Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 1.djvu/50

24 and my trunk was sent for. He introduced me to his wife, a buxom, bright German woman. We had a very well-cooked German dinner together, and I congratulated myself on such an auspicious beginning in Chicago. But this feeling was considerably dampened when I discovered that, after all, I had only got into an ordinary emigrant boarding-house. The keeper of it employed a wagon and two runners, and, by means fair or foul, obtained all his patronage from the emigrant-trains arriving twice daily from the East. I subsequently saw for myself that the runners were not any more truthful or less urgent in their demands than their colleagues in New York. There was but one dining-room, in one corner of which the baggage of the guests was piled up, and a sleeping-hall directly above it, divided into two parts by a thin partition, for men and for women. Each compartment had eight beds, in one of which I had to sleep. Emigrants in those days were no more attractive in respect to cleanliness and otherwise than to-day; hence I was not very happy in my surroundings. But, as the host and hostess were really anxious to do all they could for me, and as I expected the former, who had been in Chicago for some years, to be very helpful to me in getting employment, I concluded to stay in spite of all drawbacks.

Norkin knew a number of Pfälzer, some of whom held influential positions. One of them was one of the publishers, and another one of the editors, of the Illinois Staats-Zeitung, at that time and to-day the leading German paper in the city. Another was a successful physician, and still another a wine-merchant. I applied to them all for advice and assistance in finding a suitable occupation, but, though they freely gave me counsel, they proved to be of no real help. I also inserted an advertisement in the Zeitung, but received no responses to it. I called daily at various intelligence offices, and, moreover, made personal inquiries for work in all sorts of establishments. But the only openings I found were for waiters