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So who was Mary Ann Jukes … now? What kind of worth did she have?

Always before that moment, any worth I’d had was just measured by being a slave, by how much work I could do, how many babies I would have, what kind of price I could fetch my master.

Now all of a sudden … did this mean that I might have worth … just as a person, not because I could fetch some white man ten dollars, or thirty, or fifty? Who owned me now?

For the first time in my life, I wondered who that person was. Did I own myself?

While I was still thinking about it, I came to a place on the road where there were two signs. I looked up at them kind of absently, and all of a sudden I realized that I could read them. I could read what they said!

One of the signs said, Greens Crossing—3 miles. That was the road I’d come on. The other that pointed in the opposite direction said, Oakwood—2 miles.

It was getting on in the afternoon by now. I don’t know what got into me, but suddenly I found myself leading the horse in the opposite direction from the way I’d come, toward the town of Oakwood. I’d heard of it but had never been there in my life.

I think my brain was swirling so fast around the idea of being free that inside I just wanted to do something to show it was really, really true. There had never been a time in my life when I’d just been free to do anything I wanted. Even when I was running away after the men had killed my family, I hadn’t been actually thinking of what I was doing, I was just trying to get as far away as I could. And for the last couple of months, I didn’t do anything without thinking how it affected Katie.

But when I sat there looking at those two signs, I was really free to go either way I wanted. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to go to Oakwood, I just wanted to see what it was like to do something I had decided just for myself.

I came to the town about twenty minutes later.

As I rode through the streets, I started to get afraid again. For a minute I thought about turning around and galloping away. But something inside me wanted to see if I could go into town, as a free person, and see what would happen. I’d never been in a town by myself in my life.

So I kept riding through the main street. A few people looked at me, but I pretended not to notice. I just kept going.

I was doing it! I was alone and free and nobody was trying to stop me!

Up ahead I saw a great big sign painted on a building. I recognized it from being in Greens Crossing with Katie. But again it made me feel good to realize that I could read the two words painted there … General Store … and knew what they meant.

I went toward the building, got off the horse, and tied it onto the rail outside, then went up onto the boardwalk and into the store.

I was trembling from head to foot. For a colored girl to just go into a store like that, all alone, that was a pretty bold thing to do. But if I was free now, why shouldn’t I?

I tried to pretend I wasn’t nervous as I looked around at all the pretty things. The man at the counter stared at me and didn’t look none too pleased about having me in his store.

I wandered slowly around, nervous but trying to pretend I wasn’t. The whole time the man was watching me like a hawk, as if he thought I was gonna steal something.

Some pretty lace handkerchiefs caught my eye, a little like the ones I’d seen that were Katie’s and Katie’s mother’s. But now that same feeling I’d had looking at the signs filled me, the feeling that maybe I could do anything I wanted because I was free now.

And besides that, I realized I had money in my pocket!

People bought things with money, I thought. And what if … what if I could actually really buy something pretty like this for myself !

I reached out and touched one of the lacey handkerchiefs.

“Hey you!” the man called out to me. “Don’t touch the merchandise if you aren’t going to buy.”

I jerked my hand back. But then I thought about the money again.

“Maybe I am going to buy,” I said. My voice came out like a little