" ... Now, when I heard Letty do it, all to once, I looked into a window of the world. And instead of touching hands like I had with the women that use' to be, I looked off and off down all the time there's going to be, and for a minute I touched, tip-fingers, the hands of the other women that's coming towards me; and out of places inside of me that I didn't know before had eyes, I see them, mothers to the whole world, _inside their four walls and out_. And they wasn't coming with poultices and bread and broth in their hands, to patch up what had been left undone; nor with the keys to schoolhouses that they'd got open by scheming; nor with newspapers full of health that they'd had to run down back alleys to sell; nor national holidays that they'd got a-hold of through sheer accident; nor yet with nice new headstones for cemetery improvements on the dead and gone--no, sir, their hands wasn't occupied with any of these ways of serving that they'd schemed for and stole. But their hands--was in men's hands, closer and nearer than they'd ever been before. And their eyes was lit up with a look that was a new look, and that give new life to the old original left-over blaze. And I looked across to that row of tired men, not so very much dressed up, and I thought:-- "'You're the men of this world and we're the women. And there ain't no more thrilling fact in this universe, save one, _save one_: And that's that we're all human beings. That your job and ours is to make the world ready for the folks that are to come, and to make the folks that come fit to live in that new world. And yet over there by Black Hollow one of our children is dying from something that was your job _and_ ours to do, and we didn't take hold of hands and do it!' "'Oh, Letty!' I says out. 'And Silas and all of you! Let's pretend, just for a minute, that we was all citizens and equal. And let's figure out things for Otie, just like we had the right!' "I'd asked Letty to spend the night with me, and Elbert walked home with us. And just as we got there, he says to her again:-- "'Oh, Letty--you ain't _strong_ enough to help carry things along!' "'You've got more strength,' she says to him, 'and more brains. But it isn't so much the strength or the brains in women that is going to help when the time comes. It's the--mother in them.' "And I says to myself:-- "'And it's the--_human beingness_ of them.' But Letty didn't know that yet. "Elbert answered, after a minute:-- "'You may be right and you may be wrong, but, Letty, Letty, what a woman you are!' "And at that Letty looked up at him, just as she had looked at him that morning--just for a minute, and then she dipped down the brim of her big hat. I donno what she answered him. I didn't care. I didn't care. For what I see was the old wild joy of a woman in being glorified by a male creature. And I knew then, and I know now, that that won't never die, no matter what. "Elbert put out his hand. "'Good night, Letty,' he said.