That she had been spared by the police and thugs seemed to Yetta the most unjust thing of all the injustice she saw about her. A week on "the Island" would mean little to her; she had no one dependent on her. But always they picked some widow, who had no one to care for her children while she was in prison. Yetta felt herself strong and healthy. Why did the thugs always beat up some old woman or some frail consumptive girl? Although she had escaped trouble so long, she quietly and without excitement expected it. Whenever she met any of the girls who had been in the workhouse, she asked about it--in the same way that we, if we were expecting to winter in Paris, would inquire from friends who had been there about the rents and shops and so forth.
But when at last her turn came, it happened in a manner utterly unexpected.
At headquarters on May Day morning Yetta was detailed to the Crown Vest Company. As she was starting out, she met Mabel, whose mackintosh was glistening with rain.
"Oh, Yetta," she said, "don't go out to-day. The weather's so bad, and if you catch cold you can't speak."
But Yetta only smiled. It seemed to Mabel that she had never looked so beautiful before. Her face had begun to hollow a little from the strain, her olive skin was a shade paler, her eyes seemed to have grown bigger. And her shoulders, which had begun to stoop in the sweat-shop, had straightened up with the month on her feet and the new pride of combat. She was wearing the same skirt and waist she had worn to the dance, for she was to speak uptown that afternoon, and she had a warm shawl over her head and shoulders. The soles of her shoes were worn through, but Mabel could not see that.
"I've only got a few hours of it," she said. "There's that Advisory Council again this afternoon."
And she went out into the rain. The Crown Vest Company was on East Fourth Street, just off Washington Square. As Yetta turned the corner from Broadway she was nearly blown off her feet. All the winds of heaven--the biting, penetrating winds of a late spring storm--were caught in Washington Square as in a funnel, and escaped through the narrow cañon of East Fourth Street. Although Yetta was late, she was surprised to find no other picket before the Crown Vest Company. They were always assigned in couples. Her surprise turned to distress when she recognized the "private detective" in the doorway. His real name nobody knew. He called himself Brennan, but the girls called him "Pick-Axe." He was the one they dreaded more than any other. He thought himself a wit. It was his custom to tilt a chair against the wall by the doorway and, lighting his pipe, amuse himself by trying to make the girls blush. There was no limit to the brutality or nastiness of his tongue.