The reverse of the proposition came to her with equal force. Could Mabel cross? Could she really become a part of the world of work, the world of less? It seemed just as improbable. Yetta felt lonely and out of place. An inevitable wave of resentment came over her against these two favored women. Was not all this beauty and easy grace—this luxury—what she and her kind, Rachel and the other girls, were starving for? She felt herself in the enemy's country.
There was a light knock on her door, and Mabel, wrapped in her dressing-gown, came in.
"Oh, you're up already," she smiled.
All of Yetta's hostility melted before her frank greeting and morning kiss. Eleanor, it seemed, never got up before nine, so they must be quiet. In a few minutes Mabel reappeared in her street clothes, and closing the dining-room door, so as not to disturb the sleeper, they had their breakfast. This meal, even more than the dinner, amazed Yetta. There were coffee and rich cream and eggs and toast and marmalade. She had known, of course, that people dine in state, but that any one ever drank his morning coffee leisurely had never occurred to her. As Mabel read the newspaper, Yetta had much time to think, and once more the feeling of hostility returned. For more than an hour now her people had been bent over the life-destroying machines, and Mabel sipped her coffee slowly and read the news. Yetta wanted to be up and doing.
But once out on the street she was amazed and humbled at the sight of Mabel's efficiency. Yetta would not have known what to do first. Mabel had the whole day's work planned out.
First they went to the "girl who knew all about strikes" and from her got the addresses of the other women in Jake Goldfogle's shop. It developed that the bovine Mrs. Levy and the tell-tale Mrs. Levine had gone back that morning. But there was no work for only two, and Jake had sent them home with a promise to let them know as soon as he began again. He expected to start the next morning, he had told them. To Mrs. Levine he had given a dollar and whispered instructions to join the strikers and keep him informed.
The minute Mabel saw Mrs. Cohen she hurried out to a drug-store and called up Dr. Liebovitz. "It will have to be a sanitarium," Yetta overheard her say. "And at that I'm afraid it's too late. Whatever is necessary put on my account." Then Mabel arranged that the Cohen babies should be boarded by two of the poorest strikers and so out of her own pocket assured a little income to these families. Above all, Yetta wondered at Mabel's ability to spread confidence. Most of the women were helpless when they arrived, were hoping that Jake would forgive them and take them back. With a few words Mabel had banished all doubt. Ten of the dozen women—the exceptions were the bovine Mrs. Levy and Mrs. Levine, the spy—were soon convinced that victory was assured. 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.