1 So it was finally decided that two more of the children would have to leave school.
2 This made it hard for Teta Elzbieta all day, and for the children when they could not get to school.
3 All day he sat at a machine turning bolts; and then in the evening he went to the public school to study English and learn to read.
4 Perhaps it would be better to go home in the morning, anyway, for the children would be at school, and he and Elzbieta could have a quiet explanation.
5 After that, every evening that he got home from the yards in time, he would go to the school; he would go even if he were in time for only half an hour.
6 The children, who were at school, and learning fast, would teach him a few; and a friend loaned him a little book that had some in it, and Ona would read them to him.
7 Then Jurgis became sorry that he could not read himself; and later on in the winter, when some one told him that there was a night school that was free, he went and enrolled.
8 Sometimes it would be too cold for the children to go to school, and they would have to play in the kitchen, where Jurgis was, because it was the only room that was half warm.
9 That the priest would object to these schools was something of which he had as yet no idea, and for the present his mind was made up that the children of Teta Elzbieta should have as fair a chance as any other children.
10 They could save money again, and when another winter came they would have a comfortable place; and the children would be off the streets and in school again, and they might set to work to nurse back into life their habits of decency and kindness.