rs opened, and he
called: "Hey, ma! Here's a fellow says he owns this house."

A stout Irishwoman came to the top of the steps. "What's that?" she
demanded.

Jurgis turned toward her. "Where is my family?" he cried, wildly. "I
left them here! This is my home! What are you doing in my home?"

The woman stared at him in frightened wonder, she must have thought
she was dealing with a maniac--Jurgis looked like one. "Your home!" she
echoed.

"My home!" he half shrieked. "I lived here, I tell you."

"You must be mistaken," she answered him. "No one ever lived here. This
is a new house. They told us so. They--"

"What have they done with my family?" shouted Jurgis, frantically.

A light had begun to break upon the woman; perhaps she had had doubts of
what "they" had told her. "I don't know where your family is," she said.
"I bought the house only three days ago, and there was nobody here, and
they told me it was all new. Do you really mean you had ever rented it?"

"Rented it!" panted Jurgis. "I bought it! I paid for it! I own it! And
they--my God, can't you tell me where my people went?"

She made him understand at last that she knew nothing. Jurgis' brain
was so confused that he could not grasp the situation. It was as if his
family had been wiped out of existence; as if they were proving to be
dream people, who never had existed at all. He was quite lost--but then
suddenly he thought of Grandmother Majauszkiene, who lived in the next
block. She would know! He turned and started at a run.

Grandmother Majauszkiene came to the door herself. She cried out when
she saw Jurgis, wild-eyed and shaking. Yes, yes, she could tell him. The
family had moved; they had not been able to pay the rent and they had
been turned out into the snow, and the house had been repainted and sold
again the next week. No, she had not heard how they were, but she could
tell him that they had gone back to Aniele Jukniene, with whom they had
stayed when they first came to the yards. Wouldn't Jurgis come in and
rest? It was certainly too bad--if only he had not got into jail--

And so Jurgis turned and staggered away. He did not go very far round
the corner he gave out completely, and sat down on the steps of a
saloon, and hid his face in his hands, and shook all over with dry,
racking sobs.

Their home! Their home! They had lost it! Grief, despair, rage,
overwhelmed him--what was any imagination of the thing to this
heartbreaking, crushing