They figured it up. There was a little left of the money belonging to Teta Elzbieta, and there was a little left to Jurgis. Marija had about fifty dollars pinned up somewhere in her stockings, and Grandfather Anthony had part of the money he had gotten for his farm. If they all combined, they would have enough to make the first payment; and if they had employment, so that they could be sure of the future, it might really prove the best plan. It was, of course, not a thing even to be talked of lightly; it was a thing they would have to sift to the bottom. And yet, on the other hand, if they were going to make the venture, the sooner they did it the better; for were they not paying rent all the time, and living in a most horrible way besides? Jurgis was used to dirt⁠—there was nothing could scare a man who had been with a railroad-gang, where one could gather up the fleas off the floor of the sleeping-room by the handful. But that sort of thing would not do for Ona. They must have a better place of some sort very soon⁠—Jurgis said it with all the assurance of a man who had just made a dollar and fifty-seven cents in a single day. Jurgis was at a loss to understand why, with wages as they were, so many of the people of this district should live the way they did.

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