"'Will you ladies tell me,' he says, 'where you going to get your news to put in your paper? The Fourth don't come along every day. Or less you commit murder and arson and runaways, there won't be any more in your paper than they is in its editor's.'
"That hit a tender town-point, and I couldn't stand it no longer. I spoke right up.
"'Oh, I donno, I donno, Silas,' I says. 'They's those in this town that's doin' the murderin' for us, neat an' nice, right along,' I told him.
"'Mean to say?' snapped Silas.
"'Mean to say,' says I, 'most every grocery store in this town an' most every milkman an' the meat market as well is doin' their best to drag the health out o' people's systems for 'em. Us ladies is more or less well read an' knowledgeable of what is goin' on in the world outside,' I says to Silas that ain't, 'an' we know a thing or two about what ought to be clean.'
"Since Insley come, we had talked a good deal more about these things and what was and what shouldn't be; and especially we had talked it in Sodality, on account of our town stores and social ways and such being so inviting to disease and death. But we hadn't talked it official, 'count of Sodality being for Cemetery use, and talking it scattering we hadn't been able to make the other men even listen to us.
"'Pack o' women!' says Silas, now, and went off to find black molasses for somebody.
"Mis' Toplady sampled her butter, dreamy.
"'Rob Henny's butter here,' she says, 'is made out of cow sheds that I can't bear to think about. An' Silas knows it. Honest,' she says, 'I'm gettin' so I spleen against the flowers in the fields for fear Rob Henny's cows'll get holt of 'em. I should think the Daily could write about that.'