Yetta dropped her sign and rushed over to help.
“You can’t do that!” Yetta was screaming at the first striker, in words even Bella could clearly understand. “Don’t hit anyone!”
A policeman saw the girls struggling. He smashed his club down squarely on Yetta’s head and clamped his beefy hand around her arm, jerking her so hard that her feet left the ground.
“No!” Bella screamed. “Don’t hurt her! She was trying to help me!”
But the policeman didn’t understand. He shoved Bella away and pulled Yetta and the other striker toward a police wagon parked on the street.
Was Yetta being arrested? Just for helping Bella?
Bella stood alone in the midst of the scuffle. Frances was nowhere to be seen now. The other workers had scattered, and it was just the strikers and the policemen battling it out. Bella caught a glimpse of Rocco Luciano on the other side of the street and rushed toward him.
“Papa said I could walk you home,” Rocco said shyly.
“We’ve got to find someone who speaks English!” Bella said, looking around frantically. “Someone who can understand me and then explain—”
“I can speak English,” Rocco said. “Some.”
Bella stared at him.
“Don’t tell Mama and Papa,” he said. “But sometimes, when they think I’m out shining shoes or selling newspapers, I go to school instead. I can even read English now. I practice on the newspapers.”
Bella’s answer was to grab Rocco’s arm and drag him toward the nearest policeman, one who was just standing there watching the others shoving strikers into the police wagon.
“Tell him they arrested the wrong person!” Bella said. “Tell him that Yetta was really trying to help me, she didn’t do anything wrong, she shouldn’t be in that police wagon—”
“Are you crazy? I’m not going to talk to the police!” Rocco said.
But the policeman was already glaring down at them. He raised his club, like he was going to beat them just for standing there.
Rocco gulped, and said something that sounded like, “Scusi, sir-uh,” and then he rattled off a fast string of words. In response, the policeman growled something and shoved them away. Rocco grabbed Bella’s hand and they both took off running, dashing around peddlers’ carts and shoppers’ bundles and horses and cars and the whole crowded craziness that was New York City. It reminded Bella of a time back home when she and her brother Giovanni had seen a wolf in the mountains, and they’d run and run and run, all the way back to their house. Now, Rocco stopped as soon as they got back to Little Italy. He bent over, panting.
“Can’t . . . believe ... you made me . . . talk to ... a cop,” he said, grasping for air.
He was still holding her hand. Blushing, he dropped it.
“What did he say?” Bella asked. “Is he going to let Yetta go?”
“What do you think?” Rocco asked bitterly. “He said, ‘So what? Stay out of it or I’ll arrest you, too!’” Rocco kicked at the pavement, the sole of his boot slapping loudly where it’d come loose from the leather. “They’d never listen to me. I’m nobody and nothing. But someday . . . someday . . .”
He got a faraway look in his eye, like people back in Italy did when they talked about going to America. Bella and Rocco were already in America, and they still had to look far away for any hope.
Bella leaned over and gave him a light kiss on the forehead, the way she’d kiss Giovanni or Ricardo or Dominic, her brothers.
“Thank you for trying,” she said.
But Rocco didn’t respond the way Giovanni or Ricardo or Dominic would, pushing her away and muttering “Yuck!” Rocco touched the place on his forehead wonderingly.
“Oh,” he said. “Oh. Wow.”
Oh, no, Bella thought.
Yetta
This isn’t working,” Rahel said.
Yetta’s answer was to lean down and pull off a thick icicle from the bottom of a drainpipe that didn’t quite reach the street. It was late November now, and the strike was still going on. That meant it was awfully cold on the picket line—Yetta thought maybe her toes were frozen, and she hadn’t been able to feel her fingers for the past hour. But at least now ice was readily available—and free—for bruises and black eyes. She held the icicle up to her throbbing cheek, then shifted it to the knot on her head.
“I’m not quitting,” she said.
Rahel sighed.
“I didn’t say we should,” she said.
“At least tonight I got away from the policeman before he put me into the paddy wagon,” Yetta said. “So the union won’t have to pay bail again.”
“Yours, anyway,” Rahel said. “What about the other twenty girls who were arrested?”
Yetta shrugged, which made her back ache where the policeman’s baton had hit her—had it been Wednesday? Thursday? Last week sometime. She had bruises on top of bruises; it was hard to tell them apart.
“We made the New York Times,” she said. “Not just the Forward, not just the Call. The New York Times !”
She said this as though she knew all about the newspapers in New York City, how impressive it was to be noticed by a newspaper that rich people read, instead of just newspapers printed in Yiddish or newspapers read only by socialists. She knew this only because one of the other girls had explained it to her.
“But the New York Times mainly just wrote about Miss Dreier being arrested,” Rahel said bitterly. “Poor girls being arrested don’t count.”
Miss Mary Dreier was the president of the Women’s Trade Union League, an odd group that Yetta had never heard of before the strike. It was workers and rich women all in the same club, which Yetta had a hard time understanding. But Miss Dreier had left her limousine and her mansion and her furs and everything else she owned to come and walk the picket line with all the strikers.
“I like Miss Dreier,” Yetta said.
“So do I,” Rahel said. “But the police released her at the station right away.”
“And Mr. Blanck told the Times, Oh, no, there’s no strike going on. . . .’”
“And, ‘Everyone in my factory makes at least eight dollars a week—most of them make sixteen.’”
Yetta was giggling now, even though it made her face hurt.
“He sounded like such a fool! Anyone reading that had to know that he was lying!” she said.
Rahel got serious again.
“Not the rich people,” she said. “Not the other factory owners. But we don’t need them. We need other people like us. Workers.”
“The union meeting tonight better not be just a bunch of old men in fancy suits telling us how noble our cause is,” Yetta said.
“No,” Rahel said. “It can’t be.”
They had a quick, cold supper at home, because they didn’t want to waste any coal or time heating up the stove. Soon they were back out on the streets.
“How far is it?” Yetta asked, hoping her voice didn’t betray how tired she was, how much her feet ached already.
“Cooper Union?” Rahel asked. “Just four blocks from Triangle.”
As they got closer, Yetta forgot her feet. There was such a tide of people moving toward the huge brownstone building: men, women, girls; Jews, Italians, Americans . . .
“There must be hundreds of people going to this meeting,” Yetta marveled, as the crowd carried them into the building, down into the Great Hall in the cellar.
“Thousands,” Rahel corrected, her eyes glowing with something like pride. “Shirtwaist workers from shops all over the city. They’re going to need other meeting halls for the overflow crowd. We’ll have to have messengers going back and forth, telling them what the speakers say. . . . Isn’t it glorious?”
She left Yetta near a pillar in the huge hall, with a good view of the stage. Yetta studied the arches that flared out from the pillars, the crowd packing in tight. She heard a girl behind her say, in awed tones, “Abraham Lincoln spoke hereonce.” Yetta didn’t know who Abraham Lincoln was, but th
at whispering just added to the electric charge in the audience. We’re like tinder, Yetta thought. Just one spark, that’s all we need. . .
Rahel came back, her face flushed with excitement.
“They don’t need me to run messages out to the overflow halls,” she said. “They’ve already had dozens of people volunteer.”
The speeches began. Except for Mary Dreier, it was, indeed, all men on the stage—well, really, what did Yetta expect? These were important men, famous men, Yetta knew that: Meyer Landon, the socialist lawyer; Abraham Cahan, editor of the Forward, Benjamin Feigenbaum, a union leader . . . And the most impressive speaker of all, Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor.
But after two hours of speeches, Yetta felt less and less like tinder, and more and more like . . . sleeping.
“This is almost as bad as sitting at the sewing machine all day,” Yetta leaned over to grumble to Rahel.
“Shh. Just wait. Mr. Gompers is next,” Rahel said.
Mr. Feigenbaum introduced him, and the whole crowd sprang to its feet, clapping. Maybe they were just tired of sitting for so long; maybe they were convinced he would finally say what they wanted to hear.
Mr. Gompers stroked his bushy moustache, held his arm up to acknowledge the applause.
“A man would be less than human,” he said, “if he were not impressed with your reception. I want you men and women not to give all your enthusiasm for a man, no matter who he may be. I would prefer that you put all of your enthusiasm into your union and your cause.”
All right, sounds good to me, Yetta thought, clapping as she sat down again.
“I have never declared a strike in my life,” he continued. “I have done my share to prevent strikes, but there comes a time when not to strike is but to rivet the chains of slavery upon our wrists.”
Exactly! Yetta thought.
He went on. And on. Most of the other speakers had spoken in Yiddish, but Mr. Gompers was addressing the crowd in English. Yetta found she had to concentrate very hard to understand what he was saying. And then she found that she wasn’t always able to concentrate that hard. She’d listen, let her attention wander, listen again.
She sat up straight and listened intently, though, when he began to talk about what the Triangle workers were already doing.
“This is the time and the opportunity, and I doubt if you let it pass whether it can be created again in five or ten years or a generation,” he said.
Finally! Yetta thought. She had chills going up her spine, for she saw how it was going to happen. Mr. Gompers was about to tell the entire audience that all of them should go out on strike, all the shirtwaist workers throughout the entire city, in support of the Triangle workers and another factory that was already on strike, Leiserson’s. A general strike, it was called, everyone unified in an entire industry, not just at one or two factories.
“I say, friends,” Mr. Gompers continued. Yetta was hanging on to every word now. “I say, do not enter too hastily—”
What? How would this be hasty?
“But when you can’t get the manufacturers to give you what you want, then strike,” he said. “And when you strike, let the manufacturers know that you are on strike. . . . Have faith in yourselves, to be true to your comrades. ... If you strike, be cool, calm, collected. . . .”
No, no, no, no, no! Yetta wanted to scream. Not cool! Not calm! We’re a tinderbox! We’re explosive!
Around her, people were standing up to clap again, but even the applause sounded puzzled. He hadn’t called for a general strike. Not quite. He’d stepped to the edge, and then stepped back.
Mr. Feigenbaum was at the podium now, introducing the next speaker, another socialist, Jacob Panken. Yetta had heard him speak before. She groaned.
“He’ll go on forever,” she complained to Rahel. “What’s the point of just listening to all this talk?” Talk was nothing compared with bruises and beatings and jail cells. Better that she should go home and get some sleep and be ready for picketing in the morning, rather than listening to all this hot air.
But somebody else was rushing toward the stage—a girl.
“I want to say a few words!” she called out in Yiddish.
“It’s Clara Lemlich,” Rahel whispered, sounding more awestruck than she’d been about Mr. Gompers. “The striker from Leiserson’s.”
Yetta had heard about Clara Lemlich. In the union, she was famous for her determination, her loyalty, her courage. She’d been in lots of strikes. But she was tiny—hurrying down the aisle, she looked no older than Yetta herself.
Mr. Feigenbaum and Mr. Panken looked down at her from the podium, as if to say, You’re just a girl. How dare you interrupt us! Rahel surprised Yetta by yelling out, “Get her on the platform!” Others in the audience took up the cry. “Let’s hear what she has to say! Let her speak!”
The two men stood aside, as if they had no choice. Clara’s curly hair bounced and her skirts swayed as she climbed up on the stage. Her head barely reached over the top of the podium.
“I have listened to all these speakers. I have no more patience for talk,” she said, as if she knew exactly what Yetta had been thinking. “I am one of those who feels and suffers from the things described. I move that we go on a general strike! Now!”
The room exploded with cheers. Yetta screamed too, each “Hurrah!” speaking volumes. I am sore, Iam tired, Iam battered and bruised, this is just the help I need! And, A girl called this strike. A girl! We can do it! All of us girls together...
Mr. Feigenbaum moved back to the podium, waved his arms to silence the crowd.
“Uh,” he said. “Is there a second to this motion?”
The crowd exploded again.
Mr. Feigenbaum wasn’t satisfied.
“It won’t be easy,” he said. “Those who fear hunger and cold should not be ashamed to vote against the strike.”
There was a grumbling in the crowd, a grumbling against Mr. Feigenbaum. A grumbling against hunger and cold and the bosses who made it worse. A grumbling against all the men who ruled the world.
“If you vote to strike,” he said, “you’ve vowing to struggle till the end.”
“We will! Just let us vote!” Yetta yelled, and she wasn’t the only one.
Mr. Feigenbaum stared out at the crowd, his ancient, glittering eyes taking measure of their zeal.
“Do you mean faith?” he asked. “Will you take the old Jewish oath?”
Yetta knew the oath he was talking about, but she was surprised he’d brought it up. Girls didn’t take old Jewish oaths. Oaths were the province of men. But she raised her right hand, as thousands of other arms lifted into the air around her, and she chanted, with thousands of other voices, “If I turn traitor to the cause I now pledge, may this hand wither from the arm I now raise.”
There. It was done.
Jane
Eleanor Kensington’s voice rushed at Jane, straight from the telephone receiver.
“A bunch of us are going to walk the picket line with the shirtwaist strikers today. Would you care to join us? It’ll be such a lark!”
Jane pulled the receiver back from her ear, looked at it, then nestled it back under the giant puff of her hair. She leaned toward the mouthpiece.
“Are you calling from Vassar?” she asked.
In most of Jane’s experience, invitations were issued by handwritten notes; the polite response was made in the same fashion. No one had ever forbidden her to use the phone, exactly, but she knew that Miss Milhouse, at least, viewed it as not quite proper. Jane was awed by the notion that Eleanor might be sitting up there at Vassar, and talking to Jane, here in New York City.
She was also awed that Eleanor cared enough to call her. Jane hadn’t gotten even a letter from Eleanor in a long time.
Eleanor laughed, the sound amplified and echo-y over the phone.
“No, silly, I’m back in the city. We came down last night, everyone from my social work class. The professor said she’d give us
extra credit if we’d go to the strike and write a paper about it afterward. And between you and me, I really need that extra credit!”
“I—I’ll have to check my calendar,” Jane said, even though she knew what her calendar looked like for the day: blank.
Eleanor laughed again.
“Oh, whatever you’re supposed to be doing today, send your regrets,” she said. “The strike will probably end soon-lots of manufacturers have settled already. You may never get a chance to do something like this again!”
Indeed. Some mornings, lying in bed, Jane could just feel all sorts of chances slipping away.
“I’ll go,” Jane decided.
“How delightful!” Eleanor exclaimed. “I’ll tell my chauffeur to pick you up at—oh, wait, Jefferson will already be taking me, Melissa, Agnes, Opal, Emma, Lydia . . . Any chance you could have your chauffeur take you and a few of my other friends?”
Had Eleanor called her just because her friends needed a ride?
Jane put aside this thought as disloyal.
“I’ll have to check,” she said. “Father may need Mr. Corrigan’s services today.”
“Well, call me back immediately,” Eleanor said.
Jane hung the receiver back on the hook where it belonged and went off in search of Mr. Corrigan. She was surprised that his eyes swam with tears as soon as she explained what she wanted.
“Oh, Miss Wellington,” he said, taking up her hands and, quite improperly, patting them. “That’s such a kindness you’d be doing. Those poor, poor girls, out there in the cold. You’ve been following the strike, have you? The uprising of the twenty thousand, the papers have been calling it, though I’d wager there are thirty or forty thousand involved. Such brave girls . . . And with all the society women helping out, to try to protect the girls from the police . . . Miss Wellington, I’d be proud to take you and your friends down there!”
Jane was ashamed to admit that she hadn’t heard of the strike until Eleanor called. What did he mean, society women were protecting girls from the police?