My father sought employment wherever work was going on.

His health was poor; he aged very fast.

Nevertheless he offered himself for every kind of labor; he offered himself for a boy's wages.
Here he was found too weak, here too old; here his imperfect English was in the way, here his Jewish appearance.

He had a few short terms of work at this or that; I do not know the name of the form of drudgery that my father did not practise.

But all told, he did not earn enough to pay the rent in full and buy a bone for the soup.