, and keep the family
going. And as for Tamoszius--well, they had waited a long time, and they
could wait a little longer. They could not possibly get along upon his
wages alone, and the family could not live without hers. He could come
and visit her, and sit in the kitchen and hold her hand, and he must
manage to be content with that. But day by day the music of Tamoszius'
violin became more passionate and heartbreaking; and Marija would sit
with her hands clasped and her cheeks wet and all her body a-tremble,
hearing in the wailing melodies the voices of the unborn generations
which cried out in her for life.

Marija's lesson came just in time to save Ona from a similar fate.
Ona, too, was dissatisfied with her place, and had far more reason than
Marija. She did not tell half of her story at home, because she saw it
was a torment to Jurgis, and she was afraid of what he might do. For
a long time Ona had seen that Miss Henderson, the forelady in her
department, did not like her. At first she thought it was the old-time
mistake she had made in asking for a holiday to get married. Then she
concluded it must be because she did not give the forelady a present
occasionally--she was the kind that took presents from the girls, Ona
learned, and made all sorts of discriminations in favor of those who
gave them. In the end, however, Ona discovered that it was even worse
than that. Miss Henderson was a newcomer, and it was some time before
rumor made her out; but finally it transpired that she was a kept woman,
the former mistress of the superintendent of a department in the same
building. He had put her there to keep her quiet, it seemed--and that
not altogether with success, for once or twice they had been heard
quarreling. She had the temper of a hyena, and soon the place she ran
was a witch's caldron. There were some of the girls who were of her own
sort, who were willing to toady to her and flatter her; and these would
carry tales about the rest, and so the furies were unchained in the
place. Worse than this, the woman lived in a bawdy-house downtown, with
a coarse, red-faced Irishman named Connor, who was the boss of the
loading-gang outside, and would make free with the girls as they went
to and from their work. In the slack seasons some of them would go with
Miss Henderson to this house downtown--in fact, it would not be too much
to say that she managed her department at Brown's in conjunction with
it. Sometimes women f