Literally minutes after he quit, he knew it was a stupid idea. When he stops, he tries to say it loud enough for the girls to hear. After leaving the store, he looks around and the girls have already left the store. He goes out looking for them: “I’m looking for my daughters, but they’re gone, of course. There was “no one there but a newlywed screaming with her children about candy they couldn't find outside the door of a powder blue Falcon station wagon. » (Updike) After that moment, even Sammy knew that the decision he had made was absurd. He thought he was going to be the girls' hero, but instead they didn't even recognize what he had done. His escapade was very short-lived. The text even explains how he knew the "world" would be harder after that point: "Looking out the big windows, over the bags of peat moss and the aluminum lawn furniture stacked on the sidewalk, I could see Lengel at my place in the garden. slot, checking the sheep through. His face was dark gray and his back was stiff, as if he had just received an iron injection, and my stomach sort of dropped as I felt how hard the world was going to be for me in the end. following. » (Updike) He knew it. he had made a mistake and there was really nothing he could do about it