Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/53

 and it would have taken a week not merely of scrubbing, but of vigorous exercise, to get it out of him. As it was, he could be compared with nothing known to man, save that newest discovery of the savants, a substance which emits energy for an unlimited time, without being itself in the least diminished in power. He smelt so that he made all the food at the table taste, and set the whole family to vomiting; for himself it was three days before he could keep anything upon his stomach—he might wash his hands, and use a knife and fork, but were not his mouth and throat filled with the poison?

And still Jurgis stuck it out! In spite of splitting headaches he would stagger down to the plant and take up his stand once more, and begin to shovel in the blinding clouds of dust. And so at the end of the week he was a fertilizer-man for life—he was able to eat again, and though his head never stopped aching, it ceased to be so bad that he could not work.

Pittsburgh

(American poet and novelist; born 1882)

Over his face his gray hair drifting hides his Labor-glory in smoke, Strange through his breath the soot is sifting, his feet are buried in coal and coke. By night hands twisted and lurid in fires, by day hands blackened with grime and oil, He toils at the foundries and never tires, and ever and ever his lot is toil.