"'Land, Amandy,' says Timothy Toplady, 'you women earn money so _nervous_. Why don't you do it regular an' manly?' "Only Eppleby Holcomb had kept his silence. Eppleby sees things that the run of men don't see, or, if they did see them, they would be bound to stick them in their ledgers where they would never, never belong. Eppleby was our friend, and Sodality never had truer. "So though we went ahead, the men had made us real anxious. And most of us slipped down to the office by half past seven so's not to meet too many. The editor had had a column in the paper about what we was goin' to do--'Loyal to our Local Dead' he headed it, and of course full half the town was kicking at the extra ten cents, like full half of any town can and will kick when it's asked to pay out for its own good, dead or alive. But we was leaving all that to Mis' Holcomb, that knows a thing or two about the human in us, and similar. "Extra-paper morning, when we all come in, Mis' Sykes she was sitting at the editor's desk with her big apron on and a green shade to cover up her crimping kids, and her list that her and Mis' Toplady and I had made out, in front of her. "'Now then, let's get right to work,' she says brisk. 'We ain't any too much time, I can tell you. It ain't like bakin' bread or gettin' the vegetables ready. We've all got to use muscles this day we ain't used to usin',' she says, 'an' we'd best be spry.' "So then she begun giving out who was to do what--assignments, the editor named it when he told us what to do. And I skipped back an' hung over the files, well knowing what was to come. "Mis' Sykes stood up in her most society way, an'-- "'Anybody want to back out?' says she, gracious. "'Land!' says everyone in a No-I-don't tone. "'Very well,' says Mis' Sykes. 'Mis' Toplady, you go out to Rob Henney's place, an' you go through his cow sheds from one end to the other an' take down notes so's he sees you doin' it. You go into his kitchen an' don't you let a can get by you. Open his churn. Rub your finger round the inside of his pans. An' if he won't tell you, the neighbours will. Explain to him you're goin' to give him a nice, full printed description in to-night's _Daily_, just the way things are. If he wants it changed any, he can clean all up, an' we'll write up the clean-up like a compliment.' "Just for one second them assembled women was dumb. But it hardly took them that instant to sense what was what. And all of a sudden, Mame Holcomb, I guess it was, bursted out in a little understanding giggle, and after a minute everybody joined in, too. For we'd got the whole world of Friendship Village where we wanted it, and every one of them women see we had, so be we wasn't scared.