stretching a black pall as far as the eye could reach.

Then the party became aware of another strange thing. This, too, like
the color, was a thing elemental; it was a sound, a sound made up of ten
thousand little sounds. You scarcely noticed it at first--it sunk into
your consciousness, a vague disturbance, a trouble. It was like the
murmuring of the bees in the spring, the whisperings of the forest; it
suggested endless activity, the rumblings of a world in motion. It was
only by an effort that one could realize that it was made by animals,
that it was the distant lowing of ten thousand cattle, the distant
grunting of ten thousand swine.

They would have liked to follow it up, but, alas, they had no time for
adventures just then. The policeman on the corner was beginning to watch
them; and so, as usual, they started up the street. Scarcely had they
gone a block, however, before Jonas was heard to give a cry, and began
pointing excitedly across the street. Before they could gather the
meaning of his breathless ejaculations he had bounded away, and they saw
him enter a shop, over which was a sign: "J. Szedvilas, Delicatessen."
When he came out again it was in company with a very stout gentleman in
shirt sleeves and an apron, clasping Jonas by both hands and laughing
hilariously. Then Teta Elzbieta recollected suddenly that Szedvilas
had been the name of the mythical friend who had made his fortune in
America. To find that he had been making it in the delicatessen business
was an extraordinary piece of good fortune at this juncture; though it
was well on in the morning, they had not breakfasted, and the children
were beginning to whimper.

Thus was the happy ending to a woeful voyage. The two families literally
fell upon each other's necks--for it had been years since Jokubas
Szedvilas had met a man from his part of Lithuania. Before half the day
they were lifelong friends. Jokubas understood all the pitfalls of this
new world, and could explain all of its mysteries; he could tell them
the things they ought to have done in the different emergencies--and
what was still more to the point, he could tell them what to do now. He
would take them to poni Aniele, who kept a boardinghouse the other side
of the yards; old Mrs. Jukniene, he explained, had not what one would
call choice accommodations, but they might do for the moment. To this
Teta Elzbieta hastened to respond that nothing could be too cheap to
suit them just th