Describe the house they decide to buy and explain how the process is complicated for them.

On Sunday, the entire family departs to see the house. They arrive and meet the agent, a “smooth and florid personage.” The house, however, is not as impressive as the advertisement, but the family does not feel as though they should question the integrity of the agent. The agent assures them there are many advantages to owning the home, but they insist that they discuss the matter before making any deals. That night, the family gathers for an extended time of arguments for and against buying the home. Jokubas Szedvilas appears and warns them against buying, telling “cruel stories of people who had been done to death in this ‘buying a home’ swindle.” When he leaves, however, Jonas convinces the rest that Szedvilas is a failed business owner and that this makes him bitter towards such deals. Finally, they decide to buy the house.

"He escorted them to the house, which was one of a long row of the typical frame dwellings of the neighborhood, where architecture is a luxury that is dispensed with. Ona’s heart sank, for the house was not as it was shown in the picture; the color scheme was different, for one thing, and then it did not seem quite so big. Still, it was freshly painted, and made a considerable show. It was all brand-new, so the agent told them, but he talked so incessantly that they were quite confused, and did not have time to ask many questions. There were all sorts of things they had made up their minds to inquire about, but when the time came, they either forgot them or lacked the courage."

"This matter of papers was one in which Jurgis understood to the full the need of caution; yet he could not go himself—every one told him that he could not get a holiday, and that he might lose his job by asking. So there was nothing to be done but to trust it to the women, with Szedvilas, who promised to go with them. Jurgis spent a whole evening impressing upon them the seriousness of the occasion—and then finally, out of innumerable hiding places about their persons and in their baggage, came forth the precious wads of money, to be done up tightly in a little bag and sewed fast in the lining of Teta Elzbieta’s dress."