I am almost like the life prisoner who finds the door of his cell suddenly open, and fears to escape.

Why, I had almost become ALL farmer.
On the first morning after I left home I awoke as usual about five o'clock with the irresistible feeling that I must do the milking.

So well disciplined had I become in my servitude that I instinctively thrust my leg out of bed--but pulled it quickly back in again, turned over, drew a long, luxurious breath, and said to myself: "Avaunt cows! Get thee behind me, swine! Shoo, hens!" Instantly the clatter of mastery to which I had responded so quickly for so many years grew perceptibly fainter, the hens cackled less domineeringly, the pigs squealed less insistently, and as for the strutting cockerel, that lordly and despotic bird stopped fairly in the middle of a crow, and his voice gurgled away in a spasm of astonishment.
As for the old farmhouse, it grew so dim I could scarcely see it at all! Having thus published abroad my Declaration of Independence, nailed my defiance to the door, and otherwise established myself as a free person, I turned over in my bed and took another delicious nap.
Do you know, friend, we can be free of many things that dominate our lives by merely crying out a rebellious "Avaunt!" But in spite of this bold beginning, I assure you it required several days to break the habit of cows and hens.

The second morning I awakened again at five o'clock, but my leg did not make for the side of the bed; the third morning I was only partially awakened, and on the fourth morning I slept like a millionaire (or at least I slept as a millionaire is supposed to sleep!) until the clock struck seven.
For some days after I left home--and I walked out as casually that morning as though I were going to the barn--I scarcely thought or tried to think of anything but the Road.

Such an unrestrained sense of liberty, such an exaltation of freedom, I have not known since I was a lad.