ee what he had
been and now could never be--to see Ona and his child and his own dead
self stretching out their arms to him, calling to him across a bottomless
abyss--and to know that they were gone from him forever, and he writhing
and suffocating in the mire of his own vileness!

Chapter 23

Early in the fall Jurgis set out for Chicago again. All the joy went out
of tramping as soon as a man could not keep warm in the hay; and, like
many thousands of others, he deluded himself with the hope that by
coming early he could avoid the rush. He brought fifteen dollars with
him, hidden away in one of his shoes, a sum which had been saved from
the saloon-keepers, not so much by his conscience, as by the fear which
filled him at the thought of being out of work in the city in the winter
time.

He traveled upon the railroad with several other men, hiding in freight
cars at night, and liable to be thrown off at any time, regardless of
the speed of the train. When he reached the city he left the rest, for
he had money and they did not, and he meant to save himself in this
fight. He would bring to it all the skill that practice had brought him,
and he would stand, whoever fell. On fair nights he would sleep in the
park or on a truck or an empty barrel or box, and when it was rainy or
cold he would stow himself upon a shelf in a ten-cent lodging-house,
or pay three cents for the privileges of a "squatter" in a tenement
hallway. He would eat at free lunches, five cents a meal, and never a
cent more--so he might keep alive for two months and more, and in that
time he would surely find a job. He would have to bid farewell to
his summer cleanliness, of course, for he would come out of the first
night's lodging with his clothes alive with vermin. There was no place
in the city where he could wash even his face, unless he went down to
the lake front--and there it would soon be all ice.

First he went to the steel mill and the harvester works, and found that
his places there had been filled long ago. He was careful to keep away
from the stockyards--he was a single man now, he told himself, and he
meant to stay one, to have his wages for his own when he got a job. He
began the long, weary round of factories and warehouses, tramping all
day, from one end of the city to the other, finding everywhere from ten
to a hundred men ahead of him. He watched the newspapers, too--but no
longer was he to be taken in by smooth-spoken agents. He