There was space here to breathe, and distances in which the spirit might spread its wings.

As the old prophet says, it was a place where a man might be placed alone in the midst of the earth.
I was strangely glad that morning of every little stream that ran under the bridges, I was glad of the trees I passed, glad of every bird and squirrel in the branches, glad of the cattle grazing in the fields, glad of the jolly boys I saw on their way to school with their dinner pails, glad of the bluff, red-faced teamster I met, and of the snug farmer who waved his hand at me and wished me a friendly good morning.

It seemed to me that I liked every one I saw, and that every one liked me.
So I walked onward that morning, nor ever have had such a sense of relief and escape, nor ever such a feeling of gayety.
"Here is where I belong," I said.

"This is my own country.

Those hills are mine, and all the fields, and the trees and the sky--and the road here belongs to me as much as it does to any one." Coming presently to a small house near the side of the road, I saw a woman working with a trowel in her sunny garden.