Comrade Yetta Part 43

"Once my pen is started, I could write on and on to you. But this desire to commune with you is not what you think love should be, so it would be of no comfort. After all, there is nothing more for me to say. It was my business to make you see the choice clearly. You did, I think. And you made it bravely. So I must say Good-by.

"I'm leaving in half an hour for Boston, and I will sail from there in a few days. The Fates have arranged a haven for me in Oxford. It is not what I would like most in the world, but it will do. Better chance to you.

"WALTER."

Very little of this letter reached Yetta's consciousness. The import of all these phrases was that he had gone. So there was not any hope. If Walter had loved her--in anything like the way she meant--he would not have gone.

Yetta had not cried very much, even as a little girl. Now, it seemed to her that, having lost control of her tears, she had lost everything. She wilted on to the bed, burying her face in the pillow to hide the shame of her sobs.

Her body was utterly p.r.o.ne on the bed--but her spirit had fallen even lower. Why had she let Isadore divert her with the call to work? What did work matter, if she had lost Walter? Why had she not gone to him that first morning? He had waited for some word from her. She had let her stupid pride stand in her way. What was her pride worth to her? If she had gone to his room, she might have held something of him. She had demanded all and had lost everything.

As the minutes grew into hours, Yetta sank deeper and deeper into the Slough of Despond. She lost desire to struggle out. But gradually the wild turmoil of grief wore away, and she fell into a heavy sleep.

When she awoke, she heard Sadie moving about in the kitchen. The pride which she had cursed a few hours before came back to her. She did not want Sadie to see her defeat. There is a vast difference between the abstract proposition, "Is life worth living?" and the concrete question, "Shall I let Tom, d.i.c.k, or Mary see tears in my eyes!" She had wanted to die, and now she did not want to be ashamed.

So the will came to Yetta to hold her head high. It was six o'clock when she got up and washed her face. Sadie was preparing supper. She wanted to go out and help. But instead she sat down drearily. She did not have the courage to face her room-mate. The willing of a deed does not guarantee the power of execution.

She was dry-eyed now; the tears were spent, but she was utterly weak.

She leaned a little sideways and, resting her cheek against the cool surface of her bureau, looked--unseeing--out of her window at the array of milk bottles on the window ledge across the airshaft. Where could she find help? It was the first time in her life she had wanted such a.s.sistance. Often she had needed advice, aid in thinking things out. But now she needed help in the elemental job of living. Often she had been at a loss as to what she ought to do, but now she knew. Yet instead of going out to help Sadie, she sat there--weak.

If she had been an Italian, she might have crept out to the Confessional, whispered her troubles into a kind Padre's ear, and so found comfort and strength. But the solace of religion was unknown to her. In these latter active years, even the memory of her father had faded. She could no longer shut her eyes and talk things over with him.

But without some external aid, she knew she could not go forward.

She--the individual--was defeated. Like the little band of besieged in Lucknow there was nothing more that she could do. The ammunition was spent. In what direction should she turn in the hope of hearing the pipes of the rescuers?

In those few desolate moments she saw her situation clearly. She did not want to die. But unless relief came quickly the black waves of death which were beleaguering her spirit would close over her. Never as long as she might live could she ever be proud of her strength again.

What solid, basic thing was there for her to lean against?

Suddenly she caught the sound of the distant bagpipes. She rushed out into the hall and took down the receiver of the telephone.

"h.e.l.lo, Central. Park Row 3900."...

"h.e.l.lo. _The Clarion_?"...

"One! Two! Three!!"

Sadie came to the kitchen door and looked out in surprise. The gaslight shone full on Yetta's face; it was drawn and haggard.

Harry Moore, who happened to answer the call in _The Clarion_ office, did not recognize Yetta's voice, but he recognized the signal of distress.

"O-o-oh!" he shouted back. "Cut it out and work for Socialism."

Yetta's fixed stare melted into the look of one who sees a fair vision, the strained lines about her mouth relaxed into a glad smile.

"Thanks!" she said, and hung up the receiver.

After all, there was something bigger than her little personal woes--a Cause to work for even if her wings were broken.

"I'm sorry to have slept so late," she said, coming out into the kitchen. "I was up on that paper-box strike in Brooklyn most of last night. Dead tired. I turned in about one this afternoon. I thought I'd surely wake up in time to get supper."

Sadie was aggrieved at Yetta's matter-of-fact tone. She knew that something was wrong. In spite of the firm smile, Sadie was sure something exciting had happened. She herself was used to telling her troubles to almost any one who would listen. That her ready sympathy should be allowed to lie fallow, hurt her. But she did not want Yetta to think she was prying. So she talked about other things. But when Yetta put on her hat after supper, Sadie could not help asking where she was going.

"Down to _The Clarion_. An Executive Committee. I hope I'll get back early. This all-night game is killing me."

Yetta took little part in the Committee meeting, but she listened carefully to get the measure of the other members. Rheinhardt, the chairman, was a printer; he had some familiarity with that side of newspaper work at least. He was a quiet, earnest man, and as the evening pa.s.sed, Yetta's respect for him grew. He seemed sleepy and indifferent most of the time, but whenever any matter of real importance came up, he was wide-awake. Paulding, the magazine writer, with whom Isadore had spent his vacation, was the strongest man on the Committee. But in spite of his deep interest in the paper, he was a bit restive, quick to voice any pa.s.sing discouragement, impatient with the less-cultured working-men and their rather indirect methods of thought and work. Idle discussion, waste of time, made him fume. Yetta saw that if she was to do any real work on this Committee, it must be in cooperation with Rheinhardt and Paulding against the other two who were dead-wood--nonent.i.ties.

When the routine work had ended and they had reached, in the Order of Business, "Good and Welfare," Rheinhardt asked Yetta if she had any suggestions.

"Every improvement," she said, "seems to depend on getting more money.

And that's got to be done by increased circulation. Our financial condition will never be sound so long as we are dependent on gifts and friendly loans. We've got about 12,000 circulation now, and I guess that's as many Socialists as we can count on. If we're to grow, it must be among non-Socialist working-men. So it seems to me that we must put our best efforts on the labor page. That page is very weak now. It's full of stuff about the unions, but it's written to interest Socialists.

It ought to be the other way round. Until it is made interesting to working-men who are not yet Socialists it's useless as a circulation-getter."

Paulding leaned forward and broke in impulsively.

"Comrade, everybody has knocks! Every page in the paper is weak. We don't have to be told that. How can it be improved with the resources at hand? That's the question."

"Nothing can be done without some money. But if we could raise one man's salary, I think we could make a great improvement. What's needed is a man who can give all his time to it, some one who has an idea of news-value, of up-to-date journalism, who understands the labor movement and can write about it without an offensive Socialist bias."

"And," Paulding growled, "how much would a man like that cost us? There aren't half a dozen men with those qualifications in the city. How much would Karner pay a man, who could make real circulation for _The Star_ out of a labor page?"

"The kind of man I mean would value the freedom we could give him.

n.o.body who's sincere likes to work for Karner. We can get him for less."

"Well, I'm doubtful," Paulding said. "We're sweating our staff now worse than any sweat-shop. Look at this rotten office where we ask them to work. We're overworking them, underpaying them, and about every week asking them to sign off some of their wages."

"They do it willingly," one of the nonent.i.ties put in, "the Great Ideal--"

"Oh! that Great Ideal talk makes me tired," Paulding interrupted. "We can't get high-cla.s.s men at such terms. I know two really able men; they give us a lot of stuff gratis. They've got the Great Ideal as strong as anybody, but they've also got families! They'd be glad to work for us if we could give them, not fancy salaries, but decent ones. We can't. The men we've got are wonderful. I take off my hat whenever I think of them.

They're devoted to the limit. Very likely they're of high moral character"--his voice rose querulously--"good to their mothers, and all that. But there is no use shutting our eyes to the fact that they're not newspaper men. Braun had some experience on the _Forwaertz_. But there isn't a man in the office who ever saw the inside of a modern metropolitan daily.

"What can we offer a man? Twenty-five dollars a week--at most. That's what Braun is getting--sometimes. It's a joke. A hundred a month to our editor-in-chief! That's our whole trouble. What we--"

"Could you offer twenty-five a week?" Yetta interrupted his despondency.

"It would be hard," Rheinhardt said.

"Sure we could--for a good man," Paulding contradicted him. "I could guarantee it myself. I've a lot of friends who are interested in _The Clarion_, but just dead sick of its sloppy appearance. I haven't seen anything in it for weeks that jolted me till this paper-box story of yours. Think of it! A Socialist paper which isn't afraid to tell the truth, but can't afford to hire the brains to do it! Yes, if we had a live-wire on the paper, I could find ten people who would pledge ten dollars a month. But what's the use of talking about it? The kind of man we need could get fifty a week--more. It's the same all the way through.

We need keen men in every department and can't afford to pay their market value. If we got the right kind of a man for advertising manager--the kind we need--he'd be valuable to other richer papers. The right kind of a man for our circulation department would be worth ten thousand to a dozen other--"

"I don't know anything about the business side of it," Yetta interrupted again. "But I know a lot of reporters. If you'll authorize me to offer twenty-five a week, I'll see if I can find one."

"No one can work on the paper who isn't a party member," the other nonent.i.ty said. "We can't ask the Comrades to put up money to support a broken-down capitalist."

"What's the use of discussing it?" Paulding asked Yetta, ignoring the nonent.i.ty. "Have you the nerve to ask a friend to take such a job? You wouldn't do it yourself."

Yetta suddenly remembered that she was probably jobless.

"On the contrary," she said, "if I had the right kind of training, I'd jump at it."