wled out. Upon the top of the car was a brakeman, who shook his fist
and swore; Jurgis waved his hand derisively, and started across the
country.

Only think that he had been a countryman all his life; and for three
long years he had never seen a country sight nor heard a country sound!
Excepting for that one walk when he left jail, when he was too much
worried to notice anything, and for a few times that he had rested
in the city parks in the winter time when he was out of work, he had
literally never seen a tree! And now he felt like a bird lifted up
and borne away upon a gale; he stopped and stared at each new sight of
wonder--at a herd of cows, and a meadow full of daisies, at hedgerows
set thick with June roses, at little birds singing in the trees.

Then he came to a farm-house, and after getting himself a stick for
protection, he approached it. The farmer was greasing a wagon in
front of the barn, and Jurgis went to him. "I would like to get some
breakfast, please," he said.

"Do you want to work?" said the farmer.

"No," said Jurgis. "I don't."

"Then you can't get anything here," snapped the other.

"I meant to pay for it," said Jurgis.

"Oh," said the farmer; and then added sarcastically, "We don't serve
breakfast after 7 A.M."

"I am very hungry," said Jurgis gravely; "I would like to buy some
food."

"Ask the woman," said the farmer, nodding over his shoulder. The "woman"
was more tractable, and for a dime Jurgis secured two thick sandwiches
and a piece of pie and two apples. He walked off eating the pie, as the
least convenient thing to carry. In a few minutes he came to a stream,
and he climbed a fence and walked down the bank, along a woodland path.
By and by he found a comfortable spot, and there he devoured his meal,
slaking his thirst at the stream. Then he lay for hours, just gazing and
drinking in joy; until at last he felt sleepy, and lay down in the shade
of a bush.

When he awoke the sun was shining hot in his face. He sat up and
stretched his arms, and then gazed at the water sliding by. There was a
deep pool, sheltered and silent, below him, and a sudden wonderful idea
rushed upon him. He might have a bath! The water was free, and he might
get into it--all the way into it! It would be the first time that he had
been all the way into the water since he left Lithuania!

When Jurgis had first come to the stockyards he had been as clean as any
workingman could well be. But later on, wh