And it was Summer, beautiful Summer!" Those were
the closing words of Thea's favorite fairy tale, and
she thought of them as she ran out into the world one
Saturday morning in May, her music book under her arm.
She was going to the Kohlers' to take her lesson, but she
was in no hurry.

It was in the summer that one really lived. Then all
the little overcrowded houses were opened wide, and the
wind blew through them with sweet, earthy smells of
garden-planting. The town looked as if it had just been
washed. People were out painting their fences. The cotton-
wood trees were a-flicker with sticky, yellow little leaves,
and the feathery tamarisks were in pink bud. With the
warm weather came freedom for everybody. People were
dug up, as it were. The very old people, whom one had not
seen all winter, came out and sunned themselves in the
yard. The double windows were taken off the houses, the
tormenting flannels in which children had been encased all
winter were put away in boxes, and the youngsters felt a
pleasure in the cool cotton things next their skin.

Thea had to walk more than a mile to reach the Kohlers'
house, a very pleasant mile out of town toward the glitter-
ing sand hills,--yellow this morning, with lines of deep
violet where the clefts and valleys were. She followed the
sidewalk to the depot at the south end of the town; then
took the road east to the little group of adobe houses where