BOOK II
CHAPTER VII THE SKIRT-FINISHERS' BALL
Harry was right. It was a stupid ball. It was more of a strike-meeting than a dance. To most of the people the speeches were of more importance than the two-steps. As he followed Yetta, grumblingly, up towards the platform he realized that the crowd of workers, packing in about them, cut off all possibility of escape. He had not set out that evening with the intention of sitting on a hard bench and listening to "a lot of rag-chewing."
"Is this what you call fun?" he growled at Yetta.
But the crowd—so foreign to his manner of life—intimidated him. He sank into surly silence.
The first speaker was a nervous, overstrained Irish woman. With high-strung Celtic eloquence she told the story of the sweated. Her manner was almost lyrical, as if she were chanting a new "Song of the Shirt." Most of the garment workers in the audience were Jews, but although her manner of appeal was strange to them, the subject matter of her speech was their very life, and they were deeply moved.
The president of the "Skirt-Finishers' Union," who spoke in Yiddish, followed her. She told of the intolerable conditions of the trade: how the prices had been shaved until no one but girls who lived at home and had no rent to pay could earn a living at it; how at last the strike had started and how desperate the struggle was. The treasury was empty, so they could pay "benefits" no longer. Unless money could be raised they would be starved back to the machines—defeated.
Then a young Jewish lawyer, Isadore Braun, spoke. It was the ringing message of Socialism he gave them. All the working people of the world were victims of the same vicious industrial system. In one branch of industry—like "skirt-finishing," which they had just heard about—it might momentarily be worse. But the same principle was back of all labor. The coal-miner, the lace-maker, the farm-laborer, the clerk—every one who worked for wages—was in the same manner being cheated out of some of the product of his labor. Individually the workingman is powerless. When men or women get together in a union, they are stronger and can sometimes win improvements in the conditions of their trade. But if they would all get together in one immense organization, if they would also vote together, they would be an overwhelming force in politics. They would rule society. They could install a new civilization based on Justice and Brotherhood.
"Workingmen of all countries, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to gain!"
Dr. Liebovitz rose when Braun sat down. He was a smooth-shaven, amiable-looking man, but he spoke with a bitterness in striking contrast to his appearance.
"The bosses do more than cheat you. They're not only thieves—they're murderers! I'm a doctor. Day and night I go about through this district with a bag of medicine and surgical instruments trying to save the lives of people—men and women and newborn babies—who would never be sick if it was not for the crimes of capitalism!
"Tuberculosis! How many of you are there in this audience who haven't lost a relative from lungs? As I sat here a moment ago I heard at least a dozen tubercular coughs. It's preventable—it's curable. There's no reason why any one should have it—less still that any one of you should die of it—if Capitalistic Greed didn't force you to live in rotten tenements, to work long hours in worse shops.
"Unless you people who are here this evening—and all the working people—make up your mind to make it impossible for some people to get fat off your misery, unless you get together to overthrow Capitalism, to establish Socialism, some of your babies are going to die of impure milk, others of adulterated food, more of T. B. Unless we can put these murderers out of business there will never be an end to this horrible, needless, inexcusable slaughter."
Miss Train spoke when he had finished. She made no pretence of oratory, did not seek to move them either to tears or anger. She tried to utilize the emotions stirred by the other speakers, for the immediate object of the meeting—raising funds for the "skirt-finishers." A collection would now be taken up. Mr. Casey, the secretary of the Central Federated Union, had promised to address them. He had not yet come. She hoped he would arrive while the girls were passing the hat.
"For Gawd's sake," Harry said, "come on. This is fierce."
"No," Yetta replied, jerked down from the heights by his gruff voice. "I want to hear it all."
She had listened spellbound to the speakers. Never having been to a meeting, she had never heard the life of the working class discussed before. Almost everything they said about the "skirt-finishers" applied equally to her own trade. Jake Goldfogle was grinding up women at his machines to satisfy his greed. Before, he had seemed to her an unpleasant necessity. Now he took on an aspect of personal villainy. He was not only harsh and foul-mouthed and brutal, he was robbing them. Cheated at home by her relatives, at the shop by her boss, what wonder her life was poverty stricken!
A strange thing was happening to Yetta. The champagne which Harry had urged on her was mounting to her brain. She had not taken enough to befuddle her, but sufficient—in that hot, close hall—to free her from her natural self-consciousness, to open all her senses to impressions, to render her susceptible to "suggestion." This, although Harry did not understand psychology, was why he had urged it on her. But his plan had "gang aglee." The alcohol was working, not amid the seductions of a brightly lighted, gay ball-room, but in this sombre, serious assembly. The "suggestions" which were flowing in upon her receptive consciousness were not the caresses of a waltz. She was being hypnotized by the pack of humanity about her. She was becoming one with that crowd of struggling toilers, one with the vast multitude of workers outside the hall; she was feeling the throb of a broader Brotherhood, in a way she never could have felt without the stimulation of the wine.
One of the speakers had alluded to the evil part in the sweating system which is played by the highly paid "speeders." Yetta was a "speeder." Why? What good did it do her? Her uncle swallowed her wages. Jake Goldfogle—the slave-driver—profited most. How did it come about that she—her father's daughter—was engaged in so shameful a rôle? She wanted passionately to talk it over with some one who understood.
Open-eyed she watched the group of speakers on the platform. She felt the kinship between their idealism and her father's dreams. He would have loved and trusted Miss Train. It must be wonderful to be a woman like that. With the inspiration of the wine in her veins, she felt that she might find courage to talk to her.
The young woman whom Yetta was so ardently admiring was holding in her hand a note from Mr. Casey which announced that he could not get to the meeting, and she was asking Longman—ordering him, in fact—to fill the gap in the programme. He was protesting. He was not an orator. The sight of a crowd always made him mad. He was sure to say something which would anger them. It would be much better to begin the dance. But Miss Train was used to having her way. His protest only half uttered, Longman found himself out on the platform.
"Mr. Casey can't come. And Miss Train has asked me to take his place. Now, I'm no good as a speaker, and you won't like what I say, but I'm going to tell you what I believe. Braun and Dr. Liebovitz told you about the rotten injustice of our social system, and what they said was true. But they did not tell you whose fault it is. You may think the bosses are to blame. It's your own fault. You're only getting what's coming to you.
"You're slaves because you haven't the nerve to be free. You came here to hear the bosses called names. I don't like the bosses any more than you do. But it makes me tired to hear everybody cursing them and not looking at their own faults. You are getting cheated. What are you going to do about it? Are you cowards? Haven't you got the guts to stand up and fight for your rights?
"Fourscore and several years ago, our Fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation dedicated to the ideals of Democracy, of Liberty, Justice, and Brotherhood. And look at this nation now! Plutocracy has swallowed up Democracy. I don't have to tell you garment workers how little there is of Justice and Brotherhood. What's wrong? Were the Fathers off on their ideals? No! But they neglected to people this continent with a race of men! The country is full of weak-kneed cringers, who read the Declaration of Independence once a year, but would rather be slaves than go hungry. People whose rights are 'for sale.' People who prefer 'getting on in the world' to liberty. The trouble with this country is that we've got too few patriots.
"I'm an American. What I've been saying to you Jews applies equally to my own people. But at least I can say this for myself. It isn't much, but it's more than you can say. My ancestors fought for Liberty. Back in 1776 some of my forebears thought enough of independence to risk not only their jobs—but their lives. My father valued human freedom enough in the sixties to fight for it.
"Do you want some one to give you Liberty?—to hand it to you on a platter? You come here, hundreds of thousands every year, from the oppression of mediæval Europe, because here in America men of a different race and creed have bought some measure of freedom with their blood. Not perfect Liberty—far from it. But we had to fight for the little we have.
"You're disappointed in America. You curse the bosses who enslave you. But think a moment. Why should you be free? There's nothing in life worth having, which doesn't have to be striven for. One of the American Revolutionists said, 'Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty.' Have you been vigilant?
"To-day the age-old fight for Liberty is being fought out in Industry—between Capital and Labor. What part in it are the Jews of America going to take? Are you going to submit servilely to injustice, in the vain hope that some one else will win Justice for you? Or are you going to follow the footsteps of the glorious fighters of your race, like Heine and Marx? Are you going to beg for Liberty or join the Army of Liberation, pay your share of the price and have the proud right to claim your share of the Victory?
"I know your history. I know how the ages of oppression have bent your backs. I know your poverty. But did you come to America to transplant here these old traditions of servitude? No. You came in search of a broader life, a larger measure of Freedom. Well. Just like every one else you'll have to fight for it. You've got to sacrifice for it. You've got to be ready to die for it.
"What are the most servile, down-trodden, abject trades in the city? The sweated garment trades. Who works in them? Jews. Where are the rottenest, vilest tenements? On the East Side. Who lives in them? Jews. You are the worst-paid, hardest-driven, least-considered people in New York. You are willing to work in sweat-shops. You consent to live in dumbbell tenements. You submit to injustice.
"You haven't joined the fight, although the Jew can fight when he wants to. I've no quarrel with these 'skirt-finishers.' But the fact remains that—with a few glorious exceptions—the great mass of your people have preferred a new serfdom to the trouble of earning Liberty. The Chosen People are watching the combat from a safe distance.
"This may sound as if I was a Jew-hater. I'm not. But I love Liberty. The fight is world-wide, international, interracial. It's bigger than Jew or Gentile. It's for the Freedom of Humanity. And the people who are willing to be slaves are more dangerous enemies than those who want to be tyrants. It's rather good fun fighting oppressors. But it's Hell trying to free ourselves from slaves."
His words inflamed Yetta's imagination. How often she had heard her father explain the misery of their people by the lack of training in the habits of freedom! He had felt—and it had been his keenest sorrow—that the Chosen People were falling far short of their high calling. She remembered his solemn talks with her, his explanation of why he had wished her to study. He wanted her to be an American—a free woman.
Longman stopped. Instead of applause there were angry murmurings. But his words had sounded like the Ultimate Truth to Yetta. Why did they not greet his message with a cheer. The wine accomplished its miracle. Without its burning stimulation she would have been a cowering bundle of timidity before that sullen audience. But many good things can the kindly Fates conjure out of vile beginnings. The champagne which was to have been her utter undoing gave her courage. She got up as one inspired.
"What he says is true. We Jews don't fight for Freedom like we ought to. Look at me. My father loved Liberty. Perhaps some of you remember him. His name was Rayefsky. He used to keep a book-store on East Broadway. He talked to me about Liberty—all the time, and how we in this country ought to do our share. And then he died, and I went to work in a sweat-shop. Vests. I forgot all he had told me. What right have I got to be free? I forgot all about it. I ain't been vigilant. Nobody's talked to me about Liberty—since my father died. I'm"—her voice trembled a moment—"Yes, I'll tell you. I'm speeder in my shop. I'm sorry. I didn't think about it. Nobody ever told me what it meant before. If there's a union in my trade, I'll join it. I'll try not to be a slave. I can't fight much. I don't know how. I guess that's the real trouble—we're not afraid—only we don't know. I ain't got no education. I had to stop school when my father died. I was only fifteen. But I'll try not to make it harder for those that are fighting. I think..."
But her excitement had burned out the stimulation of the wine. She suddenly saw the sea of faces. It turned her from The Voice of her Race into a very frightened young woman, who knew neither how to go ahead nor how to sit down.
"That's all I've got to say!" she stammered. "I'll try not to be a slave."
Her simple, straightforward story, above all her self-accusation, turned the spirit of the assembly. "That's right," a number of men admitted, and there was considerable applause. She was too confused, too frightened at her own daring, to realize that she had saved the meeting from failure. But Miss Train, who never lost her presence of mind, recognized the Psychological Moment to end the speech making, and she signalled to the orchestra to begin the dance music. Every one got up and began, with a great hubbub, to move the benches back against the walls.
But Harry Klein was in no mood for dancing. In this unfamiliar, disturbing atmosphere, he also was discovering that his companion had a new and unsuspected side. It was something he did not understand, with which he was unprepared to deal. Everything seemed conspiring to tear her away from him. There were limits even to his patience. He must get her out on the sidewalk—into his own country.
"Come on," he said gruffly, taking firm hold of her arm. "I've had enough of this. Come on, I say. I ain't going to listen to hot air all night."
In her moment of exaltation, Yetta had almost forgotten the existence of her fiancé. His brusque manner broke into her mood with a suddenness which dazed her. He had led her down the hall, nearly to the door, before she could collect her wits. Beyond the door was the dark night and helplessness and unknown fear. Here in the hall was the woman who had been in the Settlement, the woman of whom she was not afraid.
"Wait," she said. "I want to talk to Miss Train."
In all that hostile environment, Miss Train's silent disdain had been the most outspoken. Harry would rather have had Yetta talk with Rachel. Rachel at least was afraid of him.
"Come on," he growled, and jerked her nearer to the door.
"No, no. I want to stop."
"Don't you begin to holler," he hissed, with a rough jerk. He tried to subdue her with his hard eyes. "Come on. Don't you make no row. Don't you holler."
They were close to the dark doorway now, and somehow Yetta could not find breath to scream out her fright. He pushed her roughly out into the vestibule. But his progress came to a sudden stop. Some one caught him by the collar and swung him off his feet.
"Not so fast, my man." It was Longman. "Where are you trying to take this young lady?"
Harry's free hand made an instinctive movement towards his hip pocket, but Longman's hand got there first.
"Oh, ho!" he said softly. "Concealed weapons?"
Jake nearly wept with rage. He—the president of a political club, the dreaded leader of a murderous gang—held up in such a manner for the mockery of a lot of working-men!
"I asked you where you were taking this young lady," Longman repeated.
"I brought her here," Jake snarled, trying desperately to regain his sang froid. "I guess I can take her away when she's tired of the show."
"Yes. Of course you can take her away, if she wants to go. But you can't if she doesn't. I didn't catch your name," he continued, turning to Yetta, "but I'd be very glad to see you safely home, whenever you want to go. Would you prefer to go with me or with this—" he looked first at the wilted desperado in his grip and then at the little circle of men who had gathered about. "He's a Cadet, isn't he, comrades?"
There was a growl of assent.
"You ain't going to throw me down now, are you, Yetta," Jake pleaded, the thought of losing her suddenly undoing what he considered his manhood, "just because this gang has picked on me."
"Of course you can go with him if you want to," Longman said kindly. "But really I think you'd better not. You won't do much for Freedom if you go with him."
"I'll stay," Yetta said simply.
And then Jake began to curse and threaten.
"Shut up," Longman said laconically, and Jake obeyed.
"Here," he continued to some of the men, "hand him over to the police. Be careful; he's got a gun in his pocket. Make a charge of 'concealed weapons.' And—what is your name?—Rayefsky. Thanks. Miss Train wanted to speak to you—that's why I happened along just now. Won't you come and we'll find her."
He told her how much he had liked her speech, as he led her across the room and chatted busily about other insignificant things, just as if rescuing a young girl from the brink of perdition was one of the most natural things in the world. Yetta was not at all hysterical, but she had had enough strange emotions to upset any one that night. His quiet steady tone, as if everything of course was all right, was like a rock to lean upon.
He left her in an empty committee-room off the stage and hurried out to find Mabel, who, as a matter of fact, had not sent him to find Yetta. With no small exertions he pried her loose from the swarm of admiring young girls, and, leading her to the door of the committee-room, told her what had happened.
"Good old Walter," she laughed; "warning me not to butt in, and doing the rescue all by yourself."
"I didn't butt in," he said sheepishly, "until the chap began to use force."
"Are muscles the only kind of force you recognize?" she said. "I'll bet he wasn't using half as much force when you interfered as he had other times without touching her."
She went into the committee-room and closed the door. And in a very few minutes Yetta was lost in the wonder of a friend. Hundreds of girls had sobbed out their troubles on Miss Train's shoulder before, but, although she made jokes to her friends about how tears faded her shirtwaists, none of the girls had ever failed to find a ready sympathy. Although the process had lost the charm of novelty to Mabel it was for Yetta a new and entirely wonderful experience. Not since her father had comforted her for a stubbed toe or a cut finger had she cried on anybody's shoulder. And Miss Train, as well as Longman, had the tact, as soon as possible, to lead her thoughts away from the evening's tragedy to the new ideals which the meeting had called to life. As soon as her tears were dried, Mabel took her out in the main hall and introduced her to her friends. Longman came up and claimed a dance, and after it was over he sat beside her for a time and talked to her about labor unions and the struggle for Liberty. And then he called over Isadore Braun, the socialist lawyer, and had him dance with her. These two were her only partners at her first ball. Every few minutes Mabel managed to escape from her manifold duties and sit beside her.
About midnight they took her home. Longman shook hands with her, and Mabel kissed her good night. Yetta went up the dark stairway very tired and shaken.
CHAPTER VIII NEW FRIENDS
"Interesting girl," Longman said as he and Miss Train turned away from Yetta's door.
"Yes. I'll have to keep an eye on her. She may be a valuable recruit."
Longman laughed.
"What's so funny?" she asked sharply.
"Funny isn't just the word, but don't you ever see anything in people except enemies and allies?"
"I don't think much else matters—enemies and allies. There can't be neutrals in a fight for Justice."
"True enough, but I see a lot of interesting things in this little girl of the slums, which haven't anything to do with the fact that she is chuck full of fighting spirit and is sure to be on the right side."
"For instance?"
"Well. To begin with, a sweet and pure character, which in some amazing way has formed itself in this rotten environment—a wonderfully delicate sort of a flower blossoming in the muck heap. The kind of a sensitive plant that the slightest rude touch would blight. It's a marvel how it has escaped being trod upon—there are so many careless feet! I'm not proud of myself as I am, but I hate to think of what I'd be like if I'd been born in her cradle. It is always a marvel to me when some child of the slum wants to be good. From where in all this sordidness did she get the inspiration? And then it is always interesting to me—sad and interesting—to see how utterly stupid this desire for goodness is—how it is just as likely to lead to utter damnation as anywhere else. This Yetta Rayefsky has a beautiful and quite absurd trust in people. On a very short acquaintance she trusts you completely. I think she trusts me too—just exactly as she trusted that Cadet. And the faith she put in him was just as beautiful as what she has given you."
"Walter, a person who looked at you would never dream that you're such a—"
"Sentimentalist? I suppose you're going to call me that again."
Longman said it bitterly. And she, knowing how the taunt would sting him, with equal bitterness did not reply. They trudged on side by side in silence, across town to Broadway and up that deserted thoroughfare towards Washington Square. They were neither of them happy.
In the bottom of her heart Mabel Train knew that something had been neglected by those fairies who had equipped her for life. They had showered very many talents upon her. But they had forgotten that little knot of nerve cells which had to do with the deeper affections. There were heights and depths of life which she knew she would never visit. It made her feel unpleasantly different. And Longman, whom otherwise she liked very much, was always reminding her of this deficiency. It seemed to her that he was mocking her cold intellectualism. And being supersensitive on this point, she had hurled "sentimentalist" in his face.
Of all the odd types in New York City, Walter Longman was one of the most bizarre. His parents had died while he was in Harvard. They had left him an income of about five thousand a year. He did not make a brilliant record in the University. There were nearly always one or two conditions hanging over his head, but a marked talent for languages and a vital interest in philosophy carried him through. He was not popular with the students because in spite of his immense body he could not muster sufficient interest in football to join the "squad." He preferred to sit in his window-seat and read.
In the course of his junior year he chanced in his haphazard reading upon a German scientific review which contained an account of some excavations in the territory of Ancient Assyria. It told of the discovery of a large quantity of "brick" books, in a language as yet undeciphered. The matter interested him, and he set out to find what the library contained on the subject. He was surprised at the amount of material there was. The story of how Rawlinson and others had deciphered unknown languages fascinated him. He stayed on in Cambridge two months after graduation to finish up this subject. He found more information about the "brick" books which had first caught his attention. Several hundred of them had been brought to a museum in Berlin. Having nothing pressing to do in America, he went over to have a look at them. All the spoil from this expedition had been housed in one room. After studying the bricks for a couple of days, he thought he had found a clew. He could get more ready access to them if he was a student, so he went to the University and enrolled. He had no idea of staying long, nor of attending courses in the University, but his only plan for life in America was to write a book on philosophy, and that could wait.
The first "clew" proved to be an illusion. But those rows and rows of ancient bricks, with their cryptic writing which hid the story of a lost civilization, had piqued his curiosity. Again he decided that his work on philosophy could wait.
It was two years before he satisfactorily translated the first brick. Once having found the key, his progress was rapid. If he had been in touch with the Assyriologists of the University, he would probably have confided in them at once. But he knew none of them personally, and he went on with his work single-handed. It took him six months to translate the entire collection. They contained the official records of a certain King of kings, who had ruled over a long-forgotten people called the Haktites. It took him six months more to arrange a grammar and dictionary of the Haktite tongue. Then he remembered the University and took his two manuscripts to the Professor of Assyriology. He was decidedly provoked by the first scepticism which greeted his announcement, even more bored by the hullabaloo which the savants made over him, when investigation proved the truth of his claim. He stayed a year longer in Europe, to see an edition of his work through the press at Berlin and to translate the scattered Haktite bricks in other museums. This took him as far as Teheran and afield to the site of the excavations, where there were numerous inscriptions on the stonework which was too unwieldy to be taken to European museums. Then he came to New York to take up the position of Instructor in Assyriology in Columbia. He had stipulated that he should be granted a great deal of leisure. It was not a hard matter for the University to arrange, as there was no great clamor among the students to learn Haktite. But Longman had insisted on the leisure, so that he would have opportunity to write his book on philosophy, which seemed to him very serious and infinitely more important than the dead lore of his department. He was vexed with himself for having wasted so much time and acquired such fame in so useless a branch of human knowledge.
He established himself in the top floor of a two-story building on Washington Square, East. He took the place on a long lease, and making free with the partitions, had arranged a big study in the front overlooking the Square, a bath, a bedroom, and a kitchenette behind it. Two big rooms in the rear he sublet as storerooms to the carriage painter who rented the ground floor. Having a horror of servants, he made his own coffee in the morning and Signora Rocco, a worthy Italian woman, came in with a latch-key when he was out at lunch and put the place in order. Twice a week he had to go up to the University.
The rest of his time went to what he considered his real work. He was to call his book A Synthetic Philosophy. Hundreds of would-be sages had cut themselves off from all active communion with life, had retired to the seclusion of a study or cave, and had written solemn tomes on what Man ought to think. Longman was going to discover what his kind really did think. He went about it in a systematic, almost statistical way.
He had reduced the more important of the various possible human beliefs to twenty-odd propositions and many subheads, all of which he had had printed on a double sheet of foolscap. It began boldly by raising the question of Deity. From the heights of metaphysical discussion of the Existence, the Unity, and the Attributes of God, it came nearer to earth by inquiring into Heaven and a belief in a future existence. Again it soared up into the icy altitude of Pure Reason and the Erkenntniss Theorie. Again it swooped down to more practical questions of Ethics, what one considered the summum bonum and under what circumstances one conceded the right to suicide, and whether or not one believed that every man has his price. Whenever Longman found willing subjects he cross-questioned them by the hour. From the notes he took he tabulated the victim's credo on one of the printed questionnaires and filed it away. Almost every one laughed at his idea, but with the same dogged momentum which had kept him bent for months on and over Assyrian bricks, which interested him only slightly, he stuck to this work which interested him deeply.
In a way he was especially fitted for it. Every one liked him and found it easy to talk freely with him. And he was quick to detect any cant or lack of sincerity. If he wrote "yes" after the question, "Do you believe it pays to be honest?" it was the subject's basic belief, not a pretence nor a pose. And he had a knack of putting his questions in simple, comprehensible language. The printed questionnaire bristled with appalling technical words. But he did not use such phrases as "ultimate reality," "the categorical imperative." He did not ask his subject if his idea of God was anthropomorphic. Very few of the people whose faith he analyzed would have understood such terms.
It was the essence of his proposition that he should tabulate the convictions of all sorts and conditions of men. And in his quest for varied points of view he had come into very close contact with a strange mixture of people. Into his "operating room," as Mabel Train derisively called his study, he had enticed college professors and policemen, well-bred young matrons and street-walkers. One of his sheets recorded the intimate convictions of the man downstairs who painted carriages; another, those of a famous opera singer. The Catholic Bishop of New York had undergone the ordeal and a Salvation Army lassie, who had knocked at his door to sell a War-cry, had come in to try to convert him. She had been very much distressed by his perplexing questions, but like all the rest had quickly fallen captive to his gentle manners and understanding eyes. She had dropped her missionary pose and had talked freely to him, not only of her beliefs, but also of her doubts.
Almost every one who had gone through the ordeal remembered it with a strange, awed sort of pleasure. It is so very rarely that we find any one to whom we can tell the truth.
There was a wreck of a man, an habitué of cheap lodging-houses and gin-mills, who would tell you the story on the slightest provocation. One cold October night when he had no money for a bed and was trying to live through the night on a park bench with a morning paper for a blanket, a man had asked him if he wanted a drink. Not suspecting the good fortune which had befallen him, he had followed Longman to the "operating room." First there had been a stiff bracer of whiskey—"good Scotch whiskey, sir,"—and then a plentiful cold supper of bread and cheese and sardines and a steaming cup of coffee—"as much as I could eat, sir"—and a cigar—"as long as yer foot, sir. He was a real gentleman, sir, and he talked to me like I was a gentleman."
There was a young wife of an elderly professor. Some of the ladies of the faculty raised their eyebrows when her name was mentioned and did not go to her teas. She had been smitten by Longman's broad shoulders and gentle bearishness and had quite eagerly consented to come to his study. She did not tell anybody about it, but she cried when she thought about it—cried that he had not asked her again.
Whether or not Longman's book promised any great usefulness to humanity, the preparing of it was of undoubted use to him. He had seen life at close quarters, with what Mirabeau called "terrible intimacy." His heart had grown very large there in his "operating room." As well as he could he hid his ever ready sympathy under a surface joviality and flippancy. There were very few people beside Mabel who realized what a sentimentalist he was. He was a brother to Abou ben Adhem. And that love of his fellow-men necessarily brought him into bitter revolt against things as they are. But he had no collective sense; he loved his fellow men individually. He had no feeling for mass movements. Intellectually he realized the need of united activity, he believed in trade-unions and socialism. But the sight of a crowd always made him angry. He was an ardent apostle of the Social Revolution. But he could not work harmoniously with an organization. So the socialists called him an Anarchist. He did not care what he was called. But most of the difference between his very small living expenses and his liberal income found its way unobtrusively into some socialist or labor organization.
But for three years now Mabel Train had been the "Cause" to which he gave his devotion.
She was also of the class of those who, never having had to work, had volunteered in the cause of those who must. But she had done so in a more intense, thoroughgoing, and practical way than had Longman. She had given not only what money she could spare, but herself.
She was a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, and having come under the influence of the able and daring group of economists on that faculty had been educated to a position in labor matters which is very nearly as radical as that of the socialists. One of her professors had told her that in all his experience in coeducation he had never encountered a woman with a more masculine brain. At the time she had felt complimented. She had, at twenty, been proud that she did not have hysterics, that her mind did not have "fainting fits," that she could tackle the problems of the class-room in the same graceless, uninspired, direct way that men did. At twenty-seven she was beginning to realize that life was not a class-room exercise and that there were certain inevitable problems of womanhood which could not be solved man-fashion. She felt herself cold in comparison to other women. The romances of the girls in college had rather disgusted her. At twenty-seven she would have given her right hand for the ability to lose her head like some of the shop-girls among whom she worked.
As a matter of fact the professor had been quite wrong in calling her intellect masculine—it was only a remarkably good one. It had the fearlessness to look the folly of our industrial system in the face and understand it. She had a deep womanliness which made it impossible for her to accept a manner of life which was in contradiction to her intellectual convictions. Thinking as she did that the relations between capital and labor were basically unjust, it was necessary for her to spend her life in the fight for justice.
What might be called "the normal mother instinct" had been denied her. Her woman's nature had turned into an ardent desire to "mother" the race. The babes who die unborn, those who are poisoned by bad milk, who wither up from bad air, whose growth is stunted by bad food—all the sad little children of the poor—were her own brood. She wrote rarely to her two blood sisters—she was the big sister of all the girls who are alone.
Her parents were entirely out of sympathy with her interest in working people. Principally to escape their ceaseless nagging, she had come East. For several years she had been the head of the Woman's Trade Union League. Her gentle breeding made her successful with the wealthy ladies on whom the League depended for support, the working girls idolized her, the rather rough men of the Central Federated Union had come to recognize that she never got up in meeting unless she had something to say. And the bosses complimented her ability by hating her cordially.
Most of the young men who tried to court her—and there was a constant stream of them, for she was a very attractive woman—fared badly. She was distressingly illusive. Her intellect was so lively that it was hard to admire her manifold charms. She wanted the people who talked to her to think. And she checked sentimentality with scornful laughter.
Things were further complicated for her would-be suitors by the fact that Mabel, when she was not very busy, was always accompanied by her room-mate Eleanor Mead. Eleanor did not look like a formidable duenna. She was of a pure pre-Raphaelite type. By profession she was an interior decorator, and her business card said, "Formerly with Liberty—Avenue de l'Opera, Paris." She carefully cultivated the appearance of an Esthete. She nearly always dressed in rich greens and old golds and was never truly happy except during the limited season when she could wear fresh daffodils in her girdle. She was clever at her work and gained a very good income, which she augmented by fashionable entertainments where she lectured in French on subjects of Art and sometimes gave mildly dramatic readings of Maeterlinck and other French mystics.
Most men found her style of beauty too watery. But one of the "Younger Choir" had taken her as his Muse and had dedicated a string of Petrarchian sonnets to her. Eleanor had been rather flattered by the tribute until the unlucky bard had been forced by the exigencies of his rhyme to say that she had "eyes of sapphire." People had begun to make sport of her "sapphire" eyes—they did have a rather washed-out look—and had begun to call her "Sapphire." Most of Mabel's lovers shortened it disrespectfully to "Saph." She had given this aspiring versifier the sack, and his long hair was no longer to be seen in the highly decorated apartment on Washington Square, South.
Although her appearance was not at all dreadful, she was feared and hated by all Mabel's admirers. It was impossible to call on Miss Train—it was necessary to call on both of them. Without any open discourtesy, with a well-bred effort to hide her jealousy, Eleanor made the courting of her friend a hideous ordeal. Most aspirants dropped out of the race after a very few calls. But for three years Longman had held on. It had not taken him long to know what was the matter with him, and after two unsuccessful efforts to see Mabel alone and tell her about it, he went one night to the flat with grim resolution.
"Miss Mead," he said abruptly on entering, "I've got something very important I want to say to Miss Train. I want to ask her to marry me. Will you be so kind—?"
He opened the door leading into the dining-room. His manner had been irresistible. And Eleanor with her head in the air had sailed out past him. He shut the door carefully. All the evening long, Eleanor knelt down outside it, with her ear glued to the keyhole. But she heard nothing to distress her.
Longman got no satisfaction. Mabel had rejected his offer as decisively as possible. But he had refused to be discouraged. The third time that he forced a proposal on her, it had made her angry and she had said that she did not care to see him again. A few days later she received a very humble letter from him. He pleaded for a chance to be her friend, and solemnly promised not to say a word of love for six months. She had not answered it, but the next Sunday he came to the flat for tea. They had drifted into a close but unsound friendship. Eleanor's dislike for him was so evident—she maintained that the way he had banished her to the dining-room proved that he was no gentleman—that he very rarely went to their apartment. But on every possible occasion he met Mabel outside. The people who saw him at her side, night after night at labor meetings, assumed that they were engaged. This added intimacy only whetted Longman's love. From bodyguard he fell to the position of slave. He ran errands for her.
With the masculine attitude towards such matters he did not believe that she would accept such untiring service if there was no hope.
When at the end of the stipulated six months she refused him again,—just as coldly as at first,—it was a bitter surprise to him. If a man had acted so, Longman would have unhesitatingly called him a cad.
He went away to the mountains to think it out. In a week he was back, proposing again. Once more she became angry. When she said "no," she meant "no." She did not want to marry him and did not think she ever would. He had asked to be her friend. Well. She enjoyed his friendship, but if he was going to bother her every few days with distasteful proposals of marriage it made friendship impossible. For two weeks he struggled with himself in solitude, torn between his desire to see her and his pride. Then he went to a meeting where he knew she would speak and walked home with her.
So it had recommenced and so it had continued—in all three years. A deep camaraderie had grown between them. They knew each other better than many couples who have been married twice as long. But Longman could see no progress towards the consummation he so earnestly desired. During the three years there had been alternate moods of hope and despair. At times he thought she surely must come to love him. At other times the half loaf of intercourse tasted bitter as quinine. He told himself that he was a weak fool, a spectacle for the gods to laugh at, hanging to the skirts of a woman who had no care for him. At times he said, "Let all the rest go hang, to-day's sweet friendship is better than nothing." There were sad and angry moments when he paced up and down in his study and cursed her and himself and his infatuation—and the next moment he wanted to kiss the dust she had trod upon.
But steadily the torment of their relationship grew worse. More and more insistent had become the idea of going away. Perhaps she would miss his friendship and call him back. But he had been too deeply enslaved to dare so drastic a revolt. However, that morning had brought him mail which had suddenly crystallized this idea. He had resolved to put it to the test.
"Mabel," he said as they entered Washington Square, "if you're not too tired let's go up to the Lafayette for a while. I've got something important to talk over with you."
A look of vexation crossed her face, which, with quick and painful sensitiveness, he interpreted.
"No," he said gravely, "I won't bore you with any professions of affection. It's a business matter on which I'd like your advice."
"Why not come up to the flat; we've some beer, and Eleanor's been making some fudge. It's more comfortable than that noisy café."
"Very well, then," he said stiffly. "I'll leave you at your door."
"Now, Walter—don't be a fool. What are you so sour about to-night? You haven't opened your mouth for six blocks."
"You know very well that I can't talk with "Saph" on the job—she hates me. I'd like to talk this over with you."
"All right," she said, shaking his arm to cheer him up. "But don't be quite so grumpy, just because I called you a sentimentalist."
Over the marble-topped table in the café, he told her that a letter had come inviting him to join an expedition, organized by the French Government, to excavate some Haktite ruins in Persia. From the point of view of an Assyriologist it was a flattering offer; they had selected him as the most eminent American in that department. But it would be a three or four years' undertaking in one of the most inaccessible corners of the globe. They would probably get mail no oftener than two or three times a year. And after all he was more interested in the thoughts of live men than in mummies and cuneiform inscriptions. It would stop his work on philosophy.
"In fact, Mabel," he ended, "there is only one thing that makes me think of accepting. I can't stand this. I don't want to bring up the forbidden subject. But I'm tired—worn out—with hiding it. If I stay here in New York, I'm sure to—bore you."
He tried to smile lightly, but it was not much better than the smile with which we ask the dentist if it is going to hurt. Mabel dug about in her café parfait for a moment without replying. She understood all the things he had not said. At last she did the unselfish, the kindly thing, which, if she had been a man, she would have done long before. She sent him away.
"It looks to me like a great opportunity. It isn't only an honor for past achievements, but a chance for new and greater ones. Sometimes I poke fun at your Synthetic Philosophy, but seriously I don't think it is as big a thing as your Assyriology. Whether you like it or not the Fates have given you a talent for that. Your wanting to do something else—write philosophy—always seems to me like a great violinist who wants to be a jockey or chauffeur. You're really at the very top as an Assyriologist. It's not only me—but most of your friends—think you have more talent for that. I think you'd best accept it."
Longman swallowed his medicine like a man. A few minutes later he left Mabel at her door.
She found "Saph" stretched out à la Mme. Récamier on the dull green Empire sofa.
"Will you never get out of the habit of staying to sweep up after the ball?" she asked languidly.
"I haven't been sweeping up," Mabel replied; "I've been over at the Lafayette with Walter. Now don't begin to sulk," she went on; "he's been telling me great news. The French Government has asked him to go on one of their expeditions to Central Asia. He's going."
"Goody," Eleanor cried, jumping up. "I'm glad!"
"I'm not," Mabel said; "I'll miss him no end."
"Mabel Train, I believe you're in love with that man."
"No, I'm not. And I'm half sorry I'm not. I'm tired, done up. Good night."
"Don't you want some fudge?—it turned out fine."
"No. Good night."
Mabel did not exactly bang her bedroom door, but she certainly shut it decisively, and for more than an hour sat by her window, watching the ceaseless movement in the Square. Once she saw Longman walk under an arc-light. His head was bent, his hands deep in his pockets. Although the sight of him left her quite cold, her eyes filled with tears as they had not done for years. It was just because the sight of him left her cold that tears came.
CHAPTER IX YETTA ENLISTS
Yetta did not fall asleep readily after the ball. Her mind was a turmoil. If she tried to fix her attention on this question of Liberty which had stirred her so deeply, she was suddenly thrown into confusion by a memory of the cold fear which Harry Klein's hard eyes and brutal grip had caused her. She felt that she must think out her relationship with him clearly if she was ever to be free from fear, but again this problem would be disturbed by the thought of her wonderful new friends.
Sleep when it came at last was so heavy that she did not wake at the accustomed hour in the morning. When Mrs. Goldstein came into the bedroom to rouse her, she was startled by the sight of the new hat and white shoes, which Yetta had been too excited the night before to hide.
The first thing Yetta knew, there was a great commotion in her room. Her uncle and aunt, neither more than half dressed, were accusing her loudly of her crime and heaping maledictions on her head. It was several minutes before Yetta fully awoke to the situation. And when she did, a strange transformation had taken place within her; she was no longer afraid of the sorry couple.
"Yes," she said, sitting up in bed, drawing the blanket about her shoulders, "I went to a ball. If you don't like it, I'll find some other place to live."
The garrulous old couple fell silent. Goldstein's resentment against his daughter Rachel was fully as much because she had stopped bringing him money to get drunk on as because she had "gone wrong." After a minute's amazement at Yetta's sudden display of independence, they began a sing-song duet about ingratitude. Had they not done everything for her? Taken her in when she was a penniless orphan? Clothed and fed and sheltered her?
"And haven't I paid you all my wages for four years?" she replied. "Go away. I want to get dressed."
At the shop Yetta found that the story of her speech had been spread by one of the girls at the second table who had been at the ball. Fortunately this girl had not witnessed the scene with Harry Klein. Yetta found the women at her table discussing the matter in whispers when she arrived. In the moment before the motor started the day's work, the bovine Mrs. Levy told her that she was a fool.
"You've got a good job," she said. "You'll make trouble with your bread and butter. You're a fool."
"Better be careful," the cheerful Mrs. Weinstein advised. "Don't I know? My husband's a union man. Of course the unions are right, but they make trouble."
"It ain't no use," the sad and worn Mrs. Cohen coughed from the foot of the table. "There ain't nothing that'll do any good. Women ain't got no chance."
The motor began with a roar.
It is a strange fact of life, how sometimes a sudden light will be turned on a familiar environment, making it all seem new and entirely different from what we are accustomed to. Four years Yetta had worked in that shop. She had accepted it all as an inevitability, which no more admitted change or "reform" than the courses of the stars. The speeches to which she had listened made it suddenly appear in its true human aspect. It was no longer a thing unalterable, it was an invention of human greed. It was a laboratory where, instead of base metals, the blood of women and young girls was transmuted into gold. The alchemists had failed to find the Philosopher's Stone. The sweat-shop was a modern substitute. It was a contrivance by which such priceless things as youth and health and the hope of the next generation could be coined into good and lawful money of the realm.
Her nimble fingers flying subconsciously at the terrible speed through the accustomed motions, Yetta saw all the grim reality of the shop as never before. She saw the broken door to the shamefully filthy toilet, saw the closed, unwashed windows, which meant vitiated, tuberculosis-laden air, saw the backs of the women bent into unhealthy attitudes, saw the strained look in their eyes. More vaguely she saw a vision of the might-be life of these women,—clean homes and happy children. And behind her she felt the existence of the "office", where Jake Goldfogle sat and watched them through his spying window, and contrived new fines. And even more clearly than when she had made her speech, she saw her own function in this infernal scheme of greed, saw herself a lieutenant of the slave-driver behind her. She wondered if the other women hated her as she deserved to be hated. But habit is a hard thing to break, and her fingers sped on as of old.
When the day's work was over, a sorry sort of a woman, named Levine, a woman who had had many children and more troubles and very few joys, lingered in the shop and told Goldfogle the gossip about Yetta's speech. She had expected some reward, a quarter—or even a dime—with which to buy a little more food for her children. But she got only curses. During the day one of Jake's loans had been called. What was he to do, hounded by his creditors, threatened from within? If he had been an Oriental despot he would have slain the bearer of these bad tidings.
Yetta, afraid of meeting Harry Klein outside, clung as close as might be to Mrs. Weinstein on her way home. She ran the few blocks she had to go alone.
It was a useless precaution. He had no intention of accosting her that night. The official dispensers of Justice had taken small interest in the charge against him. He had been promptly bailed out and knew the papers would get lost in some pigeonhole. But although he was not worrying about his arrest, he was more unhappy than he had been since the first day he had spent in jail as a boy. Like most crooks he believed in "luck." Apparently his luck had turned. There was only one consolation. It had been a single-handed game. None of his followers knew of his downfall. So he had set about planning a spectacular coup which would restore his prestige if the story of his disgrace got out. His vengeance, to be complete, should have included Longman, but the scent was too faint. He did not know his adversary's name. But he knew just where to put his finger on Yetta. He was a discreet young man, and he wanted to be very sure there would be no slip-up. So this night he trailed along behind her, safely hidden in the crowd. When he saw that she had walked home along the accustomed streets, he smiled contentedly.
"It's a cinch," he told himself.
During the day an event had occurred in the Goldstein flat; a messenger boy had come with a letter and a bundle of pamphlets for Yetta. Even the postman is a rare visitor to such homes, and the arrival of a special messenger is talked about by the whole street. Mr. Goldstein, whose dispute with his niece had driven him out to find solace from his troubles, had, more early than usual, returned to the flat. He had found his wife very much excited over the bundle which reposed in state on the kitchen table. He was not so befuddled but that he saw the tracts were about Trade Unions. So when Yetta returned from her work she found a new storm blowing. As a Tammany man and a pillar in the Temple of Things as They Are—it is doubtful if he realized how important he and his kind are in the maintenance of that imposing structure. Mr. Goldstein had to oppose trade-unions and socialism. They seemed to him more subversive of the order of Society than social settlements, dance-halls, or the Religion of the Goyim. And he was sufficiently intoxicated to have forgotten the mercenary caution which had in the morning kept him from throwing out the chief brandy-winner of the household. All through her supper Yetta had to listen to reproaches—which were not too delicately worded. But they hardly bothered her. As soon as she could find a good place to live she was going to leave. She was not afraid any more. And when she had crammed sufficient food into herself, she picked up the bigger of the two lamps and escaped to her room with the pamphlets and the letter.
It had taken Mabel Train less than five minutes to dictate the letter, although she had two or three times stopped to attend to things which she thought more important. But of course to Yetta, the letter seemed importance itself. It was the first she had ever received, and it was from the most wonderful woman in the world. Mabel asked some questions about the shop and the chances of organizing the vest trade, and she urged Yetta to come to the office of the League to see her. She gave a list of the meetings at which she was to speak the next few nights, and asked Yetta, if it was impossible to get off in the daytime, to come to one of these meetings. She wanted very much to have a long talk with her—above all she hoped that Yetta would not forget her. It was an informal and affectionate letter. Yetta read it over five times, and each reading made her happier.
Then she turned to the pamphlets and did not go to bed until she had finished them. It was four years since she had read so much. There were hard words here and there which she did not understand, but on the whole they seemed wonderfully clear. Many of the questions which had been perplexing her were answered, many new ones raised. Although the reading made her feel keenly her ignorance—made her cheeks burn with shame over the years when she had brutishly ceased to think—she certainly understood life better, she saw more clearly her place in it.
The last of the pamphlets bit into her. It was called "Speed." It was written in a violent and unjust spirit. The author had failed to realize that the "speeders" were human beings; that few, if any of them, were willing or understanding tools in the hands of the bosses. He spoke of them as "traitors to their comrades," "ignoble creatures—Judases who sold themselves to the oppressors for thirty pieces of silver," "more detestable than scabs." To be a "speeder," this author held, was "a prostitution more shameful than that of the streets." If Mabel had selected the pamphlets, this one would not have been sent to Yetta, but she had told her stenographer to send "half a dozen." And Yetta, not knowing much about stenographers and their blunders, thought that all this was what the wonderful Miss Train thought about her. She felt that some deep expiation was necessary if she wished to look her new friends in the face.
She was in the grip of hurrying forces. She could see but three courses open before her. It was possible to go on as she had been doing, part of the great machine which was robbing mankind of its liberty, a blind tool in the hands of the tyrants—a tool until she was worn out and discarded. She might slip into the hands of some Harry Klein. Or she might risk all in the Cause of Freedom.
It would be easier for us to understand Yetta's outlook on life, if we too had stood on the very brink of that bottomless abyss; if we realized, as she had suddenly come to realize, how very narrow is the margin of safety, which even our greatest caution can give us. It did not seem to her that she was risking much in risking everything she had.
Mabel Train, on the contrary, had joined the ranks of Social Revolt without any compulsion. She and her family were beneficiaries of the system to the overthrow of which she had dedicated her energy. It would have been very easy for her to sink into the smug complacency of the life to which she had been born and bred. Why should she not accept the conventional lies of our civilization as her mother, her sister, and her friends did? She had been given this strangely strong intellect which her professor had called masculine, and she could not help but recognize the "falsehoods." She had also been given a keen sense of ethics and a tremendous pride. She could not bear the thought of being "the kept woman" of Injustice.
With all that is ordinarily called "good" at her command, she had voluntarily chosen a hard and cheerless life, a career which was largely thankless. Instead of cotillions she went to the balls of the Amalgamated Union of Skirt Finishers. She had given up a comfortable home for light-housekeeping in a flat. The hardest of all was that instead of being considered an ordinarily sane young woman, all the people of her old life thought her a crank and a fool.
Yetta's situation was indeed different—less heroic but more tragic. And just in proportion as your own toothache hurts you more than your neighbor's, it was more vital. Her life seemed to her shameful, and as a price of shame it offered her nothing but a gradual rotting into barren uselessness. Her first effort to escape from the vicious rut into which she had fallen had led her to the brink of a greater shame, a surer disaster. Of all the people with whom life had brought her into contact, three seemed preëminently good: her father, Longman, and Mabel Train. They all loved Liberty. Once her eyes had been opened, Yetta would gladly have given up much more to the New Cause. As it was, the crusade seemed to her not a sacrifice, but an escape. An irresistible force was pushing her into Revolt—la force majeure of poverty.
She did not foresee what form her new life would take; she was ignorant of too many important things. But she reached a determination to seek out Miss Train at the earliest opportunity and enlist.
And having cleared up this problem, her mind was freer to face the case of Harry Klein. It was not an easy thing for her to fold away all the emotions and dreams to which he had given life. She was still unenlightened in such matters. She did not see clearly the details of the horrors from which she had escaped. All she knew was that he had lied to her. He had with his honeyed words been plotting to make her "bad." Some of Longman's words at the Skirt-Finishers' ball came back to her and seemed to apply. She had foolishly dreamed that some one could give her freedom. That had been an idle hope; if she was to escape from her dungeon of monotony she must do it herself.
Harry Klein did not go to sleep until his plans were laid. He had had a satisfactory talk with the keeper of a Raines Law hotel on the route which Yetta followed on her way home after she left Mrs. Weinstein. The rooms upstairs would be empty on the morrow, and the ladies' parlor clear of witnesses. He had ordered a dozen of his followers to be in a saloon across the street. At a signal from him they were to rush out and fire their revolvers in the air in imitation of a gang fight. All the homeward hurrying crowd would shriek and run. In the excitement he would jerk Yetta into the dark doorway.
He did not like to use such "strong-arm" methods. It was always safer and generally easy to fool the girl into coming willingly. But this occasion demanded decisive action. He went over the plan carefully, and could find no flaw in it. "It's a cinch," he repeated as he went to sleep.
Jake Goldfogle did not get to sleep at all. He tossed about on the bed in his stuffy tenement room—which he had hoped to leave so soon for a Harlem flat—and tried to think a way out of his difficulties. He had spent his last resources in meeting the unexpectedly called loan. If trouble broke out in his shop, there was very little hope of pulling through. It was his nature to cross all bridges as soon as he heard of them. But this one which seemed so close he could not traverse. Should he appeal to Yetta at once? Or should he trust to luck, to the chance of the storm blowing over? All night long he swung from one decision to the other. His final conclusion was to redouble his spying, and at the first hint of trouble to call Yetta into his office. He had no doubt that an offer of marriage would change her into an ally.
Yetta, having no idea how the powers of darkness were again closing about her, set out to work in the morning in high spirits—her face illumined by her new resolve. But her exaltation was short lived. Mrs. Cohen's lungs were much worse. All through the morning hours she struggled desperately with her cough. Mrs. Levy had seen the same thing so often before that she gave it no attention. But Mrs. Weinstein's merry eyes turned serious. And every cough tore at Yetta's heart. She was partly to blame. During the noon respite she and Mrs. Weinstein took care of the consumptive woman, tried to tempt her to eat with the choicest morsels of their none too savory lunches. Yetta urged her to go home for the afternoon and rest. But that was impossible. Goldfogle would "fire" her if she left, and she needed the job.
So when the short lull was over, the women took their places about the table. Hardly five minutes had passed when a paroxysm of coughing checked Mrs. Cohen's hands, and the work began to pile up. Yetta broke her thread, and by the time she had mended it Mrs. Cohen had caught up. Jake, hearing the stop, came to the door, but, seeing that Yetta was to blame, went back without speaking. Within half an hour Yetta had to break her thread again. But Mrs. Cohen was past the aid of such momentary rests. Before three the crisis came. She let go her work and dropped her head on her hands, horribly shaken by sobs and coughs. Yetta, feeling that she had helped to kill the woman, stopped her machine. Jake rushed out into the shop.
"Wos hat da passiert?" he demanded of Yetta, nervous and angry. "Did your thread break again?"
"No." Yetta stood up. "I stopped."
"Stopped?" he repeated in amazement.
"Yes. I stopped. It's a shame. Mrs. Cohen is sick and can't keep up."
Jake was only too glad to find some one else to vent his vile temper upon. He ran around the table and grabbed Mrs. Cohen roughly by the shoulder.
"You're fired," he shrieked. "I've had too much from you. You're the slowest woman here. Now you stop the whole table. You're fired."
"No, you don't, Mr. Goldfogle," Yetta cried, as excited as he was. "You don't fire her without you fire me too. See? Ain't you got no heart? She's killed herself working for you. You ought to take care of her now she's sick."
"Vot you tink?" he wailed. "Is it a hospital or a factory I'm running?"
"If it's a slaughter-house, Jake Goldfogle, I won't work in it."
The altercation had stopped all the work. The shop was strangely quiet. And Jake, his hope of success, his dream of love, trembling about his ears, could hardly keep back his tears. Suddenly he found voice and turned on the other women.
"Vot for do you stop? Vork! Vork, or I'll fire you."
And then coming up close to Yetta he said:—"You come vid me to my office. I vant to talk vid you."
"Why don't you say it here?" she asked defiantly. "I don't care who hears me talk. You got to treat Mrs. Cohen right or I'll quit. The other girls will quit too if they ain't cowards."
"No, no, no," he said, trying to hush her. "You come vid me, Miss Rayefsky."
She hesitated. She had expected him to rage and threaten her; his cringing manner disconcerted her. Anyhow it would give Mrs. Cohen time to breathe, so she reluctantly followed him into the dingy little office. He carefully closed the door.
"I've got sometin' to tell you. I. Vell—Yetta, you be a good girl und not make no trouble in the shop. Und ven de rush season is over, Yetta—I'll, yes, Yetta, I luf you. I'll marry you. You be a good girl und not make trouble, Yetta, und I'll marry you."
If he had threatened to kill her, Yetta would not have been so surprised. She was dumbfounded. And Jake, nervous, frightened, amorous Jake, took her amazed speechlessness for consent. He thought the magnificent generosity of his offer had overpowered her.
"Yes, Yetta," he drivelled on, "I luv you already since a long while. I vant to tell you, but the contract is zu close. I need you in the shop. You're the best vorker. It's only a few veeks now, Yetta. Ve'll be rich. Rich! I don't care if you ain't got no money. Ven I seed you first, Yetta, I luved you."
He grabbed one of her hands and tried to kiss her. The slap he received dizzied him.
"You come out in the shop, Jake Goldfogle," she cried, pulling open the door. "You tell them what you told me. What do you think the pig said to me?" she asked the surprised women. "You tell them, Jake Goldfogle, or I will. He wants me to marry him—after the rush season. He loves me so much he wants me to go on speeding for him—slave driving—till after the rush season. Oh, the pig! I'd rather be hustling on the street, Jake Goldfogle, than be married to a sweat-shop keeper."
Jake's temper was never very good; it had been torn by too many and desperate worries. To have his heart's dream thus publicly scoffed at, robbed him of his last shred of self-control. Giving tongue to an incoherent burst of rage and filth, he rushed at Yetta. She thought he was going to strike her. But she was too angry herself to be afraid.