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The Work of Our Hands experiment's witnesses assembled at the Ellis store to hear. Bell later recalled during a 1906 speech for the Brantford Board of Trade that he sat in Mr. Ellis' store and waited "with the receiver and my watch in my hand." Suddenly he heard a preliminary cough, and then the words, "to be or not to be." "Gentlemen," exclaimed Dr. Bell, "it was to be...and for the first time between Brantford and Mount Pleasant." For this important experiment Bell needed the assistance of Ellis' 23­year-old daughter Isabella, named for her mother and grandmother. As the telegraph operator in her father's store she could keep in communication with David in Brantford to tell him whether they were receiving his voice in Mount Pleasant. This would have been an exciting event for young Isabella, or Belle to her friends, who a descendant described as a "heroic personality." Anditwouldhavesimilarly interestedmanypeopleinthecommunity. Isabella's mother as well as her uncle John Randall and aunt Janet would have witnessed the event in the family store. Neighbours such as George Bryce, Sr. and Duncan and Annie McEwen, who lived nearby, would also have been there that evening. Isabella's young 12­year-old brother W. Wallace Ellis later recalled distinctly the events in his father's store. He remembered Professor Bell driving out to Mount Pleasant to have dinner with the Ellis family first before going to the store for the experiment. He also remembered that the people of the vicinity thought it was a foolish idea that the human voice could be heard over a stretch of wire four miles away. James Biggar, also a boy of 12, marked it as a red-letter day in his life. He recalled going to witness the experiment in the Ellis store with his father, Township Councillor William Biggar. Recollections vary about who exactly was present that evening. Margaret Smyth speculates that Isabella's friends Dolly and Mettie McEwen, Lizzie Mussen, Tatie (Sarah) Biggar and others were probably driven to the store as to a party by the young men of the village including Fred Yeoward, Robert Devlin, the McEwen boys, Herbie Biggar, Jr., Ben Townsend and the Phelps boys. Without a doubt the event made a stir in the community and attracted many onlookers even if some of them may not have appreciated the gravity of the event at the time.