Jurgis and Ona are deep in love, measuring every decision by whether it brings their marriage closer. Elzbieta insists on a proper veselija, not a roadside wedding like beggars, and they begin calculating two hundred dollars they do not have. Ona considers taking work to shorten the wait; then Grandmother Majauszkiene arrives like fate in a shawl and begins reciting the neighborhood's history of ruin. Love measures every choice against the veselija Elzbieta demands. She tells them that their 'new' home is actually fifteen years old, built by a company that deliberately targets poor families who can't afford the payments.
The old woman knows their house is fifteen years old, built cheap by a company that sells to people who cannot pay. Four prior families failed on the same lot: Germans, Irish, Bohemians, each crushed by wages, drink, accident, or death. The house is unlucky, she says; consumption haunts it. Germans, Irish, and Bohemians failed on the same unlucky lot.
The conversation turns to figures, and Majauszkiene laughs at their belief that twelve dollars a month is all they owe. She sends them to the deed: seven percent annual interest, seven extra dollars every month, a trap written in English they never understood. The agent will be blandly pained that they did not know; fairness has nothing to do with it. Jurgis answers as he always will: he will work harder. The fair structure of their hopes crashes in a single afternoon. Seven percent interest adds seven dollars monthly in unread English.
Desperation reorganizes the household. Ona slips a ten-dollar bribe to a forelady for cellar work sewing ham covers; the priest forges Stanislovas's age so the boy can tend a lard machine, placing cans for five cents an hour in an unheated cellar. Hour after hour the child stands on one square foot of floor, thinking never a thought. His wages barely cover the interest, leaving the family where they started, still in love, still calculating, still hooked. Stanislovas earns five cents an hour while wedding plans continue on the hook.
Coming Up in Chapter 7
Despite their crushing debt, Jurgis and Ona finally scrape together enough money for a proper Lithuanian wedding celebration. But in Packingtown, even joy comes with a price tag that threatens to destroy them All summer the family toils until Jurgis and Ona can marry with decency, then November's feast leaves them more than a hundred dollars in debt. Love has barely opened when the.
