And away trotted Mary and Sally and Polly and Minnie and Lucy and Tiffany.
At three o’clock they met outside the big barn door, wearing pink and yellow and blue and white and green sunbonnets, and fluttering together like butterflies, except Tiffany, who did not wear a bonnet at all, and she stood by herself, thinking.
Peter-Wise said:
“This door, as you know, is always kept locked. Here is the key. Now, let me see which of you can open it without touching the keyhole, for I assure you it can quite easily be done.”
“How can we open a locked door without a key?” said Mary and Sally and Polly and Minnie and Lucy in dismay, and each thought—“It is useless trying the handle—besides, I should look so foolish, and the others would jeer.”
But Tiffany—who always thought her own thoughts, not other people’s—thought something quite different.
“We give it up,” sorrowfully said Mary and Sally and Polly and Minnie and Lucy.
“And you?” asked Peter-Wise of Tiffany.
Tiffany thought: “Because the door has always been locked before, that doesn’t prove it is locked to-day. Anyhow, here goes!” And she marched up to the big barn door, turned the handle, and—opened it wide!
“Oh!” cried Mary and Sally and Polly and Minnie and Lucy. “But it is always locked!”