r a
paper to be thrown away. This, however, was really not the advantage it
seemed, for the newspaper advertisements were a cause of much loss of
precious time and of many weary journeys. A full half of these were
"fakes," put in by the endless variety of establishments which preyed
upon the helpless ignorance of the unemployed. If Jurgis lost only
his time, it was because he had nothing else to lose; whenever a
smooth-tongued agent would tell him of the wonderful positions he had on
hand, he could only shake his head sorrowfully and say that he had not
the necessary dollar to deposit; when it was explained to him what "big
money" he and all his family could make by coloring photographs, he
could only promise to come in again when he had two dollars to invest in
the outfit.

In the end Jurgis got a chance through an accidental meeting with an
old-time acquaintance of his union days. He met this man on his way to
work in the giant factories of the Harvester Trust; and his friend told
him to come along and he would speak a good word for him to his boss,
whom he knew well. So Jurgis trudged four or five miles, and passed
through a waiting throng of unemployed at the gate under the escort
of his friend. His knees nearly gave way beneath him when the foreman,
after looking him over and questioning him, told him that he could find
an opening for him.

How much this accident meant to Jurgis he realized only by stages;
for he found that the harvester works were the sort of place to which
philanthropists and reformers pointed with pride. It had some thought
for its employees; its workshops were big and roomy, it provided a
restaurant where the workmen could buy good food at cost, it had even
a reading room, and decent places where its girl-hands could rest; also
the work was free from many of the elements of filth and repulsiveness
that prevailed at the stockyards. Day after day Jurgis discovered these
things--things never expected nor dreamed of by him--until this new
place came to seem a kind of a heaven to him.

It was an enormous establishment, covering a hundred and sixty acres
of ground, employing five thousand people, and turning out over three
hundred thousand machines every year--a good part of all the harvesting
and mowing machines used in the country. Jurgis saw very little of it,
of course--it was all specialized work, the same as at the stockyards;
each one of the hundreds of parts of a mowing machine was made
s