Even so they might have managed it (for Mikolas is a skilled man) but
for cruel accidents which have almost taken the heart out of them. He is
a beef-boner, and that is a dangerous trade, especially when you are on
piecework and trying to earn a bride. Your hands are slippery, and your
knife is slippery, and you are toiling like mad, when somebody happens
to speak to you, or you strike a bone. Then your hand slips up on the
blade, and there is a fearful gash. And that would not be so bad, only
for the deadly contagion. The cut may heal, but you never can tell.
Twice now; within the last three years, Mikolas has been lying at home
with blood poisoning--once for three months and once for nearly seven.
The last time, too, he lost his job, and that meant six weeks more of
standing at the doors of the packing houses, at six o'clock on bitter
winter mornings, with a foot of snow on the ground and more in the air.
There are learned people who can tell you out of the statistics that
beef-boners make forty cents an hour, but, perhaps, these people have
never looked into a beef-boner's hands.

When Tamoszius and his companions stop for a rest, as perforce they
must, now and then, the dancers halt where they are and wait patiently.
They never seem to tire; and there is no place for them to sit down
if they did. It is only for a minute, anyway, for the leader starts up
again, in spite of all the protests of the other two. This time it is
another sort of a dance, a Lithuanian dance. Those who prefer to, go on
with the two-step, but the majority go through an intricate series of
motions, resembling more fancy skating than a dance. The climax of it is
a furious prestissimo, at which the couples seize hands and begin a mad
whirling. This is quite irresistible, and every one in the room joins
in, until the place becomes a maze of flying skirts and bodies quite
dazzling to look upon. But the sight of sights at this moment is
Tamoszius Kuszleika. The old fiddle squeaks and shrieks in protest, but