You take the bandanna packet from beneath your jacket, and inspect it.
Humph! Darn ’em, you meant it when you started, just the samee.
You uncertainly move forward again. If it wasn’t for those white rabbits—. You walk slower. You blink hard. You stop, as if run down—which, in truth, you are. You blink, and finger the cookies in your jacket pocket.
Are the folks at home missing you? Supposing that they find out you have run away, and as a punishment deny you the white rabbits, after all! The thought stings. You hesitate, and sitting by the roadside eat the two cookies and the apple.
You are reminded that there are “biscuits and honey” for supper.
Perhaps—perhaps you have gone far enough. Perhaps you’d better not do “it,” this time.
When, rather sheepishly, you reënter that back gate, you encounter no signs of confusion and agitation. Although it seems to you that you have been gone a long, long while, everything appears serene and just as you had left it. Nobody notices you.
You slip up-stairs. The little room welcomes you; you eye it diffidently, and challenge it to ridicule you; but it only welcomes.
You restore to their places burning-glass and pistol and fish-line. You untie the bandanna handkerchief, and return to their drawer the stockings and the best tie. You fold up the handkerchief itself, and put it away. You do not need them; not yet. You have changed your mind. But only they and you know what a narrow squeak of it this peaceful house has just had.