Mrs. Karner jumped up and put her arms around Yetta and kissed her and cried against her cheek. "Ladies," Mabel struck while the iron was hot, "shall we support this strike? Shall we try to organize the vest workers?"
No formal motion was put, but Mrs. Karner, who was chairman, instructed the secretary to enter on the minutes their unanimous decision to aid the vest-makers. Mrs. Van Cleave nodded her head approvingly and volunteered to head a sub-committee in finance. It was the first time she had ever done anything but sit placidly in her chair. Then the meeting adjourned, and when the last of the ladies had left the room, Mabel gave Yetta a great hug.
"Oh, you darling," she said. "You even made Mrs. Van Cleave cry. It was wonderful."
And then without any reason at all, Yetta began to sob. Mabel installed her in one of the big chairs and sat down at her feet. "There," she said, "you cry as much as you want to. You've got a right to cry a week after a speech like that."
Resting her head against Yetta's knee and holding her hand, she lit a cigarette and began to think out the new campaign. Yetta's sobs wore themselves out quickly, and they began to talk. Mabel's grasp of details, her unexpected knowledge of the vest making, amazed Yetta. Mabel knew things about the trade which she had never dreamed of.
The two stenographers were called in. One was set to work on a volume of Factory Reports, preparing a list of vest shops. And Mabel instructed the other one to call up the Forwaertz—the Yiddish Socialist paper.
"What's your address?" she asked Yetta. "I'm going to ask Mr. Braun to come and see you to-night and write up the strike."
The question reminded Yetta of a new complication.
"I forget," she said. "I can't go home. My uncle's fierce against unions. I ain't got no place. I'll have to find one."