Della works beneath the parts of the Commons most people describe in speeches. Down in the filter gallery, an argument about shared ownership still requires somebody to fetch a wrench.
She believes in the four-ward arrangement, including on the days when one ward locks away a spare part because another missed its shift. She has no particular need to pretend the arrangement is charming. It keeps the water from becoming somebody's private inheritance. That is sufficient reason to repair it.
Children learn useful things around her, and neighbors regularly seek her out; she calls both part of the job, even when they interrupt it. She knows which hatches open with ordinary tools and which have been made difficult by someone who expected to be paid each time.
If she stops talking near a running pump, stop talking too. She is trying to hear something.
