VIII
THE ARREST
They gained the corner of Great Jones Street—one of those dim byways of trade that branch off from the radiant avenues. As they turned in the street, they met a bitter wind that was blowing the pavement clean as polished glass, and the dark and closing day was set off sharply by the intense lamps and shop-lights. Here and there at a window a clerk pressed his face against the cold pane and looked down into the cheerless twilight, and many toilers made the hard pavement echo with their fast steps as they hurried homeward.
"There they are," said Rhona.
Two girls, both placarded, came up to them. One of them, a thin little skeleton, pitiably ragged in dress, with hollow eyes and white face, was coughing in the cuff of the wind. She was plainly a consumptive—a little wisp of a girl. She spoke brokenly, with a strong Russian accent.
"It's good to see you yet, Rhona. I get so cold my bones ready to crack."
She shivered and coughed. Rhona spoke softly.
"Fannie, you go right home, and let your mother give you a good drink of hot lemonade with whiskey in it. And take a foot-bath, too."
Fannie coughed again.
"Don't you tell me, Rhona. Look out for yourself. There gets trouble yet on this street."
Myra drew nearer, a dull feeling in her breast. Rhona spoke easily:
"None of the men said anything or did anything, did they?"
"Well, they say things; they make angry faces, and big fists, Rhona.
Better be careful."
"Where are they?"
"By Zandler's doorway. They get afraid of the cold."
Rhona laughed softly, and put an arm about the frail body.
"Now you run home, and don't worry about me! I can take care of myself.
I expect another girl, anyway."
"Good-night, Rhona."
"Good-night—get to bed, and don't forget the hot lemonade!"
The two girls departed, blowing, as it were, about the corner and out of sight. Rhona turned to Myra, whose face was pallid.
"Hadn't you better go back, Miss Craig? You see, I'm used to these things."
"No," said Myra, in a low voice. "I've come to stay."
She was thinking of tiny Fannie. What! Could she not measure to a little consumptive Russian?
"All right," said Rhona. "Let's begin!"
They started to walk quietly up and down before the darkened loft building—up fifty yards, down fifty yards. A stout policeman slouched under a street-lamp, swinging his club with a heavily gloved hand, and in the shadow of the loft-building entrance Rhona pointed out to Myra several ill-looking private detectives who danced up and down on their toes, blew their hands, smoked cigarettes, and kept tab of the time.
"It's they," whispered Rhona, "who make all the trouble. Some of them are ex-convicts and thugs. They are a rough lot."
"But why is it allowed?" asked Myra.
Rhona laughed.
"Why is anything allowed?"
The wind seemed to grow more and more cruel. Myra felt her ear-lobes swelling, the tip of her nose tingled and her feet and hands were numb. But they held on quietly in the darkening day. It all seemed simple enough—this walking up and down. So this was picketing!
Myra spoke softly as they turned and walked west.
"Have many of the girls been arrested?"
"Oh yes, a lot of them."
"Have they been disorderly?"
"Some of them have. It's hard to keep cool, with scabs egging you on and calling you cowards."
"And what happens to them if they are arrested?"
"Oh, fined—five, ten dollars."
They turned under the lamp; the policeman rose and sank on one foot after the other; they walked quietly back. Then, as they passed the doorway of the loft building, one of the young men stepped forward into the light. He was a square-set, heavy fellow, with long, square, protruding jaw, and little monkey eyes. His bearing was menacing. He stepped in front of the girls, who stopped still and awaited him. Myra felt the blood rush to her head, and a feeling of dizziness made her tremble. Then the man spoke sharply:
"Say, you—you can't go by here."
Myra gazed at him as if she were hypnotized, but Rhona's eyes flashed.
"Why not?"
"Don't jaw me," said the man. "But—clear out!"
Rhona tried to speak naturally.
"Isn't this a public street? Haven't I a right to walk up and down with my friend?"
Then Myra felt as if she were struck by lightning, or as if something sacred in her womanhood had been outraged.
With a savage growl: "You little sheeny!" the man suddenly struck out a fist and hit Rhona in the chest. She lurched, doubled, and fell, saving herself with her hands. Myra did not move, but a shock of horror went through her.
The two other young men in the doorway came forward, and home-goers paused, drew close, looked on curiously and silently. One nudged another.
"What's up?"
"Don't know!"
The thug muttered under his breath:
"Pull her up by her hair; we'll run her in!"
But Rhona had scrambled to her feet. She was too wild to cry or speak. She glanced around for help, shunning the evil monkey eyes. Then she saw the policeman under the lamp. He was still nonchalantly swinging his club.
She gave a gasping sob, pushing away Myra's offered help, and struggled over to him. He did not move. She stood, until he glanced at her. Then she caught his eye, and held him, and spoke with strange repression, as the crowd drew about them. Myra was in that crowd, dazed, outraged, helpless. She heard Rhona speaking:
"Do you think a man has any right to strike a girl?"
He did not answer; she still held his eyes.
"Do you think a man has any right to strike a girl?"
Still he said nothing, and the crowd became fascinated by the fixity of gaze of the two. Rhona's voice sharpened:
"Do you think a man has any right to strike a girl?"
The officer cleared his throat and looked away.
"Oh," he muttered carelessly, "it's all right. You people are always kicking, anyway."
Rhona's voice rose.
"I ask you to arrest him."
Several in the crowd backed this with mutterings. The policeman twirled his stick.
"Oh, all right!" he called. "Come along, Blondy!"
Blondy, the thug, came up grinning.
"Pinching me, John?" he asked.
"Sure." The policeman smiled, and then seized Blondy and Rhona each by an arm and started to march them toward Broadway. Myra followed wildly. Her mind was in a whirl and the bitter tears blurred her eyes. What could she do? How could she help? She sensed in the policeman's word a menace to Rhona. Rhona was in trouble, and she, Myra, was as good as useless in this crisis. She suddenly understood the helplessness of the poor and the weak, especially the poor and weak women. What could they do against this organized iniquity? Against the careless and cruel world? It was all right for gentlewomen in gentle environment to keep to the old ideals of womanhood—to stay at home and delegate their citizenship to the men. But those who were sucked into the vortex of the rough world, what of these? Were they not right in their attempts to organize, to rebel, to fight in the open, to secure a larger share of freedom and power?
But if these were Myra's feelings and thoughts—a sense of outrage, of being trampled on—they were little things compared with the agony in Rhona's breast. A growing and much-pleased crowd surrounded her, flinging remarks:
"Lock-steps for yours! Hello, Mamie! Oh, you kid! Now will you be good!
Carrie, go home and wash the dishes!"
And one boy darted up and snapped the placard from her waist. The crowd laughed, but Rhona was swallowing bitter tears.
They passed down Broadway a block or two, and then turned west. Brilliant light from the shop windows fell upon the moving scene—the easy-going men, the slouching, shrill boys, and the girl with her pale set face and uncertain steps. All the world was going home to supper, and Rhona felt strangely that she was now an exile—torn by the roots from her warm life to go on a lonely adventure against the powers of darkness. She had lost her footing in the world and was slipping into the night. She felt singularly helpless; her very rage and rebellion made her feel frail and unequal to the task. To be struck down in the street! To be insulted by a crowd! She had hard work to hold her head erect and keep back the bitter sobs.
Up the darkened street they went, the crowd gradually falling away. And suddenly they paused before the two green lamps of the new station-house, and then in a moment they had vanished through the doorway.
Myra rushed up, panting, to a policeman who stood on the steps.
"I want to go in—I'm with her."
"Can't do it, lady. She's under arrest."
"Not she," cried Myra. "The man."
"Oh, we'll see. You run along—keep out of trouble!"
Myra turned, confused, weak. She questioned a passer-by about the location of Ninth Street. "Up Broadway—seven or eight blocks!" She started; she hurried; her feet were winged with desperate fear. What could be done? How help Rhona? Surely Joe—Joe could do something. He would know—she would hasten to him and get his aid. That at least she could do.
Now and then a bitter sob escaped her. She felt that she had lost her self-respect and her pride. Like a coward she had watched Rhona attacked, had not even raised her voice, had not, even attempted interference. They might have listened to a well-dressed woman, a woman of refinement. And she had done nothing—just followed the crowd, nursing her wounded pride. She began to feel that the world was a big place, and that those without money or position are at the mercy of the powerful. She began to revise her opinion of America, more keenly than ever she understood Joe's passion for more democracy. And she had a sense, too, that she had never really known life—that her narrow existence had touched life at but a few minor points—and that the great on-struggle of the world, the vast life of the race, the million-eddying evolution were all outside her limits. Now she was feeling the edge of new existences. The knowledge humbled, almost humiliated her. She wondered that Joe had ever thought well of her, had ever been content to share his life with her.
Driven by these thoughts and by her fear and her apprehension for Rhona's safety, she plunged west, borne by the wind, buffeted, beaten, blown along. The lights behind the French windows were like beacons in a storm. She staggered into the hall, entered the room. Her hair was wild about her face, her cheeks pale, her eyes burning.
The room was still crowded, intensely busy. She noticed nothing, but pushed her way to Joe's desk. He was talking with two girls.
She confronted him.
"Joe!"
He lifted his gray, tragic face, amazed.
"You still here?"
It was as if he had forgotten her. But Myra was not now thinking of herself. She spoke, breathlessly:
"Joe, I think Rhona Hemlitz is in trouble."
"How so?"
"She was knocked down by a thug, and she had him arrested, but I'm afraid she's arrested."
A dangerous light came into Joe's eyes.
"All right! All right! Where did this happen?"
"On Great Jones Street."
"Well and good," he muttered.
"But isn't there anything to do?" cried Myra.
"Why, if she's not arrested, she'll come here and report, and if she doesn't come I'll go over to the Night Court at nine this evening."
"I must go with you," cried Myra.
"You?" He looked at her, and then suddenly he asked: "But how did you come to hear of this?"
"I was picketing with her."
A great change came over Joe's face, as if he beheld a miracle.
"Myra! So you have been picketing!"
Her face went very white.
"Don't! Don't!" she breathed painfully, sinking in a chair. "I was a coward, Joe—I didn't do anything to help her!"
"But what could you do?"
"Oh, something, anything."
He glanced at her keenly, and a swift smile lit his features. He spoke very gently.
"Myra, you step in back to my mother. Take supper with her. Keep her company. I'm afraid I'm neglecting mother these days."
"And the Night Court?" Myra was swallowing sobs.
"I'll look in for you at nine o'clock."
"Thank you," she whispered. "Oh, thank you."
It was something that he thought her worthy.
IX
RHONA
When the policeman with Rhona and Blondy passed up the steps between the green lamps of the new station-house, they found themselves in a long room whose warmth was a fine relief. They breathed more easily, loosened their coats, and then stepped forward. A police sergeant sat behind a railing, writing at a low desk, a low-hanging, green-shaded electric bulb above him.
Rhona felt that she had to speak quickly and get in her word before the others. She tried to be calm, but a dull sob went with the words.
"That man struck me—knocked me down. I've had him arrested."
The sergeant did not look up. He went on writing. Finally he spoke, easily:
"True, Officer?"
The policeman cleared his throat.
"The other way round, Sergeant. She struck the man."
Rhona breathed hard, a feeling in her breast of her heart breaking. She gasped:
"That's not true. He struck me—he struck me."
The sergeant glanced up.
"What's your name?"
Rhona could not answer for a moment. Then, faintly:
"Rhona Hemlitz."
"Age?"
"Seventeen."
"Address?"
"—— Hester Street."
"Occupation?"
"Shirtwaist-maker."
"Oh!" he whistled slightly. "Striker?"
"Yes."
"Picketing?"
"Yes."
"Held for Night Court trial. Lock her up, Officer."
Blackness closed over the girl's brain. She thought she was going into hysterics. Her one thought was that she must get help, that she must reach some one who knew her. She burst out:
"I want to telephone."
"To who?"
"Mr. Blaine—Mr. Blaine!"
"West Tenth Street feller?"
"Yes."
The sergeant winked to the policeman.
"Oh, the matron'll see to that! Hey, Officer?"
Rhona felt her arm seized, and then had a sense of being dragged, a feeling of cool, fetid air, a flood of darkness, voices, and then she knew no more. The matron who was stripping her and searching her had to get cold water and wash her face….
Later Rhona found herself in a narrow cell, sitting in darkness at the edge of a cot. Through the door came a torrent of high-pitched speech.
"Yer little tough, reform! reform! What yer mean by such carryings-on? I know yer record. Beware of God, little devil…."
On and on it went, and Rhona, dazed, wondered what new terror it foreboded. But then without warning the talk switched.
"Yer know who I am?"
"Who?" quavered Rhona.
"The matron."
"Yes?"
"I divorced him, I did."
"Yes."
"My husband, I'm telling yer. Are yer deef?"
Suddenly Rhona rose and rushed to the door.
"I want to send a message."
"By-and-by," said the matron, and her rum-reeking breath came full in the girl's face. The matron was drunk.
For an hour she confided to Rhona the history of her married life, and each time that Rhona dared cry, "I want to send a message!" she replied, "By-and-by."
But after an hour was ended, she remembered.
"Message? Sure! Fifty cents!"
Rhona clutched the edge of the door.
"Telephone—I want to telephone!"
"Telephone!" shrieked the matron. "Do yer think we keep a telephone for the likes of ye?"
"But I haven't fifty cents—besides, a message doesn't cost fifty cents—"
"Are yer telling me?" the matron snorted. "Fifty cents! Come now, hurry," she wheedled. "Yer know as yer has it! Oh, it's in good time you come!"
Her last words were addressed to some one behind her. The cell door was quickly opened; Rhona's arm was seized by John, the policeman, and without words she was marched to the curb and pushed into the patrol wagon with half a dozen others. The wagon clanged through the cold, dark streets, darting through the icy edge of the wind, and the women huddled together. Rhona never forgot how that miserable wagonful chattered—that noise of clicking teeth, the pulse of indrawn sighs, and the shivering of arms and chests. Closer and closer they drew, as if using one another as shields against the arctic onslaught, a couple of poor women, and four unsightly prostitutes, the scum of the lower Tenderloin. One woman kept moaning jerkily:
"Wisht I was dead—down in my grave. It's bitter cold—"
The horses struck sparks against the pave, the wheels grided, and the wagon-load went west, up the shadowy depths of Sixth Avenue, under the elevated structure, and stopped before Jefferson Market Court. The women were hustled out and went shuddering through long corridors, until at last they were shoved into a large cell.
* * * * *
At about the same moment Myra and Joe emerged from the West Tenth Street house and started for the court-house. They started, bowing their heads in the wind, holding on to their hats.
"Whew!" muttered Joe. "This is a night!"
Myra did not dare take his arm, and he spoke a little gruffly.
"Better hang on to me."
She slipped her arm through his then, gratefully, and tried to bravely fight eastward with him.
Joe was silent. He walked with difficulty. Myra almost felt as if she were leading him. If she only could have sent him home, nursed him and comforted him! He was so weary that she felt more like sending him to bed than dragging him out in this bitter weather.
More and more painfully he shuffled, and Myra brooded over him as if he were hers, and there was a sad joy in doing this, a sad glory in leading him and sharing the cruel night with him.
In this way they gained the corner of Sixth Avenue. Across the way loomed the illuminated tower-topped brick court-house.
"Here it is," said Joe.
Myra led him over, up the steps, and through the dingy entrance. Then they stepped into the court-room and sat down on one of the benches, which were set out as in a school-room.
The place was large and blue, and dimly lighted. The judge's end of it was screened off by wire netting. Up on a raised platform sat the magistrate at his desk, his eyes hidden by a green shade, his bald head radiant with the electric light above him. Clerks hovered about him, and an anaemic indoor policeman, standing before him, grasped with one hand a brass rail and with the other was continually handing up prisoners to be judged. All in the inclosed space stood and moved a mass of careless men, the lawyers, hangers-on, and all who fatten upon crime—careless, laughing, nudging, talking openly to the women of the street. A crass scene, a scene of bitter cynicism, of flashy froth, degrading and cheap. Not here to-night the majesty of the law; here only a well-oiled machine grinding out injustice.
Joe and Myra were seated among a crowd of witnesses and tired lawyers. The law's delay seemed to steep the big room with drowsiness; the air was warm and breathed in and out a thousand times by a hundred lungs. Myra looked about her at the weary, listless audience. Then she looked at Joe. He had fallen fast asleep, his head hanging forward. She smiled sadly and was filled with a strange happiness. He had not been able to hold out any longer. Well, then, he should sleep, she thought; she would watch alone.
Then, as she sat and gazed, a drunken woman in the seat before her fell sound asleep. At once the big special officer at the little gate of wire netting came thumping down the aisle, leaned close, and prodded her shoulder with his forefinger, crying:
"Wake up, there!"
She awoke, startled, and a dozen laughed.
Myra had a great fear that the officer would see Joe. But he didn't. He turned and went back to his post.
Myra watched eagerly—aware of the fact that this scene was not as terrible to her as it might have been. The experience of the day had sharpened her receptivity, broadened her out-look. She took it for what it was worth. She hated it, but she did not let it overmaster her.
There was much business going forward before the judge's desk, and Myra had glimpses of the prisoners. She saw one girl, bespectacled, hard, flashy, pushed to the bar, and suddenly heard her voice rise shrill and human above the drone-like buzzing of the crowd.
"You dirty liar; I'll slap yer face if yer say that again!"
A moment later she was discharged, pushed through the little gateway, and came tripping by Myra, shouting shrilly:
"I'll make charges against him—I'll break him—I will!"
Several others Myra saw.
A stumpy semi-idiot with shining, oily face and child-staring eyes, who clutched the railing with both big hands and stood comically in huge clothes, his eyes outgazing the judge. He was suddenly yanked back to prison.
A collarless wife-beater, with hanging lips and pleading dog's eyes, his stout Irish wife sobbing beside him. He got "six months," and his wife came sobbing past Myra.
Then there was an Italian peddler, alien, confused, and in rags, soon, however, to be set free; and next a jovial drunk, slapping the officers on the back, lifting his legs in dance-like motions and shouting to the judge. He was lugged away for a night's rest.
And then, of course, the women. It was all terrible, new, undreamed of, to Myra. She saw these careless Circes of the street, plumed, powdered, jeweled, and she saw the way the men handled and spoke to them.
Scene after scene went on, endless, confused, lost in the buzz and hum of voices, the shuffle of feet. The air grew warmer and more and more foul. Myra felt drowsy. She longed to put her head on Joe's shoulder and fall asleep—sink into peace and stillness. But time and again she came to with a jerk, started forward and eagerly scanned the faces for Rhona. What had happened to the girl? Would she be kept in jail overnight? Or had something worse happened? An increasing fear took possession of her. She felt in the presence of enemies. Joe was asleep. She could not question him, could not be set at ease. And how soundly he slept, breathing deeply, his head hanging far forward. If only she could make a pillow for that tired head!
She was torn between many emotions. Now she watched a scene beyond the netting—something cynical, cheap, degrading—watched it with no real sense of its meaning—wondered where she was and how she had come—and why all this was going on. Then she would turn and look piteously at Joe, her face sharp with yearning. Then she would drowse, and awake with a start. She kept pinching herself.
"If I fall asleep Rhona may get through without us—something will happen!"
It must have been past midnight. There was no sign of Rhona. Each new face that emerged from the jail entrance was that of a stranger. Again an overwhelming fear swept Myra. She touched Joe's arm.
"Joe! Joe!" she whispered.
He did not answer; his hand moved a little and dropped. How soundly he slept! She smiled then, and sat forward, determined to be a brave woman.
Then glancing through the netting she spied Blondy and his friends laughing together. She saw the evil monkey eyes. At once she was back sharply in Great Jones Street, trembling with outrage and humiliation. She tried to keep her eyes from him, and again and again looked at him and loathed him.
"If," she thought, "he is here, perhaps the time has come."
Again she searched the new faces, and gave a little cry of joy. There was Rhona, pale, quiet, her arm in the hand of the policeman who had made the arrest.
Myra turned to Joe.
"Joe! Wake up!"
He stirred a little.
"Joe! Joe! Wake up!"
He gave a great start and opened his eyes.
"What is it?" he cried. "Do they want union cards?"
"Joe," she exclaimed, "Rhona's here."
"Rhona?" He sat upright; he was a wofully sleepy man. "Rhona?" Then he gazed about him and saw Myra.
"Oh, Myra!" He laughed sweetly. "How good it is to see you!"
She paled a little at the words.
"Joe," she whispered, "we're in the court. Rhona's waiting for us."
Then he understood.
"And I've been sleeping, and you let me sleep?" He laughed softly.
"What a good soul you are! Rhona! Come, quick!"
They arose, Joe rubbing his eyes, and stepped forward. Myra felt stiff and sore. Then Joe spoke in a low voice to the gate-keeper, the gate opened, and they entered in.
X
THE TRIAL
Rhona had spent the evening in the women's cell, which was one of three in a row. The other two were for men. The window was high up, and a narrow bench ran around the walls. Sprawled on this were from thirty to forty women; the air was nauseating, and the place smelled to heaven. Outside the bars of the door officers lounged in the lighted hall waiting the signal to fetch their prisoners. Now and then the door opened, a policeman entered, picked his woman, seized upon her, and pulled her along without speaking to her. It was as if the prisoners were dumb wild beasts.
For a while Rhona sat almost doubled up, feeling that she would never get warm. Her body would be still a minute, and then a racking spasm took her and her teeth chattered. A purple-faced woman beside her leaned forward.
"Bad business on the street a night like this, ain't it? Here, I'll rub your hands."
Rhona smiled bitterly, and felt the rub of roughened palms against her icy hands. Then she began to look around, sick with the smell, the sudden nauseous warmth. She saw the strange rouged faces, the impudent eyes, the showy headgear, flashing out among the obscure faces of poor women, and as she looked a filthy drunk began to rave, rose tottering, and staggered to the door and beat clanging upon it, all the while shrieking:
"Buy me the dope, boys, buy me the dope!"
Others pulled her back. Women of the street, sitting together, chewed gum and laughed and talked shrilly, and Rhona could not understand how prisoners could be so care-free.
All the evening she had been dazed, her one clear thought the sending of a message for help. But now as she sat in the dim, reeking cell, she began to realize what had happened.
Then as it burst upon her that she was innocent, that she had been lied against, that she was helpless, a wild wave of revolt swept her. She thought she would go insane. She could have thrown a bomb at that moment. She understood revolutionists.
This feeling was followed by abject fear. She was alone … alone…. Why had she allowed herself to be caught in this trap? Why had she struck? Was it not foolhardy to raise a hand against such a mammoth system of iniquity? Over in Hester Street her poor mother, plying the never-pausing needle, might be growing anxious—might be sending out to find her. What new trouble was she bringing to her family? What new touch of torture was she adding to the hard, sweated life? And her father—what, when he came home from the sweatshop so tired that he was ready to fling himself on the bed without undressing, what if she were missing, and he had to go down and search the streets for her?
If only Joe Blaine had been notified! Could she depend on that Miss Craig, who had melted away at the first approach of peril? Yet surely there must be help! Did not the Woman's League keep a lawyer in the court? Would he not be ready to defend her? That was a ray of hope! She cheered up wonderfully under it. She began to feel that it was somehow glorious to thus serve the cause she was sworn to serve. She even had a dim hope—almost a fear—that her father had been sent for. She wanted to see a familiar face, even though she were sure he would upbraid her for bringing disgrace upon the family.
So passed long hours. Prisoners came in—prisoners went out. Laughter rose—cries—mutterings; then came a long silence. Women yawned. Some snuggled up on the bench, their heads in their neighbors' laps, and fell fast asleep. Rhona became wofully tired—drooped where she sat—a feeling of exhaustion dragging her down. The purple-faced woman beside her leaned forward.
"Say, honey, put your head in my lap!"
She did so. She felt warmth, ease, a drowsy comfort. She fell fast asleep….
"No! No!" she cried out, "it was he struck me!"
She had a terrible desire to sob her heart out, and a queer sensation of being tossed in mid-air. Then she gazed about in horror. She was on her feet, had evidently been dragged up, and John, the policeman, held her arm in a pinch that left its mark. Gasping, she was shoved along through the doorway and into a scene of confusion.
They stood a few minutes in the judge's end of the court-room—a crowd eddying about them. Rhona had a queer feeling in her head; the lights blinded her; the noise seemed like the rush of waters in her ears. Then she thought sharply:
"I must get myself together. This is the court. It will be all over in a minute. Where's Mr. Joe? Where's the lawyer? Where's my father?"
She looked about eagerly, searching faces. Not one did she know. What had happened? She felt the spasm of chills returning to her. Had Miss Craig failed her? Where was the strikers' lawyer? Were there friends waiting out in the tired audience, among the sleepy witnesses? Suddenly she saw Blondy laughing and talking with a gaudy woman in the crowd. She trembled all at once with animal rage…. She could have set upon him with her nails and her teeth. But she was fearfully afraid, fearfully helpless. What could she do? What would be done with her?
John pushed her forward a few steps; her own volition could not take her, and then she saw the judge. This judge—would he understand? Could he sympathize with a young girl who was wrongly accused? The magistrate was talking carelessly with his clerk, and Rhona felt in a flash that all this, which to her was terrible and world-important, to him was mere trivial routine.
She waited, her heart pounding against her ribs, her breath coming short and stifled. Then all at once she saw Joe and Myra as they entered the gate, and a beautiful smile lit up her face. It was a blessed moment.
They came up; Joe spoke in a low breath.
"Rhona, have you seen the lawyer about?"
"No," she muttered.
Joe looked around. He stood above that crowd by half a head. Then he muttered bitterly to Myra:
"Why isn't that fellow here to-night? You shouldn't have let me sleep!"
Myra was abashed, and Rhona, divining his misery, felt quite alone again, quite helpless.
Suddenly then she was pushed forward, and next the indoor policeman was handing her up to the judge, and now she stood face to face with her crisis. Again her heart pounded hard, her breath shortened. She was dimly aware of Joe and Myra behind her, and of Blondy and his friends beside her. She looked straight at the magistrate, not trusting herself to glance either side.
The magistrate looked up and nodded to the policeman.
"What's the charge?" His voice was a colorless monotone.
"Assault, your Honor. This girl was picketing in the strike, and this private detective told her to move on. Then she struck him."
Rhona felt as if she could burst; she expected the magistrate to question her; but he continued to address the policeman.
"Any witnesses?"
"These other detectives, your Honor."
The magistrate turned to Blondy's friends.
"Is what the policeman says true?"
"Yes," they chorused
Joe spoke clearly.
"Your Honor, there's another witness."
The magistrate looked at Joe keenly.
"Who are you?"
"My name's Blaine—Joe Blaine."
"The editor?"
"Yes."
The magistrate spoke sharply:
"I can tell you now you'll merely damage the case. I don't take the word of such a witness."
Joe spoke easily.
"It's not my word. Miss Craig here is the witness. She saw the assault."
The magistrate looked at Myra.
"What were you doing at the time?"
Myra spoke hardly above a whisper, for she felt that she was losing control of herself.
"I—I was walking with Miss Hemlitz."
"Walking? You mean picketing."
"Yes."
"Well, naturally, your word is not worth any more than the prisoner's.
You should have been arrested, too."
Myra could not speak any further; and the magistrate turned again to the policeman.
"You swear your charge is true?"
The policeman raised his hand.
"I swear."
Rhona felt a stab as of lightning. She raised her hand high; her voice came clear, sharp, real, rising above the drone-like noise of the court.
"I swear it is not true. I never struck him. He struck me!"
The magistrate's face reddened, a vein on his forehead swelled up, and he leaned toward Rhona.
"What you say, young lady"—there was a touch of passion in his voice—"doesn't count. Understand? You're one of these strikers, aren't you? Well, the whole lot of you"—his voice rose—"are on a strike against God, whose principal law is that man should earn bread by the sweat of his brow."
Rhona trembled before these unbelievable words. She stared into his eyes, and he went on passionately:
"I've let some of you off with fines—but this has gone too far. I'll make an example of you. You shall go to the workhouse on Blackwells Island for five days. Next!"
Joe, too, was dazed. But he whispered to Rhona:
"Meet it bravely. I'll tell the girls!"
Her arm was grasped, she was pushed, without volition, through crowding faces; and at length, after another ride in the patrol wagon, she found herself on a narrow cot in a narrow cell. The door was slammed shut ominously. Dim light entered through a high aperture.
She flung herself down her whole length, and sobbed. Bitter was life for
Rhona Hemlitz, seventeen years old….
* * * * *
Joe, in the court-room, had seized Myra's arm.
"Let us get out of this!"
They went through the gateway, up the aisle, out the dim entrance, into the streets. It was two in the morning, and the narrow cañons were emptied of life, save the shadowy fleeting shape of some night prowler, some creature of the underworld. The air was a trifle less cold, and a fine hard snow was sifting down—crunched underfoot—a bitter, tiny, stinging snow—hard and innumerable.
Cavernous and gloomy seemed the street, as they trudged west, arm in arm. Myra had never been so stirred in her life; she felt as if things ugly and dangerous had been released in her heart; a flame seemed raging in her breast. And then as they went on, Joe found vent in hard words.
"And such things go on in this city—in this high civilization—and this is a part of life—and then they wonder why we are so unreasonable. It goes on, and they shut their eyes to it. The newspapers and magazines hush it up. No, no, don't give this to the readers, they want something pleasant, something optimistic! Suppress it! Don't let the light of publicity smite it and clear it up! Let it go on! Let the secret sore fester. It smells bad, it looks bad. Keep the surgeon away. We might lose subscribers, we might be accused of muck-raking. But I tell you," his voice rose, "this world will never be much better until we face the worst of it! Oh," he gave a heavy groan, "Myra! Myra! I wonder if I ever will be happy again!"
Myra spoke from her heart.
"You're overworked, Joe; you're unstrung. Perhaps you see this too big—out of perspective!"
He spoke with intense bitterness.
"It's all my fault. It's all my fault. If I hadn't been so sleepy I'd have sent for a lawyer. I thought, of course, he'd be there!"
Myra spoke eagerly:
"That's just it, Joe. Oh, won't you take a rest? Won't you go away awhile? Just for your work's sake."
He mused sadly:
"Mother keeps saying the same thing."
"She's right!" cried Myra. "Joe, you're killing yourself. How can you really serve the strike if you're in this condition?"
He spoke more quietly.
"They need me, Myra. Do you think I'm worse off than Rhona?"
Myra could not answer this. It is a curious fact that some of the terrible moments of life are afterward treasured as the great moments. Looked back upon, they are seen to be the vital step forward, the readjustment and growth of character, and not for anything would any real man or woman miss them. Afterward Myra discovered that this night had been one of the master nights of her life, and when she repictured that walk up Tenth Street at two in the morning, through the thin sifting snow, the big tragic man at he; side, it seemed a beautiful and wonderful thing. They had been all alone out in the city's streets, close together, feeling as one the reality of life, sharing as one the sharp unconquerable tragedy, suffering together against the injustice of the world.
But at the moment she felt only bitter, self-reproachful, and full of pity for poor human beings. It was a time when the divine creatures born of woman seemed mere little waifs astray in a friendless universe, somehow lost on a cruel earth, crying like children in the pitiless night, foredoomed and predestined to broken hearts and death. It seemed a very sad and strange mystery, and more sad, more strange to be one of these human beings herself.
They reached the house. Lights were still burning in the office, and when they entered they found the District Committee sitting about the red stove, still working out the morrow's plans. Giotto was there, Sally Heffer, and Jacob Izon, and others, tired, pale, and huddled, but still toiling wearily with one another. As Joe and Myra came in they looked up, and Sally rose.
"Is she—" she began, and then spoke angrily, "I can see she's been held."
Joe smiled sadly.
"Sent to the workhouse for five days."
Exclamations of indignation arose. The committee could not believe it.
"I wish," cried impetuous Sally, "that magistrate were my husband. I'd throw a flatiron at his head and put some castor-oil in his soup!"
Joe laughed a little. He looked at his watch, and then at Myra.
"Myra," he said, gently, "it's two o'clock—too late to go home. You must sleep with mother."
Myra spoke softly.
"No—I can get home all right."
He took her by the arm.
"Myra," he leaned over, "do just this one thing for me."
"I will!" she breathed.
He led her in through his room, and knocked softly.
"Mother!"
"Yes," came a clear, wide-awake voice. "I'm awake, Joe."
"Here's Myra. May she stay with you?"
"Good!"
Myra went in, but turned.
"Joe," she said, tremulously, "you're not going to stay up with that committee?"
"They need me, Myra."
"But, Joe," her voice broke—"this is too much of a good thing—"
Joe's mother interrupted her.
"Better leave the boy alone, Myra—to-night, anyway."
Joe laughed.
"I'll try to cut it short! Sweet dreams, ladies!"
For long they heard his voice mingled with the others, as they lay side by side in the black darkness. But Myra was glad to be near him, glad to share his invisible presence. After she had told Joe's mother about Rhona, the two, unable to sleep, talked quietly for some time. Drawn together by their love for Joe—and Joe's mother was quick in divining—they felt as if they knew each other intimately, though they had met for the first time that afternoon, when Myra, having reported Rhona's arrest to Joe, groped her way blindly to the rear kitchen and stood, trying not to sob, before the elder woman.
She had asked:
"Are you Mrs. Blaine?" and had gone on. "I'm Myra—Myra Craig. Joe and I used to know each other."
Whereupon Joe's mother, remembering something Joe had said of writing to a Myra Craig in the country, suddenly understood. There was a swift, "What! You and he—?" a sob from Myra, and the two were in each other's arms. Then followed supper and a quiet evening.
And now in the darkness they lay and talked.
"I've been worrying about Joe," Mrs. Blaine mused, softly.
"Why?"
"Can't you see why?"
"He looks badly," Myra sighed.
"Joe," said his mother, quietly, "is killing himself. He doesn't listen to me, and I don't want to interfere too much."
"Isn't there anything to be done?"
There was a silence and then Joe's mother spoke in a strange personal voice.
"What if you could do something."
Myra could hardly speak.
"I?"
"You." A hand caught hers. "Try. He's simply giving his life to the cause."
There was a silence a little while. The tears were wet upon Myra's cheeks.
"Mrs. Blaine."
"Yes, dear."
"Tell me about yourself—what you've been doing—both of you."
And as Mrs. Blaine told her, time and time again Myra laughed softly, or was glad the darkness concealed those unbidden tears.
But as Mrs. Blaine spoke of the attack of Marrin's men, Myra was thrilled.
"But what happened afterward?" she cried. "Isn't he in danger now?
Mightn't there be another attack?"
Joe's mother's voice rang.
"Afterward? It was wonderful. The whole neighborhood rose to Joe's side. They even started a subscription to rebuild the press. Oh, the people here are amazing!"
"And the men who mobbed him?"
"Many were arrested, but Joe did not appear against them, and the men from Marrin's were the first to come in and tell of their remorse. As for the thugs and criminals—they don't dare lift their heads. Public opinion is hot against them."
Thus they talked, intimately, sweetly, and at last the elder woman kissed the younger good-night.
"But, dear, you've been crying!"
"Oh, I'm so glad to be here!" sobbed Myra. "So glad to be with you!"
And even then she had a sense of the greatness and wonder of that day; how new and untapped forces in her nature were emerging; how the whole seeming of life—"These shows of the night and day"—was changing for her; how life was deepening down to its bitter roots, roots bitter but miraculously sheathed in crystalline springs; in sweet waters, in beauty and love and mystery. It was the finding of her own soul—a power great enough to endure tragedy and come forth to a richer laughter and a wiser loveliness. Only thus does life reveal its meanings and its miracles, and prove that it is an adventure high and fine, ever tending higher, ever more enriched with faith and marvelous strength, and that mirth that meets the future with an expectant smile.
So thinking, so feeling, she grew drowsier, sank deeper—her body tired in every muscle, in every bone—her mind unable to keep awake; and so she faded into the pure rest of sleep.
XI
THE WORKHOUSE
That next day was as a dream to Rhona. Not until evening did it become real. Breakfast was brought to her cell, but she did not taste it. Next she was led out by a policeman to the street and packed in the patrol wagon with eight other women. The morning was gray, with a hard sifting snow, and as the wagon bumped over cobblestones, Rhona breathed deep of the keen air.
The ride seemed without end; but next she was in a ferry; and then, last, was hurried into a long gray building on Blackwells Island.
Her cell was fairly large, and contained two cots, one against each wall. She was left disconsolately alone, numb, in despair, and moving about in a dream.
But after supper she found herself locked in with another woman. She sat down on the edge of her cot, in the dim light of the room, and with a sharp glance, half fear, half curiosity, regarded her room-mate. This other was a woman of possibly thirty years, with sallow cheeks, bright burning eyes, and straggly hair. She stood before the little wall mirror, apparently examining herself. Suddenly she turned:
"What you looking at, kid?"
Rhona averted her eyes.
"I didn't mean—"
"Say," said the other, "ain't I the awful thing? Not a rat or a puff or a dab of rouge allowed in these here premises. I do look a sight—a fright. Gee!" She turned. "You're not so worse. A little pale, kid."
She came over and sat next to Rhona.
"What'll I call you?"
Rhona shrank. She was a sensitive, ignorant girl, and did not understand this type of woman. Something coarse, familiar, vulgar seemed to grate against her.
"Rhona's my name," she breathed.
"Well, that's cute! Call you Ronie?" She stretched out her arms. "Oh, slats! I'd give my teeth for a cigarette and a Manhattan cocktail. Wouldn't I, though!"
Rhona shuddered.
The woman turned toward her.
"My name's Millie. Now we're pals, eh?" Then she rattled on: "First time in the workhouse? Comes hard at first, doesn't it? Cut off from friends and fun—and ain't the work beastly? Say, Ronie, what's your job in little old New York?"
Rhona swallowed a dull sob.
"I haven't any—we're on strike."
Millie jumped up.
"What, you one of them shirtwaist strikers?"
"Yes."
"Why did they run you in?"
"An officer struck me, and then said I struck him."
"Just like a man! Oh, I know men! Depend upon it, I know the men! So, you were a shirt-waist-maker. How much d'yer earn?"
"Oh, about five or six a week."
"A—week!" Millie whistled. "And I suppose ten hours a day, or worse, and I suppose work that would kill an ox."
"Yes," said Rhona, "hard work."
Millie sat down and put an arm about the shrinking girl.
"Say, kiddie, I like you. I'm going to chuck a little horse sense at you. Now you listen to me. My sister worked in a pickle-place over in Pennsy, and she lasted just two years, and then, galloping consumption, and—" She snapped her fingers, her voice became husky. "Poor fool! Two years is the limit where she worked. And who paid the rent? I did. But of course I wasn't respectable—oh no! I was a sinner. Well, let me tell you something. In my business a woman can last five to ten years. Do you blame me? And I get clothes, and the eats, and the soft spots, and I live like a lady…. That's the thing for you! Why do you wear yourself out—slave-work and strikes and silly business?… You'll never get married…. The work will make you a hag in another year or two, and who will want you? And say, you've got to live just once—got to be just downright woman for a little spell, anyway…. Come with me, kid … my kind of life."
Rhona looked at her terrified. She did not understand. What sort of woman was this? How live in luxury without working? How be downright woman?
"What do you mean?" asked the young girl.
So Millie told her. They went to bed, their light was put out, and neither had a wink of sleep. Rhona lay staring in the darkness and over the room came the soft whisper of Millie bearing a flood of the filth of the underworld. Rhona could not resist it. She lay helpless, quaking with a wild horror…. Later she remembered that night in Russia when she and others hid under the corn in a barn while the mob searched over their heads—a moment ghastly with impending mutilation and death—and she felt that this night was more terrible than that. Her girlhood seemed torn to shreds…. Dawn broke, a watery glimmer through the high barred window. Rhona rose from her bed, rushed to the door, pulled on the bars, and loosed a fearful shriek. The guard, running down, Millie, leaping forward, both cried:
"What's the matter?"
But the slim figure in the white nightgown fell down on the floor, and thus earned a few hours in the hospital.
* * * * *
They set her to scrubbing floors next day, a work for which she had neither experience nor strength. Weary, weary day—the large rhythm of the scrubbing-brush, the bending of the back, the sloppy, dirty floors—on and on, minute after minute, on through the endless hours. She tried to work diligently, though she was dizzy and sick, and felt as if she were breaking to pieces. Feverishly she kept on. Lunch was tasteless to her; so was supper; and after supper came Millie.
No one can tell of those nights when the young girl was locked in with a hard prostitute—nights, true, of lessening horror, and so, all the more horrible. As Rhona came to realize that she was growing accustomed to Millie's talk—even to the point of laughing at the jokes—she was aghast at the dark spaces beneath her and within her. She was becoming a different sort of being—she looked back on the hard-toiling girl, who worked so faithfully, who tried to study, who had a quiet home, whose day was an innocent routine of toil and meals and talk and sleep, as on some one who was beautiful and lovely, but now dead. In her place was a sharp, cynical young woman. Well for Rhona that her sentence was but five days!
The next afternoon she was scrubbing down the long corridor between the cells when the matron came, jangling her keys.
"Some one here for you," said the matron.
Rhona leaped up.
"My mother?" she cried out, in a piercing voice.
"See here," said the matron, "you want to go easy—and only five minutes, mind you."
"My mother?" Rhona repeated, her heart near to bursting.
"No—some one else. Come along."
Rhona followed, half choking. The big door was unlocked before her and swung open; she peered out. It was Joe and Myra.
Seeing these faces of friends suddenly recalled her to her old world, to the struggle, the heroism, the strike, and, filled with a sense of her imprisonment and its injustice, she rushed blindly out into the open arms of Myra and was clutched close, close.
And then she sobbed, wept for minutes, purifying tears. And suddenly she had an inspiration, a flash of the meaning of her martyrdom, how it could be used as a fire and a torch to kindle and lead the others.
She lifted up her face.
"You tell the girls," she cried, "it's perfectly wonderful to be here. It's all right. Just you tell them it's all right. Any of them would be glad to do it!"
And then the matron, who was listening, stepped forward.
"Time's up!"
There was one kiss, one hug, and the brave girl was led away. The door slammed her in.
Joe and Myra looked at each other, awed, thrilled. Tears trickled down
Myra's face.
"Oh," she cried low, "isn't it lovely? Isn't it wonderful?"
He spoke softly.
"The day of miracles isn't over. Women keep on amazing me. Come!"
Quietly they walked out into the warm, sunshiny day. Streaks of snow were vanishing in visible steam. The sky was a soft blue, bulbous with little puffs of cloud. Myra felt an ineffable peace. Rhona's heroism had filled her with a new sense of human power. She longed to speak with Joe—she longed, as they stood on the ferry, and glided softly through the wash and sway of the East River, to share her sweet emotions with him. But he had pulled out a note-book and was busily making jottings. He seemed, if anything, more worn than ever, more tired. He was living on his nerves. The gray face was enough to bring tears to a woman's eyes, and the lank, ill-clothed form seemed in danger of thinning away to nothingness. So Myra said nothing, but kept looking at him, trying to save him by her strength of love, trying to send out those warm currents and wrap him up and infuse him with life and light and joy.
All the way out he had been silent, preoccupied. In fact, all these three days he had been preoccupied—toiling terribly early and late, busy, the center of a swarm of human activities, his voice everywhere, his pen in his hand. Meals he ate at his desk while he wrote, and sleep was gained in little snatches. Myra had been there to watch him, there to help him. Since that night in the court, she had come early and stayed until ten in the evening, doing what work she could. And there was much to be done—she found a profitable task in instructing new recruits in the rules of picketing—and also in investigating cases of need. These took her to strange places. She had vistas of life she had not dreamed to be true—misery she had thought confined to novels, to books like Les Misérables. It was all wonderful and strange and new. She was beginning to really know the life of the Greater Number—the life of the Nine-Tenths—and as she got used to the dust, the smells, and the squalor, she found daily all the richness of human nature. It was dramatic, absorbing, real. Where was it leading her? She hardly knew yet. The strangeness had not worn off.
She had been watching Joe, and she felt that he was hardly aware of her presence. He took her and her work as a matter of course. And this did not embitter her, for she felt that the time had passed for privileges, that this was a season in Joe's life when he belonged to a mass of the people, to a great cause, and that she had no right to any part of his life. He was so deep in it, so overwrought, that it was best to let him alone, to keep him free from the responsibility of personal relationships, not to burden him with added emotionalism. And so she accepted the rule of Joe's mother—to do Joe's bidding without question, to let him have his way, waiting patiently for the time when he would need and cry out for the personal. When that time came the two women were ready to help to heal, to nurse—to bind the wounds and soothe the troubled heart, and rebuild the broken spirit. It might be, of course, that in the end he would shut Myra out; that was a contingency she had to face; but she thought that, whatever came, she was getting herself equal to it.
They left the ferry and walked over to Second Avenue and took an elevated train. Then Joe spoke—leaning near, his voice gentle:
"Myra."
"Yes, Joe."
"I've been wondering."
"What?"
"About this strike business. Wondering if it isn't mostly waste."
She found herself saying eagerly:
"But what else can the people do?"
He shook his head.
"In this country if men only voted right … only had the right sort of government…. What are they gaining this way? It's too costly."
"But how are they going to vote right?"
"Education!" he exclaimed. "Training! We must train the children in democracy. We must get at the children."
Myra was amazed.
"Then you think your work is … of the wrong sort?"
"No! no!" he said. "Everything helps—we must try every way—I may not be fit for any other way than this. But I'm beginning to think it isn't of the best sort. Maybe it's the only thing to do to-day, however."
She began to throb with a great hope.
"Don't you think," she cried, "you ought to go off and take a rest and think it over? You know you might go into politics, to Congress, or something—then you could really do something."
He looked at her with surprise.
"How you're thinking these days!" he mused. But then he went on very wearily. "Rest? Myra," his voice sank, "if I ever come out of this alive, I'll rest—rest deep, rest deep. But there's no end—no end to it…."
He reverted to the problem of the strike.
"Don't you think there's right on the other side, too? Don't you think many of the employers are doing all they can under present conditions? We're asking too much. We want men to change their methods before we change conditions. Who can do it? I tell you, I may be wronging as fine a lot of men as there are."
"Then why did you go into it?" she asked, quickly.
"I didn't. It came to me. It bore me under. But I haven't made a mistake this time. By chance I'm on the righter side, the better side. When it comes to the women in industry, there's no question. It is killing the future to work them this way—it is intolerable, inhuman, insane. We must stop it—and as we don't vote right, we must strike. A strike is justified these days—will be, until there's some other way of getting justice. Anyway, this time," he said, fiercely, "I'm right. But I'm wondering about the future. I'm wondering…."
He said nothing further, digging again at his notes. But Myra now nourished a hope, a secret throbbing hope … the first ray of a new and more confident morning.