Part 27 (2/2)

”I'm tough.” He moved out onto the stair. Wasn't she going to ask him to come again? ”By the way,” he called out, ”I've read _Sherlock Holmes_.

It's great!”

”I'm glad you liked it,” she replied, ”and I'll try to find another good story for you next Sat.u.r.day evening.”

He went away rapturously happy in having won the chance to know so beautiful a southern girl. Whether she lived as a worker in a tenement or as a companion in an old family mansion, she was the most refined person he had ever met and he planned great days when they should be together. The rain fell unheeded. Despite the bright light from the electric lamp, he walked into a deep puddle, drenching his feet and ankles and splas.h.i.+ng his best clothes with dirty water. Oblivious of such trivial happenings, dreaming of the future, counting the evenings to Sat.u.r.day night, he reached his home, where, lying down to sleep, the lady of his heart followed him in his dreams.

Hertha, as she washed the cups and tidied up the kitchen, was happy, too, for a time, recollecting with pleasurable excitement the look of admiration in her visitor's eyes. But shortly her cheeks grew hot with anger at him and at herself. He had insulted the colored people, ”her people,” as she had so recently called them, and she had said no word of protest. If she could not talk, she argued to herself, she could refuse to see this young man again. It was men like this who stole the Negro's crops, who kept their children in ignorance, who even broke down jail doors and lynched black prisoners. Why had she ever allowed herself to be kind to such a man? Then as she looked about her, as she seemed to see d.i.c.k in the chair by the table, she smiled a little. Probably it was foolish to get so excited on the matter. Mammy's last instructions were not to try to stand in two worlds, and if the white world showed more indifference, more antagonism to the black than even she had expected, she was in it and it was as well to know it as it was. In her loneliness she taught herself to believe that she had a right to become acquainted with this southern youth, but she resolved firmly not to let him have the conversation all to himself if he should again broach the Negro question. However bashful she might be, it should be possible for her to utter some forceful word.

CHAPTER XXI

With the coming of February, speeding did not stop at the ”Imperial,”

while overtime crept in. Owing to rush orders the girls found themselves working half an hour or even an hour over the usual time to close. The 5:51 train became a thing of the past with Annie Black and she bemoaned it bitterly; but Hertha noticed that while there was complaint among the American girls and much grumbling over unfairness and meanness, it seemed to end there, while with the Jewish girls some plan was afoot.

Seated, together at the luncheon hour, their eyes s.h.i.+ning, a slight touch of color in their cheeks, a number of the more serious, with Sophie Switsky at their head, talked of something beside their feeling of fatigue, the forlornness of a cold dinner, or the loss of an evening with a gentleman friend. One day, coming in earlier than usual from luncheon, Hertha found herself drawn into the circle while Sophie explained the meaning of the conference.

The shop must be unionized. Only by this means was there any hope for justice. Without the union to back them, the employers could treat them as they pleased, could confer or withdraw favors at their pleasure. But with the union behind their demands this overtime work would cease and they would secure a better wage. Did Hertha not think the conditions abominable?

Hertha felt embarra.s.sed. To these girls the trade which they worked was their one means of livelihood; they were intense in their att.i.tude toward it, while to her it was only a step to something more, she did not yet know what. She regretted the long hours, but they would not last for many weeks, and as long as she could endure them and make good pay she had not thought of change. Richard Brown, whom she was seeing a good deal of now, urged her to drop the whole thing; but since he knew nothing of her affairs she took his advice lightly. Her little legacy kept her for the time in safety, but Sophie Switsky in her old dress with her wet shoes, sending money to her brother and striving to save for the summer, was not safe. Any day she might face starvation.

”I don't know about these things,” Hertha stammered in answer to the question put to her.

”What's doing?” Annie Black asked good naturedly, coming over to them; but before she could receive a reply the signal came to turn to work again.

”I see there's a strike in the 'Parisian,'” Kathleen said the next morning as she scanned the paper. ”Perhaps you'll be going out before long; you aren't organized.”

”Kathleen,” Hertha questioned, ”do you believe in the union?”

”Do I believe in the union? Do I believe in G.o.d? There, don't be shocked, but there's something tangible about what the union done for me; while, when my sister Maggie broke her arm, just as Johnnie came down with the measles and her husband lost his job, I had to live by faith--and that's a poor thing to fill an empty stomach.”

”Please talk sensibly,” Hertha said.

”Am I not? I'm only saying that the ways of the Almighty are mysterious while the ways of the union, if you believe in the man who keeps the cash box, are clear and plain. The union is the only thing that stands between the working girl and starvation and sickness and sin. Don't forget that.”

There was no laughter now in Kathleen's voice and her eyes glowed with emotion as she looked across the table at her questioner.

”We aren't unionized, Kathleen, but the 'Imperial' is one of the best shops in the city; all the girls say so.”

”Then you're living on the work others have done and not doing your part. In sweat and suffering some union made the standard for your shop.”

At work much the same talk was in the air. When luncheon came Annie received the answer to her question and learned of what was on foot. For some weeks Sophie and her colleagues had been working upon the other Jewish girls striving to win them to unionism. Now they were ready to turn to the Americans.

”We must join the union,” Sophie called out in her clear if broken English. ”See how we work long hours, and when the rush is over, no work. And if we say anything we lose our job.”

”Shut up, then,” said Annie crossly.

She looked about nervously, but as the foreman was absent, proceeded to enter the debate.

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