It was in the latter part of July, when Jurgis was in Missouri, that he came upon the harvest-work. Here were crops that men had worked for three or four months to prepare, and of which they would lose nearly all unless they could find others to help them for a week or two. So all over the land there was a cry for labor⁠—agencies were set up and all the cities were drained of men, even college boys were brought by the carload, and hordes of frantic farmers would hold up trains and carry off wagon-loads of men by main force. Not that they did not pay them well⁠—any man could get two dollars a day and his board, and the best men could get two dollars and a half or three.