Ma never had much. I don't believe any of us know her like she'd be if she had things to do with, and didn't have to work so hard, and Pa and the boys wasn't all the time picking on her. They all say mean things. I do, too, of course. I always dread our meals. We don't scrap over anything particular, but everything that comes up, somebody's always got some lip to answer back. And Ma's easy teased and always looking for slaps. That's me, too; I'm easy teased, though I don't look for it. Laying there asleep, Ma seemed like somebody I didn't know, and I felt sorry for her. She was having a rotten life.
And Mis' Bingy. The bandage was off her head, and I saw the big red mark. She was awful thin and blue-looking, with cords in her neck. She was young, not more than thirty. Ma was old; Ma was forty, and, awake, she looked it. I could see Mis' Bingy's bare arm, and it was strong as an ox. It laid around the baby, that was sleeping on her chest. I liked to look at it. But I thought about her life, too, and I wondered how either Ma or her kept going at all. And what made them willing to. Neither of 'em was having a real life. Look what love had brought them to. …
And there was me, starting in the same way, with Luke.
It was broad daylight by then, so I could see around the room. There wasn't a carpet, and the plaster was cracked. So was the pitcher, that was just for show, anyhow, because we washed in the kitchen. I'd tried to fill it for a while, but Ma said it was putting on. In a little bit we would all be sprucing up in the kitchen, with Ma trying to get breakfast and everybody yipping out at everybody else.
And I'd just fixed it so's that all my life would be the same thing as their lives.
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.
And all at once I says to myself, What did I care so I got some fun out of it. Other girls was always doing this. Lena Curtsy would have talked with him in a minute. Maybe I could get him to ask me to go to a show. I couldn't go, but I thought I'd like to make him ask me.
"Was you lonesome?" I ask', looking at him.
He didn't say anything. He just looked at me, smiling a little. I thought I'd better say a little more. I wanted him to know I wasn't a stick, but that I was in for fun, like a city girl.
"You don't look like a chap that'd be lonesome very long," I says. "Not if you can get acquainted this easy."
He kept looking at me, and smiling a little.
"Tell me," he says, "do you live about here?"
"Me? Right here. I'm the original Maud Muller," I says.
"And what do you do besides rake hay?" he says.
I couldn't think what else Maud Muller done. I hadn't read it since Fifth Reader. So I says:
"Well, she don't often get a chance to talk with traveling gentlemen."
"That's good," he says, "but—I wouldn't have thought it."
I see he meant because I done it so easy and ready, so I give him as good as he sent.
"Wouldn't you?" I says. "Well, I s'pose you get a chance to flirt with strange girls every town you strike."
He looked at me again, not smiling now, but just awfully interested. I see I was interesting him down to the ground. Lena Curtsy couldn't have done it better.
"Flirt," he says over. "What do you mean by 'flirt'?"
I laughed at him. "You're a pretty one to ask that," I says, "with them eyes."
"Oh," he says serious, "then you like my eyes?"
"I never said so," I gave him. "Do you like mine?"
"Let me look at them," he said.
We stopped in the road, and I looked him square in the eye. I can look anybody in the eye. I looked at him straight, till he laughed and moved on. He seemed to be thinking about something.
"I think I like you best when you sing," he said. "Won't you sing something else?"
"Sure," I says, and wheeled around in the road, and kind of skipped backward. And I sung:
"Oh, oh, oh, oh! Pull down the blinds!
When they hear the organ play-ing
They won't know what we are say-ing.
Pull down the blinds!"
I'd heard it to the motion-picture show the week before. I was thankful he could see I was up on the nice late tunes.
"I wonder," says the man, "if you can tell me something. I wonder if you can tell me what made you pick out this song to sing to me, and what made you sing that other song when you were alone?"
All at once the morning come back. Ever since I met him I'd forgot the morning and the sun, and the way I'd felt when I started out alone. I'd just been thinking about myself, and about how I could make him think I was cute and up-to-date. Now it was just as if the country road opened up again, and there I was on it, opposite the Dew Drop Inn, just being me. I looked