Comrade Yetta

by Albert Edwards

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.