Comrade Yetta Part 18

"Come on," Yetta repeated. "Let's go to headquarters."

Somehow she did not care whether any one had seen her or not. She had tried to kill a man and regretted that she had not succeeded. She had read stories of murderers' remorse. And now she knew they were lies. She would never have been sorry if she had killed that snake.

As they were turning into Broadway, Mrs. Muscovitz, who was always looking back, suddenly gripped Yetta's arm.

"He's getting up," she said. "There's a man helping him."

They both peered back around the corner and saw Pick-Axe, with the aid of the stranger, painfully getting to his feet and rubbing his head in bewilderment.

"Come on," Yetta said. "He'll begin to holler in a minute. I've got a dime. We'll take a car."

They ran to catch a downtown car. They rode in silence, Mrs. Muscovitz nursing her aching arm and the bruise in her side. Yetta, surprised at the calm which had come after the sudden typhoon of pa.s.sion, kept repeating, "I tried to kill him, I tried to kill him."

At the headquarters they found Isadore Braun, just returned from attending to the morning's batch of arrested pickets in Ess.e.x Market Court.

"Come into the committee-room," Yetta said to him quietly. "We've had some trouble."

"What is it?" he asked professionally as he closed the door.

"It's bad," Yetta replied. "Mrs. Muscovitz and I was picketing the Crown. And Pick-Axe--well, he jumped on her and--well--I knocked him senseless."

Braun bounced out of his chair in amazement.

"You? You knocked Pick-Axe senseless? You're joking."

But Yetta shrugged her shoulders affirmatively. And Braun began to laugh. He knew Pick-Axe. Every few days he encountered the bully in court, listened to his cold-blooded perjuries. He knew, from the girls, of his brutality. And he thought he knew Yetta. Her first speech at the Skirt-Finishers' ball had attracted his attention. He had followed her development through the four weeks of the strike with increasing interest. Above all he had been impressed with her quiet, gentle ways.

The idea that she had knocked out Pick-Axe was preposterous.

But Mrs. Muscovitz added her affirmation. As he gradually got the details from them he grew more and more serious. It was the first time the enemy had had any real ground to charge them with violence. They would certainly make the most of it.

"Do you think he knows your face?" he asked Yetta.

"Sure."

Braun realized that his question had been foolish. Yetta was the most-advertised, best-known person connected with the strike.

"They'll be after you with a warrant," he said.

Yetta shrugged her shoulders.

"Were there any witnesses?" he asked.

"Only the scab," Mrs. Muscovitz said. "She run away. I guess she's too scared to come back. And the man who helped him get up."

Braun sat for a few minutes, with his chin in his hands, thinking it out.

"We'll have to lie," he said at last. "This is the story. Mrs. Muscovitz was talking to the scab. Pick-Axe twisted her arm and kicked her. That's all true. You tried to separate them. That's true, too, in a way--"

"I tried to kill him," Yetta put in.

"But you mustn't tell the judge that! You tried to separate them, and he slipped on the wet pavement and b.u.mped his head. You two ran away, afraid that he'd attack you. You took a Broadway car and came straight here. Let's see--" he looked at his watch--"You got here about eleven thirty."

"I'd rather tell the truth," Yetta insisted. "Tell the judge just what the snake said to me and why I was mad."

"You can't do that. In the first place the judge would not listen to all of it. And then he would not believe you. They're looking for a chance to say we are using violence. Why did you do it--Oh, well, there's no use asking that. It's done. We've got to lie."

Yetta looked unconvinced.

"It won't only be worse for you," Braun went on. "It'll be worse for all of us, if you tell the truth."

"All right, then," Yetta said reluctantly. "I'll lie."

Just then Mabel rushed in without knocking.

"Pick-Axe and a plain-clothes man are out here with a warrant for Yetta," she cried. "Where can we hide her?"

"We won't hide her," Braun said. "We don't want to seem afraid of this charge."

"What's it all about?" she asked.

"Why, Pick-Axe was getting gay as usual," Braun said. "He slipped on the wet pavement or tripped over something and b.u.mped his head. I guess he's trying to make an a.s.sault charge out of it."

"What?" Mabel asked in astonishment. "He's got the face to say that Yetta attacked him?"

Yetta started to say, "I did," but Braun kicked her un.o.btrusively and she kept still.

"Go out and tell them we will surrender at once," Braun said.

As soon as Mabel had left he hurriedly repeated the story they were to tell.

"Don't tell anybody the truth," he insisted. "Not any one. Not even Miss Train. We've got to bluff. And the more people who believe we are telling the truth, the better the bluff is."

They went out into the main room, and Yetta was formally put under arrest.

"That's the other woman," Pick-Axe said at sight of Mrs. Muscovitz.

"I haven't any warrant for her," the plain-clothes man said. He had no especial affection for the ruffian who pretended to be a detective.

"She is coming to court anyhow as a witness," Braun said.

At that moment he caught sight of Longman and a reporter and a ray of hope. He hurried over to them.

"Longman," he said, "they've arrested Yetta Rayefsky on an utterly absurd charge of attacking that thug, Brennan, whom the girls call Pick-Axe. I wish you'd come over to court. I can use you, I think, in the defence. And"--he turned to the reporter, "it may be worth your while to come, too. I think there'll be a story in it."

So the little procession set out. Yetta walked ahead between Pick-Axe and the detective. Braun and Mrs. Muscovitz and Longman and the reporter trailed behind.

There was hardly anything more sincere about Pick-Axe than his fear and hatred of Braun, so he kept his mouth shut as long as he was in hearing.

But when the steel door of Ess.e.x Market Prison had clanged shut behind him, as soon as the desk man had entered Yetta's name and age and address on his book, Pick-Axe gave rein to his filthy wrath. They had taken her into the "examination room," and Yetta, following Braun's advice, refused to answer any questions. She crouched in a corner and tried not to hear what he was saying. She had grown up in a community where men are not over-careful in their choice of expletives, but she had never listened to anything like this.