and found them still living
thus from hand to mouth, hanging on day by day, with
literally not a month’s wages between them and
starvation. Marija was in despair, for there
was still no word about the reopening of the canning
factory, and her savings were almost entirely gone.
She had had to give up all idea of marrying then;
the family could not get along without her—though
for that matter she was likely soon to become a burden
even upon them, for when her money was all gone, they
would have to pay back what they owed her in board.
So Jurgis and Ona and Teta Elzbieta would hold anxious
conferences until late at night, trying to figure
how they could manage this too without starving.
Such were the cruel terms upon which their life was
possible, that they might never have nor expect a
single instant’s respite from worry, a single
instant in which they were not haunted by the thought
of money. They would no sooner escape, as by
a miracle, from one difficulty, than a new one would
come into view. In addition to all their physical
hardships, there was thus a constant strain upon their
minds; they were harried all day and nearly all night
by worry and fear. This was in truth not living;
it was scarcely even existing, and they felt that it
was too little for the price they paid. They were
willing to work all the time; and when people did
their best, ought they not to be able to keep alive?
