Comrade Yetta Part 15

Levine, the spy--were soon convinced that victory was a.s.sured. And all except Mrs. Levy promised to come up to the Woman's Trade Union League at four o'clock and organize.

This attended to, Mabel, with Yetta at her heels, jumped into an uptown car, and hurried to the office of the Central Federated Union to ask for a charter for the new union. Mr. Casey, the secretary, was a hale and hearty Irishman of near forty. For twenty years he had been an expert typesetter, and he never talked with any one twenty minutes without telling how he had set up some of the Standard Dictionary--"the most compli-cated page iver printed."

"Gawd," he remarked at sight of Mabel, "here comes some more trouble.

Can't ye give a body any peace, Miss Train? Ye know there be two or three men in the world besides yer blessed women."

The other men in the room got up and offered their chairs. Once more Yetta was amazed at the ease with which Mabel stated her case. With her straightforward way of looking at things, she had come to know and understand these men. She knew the personal history of most of them, their carefully hidden virtues as well as their vices. And whether she knew them to be "grafters" or "straight" she had a knack of winning her point.

"Sure," Casey said. "You can have the charter. That ain't no trouble.

But don't ask me nothing else now. The Devil himself won't be no more busy on the Resurrection Day than I be."

"We're all busy," Mabel replied. "And I really want you to come round at four and help them organize."

Casey waved his hands and pounded the table and swore--occasionally asking pardon for his "d.a.m.ned profanity"--but Mabel hung on. She had already won the other men in the room, and they laughingly urged him to go.

Having gained his promise to come, Mabel did not waste a minute more of his time. She rushed Yetta over to the Woman's Trade Union League and plunged into her morning's correspondence.

All those things which had seemed to Yetta of overwhelming importance began to look very small. There were some of the "skirt-finishers" in the office. Their strike involved several hundred women. There were only twelve in Goldfogle's shop. While Mabel was busy at other things Yetta picked up a copy of _The American Federationist_, the monthly organ of the national federation of labor unions. How infinitesimal was her part in this great industrial conflict! She read of thousands of miners striking in the anthracite fields, of a hundred woollen mills which had locked out their operatives. The street-car men were out in a Western city. A strike referendum was being taken by the printers of half a dozen Southern States. A great revolt had tied up the Chicago stock-yards. And here in New York there were five different strikes in progress. At one moment her pride swelled at the thought that she was a part of this vast army of workers who were fighting for a larger share of suns.h.i.+ne and Freedom. At the next it was borne in on her with a rush how insignificant was the case of the vest-makers.

She had read almost every word in that month's issue of _The Federationist_ before Mabel called her and they went downstairs to the working-girls' restaurant for lunch. They found an empty table, and Yetta had just commenced on her long list of questions, when two excited "skirt-finishers" came in, and seeing Mabel, rushed up to their table.

Once more Yetta felt herself pushed back into a second place. That morning the strike had reached its crisis, the women of two shops had gone back to work on a compromise which ignored the union; a general stampede was imminent.

About two o'clock, the women of Goldfogle's shop began to appear, and sharp at four, Mabel tore herself away from the "skirt-finishers" and came into the back room where the vest-makers were a.s.sembled. The _Forwaertz_ had come off the press an hour before, and the women who could read Yiddish had read aloud Braun's glowing account of their exploits. It had given them a new sense of importance, the feeling that there was sympathy and power back of them. And this feeling was strengthened by Mr. Casey's jovial and inspiring speech. When they had elected officers,--Mrs. Weinstein, president; "the girl who knew all about unions," treasurer, and Yetta, secretary and business agent,--he handed them over a charter printed in three colors which seemed to them a sort of magic promise of victory. They agreed as a matter of course on the set of demands which Braun had already printed in the _Forwaertz_.

Mabel pulled them down from their enthusiasm to talk details. She explained that their one hope of success lay in persuading the other vest shops to join the strike. Alone they were helpless. Each one of them was to think of all the vest workers she knew and persuade them to start a strike in their shop. She read the list of vest shops and checked off every one where some of the women had acquaintances. Then she gave them great sheaves of the _Forwaertz_ and a.s.signed them two by two to the princ.i.p.al vest shops. They were to stand at the door and distribute papers to every one who came out. In the evening they were to call on their friends in the trade and be on the job again in the morning with copies of the _Forwaertz_ at other factory doors. She and Yetta, their business agent, would go down and interview Goldfogle. Of course he would not give in at once, but it was best to show him they were not afraid. And then with some words of encouragement about how the _Forwaertz_ was helping them, and the Central Federated Union and the Socialists, and of course the Woman's Trade Union League, she dismissed them.

Without Mabel beside her, Yetta would hardly have found the courage to perform her first duty as business agent of the union. Some of the old terror of a boss's arbitrary power still clung about Jake Goldfogle. In a moment of excitement she had dared to defy him. But it was a different thing to seek an interview with him in cold blood. But to Mabel it was all in the day's work. And she did most of the talking.

Jake received them nervously. He could not, like the big employers, afford to sit back cynically and wait for his workers to starve. A week's tie-up meant certain ruin for him, and with equal certainty it meant ruin for him to grant his women anything like decent conditions.

Sorely exploited by bigger capitalists, his one hope of success lay in a miracle of more cruel exploitation. He had been busy all day with employment agencies. They could furnish him with plenty of raw hands, but he needed skilled labor. It would be much better if he could get his old force back. And so he greeted them with some decency. But the sight of Mabel, this unknown businesslike American woman, disconcerted him. He had expected to have dealings only with his employees. He saw at once that he could not fool nor browbeat this stranger.

He hardly listened to what she said, but grabbed at the typewritten sheet of "demands." Before he was halfway through, all hope vanished.

"Vot you tink?" he wailed. "Am I a millionnaire? How you expect me to make my contract?"

"We don't expect you to make your contract, Mr. Goldfogle," Mabel replied calmly. "We expect you not to take any contract that you can't fill decently. You don't care how your workpeople live on the wages you give, and we don't care for your contract. If you can give your people fair conditions, they'll be back at work in the morning. If you can't, it's a strike."

"Go avay! Get out," he cried, jumping up. "To-morrow I vill start with new hands. I'll never take none of the old ones back."

Mabel smiled at him undismayed.

"Scabs," she said, "will break your machines. It will be cheaper to keep shut than to work with greenhorns."

Jake knew that this was only too true. But he thought that a bold att.i.tude might scare his old employees into coming back.

"You tink so? Vell. I'll show you. Get out!"

It was getting towards closing time, so Mabel and Yetta, with arms full of the afternoon's _Forwaertz_, stationed themselves before one of the big vest shops and handed out copies to every one who would take one, talked to all who would listen. They had supper in an East Side restaurant and then went out again to call on some vest-makers whose addresses they knew.

Once, as they were hurrying along the street, Yetta suddenly stopped.

"I forgot," she said. "I've got to go to my aunt's and get some things."

"That's so," Mabel said. "They must be worrying about you. You tell them you are going to live with me for a while."

"No," Yetta said. "It don't matter what I tell them; they'll think I've gone wrong. But there are some things I want to get before they sell them."

They were not very far from her doorway, and when they got there, Mabel asked if she should come up.

"No," Yetta said, "you wait. It won't take me a minute."

She did not want her new friend to see the place where she had lived.

Her uncle might be at home and drunk. But when she reached the door of the Goldstein flat, her heart suddenly failed her. Perhaps he was home, perhaps he would curse her the way he had Rachel, perhaps he would strike her. If it had been only her few clothes, the new hat and the white shoes, she would have slunk downstairs afraid. But there were the three volumes of _Les Miserables_. So she went in.

Only her aunt and her cousin Rosa were in the room.

"I've come to get my things," she said, not wis.h.i.+ng to give them time to formulate any accusations. "There's a strike in my shop. I won't be earning any money now for a while, so you wouldn't want me here. I'm going to live with a friend."

She went into the bedroom and began wrapping up the books and shoes in her extra s.h.i.+rt-waist and skirt. Rosa stood in the doorway and watched her.

"Who's your friend?" she asked.

"Her name's Miss Train."

"Oh. It's a woman, is it?" Rosa sneered.

Yetta flushed angrily but held her tongue, and when she had gathered together her meagre belongings, she looked once more about the dismal bedroom and came out into the kitchen where Mrs. Goldstein was sitting in silence, sewing away at a frayed underskirt of Rosa's.

A sudden tenderness came to Yetta for this hard old woman who had mistreated her.

"Good-by, Aunt Martha," she said.

For a moment she st.i.tched on without apparently noticing her niece's presence. And then she spoke to Rosa.

"It isn't so bad," she said, "as when Rachel went. She was my own daughter."

"But I'm not going where Rachel did," Yetta protested. The old woman did not reply.

"Auntie," Yetta went on, "I ain't going wrong. If you ever want to know about me, or if you ever need anything, you ask at the Woman's Trade Union League. Here. I'll write down the address. They'll know where to find me."

She tore off a piece of the paper from her bundle and scribbled the address. As her aunt was not looking up, she left it on the table.

"Good-by, Rosa," she said. "Good-by, Aunt Martha."

Out in the hall she felt faint and dizzy. She had not loved the place nor its inmates. Why did it hurt to go? She leaned against the wall for a moment to regain command of herself. Her little glimpse into the new world had not given her the feeling that she would ever be at home there. Even Columbus had misgivings about his enterprise into the unknown sea. But presently she felt the sharp corner of _Les Miserables_ digging into her side. She had been hugging her little bundle as if it had been a life-preserver. And she found courage to go on down the dark stairs and to meet Mabel and the New Life with something of a smile.