New York - The Novel

the meal ended. But Rose Master was busy talking, and so they were left standing alone.
    Had she said the wrong thing about the Italian girls on the picket line? Would the lady tell Mr. Harris at the factory, and get her into trouble?
    They had been standing together for a minute or two when the old lady who owned the house came across. She was with another lady, not quite so old.
    “I’m Mrs. Master,” the old lady said. “I just wanted to thank you for coming.” She was very polite. “This is my friend Miss O’Donnell,” she added.
    You could see the other old lady was very rich, but she seemed kindly, and asked where they lived.
    “I used to live not far from you, just the other side of the Bowery,” she said. Anna looked at her in disbelief. She couldn’t imagine the rich lady had ever lived anywhere near the Lower East Side in her life, but she didn’t like to say so. The old lady saw the look on her face and smiled. “I used to have to walk past Five Points every day.”
    “You mean you lived in a tenement like us?” Anna finally ventured.
    “I did.” Mary O’Donnell paused, as if remembering. Then she glanced at Hetty Master and smiled. “Actually, my father was drunk most of the time, and didn’t even work. As for our lodgings …” She shook her head at the memory. “I had to walk out in the end.” She turned back to Anna and Salvatore. “Your father sounds a good man. Whatever you do, keep your family together. That’s the most important thing in the world.”
    Just then, Rose appeared. Fortunately, she seemed quite pleased about everything, and she took them away. So Anna never found out how the rich lady got out of the Lower East Side.

    At Hetty’s request, Mary O’Donnell remained after everyone else had gone. Mary knew it was nice to have someone to discuss a party with, when it was over.
    “It went well,” she told Hetty. “Everyone will remember it. And the conversations certainly made everybody think.”
    “I am not pleased with Rose,” said Hetty.
    “Mr. Keller did quite well.”
    “He meant well. Rose,” Hetty continued, “was very disloyal.”
    “I suppose we must forgive,” said Mary.
    “I may forgive,” Hetty replied, “but I’ll be damned if I forget.”
    “The Italian girl was sweet,” said Mary.
    “That reminds me,” said Hetty. “Why did you tell her that your father was a drunk who didn’t work? Your father was a perfectly respectable man. He was a friend of the Kellers. I remember very well the day that Gretchen told me all about you.”
    Mary paused, and looked at Hetty a bit sheepishly.
    “When I saw that girl and her brother,” she confessed, “and heard about how they were living, it all suddenly came back to me. I don’t know what made me blurt it out, though.”
    Hetty eyed her. “Are you telling me, Mary O’Donnell, after all these years, that you came to work here under false pretenses? That you weren’t from a respectable family at all?”
    “I don’t think I could have done it. But Gretchen could. She was my friend.” Mary smiled, affectionately. “I’m afraid she told you the most dreadful lies.”
    Hetty considered. “Well,” she said finally, “I’m very glad that she did.”

    Edmund Keller spent a pleasant evening with his father. It wasn’t until the next morning that he heard what had happened at the meeting at Carnegie Hall.
    And what a night it had been. The radicals had produced a splendid speaker, Morris Hillquit the socialist. With soaring oratory, he told the packed hall that the factory owners and the magistrates who had fined them were nothing more than the mailed fists of oppression. “Sisters,” he cried, “your cause is just, and you will be victorious.” Not only that, he assured them, the garment women’s strike was the beginning of something altogether more wonderful. Through the union, they could lead the great socialist cause of a class struggle that would soon transform not only the factories of the Lower East Side, but the entire city, and even the whole of America. It was a thrilling speech, and they cheered him to the rafters.
    True, he was followed by a moderate lawyer who counseled restraint and a legal battle instead. But his speech was so boring that the crowd grew restless. And when Leonora O’Reilly of the WTU spoke next, and chided the lawyer, and told the women that their strike had done more for the union movement than all the preaching of the last ten years, they cheered