Didactic fiction; Political fiction; Social problems -- Fiction
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."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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