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^Etna Insurance Company,
HARTFORD, CONN.
ON JUNE 19th HAD ADJUSTED 789 CLAIMS AND PAID $1,126,506.00 OF ITS SAN FRAN-
When You Have a Loss The Best Is None Too Good. Why Not Buy The Best?
CISCO LOSSES.
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(Copyright 190.;, by Upton Sinclair.
All rights reserved.)
CHAPTER V (CONTINUED)
S», after all, there was a crack In the
fine structure of Jurgls' faith In things
as they are. The crack was wide,
while Dede Antanas was hunting a
).>b—and It was yet wider when he
finally got It. For one evening the old
man came horns In a great atate of ex
citement, with the tale that he had
been approached by a man in one of the
corridors of the pickle rooms of Dur
ham's. and asked what he would pay
to get a job. He had not known what
to make of this at first; but the man
hail gone on with matter-of-fact frank
ness to say that he could get him a
job. provided that he were willing to
pay nne-thlrd of his wages for It. Wap
he a boss? Antanas had asked; to
which the man had replied that that
was nobody’s business, but that he
could do what he sold.
Jurgls had made-some friends by this
time, and he sought one of them and
asked what this meant. The friend,
v.ho was named Tamosslus Kusxlelka,
was n sharp little man who folded hides
on the killing beds, and he listened to
What Jurgls had to say without seem
ing at all surprised. They were com
mon enough, he said, such cases of
petty graft.. He .was slmnly some hose
who proposed to'
come. After Jurgls had been there
a while he would know thawthe plants
were simply honey-combed~wlth rot
tenness of that sort—the bosses graft-
. ed off the men, and -they grafted off
’ each other; and some day the superin
tendent would find out about the boes,
and then he would graft off the boes.
Warming to the subject, Tamosslus
went on to explain the situation. Here
was Durham's, for Instance, owned by
a man who was trying to make as
much money out of It as he could, and
did not care In the least how he did
It; and underneath him, ranged
ranks nnd grades like an army, were
managers and superintendents and
foremen, each one driving the man be.
low him and trying to squeesa out of
him ns mnch work as possible.
And all the men of the same rank
were pitted against each other; the ac
counts of each kept separately, and
every man lived In mortal terror of los
ing his Job, If another made a better
record than he. So from top to bot
tom the place was simply a seething
cauldron of jealousies and hatreds:
there was no loyalty or decency any
where about It: there was no place In
It where a man counted for anything
against a dollar. And worse thaiv there
being no decency, there warn not even
nny honesty. The reason for that?
Who could say? It must have been
old Durham In the beginning; It was a
heritage which the self-made merchant
hud left to his son along with his mll-
Ito
SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS
*rnnitut liivVptlRntlou Into tlie method* employed l»jr the lieef truat, has Ita orl
In nn actual l’rickliitftown romance.
The first chapter show* a broad-shouldered butcher being wedded to a young
girl who aeca In him a hero. The wedding. In all Ita ftrotes4|U«H!rss, la described.
Practically penniless. Jurgls tells his bride she shall not return to work In
the packing house—he will work early and late, ffe could hot work harder, bat
the thought of eeelng her contribute toward their aup|»ort was abhorrent to him.
On arriving In Chicago. J. Ssedvllaa, a Lithuanian, who rsu n delicatessen store
In rneklngtowu. guided Jurgls, Oust, Mnrljn and the remainder of the (tarty
through the stock yards, after he bad given them lodging. In this section of the
“—the gnthor reveals aome of the If ‘ * *“ * *
1 given them lodging. In this section of the
„jnr the author reveals some of the things that have startled the roantry.
Finding the cost of living high, the little coterie decided to purchase a small
house, dlvhllug the cost l»etwecn them, against the advice of Hsedvllss, who said
they would In* swindled. Ssedvllns went with Tetn Klxbletn nnd Ona to sign
the papers. He discovered the word “rental In the Instalment contract. The
women. I»ellerlng they had been trapped, were terrified. A lawyer pronounced
the paper regular. Their.fright was shared by Jurgls. Another lawyer mollified
his wild fancies. Needed furnishings were, purchased on the same 'feagy payujeut”
’lrgla. In bla enormous strength, gloried In being hbU* to ktep up with picked
trhn an* »tin fulwu 111 th« ilurflll llhtpil klUllril III “amMtflltlg the gnilg" at
trying to correct
of the story condod#*.
_ * to i ...
little tblnjt to do, and everywhere they had or-
t even once stopping to ask him a
Jurgls would find out these things
for himself, If he rUyed there Ion*
mouth; It wa» the men who had to do
ill tho dirty Jobe, and »o there waa no
deceiving them; "and they caught the
■Pint of the place, and did like all the
ifit. Jur*le had come there, and
ttiou*ht he wee *oln* to make hlnuwlf
useful, and rtie and become a skilled
man; but he would soon find out hie
i ron-—for nobody roee In Packlngtown
by doln* food work. You could lay
that down for a rule—If you met
man who nee rlfln* In Packlngtown.
you met a knave. That man who had
been sent to Jurgls' father by the boss,
be would rl«e; the man who told the
'ale and epted upon hie fellow* would
rt«o; but the man who minded hie own
bu-lness and did bit work—why, they
would "spaed him up” till they had
S" , rn him out, and then they would
’ throw- him Into the *utter.
Jurgls went home with hla head bui-
ring. Yet he could not brln* himself to
believe such thln*e—no. It could not be
•o. Tamoaxtua waa simply another of
the grumbler*. He wae a man who
•pent all hla time Addling; and. he
would *o to parties at night and not get
home till aunriee, and eo of course he
dill not feel like work. Then, too, he
. *aa a puny little chap; and so he had
I been left behind In the race, and that
*n» why he wae tore. And yet so many
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strange things kept coming to Jurgls'
notice evry day! .
He tried to persuade hie father to
Jiave-nothing to do with the offer. But
bid Antanas had begged antll he was|
worn out, and all his courage was
gone; he wanted a Job, any sort of a
J |U|IP, lie n niucu a jup, -w.» — -
ob. So the next day he went and
found the man who had spoken to him,
and promised to. bring him a third of
all he earned; and that same day he
wae put to work In Durham's cellars.
It was a ‘‘pickle room," where there
was never a dry spot to stand upon,
and so he had to take nearly a whole of
his Ilrst week's earnings to buy him a
pair of heavy-soled boots. He wae a
"squeedgle" • man; hla Job was to go
about ell day with a long-handled mop,
swabbing up the floor. Except that It
was damp and dark. It was not an un
pleasant Job. In summer.
Now Antanas Rudkua wae the meek
cat man that God ever put on earth;
and so Jurgls found It a striking con
firmation of what the men all aaltL that
his father had been at work onlr two
days before he came home aa bitter as
any of them, and curelng Durham s
with all the power of hla soul. For they
had set him to cleaning out the traps;
and the family sat round and listened
In wonder while he told them whet
that meant. It seemed that he waa
working In the room where the men
prepared the beef for canning, and the
beef hid lain In vata full of chemicals,
and men with greet forks speared It
out and flumped It Into trucks, to be
taken to the cooking rodm. When they
had (peered out alt they could reach,
they emptied the ret on the floor, and
then with shovels scraped up the bal
ance end dumped It Into the truck.
Thle floor wee fllthy, yet they set An-
tanae with hi* mop slopping the
"pickle" Into a hole that connected with
a sink, where It wee caught and used
over again forever; and If that were
not enough, there wae a trap In the
pe, where all. the ecrape of meat and
„Jda and ends of refuse were caught,
and every few days It was the old
man’s task to dean these out, and
shovel their content* Into on* of the
trucks with th# rest of the meat!
This was the experience of Anltnee;
and then there came also Jonas and
Marlja with tale* to tell. Marlja was
working for one of the Independent
packers, and was quits besld* hersslf
and outrageous with triumph over th*
sums of money ehe was making a* a
painter of cane. But one day ehe
walked home with a pale-faced little
woman who worked opposite her, Jad-
vyga Marrlnkus by name, and Jadvyga
told her how she, Marlja, had chanced
to get her Job. Bhe had taken th*
place of an Irish women who had been
working In that factory for over fifteen
years, so she declared. Mery Dennis
was her name, and a long time ago
sh* had been betrayed, end had a Uttl*
boy: he was a cripple, and ait epilep
tic, but 'ktlll he was all that she had
In the world to love, and they had
lived In a little room alone somewhere
back of Haleted etreet. where th* Irish
were. Mary had had consumption, end
all day long you might hear her cough
ing aa she worked: of late eh* bad
been going all to plsces. and when Ms-
rija came, the "for*lady" had suddenly
decided to turn her off.. The forelady
bad to com# up to a certain standard
herself, end could not stop for sick
people, Jadvyga explained. The fact
that Mary had been there eo long had
not mad* any difference to her—It waa
doubtful If eh* even knew that, for both
the forelady and the superintendent
were new people, having only been
there two or three years themselves.
Jadvyga did not know what bad be-
com* of th* poor creature: eh# would
have gone to see her, but had been
sick herself. She had pains In her back
all th* time. Jadvvgm explained. It
was not IU work for a woman, handling
fourteen-pound ran* all day.
It was a striking circumstance that
nnd thence to the packing rooms. The
truck* were all of Iron and. heavy, and
they put about thre#?aoor« hams on
each of them, a load-of more than a
quarter of a ton. On the uneven, floor
It was a task for a man to start on*
of these trucks, unless he was a giant;
and when It was once started he natur
ally tried hla best to. .keep It golfig.
There waa always th* boss prowling
about, and If tber* waa a second's de
lay he would foil to cursing; Lithuan
ians and Slovaks and such, who could
not understand what was said to them,
the bosses were wont to kick about
the place Ilk* so many- dogs. There
fore these trucks went for the most
part on th* run: and the predecessor
of Jonas had been Jammed against the
wall by one and crushed In a horrible
manner.
All of these were sinister Incidents,
but they were trifles compared to what
Jurgls saw with his own eyes bsfore
long.
One day s man' slipped and hurt his
leg, and that afternoon. When the last
of the cattle had'been disposed of and
the men were leaving, Jurgls was or-
dsred to remain and do some specie!
work which this Injured men had
usually done. It was late, almost dark,
and th* government Inspectors had sll
gone, and there were only a dosen or
two of men on the floor. That day
they had killed about* four thousand
cattle, and thee* had com* In freight
train* from far states, and some of
them had got hurt. There were aome
with broken lege and some with gored
sides; there were some that had died
from what cause nq one could say, and
they were all to be dlepoeed of here In
darkness and silence. "Downers,” th*
men called them, and th* packing house
had a special elevator upon which
they were raised to th* killing beds,
where the gang proceeded to handle
them. With an air of business-like non
chalance which said plainer then any
words that It waa a matter of every
day routine. It took a couple of hours
to get them out of th* fray, and In the
end Jurgls saw them go Into th* chil
ling rooms with the rest of the meat,
being carefully scattered here and
thtre so that they could not be Identi
fied. When he cam* home that night
he was In a very sombre mood, having
begun to see at last bow those might
be right who had laughtd at him far
his faith In America.
Jurgls and Ona were very much In
love: they had waited a long time—It
was now welt Into th* second year,
and Jurgls Judged everything by Ihe
criterion of lt> helping or hindering
their union. All hhe thoughts were
there; he accepted the family because
It was part of One. end he was In
terested In the house because It was to
be One's home. Even the tricks and
cruelties he saw at Durham’s had llttl*
meaning for him Just then, save as
they might happen to affect his future
with On*. • . _
Th# marriage woulif have been at
once. If they had had their way; but
this would mean that they would bars
to do without afly wedding feast, end
when they suggested this they cam#
Into conflict with th# old people. To
i very sug
gestion was an affliction. Whet! she
would cry. To be married on th* road
side like a parcel of beggars! No! No!
—Elibleta had some traditions behind
her; sh* had been a person of Impor
tance In her girlhood—had Hved on a
big estate aqd bad servants, and might
have married well and been a lady but
for the fact that there bad been nine
daughters and no sons In the family.
Even so, however, she knew whet waa
decent and clung to her traditions with
desperation. They were net going to
os* sll caste, even If they had come
.o be unskilled laborers In Packing-
town; and that Ona had, even talked
omitting a vessel I J» waa enough
keep her stepmother lying awake
all night. It was In vain for them to
Jonas, too, had gotten hi* Job by the
nushed'a'truck^loaded wiriThams from say that they bed so few friends; they built." and she could toll them all about
tbe Jm£k££m on fa an elevator, were bound,to hate friends In Urn*. It. And had It ever been sold before?
and then the friends would talk about
It
They must not give up -what was
right for a little money—If they did, the
money would never do them any good,
they could depend upun that. And
Elsbleta would call upon Dede An
tanas to support her; there was a
fear In the souls of these two, lest
this Journey, to a new country might
somehow undermine the old home vir
tues of their children. The very first
Sunday they had all btsn taken to
mass: and poor as they were, Elsbleta
had felt It advisable to Invest a little
of her resources In a representation of
the babe of Bethlehem, made In plaster
and painted In brilliant colors. Though
It was .only a foot high, there was a
shrine with four snow-white steeples,
and the Virgin standing with her child
In her arms, and the king* and ahep-
herds and wise men bowing down be
fore him. It had coat fifty cents; but
Elsbleta had a feeling that money spent
for such things was not to be counted
too closely. It would come back In
hidden ways. The piece waa beauti
ful on th* parlor mantel, and one could
not have a home without some sort of
ornament. •
The cost of the.weddlng feast would,
of course, be returned to them; but the
problem was to raise It even tempora
rily. They had. been- In the neighbor
hood so short a time that they could
not get much "cWllt, and there wee no
> one except' Seed Vila* from whom they
rould. borrow even a little. Evening
after evening. Ju/gls and Ona would nit
nnd figure the expenses, calrulatlng tho
term of their separation. They could
not possibly manage It decently fur
less than |f«0, and even though they
were welcome to count In the whole
of the earnings bt Marlja and Jonna
aa a loan, they could not hope to raUo
this sum In less tjinii four or five
months. Ho Omt begun thinking of
seeking employment herself, eaylng
that If she had even onllnnrlly good
luck, eh* might be able to take two
months off the time. They were Just
beginning to adjust themselves to this
necessity, when out of the clear sky
there fell a thunderbolt upon them—
calamity that scattered all tlMtr
hopes to the four winds!
About a block uway from them thtre
lived another Lithuanian family, con
sisting of an elderly widow ami one
grown son; their name was Majausx-
kla, and our friends struck up an ac
quaintance with them before long. One
evening they came over for u visit,
and naturally the Aral subject upon
which th* conversation turned was
the neighborhood end It* history; and
then Grandmother Majatssxkiene, aa
th* old lady was called, proceeded to
recite to them a string of horrors that
fairly froxe their blood. She was a
wrlnkl*d-up and wlxened personage—
she must have been eighty—and as she
mumbled th* grim story through her
toothless gums, sht seemed a very old
witch to them. Grandmother Majausx-
klene had lived In th* midst of mis
fortune so long that It had come to be
her element, and sht talked about
starvation, sickness and death ae other
people might about weddings and holt<
days.
The thing cam* gradually. In th*
first place aa to the house they hod
bought. It waa not new at all, as they
had supposed; It was about flftten
years old, and there was nothing new
upon It but tbs paint, which woe so
bad that It needed to be put on new
evdry year or two. Th* house was
one of a whole row that waa built by
a company which existed to make
money by swindling poor people. The
family had paid Il.fOO far It, and it
bad not cost th* builders tUO when It
wae flew. Grandmother Majaussklen*
knew that, because her eon belonged
to a political organxgtlon with a con
tractor who put up exactly each houses.
They used the very flimsiest and
cheapest material; they built th*
houses a dosen at a time, and they
cared about nothing at all except th*
outside shine. The family could take
her word as to the trouble they would
have, for she bad been through It all
—ah* and her son had bought their
house In exactly the same way. They
had fooled the company, however, for
her son was a skilled man, who mad*
as high ae $104 a month, and aa he had
had sens* enough not fa marry they
had been able t» pay far th* house.
O rend mother Msjsussklene saw that
her friends were puxxled at this re
mark; they did not quite ■*• how pay
ing for the house waa "fooling the
company." Evidently they were very
Inexperienced. Cheap os th* house*
were, they ware sold with th* Idea
that th* people who bought them
would not be able to pay far them.
When they failed—If It were only by a
single month—they would lose th*
house and all that they had paid on
It, and then the company would sell
It over again. And did they often
get a chance to do that? Dtevel
(Grandmother MaJaoasklaBa raised her
bands.) They did it—how often no ona
could say, but rertalnly more than half
of tha time. They might ask any on*
who knew anything at all about Pack-
tngtown as to that; she had been tir
ing bare ever since this house wee
UPTON SINCLAIR.
Author of "The Jungle.”
Hunlmtlkle! Why, since It had been ; but they had worked hard, and th*
built no less than four families that
their Informant could name had tried
to buy It end failed. She would tell
them a little about IL
Th* first family had been Germans.
Th* families had sll been of different
nationalities—there had been a repie-
ssntutlv* of several races that had
displaced each other In the stock yards.
Grandmother Majaussklene had com;
to America with her eon at a time
when so far aa she knew there was
only one other Lithuanian family In
the district; the workers had all been
Germans then—skilled callle butcher*
that th* packer* had brought from
abroad to start the business. After
wards, as cheaper labor had come,
these German* had moved away. The
next ware the Irish—there had been
six or sight years when Packlngtown
had been a regular Irish city. There
were a few colonies of them still here,
enough to run all th* unions and the
police force and get all’the graft; but
the most of those who were working
In the packing houses had gone away
at th* nest drop In wage*—after the
big strike. Th* Bohemians had corns
■hen, and after them the Poles. Peo
ple said that old man Durham him
self was responsible far these Immigra
tions; he had sworn that he would fix
the people of Parklngtown so that they
would never again call a strike on him.
and so he had sent hie agents Into
every city and village In Europe to
spread Ihe tale of the rhanres of work
end high wages at th* stock yards
Tha people had come In hordes, and
old Durham had aqueesed them tight
er and tighter, speeding them up and
grinding them to piece* and sending,
for new ones.
The Poles, who had come by tens
of thousands had been driven to th*
wall by the Lithuanian*, and now the
Lithuanians were giving way to the
Slovaks. Who there was poorer and
more miserable than the Slovaks,
Grandmother Majaussklene had no
Idea, but the packers would And them,
never fear. It was easy to bring
them, far wages- were really much
higher and It was only when It was too
late that the poor people found out
that everything else was higher too.
TMry were Ilka rets la a trap, that was
th* truth; and more of them were
piling In every day. By and by they
th* thing waa getting beyond human
endurance, and th* people would rise
and murder the packers. Orandmoth-
*r Majaussklene was a socialist, or
some such strange thing; another son
of here waa working In th* mines of
Siberia, and the old lady hersalf had
made speeches In her t|me—Which
made her seem all the more terrible
to her present auditors.
They railed her back to tbe story of
th* house. The German family bad
been a good sort. To be sure, there
father had been u steady "man, and
they bed a good ileal more then half
isild for hla house. ' But he had been
killed In an elevator accident In Dur
ham's.
Then there had come Ihe Irish, and
there had been lot* of them, too. The
husband drank end beet the children—
the neighbors could hear them shriek
ing any night. They were behind with
their rent all the time. But the com
pany waa good to them. There wae
some politics bark of that. Grand
mother Majaussklene could not aay
Just what, but the Laffertya had be
longed fa the "War Whoop I.eague,"
which was a sort of political club of
all the thug* and rowdies In (he dis
trict, and If you belonged to that you
could neeer be arrested for anything.
Once.upon a time old Lafferty had
been raught with a gang that had
stolen cows from several of the poor
people of Ihe neighborhood and butch
ered them In an old shsnty of the
yards and sold them; II* had been In
Jail only three days for It, aud had
com* out laughing and had not even
lost his place In the packing house.
He had gone all to ruin with th*
drink, however, and lost his power;
on* of his sons, who was a good man,
had kept him and the family up for'a
year or tfro, but then he bad got alck
with consumption.
There was another thing, Grand
mother Majaussklene Interrupted her
self—this house was unlucky. Every
family that lived In IL some one wee
sure to get consumption. Nobody
could tell why that was; there must
be something about a house or the
way It waa built—some folks said It
was because the building bed been be
gun In tbe dark of the moon. There
wren dosena of houses that way In
Pocklngtown. Sometimes there would
be a particular room that you could
point out—If anybody slept in that
room he was lust as good as dead.
With this house It had been th* Irish
Ilrst; and then a Bohemian family had
lost a child of It—though, to be sure,
that we* uncertain, since It was hard
to tall what was tbs matter with chil
dren who worked In. the yard*. In
those days there had been no law
about th* age of children—th* pack
ers had worked all but the babies.
At this remark the family looked
pusaled, and Grandmother Majusx-
kfene again had to make an explana
tion—that It was (gainst the law far
children to work before they were six
teen. What was the sense of that?
they asked. They hail been thinking of
letting Htanleiovas go to work. Well,
there was nn noil to worry. Grand
mother Majauaxklena said—the law
.made no difference except that It forc
ed people to II* about the ages of their
children. Ona would Ilk* toknow what
the lawmakers' expected them to do;
there were families that had no pnssl-
of getting a living. Very often a man
could get no work In Farklnglown for
months, while a child could go and art
a piece easily; there was always some
new machine, by which the packet -
could get as much work out of a child
as they had been able to get out uf a
man, and for a third of the pay.
To come back to the house ntrnln, it
was the women of the next family ili.it
hnd died. That was after they had
been there nearly four years, nnd thin
woman had had twins regulnrly every
year—and there bad been more than
you could count When they moved In.
After she died the man would go to
work all day and leave them to -hift
for themselves—the neighbors would
help them now and then, for they
would almost freSxe to death. At the
end there were three days that they
were alone before It waa found out
that the father was dead. He wen a
"floorstnan" nt Jones', nnd n wounded
steer had broken loose and mashed
him against a pillar. Then the chil
dren bail been taken away, nnd tho
company had sold the house that lory
same week to n peri] emigrants
Ho this grim old woman went < o
with her lets of horrors, 'How much of
It waa saaggerattoo—trbo mom tag
It waa only loo pi.up nThere was
that about consumption, for Instance.
They knew nothing about consumption
whatever except that It made pin
cough; and lor two weeko they had
been worrying nbout a coughing -pell
of Antanas. It seemed to shake Mm
all over, and It never stopped. You
could see n red stnln wherever he had
spit upon the floor.
And yet all these things were as
nothing (o what ram* it little In tar.
They hod begun to question the old
Indy aa to why one family had haen
unnble to pay, trying to show' her by
figures that It ought to have been i*»-
atble; nnd Grandmother Majnnazklene
lirnl disputed their flguren—-"You say
Sll a month; but that docs not Includo
th* Interest.”
Then they starfd at her. "Interest!”
they cried.
"Interest on tha money you stilt
owe." she answered.
"Ilut w# don’t have to pay nn' In-
tarastl" they exclaimed, o four
nt once. "We only hate to pny 111
each month."
And fnr this she laughed nt tham.
"You arc Ilka all the rest." ehe -old
"they trick you un I eat you alive. They
never sell the house* without Interest.
Oat your deed nnd see.”
Then, with a horrible sinking of ihe
heart. Trta Etxldetn unlrw krd her bu
reau and brought out the paper that
hnd nlreadv caused them so pinny
agonies. Now they sat round, aenres-
ly breathing, while the old holy, wlm
could read English, ran over It. "Ye-."
ah* said, Anally, "here It I*, of com-.-:
With Interest thereon monthly at th*
rule of 7 par cent per annum. - ."
And there followed a dend alien. e.
'What does thnt mean?" asked Jurgis
Anally, almost In n w hisper.
"That means," replied the other,
“that you have to pay them 17 next
month, Its well as the 111."
Then again there was not a sound.
It waa sickening,. Ilka a nightmare. In
which suddenly something gives uuy
beneath you, and you fcol feel your-
sslf sulking, sinking, down Into bot
tomless. nbyssos. As If In n flash of
lightning they saw themselves -victim
had bran a great many of them, which We means of support except tha children
was a common falling In Packlngtown; and the law provided them no other way
iiaCmuiUK win
of a relentless fate,
In the grip of destruction. All tha
fair structure of thalr hopes enma
crashing about their ear- And nil the
time the old woman was going on
UlklDf.
They wlohsd that she would be still:
her voice sounded Just llkn the croak
ing of some dismal reran. Jurgls sot
with his hands daarhed and brads of
perspiration on his forehead, and there
was a great lump In Onn’s throat,
choking her. Then suddenly Tela Klls-
bleta broke Ihe silence with a wall,
and Marlja begun to wring her hands
and sob, 'Al! Al! Urdu man!”
All their outcry did them no good,
course. There sat Orendmothar
Majaussklene. unrelenting, typifying
fata So, of coil--.- II 0.1- not fair,
but then fnlrneea had nothing to do
with It. And of course they had not
known It. They hod not been Intended
fa know IL But It "ii- In the deed,
and that waa all that was nei essury,
as they would flnd when the time
iroa.
Somehow or other they got rid of
their guest, ami then they pn-srd a
night of lamentation. The children
woke up and found out thnt something
was wrong, and thay walled and would
no* be comforted; In the morning, of
course, most of them hnd to go to
work; th* packinghouse would not stop
thalr sorrows; but by 1 o'clock tins and
her stepmother were -landing at tha
door uf th* office of the ugent. Yes,
he told them, when he came, it was
quite true that they would have to
pay Interest And then Tent Elsbleta
broke forth Into protestations and re
proaches. so th.it the people outside
Stopped and peered In at the window.
The agent wae n> bland n» ever. H*
was deeply pnlned lie said He had
not told them simply lie, nuse he hod
sum *ed they would understand that
they had to pny Interest upon their
debt n« a matter of course.
(Continued In