unsteadily as he passed out of sight.

For a minute or so Jurgis stood clinging to his chair, reeling and
swaying; then the keeper touched him on the arm, and he turned and went
back to breaking stone.

Chapter 18

Jurgis did not get out of the Bridewell quite as soon as he had
expected. To his sentence there were added "court costs" of a dollar and
a half--he was supposed to pay for the trouble of putting him in jail,
and not having the money, was obliged to work it off by three days
more of toil. Nobody had taken the trouble to tell him this--only
after counting the days and looking forward to the end in an agony of
impatience, when the hour came that he expected to be free he found
himself still set at the stone heap, and laughed at when he ventured to
protest. Then he concluded he must have counted wrong; but as another
day passed, he gave up all hope--and was sunk in the depths of despair,
when one morning after breakfast a keeper came to him with the word that
his time was up at last. So he doffed his prison garb, and put on his
old fertilizer clothing, and heard the door of the prison clang behind
him.

He stood upon the steps, bewildered; he could hardly believe that it was
true,--that the sky was above him again and the open street before him;
that he was a free man. But then the cold began to strike through his
clothes, and he started quickly away.

There had been a heavy snow, and now a thaw had set in; fine sleety rain
was falling, driven by a wind that pierced Jurgis to the bone. He had
not stopped for his-overcoat when he set out to "do up" Connor, and so
his rides in the patrol wagons had been cruel experiences; his clothing
was old and worn thin, and it never had been very warm. Now as he
trudged on the rain soon wet it through; there were six inches of watery
slush on the sidewalks, so that his feet would soon have been soaked,
even had there been no holes in his shoes.

Jurgis had had enough to eat in the jail, and the work had been the
least trying of any that he had done since he came to Chicago; but even
so, he had not grown strong--the fear and grief that had preyed upon his
mind had worn him thin. Now he shivered and shrunk from the rain,
hiding his hands in his pockets and hunching his shoulders together.
The Bridewell grounds were on the outskirts of the city and the country
around them was unsettled and wild--on one side was the big drainage
canal, and on the other a maze of railr