o
the midwife, and so she keeps it upon her kitchen mantelpiece or stowed
away in a cupboard with her dirty clothes, for months, and sometimes
even for years.

Then they escorted her to the ladder, and Jurgis heard her give an
exclamation of dismay. "Gott in Himmel, vot for haf you brought me to a
place like dis? I could not climb up dot ladder. I could not git troo a
trap door! I vill not try it--vy, I might kill myself already. Vot sort
of a place is dot for a woman to bear a child in--up in a garret, mit
only a ladder to it? You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!" Jurgis
stood in the doorway and listened to her scolding, half drowning out the
horrible moans and screams of Ona.

At last Aniele succeeded in pacifying her, and she essayed the ascent;
then, however, she had to be stopped while the old woman cautioned her
about the floor of the garret. They had no real floor--they had laid old
boards in one part to make a place for the family to live; it was all
right and safe there, but the other part of the garret had only the
joists of the floor, and the lath and plaster of the ceiling below, and
if one stepped on this there would be a catastrophe. As it was half dark
up above, perhaps one of the others had best go up first with a candle.
Then there were more outcries and threatening, until at last Jurgis had
a vision of a pair of elephantine legs disappearing through the trap
door, and felt the house shake as Madame Haupt started to walk. Then
suddenly Aniele came to him and took him by the arm.

"Now," she said, "you go away. Do as I tell you--you have done all you
can, and you are only in the way. Go away and stay away."

"But where shall I go?" Jurgis asked, helplessly.

"I don't know where," she answered. "Go on the street, if there is no
other place--only go! And stay all night!"

In the end she and Marija pushed him out of the door and shut it behind
him. It was just about sundown, and it was turning cold--the rain had
changed to snow, and the slush was freezing. Jurgis shivered in his thin
clothing, and put his hands into his pockets and started away. He had
not eaten since morning, and he felt weak and ill; with a sudden throb
of hope he recollected he was only a few blocks from the saloon where he
had been wont to eat his dinner. They might have mercy on him there,
or he might meet a friend. He set out for the place as fast as he could
walk.

"Hello, Jack," said the saloon-keeper, when he entered--the