I could not see his face distinctly; but, as he drew nearer, I caught its expression of distress. The half-frightened, worried bewilderment that I had noticed on the day before was back in his eyes, as he stood looking into mine, evidently expecting me to speak. I remained silent. “I’ve got a job,” he said, presently, and I could have struck him for the joy of it. “Me troubles is just begun, for the whole town knows me for a bum,” he added, while his anxious eyes moved restlessly behind frowning brows. I said nothing, but waited until I could catch his eye at rest. Then out it came, a little painfully: “I’ll go to the boarding-house to-night, when me day’s work is done, and put up there, if the missus can take me.” “Good,” I said, and I waited again until his gaze was steady upon me. For a day we had tramped together, and slept together for a night, and, quite of his own accord, he had given me his confidence. We were parting, now that he had found work, and I hoped that I might receive the final mark of his trust, so I waited. He read my question, and his eyes wandered, but they came back to mine, and he spoke up like a man: “I can’t, till I’m a bit decent again and got some clothes; but I’ll hold down me job, and, as soon as I can, I’ll go back to her.” A warning whistle blew; Farrell went up the path to take his place in the brick-kiln, and I was soon far down the line in the direction of Utica. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ WITH IOWA FARMERS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ WITH IOWA FARMERS Scarcely a generalization with the least claim to value can be drawn from my superficial contact with the world of manual labor in America. If there is one, it is, that a man who is able and willing to work can find employment in this country if he will go out in real search for it. It may not be well paid, but it need not be dishonest, and it is difficult to conceive of its failing to afford opportunities of making a way to improved position. And yet, one has no sooner made such a statement than it becomes necessary to qualify it. Suppose that the worker, able and willing to work, is unemployed in a congested labor market, where the supply far exceeds the demand, and suppose that he must remain with his wife and children, since he cannot desert them and has no means of taking them away. Or imagine him newly landed, thrown upon the streets by an emigrant agency, ignorant of the language and of our methods of work, and especially ignorant of the country itself. To the number of like suppositions there is no end. Actual experience, however, serves to focus the situation. I have stood beside men whom I knew, and have seen them miss the chance of employment because they were so far weakened by the strain of the sweating system that they were incapable of the strain of hard manual labor.