VI
A FIGHT IN GOOD EARNEST
Sally hesitated before going into Marrin's that Monday morning. A blinding snow-storm was being released over the city, and the fierce gusts eddied about the corner of Fifth Avenue, blew into drifts, lodged on sill and cornice and lintel, and blotted out the sky and the world. Through the wild whiteness a few desolate people ploughed their way, buffeted, blown, hanging on to their hats, and quite unable to see ahead. Sally shoved her red little hands into her coat pockets, and stood, a careless soul, in the white welter.
From her shoulder, some hundred feet to the south, ran the plate-glass of Marrin's, spotted and clotted and stringy with snow and ice, and right before her was the entrance for deliveries and employees. A last consideration held her back. She had been lying awake nights arguing with her conscience. Joe had told her not to do it—that it would only stir up trouble—but Joe was too kindly. In the battles of the working people a time must come for cruelty, blows, and swift victory. Marrin was an out-and-out enemy to be met and overthrown; he had made traitors of the men; he had annihilated Izon; she would fight him with the women.
Nor was this the only reason. Sally felt that her supreme task was to organize the women in industry, to take this trampled class and make of it a powerful engine for self-betterment, and no women were more prepared, she felt, than the shirtwaist-makers. She knew that at Marrin's the conditions were fairly good, though, even there, women and young girls worked sometimes twelve hours and more a day, and earned, many of them, but four or five dollars a week. What tempted Sally, however, was the knowledge that a strike at Marrin's would be the spark to set off the city and bring out the women by the thousands. It would be the uprising of the women; the first upward step from sheer wage-slavery; the first advance toward the ideal of that coming woman, who should be a man in her freedom and her strength and her power, and yet woman of woman in her love and her motherhood and wife-hood. Industry, so Sally knew, was taking the young girls by the million, overworking them, sapping them of body and soul, and casting them out unfit to bear children, untrained to keep house, undisciplined to meet life and to be a comrade of a man. And Sally knew, moreover, what could be done. She knew what she had accomplished with the hat-trimmers.
Nevertheless, she hesitated, not quite sure that the moment had come. Joe's words detained her in a way no man's words had ever done before. But she thought: "I do this for him. I sharpen the edge of his editorial and drive it home. Words could never hurt Marrin—but I can." She got under the shelter of the doorway and with numb hand pulled a copy of The Nine-Tenths from her pocket, unfolded it, and reread the burning words of: "Forty-five Treacherous Men." They roused all her fighting blood; they angered her; they incited her.
"Joe! Joe!" she murmured. "It's you driving me on—it's you! Here goes!"
It was in some ways a desperate undertaking. Once, in Newark, a rough of an employer had almost thrown her down the stairs, man-handling her, and while Marrin or his men would not do this, yet what method could she use to brave the two hundred and fifty people in the loft? She was quite alone, quite without any weapon save her tongue. To fail would be ridiculous and ignominious. Yet Sally was quite calm; her heart did not seem to miss a beat; her brain was not confused by a rush of blood. She knew what she was doing.
She climbed that first flight of semi-circular stairs without hindrance, secretly hoping that by no mischance either Marrin or one of his sub-bosses might emerge. There was a door at the first landing. She passed it quickly and started up the second flight. Then there was a turning of a knob, a rustling of skirts, and a voice came sharp:
"Where are you going?"
Sally turned. The forelady stood below her—large, eagle-eyed woman, with square and wrinkled face, quite a mustache on her upper lip. Sally spoke easily.
"Up-stairs."
"For what?"
"To see one of the girls. Her mother's sick."
The forelady eyed Sally suspiciously.
"Did you get a permit from the office?"
Sally seemed surprised.
"Permit? No! Do you have to get a permit?"
The forelady spoke roughly.
"You get a permit, or you don't go up."
"Where's the office?"
"In here."
"Thanks for telling me!"
Sally came down, and, as she entered the doorway, the forelady proceeded up-stairs. Sally delayed a second, until the forelady disappeared around the bend, and then quickly, quietly she followed, taking the steps two at a time. The forelady had hardly entered the doorway on the next landing when Sally was in with her, and treading softly in her footsteps.
This was the loft, vast, lit by windows east and west, and hung, this snow-darkened morning, with many glittering lights. Through all the space girls and women, close together, bent over power-machines which seemed to race at intolerable speed. There was such a din and clatter, such a whizzing, thumping racket, that voices or steps would well be lost. Then suddenly, in the very center of the place, the forelady, stopping to speak to a girl, while all the girls of the neighborhood ceased work to listen, thus producing a space of calm—the forelady, slightly turning and bending, spied Sally.
She came up indignantly.
"Why did you follow me? Go down to the office!"
Many more machines stopped, many more pale faces lifted and watched.
Sally gave a quick glance around, and was a trifle upset by seeing Mr. Marrin coming straight toward her. He came with his easy, tripping stride, self-satisfied, red-faced, tastefully dressed, an orchid in his buttonhole. Sally spoke quickly.
"I was only looking for Mr. Marrin, and here he is!"
As Mr. Marrin came up, more and more machines stopped, as if by contagion, and the place grew strangely hushed.
The forelady turned to her boss.
"This woman's sneaked in here without a permit!"
Marrin spoke sharply.
"What do you want?"
Then in the quiet Sally spoke in a loud, exultant voice.
"I only wanted to tell the girls to strike!"
A sudden electricity charged the air.
"What!" cried Marrin, the vein on his forehead swelling. "You come in here—"
"To tell the girls to strike," Sally spoke louder. "For you've made the men traitors and you've blacklisted Izon."
Marrin sensed the danger in the shop's quiet.
"For God's sake," he cried, "lower your voice—speak to me—tell me in private—"
"I am," shrieked Sally. "I'm telling you I want the girls to strike!"
He turned.
"Come in my private office, quick! I'll talk with you!"
Sally followed his hurried steps.
"Yes, I'll tell you there," she fairly shrieked, "that I want the girls to strike!"
Marrin turned.
"Can't you shut up?"
And then Sally wheeled about and spoke to the two hundred.
"Girls! come on out! We'll tie him up! We're not like the men! We won't stand for such things, will we?"
Then, in the stillness, Jewish girls here and there rose from their machines. It was like the appearance of apparitions. How did it come that these girls were more ready than any one could have guessed, and were but waiting the call? More and more arose, and low murmurs spread, words, "It's about time! I won't slave any more! He had no right to put out Izon! The men are afraid! Mr. Blaine is right!"
Marrin tried to shout:
"I order you to get to work!"
But a tumult drowned his voice, a busy clamor, an exultant jabber of tongues, a rising, a shuffling, a moving about.
Sally marched down the aisle.
"Follow me, girls! We're going to have a union!"
It might have been the Pied Piper of Hamelin whistling up the rats—there was a hurrying, a scurrying, a weird laughter, a blowing about of words, and the two hundred, first swallowing up Sally, crowded the doorway, moved slowly, pushed, shoved, wedged through, and disappeared, thundering, shouting and laughing, down the steps. The two hundred, always so subdued, so easily bossed, so obedient and submissive, had risen and gone.
Marrin looked apoplectic. He rushed over to where the forty-four men were sitting like frightened animals. He spoke to the one nearest him.
"Who was that girl? I've seen her somewhere!"
"She?" the man stammered. "That's Joe Blaine's girl."
"Joe Blaine!" cried Marrin.
"Look," said the man, handing Marrin a copy of The Nine-Tenths, "the girls read this this morning. That's why they struck."
Marrin seized the paper. He saw the title:
FORTY-FIVE TREACHEROUS MEN
and he read beneath it:
Theodore Marrin, and the forty-four who went back to
work for him:
Every one of you is a traitor to American citizenship.
Let us use blunt words and call a spade a spade.
Theodore Marrin, you have betrayed your employees.
And then farther down:
No decent human being would work for such a man. He has no right to be an employer—not in such hands should be placed the sacred welfare of men and women. If I were one of Marrin's employees I would prefer the streets to his shop.
Marrin looked up at the forty-four. And he saw that they were more than frightened—they were in an ugly humor, almost ferocious. The article had goaded them into a senseless fury.
Marrin spoke more easily.
"So that's your friend of labor, that's your Joe Blaine. Well, here is what your Joe Blaine has done for you. You're no good to me without the girls. You're all discharged!"
He left them and made madly for the door. The men were chaotic with rage; they arose; their voices went sharp and wild.
"What does that Joe Blaine mean? He takes the bread out of our mouths!
He makes fools of us! He ought to be shot! I spit on him! Curse him!"
One man arose on a chair.
"You fools—you listened to that man, and went on strike—and now you come back, and he makes you lose your jobs. Are you going to be fools now? Are you going to let him get the best of you? He is laughing at you, the pig. The girls are laughing at you. Come on! We will go down and show him—we will assemble before his place and speak to him!"
The men were insane with rage and demon-hate. Vehemently shouting, they made for the stairs, rushed pell-mell down, and sought the street, and turned south through the snow. There were few about to notice them, none to stop them. Policemen were in doorways and odd shelters. And so, unimpeded, the crazed mob made its way.
In the mean time Marrin had come out in his heavy fur coat and stepped into his closed automobile. It went through the storm, easily gliding, turned up West Tenth Street, and stopped before Joe's windows. Marrin hurried in and boldly opened the office door. Billy jumped up to intercept him.
"Mr. Blaine—" he began.
"Get out of my way!" snapped Marrin, and stepped up to Joe.
Joe was brooding at his desk, brooding and writing, his dark face troubled, his big form quite stoop-shouldered.
"Well," said Joe, "what's the matter, Mr. Marrin?"
Marrin tried to contain his rage. He pointed his cane at Joe.
"You've made a mistake, Mr. Blaine."
"It isn't the first one."
"Let me tell you something—"
"I will let you."
Marrin spoke with repression.
"Next time—don't attack both the boss and the men. It's bad policy.
Take sides."
"Oh, I did take sides," said Joe, lightly. "I'm against anything treacherous."
Marrin exploded.
"Well, you'll get yours! And let me tell you something! I've a good mind to sue you for libel and shut up your shop."
Joe rose, and there was a dangerous light in his eyes. His hands were open at his sides, but they twitched a little.
"Then," said Joe, "I'll make it worth your while. If you don't want to be helped out, get out!"
"Very well," sputtered Marrin, and turned, twirling his cane, and made an upright exit.
The sad Slate was paralyzed; Billy was joyous.
But Joe strode into the kitchen, where his mother was quietly reading at the window.
"What is it, Joe?"
"Mother," he said, "that fellow Marrin was in threatening to sue me for libel."
"Could it hurt you?"
"It might. Speaking the truth is always libelous."
Joe's mother spoke softly.
"Your father lost an arm in the war. You can't expect to fight without facing danger. And besides," she laughed easily, "you can always get a job as a printer, Joe."
Joe paced up and down moodily, his hands clasped behind his back.
"If it was only myself—" he murmured, greatly troubled. "I wonder where
Sally is this morning."
"Didn't she come, Joe?"
"No. Not a word from her. I'd hate her to be sick."
"Hadn't you better send over and see?"
"I'll wait a bit yet. And yet—" he sighed, "I just need Sally now."
His mother glanced at him keenly.
"Sally's a wonder," she murmured.
"She is—" He spoke a little irritably. "Why couldn't she have come this morning?"
There were quick steps, and Billy rushed in, his eyes large, his cheeks pale.
"Mr. Joe!" he said breathlessly.
"Yes, Billy."
"There's a lot of men out on the street, and they're beginning to fire snowballs!"
Nathan Slate came in, a scarecrow of fear, teeth chattering.
"Oh, Mr. Joe," he wailed. "Oh, Mr. Joe!"
Joe's mother rose, and spoke under her breath.
"Mr. Slate, sit down at once!"
Slate collapsed on a chair, trembling.
Joe felt as if a fork of lightning had transfixed him—a sharp white fire darting from head and feet and arms to his heart, and whirling there in a spinning ball. He spoke quietly:
"I'll go and see."
It seemed long before he got to the front window. Looking out through the snow-dim pane, he saw the street filled with gesticulating men. He saw some of the faces of the forty-four, but mingled with these were other faces—the faces of toughs and thugs, ominous, brutal, menacing. In a flash he realized that he had been making enemies in the district as well as friends, and it struck him that these were the criminal element in the political gang, hangers-on, floaters, the saloon contingent, who were maddened by his attempt to lead the people away from the rotten bosses. As if by magic they had emerged from the underworld, as they always do in times of trouble, and he knew that the excited East Side group was now flavored with mob-anarchy—that he had to deal, not with men whose worst weapon was words, but with brutes who lusted for broken heads. Some of the faces he knew—he had seen them hanging about saloons. And he saw, too, in that swift scrutiny, that many of the men had weapons; some had seized crowbars and sledges from a near-by street tool-chest which was being used by laborers; others had sticks; some had stones. An ominous sound came from the mob, something winged with doom and death, like the rattling of a venomous snake, with head raised to strike, ready fangs and glittering eyes. He could catch in that paralyzing hum words tossed here and there: "Smash his presses! Clean him out! Lynch him, lynch him! Kill—kill—kill!—"
A human beast had coiled at his door, myriad-headed, insane, bloodthirsty, all-powerful—the mob, that terror of civilization, that sudden reversion in mass to a state of savagery. It boded ill for Joe Blaine. He had a bitter, cynical thought:
"So this is what comes of spreading the truth—of really trying to help—of living out an ideal!"
A snowball hit the window before him, a soft crash and spread of drip, and there rose from the mob a fiendish yell that seemed itself a power, making the heart pound, dizzying the brain.
Joe turned. His mother was standing close to him, white as paper, but her eyes flashing. She had not dared speak to Joe, knowing that this fight was his and that he had passed out of her hands.
He spoke in a low, pulsing voice.
"Mother, I want you to stay in back!"
She looked at him, as if drinking her fill of his face.
"You're right, Joe," she whispered, and turned and went out.
Billy was standing at the stove, a frightened boy, but he gripped the poker in his hand.
"Billy," said Joe, quietly, "run down and tell Rann to keep 'em out of the press-room."
Billy edged to the door, opened it, and fled.
Joe was quite alone. He sat down at his desk and took up the telephone.
"Hello, Central!" his voice was monotonous in its lowness and tenseness.
"Hello!"
"Give me police headquarters—quick!"
Central seemed startled.
"Police—? Yes, right away! Hold on!—Here they are!"
"Hello! Police headquarters!" came a man's voice.
"This is Joe Blaine." Joe gave his address. "There's a riot in front of the house—a big mob. Send over a patrol wagon on the jump!"
At that moment there was a wild crash of glass, and a heavy stone sang through the air and knocked out the stove-pipe—pipe and stone falling to the floor with a rumble and rattle—and from the mob rose murderous yells.
So Joe was able to add:
"They've just smashed my window with a stone. You'd better come damn fast."
"Right off!" snapped Headquarters.
Joe put down the telephone, and stepped quietly over the room and out into the hall. Even at that moment the hall door burst wide and a frenzied push and squabble of men poured forth upon him. In that brief glimpse, in the dim storm-light, Joe saw faces that were anything but human—wild animals, eyes blood-shot, mouths wide, and many fists in the air above their heads. There was no mercy, no thought, nothing civilized—but somehow the demon-deeps of human nature, crusted over with the veneer of gentler things, had broken through. Worse than anything was the crazy hum, rising and rising, the hoarse notes, the fierce discord, that beat upon his brain as if to drown him under.
Joe tried to shout:
"Keep back! I'll shoot! Keep back!"
But at once the rough bodies, the terrible faces were upon him, surrounding him, pushing him. He seized a little man who was jumping for his throat—seized and shook the little beast.
"Get back!" he cried.
Fists pushed into his eyes, blows began to rain upon his body and his head. He ducked. He felt himself propelled backward by an irresistible force. He felt his feet giving way. Warm and reeking breath blew up his nostrils. He heard confused cries of: "Kill him! That's him! We've got him!" Back and back he went, the torn center of a storm, and then something warm and sweet gushed over his eyes, earth opened under him and he sank, sank through soft gulfs, deeper and deeper, far from the troublous noise of life, far, far—into an engulfing blackness.
The flood poured on, gushing down the stair-way, at the foot of which
Rann and his two men stood, all armed with wrenches and tools.
Rann shouted.
"I'll break the head of any one who comes!"
The men in advance tried to break away, well content to leave their heads whole, but those in the rear pushed them on. Whack! whack! went the wrench—the leader fell. But then with fierce screams the mob broke loose, the three men were swept into the vortex of a fighting whirlpool. Some one opened the basement gate from the inside and a new stream poured in. The press-room filled—crowbars got to work—while men danced and wildly laughed and exulted in their vandal work. Then suddenly arose the cry of, "Police!" Tools dropped; the mob turned like a stampede of cattle, crushed for the doors, cried out, caught in a trap, and ran into the arms of blue-coated officers….
When Joe next opened his eyes and looked out with some surprise on the same world that he was used to, he found himself stretched in his bed and a low gas-flame eyeing him from above. He put out a hand, because he felt queer about the head, and touched bandages. Then some one spoke in his ear.
"You want to keep quiet, Mr. Blaine."
He looked. A doctor was sitting beside him.
"Where's mother?" he asked.
"Here I am, Joe." Her voice was sweet in his ears.
She was sitting on the bed at his feet.
"Come here."
She took the seat beside him and folded his free hand with both of hers.
"Mother—I want to know what's the matter with me—every bit of it."
"Well, Joe, you've a broken arm and a banged-up head, but you'll be all right."
"And you—are you all right?"
"Perfectly."
"They didn't go in the kitchen?"
"No."
"And the press?"
"It's smashed."
"And the office?"
"In ruins."
"How about Rann and the men?"
"Bruised—that's all."
"The police came?"
"Cleaned them out."
There was a pause; then Joe and his mother looked at each other with queer expressions on their faces, and suddenly their mellow laughter filled the room.
"Isn't it great, mother? That's what we get!"
"Well, Joe," said his mother, "what do you expect?"
Suddenly then another stood before him—bowed, remorseful, humble. It was Sally Heffer, the tears trickling down her face.
She knelt at the bedside and buried her face in the cover.
"It's my fault!" she cried. "It's my fault!"
"Yours, Sally?" cried Joe, quite forgetting the "Miss." "How so?"
"I—I went to Marrin's and got the girls out."
"Got the girls out?" Joe exclaimed. "Where are they?"
"On the street."
"Bring them into the ruins," said Joe, "and organize them. I'm going to make a business of this thing."
Sally looked up aghast.
"But I—I ought to be shot down. It's I that should have been hurt."
Joe smiled on her.
"Sally! Sally! what an impetuous girl you are! What would I do without you?"
VII
OF THE THIRTY THOUSAND
One wonderful January twilight, when the clear, cold air seemed to tremble with lusty health, Myra sat alone in the Ramble, before the little frozen pond. And she thought:
"This is the bench we sat on; and it was here, that morning, that we quarreled; and this is the little pond; and those the trees—but how changed! how changed!"
A world-city practises magic. Any one who for years has slept in her walls and worn the pave of her streets and mingled with her crowds and her lighted nights, is changed by her subtle enchantment into a child of the city. He is never free thereafter. The metropolis may send him forth like a carrier-pigeon, and he may think he is well rid of his mistress, but the homing instinct inevitably draws him back. "All other pleasures," as Emerson said of love, "are not worth its pains." Myra thought that she hated New York—the great nervous sea of life, whose noise and stress and tragedy had shattered her health. She had longed for the peace of nature; she had gone forth to the meadows and the mountains, and for a long time been content with the sounds of the barnyard and the farm, the wind and the brook; she had sunk, as it were, into the arms of the earth and rested on that great nourishing breast. She loved pure air, far horizons, quiet, and the mysterious changes of the landscape. She thought she was done with the city forever. For had she not found that the Vision of White Towers seen that first evening was hollow and bitter at the heart, that beneath the beauty was dust and horror, routine and disease?
But one snow-bound morning as she gazed out from the quiet house and saw the limitless white of the world, the fences buried, the trees loaded, the earth lost under the gray heavens, suddenly she was filled with a passionate desire for life. She was amazed at the restlessness in her heart. But she could not shake it off. Her desire was very definite—to walk down Eightieth Street, to hear and see the trolleys bounding down the little hill to Seventy-ninth Street, to shop on Third Avenue, to go threading her way through the swarm of school children outside the school gates. And then subtly she felt the elixir of a Broadway night, the golden witchery of the lights, the laughter-smitten people, the crowded cars and motors, the shining shops, the warmth of the crowd. A thousand memories of streets and rooms, of people and of things, flooded her mind. The country seemed barren and cold and lonely. She was grievously homesick. It was as if the city cried: "It is winter; the world is dark and dead. Come, my children, gather together; gather here in my arms, you millions; laugh and converse together, toil together, light fires, turn on lights, warm your hands and souls at my flaming hearth. We will forget the ice and the twilight! Come, winter is the time for human beings!"
And so Myra awoke to the fact that she was indeed a child of the city—that the magic was in her blood and the enchantment in her heart. It was useless to recall the mean toil, the narrow life, the unhealthy days. These, dropped in the great illusion of crowded New York, were transformed into a worthy struggle, a part of the city's reality. She suddenly felt as if she would go crazy if she stayed in the country—its stillness stifled her, its emptiness made her ache.
But there was a deeper call than the call of the city. She wanted to be with Joe. Her letters to him had been for his sake, not hers. She had tried to save him from herself, to shut him out and set him free, to cure him of his love. Desperately she did this, knowing that the future held nothing for them together. And for a time it had been a beautiful thing to do, until finally she was compelled to believe that he really was cured. His notes were more and more perfunctory, until, at last, they ceased altogether. Then, when she knew she had lost him, it seemed to her that she had condemned herself to a barren, fruitless life; that the best had been lived, and it only remained now to die. She had given up her "whole existence," cast out that by which she truly lived. There were moments of inexpressible loneliness, when, reading in the orchard, or brooding beside some rippling brook, she glanced southward and sent her silent cry over the horizon. Somewhere down there he was swallowed in the vastness of life; she remembered the lines of his face, his dark melancholy eyes, his big human, humorous lips, his tall, awkward strength; she felt still those kisses on her lips; felt his arms about her; the warmth of his hand; the whisper of his words; and the wind in the oaks.
That afternoon at the riverside he had cast his future at her feet. She had been offered that which runs deeper than hunger or dream or toil, the elemental, the mystic, the very glory of a woman's life. She had been offered a life, too, of comradeship and great issues. And now, when these gifts were withdrawn, she knew she would nevermore have rest or joy in this world. Is not life the adventure of a man and a woman going forth together, toiling, and talking, and laughing, and creating on the road to death? Is not earth the mating-place for souls? Out of nature we rise and seek out each other and mate and make of life a glory and a mystery. This is the secret of youth, and the magic of all music and of all sorrow and of all toil. Or, so it seemed to Myra.
There is no longing in the world so tragic or terrible as that of men and women for each other. And so Myra had her homesickness for the city transfused and sharpened by her overmastering love. She fought with herself bitterly; she resolved to wait for one more mail. Nothing came in that mail.
Then she evaded the issue. There were practical reasons for her return. Her health was quite sound again, she had been idle long enough; it was time to get back to work. What if she did return to the city? Surely it was not necessary to seek out Joe. It would be enough to be near him. He need not be troubled. So vast is the city that he would not know of her presence. What harm, then, in easing her heart, in getting back into the warmth and stir of life?
With a young girl's joy she packed her trunk and took the train for New York, and at sunset, as she rode in the ferry over the North River, she stood bravely out on deck, faced the bitter and salt wind, and saw, above the flush of the waters, that breathless skyline which, like the prow of some giant ship, seemed making out to sea. Lights twinkled in windows, signal-lamps gleamed red and green on the piers, chimneys smoked, and as the ferry nosed its way among the busy craft of the river, Myra exulted. She was coming back! This again was New York, real, right there, unbudged, her thousand lights like voices calling her home. The ferry landed; she hurried out and took a surface car And how good the crowd seemed, how warm the noise and the lights, what gladness was in the evening ebb-tide of people, how splendid the avenues shone with their sparkle and their shops and their traffic! She felt again the good hard pave under her feet. She met again a hundred familiar scenes. The vast flood of life seemed to engulf her, suck her up as if to say: "Well, you're here again! Come, there is room! Another human being!"
All about her was rich life, endless sights, confusion and variety. The closing darkness was pierced with lights, windows glowed, people were hurrying home. It was all as she had left it. And she felt then that the city was but Joe multiplied, and that Joe was the city. Both were cosmopolitan, democratic, tragic, light-hearted, many-faceted. Both were careless and big and easy and roomy. Both had a great freedom about them. And what a freedom the city had!—nothing snowbound here, but invitation, shops open, cars gliding, the millions transported back and forth, everything open and inviting.
She was glad for her neat back room—for gas-lights and running water—for the comfort and ease of life. She was glad even to sit in the crowded dining-room, and that night she was glad to lie abed and hear the city's heart pounding about her—that old noise of whistles on the river, that old thunder of the elevated train.
But she found that nearness to Joe made it impossible to keep away from him. Just as of old she had found excuses for going up to the trembling printery, so now she felt that somehow she must seek him out. She kept wondering what he was doing at that particular moment. Was he toiling or idling? Was he with his mother? Did he still wear the same clothes, the same half-worn necktie, the same old lovable gray hat? What would he say, how would he look, if she suddenly confronted him? Myra had to laugh softly to herself. She saw the wonder in his face, the open mouth, the flashing eyes. Or, would he be embarrassed? Was there some other woman—one who accorded with his ideals—one who could share his life-work? Of course she hoped that there was. She hoped he had found some one worthy of him. But the thought gave her intense misery. Why had he thrown his life away and gone down into that foolish and shoddy neighborhood? Surely when she saw him she would be disappointed by the changes in him. He would be more than ever a fanatic—more than ever an unreasonable radical. He might even be vulgarized by his environment—might have taken its color, been leveled down by its squalor.
She must forget the new Joe and cleave to the old Joe. Next afternoon, walking out, almost involuntarily, she turned west and entered the Park. The trees were naked, a lacy tracery of boughs against the deep-blue sky. She followed the curve, she crossed the roadway, she climbed the hill to the Ramble. She began to tingle with the keen, crisp air, and with the sense of adventure. It was almost as if she were going to meet Joe—as if they had arranged a secret meeting. She took the winding paths, she passed the little pool. There was the bench! But empty.
Then she sat down on that bench, and looked out at the naked wilderness of trees, at the ice in the pond, at the sodden brown, dead grasses. The place was wildly forlorn and bare. When they had last been here the air had been tinged with the haunting autumn, the leaves had been falling, the pool had been deep with the heavens. And again she thought:
"This is the bench we sat on; and it was here, that morning, that we quarreled; this is the little pond, and those the trees—but how changed! how changed!"
Then as she sat there she beheld the miracle of color. Behind her, between the black tree trunks, the setting sun was a liquid red splendor, daubing some low clouds with rosiness, and all about her, in the turn between day and night, the world, which before was a blend in the strong light, now divided into a myriad sharp tints. The air held a tinge of purple, the distance a smoky violet, the brown of the grasses was a strong brown, the black of the trunks intensely black. Out among distant trees she saw a woman and child walking, and the child's scarlet cloak seemed a living thing as it swayed and moved. How sharp and distinct were the facts of earth! how miraculously tinted! what tones of blue and red, of purple and black! It was the sunset singing its hymn of color, and it made her feel keenly the mystery and beauty of life—the great moments of solution and peace—the strange human life that inhabits for a brief space this temple of a million glories. But something was missing, there was a great lack, a wide emptiness. She resolved then to see Joe.
It was not, however, until the next afternoon that she took the elevated train to Ninth Street and then the crosstown car over the city. She alighted in the shabby street; she walked up to the entrance; she saw over the French windows a big canvas sign, "Strike Headquarters." Within, she thought she saw a mass of people. This made her hesitate. She had expected to find him alone. And somehow, too, the place was even shabbier, even meaner than she had expected. And so she stood a moment—a slender, little woman, her hands in a muff, a fur scarf bound about her throat, her gray eyes liquid and luminous, a rosy tint in her cheeks, her lips parted and releasing a thin steam in the bitter winter air. Overhead the sky was darkening with cloud-masses, a shriveling wind dragged the dirty street, and the world was desolate and gray. The blood was pulsing in Myra's temples, her heart leaped, her breath panted. And as she hesitated a girl passed her, a girl about whose breast was bound a placard whereon were the words:
JOIN THE STRIKE OF THE THIRTY THOUSAND
What strike? What did it mean? Was Joe in a strike? She thought he had been editing a paper. She had better not intrude. She turned, as if to fly, and yet hesitated. Her feet refused to go; her heart was rebellious. Only a wall divided him from her. Why should she not see him? Why not a moment's conversation? Then she would go and leave him to his work.
Another girl passed her and paused—a girl also placarded, a girl with a strange beauty, somewhat tall, with form well rounded, with pale face full of the fascination of burning eagerness. This girl's eyes were a clear blue, her lips set tight, and her light-brown hair blew beautifully about her cheeks. She was, however, but thinly clothed, and her frail little coat was short and threadbare.
She spoke to Myra—a rich, sympathetic voice.
"Are you looking for Mr. Blaine?"
"Yes—" said Myra, almost gasping. "Is he in?"
"He's always in!" The girl smiled.
"There's nothing the matter?"
"With him? No! But come, come out of the cold!"
There was nothing to do but follow. The girl opened a door and they entered the office. It was crowded with girls and women and men. Long benches were about the wall, camp-stools filled the floor. Many were seated; on two of the benches worn-out men were fast asleep, and between the seats groups of girls were talking excitedly. Several lights burned in the darkening room, and Myra saw swiftly the strange types—there were Jewish girls, Italian girls, Americans, in all sorts of garbs, some very flashy with their "rat"-filled hair, their pompadours, their well-cut clothes, others almost in rags; some tall, some short, some rosy-cheeked, many frail and weak and white. At a table in the rear Giotto was receiving money from Italians and handing out union cards. He looked as if he hadn't slept for nights.
Myra was confused. She felt strangely "out" of all this; strangely, as if she were intruding. The smell of the place offended her, especially as it was mixed with cheap perfumes; and the coarse slangy speech that flashed about jarred on her ear. But at the same time she was suffocating with suspense.
"Where is he?" she murmured—they were standing right within the door.
"Over there!" the girl pointed.
But all Myra saw was a black semicircle of girls leaning over some one invisible near the window.
"He's at his desk, and he's talking with a committee. You'd better wait till he's finished!"
This news choked Myra. Wait? Wait here? Be shut out like this? She was as petulant as a child; she felt like shedding tears.
But the girl at her side seemed to be playing the part of hostess, and she had to speak.
"What strike is this?"
The girl was amazed.
"What strike! Don't you know?"
Myra smiled.
"No—I don't. I've been out of the city."
"It's the shirtwaist-makers' strike."
"Oh! I see!" said Myra, mechanically.
"It's the biggest woman's strike that ever was. Thirty thousand out—Italians, Jews, and Americans."
"Yes?" Myra was not listening.
Suddenly then the door was flung open and a well-dressed girl rushed in, crying shrilly:
"Say, girls, what do you think?"
A group gathered about her.
"What's up? What's the news? Don't stand there all day!"
The girl spoke with exultant indignation.
"I've been arrested!"
"Arrested! You!"
"And I didn't do nothing, either—I was good. What do you think of this? The judge fined me ten dollars. Well, let me tell you, I'm going to get something for those ten dollars! I'm going to raise—hell!"
"You bet! Ain't it a shame?"
And the group swallowed her up.
Myra wondered why the girl had been arrested, and was surprised at her lack of shame and humiliation.
But she had not much time for thought. The door opened again, and Sally
Heffer entered, sparkling, neat, eyes clear.
At once cries arose:
"Here's Sal! Hello, Sally Heffer! Where have you been?" Girls crowded about. "What's the news? Where did you come from?"
Where had Myra heard that name before?
Sally spoke with delicious fastidiousness.
"I've been to Vassar."
"Vassar College?"
"Yes, Vassar College—raised fifty dollars!"
"Sally's it, all right! Say, Sal, how did they treat you? Stuck up?"
"Not a bit," said Sally. "They were ever so good to me. They're lovely girls—kind, sweet, sympathetic. They wanted to help and they were very respectful, but"—she threw up her hands—"oh, they're ignorant!"
There was a shout of laughter. Myra was shocked. A slum girl to speak like this of Vassar students? She noticed then, with a queer pang, that Sally made for the window group, who at once made a place for her. Sally had easy access to Joe.
The girl at her side was speaking again.
"You've no idea what this strike means. There's some rich women interested in it—they work right with us, hold mass-meetings, march in the streets—they're wonderful. And some of the big labor-leaders and even some of the big lawyers are helping. There's one big lawyer been giving all his time. You see, we're having trouble with the police."
"Yes, I see," said Myra, though she didn't see at all, and neither did she care. It seemed to her that she could not wait another instant. She must either go, or step over to his desk.
"Is he still so busy?" she asked.
"Yes, he is," said the girl. "Do you know him personally?"
Myra laughed softly.
"A little."
"Then you heard how he was hurt?"
"Hurt!" gasped Myra. Her heart seemed to grow small, and it was pierced by a sharp needle of pain.
"Yes, there was a riot here—the men came in and smashed everything."
"And Mr. Blaine? Tell me!" The words came in a blurt.
"Had his arm broken and his head was all bloody."
Myra felt dizzy, faint.
"But he's—better?"
"Oh, he's all right now."
"When did this happen?"
"About six weeks ago!"
Six weeks! That was shortly after the last letter came. Myra was suffering agony, and her face went very pale.
"How did it happen?" she breathed.
"Oh, he called some strikers traitors, and they came down and broke in.
It's lucky he wasn't killed."
He had suffered, he had been in peril of his life, while she was resting in the peace of the country. So this was a strike, and in this Joe was concerned. She looked about the busy room; she noticed anew the sleeping men and the toiling Giotto; and suddenly she was interested. She was wrenched, as it were, from her world into his. She felt in the heart of a great tragedy of life. And all the time she kept saying over and over again:
"His arm was broken! his head bloody! and I wasn't here! I wasn't at his side!"
And she had thought in her country isolation that life in the city wasn't real. What a moment that must have been when Joe faced the rioters—when they rushed upon him—when he might have been killed! And instead of deterring him from his work, here he was in the thick of it, braving, possibly, unspeakable dangers. Then, glancing about, it seemed to her that these girls and men were a part of his drama; he gave them a new reality. This was life, pulsing, immediate, tragic. She must go to him—she mustn't delay longer.
She took a few steps forward, and at almost the same moment the girls about Joe left him, scattering about the room. Then she saw him. And what a spectacle! He was in his shirt-sleeves, his hair was more tousled than ever, and his face was gray—the most tragic face she had ever seen—gray, sunken, melancholy, worn, as if he bore the burden of the world. But in one hand he held a pen, and in the other—a ham sandwich. It was a big sandwich, and every few moments he took a big bite, as he scratched on. Myra's heart was wrung with love and pity, with remorse and fondness, and mainly with the tragi-comedy of his face and the sandwich.
She stood over him a moment, breathless, panting, her throat full of blood, it seemed. Then she stooped a little and whispered:
"Joe."
He wheeled round; he looked up; his gray face seemed to grow grayer; his lips parted—he was more than amazed. He was torn away, as it were, from all business of life.
"Why," he said under his breath, "it's you, Myra!"
"Yes"—tears stood in her eyes—"it's I."
He surveyed her up and down, and then their eyes met. He ran his hand through his hair.
"You—you—" he murmured. "And how well you look, how strong, how fresh!
Sit down! sit down!"
She took the seat, trembling. She leaned forward.
"But you—you are killing yourself, Joe."
He smiled sadly.
"It's serious business, Myra."
She gazed at him, and spoke hard.
"Is there no end to it? Aren't you going to rest, ever?"
"End? No end now. The strike must be won."
He was trying to pull himself together. He gave a short laugh; he sat up.
"So you're back from the country."
"Yes, I'm back."
"To stay?"
"To stay."
"You're cured, then?"
"Yes," she smiled, "cured of many things. I like the city better than I thought!"
He gave her a sharp look.
"So!" Then his voice came with utter weariness: "Well, the city's a queer place, Myra. Things happen here."
Somehow she felt that he was standing her off. Something had crept in between them, some barrier, some wall. He had already emerged from the shock of the meeting. What if there were things in his life far more important than this meeting? Myra tried to be brave.
"I just wanted to see you—see the place—see how things were getting on."
Joe laughed softly.
"Things are getting on. Circulation's up to fifteen thousand—due to the strike."
"How so?"
"We got out a strike edition—and the girls peddled it around town, and lots subscribed. It's given the paper a big boost."
"I'm glad to hear it," Myra found herself saying.
"You glad?" If only his voice hadn't been so weary! "That's strange, Myra."
"It is strange!" she said, her eyes suffused again. His gray, tragic face seemed to be working on the very strings of her heart. She longed so to help him, to heal him, to breathe joy and strength into him.
"Joe!" she said.
He looked at her again.
"Yes, Myra."
"Oh—I—" She paused.
He smiled.
"Say it!"
"Isn't there some way I can help?"
A strange expression came to his face, of surprise, of wonder.
"You help?"
"Yes—I—"
"Mr. Blaine! Mr. Blaine!" Some one across the room was calling. "There's an employer here to see you!"
Joe leaped up, took Myra's hand, and spoke hastily.
"Wait and meet my mother. And come again—sometime. Sometime when I'm not so rushed!"
And he was gone—gone out of the room.
Myra arose, still warm with the touch of his hand—for his hand was almost fever-warm. All that she knew was that he had suffered and was suffering, and that she must help. She was burning now with an eagerness to learn about the strike, to understand what it was that so depressed and enslaved him, what it was that was slowly killing him. Her old theories met the warm clasp of life and vanished. She forgot her viewpoint and her delicacy. Life was too big for her shallow philosophy. It seized upon her now and absorbed her.
She strode back to the young girl, who she learned later was named Rhona
Hemlitz, and who was but seventeen years old.
She said: "Tell me about the strike! Can't we sit down together and talk? Have you time?"
"I have a little time," said Rhona, eagerly. "We can sit here!"
So they sat side by side and Rhona told her. Rhona's whole family was engaged in sweat-work. They lived in a miserable tenement over in Hester Street, where her mother had been toiling from dawn until midnight with the needle, with her tiny brother helping to sew on buttons, "finishing" daily a dozen pairs of pants, and making—thirty cents.
Myra was amazed.
"Thirty cents—dawn till midnight! Impossible!"
And then her father—who worked all day in a sweatshop.
"And you—what did you do?" asked Myra.
Rhona told her. She had worked in Zandler's shirtwaist factory—bending over a power-machine, whose ten needles made forty-four hundred stitches a minute. So fast they flew that a break in needle or thread ruined a shirtwaist; hence, never did she allow her eyes to wander, never during a day of ten to fourteen hours, while, continuously, the needles danced up and down like flashes of steel or lightning. At times it seemed as if the machine were running away from her and she had to strain her body to keep it back. And so, when she reeled home late at night, her smarting eyes saw sharp showers of needles in the air every time she winked, and her back ached intolerably.
"I never dreamt," said Myra, "that people had to work like that!"
"Oh, that's not all!" said Rhona, and went on. Her wages were rarely over five dollars a week, and for months, during slack season, she was out of work—came daily to the factory, and had to sit on a bench and wait, often fruitlessly. And then the sub-contracting system, whereunder the boss divided the work among lesser bosses who each ran a gang of toilers, speeding them up mercilessly, "sweating" them! And so the young girls, sixteen to twenty-five years old, were sapped of health and joy and womanhood, and, "as Mr. Joe wrote, the future is robbed of wives and mothers!"
Myra was amazed. She had a new glimpse of the woman problem. She saw now how millions of women were being fed into the machine of industry, and that thus the home was passing, youth was filched of its glory, and the race was endangered. This uprising of the women, then, meant more than she dreamed—meant the attempt to save the race by freeing the women from this bondage. Had they not a right then to go out in the open, to strike, to lead marches, to sway meetings, to take their places with men?
Such thoughts, confused and swift, came to her, and she asked Rhona what had happened. How had the strike started? First, said Rhona, there was the strike at Marrin's—a spark that set off the other places. Then at Zandler's conditions had become so bad that one morning Jake Hedig, her boss, a young, pale-faced, black-haired man, suddenly arose and shouted in a loud voice throughout the shop:
"I am sick of slave-driving. I resign my job."
The boss, and some of the little bosses, set upon him, struck him, and dragged him out, but as he went he shouted lustily:
"Brothers and sisters, are you going to sit by your machines and see a fellow-worker used this way?"
The machines stopped: the hundreds of girls and the handful of men marched out simultaneously. Then, swiftly the sedition had spread about the city until a great night in Cooper Union, when, after speeches of peace and conciliation, one of the girls had risen, demanded and secured the floor, and moved a general strike. Her motion was unanimously carried, and when the chairman cried, in Yiddish: "Do you mean faith? Will you take the old Jewish oath?" up went two thousand hands, with one great chorus:
"If I turn traitor to the cause I now pledge, may this hand wither from the arm I now raise."
By this oath Rhona was bound. And so were thirty thousand others—Americans, Italians, Jews—and with them were some of the up-town women, some of the women of wealth, some of the big lawyers and the labor-leaders and reformers.
"Some of the up-town women!" thought Myra. She was amazed to find herself so interested, so wrought up. And she felt as if she had stumbled upon great issues and great struggles; she realized, dimly, that first moment, that this strike was involved in something larger, something vaster—swallowed up in the advance of democracy, in the advance of woman. All the woman in her responded to the call to arms.
And she was discovering now what Joe had meant by his "crisis"—what he had meant by his fight for "more democracy; a better and richer life; a superber people on earth. It was a real thing. She burned now to help Joe—she burned to do for him—to enter into his tragic struggle—to be of use to him.
"What are you going to do now?" she asked Rhona.
"Now? Now I must go picketing."
"What's picketing?"
"March up and down in front of a factory and try to keep scabs out."
"What are scabs?" asked ignorant Myra.
Rhona was amazed.
"You don't even know that? Why, a scab's a girl who tries to take a striker's job and so ruin the strike. She takes the bread out of our mouths."
"But how can you stop her?"
"Talk to her! We're not allowed to use violence."
"How do you do it?"
Rhona looked at the eager face, the luminous gray eyes.
"Would you like to see it?"
"Yes, I would."
"But it's dangerous."
"How so?"
"Police and thugs, bums hanging around."
"And you girls aren't afraid?"
Rhona smiled.
"We don't show it, anyway. You see, we're bound to win."
Myra's eyes flashed.
"Well, if you're not afraid, I guess I haven't any right to be. May I come?"
Rhona looked at her with swift understanding.
"Yes, please do come!"
Myra rose. She took a last look about the darkening room; saw once more the sleeping men, the toiling Giotto, the groups of girls. Something tragic hung in the air. She seemed to breathe bigger, gain in stature, expand. She was going to meet the test of these newer women. She was going to identify herself with their vast struggle.
And looking once more, she sought Joe, but could not find him. How pleased he would be to know that she was doing this—doing it largely for him—because she wanted to smooth out that gray face, and lay her cheek against its lost wrinkles, and put her arm about his neck, and heal him.
Tears dimmed her eyes. She took Rhona's arm and they stepped out into the bleak street. Wind whipped their faces like quick-flicked knives. They walked close together.
"Is it far?" asked Myra.
"Quite far. It's over on Great Jones Street!"
And so Myra went, quite lost in the cyclone of life.