Comrade Yetta

by Albert Edwards

She pulled it back into the obscurity and sat there all the evening, watching through wet eyes the old familiar scene, the people who came to buy, and the people who came to talk. One or two she recognized. When she had been a little girl, she used to sit up there behind the desk on a high stool beside her father and fall asleep against his shoulder. There was no one now to lean her head against when she was tired—except Harry. He promised to take care of her.

Memories of her father seemed to crowd the dingy old store. Why were there not more men like him in the world? He would not have wanted her to kill herself over the machine. How glad he would have been that she had found a lover to rescue her. She recalled the sermon he had preached about the wedding across the way. She did not remember many of the words; much of it had been above her childish understanding. But she remembered how he had told her that she must love and trust and cherish her man. She recalled the Vow of Ruth which he had taught her. And now at last the lover had come. The old sad, drab life had ended; she was about to enter into the glory. When it was time to close, the bookseller insisted on giving back her fifty cents.

"You take the books," he said. "And when you get married, you can call them a wedding present from a man who knew your father, and never knew a better man."

Hugging the two volumes of Les Miserables against her breast, she walked home more light hearted because of this evening with ghosts—more light hearted than she had ever been before.

The next morning Yetta left home earlier than usual, so that she could pick up her bundles on her way to work. All the long morning the noisy machinery of the shop seemed to be playing the music of The Song of Songs.

But suddenly The Fates seemed to become ashamed of the way they were treating her. Perhaps Yetta's dreams of her father the night before had pierced through the adamantine walls and stirred him out of the drowsy bliss of Paradise; he may have thrown himself at the feet of The Most High to plead his daughter's cause. Perhaps it was her Guardian Angel which intervened. Or perhaps it was just chance.

When Yetta went down on the sidewalk during the noon rest to get a breath of air,—with the Song ringing in her heart,—her attention was attracted by a group of people about a woman who was speaking. She joined the listening crowd. The woman was talking about a strike of "The Skirt Finishers." The girls had been out now for weeks and were on the point of starvation. The Woman's Trade Union League, to which the speaker belonged, had arranged a ball for that night in behalf of the "skirt finishers."

"Every garment worker ought to come," she said. "It's your fight they are fighting. The garment trades are all 'sweated'—you've got to rise or die together. And every cent from the tickets goes to help the strike. The hall, the orchestra, everything has been donated—all the money goes to the girls. But, more than the money, they need encouragement. Don't buy a ticket and throw it away. Of course the fifty cents will help, but we want more than the money, we want a crowd. It will cheer up the girls a bit if the ball is a success. If you can't come yourself, give a ticket to some one who will."

Now the spirit of her father, or her Guardian Angel, or chance, moved Yetta to give her last fifty cents to the cause of the strikers. The time was so close when she was to leave the sweat-shop forever that her heart went out to all the less fortunate girls who had no such happy prospects. She would not only buy the ticket, but if the strikers needed encouragement, she would persuade Harry to take her there.

When the day's work was over, she hurried into her new finery and downstairs to meet her lover. Harry looked her over approvingly. Yes, she was worth all the time it had taken. But he was too wily a fox to let his evil glee be apparent. The rest was so easy; only a fool would risk frightening her now. A couple of hours more love-making, the intoxication of a few dances, a little wine—if need be a drop or two of chloral—and the trick was turned.