"He peeked out from under the black cloth sort of grateful. 'I do,' he says, simple,--'sick enough to bust the camera.' "'Well, I should think you would,' I says hearty; and I went down Daphne Street with the afternoon kind of feeling tarnished. I was wondering how on earth folks go on at all that dislikes their work like that. There was Abe Luck, just fixing the Sykes's eaves-trough--what was there to _like_ about fixing eaves-troughs and about the whole hardware business? Jimmy Sturgis coming driving the 'bus, Eppleby Holcomb over there registering deeds, Mis' Sykes's girl Em'ly washing windows,--what was there about any of it to _like_ doing? I looked at Mis' Sykes's Em'ly real pitying, polishing panes outside, when Abe Luck come climbing down the ladder from the roof; and all of a sudden I see Abe stick his head through the rungs, and quick as a flash kiss Mis' Sykes's Em'ly. "'My land!' I started to think, 'Mis' Sykes had ought to discharge--' and then I just stopped short off, sudden. Her hating windows, and him hating eaves-troughs, and what else did either of them have? Nothing. I could sense their lives like I could sense my own--level and even and _darn_. And all at once I had all I could do to keep from being glad that Abe Luck had kissed Em'ly. And I walked like lightning to keep back the feeling. "Mis' Sykes and Mis' Toplady was to the post-office store before me. It was a slack time of day, and Silas set down on a mail-bag and begun outlining the situation that he meant about. "'The School Board,' says Silas, important, 'has got some women's work they want done. It's a thing,' s'he, 'that women can do the best--I mean it's the girls an' boys, hangin' round evenin's--you know we've all talked about it. But somebody's got to get after 'em in earnest, an' see they don't disgrace us with their carryin' on in the streets, evenin's.' "'Why don't the men do it?' I ask' him, wonderin', 'or is it 'count of offending some?' "'No such thing!' says Silas, touchy. 'Where's your delicate feelin's, Calliope? Women can do these things better than men. This is somethin' delicate, that had ought to be seen to quiet. It ain't a matter for the authorities. It's women's work,' says he. 'It's women that's the mothers--it ain't the men,' says Silas, convincing. "But still I looked at him, real meditative. 'What started you men off on that tack at this time?' I ask' him, blunt--because young folks had been flooding the streets evenings since I could remember, and no Friendship Village man had ever acted like this about it.