Such was the home to which the new arrivals were welcomed. There was
nothing better to be had--they might not do so well by looking further,
for Mrs. Jukniene had at least kept one room for herself and her three
little children, and now offered to share this with the women and the
girls of the party. They could get bedding at a secondhand store,
she explained; and they would not need any, while the weather was so
hot--doubtless they would all sleep on the sidewalk such nights as this,
as did nearly all of her guests. "Tomorrow," Jurgis said, when they were
left alone, "tomorrow I will get a job, and perhaps Jonas will get one
also; and then we can get a place of our own."

Later that afternoon he and Ona went out to take a walk and look about
them, to see more of this district which was to be their home. In back
of the yards the dreary two-story frame houses were scattered farther
apart, and there were great spaces bare--that seemingly had been
overlooked by the great sore of a city as it spread itself over the
surface of the prairie. These bare places were grown up with dingy,
yellow weeds, hiding innumerable tomato cans; innumerable children
played upon them, chasing one another here and there, screaming and
fighting. The most uncanny thing about this neighborhood was the number
of the children; you thought there must be a school just out, and it was
only after long acquaintance that you were able to realize that
there was no school, but that these were the children of the
neighborhood--that there were so many children to the block in
Packingtown that nowhere on its streets could a horse and buggy move
faster than a walk!

It could not move faster anyhow, on account of the state of the streets.