"But that wasn't the worst. They was three strangers there in the store--travellin' men that had just come in on the Through, an' they was hangin' round the things lookin' at 'em, as if they had the right to. This town ain't very much on the buy, an' we don't hev many strangers here, an' we ain't rill used to 'em. An' it did seem too bad, I know we thought, that them three should hev happened in on the day of a private Friendship Village sale that didn't concern nobody else but one, an' him dead. An' we felt this special when one o' the men took a-hold of a bunch o' the letters, an' we could see the address of the top one, to Jem Pitlaw, wrote thin an' tiny-fine, like a woman. An' at that Mis' Sykes says sharp to her husband:-- "'Silas Sykes, you ain't goin' to sell them letters?' "'Yes, ma'am, I am,' Silas snaps, like he hed a right to all the letters on earth, bein' he was postmaster of Friendship Village. 'Letters,' Silas give out, 'is just precisely the same as books, only they ain't been through the expense of printin'. No differ'nce. No differ'nce!'--Silas always seems to think repeatin' a thing over'll get him somewheres, like a clock retickin' itself. 'An',' he says, 'I'm goin' to sell 'em for what they'll bring, same as the rest o' the things, an' you needn't to say one word.' An' bein' as Silas was snappin', not only as a postmaster but as a husband, Mis' Sykes, she kep' her silence. Matrimony an' politics both in one man is too much for any woman to face. "Well, we two went back to Mis' Sykes's all het up an' sad, an' told the Circle about Jem Pitlaw's letters. An' we all stopped decoratin' an' set down just where we was an talked about what an awful thing it seemed. I donno as you'll sense it as strong as we did. It was more a feelin' than a wordin'. _Letters_--bein' sold an' read out loud an' gettin' known about. It seemed like lookin' in somebody's purse before they're dead. "'I should of thought,' Mis' Sykes says, 'that Silas regardin' bein' postmaster as a sacred office would have made him do differ'nt. An' I know he talked that right along before he got his appointment. "Free Private Secretary to the People," an' "Trusted Curator of Public Communication," he put it when he was goin' around with his petition,' says she, grievin'.