Dabby only had a fleeting glimpse of the rocking chair between the flapping clothes. If she had thought it was running away of course she would have given an alarm, and perhaps have hurried out to stop it. But she did not give it much thought because, a moment later, the telephone bell rang, and Dabby hastened out of the kitchen to answer it.
So it happened that no one really saw the rocking chair get through the hole in the fence, which trick Racky did a few minutes later. It was hard work for the chair to escape from the yard. If it had been a kitchen chair, with legs that had no curved rockers fast to them, it would have been easier.
"But one can never succeed unless he tries," said Racky to himself. "And I am going to try very hard!"
So he rocked and swayed to and fro, straining at his legs and reaching out with his arms—oh, yes! the rocking chair had arms, of course—and at last he was through the hole in the fence.
"I am free at last! Free!" exclaimed Racky in his own kind of a voice—a sort of squeak, peculiar to some rocking chairs. "I am free! No more shall I be sat on by fat, old ladies, though I really love Grandma Marden. But I cannot stand it to be cracked apart and then stuck up in the attic with the junk. I am running away at last!"
The chair was now in the open lots back of the two houses in which the four children lived. All about were dried weeds growing, for summer had passed, it was now late fall, and, as Weezie had said, it would soon be Christmas, or at least Thanksgiving, and we all know Christmas comes after the turkey holiday.
"How wonderful it is to be free—to do as one pleases!" cried Racky, with a happy little laugh. "I wonder what adventure I shall have first?"
As he rocked along, something rattled beneath his seat cushion.
"Ha!" cried the chair in surprise, stopping short, "is one of my legs coming loose?"
He felt about with his arms and was glad to find that all four legs were still firmly in place, as were the two rockers. Then Racky felt beneath the cushion and found Grandma's glasses.