Comrade Yetta

He was the recognized leader of the principal East Side "gang" – a varied assortment of toughs, "strong-arm men," pickpockets, "panhandlers," and pimps. It must not be supposed, however, that these various professions were sharply differentiated. There is a hoary tradition which says that once upon a time the under world of New York City was divided into rigid classes and cliques, when a "dip" looked down on a beggar, and highway robbers had a professional pride which kept them from associating with panders. But in the year of grace 1903 – when Jake's crooked trail ran across Yetta's path – such delicate distinctions, if they ever had existed, were entirely lost. Many a man who claimed to be a prize-fighter sometimes "stuck up a drunk." The "flyest" pickpocket did not disdain the income to be derived from the sale of "phony" jewellery. It was no longer possible to distinguish a "yeggman" from a "flopper," and even bank robbers wrote "begging letters." And of all "easy money," the easiest is from prostitution. There were very few denizens of the under world who did not have one or two women "on the string." Even the legendary aristocracy of forgers had sunk thus low.

The political manifestation of the gang over which Jake ruled was the James B. O'Rourke Democratic Club, of which he was president. This organization maintained, with the help of a subsidy from Fourteenth Street, a shabby parlor floor club-room on Broome Street. They gave one ball and one picnic a year. A central office detective, if he had attended a meeting, could have given a "pedigree" for almost all the members. But the political bigbugs, the members of the city administration, who sometimes came to visit the club, did not bring a detective with them. They saw only a roomful of ardent young Democrats. The good-will of the club was an important asset to aspiring politicians; the members would willingly vote half a dozen times for a candidate they liked.

The social centre of the gang was a "Raines Law" hotel on lower Second Avenue. It had a very glittering back parlor for "ladies." There, and in the Hungarian Restaurant next door, Jake's followers spent their moments of relaxation. The frontier between their territory and that of hostile gangs was several blocks away. The "hang out" was just inside the borders of a police precinct, with whose captain they had a treaty of peace.

The more professional headquarters were in an innocent-looking barber shop on Chrystie Street. In the back there was a pool parlor. The lamps were so shaded that the table was brilliantly illumined and the rest of the room was black. If you walked in from the brightly lighted shop in front, you could not tell how many people were there, nor how many pistols were pointed at you. From the toilet-room in the back there was an inconspicuous door into the alley, which, besides its strategic advantages, led to the back door of Pincus Kahan's pawnshop. Much stolen goods followed this route.

A sort of Robin Hood romance has been thrown around the notorious gang leaders of Lower New York. As usual, the reality back of the romance is a very sorry thing. Jake, for instance, was not an admirably clever, nor strong-willed, nor fearless specimen of the genus homo. To be sure he excelled many of his stunted, defective, and "cocaine-doped" retainers in these qualities, but above all he owed his position to a calculating, patient prudence. Discretion is certainly the better part of valor in knavery, and while most crooks are daredevils, Jake was discreet.

Since his first detention in the House of Refuge, Jake had managed to keep out of jail. On his release he had organized a "mob" of pickpockets. Most of its members were boys he had met in that worthy institution. Neither the House of Refuge nor any of the other "reformatories" are to be blamed for the crimes of those who have passed through them. Many of their inmates are taught honorable trades, and some follow them after release. Nearly half of the juvenile pickpockets who gathered about Jake had never been arrested – and they were every bit as bad as those who had been in the House of Refuge.

Owing to their leader's discretion, this little "mob," which had affiliated with the dominant East Side Gang, enjoyed an almost unbroken run of prosperity. But when he had turned eighteen, Jake retired from the active practice of his profession. There was as much money and more security in women. Nature had endowed him with the necessary external charms. He enjoyed cleanliness, he was good looking, and above all he had a soft, persuasive voice.

His covetousness, joined with a natural ability at organization, was always pushing him into new enterprises. He gathered together the wreck of the notorious Beggars' Trust. He joined "The Independent Benevolent Society," and cornered the business of supplying girls to their "brass check" houses. One after another, he gained control of the gang's most lucrative ventures. Almost any other man of the under world would have made a play for acknowledged leadership long before Jake did. He was modest, or, as his enemies said, a coward. He waited until sudden death or imprisonment had removed his principal rivals – until the leadership was practically forced upon him.

There were cleverer, more strong-willed, braver men in the gang than he. But he was never careless. A civil war within the political machine had given him an opportunity to make explicit and profitable treaties with those "higher up." He had sense enough to leave "dope" alone. He lacked the imagination to have any sentiment of loyalty or any sympathy, and this made him what is called unscrupulous. Like most cowards he was bitter and cruel in revenge. He had never killed a man with his own hands, but he ruled his organization of "thugs" through fear.

It was two days after her encounter with him in the Park before Yetta saw him again. As she came out of the factory, after the day's work, she almost ran into him.

"Why, hello, Miss Rayefsky," he greeted her. "Your cousin Ray told me where you worked. May I walk along with you?"

He walked beside her to the corner of the street where she lived. Glowing stories he told her of the Ball, how much fun he and Rachel had had, and how sorry he was that she had missed it. Really, she ought to have come. What fun was there for working girls if they did not go to dances? To be sure some girls were too crazy about it, went to balls every night and stayed up too late. He disapproved of such doings. He had to work. And he did not want to be sleepy in the office. No, indeed! A serious young man with ambitions could not afford to try the all-night game. He very seldom went to balls except on Saturday night.

Hairy Klein, alias Jake, had sized Yetta up and decided on the "serious" talk.

It was several days before he turned up again. He explained that he had been "out on the road." In the course of half a dozen such walks he opened his heart to her. There was nothing about himself which he did not tell her. She knew all his ambitions and hopes, the names of his influential relatives, the details of his serious, laborious life, and the amount of his balance in the Bowery Savings Bank. Pretty soon the "bosses" would keep their promise and take him into the firm. They would be surprised to find how much capital he had accumulated. Meanwhile he was learning the business from A to Z. What he did not know about silk was not worth knowing.

To all this fairy-story Yetta listened with credulous ears. The young man had a convincing manner; he was courteous and well dressed. And besides, Rachel would have warned her if he had been bad.

If Yetta had grown up with boys, if she had played at courtship, – as most young people happily do, – she might have seen through the surface glitter of this scoundrel. She had no standard by which to judge him.

But in a timidly defensive spirit she refused to go to a dance with him. It was partly the instinct of coquetry, which told her to struggle against capture. It was more her humility. When he said he liked her, thought she was good looking, wanted "to be her steady fellow," and so forth, it made her throb with a strange and disturbing pride. But it also made her distrustful – it was too good to be true. He had somewhat over-colored his romance. If he had only pretended to be a clerk at $11.50 a week and meagre expectations, it would have been easier to accept. But why should this rich and brilliant young conqueror want poor, penniless her?

It was not so much that she doubted Harry's truthfulness; she found her good luck unbelievable. And this uncertainty tormented her. Despite her lack of experience, she had a large fund of instinctive common sense. She realized that she could not compromise with Life. Either this man was good, wonderfully, gorgeously good, in which case the slightest distrust was folly and cruelty, or he was bad – then the smallest grain of trust would be dangerous. She felt herself utterly unable to decide wisely so momentous a question. She longed ardently for some older confidante, some woman whose goodness and wisdom she could trust. She wished she knew Miss Brail and the Settlement women. She was sure they were both wise and good.

There was her aunt. In her desperate extremity she proposed one night that Harry should call at the Goldstein's flat. But when he refused, she could not blame him. His argument was good. Her aunt was sure to oppose any one who threatened to marry Yetta and divert her earnings. He stood on the street-corner and urged her earnestly to leave her relatives. He had wormed from her all the sordid details of that miserable family. Why should she give her money to a drunkard who had no claim on her? He knew a nice respectable place where she could get a room for half her wages. She could buy some nice clothes with her savings. He made quite a pretty speech about how much better she would look in a fine dress. It was his firm conviction that she was the most beautiful girl in New York.

Yetta knew that it was foolish for her to go on living with the Goldsteins. As Rachel had said, they were and always had been cheating her. But a dread of the unknown kept her from at once accepting Harry's advice. The waves of Life were swirling about her dizzyingly, and she felt the need of a familiar haven. She held on in panic to the only home she knew, sparring blindly for time, and hoping that something would happen to convince her definitely whether or not she ought to put trust in the alluring dream.

But all the time her instinctive resistance was weakening; she had begun to give into his seduction. Her growing horror of the "sweated" monotony of her life was forcing her relentlessly into the clutches of this pander. Strain her eyes as she might she could see no door of escape unless some such lover rescued her. Whenever she tried to think of the possible dangers of believing in Harry Klein, a mocking imp jeered at her with the grim certainties of life without him. What risk was there in the dream which was worse than the inevitable barrenness and premature fading of the sweat-shop? She listened eagerly to what he said about the flat they would rent in Harlem. But with more thrilling attention, she listened to his stories of dances. Her heart hungered passionately for a little gayety. And then there was the fear that at some dance he might meet a more attractive girl and leave her.

She was no longer handing over all her wages to her aunt. Under pretext of a slack season she was holding back a couple of dollars a week. She carried these humble savings wrapped in a handkerchief inside her blouse. Every time she felt the hard lump against her body, her heart gave a little jump. She would have some money to buy a hat and some white shoes for her first dance.

Jake, alias Harry Klein, had a more devious psychology. When "Blow Away" asked him one night, in the Second Avenue "hang-out," how things were going with Ray's cousin, Jake's lying face assumed a faraway contented smile. But inwardly he was raging over Yetta's stubbornness. He was not used to such long chases. When he had first seen her, his money-loving soul had revolted at so shameful a waste of earning capacity. A pretty girl like that working in a sweat-shop! He had followed the scent without much enthusiasm. It would be an affair of a couple of weeks. Most pretty girls want good clothes to look prettier. Most of them lost their heads if a well-dressed man made love to them. The grim, hopeless monotony of poverty made most of them hungry for a larger life. It was really sickening to a man of his experience to see how greedily they swallowed his story of the silk firm on Broadway. It was – and this was his expression for supreme easiness – like stealing pennies from a blind beggar.

Yetta by her stubborn caution had won a sort of respect from him. His pride was engaged. His face flushed when he thought of her. She stirred in him something more than vexation. The girl "on his string" who was at the moment enjoying his special favor suddenly seemed stupid and insipid to him. In his distorted way he rather fell in love with Yetta. His day-dreaming moments were filled with passionate lurid pictures of possessing her. Although it was proving a long chase, he knew the odds and was sure of the outcome. Sometimes he thought almost tenderly of the time of victory. Sometimes his face hardened, and he vowed he would make her pay.

The pursuit had dragged on a solid month when quite by chance he stumbled on an argument which won his case.

He began to worry about her health. She ought to get out of the sweat-shop. It would kill her. He told her horrible stories about how women went to pieces in the sweat-shops, how they got "bad lungs," or went blind, or had things happen to them inside. He would, the very next day, find a position for her in a store or some place that would not be so hard on her. It did not matter if the wages were not so good; it broke his heart to think of her ruining her health. As soon as they took him into the firm he was going to marry her. He did not want his wife to be sick or crippled.

In his mind was a dark and sinister plan to entice Yetta from her home and establish her in nominal employment with some complaisant woman. He was really a very stupid young man. He did not realize that in all her life Yetta had never had any one worry about her health. He did not guess how his solicitude, which seemed so unselfish, had choked her throat and filled her eyes with tears. He went on with his evil eloquence, when all the time he might have put his arms about her and kissed her, and carried her off wherever he wished.

The next afternoon in the sweat-shop, the pain smote Yetta in the back once more.

CHAPTER VI

THE PIT'S EDGE

This second backache did not cause any noticeable interruption in the day's routine. Yetta gritted her teeth and kept the pace – if anything, increased it. But while her fingers flew back and forth over the accustomed work, her thoughts soared far afield. If there had been persuasiveness in Harry's words, there was ten times as much eloquence in that sudden clutch of pain. As Mrs. Cohen had prophesied, it had come back. How soon would she feel it again?

At last the motor stopped its crazy rattle, the roar of the belts turned to a sob, the day's work was done. Yetta arranged her shawl with trembling fingers and hurried down the stairs. But she hesitated a moment inside the doorway before plunging out into the pack of workers who were hurrying eastward.

The ebb and flow of this tide of tenement dwellers is one of the momentous sights of Manhattan. At five in the morning the cross-town streets are almost deserted. On the Bowery the milk wagons and occasional trucks rattle northward in the false dawn. The intervals between the elevated trains are long. But the side streets are even more lifeless. Now and then shadows flit eastward – women, night workers, who scrub out the great Broadway office buildings. They would be shadows even in broad daylight. Towards six one begins to hear sharper, hurrying footfalls – coming westward. The tide has begun to flow. It grows in volume with the increasing light. The congested tenements have awakened; by six the flood is at its height. So dense is the rush that it is hard to make way against it, eastward. So fast the flow that the observer can scarcely note the faces. It is the backs which catch the eye and leave an impress on the memory. A man who walked like a soldier – upright – in that crowd would seem a monstrosity. Even the backs of the little children are bent. They seem to be carrying portly persons on their shoulders.

Then for close to twelve hours these side streets are almost deserted again – till the ebb begins. It is hard to decide which sight is the more awesome: the flow of humanity hurrying to its inhuman labor or the same crowd ebbing, hurrying to their inhuman, bestial homes.

But Yetta was not thinking of her fellow-workers. With the egoism of youth she was thinking of herself and the pain in her back. Harry had been right – the sweat-shop was killing her. There was a chance of escape and Life might never offer her another. She had come to the now-or-never place. Yetta was not a coward, she was only timid. And the bravery of timid people is sublime. For only a moment she hesitated in the dark hallway, below Goldfogle's Vest Company, and then with a smile – a fearless smile – on her lips she stepped out into the glare of the arc-light. Harry was waiting for her. She slipped her hand confidently into his arm.

"Say, Harry, to-morrow night, let's go to a ball."

"What?" he said, stopping short, to the surprise and discomfort of the home-rushing workers. "What?"

"Sure. I want some fun."

At last she had swallowed the bait! He could hardly believe his ears. But he was afraid to seem too eager. They were swept along by the hurrying crowd almost a block before he spoke.

"How about clothes?"

"I got some," she said. "I'll bring 'em to the shop and put 'em on there."

"Why not to-night."

"No. To-morrow."

They hurriedly talked over the details of her escape. She would tell her aunt the "rush-work story." When the shop closed, Harry could take her somewhere to supper and afterwards to a dance.

"To-morrow night? Sure?" he said when they separated at her corner.

"Sure," she called back.

She ran upstairs and told her aunt that there was a rush order in her shop and she must hurry back; she only had time for a glass of tea and a piece of bread. To-morrow she would take a bigger lunch and not come home for supper. In a few minutes she out was again on the brightly lit streets. From her scant store of savings she bought a hat, a blouse, a pair of stockings and white shoes. She left her bundles at a store near her home, and then started on a pilgrimage.

The shrine she set out to visit was the little second-hand book-store on East Broadway, where she had been so happy with her father. It had hardly changed at all. Only the man who sat on the high stool behind the desk did not look like her father. She stood there aimlessly for a few minutes, and then her eye fell on the first two volumes of Les Miserables. It was the set she had read to her father. The last volume was in her room.

"One volume is gone," the man told her; "you can have them for seventy-five cents."

"I ain't got more'n half a dollar," she said.

"The complete set is worth five dollars."

"I only got fifty cents."

"All right. Take them."

She turned away from him to pull the last of her little horde out of her blouse. When she faced him, there were tears in her eyes.

"What's the matter?" he asked kindly.

"Nothin'. My father used to keep this store. These were the last books I read to him."

"Oh! Is your name Rayefsky? I knew your father – he was a good man. And I guess I used to know you, when you were about so high. Let's see – what was your name?"

"Yetta."

"Oh, yes, little Yetta Rayefsky, grown up into a big woman. I suppose you'll be getting married soon."

"Say, can I sit down here fer a while," she asked, to change the subject.

"Of course you can," he said cordially, bringing her a chair.

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.

He took her to "Lorber's" for supper. And leaning over the brightly lighted table, over dishes which all together cost less than a dollar, but which seemed to her very wonderful, he solemnly asked her to promise to marry him. Just as solemnly she said "yes." Jove's laughter did not reach her ears to disturb her as she looked trustful and happy into his eyes. One cannot but wish that sometimes the guffaws of Jupiter were louder.