"'Don't you see,' she says, 'don't you see, Mis' Sykes, that's what Mis' Lacy meant?' "'How so?' says Mis' Sykes, short. "I'll never forget how sweet and shy and unexpected and young Letty looked, but she answered, as brave as brave:-- "'Otie Daniel is sick,' she said, 'and all us women can do is to carry him broth and bread and nurse him. It's only the men that can bring about the things to make him well. And they haven't done it. It's been the women who have been urging it--and not getting it done. Wasn't it our work to do, too?' "I see Elbert looking at her--like he just couldn't bear to have her speak so, like some men can't. And I guess he spoke out in answer before he meant to:-- "'But let them do it womanly, Letty,' he said, 'like your mother did and my mother did.' "Letty turned and looked Elbert Sykes straight in the face:-- "'_Womanly!_' she says. 'What is there womanly about my bathing and feeding a child inside four clean walls, if dirt and bad food and neglect are outside for him? Will you tell me if there is anything more womanly than my right to help make the world as decent for my children as I would make my own home?' "I looked at Letty, and looked; and I see with a thrill I can't tell you about how Letty seemed. For she seemed the way she had that morning on my kitchen stoop, when she spoke of her children and when I felt like I'd ought to turn away--the way I'd used to when my mother showed me my baby dress and told me who it would be for. Only now--only now, somehow, I didn't want to turn away. Somehow I wanted to keep right on looking at Letty, like Elbert was looking. And I see what he see. How Letty was what she'd said that morning that she was--and that I was--and that we all was: A mother, then and there, whether she ever had any children or not. And she was next door to owning up to it right there before them all and before Elbert. We didn't speak so when I was a girl. We didn't own up, out loud, that we ever thought anything about what we was for. But now, when I heard Letty do it....