el-works were fifteen miles away, and as usual it was so
contrived that one had to pay two fares to get there. Far and wide the
sky was flaring with the red glare that leaped from rows of towering
chimneys--for it was pitch dark when Jurgis arrived. The vast works, a
city in themselves, were surrounded by a stockade; and already a full
hundred men were waiting at the gate where new hands were taken on. Soon
after daybreak whistles began to blow, and then suddenly thousands of
men appeared, streaming from saloons and boardinghouses across the way,
leaping from trolley cars that passed--it seemed as if they rose out of
the ground, in the dim gray light. A river of them poured in through the
gate--and then gradually ebbed away again, until there were only a few
late ones running, and the watchman pacing up and down, and the hungry
strangers stamping and shivering.

Jurgis presented his precious letter. The gatekeeper was surly, and put
him through a catechism, but he insisted that he knew nothing, and as he
had taken the precaution to seal his letter, there was nothing for the
gatekeeper to do but send it to the person to whom it was addressed.
A messenger came back to say that Jurgis should wait, and so he came
inside of the gate, perhaps not sorry enough that there were others less
fortunate watching him with greedy eyes. The great mills were getting
under way--one could hear a vast stirring, a rolling and rumbling
and hammering. Little by little the scene grew plain: towering, black
buildings here and there, long rows of shops and sheds, little railways
branching everywhere, bare gray cinders underfoot and oceans of
billowing black smoke above. On one side of the grounds ran a railroad
with a dozen tracks, and on the other side lay the lake, where steamers
came to load.

Jurgis had time enough to stare and speculate, for it was two hours
before he was summoned. He went into the office building, where a
company timekeeper interviewed him. The superintendent was busy, he
said, but he (the timekeeper) would try to find Jurgis a job. He had
never worked in a steel mill before? But he was ready for anything?
Well, then, they would go and see.

So they began a tour, among sights that made Jurgis stare amazed. He
wondered if ever he could get used to working in a place like this,
where the air shook with deafening thunder, and whistles shrieked
warnings on all sides of him at once; where miniature steam engines came
rushing