"'I always wisht,' I says, 'I'd talked with my mother--like that. I always wisht I'd had her tell me about the night I was born. I think everybody ought to know about that. But I remember when she begun to speak about it, I always kind of shied off. I should think it would of hurt her. But then,' I says, 'I never had any of my own. So it don't matter.' "'Oh, yes, you have, Miss Marsh,' says Letty. "I looked at her, blank. "'Every child that's born belongs to you,' says Letty to me, solemn. "'Go on,' says I, to draw her out. 'I wouldn't own most of the little jackanapesses.' "'But you _do_,' says Letty, 'and so do I! So does every woman, mother or not.' "She set the little violet muslin cap on her head to try it, and swept up and made me a little bow. Pretty as a picture she looked, and ready for loving.... I always wonder if things ain't sometimes arranged to happen in patterns, same as crystals. For why else should it be that at that instant minute young Elbert Sykes, Silas's son, that was home for the party and a little longer, come up to my door with a note from his mother--and see Letty in the violet cap, bowing like a rose? "While they was a-talking easy, like young folks knows how to do nowdays, I read the note; and it was about what had started Silas to talking suffrage. Mis' Sykes had opened her house to a suffrage meeting that evening, and Mis' Martin Lacy from the City was a-going to talk, and would I go over? "'Land, yes,' I says to Elbert. 'Tell her I'll come, just for something to do. I wonder if I can bring Letty, too?' "'Mother'd be proud, I know,' says Elbert, looking at her like words, and them words a-praising. They had used to play together when they was little, but school had come in and kind of made them over. "'_So_,' says he to Letty, bantering, 'you're in favour of women voting, are you?' "She broke off her thread and looked up at him. "'Of course I am,' she says, giving a cunning little kitten nod that run all down her shoulders. "'So you think,' says Elbert, 'that you're just as strong as I am--to carry things along? Mind you, I don't say as clever. You're easily that. But put it at just _strong_.' "She done the little nod again, nicer than the first time. "'You talk like folks voted with their muscles,' says she. 'Well, I guess some men do, judging by the results.' "He laughed, but he went on. "'And you think,' he says, 'that you would be just as wonderful in public life as you would be in your home--your very own home?' "Letty put the last stitch in her muslin cap and she set it on her head--all cloudy and rose-budded, and land, land, she was lovely when she looked up. "'Surely,' she says from under the ruffle, with a little one-cornered smile.