Mabel, realizing Yetta's special usefulness as a speaker and money-raiser, tried to persuade her that this other work was more important than picketing.
"No," Yetta said. "If I didn't spend the morning with the girls, I would not have anything to say at night."
Mabel did not urge her further; she no longer called her la petite when she spoke of her to Eleanor. Every one who came in contact with her during these weeks knew that she was growing very rapidly into womanhood.
Yetta expected to get arrested. Why should she not? In a way she had started all the trouble. Why should the other girls be knocked about by the ruffian private detectives and she escape? Day after day she took her post before one or another of the vest shops and did her duty as she saw it, as the other women were doing it. There were always two pickets at each post, and it was in these morning watches that Yetta got her deepest insight into the lives of her comrades.
She was having a very easy time of it. She had a pleasant place to sleep. She had her one sure meal a day. There were no children crying to her for food. The other women were faring worse than she. Some were sick, almost all were hungry and insufficiently clad. And while Yetta was often called away to the less fatiguing work of the office, or to some uptown tea, these women, used to sitting all day before a machine, were standing hour after hour before their posts. But it was not the sight of them, pitiful spectacles as many of them were, which hurt Yetta most. It was their stories—unintentionally told for the most part. The words dropped by chance, which called up visions of sick husbands and the hungry babies. Some of the pickets were gray-haired and bent, some were younger than Yetta, and they all seemed to be suffering more for the strike than she. And the hungry babies! Her sleep was troubled at night by dreams of their cries.
That she had been spared by the police and thugs seemed to Yetta the most unjust thing of all the injustice she saw about her. A week on "the Island" would mean little to her; she had no one dependent on her. But always they picked some widow, who had no one to care for her children while she was in prison. Yetta felt herself strong and healthy. Why did the thugs always beat up some old woman or some frail consumptive girl? Although she had escaped trouble so long, she quietly and without excitement expected it. Whenever she met any of the girls who had been in the workhouse, she asked about it—in the same way that we, if we were expecting to winter in Paris, would inquire from friends who had been there about the rents and shops and so forth.
But when at last her turn came, it happened in a manner utterly unexpected.
CHAPTER XIV ARREST
At headquarters on May Day morning Yetta was detailed to the Crown Vest Company. As she was starting out, she met Mabel, whose mackintosh was glistening with rain.
"Oh, Yetta," she said, "don't go out to-day. The weather's so bad, and if you catch cold you can't speak."
But Yetta only smiled. It seemed to Mabel that she had never looked so beautiful before. Her face had begun to hollow a little from the strain, her olive skin was a shade paler, her eyes seemed to have grown bigger. And her shoulders, which had begun to stoop in the sweat-shop, had straightened up with the month on her feet and the new pride of combat. She was wearing the same skirt and waist she had worn to the dance, for she was to speak uptown that afternoon, and she had a warm shawl over her head and shoulders. The soles of her shoes were worn through, but Mabel could not see that.
"I've only got a few hours of it," she said. "There's that Advisory Council again this afternoon."
And she went out into the rain. The Crown Vest Company was on East Fourth Street, just off Washington Square. As Yetta turned the corner from Broadway she was nearly blown off her feet. All the winds of heaven—the biting, penetrating winds of a late spring storm—were caught in Washington Square as in a funnel, and escaped through the narrow cañon of East Fourth Street. Although Yetta was late, she was surprised to find no other picket before the Crown Vest Company. They were always assigned in couples. Her surprise turned to distress when she recognized the "private detective" in the doorway. His real name nobody knew. He called himself Brennan, but the girls called him "Pick-Axe." He was the one they dreaded more than any other. He thought himself a wit. It was his custom to tilt a chair against the wall by the doorway and, lighting his pipe, amuse himself by trying to make the girls blush. There was no limit to the brutality or nastiness of his tongue.
"Come in out of the rain, Dearie," he said when he saw Yetta. "There's room for two on this chair."
She tried not to hear him and began a sentry-like tread back and forth before the door. At least she was glad it was raining. Sometimes in good weather a crowd of depraved loungers would gather to listen to Pick-Axe's wit.
"It's too bad to have to work on a day like this, Little One," he called as she passed again. "Let's go over to the saloon and have a drink. There are nice warm rooms upstairs."
Yetta felt she would not shiver so hard if it were not for his cold, stinging voice. She decided it would be cowardly to let him drive her out of earshot. That would please him too much. She wondered why the other picket was not there.
"You needn't be so proud"—when she was again opposite him. "The first girl this morning tried to be proud. But she got over it. What's the use? Better come and have a drink, same as she did."
Yetta knew it was a lie. And yet—good God, it was cold! She had had her fill of eggs and hot coffee that morning. She wouldn't be hungry till noon, and she was so near home, she could get a good lunch. Some of the girls were always hungry. Few of them had warm clothes for such weather. How could they stand it? She wished she had asked the name of the other girl detailed to the Crown.
"I felt right sorry for her," Pick-Axe went on. "Gawd! she was hungry. You ought to have seen her eat. Pretty little girl, too. Now she's having a good sleep."
Of course it was a lie. But Yetta felt herself getting colder and colder. Pick-Axe got up and came towards her. She tried not to notice him, but she wanted very much to run.
"Come on," he said. "What's the use of being a fool? Nobody's outdoors. They ain't no scabs coming to-day. Let's go over to the saloon and make friends."
Yetta having reached the end of her beat turned mechanically and started back towards where he stood.
"That's a sensible girl," he said.
But she walked on past him as if he were a lamppost.
"Well," he snarled, "I guess I'll have to go over and wake up your friend. It'll take you about half an hour to wish you'd come instead...."
There is no need of printing all that he said.
He walked across the street. Yetta could not help turning her head to watch him as he entered the swinging door. He caught her glance and waved his hand. Her fright disappeared in anger. Of course she did not believe that he had persuaded one of her union girls to go into the saloon with him. But it was even viler to pretend that he had. Some one ought to kill the brute.
Just then Yetta saw one of the strikers—little Mrs. Muscovitz—hurrying up the street. Yetta rushed to meet her.
"Were you detailed here?" she asked eagerly.
Mrs. Muscovitz was coughing and could only nod her head affirmatively. Yetta wanted to shout with joy. So Pick-Axe's story was after all a lie.
"I'm sorry I'm late," little Mrs. Muscovitz said hoarsely, for she was "bad with bronchitis," "but I got a little money this morning and I had to buy some things for the baby."
One glance told Yetta where the money had come from—Mrs. Muscovitz had pawned her shawl. More than once they had picketed together, and Yetta knew the little woman's story. Three years before she had married a young sign painter. Before the honeymoon was over he had begun to cough. He died before the baby was born. And when Mrs. Muscovitz had been able to get about again, all the furniture of their little home had gone for doctor's bills. Her engagement and wedding rings had brought her enough to establish herself in a garret. She took the baby to a day nursery and went to work. Now, she was coughing. It hurts to cough when one also has the bronchitis. Having no shawl, her thin waist was soaked and plastered to her skin. Yetta could see the muscles of her back work convulsively whenever she coughed.
"Look y'ere, Mrs. Muscovitz," she said authoritatively. "You go home. You ain't got no business out on a day like this. You'll catch your death. There ain't nothing doing to-day. I can hold it down alone."
"It's all right for you to talk, Yetta," Mrs. Muscovitz replied. "You can make speeches and you can work in the office and do lots of things for the Union. There ain't nothing I can do but picket. I couldn't pay rent without the 'strike benefits.' I've got to do something."
Pick-Axe came out of the saloon and seeing them together, knowing that it was less sport trying to torment two women than one, pulled his chair well inside of the doorway and cursed the vile weather.
"I tell you what you can do," Yetta went on arguing with Mrs. Muscovitz. "It'll do more good than standing here. You go over to headquarters and make some coffee. You tell Miss Train I said it was so cold she must send coffee out to the girls. You can borrow some pails and cups and Mrs. Weinstein's boy'll carry it round. Hot coffee'll do the girls good, and it'll make the cops sore to see us getting it. Making coffee'll do more good than standing here. Nobody's out; I can hold down this job all right."
"I hate to leave you alone with that snake."
"Oh," Yetta laughed, more light-heartedly than she felt. "Words don't break no bones. You run along."
While Mrs. Muscovitz was hesitating, she caught sight of a scab. "Look," she whispered. A big-boned young woman of about twenty, poorly clad and apparently much frightened, was standing on the opposite curbstone. She looked up at the sign in the window of the Crown Vest Company advertising the need of workers. And she looked down at the two women before the door. After a few indecisive minutes she started across the street.
"You run along to headquarters and get that coffee started," Yetta said. "I'll talk to her."
"No," said Mrs. Muscovitz. "Let me do it. And then I'll go. I want to do something."
She started towards the woman. Pick-Axe, bundled up in his overcoat, back in the entryway, did not see the scab approaching. She had probably read in the papers lying stories of how the strike breakers were being attacked. She was very much afraid, and when she saw Mrs. Muscovitz coming towards her, she screamed. Pick-Axe, not having seen what was happening,—if one wishes to find excuses for him,—may have really believed that the little Mrs. Muscovitz had assaulted the husky young scab. At the sound of the scream he jumped out of his chair and rushed at Mrs. Muscovitz. She, thinking that he was going to strike her, held out her hand to guard her face. Pick-Axe grabbed it, and with a vicious wrench, twisted her down on her knees.
"You slut! You—! You—!" he bellowed and swung his heavy-soled boot into her ribs.
Yetta—to use a phrase of melodrama—"saw red." Something happened in her brain. Her rather Platonic conviction of a few minutes before that somebody ought to kill the brute, was changed into a passionate, throbbing desire to do it herself.
Just as his foot found its goal in Mrs. Muscovitz' side, Pick-Axe felt the sudden impact of Yetta's whole weight. It was more of a spring than a rush. As far as she had any idea, she wanted to choke him. The sudden jolt bowled him over—he was standing on one foot—and as he fell his head came down on the stone paving with a sickening thud. If it had not been for his heavy cap, the blow might have cracked his skull. As it was it stunned him. His face turned very white. The scab ran up the street too frightened to look back.
"I hope he's dead," Yetta said with tight-clenched fists.
But Mrs. Muscovitz felt his heart and shook her head.
"Sure?" Yetta asked.
"Yes. His heart's beating. Feel it yourself."
"I wouldn't touch the snake with my foot," Yetta said; "come on."
"Nobody but the scab seen us," Mrs. Muscovitz said.
"Come on," Yetta repeated. "Let's go to headquarters."
Somehow she did not care whether any one had seen her or not. She had tried to kill a man and regretted that she had not succeeded. She had read stories of murderers' remorse. And now she knew they were lies. She would never have been sorry if she had killed that snake.
As they were turning into Broadway, Mrs. Muscovitz, who was always looking back, suddenly gripped Yetta's arm.
"He's getting up," she said. "There's a man helping him."
They both peered back around the corner and saw Pick-Axe, with the aid of the stranger, painfully getting to his feet and rubbing his head in bewilderment.
"Come on," Yetta said. "He'll begin to holler in a minute. I've got a dime. We'll take a car."
They ran to catch a downtown car. They rode in silence, Mrs. Muscovitz nursing her aching arm and the bruise in her side. Yetta, surprised at the calm which had come after the sudden typhoon of passion, kept repeating, "I tried to kill him, I tried to kill him."
At the headquarters they found Isadore Braun, just returned from attending to the morning's batch of arrested pickets in Essex Market Court.
"Come into the committee-room," Yetta said to him quietly. "We've had some trouble."
"What is it?" he asked professionally as he closed the door.
"It's bad," Yetta replied. "Mrs. Muscovitz and I was picketing the Crown. And Pick-Axe—well, he jumped on her and—well—I knocked him senseless."
Braun bounced out of his chair in amazement.
"You? You knocked Pick-Axe senseless? You're joking."
But Yetta shrugged her shoulders affirmatively. And Braun began to laugh. He knew Pick-Axe. Every few days he encountered the bully in court, listened to his cold-blooded perjuries. He knew, from the girls, of his brutality. And he thought he knew Yetta. Her first speech at the Skirt-Finishers' ball had attracted his attention. He had followed her development through the four weeks of the strike with increasing interest. Above all he had been impressed with her quiet, gentle ways. The idea that she had knocked out Pick-Axe was preposterous.
But Mrs. Muscovitz added her affirmation. As he gradually got the details from them he grew more and more serious. It was the first time the enemy had had any real ground to charge them with violence. They would certainly make the most of it.
"Do you think he knows your face?" he asked Yetta.
"Sure."
Braun realized that his question had been foolish. Yetta was the most-advertised, best-known person connected with the strike.
"They'll be after you with a warrant," he said.
Yetta shrugged her shoulders.
"Were there any witnesses?" he asked.
"Only the scab," Mrs. Muscovitz said. "She run away. I guess she's too scared to come back. And the man who helped him get up."
Braun sat for a few minutes, with his chin in his hands, thinking it out.
"We'll have to lie," he said at last. "This is the story. Mrs. Muscovitz was talking to the scab. Pick-Axe twisted her arm and kicked her. That's all true. You tried to separate them. That's true, too, in a way—"
"I tried to kill him," Yetta put in.
"But you mustn't tell the judge that! You tried to separate them, and he slipped on the wet pavement and bumped his head. You two ran away, afraid that he'd attack you. You took a Broadway car and came straight here. Let's see—" he looked at his watch—"You got here about eleven thirty."
"I'd rather tell the truth," Yetta insisted. "Tell the judge just what the snake said to me and why I was mad."
"You can't do that. In the first place the judge would not listen to all of it. And then he would not believe you. They're looking for a chance to say we are using violence. Why did you do it—Oh, well, there's no use asking that. It's done. We've got to lie."
Yetta looked unconvinced.
"It won't only be worse for you," Braun went on. "It'll be worse for all of us, if you tell the truth."
"All right, then," Yetta said reluctantly. "I'll lie."
Just then Mabel rushed in without knocking.
"Pick-Axe and a plain-clothes man are out here with a warrant for Yetta," she cried. "Where can we hide her?"
"We won't hide her," Braun said. "We don't want to seem afraid of this charge."
"What's it all about?" she asked.
"Why, Pick-Axe was getting gay as usual," Braun said. "He slipped on the wet pavement or tripped over something and bumped his head. I guess he's trying to make an assault charge out of it."
"What?" Mabel asked in astonishment. "He's got the face to say that Yetta attacked him?"
Yetta started to say, "I did," but Braun kicked her unobtrusively and she kept still.
"Go out and tell them we will surrender at once," Braun said.
As soon as Mabel had left he hurriedly repeated the story they were to tell.
"Don't tell anybody the truth," he insisted. "Not any one. Not even Miss Train. We've got to bluff. And the more people who believe we are telling the truth, the better the bluff is."
They went out into the main room, and Yetta was formally put under arrest.
"That's the other woman," Pick-Axe said at sight of Mrs. Muscovitz.
"I haven't any warrant for her," the plain-clothes man said. He had no especial affection for the ruffian who pretended to be a detective.
"She is coming to court anyhow as a witness," Braun said.
At that moment he caught sight of Longman and a reporter and a ray of hope. He hurried over to them.
"Longman," he said, "they've arrested Yetta Rayefsky on an utterly absurd charge of attacking that thug, Brennan, whom the girls call Pick-Axe. I wish you'd come over to court. I can use you, I think, in the defence. And"—he turned to the reporter, "it may be worth your while to come, too. I think there'll be a story in it."
So the little procession set out. Yetta walked ahead between Pick-Axe and the detective. Braun and Mrs. Muscovitz and Longman and the reporter trailed behind.
There was hardly anything more sincere about Pick-Axe than his fear and hatred of Braun, so he kept his mouth shut as long as he was in hearing. But when the steel door of Essex Market Prison had clanged shut behind him, as soon as the desk man had entered Yetta's name and age and address on his book, Pick-Axe gave rein to his filthy wrath. They had taken her into the "examination room," and Yetta, following Braun's advice, refused to answer any questions. She crouched in a corner and tried not to hear what he was saying. She had grown up in a community where men are not over-careful in their choice of expletives, but she had never listened to anything like this.
It would have been very hard for Yetta to tell any one—even Mabel—what that quarter of an hour meant to her. She was not exactly afraid. In a way she was prepared for it. She had heard Pick-Axe talk before. The girls had told her that the worst thing they had suffered during their imprisonment was what they had had to listen to, insults and obscenity and the mad ravings of the "drunks."
Although Yetta was not afraid nor surprised, her whole being shuddered under it. Her flesh seemed to contract in an effort to escape the contagion of such loathsomeness. For years she would turn suddenly pale at the barest memory of that torrent of abuse. Once Pick-Axe came close as if he was going to strike her, but the detective pulled him away. Yetta was almost sorry. It would have been a relief if he had struck her with his hand.
And yet it was very little for herself that Yetta suffered. She was being sacrificed for a great host. What they did to her mattered very little, but in her they were striking at all the myriad "people of the process"—the women of her trade, the cloth weavers, the wool-growers, those who grew wheat for their bread, who made beds for them to sleep in. She felt herself a delicate instrument for the transmission of sound. Those stinging, cruel words were going out to the remotest corners of the land, were bringing shame on all the lowly people of the earth, just as his kick, crashing into Mrs. Muscovitz' side, had made them all gasp with pain. Once she looked up, she wanted to ask him what they paid him that made it worth his while to treat her people so. But she knew it was useless to ask—he would not have understood.
Then echoing down the corridor, she heard a warden bawling her name. From the point of view of Braun's intended defence, Yetta's arrest had come at a fortunate time of day. By noon the morning calendar is disposed of, and he could have her arraigned for hearing at once. The least delay meant the possibility of the prosecution finding some witness who had seen Yetta strike Pick-Axe.
Yetta had wanted to tell the judge the truth. It was only because Braun insisted that it would endanger the success of the strike that she had consented to lie. But when she was led into the court-room, her scruples left her.
Telling the truth is like a quarrel—there must be two parties to it. Nicolas Gay, the Russian painter, has a canvas called, "What is Truth?" It portrays Pontius Pilate, putting this question to the Christ. And you realize at once why the Prisoner could not answer. Truth is not the enunciation of certain words. Nothing which the scorned and scourged and thorn-crowned Jesus might have said about His Truth could have penetrated the thick skull of the gross and pride-filled Roman proconsul.
Yetta, in a somewhat similar situation, understood at once that this dingy court-room was not an Abode of Truth. Magistrate Cornett, before whom she was led, although a young man, was quite bald. He sat hunched up in his great chair, and the folds of his heavy black robe made him look deformed. His finger nails were manicured. His skin was carefully groomed, but the flesh under it was flabby. His face and hands were those of a gourmand.
The clerk read the complaint. It charged Yetta with assault in all its degrees in that on that very day she had with felonious intent struck one Michael Brennan on the head with a dangerous weapon, to wit a blackjack.
"Guilty or not guilty?"
"Not guilty," Braun replied.
The plain-clothes man deposed that he knew nothing about the case except that he had served the warrant as directed by the court. He had found the defendant in the strike headquarters of the vest-makers.
The man who had helped Brennan get up was a clerk in a neighboring wholesale house. He had been sent out with a telegram, and in the rain-swept, deserted street he had seen no one but the prostrate detective, who was just regaining consciousness as he came up. He helped the stricken man to his feet, and that was all he knew.
Then Michael Brennan, alias Pick-Axe, took the stand. Ordinarily he made a fairly good appearance in court. He felt himself among friends, felt a reassuring kinship with the policemen, the clerks, and even with the judge. To be sure they all knew he was a perjurer, and very few of them would shake hands with him. But still he was a necessary part in the great machine for preserving social order, by which they all were paid. But this day he was not at his ease. In the first place his head ached horribly. In the second, he was so infuriated that he could scarcely control his tongue. And thirdly, he knew that he was in for a grilling from Braun. And he was more than usually afraid of this ordeal because he was not sure what had happened. He remembered kicking Mrs. Muscovitz, he had a vague conviction that Yetta had rushed at him—and then he remembered coming to and being helped to his feet.
"Yer Honor," he began, "I was in front of the Crown Vest Company this morning doing duty as usual. There wasn't nobody around except this here Rayefsky girl and a woman she's brought as a witness. Well, Yer Honor, I went into the hallway to light my pipe and just at that minute a scab comes along—"
"Your Honor," Braun interrupted, "some of my clients have been sent to prison for using that term. This court has held it to be insulting and abusive."
"It was a slip of my tongue, Yer Honor," Pick-Axe said with confusion.
"Clerk," the Judge instructed, "strike out that word, and you be more careful, Brennan."
"Yes, Yer Honor. I was saying a respectable woman came along looking for work—she wasn't really a woman, just a young girl. I didn't see her because I was in the hallway lighting my pipe, as I told Yer Honor, but I heard her holler and, rushing out, I seen this other woman a-laying into her, beating her up something awful—"
Mrs. Muscovitz tried to protest from the benches, but Longman, at a signal from Braun, hushed her.
"Well, Yer Honor, I runs up and tries to arrest the woman, and the other one—this Rayefsky girl—jumps on me with a blackjack and lays me out, Yer Honor. The first thing I knows I come to, with this gentleman a-helping me up. How long I laid there senseless, Yer Honor, I don't know. I came right over here and got the warrant, and Officer Sheehan and me, we got her at the strike headquarters, like he told Yer Honor."
"Do you wish to question the witness, Mr. Braun?"
"Brennan," he began, "did you see a blackjack in the defendant's hand?"
"No, sir! If I'd a knowed she had a blackjack would I have let her sneak up behind me? No. I'd have run her in before."
"What makes you think it was a blackjack?"
"The bump on my head." He leaned over the bench so the judge could examine it. "She couldn't have made that with her hand, Yer Honor."
"It certainly looks like a blackjack," the judge said.
"Are you sure, Brennan, it wasn't a piece of stone?"
"No. It wasn't no stone—I'd have seen her pick it up. It was a blackjack," he insisted doggedly.
"How do you know it wasn't a piece of gas-pipe?"
"What's the use of such questions?" the judge asked impatiently. "The crime would be no less serious if the blow had been struck with a piece of gas-pipe."
"Your Honor," Braun replied, "it is a serious question. Brennan does not know what hit him and I do. In two more questions I think I can convince the Court that he does not know. Brennan," he turned to the witness, "you say that you had gone into the hallway to light your pipe. When you rushed out to attack the picket, did you see this gentleman coming down the street? Professor Longman, will you please rise? Brennan, did you see this gentleman coming down the street with that cane in his hand?"
Brennan had been wondering why Longman had come to the court. He looked at him suspiciously.
"No," he said. "I never saw that man till I got to the strike headquarters."
"Well, Brennan, are you quite sure, are you prepared to swear that when you were kicking Mrs. Muscovitz about this gentleman did not knock you down as you deserved—as any real man would have done?"
"I didn't kick the woman," Brennan said.
"That's not the question. Are you sure it wasn't Professor Longman who laid you out?"
For a moment Brennan hesitated. It was hard for him to believe that Yetta had knocked him senseless. He knew that Braun was trying to catch him in a perjury. And he had a guilty conscience.
"If it was him that hit me," he roared, "I'll have him sent up. I was doing my duty."
"Officer," the judge said, "see that this man does not leave the room."
"It is a useless precaution, Your Honor," Braun said. "Professor Longman was nowhere in the neighborhood. But I think it is quite clear that Brennan does not know who or what hit him."
The reporter who had come with them, not being regularly detailed to the court, was not afraid to laugh out loud.
"I have no other questions to ask," Braun went on. "Will the Court have the defendant's account of what happened?"
The oath was administered to Yetta and she told the story, which Braun had taught her, more calmly and simply than most people tell the truth. The judge did not believe that a person who had just committed a murderous assault could be so cool under the charge. He knew Brennan, and that he was probably lying now. He himself had slipped on the wet pavement that morning, his motor had skidded on the way downtown. He believed Yetta. He had generally believed the strikers against whom Brennan and the other "private detectives" had testified, but, knowing just what was expected of him by those on whom he depended for advancement, he had sent the other girls to jail. He twirled his pencil a moment, asking her a few inconsequential questions, and regretfully came to the conclusion that he could not possibly hold her on the assault charge.
"Are there any other witnesses?" he asked.
"Mrs. Muscovitz, who was picketing with the defendant, is here," Braun said. "She tells me exactly the same story. She will tell it to the Court if Your Honor so directs. But it seems rather a waste of time. There is no case against my client. Brennan has shown the Court that he doesn't know what hit him. Look at the two of them, Your Honor. If you think that any twelve men on earth will believe that this slip of a girl assaulted the complainant, you can of course hold her for the Grand Jury. But I ask the Court to discharge the defendant."
"Not so fast, Mr. Braun," the judge snapped. "Even admitting the truth of her improbable story—which I very much question—admitting there is insufficient evidence to hold her on the assault charge, she confesses to disorderly conduct in interfering with an officer who was making an arrest. Clerk, make out a charge of disorderly conduct. I suppose you'll swear to the complaint, Brennan."
While this detail was being attended to at the clerk's desk, the judge delivered himself of an informal philippic against the strikers. He aimed a good deal of his discourse at Mrs. Muscovitz: it was only the extreme leniency of the Court, he said, which kept him from ordering her arrest;—as a matter of fact it was past his lunch time. His tirade, which he seemed to enjoy immensely, as he saw the reporter taking notes, was interrupted by the Clerk handing him the new papers.
"Yetta Rayefsky, you admit picketing, which means intimidating honest work-people, before the Crown Vest Company this morning; you admit interfering with Officer Brennan, while he was engaged in the performance of his duty. The Court finds you guilty of disorderly conduct. But the officers inform me that this is the first time you have been brought to court. As is my custom, I will discharge you if you promise not to picket any more. Understand that if you are brought before me again, I will send you to prison. Take my advice and go to work. Idleness always breeds trouble. Will you promise not to picket any more?"
"No."
The judge sat up with a jerk.
"Ten days, workhouse," he thundered.
And as they led her away, he rapped on his desk with his gavel, and the clerk announced adjournment.
"That little Jew girl had more spunk than I gave her credit for," the judge said a few minutes later, in his chambers, to his secretary who was helping him on with his fur-lined coat. "I wonder if she did blackjack Brennan." He had to sit down again to laugh at the idea.
"Don't scold me," Yetta said to Braun, when he came into the prison and spoke to her through the grating. "I was tired of lying."
Braun said to himself as he went away that it was just like a woman to get away with a big lie and stumble over a little one.
CHAPTER XV THE WORKHOUSE
In the afternoon Yetta was loaded into "the wagon" with a lot of "drunks" and prostitutes and taken up to the Department dock to wait for the ferry across to the Island.
She had not realized how the month's strain had tired her until the excitement was over and she was on the tug in midstream. In sheer weariness, she turned round on her seat and, crossing her arms on its back, buried her face in them. Presently she felt a hand on her shoulder.
"Don't take it so hard, Little One," a not unkindly voice said. "It's fierce at first, but you get used to it." She looked up into a face of stained and faded gaudiness.
"Oh," the woman said, somewhat taken aback. "You're one of them strikers. Did they beat you up?"
"No," Yetta replied, "I got off easy."
The woman stood a moment first on one foot and then on the other—she could not think of anything more to say. She went across the boat and told one of her cronies what kind of a shame she thought it was "to run in a nice girl like that."
Yetta was in a strange state of detachment. It surprised her afterwards to remember how little the discomforts of the prison had troubled her. She was hardly conscious of the dirty, rough clothes they gave her. The bitter, hard, and useless work of scrubbing the stone flagging seemed to her unreal. She hardly noticed the food they set before her for supper. She was not hungry. And when they let her go to bed, she plunged so quickly and deeply into the oblivion of sleep that she did not feel the vermin nor hear the sinister whispers of her cell-mates. Her mind, utterly fagged out with all the new thoughts and experiences, was taking a vacation. Even the sense nerves were too tired to record with exactitude their impressions.
Before Yetta fell into this blissful, dreamless sleep her arrest had begun to stir up considerable excitement in New York. When Braun and Longman returned to the strike headquarters from the court-house, they found Mabel preparing to go uptown to the meeting of the Advisory Council. The imprisonment of Yetta seemed to her the crowning outrage of the long list of trivial arrests. She did not dream how nearly the charge came to being true. Dozens of other girls had been sent to the workhouse on perjured evidence. But this seemed different. Yetta was "hers." In the past weeks she had become "her" friend. So are we all constituted. We read in the morning paper that thousands of Chinese or Russians or Moors are dying of famine. Perhaps we mail a check to the Red Cross. But if we should be hungry or one of our dear friends should starve, it would seem extravagantly unjust.
In this ireful frame of mind, Mabel met the ladies of the Advisory Council. To them also Yetta was a much more real personality than the other girls who had been arrested. Their Yetta, their quiet-mannered, sad-eyed, gentle-voiced Yetta, arrested for assaulting a man? It was impossible! With the tears in her eyes, Mabel assured them that it was true.
"We can't permit this," Mrs. Van Cleave said, snapping her lorgnette ominously. "It is preposterous! The young lady has been a guest in my house. I have introduced her to my friends. It can't be permitted."
"Well, what can we do about it?" Mabel asked, for once at a loss.
There was a clamor of wild suggestions. It was at last Mrs. Karner, the woman whom Yetta had liked, and at whose request she had told about Harry Klein, who brought out a practical plan.
"We've got to do it through the newspapers," she said. "Stir up the press."
"Oh," Mabel said in despair, "they laugh when I come into their offices. They're not interested, or they're on the other side."
"They laugh because they're used to you. You haven't any news value," Mrs. Karner went on. "But they would not laugh if Mrs. Van Cleave talked to them."
"Hey? What?" Mrs. Van Cleave asked with a start.
"Oh! you won't even have to go to their offices; you can send for them. I worked on a newspaper once, and I know. You won't have to go to them. They'll come. The editors will eat out of your hand—do anything for you on the chance that you might invite their wives to dinner. Have your secretary call up the papers, and you'll have a hundred special writers camped on your doorstep."
"Well, well! What an idea!" Mrs. Van Cleave snorted.
All the women, with various degrees of obsequiousness, begged her to do it. But it was not the kind of newspaper notoriety she liked.
"No," she repeated a dozen times. "I could not do that. Preposterous! Preposterous!"
But she hardly heard the urgings. She was looking away beyond the room at the vision of a little girl who had died many years ago—the only thing which had not been worldly in all her life. And this little daughter of hers had had eyes very much like Yetta's. Yes. Very much like. In fact they were almost exactly the same. And just when the women were giving up hope she suddenly spoke decisively.
"Yes. I'll do it. My secretary is outside in the motor. Call her in."
"Jane," she said when that very businesslike and faded young woman appeared, "two things. One, a list of all the women who met that little working-girl at my house. Two, telephone all the city editors. I want to give out a statement, a personal statement. My house, to-night. Morning papers. You can use the telephone in the front office. That will do."
Yetta and Mrs. Van Cleave divided the first column the next morning. In the two and three cent papers Yetta got most of the space, in the one cent papers the proportions were reversed. But Yetta's story, more or less diluted with descriptions of Mrs. Van Cleave's drawing-room and gown and diamond tiara—she had given the newspaper men a few minutes as she was leaving for the Opera—was read by almost everybody in Greater New York. Yetta was invariably described as little, in several cases as only thirteen. Pick-Axe was ordinarily spoken of as an ex-prize-fighter—a libel on the profession, which can at least boast of physical courage.
Among others who read the story was the Commissioner of Correction. He called up the warden of the workhouse.
"That jackass, Cornett, has stirred up hell down at Essex Market. Seen the papers? Well, there'll be fifteen hundred reporters bothering you this morning, trying to interview this Rayefsky girl. Don't let them. But they'll get at her when she comes out; she'll be telling her impressions of prison life to everybody. Give her some snap. Feed her. Damn her soul, don't give her no chance to kick. See?"
It was about nine o'clock when this message crossed the wire. A few minutes later the warden entered the women's wing of the workhouse. There were about fifty prisoners on their knees, scrubbing the stone floor.
"Yetta Rayefsky."
She got up in surprise and came towards him, wondering what new thing they were going to do to her.
"Know anything about children?" he asked.
Yetta was too much surprised by the question to answer.
"Well," he said, "you don't look like you'd cut their throats. My wife needs a nurse. Come on."
"Ain't you got any clothes that fits her?" he asked the matron at the door. "Clean ones. Don't want things like that in the house. Wash her up. We don't want bugs. And send her over right away."
"Gee," the matron said with sudden, cringing respect. "Why didn't you tell me you had a pull?"
So Yetta was taken out of the Inferno, before her tired senses had fully waked up to its horrors. The warden's house was outside the prison. It had a pleasant lawn, close-clipped, its flower beds well tended, for the labor of the "trusties" was free. There was already a nurse for the children, and Yetta did not have anything to do. The yesterday's storm had been the end of winter, and an almost midsummer heat had fallen on New York. She spent most of her time on a rustic bench under a great elm. There was a fine open view across the busy river to the busier city.
The real nurse was snobbish and would not speak to her, which saved her from much foolish chatter. Nobody paid any attention to her except the warden's three-year-old boy, who continually escaped from his nurse and tried to climb into Yetta's lap. They gave her good meals and a comfortable bed. It was somewhat unkind of them to jerk the baby out of Yetta's lap whenever he found his way there. But otherwise she was very well treated. The only restrictions they put on her was that she should not leave the lawn and should not read the papers. "It would give her a swelled head," the warden said. His prohibition had the advantage of keeping her from the excitement of contact with the strike.
Above everything else, Yetta needed rest and quiet to think. The first day she dozed. The second day her mind woke up. She had a fear that she would forget something. So many things had happened in the past month. Ten days seemed to her a limitless time, so she began at the beginning. Her earliest recollections were of the dingy little book-store and her father. The morning passed in rearranging her memories of him. When they called her for supper, she had reached, in the review of her life, Rachel's first dance. Afterwards she sat in the little dormer window of her bedroom and looked out at the twilight falling over the city; she watched the lights on the river and the stars in their courses overhead and went over her acquaintance with Harry Klein.
She had learned a great deal during this month out of the shop. From words dropped here and there, from things she had seen, she had come to a clearer understanding of the thing she had escaped. She had thought she was in love with Harry Klein! She went to sleep realizing how hollow had been her conception of love. The word had a very different content now that she had seen Walter and Mabel together and had heard the gossip of the girls. The thought of two such people being in love seemed very wonderful to her.
After breakfast the next morning she took her seat again in the shade of the elm tree and, with her chin in her hands, pondered over the strike. She had a remarkable memory for words and phrases. She could have given a full synopsis of all the speeches she had heard in that month. Most of the people who had talked at the meetings had tried to tell what the strike meant. She went over the various and often contradictory explanations, and, supplementing them with her own experience and observations, reached an interpretation of her own. Much of it came as a direct inheritance from her father. The two speakers who had influenced her most were Longman and Braun. With the former she believed that all those who loved liberty were under a sacred obligation to struggle for it. And Braun's straightforward, concise statement of social organization seemed to her reasonable. As soon as possible she wanted to get a chance to study Socialism.
Meanwhile the storm kicked up by her arrest was growing apace. That morning the papers contained an open letter which the Commissioner of Corrections had addressed to the ladies of the Woman's Trade Union League. He had been forced to this action, because the evening papers had published interviews with other strikers who had been in the workhouse. They gave impressive details of the nauseous place, of the rank food, the vermin, the dark cells, and the debased associations. The Commissioner's letter was a dignified document. It had been written by his secretary. In a sweeping manner he denounced the accusations made by the strikers as malicious libel and referred the ladies of the Advisory Council and the public in general to page 213 of the last report of the Prison Association, which gave just tribute to the modern sanitation, the wholesome dietary, and the healthy régime of the workhouse.
"In regard to the case of Miss Rayefsky, about whom this agitation has centred, the Commissioner begs to point out that he has no manner of responsibility over commitments. It is not within his province to pass judgment on the decisions of the courts. He must accept whomsoever is committed to his custody. In reply to his inquiry, the warden of the workhouse informs him that, instead of suffering the fantastic tortures which certain hysterical lawbreakers have tried to persuade the public are actualities in the workhouse, Miss Rayefsky has been detailed to the work of nurse to the warden's children, and is living—probably in greater comfort than she ever knew before—as a member of his household.
"As the Commissioner does not care to ask the public to take his word in preference to irresponsible newspaper stories, he invites the Woman's Trade Union League to appoint a committee to visit Miss Rayefsky in the workhouse and report to the public."
While Yetta was pondering over the meanings of strikes and industrial warfare, all New York was discussing her case and reading what various society ladies thought about the way their pet had been treated. Pick-Axe lost his job as private detective and had to go back to highway robbery.
After lunch Yetta tackled the hardest problem of all—why had she tried to kill Pick-Axe? Instinctively she felt that Longman would understand. But neither Mabel nor Braun would,—Braun least of all. Her act did not fit in with Socialism. No other speakers had urged the strikers as vigorously as the Socialists to abstain from violence or lawbreaking. Longman was not the only one who would understand. There was Casey, the secretary of the Central Federated Union, and the men of the "Pastry Cooks' Union." She could have told them about it without any hesitancy. She tried for some minutes to decide whether her father would have understood. She was not sure. She wanted to judge herself justly in the matter, but try as hard as she might, she found it impossible to blame herself sincerely. Her speculations were interrupted by Longman's voice.
"What are you thinking about so hard?"
She jumped up in surprise to see that Longman and Mrs. Karner had come across the lawn without her hearing their approach. The warden had established himself in a chair where he could watch them.
Mrs. Karner had happened to be in the office when the Commissioner's letter arrived. She had appointed herself, together with Mabel and Longman, the committee to visit Yetta. They had notified the Commissioner, and he in turn had warned the warden. But just as they were about to start, a representative of the Association of Vest Manufacturers had telephoned to Mabel for a conference. It was too important to miss. So Mrs. Karner and Longman had come alone.
Yetta rushed into Mrs. Karner's arms and had hard work not to kiss Longman. She had not realized that she was lonely until she saw the familiar faces.
"We've only got fifteen minutes," Longman said. "So we must get down to business. Did they bring you to the warden's house at once?"
"No. At first—the first night I was in a cell. It was about nine the next morning the warden came and took me out."
"Just as I was telling you," Longman said to Mrs. Karner. "When they read the newspapers, they got scared and made an exception for her. Your newspaper campaign did it."
"What?"
And Mrs. Karner told Yetta all about it; how angry her friends were to hear of her being accused of assault and how they had made an awful row in the papers. Yetta's face burned. If Longman had been alone, she would have told him the truth in spite of Braun's interdiction. But she was not sure that Mrs. Karner would understand.
"It's hard on you, Yetta," Longman said, "to be locked up. But it's great business for the strike. It was just such a picturesque outrage as this that was needed to attract attention. The papers are full of it, and everybody's for the vest-makers. The girls took a collection on the street yesterday and got nearly a thousand dollars. The bosses are scared. Their organization is breaking up. Two of the shops have settled already. It looks like a victory all round."
For ten minutes more they gave her the hopeful news and loving messages. Then they saw the warden coming across the grass.
"Is there anything you'd like to have me send you?" Longman asked.
"I'd like some books that tell about Socialism."
"Warden," Longman said as the official approached, "we've enjoyed this visit very much. We're greatly obliged to you for your especial kindness to Miss Rayefsky. Would you have any objection to my sending her some books?"
"She can read my books, if she wants to," he said gruffly.
"That's very kind, I'm sure. But she wants to study. It's some books on economics I want to send her."
"I've no objection," the warden said. "Send them to me. But no newspapers."
Mrs. Karner kissed her again, and Longman shook hands. There had been little of such kindness in Yetta's life, and their visit touched her deeply. The thoughts of the last few days had been tinged with bitterness. It was softened by the realization that she had friends. In the great city there beyond the river were people who cared for her. And what wonderful people they were!
The Department tug swung out into the current, and Yetta saw Mrs. Karner waving her handkerchief. She jumped up to wave back.
When Mrs. Karner sat down, there were tears in her eyes.
"Do you suppose she'll keep the faith?" she asked Longman.
He was surprised by the question. He had never heard Mrs. Karner use the word "faith" before. She was ordinarily brilliantly cynical.
"I don't quite understand."
"Oh, yes, you do. Will she have the—what do the long distance runners call it?—'wind,' 'staying power,' to keep her faith in revolt? In Socialism? It's a long race, this life of ours, and an obstacle race every foot—will she last?"... In a moment she went on. "Oh, I hope she will. It's beautiful! I hope she won't be fooled into something else. Nothing on earth is worth so much as faith—Why don't you say something?"
"I'm—"
"Oh, you're surprised to hear me talk like this. But don't be mean and rub it in, even if I have sold out. Once upon a time—" she broke off suddenly and then began again. "Do you really suppose any one ever lived who has not had some youth and faith? I was a girl once. Time was when there weren't any wrinkles on my soul. Why! Once upon a time, I was going to write the Great American Novel! Sometimes I try to comfort myself by saying that newspaper work was too hard for a woman. I ought to make a pilgrimage somewhere—on my knees—to thank the gods I wasn't born a vest-maker. I did not have the nerve—the staying power. I sold out.
"And when this dinky little boat gets to the dock, I'll ask you to get into my car and come up to Sherry's for tea. It will save me from going to that great Social Institution, that bulwark of America's greatness—The Home. I'd invite you to it, only it would seem like an insult. There's a big room looking out on the Drive—full of Gothic furniture; some of it was made in the Middle Ages and some was made in Milwaukee. Bert has a fad for Gothic. Home's a sort of Musée du Cluny. This isn't my day, but some women are sure to drop in. Some in skirts and some in trousers, and they'll talk nonsense and worse. And once upon a time I was a real woman, and worked with real men and had thoughts. It's so long ago I almost forgot about it till this little vest-maker came along, with her big eyes and her faith."
The boat bumped against the pier.
"Don't be scared at my melodramatics," she said. "Come up to Sherry's and I'll tell you the latest scandal. Some of it is quite untellable. We'll forget the little Jewess with her disturbing eyes. Curses on them! You know, looking into them makes me understand why they crucified Christ at such an early age.—Will you come?"
"Can we stop on the way and get those books for Yetta?"
Late that night Longman took out one of his printed sheets of foolscap and added Mrs. Karner's credo to his collection. It was the first of his questionnaires he had filled out since he had begun preparations for the expedition to Assyria.
The next morning the warden handed Yetta a bundle of books. On the fly-leaf of the smallest one—Thoreau's Essays—Longman had written: "Thoreau lived before Socialism commenced. But I don't think any of the modern writers have bettered 'On the Duty of Civic Disobedience.'"
In the six days which were left of her sentence, Yetta had time to read and reread all the books Walter had sent her, and to think her way to a surer footing in Life.
CHAPTER XVI CARNEGIE HALL
The ten days when Yetta had nominally been in prison, but was really resting her body and improving her mind on the warden's pleasant lawn, had been great days for the vest-makers.
The sudden publicity which her arrest had given their Cause turned the tide in their favor. None of the English papers gave an accurate nor intelligent account of the struggle, but in a vague way the generally listless public came to realize that a picturesque conflict was raging on the East Side between hundreds of half-starved women and the Powers of Greed. One could hardly call it sympathy, for sympathy requires some degree of understanding. But the conviction became widespread that it was not a "fair fight." The pathos writers were daily turning out miniature Uncle Tom's Cabins. And the society writers continued to give space to the new fad.
The strikers might have won considerable concessions without this fortuitous aid. They had tied up their trade for five weeks at the height of the rush season. Their enthusiasm and esprit du corps had grown with hunger and persecution. Even the biggest bosses had begun to wonder if it would not be cheaper to make some compromise. But certainly the strikers would not have won so quickly nor so largely if this unexpected force had not come to their assistance. The judge in Essex Market Court no longer dared to be so high-handed. The hired thugs were afraid that every passer-by was a reporter, every picket a society pet. The second day two of the bosses deserted the Association of Vest Manufacturers and settled with their forces. Once started, the stampede became general; every day more shops settled, and by the time Yetta was discharged the strike was practically over.
It was four o'clock of a Thursday afternoon when she was given back her own clothes and told that she was free. As she waited on the Island dock for the ferry to carry her across an unexpected wave of fear came over her. The city beyond the river looked hostile to her. Sooner or later the vest strike would end. What should she do then? She knew that the "strike" would not be over for her—it would last as long as she lived. But where was she to live, how was she to gain a living? How could she get the chance to study, which she felt to be her greatest need? This last was what troubled her most. It did not matter where she slept nor what she ate, but she needed the knowledge which is power. As the tug fought its way against the current and the city came closer and closer, it looked to her like some jealous monster which stood guard over a great treasure. Somehow she must do battle with it, for the prize must be hers. She felt herself very weak, and her armament seemed pitiable.
On the New York dock she found Mabel and Walter and Mrs. Karner waiting for her.
"Yetta, Yetta," Mabel laughed and cried, with her arms about her. "Remember what a crowd of girls came up to welcome the first ones who came out? Why do you suppose they're not here to welcome you? They're back at work. We've won! We've won!"
Yetta opened her big eyes very wide, but her heart was too jerky for her to speak. Over and above the joy of the dear victory was the exhilaration of friendship. It seemed as though these three friends had come down to meet and arm her for the fight for the treasure. Mabel's embrace was like armor, Mrs. Karner's kiss was a helmet, and in Longman's frank grip she felt a sword placed in her hand.
"Come on," Mrs. Karner said. "Climb into the motor. You're all going to have dinner with me. You've got to speak to-night, child—the biggest audience you ever saw—Carnegie Hall. They had lots of foolish plans to bother you, but I said 'No! I'll take her in hand and see that she gets a bath and clean clothes and a good meal and a little quiet to think out her speech.' Climb in."
As the car sped across the city, they explained to Yetta that Mrs. Van Cleave had donated the rent of Carnegie Hall—this before the strike had been won—and that, as all the arrangements were made, they had to have the meeting anyhow. It promised to be a big thing, as all those who were Mrs. Van Cleave's friends, or wanted to be, had scrambled for boxes, and all the two and one dollar seats had been sold.
Mrs. Karner was as good as her word. Once in the imposing house on Riverside Drive, she left Longman uncomfortably balanced on a Gothic chair in the library, and she and Mabel rushed Yetta into a bath even more dazzling than that which had so impressed her in the Washington Square flat.
"When any one gets herself arrested and wins a strike all by herself, and is going to make a speech to the Four Hundred, she has to let other people do things for her. So I got you some clothes."
At one of the meetings of the Advisory Council Mrs. Van Cleave had said, "Of course some one must see to it that she is decently dressed." Mrs. Karner had volunteered to attend to that, and, talking it over with Mabel, who brought some of Yetta's scanty wardrobe as a model, they had arranged a simple, becoming suit of soft brown corduroy.
"If you're tired, you can take a nap. We'll wake you for dinner."
"No," Yetta said. "I ain't sleepy. I want to hear about the strike."
So they arrayed her in the new dress and fussed around with her hair and at last brought her out into the library. For a while the four of them discussed the strike.
"Yetta," Mabel asked, changing the subject abruptly, "what are you going to do now?"
They had to wait several minutes before she answered.
"I don't know. I've been trying to think about that. There'll be more strikes, and I want to help in them. When there ain't nothing like that to do, I want to study. I've got to study a lot. You see I ain't been to school since I was fifteen, and you've all been to college. Of course I can't never go to college, but I'd like to learn all I can.
"I don't know what I'll do. I'd like to keep on being business agent of my union, if they ain't elected nobody else. But they can't pay me nothing. I suppose I'll go back to the trade. I don't know no other way to earn money. But I'd like to get out of it so I could study. I want to know more, so I can be of more use. Yes. I've got to study. I'll have to think about it."
"Well, there are two things we've got to suggest," Mrs. Karner said. "I suppose I'd better tell her Mrs. Van Cleave's offer first. You see, Yetta, you've made a great hit with her, and she's got oodles of money. She thinks you're very wonderful, just the way the rest of us do"—somehow Mrs. Karner's flattery was so kindly and laughing that it hardly made Yetta feel uncomfortable—"and she thinks you ought to have a college education. Look at the child's eyes open! Yes. It's true. She wants to pay all your expenses in preparatory school and Bryn Mawr. If you worked very hard, you could graduate in six or seven years. Mrs. Van Cleave really wants you to do it. Nobody asked her to nor suggested it. And she's very generous when she gets started. She'll give you a fat allowance, and you can dress just as well as the other girls. Miss Train and I have both been to college and we know what fun it is. Dances and all that. And it's nice to have good clothes. It's a great chance. You've got brains and lots of common sense, and you don't have to worry about any of the other girls being better looking than you are. You'll probably spend your vacations with Mrs. Van Cleave. You'll like as not marry a mil—"
Yetta knew that Mrs. Karner was mocking.
"Is it a good college to study?" she asked.
The two women were silent. Mabel was from Wisconsin and Mrs. Karner had gone to Mount Holyoke. Neither thought very highly of the college of Mrs. Van Cleave's choice. Longman answered the question.
"There isn't any woman's college in the country which has a higher standard of scholarship. It is one of the best there is in that way. If you want to be a 'scholar,' if you want to go in for Greek or mathematics or one of the sciences, a degree from Bryn Mawr is something to be proud of. But most of the girls are rich. I don't mean that they would be unkind to you. With Mrs. Van Cleave back of you, you don't need to worry—they'd probably go to the other extreme. But I don't believe you'd find many of the girls—or many of the faculty—interested in the problems of working people. Mrs. Van Cleave is very kind, but I think even she is more interested in you than in 'strikes.' As I say, if you want to be a 'scholar,' it's a good place. But if you want to be a labor agitator, if you want to fight for freedom, I don't think Bryn Mawr would help you much."
The excited glow in Yetta's eyes, the heightened color of her cheeks, died out.
"What's the other offer?" she asked. "You said there were two."
"Oh, it isn't any fairy godmother proposition, my dear Cinderella," Mrs. Karner said. "It's just everyday work. Nothing so fine as a college degree. It's in Miss Train's line, so she'd better tell you."
"No, Yetta," Mabel said. "This other offer is a pretty drab-colored affair. You know my old plan to try to ally all the garment workers, vests and coats and pants and cloaks and overalls, all in one big federated union like the building trades. Well, this vest strike has been so successful, I've been able to interest some of the ladies in my bigger scheme and they've put up the money so the league can hire a new organizer. It isn't as much as you could earn at the machine, but it is enough to live on. We all think you'd be the ideal person. You could keep on as business agent for the vest-makers. I know they want you, and even if they can't pay you anything, it would give you a standing with the Central Federated Union and even among the unorganized workers. They all know about how this strike won, and there's sure to be others soon. Of course there would be lots of work, but the ladies would be willing to let you have your mornings free to study. It isn't like going to college. But if you really want to educate yourself, you could do it. We'll all help you. I don't want to urge you. I want you to do the thing you think is best for yourself. And Mrs. Van Cleave's offer is very generous. But you know how much I would like to have you working with me in the League."
Yetta got up and went to the window. She knew that all the eyes were fixed on her back. She knew what they were thinking, and she resented it. They had all had a college education given them as a matter of course. They could not know what it meant to her. She could not get her wits together under their silent regard.
"I guess I'll go and lie down till dinner," she said. "I must think—about to-night's speech."
When she had disappeared, Longman broke out.
"Why can't you women be frank and say what you think? Mrs. Karner's proposal is better than Mrs. Van Cleave's. She'll make a horrible mistake if she ties up with a lot of millionnaire snobs."
"Mabel," Mrs. Karner said solemnly, "let us keep perfectly still and listen to some man-wisdom."
In the face of this jibe, Longman had nothing more to say.
"Does the lord of creation think," Mrs. Karner went on, "that little Yetta Rayefsky is only deciding whether she'll go to college or not?"
"Well, for God's sake, why don't you try to help her instead of making it harder for her?"
"Has the philosopher not yet discovered that some things are not decided until one decides them alone? Saint Paul had to go off to Arabia. Yetta's gone to my guest-room. You can help a person pay her rent and, if you've lots of tact and taste and insight, you can help her choose a becoming hat, but you can't help a person to do the brave thing."
"That's witty," Longman said sourly. "But I didn't happen to be joking."
"When we want to vote, Mabel, the men say we have no sense of humor. But now he accuses me of joking—and apparently," she said after a pause,—"he thinks Yetta doesn't know just how we feel."