Toolkit hanging

Question

I've got a basic program that I used to convert a jpeg image into an ASCII image based on the amount of red in each pixel. My problem is that when I use a toolkit in a non-gui environment, it hangs after the program runs. How can I get this class to just return a String and then go away? The main method is in there for testing, normally I'd call it using getImage2.loadImage(fileName);
Once the program executes and prints out the string, the cursor just flashes under the string and never brings up the D:\Java> prompt like it should. Any ideas?
Thanks
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.awt.image.*;
import java.util.*;
import java.io.*;
public class getImage2 extends Frame
     public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception
          System.out.println(loadImage("4898.jpg"));
     public static String loadImage(String fileName) throws Exception
          Toolkit toolkit = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit();
          Image image = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().createImage(fileName);
          String ret = handlepixels(image, 0, 0, 20, 20);
          image.flush();
          return ret;
     private static int handlesinglepixel(int x, int y, int pixel)
          int red = (pixel >> 16) & 0xff;
          return red;
     private static String handlepixels(Image img, int x, int y, int w, int h) throws Exception
          int result;
          int[] pixels = new int[w * h];
          String temp = "";
          PixelGrabber pg = new PixelGrabber(img, x, y, w, h, pixels, 0, w);
          try {
               pg.grabPixels();
          catch (InterruptedException e) {
               System.err.println("interrupted waiting for pixels!");
               return null;
          if ((pg.getStatus() & ImageObserver.ABORT) != 0)
               System.err.println("image fetch aborted or errored");
               return null;
          for (int j = 0; j < h; j++)
               for (int i = 0; i < w; i++)
                    result = handlesinglepixel(x+i, y+j, pixels[j * w + i]);
                    if (result > 150)
                         temp = temp + "*";
                    else
                         temp = temp + "+";
          return temp;

Answer 1

System.exit(0); should help...