To get up and go away was to give up, to acknowledge defeat, to leave the strange family in possession; and Jurgis might have sat shivering in the rain for hours before he could do that, had it not been for the thought of his family. It might be that he had worse things yet to leam—and so he got to his feet and started away, walking on, wearily, half-dazed.
To Aniele’s house, in back of the yards, was a good two miles; the distance had never seemed longer to Jurgis, and when he saw the familiar dingy-gray shanty his heart was beating fast. He ran up the steps and began to hammer upon the door.
The old woman herself came to open it. She had shrunk all up with her rheumatism since Jurgis had seen her last, and her yellow parchment face stared up at him from a little above the level of the door-knob. She gave a start when she saw him. “Is Ona here?” he cried, breathlessly.
“Yes,” was the answer, “she’s here.”
“How—” Jurgis began, and then stopped short, clutching convulsively at the side of the door. From somewhere within the house had come a sudden cry, a wild, horrible scream of anguish. And the voice was Ona’s.
For a moment Jurgis stood half-paralyzed with fright; then he bounded past the old woman and into the room.
It was Aniele’s kitchen, and huddled round the stove were half a dozen women, pale and frightened. One of them started to her feet as Jurgis entered; she was haggard and frightfully thin, with one arm tied up in bandages—he hardly realized that it was Marija. He looked first for Ona; then, not seeing her, he stared at the women, expecting them to speak. But they sat dumb, gazing back at him, panic-stricken; and a second later came another piercing scream.
It was from the rear of the house, and upstairs. Jurgis bounded to a door of the room and flung it open; there was a ladder leading through a trap-door to the garret, and he was at the foot of it, when suddenly he heard a voice behind him, and saw Marija at his heels. She seized him by the sleeve with her good hand, panting wildly, “No, no, Jurgis! Stop!”
“What do you mean?” he gasped.
“You mustn’t go up,” she cried.
Jurgis was half-crazed with bewilderment and fright. “What’s the matter?” he shouted. “What is it?”
Marija clung to him tightly; he could hear Ona sobbing and moaning above, and he fought to get away and climb up, without waiting for her reply. “No, no,” she rushed on. “Jurgis! You mustn’t go up! It‘s—it’s the child!”
“The child?” he echoed in perplexity. “Antanas?”
Marija answered him, in a whisper: “The new one!”
And then Jurgis went limp, and caught himself on the ladder. He stared at her as if she were a ghost. “The new one!” he gasped. “But it isn’t time,” he added, wildly.
Marija nodded. “I know,” she said; “but it’s come.”
And then again came Ona’s scream, smiting him like a blow in the face, making him wince and turn white. Her voice died away into a wail—then he heard her sobbing again, “My God—let me die, let me die!” And Marija flung her arms about him, crying: “Come out! Come away!”
She dragged him back into the kitchen, half carrying him, for he had gone all to pieces. It was as if the pillars of his soul had fallen in—he was blasted with horror. In the room he sank into a chair, trembling like a leaf, Marija still holding him, and the women staring at him in dumb, helpless fright.
And then again Ona cried out; he could hear it nearly as plainly here, and he staggered to his feet. “How long has this been going on?” he panted.
“Not very long,” Marija answered, and then, at a signal from Aniele, she rushed on: “You go away, Jurgis—you can’t help—go away and come back later. It’s all right—it‘s—”
“Who’s with her?” Jurgis demanded; and then, seeing Marija hesitating, he cried again, “Who’s with her?”
“She‘s—she’s all right,” she answered. “Elzbieta’s with her.”
“But the doctor!” he panted. “Some one who knows!”
He seized Marija by the arm; she trembled, and her voice sank beneath a whisper as she replied, “We—we have no money.” Then, frightened at the look on his face, she exclaimed: “It’s all right, Jurgis ! You don’t understand—go away—go away! Ah, if you only had waited!”
Above her protests Jurgis heard Ona again; he was almost out of his mind. It was all new to him, raw and horrible—it had fallen upon him like a lightning stroke. When little Antanas was born he had been at work, and had known nothing about it until it was over; and now he was not to be controlled. The frightened women were at their wits’ end; one after another they tried to reason with him, to make him understand that this was the lot of woman. In the end they half drove him out into the rain, where he began to pace up and down, bareheaded and frantic. Because he could hear Ona from the street, he would first go away to escape the sounds, and then come back because he could not help it. At the end of a quarter of an hour he rushed up the steps again, and for fear that he would break in the door they had to open it and let him in.
There was no arguing with him. They could not tell him that all was going well—how could they know, he cried—why, she was dying, she was being torn to pieces! Listen to her—listen! Why, it was monstrous—it could not be allowed—there must be some help for it! Had they tried to get a doctor? They might pay him afterwards—they could promise—
“We couldn’t promise, Jurgis,” protested Marija. “We had no money—we have scarcely been able to keep alive.”
“But I can work,” Jurgis exclaimed. “I can earn money!”
“Yes,” she answered—“but we thought you were in jail. How could we know when you would return? They will not work for nothing.”
Marija went on to tell how she had tried to find a mid-wife, and how they had demanded ten, fifteen, even twenty-five dollars, and that in cash. “And I had only a quarter,” she said. “I have spent every cent of my money—all that I had in the bank; and I owe the doctor who has been coming to see me, and he has stopped because he thinks I don’t mean to pay him. And we owe Aniele for two weeks’ rent, and she is nearly starving, and is afraid of being turned out. We have been borrowing and begging to keep alive, and there is nothing more we can do—”
“And the children?” cried Jurgis.
“The children have not been home for three days, the weather has been so bad. They could not know what is happening—it came suddenly, two months before we expected it.”
Jurgis was standing by the table, and he caught himself with his hands; his head sank and his arms shook—it looked as if he were going to collapse. Then suddenly Aniele got up and came hobbling toward him, fumbling in her skirt pocket. She drew out a dirty rag, in one corner of which she had something tied.
“Here, Jurgis!” she said, “I have some money. Palauk! See!”
She unwrapped it and counted it out-thirty-four cents. “You go, now,” she said, “and try and get some body yourself. And maybe the rest can help—give him some money, you; he will pay you back some day, and it will do him good to have something to think about, even if he doesn’t succeed. When he comes back, maybe it will be over.”
And so the other women turned out the contents of their pocketbooks; most of them had only pennies and nickels, but they gave him all. Mrs. Olszewski, who lived next door, and had a husband who was a skilled cattle-butcher, but a drinking man, gave nearly half a dollar, enough to raise the whole sum to a dollar and a quarter. Then Jurgis thrust it into his pocket, still holding it tightly in his fist, and started away at a run.
NINETEEN
“MADAME HAUPT, Hebamme,” ran a sign, swinging from a second-story window over a saloon on the avenue; at a side door was another sign, with a hand pointing up a dingy flight of steps. Jurgis went up them, three at a time.
Madame Haupt was frying pork and onions, and had her door half open to let out the smoke. When he tried to knock upon it, it swung open the rest of the way, and he had a glimpse of her, with a black bottle turned up to her lips
. Then he knocked louder, and she started and put it away. She was a Dutch woman, enormously fat—when she walked she rolled like a small boat on the ocean, and the dishes in the cupboard jostled each other. She wore a filthy blue wrapper, and her teeth were black.
“Vot is it?” she said, when she saw Jurgis.
He had run like mad all the way and was so out of breath he could hardly speak. His hair was flying and his eyes wild—he looked like a man that had risen from the tomb. “My wife!” he panted. “Come quickly!”
Madame Haupt set the frying pan to one side and wiped her hands on her wrapper. “You vant me to come for a case?” she inquired.
“Yes,” gasped Jurgis.
“I haf yust come back from a case,” she said. “I haf had no time to eat my dinner. Still—if it is so bad—”
“Yes—it is!” cried he.
“Vell, den, perhaps—vot you pay?”
“I—I—how much do you want?” Jurgis stammered.
“Tventy-five dollars.”
His face fell. “I can’t pay that,” he said.
The woman was watching him narrowly. “How much do you pay?” she demanded.
“Must I pay now—right away?”
“Yes; all my customers do.”
“I—I haven’t much money,” Jurgis began, in an agony of dread. “I’ve been in—in trouble—and my money is gone. But I’ll pay you—every cent—just as soon as I can; I can work—”
“Vot is your work?”
“I have no place now. I must get one. But I—”
“How much haf you got now?”
He could hardly bring himself to reply. When he said “A dollar and a quarter,” the woman laughed in his face.
“I vould not put on my hat for a dollar und a quarter,” she said.
“It’s all I’ve got,” he pleaded, his voice breaking. “I must get some one—my wife will die. I can’t help it—I—”
Madame Haupt had put back her pork and onions on the stove. She turned to him and answered, out of the steam and noise: “Git me ten dollars cash, und so you can pay me de rest next mont‘.”
“I can’t do it—I haven’t got it!” Jurgis protested. “I tell you I have only a dollar and a quarter.”
The woman turned to her work. “I don’t believe you,” she said. “Dot is all to try to sheat me. Vot is de reason a big man like you has got only a dollar und a quarter?”
“I’ve just been in jail,” Jurgis cried,—he was ready to get down upon his knees to the woman,—“and I had no money before, and my family has almost starved.”
“Vere is your friends, dot ought to help you?”
“They are all poor,” he answered. “They gave me this. I have done everything I can—”
“Haven’t you got notting you can sell?”
“I have nothing, I tell you—I have nothing,” he cried, frantically.
“Can’t you borrow it, den? Don’t your store people trust you?” Then, as he shook his head, she went on: “Listen to me—if you git me you vill be glad of it. I vill save your wife und baby for you, und it vill not seem like mooch to you in de end. If you loose dem now how you tink you feel den? Und here is a lady dot knows her business—I could send you to people in dis block, und dey vould tell you—”
Madame Haupt was pointing her cooking-fork at Jurgis persuasively ; but her words were more than he could bear. He flung up his hands with a gesture of despair and turned and started away. “It’s no use,” he exclaimed—but suddenly he heard the woman’s voice behind him again:—
“I vill make it five dollars for you.”
She followed behind him, arguing with him. “You vill be foolish not to take such an offer,” she said. “You von’t find nobody to go out on a rainy day like dis for less. Vy, I haf never took a case in my life so sheap as dot. I couldn’t pay mine room rent—”
Jurgis interrupted her with an oath of rage. “If I haven’t got it,” he shouted, “how can I pay it? Damn it, I would pay you if I could, but I tell you I haven’t got it. I haven’t got it! Do you hear me—I haven’t got it!”
He turned and started away again. He was halfway down the stairs before Madame Haupt could shout to him: “Vait! I vill go mit you! Come back!”
He went back into the room again.
“It is not goot to tink of anybody suffering,” she said, in a melancholy voice. “I might as vell go mit you for notting as vot you offer me, but I vill try to help you. How far is it?”
“Three or four blocks from here.”
“Tree or four! Und so I shall get soaked! Gott in Himmel, it ought to be vorth more! Vun dollar und a quarter, und a day like dis! But you understand now—you vill pay me de rest of twenty-five dollars soon?”
“As soon as I can.”
“Some time dis mont‘?”
“Yes, within a month,” said poor Jurgis. “Anything! Hurry up!”
“Vere is de dollar und a quarter?” persisted Madame Haupt, relentlessly.
Jurgis put the money on the table and the woman counted it and stowed it away. Then she wiped her greasy hands again and proceeded to get ready, complaining all the time; she was so fat that it was painful for her to move, and she grunted and gasped at every step. She took off her wrapper without even taking the trouble to turn her back to Jurgis, and put on her corsets and dress. Then there was a black bonnet which had to be adjusted carefully, and an umbrella which was mislaid, and a bag full of necessaries which had to be collected from here and there—the man being nearly crazy with anxiety in the meantime. When they were on the street he kept about four paces ahead of her, turning now and then, as if he could hurry her on by the force of his desire. But Madame Haupt could only go so far at a step, and it took all her attention to get the needed breath for that.
They came at last to the house, and to the group of frightened women in the kitchen. It was not over yet, Jurgis learned—he heard Ona crying still; and meantime Madame Haupt removed her bonnet and laid it on the mantelpiece, and got out of her bag, first an old dress and then a saucer of goose-grease, which she proceeded to rub upon her hands. The more cases this goose-grease is used in, the better luck it brings to the midwife, and so she keeps it upon her kitchen mantelpiece or stowed away in a cupboard with her dirty clothes, for months, and sometimes even for years.
Then they escorted her to the ladder, and Jurgis heard her give an exclamation of dismay. “Gott in Himmel, vot for haf you brought me to a place like dis? I could not climb up dot ladder. I could not git troo a trap-door! I vill not try it—vy, I might kill myself already. Vot sort of a place is dot for a woman to bear a child in—up in a garret, mit only a ladder to it? You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!” Jurgis stood in the doorway and listened to her scolding, half drowning out the horrible moans and screams of Ona.
At last Aniele succeeded in pacifying her, and she essayed the ascent; then, however, she had to be stopped while the old woman cautioned her about the floor of the garret. They had no real floor—they had laid old boards in one part to make a place for the family to live; it was all right and safe there, but the other part of the garret had only the joists of the floor, and the lath and plaster of the ceiling below, and if one stepped on this there would be a catastrophe. As it was half dark up above, perhaps one of the others had best go up first with a candle. Then there were more outcries and threatening, until at last Jurgis had a vision of a pair of elephantine legs disappearing through the trap-door, and felt the house shake as Madame Haupt started to walk. Then suddenly Aniele came to him and took him by the arm.
“Now,” she said, “you go away. Do as I tell you—you have done all you can, and you are only in the way. Go away and stay away.”
“But where shall I go?” Jurgis asked, helplessly.
“I don’t know where,” she answered. “Go on the street, if there is no other place—only go! And stay all night!”
In the end she and Marija pushed him out of the door and shut it behind him. It was just about sundown, and it was
turning cold— the rain had changed to snow, and the slush was freezing. Jurgis shivered in his thin clothing, and put his hands into his pockets and started away. He had not eaten since morning, and he felt weak and ill; with a sudden throb of hope he recollected he was only a few blocks from the saloon where he had been wont to eat his dinner. They might have mercy on him there, or he might meet a friend. He set out for the place as fast as he could walk.
“Hello, Jack,” said the saloon-keeper, when he entered—they call all foreigners and unskilled men “Jack” in Packingtown. “Where’ve you been?”
Jurgis went straight to the bar. “I’ve been in jail,” he said, “and I’ve just got out. I walked home all the way, and I’ve not a cent, and had nothing to eat since this morning. And I’ve lost my home, and my wife’s ill, and I’m done up.”
The saloon-keeper gazed at him, with his haggard white face and his blue trembling lips. Then he pushed a big bottle toward him. “Fill her up!” he said.
Jurgis could hardly hold the bottle, his hands shook so.
“Don’t be afraid,” said the saloon-keeper; “fill her up!”
So Jurgis drank a huge glass of whiskey, and then turned to the lunch-counter, in obedience to the other’s suggestion. He ate all he dared, stuffing it in as fast as he could; and then, after trying to speak his gratitude, he went and sat down by the big red stove in the middle of the room.
It was too good to last, however—like all things in this hard world. His soaked clothing began to steam, and the horrible stench of fertilizer to fill the room. In an hour or so the packing-houses would be closing and the men coming in from their work; and they would not come into a place that smelt of Jurgis. Also it was Saturday night, and in a couple of hours would come a violin and a cornet, and in the rear part of the saloon the families of the neighborhood would dance and feast upon wienerwurst and lager, until two or three o‘clock in the morning. The saloon-keeper coughed once or twice, and then remarked, “Say, Jack, I’m afraid you’ll have to quit.”