The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (easy to read books for adults list TXT) 📕

The farmer scratched his head. “I dunno jest where they be,” he said. “But they’re in the city somewhere, and you’re going dead away from it now.”

Jurgis looked dazed. “I was told this was the way,” he said.

“Who told you?”

“A boy.”

“Well, mebbe he was playing a joke on ye. The best thing ye kin do is to go back, and when ye git into town ask a policeman. I’d take ye in, only I’ve come a long ways an’ I’m loaded heavy. Git up!”

So Jurgis turned and followed, and toward the end of the morning he began to see Chicago again. Past endless blocks of two-story shanties he walked, along wooden sidewalks and unpaved pathways treacherous with deep slush-holes. Every few blocks there would be a railroad crossing on the level with the sidewalk, a deathtrap for the unwary; long freight-trains would be passing, the cars clanking and crashing together, and Jurgis would pace about waiting, burning up with a fever of impatience. Occasionally the cars would stop for some minutes, and wagons and streetcars would crowd together waiting, the drivers swearing at each other, or hiding beneath umbrellas out of the rain; at such times Jurgis would dodge under the gates and run across the tracks and between the cars, taking his life into his hands.

He crossed a long bridge over a river frozen solid and covered with slush. Not even on the river bank was the snow white⁠—the rain which fell was a diluted solution of smoke, and Jurgis’s hands and face were streaked with black. Then he came into the business part of the city, where the streets were sewers of inky blackness, with horses slipping and plunging, and women and children flying across in panic-stricken droves. These streets were huge canons formed by towering black buildings, echoing with the clang of car-gongs and the shouts of drivers; the people who swarmed in them were as busy as ants⁠—all hurrying breathlessly, never stopping to look at anything nor at each other. The solitary trampish-looking foreigner, with water-soaked clothing and haggard face and anxious eyes, was as much alone as he hurried past them, as much unheeded and as lost, as if he had been a thousand miles deep in a wilderness.

A policeman gave him his direction and told him that he had five miles to go. He came again to the slum-districts, to avenues of saloons and cheap stores, with long dingy red factory buildings, and coal-yards and railroad-tracks; and then Jurgis lifted up his head and began to sniff the air like a startled animal scenting the far-off odor of home. It was late afternoon then, and he was hungry, but the dinner invitations hung out of the saloons were not for him.

So he came at last to the stockyards, to the black volcanoes of smoke and the lowing cattle and the stench. Then, seeing a crowded car, his impatience got the better of him and he jumped aboard, hiding behind another man, unnoticed by the conductor. In ten minutes more he had reached his street, and home.

He was half running as he came round the corner. There was the house, at any rate⁠—and then suddenly he stopped and stared. What was the matter with the house?

Jurgis looked twice, bewildered; then he glanced at the house next door and at the one beyond⁠—then at the saloon on the corner. Yes, it was the right place, quite certainly⁠—he had not made any mistake. But the house⁠—the house was a different color!

He came a couple of steps nearer. Yes; it had been gray and now it was yellow! The trimmings around the windows had been red, and now they were green! It was all newly painted! How strange it made it seem!

Jurgis went closer yet, but keeping on the other side of the street. A sudden and horrible spasm of fear had come over him. His knees were shaking beneath him, and his mind was in a whirl. New paint on the house, and new weatherboards, where the old had begun to rot off, and the agent had got after them! New shingles over the hole in the roof, too, the hole that had for six months been the bane of his soul⁠—he having no money to have it fixed and no time to fix it himself, and the rain leaking in, and overflowing the pots and pans he put to catch it, and flooding the attic and loosening the plaster. And now it was fixed! And the broken windowpane replaced! And curtains in the windows! New, white curtains, stiff and shiny!

Then suddenly the front door opened. Jurgis stood, his chest heaving as he struggled to catch his breath. A boy had come out, a stranger to him; a big, fat, rosy-cheeked youngster, such as had never been seen in his home before.

Jurgis stared at the boy, fascinated. He came down the steps whistling, kicking off the snow. He stopped at the foot, and picked up some, and then leaned against the railing, making a snowball. A moment later he looked around and saw Jurgis, and their eyes met; it was a hostile glance, the boy evidently thinking that the other had suspicions of the snowball. When Jurgis started slowly across the street toward him, he gave a quick glance about, meditating retreat, but then he concluded to stand his ground.

Jurgis took hold of the railing of the steps, for he was a little unsteady. “What⁠—what are you doing here?” he managed to gasp.

“Go on!” said the boy.

“You⁠—” Jurgis tried again. “What do you want here?”

“Me?” answered the boy, angrily. “I live here.”

“You live here!” Jurgis panted. He turned white, and clung more tightly to the railing. “You live here! Then where’s my family?”

The boy looked surprised. “Your family!” he echoed.

And Jurgis started toward him. “I⁠—this is my house!” he cried.

“Come off!” said the boy; then suddenly the door upstairs opened, and he called: “Hey, ma! Here’s a fellow says he owns