nearly one o'clock in the morning
For some reason the cost of fodder for cattle in the yards was much above the market price -- and you were not allowed to bring your own fodder ! Then , too , a number of cars were apt to arrive late in the day , now that the roads were blocked with snow , and the packers would buy their cattle that night , to get them cheaper , and then would come into play their ironclad rule , that all cattle must be killed the same day they were bought . There was no use kicking about this -- there had been one delegation after another to see the packers about it , only to be told that it was the rule , and that there was not the slightest chance of its ever being altered . And so on Christmas Eve Jurgis worked till nearly one o'clock in the morning , and on Christmas Day he was on the killing bed at seven o'clock . All this was bad ; and yet it was not the worst . For after all the hard work a man did , he was paid for only part of it . Jurgis had once been among those who scoffed at the idea of these huge concerns cheating ; and so now he could appreciate the bitter irony of the fact that it was precisely their size which enabled them to do it with impunity .