I slipped out of bed and began to dress. It wasn't Sunday, but I opened the drawer where my underclothes were, and took out them that had lace edging. I put on my best shoes and my white stockings. Then I went out in the hall closet and got down my new muslin that I'd worn only once that summer, and I took it over my arm and went down in the kitchen. When I was all ready I went through the door that opened stillest, and outdoors. Out there was as different as if it didn't belong. You thought of the fresh smell of it before you thought of anything else. Nothing about it had been used. And the thin sunshine come right at you, slanting. Over the porch the morning-glories were all out. I pulled off a whole great vine of 'em and put it around my neck. Then I ran. I wasn't going to go anywheres or do anything. But I was clean and dressed up, and outdoors was just as good as anybody else has. I went down the road toward the sun. It seemed as if I must be going toward something else, better than all I knew. I felt as if I was a person, living like persons live. I wondered why I hadn't done this every morning. I wondered why everybody didn't do it. I kind of wanted to be doing it together with somebody. Everybody I knew done things so separate. I wisht everybody was with me. I wanted to sing. So I did--the first thing that come into my head. I put my head back, so's I could see the two rows of the trees ahead, almost meeting, and the thick blue between them. And then I sung the first thing that come into my head, and I sung it to the top of my voice: "O Mother dear, Jerusalem, When shall I come to Thee? When shall my sorrows have an end? Thy joys when shall I see? O happy harbor of God's saints! O sweet and pleasant soil! In thee no sorrow can be found, Nor grief nor care nor toil." And when I got to the end of the verse somebody said: "I don't believe you can possibly mind if I thank you for that?" The man must have been sitting by the road, because he was right there beside me, standing still, with his hat in his hand. I says, "I can't sing. I just done that for fun." "That's what was so delightful," he says. And then he says, "Are you going to the village? May I walk along with you?" "No, I ain't going to town," I says. "I ain't going anywheres much. But you can walk where you want to. The road's free." He walked side of me. I looked at him. He was good-looking. He was so clean--that was the first thing I noticed about him. Clean, and sort of brown and pink, with nothing more on his face than was on mine, and yet he looked manly. He was big. He had a wide way with his shoulders, and he held his head nice. I liked to look at him, so I did look.