The Jungle (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (47 page)

 

It was late in the afternoon when they got back, and they dressed out the remainder of the steer, and a couple of others that had been killed, and then knocked off for the day. Jurgis went down-town to supper, with three friends who had been on the other trucks, and they exchanged reminiscences on the way. Afterward they drifted into a roulette-parlor, and Jurgis, who was never lucky at gambling, dropped about fifteen dollars. To console himself he had to drink a good deal, and he went back to Packingtown about two o‘clock in the morning, very much the worse for his excursion, and, it must be confessed, entirely deserving the calamity that was in store for him.

As he was going to the place where he slept, he met a painted-cheeked woman in a greasy “kimono,” and she put her arm about his waist to steady him; they turned into a dark room they were passing—but scarcely had they taken two steps before suddenly a door swung open, and a man entered, carrying a lantern. “Who’s there?” he called sharply. And Jurgis started to mutter some reply; but at the same instant the man raised his light, which flashed in his face, so that it was possible to recognize him. Jurgis stood stricken dumb, and his heart gave a leap like a mad thing. The man was Connor!

Connor, the boss of the loading gang! The man who had seduced his wife—who had sent him to prison, and wrecked his home, and ruined his life! He stood there, staring, with the light shining full upon him.

Jurgis had often thought of Connor since coming back to Packingtown, but it had been as of something far off, that no longer concerned him. Now, however, when he saw him, alive and in the flesh, the same thing happened to him that had happened before—a flood of rage boiled up in him, a blind frenzy seized him. And he flung himself at the man, and smote him between the eyes—and then, as he fell, seized him by the throat and began to pound his head upon the stones.

The woman began screaming, and people came rushing in. The lantern had been upset and extinguished, and it was so dark they could not see a thing; but they could hear Jurgis panting, and hear the thumping of his victim’s skull, and they rushed there and tried to pull him off. Precisely as before, Jurgis came away with a piece of his enemy’s flesh between his teeth; and, as before, he went on fighting with those who had interfered with him, until a policeman had come and beaten him into insensibility.

 

And so Jurgis spent the balance of the night in the stockyards station-house. This time, however, he had money in his pocket, and when he came to his senses he could get something to drink, and also a messenger to take word of his plight to “Bush” Harper. Harper did not appear, however, until after the prisoner, feeling very weak and ill, had been haled into court and remanded at five hundred dollars’ bail to await the result of his victim’s injuries. Jurgis was wild about this, because a different magistrate had chanced to be on the bench, and he had stated that he had never been arrested before, and also that he had been attacked nrst—and if only some one had been there to speak a good word for him, he could have been let off at once.

But Harper explained that he had been down-town, and had not got the message. “What’s happened to you?” he asked.

“I’ve been doing a fellow up,” said Jurgis, “and I’ve got to get five hundred dollars’ bail.”

“I can arrange that all right,” said the other—“though it may cost you a few dollars, of course. But what was the trouble?”

“It was a man that did me a mean trick once,” answered Jurgis.

“Who is he?”

“He’s a foreman in Brown‘s—or used to be. His name’s Connor.”

And the other gave a start. “Connor!” he cried. “Not Phil Connor!”

“Yes,” said Jurgis, “that’s the fellow. Why?”

“Good God!” exclaimed the other, “then you’re in for it, old man! I can’t help you!”

“Not help me! Why not?”

“Why, he’s one of Scully’s biggest men—he’s a member of the War-Whoop League, and they talked of sending him to the legislature! Phil Connor! Great heavens!”

Jurgis sat dumb with dismay.

“Why, he can send you to Joliet, if he wants to!” declared the other.

“Can’t I have Scully get me off before he finds out about it?” asked Jurgis, at length.

“But Scully’s out of town,” the other answered. “I don’t even know where he is—he’s run away to dodge the strike.”

That was a pretty mess, indeed. Poor Jurgis sat half-dazed. His pull had run up against a bigger pull, and he was down and out! “But what am I going to do?” he asked, weakly.

“How should I know?” said the other. “I shouldn’t even dare to get bail for you—why, I might ruin myself for life!”

Again there was silence. “Can’t you do it for me,” Jurgis asked, “and pretend that you didn’t know who I’d hit?”

“But what good would that do you when you came to stand trial?” asked Harper. Then he sat buried in thought for a minute or two. “There’s nothing—unless it’s this,” he said. “I could have your bail reduced; and then if you had the money you could pay it and skip.”

“How much will it be?” Jurgis asked, after he had had this explained more in detail.

“I don’t know,” said the other. “How much do you own?”

“I’ve got about three hundred dollars,” was the answer.

“Well,” was Harper’s reply, “I’m not sure, but I’ll try and get you off for that. I’ll take the risk for friendship’s sake—for I’d hate to see you sent to state’s prison for a year or two.”

And so finally Jurgis ripped out his bank-book-which was sewed up in his trousers—and signed an order, which “Bush” Harper wrote, for all the money to be paid out. Then the latter went and got it, and hurried to the court, and explained to the magistrate that Jurgis was a decent fellow and a friend of Scully‘s, who had been attacked by a strike-breaker. So the bail was reduced to three hundred dollars, and Harper went on it himself; he did not tell this to Jurgis, however—nor did he tell him that when the time for trial came it would be an easy matter for him to avoid the forfeiting of the bail, and pocket the three hundred dollars as his reward for the risk of offending Mike Scully! All that he told Jurgis was that he was now free, and that the best thing he could do was to clear out as quickly as possible; and so Jurgis, overwhelmed with gratitude and relief, took the dollar and fourteen cents that was left him out of all his bank account, and put it with the two dollars and a quarter that was left from his last night’s celebration, and boarded a street-car and got off at the other end of Chicago.

POOR JURGIS was now an outcast and a tramp once more. He was crippled—he was as literally crippled as any wild animal which has lost its claws, or been torn out of its shell. He had been shorn, at one cut, of all those mysterious weapons whereby he had been able to make a living easily and to escape the consequences of his actions. He could no longer command a job when he wanted it; he could no longer steal with impunity—he must take his chances with the common herd. Nay worse, he dared not mingle with the herd—he must hide by himself, for he was one marked out for destruction. His old companions would betray him, for the sake of the influence they would gain thereby; and he would be made to suffer, not merely for the offence he had committed, but for others which would be laid at his door, just as had been done for some poor devil on the occasion of that assault upon the “country customer” by him and Duane.

And also he labored under another handicap now. He had acquired new standards of living, which were not easily to be altered. When he had been out of work before, he had been content if he could sleep in a doorway or under a truck out of the rain, and if he could get fifteen cents a day for saloon lunches. But now he desired all sorts of other things, and suffered because he had to do without them. He must have a drink now and then, a drink for its own sake, and apart from the food that came with it. The craving for it was strong enough to master every other consideration—he would have it, though it were his last nickel and he had to starve the balance of the day in consequence.

Jurgis became once more a besieger of factory gates. But never since he had been in Chicago had he stood less chance of getting a job than just then. For one thing, there was the economic crisis, the million or two of men who had been out of work in the spring and summer, and were not yet all back, by any means. And then there was the strike, with seventy thousand men and women all over the country idle for a couple of months—twenty thousand in Chicago, and many of them now seeking work throughout the city. It did not remedy matters that a few days later the strike was given up and about half the strikers went back to work; for every one taken on, there was a “scab” who gave up and fled. The ten or fifteen thousand “green” negroes, foreigners, and criminals were now being turned loose to shift for themselves. Everywhere Jurgis went he kept meeting them, and he was in an agony of fear least some one of them should know that he was “wanted.” He would have left Chicago, only by the time he had realized his danger he was almost penniless; and it would be better to go to jail than to be caught out in the country in the winter-time.

At the end of about ten days Jurgis had only a few pennies left; and he had not yet found a job—not even a day’s work at anything, not a chance to carry a satchel. Once again, as when he had come out of the hospital, he was bound hand and foot, and facing the grisly phantom of starvation. Raw, naked terror possessed him, a maddening passion that would never leave him, and that wore him down more quickly than the actual want of food. He was going to die of hunger! The fiend reached out its scaly arms for him—it touched him, its breath came into his face; and he would cry out for the awfulness of it, he would wake up in the night, shuddering, and bathed in perspiration, and start up and flee. He would walk, begging for work, until he was exhausted; he could not remain still—he would wander on, gaunt and haggard, gazing about him with restless eyes. Everywhere he went, from one end of the vast city to the other, there were hundreds of others like him; everywhere was the sight of plenty—and the merciless hand of authority waving them away. There is one kind of prison where the man is behind bars, and everything that he desires is outside; and there is another kind where the things are behind the bars, and the man is outside.

 

When he was down to his last quarter, Jurgis learned that before the bakeshops closed at night they sold out what was left at half price, and after that he would go and get two loaves of stale bread for a nickel, and break them up and stuff his pockets with them, munching a bit from time to time. He would not spend a penny save for this; and, after two or three days more, he even became sparing of the bread, and would stop and peer into the ash-barrels as he walked along the streets, and now and then rake out a bit of something, shake it free from dust, and count himself just so many minutes further from the end.

So for several days he had been going about, ravenous all the time, and growing weaker and weaker; and then one morning he had a hideous experience, that almost broke his heart. He was passing down a street lined with warehouses, and a boss offered him a job, and then, after he had started to work, turned him off because he was not strong enough. And he stood by and saw another man put into his place, and then picked up his coat, and walked off, doing all that he could to keep from breaking down and crying like a baby. He was lost! He was doomed! There was no hope for him! But then, with a sudden rush, his fear gave place to rage. He fell to cursing. He would come back there after dark, and he would show that scoundrel whether he was good for anything or not!

He was still muttering this when suddenly, at the corner, he came upon a green-grocery, with a tray full of cabbages in front of it. Jurgis, after one swift glance about him, stooped and seized the biggest of them, and darted round the corner with it. There was a hue and cry, and a score of men and boys started in chase of him; but he came to an alley, and then to another branching off from it and leading him into another street, where he fell into a walk, and slipped his cabbage under his coat and went off unsuspected in the crowd. When he had gotten a safe distance away he sat down and devoured half the cabbage raw, stowing the balance away in his pockets till the next day.

Just about this time one of the Chicago newspapers, which made much of the “common people,” opened a “free-soup kitchen” for the benefit of the unemployed. Some people said that they did this for the sake of the advertising it gave them, and some others said that their motive was a fear lest all their readers should be starved off; but whatever the reason, the soup was thick and hot, and there was a bowl for every man, all night long. When Jurgis heard of this, from a fellow “hobo,” he vowed that he would have half a dozen bowls before morning; but, as it proved, he was lucky to get one, for there was a line of men two blocks long before the stand, and there was just as long a line when the place was finally closed up.

This depot was within the danger-line for Jurgis—in the “Lêvée” district, where he was known; but he went there, all the same, for he was desperate, and beginning to think of even the Bridewell as a place of refuge. So far the weather had been fair, and he had slept out every night in a vacant lot; but now there fell suddenly a shadow of the advancing winter, a chill wind from the north and a driving storm of rain. That day Jurgis bought two drinks for the sake of the shelter, and at night he spent his last two pennies in a “stale-beer dive.” This was a place kept by a negro, who went out and drew off the old dregs of beer that lay in barrels set outside of the saloons; and after he had doctored it with chemicals to make it “fizz,” he sold it for two cents a can, the purchase of a can including the privilege of sleeping the night through upon the floor, with a mass of degraded outcasts, men and women.

All these horrors afflicted Jurgis all the more cruelly, because he was always contrasting them with the opportunities he had lost. For instance, just now it was election time again—within five or six weeks the voters of the country would select a President; and he heard the wretches with whom he associated discussing it, and saw the streets of the city decorated with placards and banners—and what words could describe the pangs of grief and despair that shot through him?