hey told him, they could not decide until
they had had more time. And so they went home again, and all day and
evening there was figuring and debating. It was an agony to them to have
to make up their minds in a matter such as this. They never could agree
all together; there were so many arguments upon each side, and one would
be obstinate, and no sooner would the rest have convinced him than it
would transpire that his arguments had caused another to waver. Once, in
the evening, when they were all in harmony, and the house was as good as
bought, Szedvilas came in and upset them again. Szedvilas had no use for
property owning. He told them cruel stories of people who had been done
to death in this "buying a home" swindle. They would be almost sure to
get into a tight place and lose all their money; and there was no end
of expense that one could never foresee; and the house might be
good-for-nothing from top to bottom--how was a poor man to know? Then,
too, they would swindle you with the contract--and how was a poor man
to understand anything about a contract? It was all nothing but robbery,
and there was no safety but in keeping out of it. And pay rent? asked
Jurgis. Ah, yes, to be sure, the other answered, that too was robbery.
It was all robbery, for a poor man. After half an hour of such
depressing conversation, they had their minds quite made up that they
had been saved at the brink of a precipice; but then Szedvilas went
away, and Jonas, who was a sharp little man, reminded them that the
delicatessen business was a failure, according to its proprietor, and
that this might account for his pessimistic views. Which, of course,
reopened the subject!

The controlling factor was that they could not stay where they
were--they had to go somewhere. And when they gave up the house plan and
decided to rent, the prospect of paying out nine dollars a month forever
they found just as hard to face. All day and all night for nearly a
whole week they wrestled with the problem, and then in the end Jurgis
took the responsibility. Brother Jonas had gotten his job, and was
pushing a truck in Durham's; and the killing gang at Brown's continued
to work early and late, so that Jurgis grew more confident every hour,
more certain of his mastership. It was the kind of thing the man of the
family had to decide and carry through, he told himself. Others might
have failed at it, but he was not the failing kind--he would show them
how to do it.