Comrade Yetta

CHAPTER IX
YETTA ENLISTS

Yetta did not fall asleep readily after the ball. Her mind was a turmoil. If she tried to fix her attention on this question of Liberty which had stirred her so deeply, she was suddenly thrown into confusion by a memory of the cold fear which Harry Klein's hard eyes and brutal grip had caused her. She felt that she must think out her relationship with him clearly if she was ever to be free from fear, but again this problem would be disturbed by the thought of her wonderful new friends.

Sleep when it came at last was so heavy that she did not wake at the accustomed hour in the morning. When Mrs. Goldstein came into the bedroom to rouse her, she was startled by the sight of the new hat and white shoes, which Yetta had been too excited the night before to hide.

The first thing Yetta knew, there was a great commotion in her room. Her uncle and aunt, neither more than half dressed, were accusing her loudly of her crime and heaping maledictions on her head. It was several minutes before Yetta fully awoke to the situation. And when she did, a strange transformation had taken place within her; she was no longer afraid of the sorry couple.

"Yes," she said, sitting up in bed, drawing the blanket about her shoulders, "I went to a ball. If you don't like it, I'll find some other place to live."

The garrulous old couple fell silent. Goldstein's resentment against his daughter Rachel was fully as much because she had stopped bringing him money to get drunk on as because she had "gone wrong." After a minute's amazement at Yetta's sudden display of independence, they began a sing-song duet about ingratitude. Had they not done everything for her? Taken her in when she was a penniless orphan? Clothed and fed and sheltered her?

"And haven't I paid you all my wages for four years?" she replied. "Go away. I want to get dressed."

At the shop Yetta found that the story of her speech had been spread by one of the girls at the second table who had been at the ball. Fortunately this girl had not witnessed the scene with Harry Klein. Yetta found the women at her table discussing the matter in whispers when she arrived. In the moment before the motor started the day's work, the bovine Mrs. Levy told her that she was a fool.

"You've got a good job," she said. "You'll make trouble with your bread and butter. You're a fool."

"Better be careful," the cheerful Mrs. Weinstein advised. "Don't I know? My husband's a union man. Of course the unions are right, but they make trouble."

"It ain't no use," the sad and worn Mrs. Cohen coughed from the foot of the table. "There ain't nothing that'll do any good. Women ain't got no chance."

The motor began with a roar.

It is a strange fact of life, how sometimes a sudden light will be turned on a familiar environment, making it all seem new and entirely different from what we are accustomed to. Four years Yetta had worked in that shop. She had accepted it all as an inevitability, which no more admitted change or "reform" than the courses of the stars. The speeches to which she had listened made it suddenly appear in its true human aspect. It was no longer a thing unalterable, it was an invention of human greed. It was a laboratory where, instead of base metals, the blood of women and young girls was transmuted into gold. The alchemists had failed to find the Philosopher's Stone. The sweat-shop was a modern substitute. It was a contrivance by which such priceless things as youth and health and the hope of the next generation could be coined into good and lawful money of the realm.

Her nimble fingers flying subconsciously at the terrible speed through the accustomed motions, Yetta saw all the grim reality of the shop as never before. She saw the broken door to the shamefully filthy toilet, saw the closed, unwashed windows, which meant vitiated, tuberculosis-laden air, saw the backs of the women bent into unhealthy attitudes, saw the strained look in their eyes. More vaguely she saw a vision of the might-be life of these women, – clean homes and happy children. And behind her she felt the existence of the "office", where Jake Goldfogle sat and watched them through his spying window, and contrived new fines. And even more clearly than when she had made her speech, she saw her own function in this infernal scheme of greed, saw herself a lieutenant of the slave-driver behind her. She wondered if the other women hated her as she deserved to be hated. But habit is a hard thing to break, and her fingers sped on as of old.

When the day's work was over, a sorry sort of a woman, named Levine, a woman who had had many children and more troubles and very few joys, lingered in the shop and told Goldfogle the gossip about Yetta's speech. She had expected some reward, a quarter – or even a dime – with which to buy a little more food for her children. But she got only curses. During the day one of Jake's loans had been called. What was he to do, hounded by his creditors, threatened from within? If he had been an Oriental despot he would have slain the bearer of these bad tidings.

Yetta, afraid of meeting Harry Klein outside, clung as close as might be to Mrs. Weinstein on her way home. She ran the few blocks she had to go alone.

It was a useless precaution. He had no intention of accosting her that night. The official dispensers of Justice had taken small interest in the charge against him. He had been promptly bailed out and knew the papers would get lost in some pigeonhole. But although he was not worrying about his arrest, he was more unhappy than he had been since the first day he had spent in jail as a boy. Like most crooks he believed in "luck." Apparently his luck had turned. There was only one consolation. It had been a single-handed game. None of his followers knew of his downfall. So he had set about planning a spectacular coup which would restore his prestige if the story of his disgrace got out. His vengeance, to be complete, should have included Longman, but the scent was too faint. He did not know his adversary's name. But he knew just where to put his finger on Yetta. He was a discreet young man, and he wanted to be very sure there would be no slip-up. So this night he trailed along behind her, safely hidden in the crowd. When he saw that she had walked home along the accustomed streets, he smiled contentedly.

"It's a cinch," he told himself.

During the day an event had occurred in the Goldstein flat; a messenger boy had come with a letter and a bundle of pamphlets for Yetta. Even the postman is a rare visitor to such homes, and the arrival of a special messenger is talked about by the whole street. Mr. Goldstein, whose dispute with his niece had driven him out to find solace from his troubles, had, more early than usual, returned to the flat. He had found his wife very much excited over the bundle which reposed in state on the kitchen table. He was not so befuddled but that he saw the tracts were about Trade Unions. So when Yetta returned from her work she found a new storm blowing. As a Tammany man and a pillar in the Temple of Things as They Are – it is doubtful if he realized how important he and his kind are in the maintenance of that imposing structure. Mr. Goldstein had to oppose trade-unions and socialism. They seemed to him more subversive of the order of Society than social settlements, dance-halls, or the Religion of the Goyim. And he was sufficiently intoxicated to have forgotten the mercenary caution which had in the morning kept him from throwing out the chief brandy-winner of the household. All through her supper Yetta had to listen to reproaches – which were not too delicately worded. But they hardly bothered her. As soon as she could find a good place to live she was going to leave. She was not afraid any more. And when she had crammed sufficient food into herself, she picked up the bigger of the two lamps and escaped to her room with the pamphlets and the letter.

It had taken Mabel Train less than five minutes to dictate the letter, although she had two or three times stopped to attend to things which she thought more important. But of course to Yetta, the letter seemed importance itself. It was the first she had ever received, and it was from the most wonderful woman in the world. Mabel asked some questions about the shop and the chances of organizing the vest trade, and she urged Yetta to come to the office of the League to see her. She gave a list of the meetings at which she was to speak the next few nights, and asked Yetta, if it was impossible to get off in the daytime, to come to one of these meetings. She wanted very much to have a long talk with her – above all she hoped that Yetta would not forget her. It was an informal and affectionate letter. Yetta read it over five times, and each reading made her happier.

Then she turned to the pamphlets and did not go to bed until she had finished them. It was four years since she had read so much. There were hard words here and there which she did not understand, but on the whole they seemed wonderfully clear. Many of the questions which had been perplexing her were answered, many new ones raised. Although the reading made her feel keenly her ignorance – made her cheeks burn with shame over the years when she had brutishly ceased to think – she certainly understood life better, she saw more clearly her place in it.

The last of the pamphlets bit into her. It was called "Speed." It was written in a violent and unjust spirit. The author had failed to realize that the "speeders" were human beings; that few, if any of them, were willing or understanding tools in the hands of the bosses. He spoke of them as "traitors to their comrades," "ignoble creatures – Judases who sold themselves to the oppressors for thirty pieces of silver," "more detestable than scabs." To be a "speeder," this author held, was "a prostitution more shameful than that of the streets." If Mabel had selected the pamphlets, this one would not have been sent to Yetta, but she had told her stenographer to send "half a dozen." And Yetta, not knowing much about stenographers and their blunders, thought that all this was what the wonderful Miss Train thought about her. She felt that some deep expiation was necessary if she wished to look her new friends in the face.

She was in the grip of hurrying forces. She could see but three courses open before her. It was possible to go on as she had been doing, part of the great machine which was robbing mankind of its liberty, a blind tool in the hands of the tyrants – a tool until she was worn out and discarded. She might slip into the hands of some Harry Klein. Or she might risk all in the Cause of Freedom.

It would be easier for us to understand Yetta's outlook on life, if we too had stood on the very brink of that bottomless abyss; if we realized, as she had suddenly come to realize, how very narrow is the margin of safety, which even our greatest caution can give us. It did not seem to her that she was risking much in risking everything she had.

Mabel Train, on the contrary, had joined the ranks of Social Revolt without any compulsion. She and her family were beneficiaries of the system to the overthrow of which she had dedicated her energy. It would have been very easy for her to sink into the smug complacency of the life to which she had been born and bred. Why should she not accept the conventional lies of our civilization as her mother, her sister, and her friends did? She had been given this strangely strong intellect which her professor had called masculine, and she could not help but recognize the "falsehoods." She had also been given a keen sense of ethics and a tremendous pride. She could not bear the thought of being "the kept woman" of Injustice.

With all that is ordinarily called "good" at her command, she had voluntarily chosen a hard and cheerless life, a career which was largely thankless. Instead of cotillions she went to the balls of the Amalgamated Union of Skirt Finishers. She had given up a comfortable home for light-housekeeping in a flat. The hardest of all was that instead of being considered an ordinarily sane young woman, all the people of her old life thought her a crank and a fool.

Yetta's situation was indeed different – less heroic but more tragic. And just in proportion as your own toothache hurts you more than your neighbor's, it was more vital. Her life seemed to her shameful, and as a price of shame it offered her nothing but a gradual rotting into barren uselessness. Her first effort to escape from the vicious rut into which she had fallen had led her to the brink of a greater shame, a surer disaster. Of all the people with whom life had brought her into contact, three seemed preëminently good: her father, Longman, and Mabel Train. They all loved Liberty. Once her eyes had been opened, Yetta would gladly have given up much more to the New Cause. As it was, the crusade seemed to her not a sacrifice, but an escape. An irresistible force was pushing her into Revolt —la force majeure of poverty.

She did not foresee what form her new life would take; she was ignorant of too many important things. But she reached a determination to seek out Miss Train at the earliest opportunity and enlist.

And having cleared up this problem, her mind was freer to face the case of Harry Klein. It was not an easy thing for her to fold away all the emotions and dreams to which he had given life. She was still unenlightened in such matters. She did not see clearly the details of the horrors from which she had escaped. All she knew was that he had lied to her. He had with his honeyed words been plotting to make her "bad." Some of Longman's words at the Skirt-Finishers' ball came back to her and seemed to apply. She had foolishly dreamed that some one could give her freedom. That had been an idle hope; if she was to escape from her dungeon of monotony she must do it herself.

Harry Klein did not go to sleep until his plans were laid. He had had a satisfactory talk with the keeper of a Raines Law hotel on the route which Yetta followed on her way home after she left Mrs. Weinstein. The rooms upstairs would be empty on the morrow, and the ladies' parlor clear of witnesses. He had ordered a dozen of his followers to be in a saloon across the street. At a signal from him they were to rush out and fire their revolvers in the air in imitation of a gang fight. All the homeward hurrying crowd would shriek and run. In the excitement he would jerk Yetta into the dark doorway.

He did not like to use such "strong-arm" methods. It was always safer and generally easy to fool the girl into coming willingly. But this occasion demanded decisive action. He went over the plan carefully, and could find no flaw in it. "It's a cinch," he repeated as he went to sleep.

Jake Goldfogle did not get to sleep at all. He tossed about on the bed in his stuffy tenement room – which he had hoped to leave so soon for a Harlem flat – and tried to think a way out of his difficulties. He had spent his last resources in meeting the unexpectedly called loan. If trouble broke out in his shop, there was very little hope of pulling through. It was his nature to cross all bridges as soon as he heard of them. But this one which seemed so close he could not traverse. Should he appeal to Yetta at once? Or should he trust to luck, to the chance of the storm blowing over? All night long he swung from one decision to the other. His final conclusion was to redouble his spying, and at the first hint of trouble to call Yetta into his office. He had no doubt that an offer of marriage would change her into an ally.

Yetta, having no idea how the powers of darkness were again closing about her, set out to work in the morning in high spirits – her face illumined by her new resolve. But her exaltation was short lived. Mrs. Cohen's lungs were much worse. All through the morning hours she struggled desperately with her cough. Mrs. Levy had seen the same thing so often before that she gave it no attention. But Mrs. Weinstein's merry eyes turned serious. And every cough tore at Yetta's heart. She was partly to blame. During the noon respite she and Mrs. Weinstein took care of the consumptive woman, tried to tempt her to eat with the choicest morsels of their none too savory lunches. Yetta urged her to go home for the afternoon and rest. But that was impossible. Goldfogle would "fire" her if she left, and she needed the job.

So when the short lull was over, the women took their places about the table. Hardly five minutes had passed when a paroxysm of coughing checked Mrs. Cohen's hands, and the work began to pile up. Yetta broke her thread, and by the time she had mended it Mrs. Cohen had caught up. Jake, hearing the stop, came to the door, but, seeing that Yetta was to blame, went back without speaking. Within half an hour Yetta had to break her thread again. But Mrs. Cohen was past the aid of such momentary rests. Before three the crisis came. She let go her work and dropped her head on her hands, horribly shaken by sobs and coughs. Yetta, feeling that she had helped to kill the woman, stopped her machine. Jake rushed out into the shop.

"Wos hat da passiert?" he demanded of Yetta, nervous and angry. "Did your thread break again?"

"No." Yetta stood up. "I stopped."

"Stopped?" he repeated in amazement.

"Yes. I stopped. It's a shame. Mrs. Cohen is sick and can't keep up."

Jake was only too glad to find some one else to vent his vile temper upon. He ran around the table and grabbed Mrs. Cohen roughly by the shoulder.

"You're fired," he shrieked. "I've had too much from you. You're the slowest woman here. Now you stop the whole table. You're fired."

"No, you don't, Mr. Goldfogle," Yetta cried, as excited as he was. "You don't fire her without you fire me too. See? Ain't you got no heart? She's killed herself working for you. You ought to take care of her now she's sick."

"Vot you tink?" he wailed. "Is it a hospital or a factory I'm running?"

"If it's a slaughter-house, Jake Goldfogle, I won't work in it."

The altercation had stopped all the work. The shop was strangely quiet. And Jake, his hope of success, his dream of love, trembling about his ears, could hardly keep back his tears. Suddenly he found voice and turned on the other women.

"Vot for do you stop? Vork! Vork, or I'll fire you."

And then coming up close to Yetta he said: – "You come vid me to my office. I vant to talk vid you."

"Why don't you say it here?" she asked defiantly. "I don't care who hears me talk. You got to treat Mrs. Cohen right or I'll quit. The other girls will quit too if they ain't cowards."

"No, no, no," he said, trying to hush her. "You come vid me, Miss Rayefsky."

She hesitated. She had expected him to rage and threaten her; his cringing manner disconcerted her. Anyhow it would give Mrs. Cohen time to breathe, so she reluctantly followed him into the dingy little office. He carefully closed the door.

"I've got sometin' to tell you. I. Vell – Yetta, you be a good girl und not make no trouble in the shop. Und ven de rush season is over, Yetta – I'll, yes, Yetta, I luf you. I'll marry you. You be a good girl und not make trouble, Yetta, und I'll marry you."

If he had threatened to kill her, Yetta would not have been so surprised. She was dumbfounded. And Jake, nervous, frightened, amorous Jake, took her amazed speechlessness for consent. He thought the magnificent generosity of his offer had overpowered her.

"Yes, Yetta," he drivelled on, "I luv you already since a long while. I vant to tell you, but the contract is zu close. I need you in the shop. You're the best vorker. It's only a few veeks now, Yetta. Ve'll be rich. Rich! I don't care if you ain't got no money. Ven I seed you first, Yetta, I luved you."

He grabbed one of her hands and tried to kiss her. The slap he received dizzied him.

"You come out in the shop, Jake Goldfogle," she cried, pulling open the door. "You tell them what you told me. What do you think the pig said to me?" she asked the surprised women. "You tell them, Jake Goldfogle, or I will. He wants me to marry him – after the rush season. He loves me so much he wants me to go on speeding for him – slave driving – till after the rush season. Oh, the pig! I'd rather be hustling on the street, Jake Goldfogle, than be married to a sweat-shop keeper."

Jake's temper was never very good; it had been torn by too many and desperate worries. To have his heart's dream thus publicly scoffed at, robbed him of his last shred of self-control. Giving tongue to an incoherent burst of rage and filth, he rushed at Yetta. She thought he was going to strike her. But she was too angry herself to be afraid.

"Don't you hit me, you brute," she screamed at him, shaking her own fists in his face. "I ain't working for you no more, Jake Goldfogle. See? I ain't one of your slaves any more. I'm a free woman. I'll have you arrested, if you hit me. And shut your dirty mouth."

Jake was cowed. His fist unclenched.

"You see what kind of a boss we've been working for," Yetta said to the other women. "He ain't a man. He's a pig! Wanted me to marry him – after the rush season. I've quit him and you ought to quit too."

"Shut up," Jake shrieked.

"I won't shut up. See what you've done to Mrs. Cohen. You've killed her, and now you want to throw her out. We ought to strike."

"Don't you talk strike in my shop, you – "

"Yes. We ought to strike. You know the dirty deal we're getting. Rotten wages and speed. It's because we ain't got no union and don't fight. We ought to strike like the skirt-finishers."

"Police! Police!" Jake howled, rushing to the door. "I'll have you arrested, you dirty little – "

"I don't care if he does have me arrested," Yetta went on more quietly after he had gone. "If he was treating us decent, he wouldn't yell for the police, when somebody says 'strike.' I ain't afraid of jail. I'm afraid of staying here on the job and coughing myself to death. I'm going to quit, and you ought to too."

"You're a fool. You're making trouble," the bovine Mrs. Levy said with conviction.

"No. She ain't," Mrs. Weinstein spoke up. "I guess my man belongs to a union. He's told me lots of times that us working people ain't got no other hope. It's the bosses what make trouble by cheating us. I'll strike, if the rest do."

"I'll strike anyhow," Yetta said. "I won't never work for a pig like that, asking me to marry him after the rush season."

"I'll strike vid you, Yetta," the girl said who had been to the ball. "My sister's a skirt-finisher. But the strike ain't no good unless everybody quits."

"I'll strike," another voice chimed in.

"All right," Mrs. Weinstein said. "We'll all strike."

"It's foolishness," Mrs. Levy protested, rubbing her trachoma-eaten eyes.

But the excitement had caught the rest of the women. And when Jake returned, hatless and breathless, with a phlegmatic Irish policeman, he met all his women coming downstairs. In spite of his frenzied pleading, the policeman refused to arrest them, refused even to arrest Yetta.

"I'll take your number. I'll report you, if you don't arrest her. She's been making trouble."

"Aw! Go on, ye dirty little Jew. I'll smack your face, if ye talk back to me. And you women, move on. Don't stand around here making a noise or I'll run you in."

But on the next corner the group of women did stop. Where should they go? What should they do next?

"Nobody'll go back to work," Yetta said, "unless he'll take Mrs. Cohen, too, when she gets rested."

"I won't never get rested," the coughing woman said.

"Oh, yes, you will, sure," Mrs. Weinstein said. But everybody knew she was lying.

The girl whose sister was a skirt-finisher and who knew all about strikes took down the names and addresses of the twelve women. Mrs. Weinstein promised to look after Mrs. Cohen. And Yetta started uptown to the office of the Woman's Trade Union League. And all the long walk her heart was chanting a glad hosanna. She wasn't a speeder any more. She could look free people in the face.