Noting, with minute care, each familiar object—ah, those inanimate things; they know and feel bad!—you proceed into the kitchen. Here, right before Maggie’s eyes, you boldly provision with two cookies and an apple. You reck not whether she sees, or not; the die is cast. You defiantly press on, straight out of the house, and through the back gate.
The deed is done. You have gone. You are in the alley, and many a long year will elapse before that back gate again swings to your hand.
You wish that the folks knew—but they don’t. Your heart aches for yourself; your going is so unheeded, the piteousness of it so wasted.
You grow angry, and stiffen your neck. All right; they need not care, if they don’t want to. Perhaps they think you are fooling. You’ll show them—yes, you’ll show them! Oh, if they would only call after you, and beg you to turn, so that you might show them. You’d never even glance. The darned old fools!
You stanchly round the alley corner, and march away, down the street. Wild horses cannot drag you back. You wish they’d try.
Two whole blocks have you put behind you. Your stern pace lags a bit. With the sky so blue and the sun so bright and the maples o’erhead so rustly and the sidewalk so flecked with gold and the yards and houses along the way so comfortable and friendly, really, it is getting to be hard work keeping up steam. You have to think of it constantly, or your fires die down.
The darned—the darned old fools!
You have been longer in traversing this third block. Another block, and the maples and the sidewalk and the comfortable, friendly houses, cease; the country begins. W-well, you’ll go that far, anyhow.
D-darn ’em!
You have come to the end of the street; here is your Rubicon. You feel that once started upon that country road, with your handkerchief slung over your shoulder, then it will be too late! The idea rather awes you. It looks a long way, into the world. And dying does not, somehow, seem the attractive revenge that it once did. You slacken—and halt.