"That almost made me mad, seeing we was having the disadvantage of doing the work and Silas going to get all the advantages of burial. "'Feel the same way about some of the Ten Commandments, don't you, Silas?' I says, before I knew it. "Silas just rared. "'The Ten Commandments!' says he, 'the Ten Commandments! Who can show me one I ain't a-keepin' like an old sheep. Didn't I honour my father an' mother as long as I had 'em? Did they ever buy anything of me at more than cost? Didn't I give 'em new clothes an' send 'em boxes of oranges an' keep up their life insurance? Do I ever come down to the store on the Sabbath Day? Do I ever distribute the mail then, even if I'm expectin' a letter myself? The Sabbath I locked the cat in, didn't I send the boy down to let it out, for fear I'd be misjudged if I done it? Who do I ever bear false witness against unless I know they've done what I say they've done? I can't kill a fly--an' I'm that tender-hearted that I make the hired girl take the mice out o' the trap because I can't bring myself to do it. So you might go through the whole list an' just find me workin' at 'em an' a-keepin' 'em. What do you mean about the Ten Commandments?' he ends up, ready to burst. "'Don't ask me,' I says. 'I ain't that familiar with 'em. I didn't know anybody was. Go on about 'em. Take stealing--you hadn't got to that one.' "'_Stealing_,' says Silas, pompous. 'I don't know what it is.' "And with that I was up on my feet. "'I thought you didn't,' says I. 'Us ladies of Sodality have all thought it over an' over again: That you don't know stealing when you see it. No, nor not even when you've done it. Come here, Silas Sykes!' I says. "I whipped by him into the store, and he followed me, sheer through being dazed, and keeping still through being knocked dumb. "'Look here,' I says, 'here's your counter of bakery stuff--put in to take from Abagail, but no matter about that now. Where do you get it? From the City, with the label stuck on. What's the bakery like where you buy it? It's under a sidewalk and dust dirty, and I happen to know you know it. And look at the bread--not a thing over it, flies promenadin' on the crust, and you counting out change on an apple-pie the other day--I see you do it. Look at your dates, all uncovered and dirt from the street sticking to them like the pattern. Look at your fly-paper, hugged up against your dried-fruit box that's standing wide open. Look at you keeping fish and preserved fruit and canned stuff that you know is against the law--going to start keeping the law quick as you get these sold out, ain't you, Silas? Look at your stuff out there in front, full of street dirt and flies and ready to feed folks. And you keepin' the Ten Commandments like an old sheep--and being a church elder, and you might better climb porches and bust open safes. I s'pose you wonder what I'm sayin' all this to you for?'