"Thanks!" she said, and hung up the receiver.
After all, there was something bigger than her little personal woes—a Cause to work for even if her wings were broken.
"I'm sorry to have slept so late," she said, coming out into the kitchen. "I was up on that paper-box strike in Brooklyn most of last night. Dead tired. I turned in about one this afternoon. I thought I'd surely wake up in time to get supper."
Sadie was aggrieved at Yetta's matter-of-fact tone. She knew that something was wrong. In spite of the firm smile, Sadie was sure something exciting had happened. She herself was used to telling her troubles to almost any one who would listen. That her ready sympathy should be allowed to lie fallow, hurt her. But she did not want Yetta to think she was prying. So she talked about other things. But when Yetta put on her hat after supper, Sadie could not help asking where she was going.
"Down to The Clarion. An Executive Committee. I hope I'll get back early. This all-night game is killing me."
Yetta took little part in the Committee meeting, but she listened carefully to get the measure of the other members. Rheinhardt, the chairman, was a printer; he had some familiarity with that side of newspaper work at least. He was a quiet, earnest man, and as the evening passed, Yetta's respect for him grew. He seemed sleepy and indifferent most of the time, but whenever any matter of real importance came up, he was wide-awake. Paulding, the magazine writer, with whom Isadore had spent his vacation, was the strongest man on the Committee. But in spite of his deep interest in the paper, he was a bit restive, quick to voice any passing discouragement, impatient with the less-cultured working-men and their rather indirect methods of thought and work. Idle discussion, waste of time, made him fume. Yetta saw that if she was to do any real work on this Committee, it must be in coöperation with Rheinhardt and Paulding against the other two who were dead-wood—nonentities.
When the routine work had ended and they had reached, in the Order of Business, "Good and Welfare," Rheinhardt asked Yetta if she had any suggestions.
"Every improvement," she said, "seems to depend on getting more money. And that's got to be done by increased circulation. Our financial condition will never be sound so long as we are dependent on gifts and friendly loans. We've got about 12,000 circulation now, and I guess that's as many Socialists as we can count on. If we're to grow, it must be among non-Socialist working-men. So it seems to me that we must put our best efforts on the labor page. That page is very weak now. It's full of stuff about the unions, but it's written to interest Socialists. It ought to be the other way round. Until it is made interesting to working-men who are not yet Socialists it's useless as a circulation-getter."
Paulding leaned forward and broke in impulsively.
"Comrade, everybody has knocks! Every page in the paper is weak. We don't have to be told that. How can it be improved with the resources at hand? That's the question."