Once, as they were hurrying along the street, Yetta suddenly stopped.
"I forgot," she said. "I've got to go to my aunt's and get some things."
"That's so," Mabel said. "They must be worrying about you. You tell them you are going to live with me for a while."
"No," Yetta said. "It don't matter what I tell them; they'll think I've gone wrong. But there are some things I want to get before they sell them."
They were not very far from her doorway, and when they got there, Mabel asked if she should come up.
"No," Yetta said, "you wait. It won't take me a minute."
She did not want her new friend to see the place where she had lived. Her uncle might be at home and drunk. But when she reached the door of the Goldstein flat, her heart suddenly failed her. Perhaps he was home, perhaps he would curse her the way he had Rachel, perhaps he would strike her. If it had been only her few clothes, the new hat and the white shoes, she would have slunk downstairs afraid. But there were the three volumes of Les Miserables. So she went in.
Only her aunt and her cousin Rosa were in the room.
"I've come to get my things," she said, not wishing to give them time to formulate any accusations. "There's a strike in my shop. I won't be earning any money now for a while, so you wouldn't want me here. I'm going to live with a friend."
She went into the bedroom and began wrapping up the books and shoes in her extra shirt-waist and skirt. Rosa stood in the doorway and watched her.