to understand. They
were often very turbulent meetings, with half a dozen men declaiming
at once, in as many dialects of English; but the speakers were all
desperately in earnest, and Jurgis was in earnest too, for he understood
that a fight was on, and that it was his fight. Since the time of his
disillusionment, Jurgis had sworn to trust no man, except in his own
family; but here he discovered that he had brothers in affliction, and
allies. Their one chance for life was in union, and so the struggle
became a kind of crusade. Jurgis had always been a member of the church,
because it was the right thing to be, but the church had never
touched him, he left all that for the women. Here, however, was a new
religion--one that did touch him, that took hold of every fiber of him;
and with all the zeal and fury of a convert he went out as a missionary.
There were many nonunion men among the Lithuanians, and with these
he would labor and wrestle in prayer, trying to show them the right.
Sometimes they would be obstinate and refuse to see it, and Jurgis,
alas, was not always patient! He forgot how he himself had been blind,
a short time ago--after the fashion of all crusaders since the original
ones, who set out to spread the gospel of Brotherhood by force of arms.

Chapter 9

One of the first consequences of the discovery of the union was that
Jurgis became desirous of learning English. He wanted to know what was
going on at the meetings, and to be able to take part in them, and so he
began to look about him, and to try to pick up words. The children, who
were at school, and learning fast, would teach him a few; and a friend
loaned him a little book that had some in it, and Ona would read them to
him. Then Jurgis became sorry that he could not read himself; and later
on in the winter, when some one told him that there was a night school
that was free, he went and enrolled. After that, every evening that he
got home from the yards in time, he would go to the school; he would go
even if he were in time for only half an hour. They were teaching him
both to read and to speak English--and they would have taught him other
things, if only he had had a little time.

Also the union made another great difference with him--it made him begin
to pay attention to the country. It was the beginning of democracy with
him. It was a little state, the union, a miniature republic; its affairs
were every man's affairs, and every man had a re