[Part 1] "Stuart Little" by E. B. White

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CHAPTER I. IN THE DRAIN

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When Mrs. Frederick C. Little’s second son arrived, everybody noticed that he was not much bigger than a mouse.

The truth of the matter was, the baby looked very much like a mouse in every way He was only about two inches high; and he had a mouse’s sharp nose, a mouse’s tail, a mouse’s whiskers, and the pleasant, shy manner of a mouse.

Before he was many days old he was not only looking like a mouse but acting like one, too— wearing a gray hat and carrying a small cane.

Mr. and Mrs. Little named him Stuart, and Mr. Little made him a tiny bed out of four clothespins and a cigarette box.

Unlike most babies, Stuart could walk as soon as he was born.

When he was a week old he could climb lamps by shinnying up the cord.

Mrs. Little saw right away that the infant clothes she had provided were unsuitable, and she set to work and made him a fine little blue worsted suit with patch pockets in which he could keep his handkerchief, his money, and his keys.

Every morning, before Stuart dressed, Mrs. Little went into his room and weighed him on a small scale which was really meant for weighing letters.

At birth Stuart could have been sent by first class mail for three cents, but his parents preferred to keep him rather than send him away; and when, at the age of a month, he had gained only a third of an ounce, his mother was so worried she sent for the doctor.

The doctor was delighted with Stuart and said that it was very unusual for an American family to have a mouse.

He took Stuart’s temperature and found that it was 98.6, which is normal for a mouse.

He also examined Stuart’s chest and heart and looked into his ears solemnly with a flashlight.

(Not every doctor can look into a mouse’s ear without laughing.)

Everything seemed to be all right, and Mrs. Little was pleased to get such a good report.

“Feed him up!” said the doctor cheerfully, as he left.

The home of the Little family was a pleasant place near a park in New York City.

In the mornings the sun streamed in through the east windows, and all the Littles were up early as a general rule.

Stuart was a great help to his parents, and to his older brother George, because of his small size and because he could do things that a mouse can do and was agreeable about doing them.

One day when Mrs. Little was washing out the bathtub after Mr. Little had taken a bath, she lost a ring off her finger and was horrified to discover that it had fallen down the drain.

“What had I better do?” she cried, trying to keep the tears back.

“If I were you,” said George, “I should bend a hairpin in the shape of a fishhook and tie it onto a piece of string and try to fish the ring out with it.”

So Mrs. Little found a piece of string and a hairpin, and for about a halfhour she fished for the ring; but it was dark down the drain and the hook always seemed to catch on something before she could get it down to where the ring was.

“What luck?” inquired Mr. Little, coming into the bathroom.

“No luck at all,” said Mrs. Little.

“The ring is so far down I can’t fish it up.”

“Why don’t we send Stuart down after it?” suggested Mr. Little.

“How about it, Stuart, would you like to try?”

“Yes, I would,” Stuart replied, “but I think I’d better get into my old pants.

I imagine it’s wet down there.”

“It’s all of that,” said George, who was a trifle annoyed that his hook idea hadn’t worked.

So Stuart slipped into his old pants and prepared to go down the drain after the ring.

He decided to carry the string along with him, leaving one end in charge of his father.

“When I jerk three times on the string, pull me up,” he said.

And while Mr. Little knelt in the tub, Stuart slid easily down the drain and was lost to view.

In a minute or so, there came three quick jerks on the string, and Mr. Little carefully hauled it up.

There, at the end, was Stuart, with the ring safely around his neck.

“Oh, my brave little son,” said Mrs. Little proudly, as she kissed Stuart and thanked him.

“How was it down there?” asked Mr. Little, who was always curious to know about places he had never been to.

“It was all right,” said Stuart.

But the truth was the drain had made him very slimy, and it was necessary for him to take a bath and sprinkle himself with a bit of his mother’s violet water before he felt himself again.

Everybody in the family thought he had been awfully good about the whole thing.

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CHAPTER II. HOME PROBLEMS

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Stuart was also helpful when it came to Ping-pong.

The Littles liked Ping-pong, but the balls had a way of rolling under chairs, sofas, and radiators, and this meant that the players were forever stooping down and reaching under things.

Stuart soon learned to chase balls, and it was a great sight to see him come out from under a hot radiator, pushing a Ping-pong ball with all his might, the perspiration rolling down his cheeks.

The ball, of course, was almost as high as he was, and he had to throw his whole weight against it in order to keep it rolling.

The Littles had a grand piano in their living room, which was all right except that one of the keys was a sticky key and didn’t work properly.

Mrs. Little said she thought it must be the damp weather, but I don’t see how it could be the damp weather, for the key had been sticking for about four years, during which time there had been many bright clear days.

But anyway, the key stuck, and was a great inconvenience to anyone trying to play the piano.

It bothered George particularly when he was playing the “Scarf Dance,” which was rather lively.

It was George who had the idea of stationing Stuart inside the piano to push the key up the second it was played.

This was no easy job for Stuart, as he had to crouch down between the felt hammers so that he wouldn’t get hit on the head.

But Stuart liked it just the same: it was exciting inside the piano, dodging about, and the noise was quite terrific.

Sometimes after a long session he would emerge quite deaf, as though he had just stepped out of an airplane after a long journey; and it would be some little time before he really felt normal again.

Mr. and Mrs. Little often discussed Stuart quietly between themselves when he wasn’t around, for they had never quite recovered from the shock and surprise of having a mouse in the family.

He was so very tiny and he presented so many problems to his parents.

Mr. Little said that, for one thing, there must be no references to “mice” in their conversation.

He made Mrs. Little tear from the nursery songbook the page about the “Three Blind Mice, See How They Run.”

“I don’t want Stuart to get a lot of notions in his head,” said Mr. Little.

“I should feel badly to have my son grow up fearing that a farmer’s wife was going to cut off his tail with a carving knife.

It is such things that make children dream bad dreams when they go to bed at night.”

“Yes,” replied Mrs. Little, “and I think we had better start thinking about the poem ‘’Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.’

I think it might embarrass Stuart to hear mice mentioned in such a belittling manner.”

“That’s right,” said her husband, “but what shall we say when we come to that line in the poem?

We’ll have to say something.

We can’t just say ‘’Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house not a creature was stirring.’

That doesn’t sound complete; it needs a word to rhyme with house.”

“What about louse?” asked Mrs. Little.

“Or grouse,” said Mr. Little.

“I suggest souse,” remarked George, who had been listening to the conversation from across the room.

It was decided that louse was the best substitute for mouse, and so when Christmas came around Mrs. Little carefully rubbed out the word mouse from the poem and wrote in the word louse, and Stuart always thought that the poem went this way: ’Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a louse.

The thing that worried Mr. Little most was the mousehole in the pantry.

This hole had been made by some mice in the days before the Littles came to live in the house, and nothing had been done about stopping it up.

Mr. Little was not at all sure that he understood Stuart’s real feeling about a mousehole.

He didn’t know where the hole led to, and it made him uneasy to think that Stuart might some day feel the desire to venture into it.

“After all, he does look a good deal like a mouse,” said Mr. Little to his wife.

“And I’ve never seen a mouse yet that didn’t like to go into a hole.”

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CHAPTER III. WASHING UP

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Stuart was an early riser: he was almost always the first person up in the morning.

He liked the feeling of being the first one stirring; he enjoyed the quiet rooms with the books standing still on the shelves, the pale light coming in through the windows, and the fresh smell of day.

In wintertime it would be quite dark when he climbed from his bed made out of the cigarette box, and he sometimes shivered with cold as he stood in his nightgown doing his exercises.

(Stuart touched his toes ten times every morning to keep himself in good condition.

He had seen his brother George do it, and George had explained that it kept the stomach muscles firm and was a fine abdominal thing to do.)

After exercising, Stuart would slip on his handsome wool wrapper, tie the cord tightly around his waist, and start for the bathroom, creeping silently through the long dark hall past his mother’s and father’s room, past the hall closet where the carpet sweeper was kept, past George’s room and along by the head of the stairs till he got to the bathroom.

Of course, the bathroom would be dark, too, but Stuart’s father had thoughtfully tied a long string to the pull-chain of the light.

The string reached clear to the floor.

By grasping it as high up as he could and throwing his whole weight on it, Stuart was able to turn on the light.

Swinging on the string this way, with his long bathrobe trailing around his ankles, he looked like a little old friar pulling the bellrope in an abbey.

To get to the washbasin, Stuart had to climb a tiny rope ladder which his father had fixed for him.

George had promised to build Stuart a small special washbasin only one inch high and with a little rubber tube through which water would flow; but George was always saying that he was going to build something and then forgetting about it.

Stuart just went ahead and climbed the rope ladder to the family washbasin every morning to wash his face and hands and brush his teeth.

Mrs. Little had provided him with a doll’s size toothbrush, a doll’s size cake of soap, a doll’s size washcloth, and a doll’s comb—which he used for combing his whiskers.

He carried these things in his bathrobe pocket, and when he reached the top of the ladder he took them out, laid them neatly in a row, and set about the task of turning the water on.

For such a small fellow, turning the water on was quite a problem.

He had discussed it with his father one day after making several unsuccessful attempts.

“I can get up onto the faucet all right,” he explained, “but I can’t seem to turn it on, because I have nothing to brace my feet against.”

“Yes, I know,” his father replied, “that’s the whole trouble.”

George, who always listened to conversations whenever he could, said that in his opinion they ought to construct a brace for Stuart; and with that he got out some boards, a saw, a hammer, a screw driver, a brad-awl, and some nails, and started to make a terrific fuss in the bathroom, building what he said was going to be a brace for Stuart.

But he soon became interested in something else and disappeared, leaving the tools lying around all over the bathroom floor.

Stuart, after examining this mess, turned to his father again.

“Maybe I could pound the faucet with something and turn it on that way,” he said.

So Stuart’s father provided him with a very small, light hammer made of wood; and Stuart found that by swinging it three times around his head and letting it come down with a crash against the handle of the faucet, he could start a thin stream of water flowing—enough to brush his teeth in, anyway, and moisten his washcloth.

So every morning, after climbing to the basin, he would seize his hammer and pound the faucet, and the other members of the household, dozing in their beds, would hear the bright sharp plink plink plink of Stuart’s hammer, like a faraway blacksmith, telling them that day had come and that Stuart was trying to brush his teeth.

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CHAPTER IV. EXERCISE

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One fine morning in the month of May Stuart was three years old, he arose early as was his custom, washed and dressed himself, took his hat and cane, and went downstairs into the living room to see what was doing.

Nobody was around but Snowbell, the white cat belonging to Mrs. Little.

Snowbell was another early riser, and this morning he was lying on the rug in the middle of the room, thinking about the days when he was just a kitten.

“Good morning,” said Stuart.

“Hello,” replied Snowbell, sharply.

“You’re up early, aren’t you?”

Stuart looked at his watch.

“Yes,” he said, “it’s only five minutes past six, but I felt good and I thought I’d come down and get a little exercise.”

“I should think you’d get all the exercise you want up there in the bathroom, banging around, waking all the rest of us up trying to get that water started so you can brush your teeth.

Your teeth aren’t really big enough to brush anyway.

Want to see a good set?

Look at mine!”

Snowbell opened his mouth and showed two rows of gleaming white teeth, sharp as needles.

“Very nice,” said Stuart.

“But mine are all right, too, even though they’re small.

As for exercise, I take all I can get.

I bet my stomach muscles are firmer than yours.”

“I bet they’re not,” said the cat.

“I bet they are,” said Stuart.

“They’re like iron bands.”

“I bet they’re not,” said the cat.

Stuart glanced around the room to see what he could do to prove to Snowbell what good stomach muscles he had.

He spied the drawn window shade on the east window, with its shade cord and ring, like a trapeze, and it gave him an idea.

Climbing to the window sill he took off his hat and laid down his cane.

“You can’t do this,” he said to the cat.

And he ran and jumped onto the ring, the way acrobats do in a circus, meaning to pull himself up.

A surprising thing happened.

Stuart had taken such a hard jump that it started the shade: with a loud snap the shade flew up clear to the top of the window, dragging Stuart along with it and rolling him up inside, so that he couldn’t budge.

“Holy mackerel!” said Snowbell, who was almost as surprised as Stuart Little.

“I guess that will teach him to show off his muscles.”

“Help!

Let me out!” cried Stuart, who was frightened and bruised inside the rolled-up shade, and who could hardly breathe.

But his voice was so weak that nobody heard.

Snowbell just chuckled.

He was not fond of Stuart and it didn’t bother him at all that Stuart was all wrapped up in a window shade, crying and hurt and unable to get out.

Instead of running upstairs and telling Mr. and Mrs. Little about the accident, Snowbell did a very curious thing.

He glanced around to see if anybody was looking, then he leapt softly to the window sill, picked up Stuart’s hat and cane in his mouth, carried them to the pantry and laid them down at the entrance to the mousehole.

When Mrs. Little came down later and found them there, she gave a shrill scream which brought everybody on the run.

“It’s happened,” she cried.

“What has?” asked her husband.

“Stuart’s down the mousehole.”

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CHAPTER V. RESCUED

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George was in favor of ripping up the pantry floor.

He ran and got his hammer, his screw driver, and an ice pick.

“I’ll have this old floor up in double-quick time,” he said, inserting his screw driver under the edge of the first board and giving a good vigorous pry.

“We will not rip up this floor till we have had a good search,” announced Mr. Little.

“That’s final, George!

You can put that hammer away where you got it.”

“Oh, all right,” said George.

“I see that nobody in this house cares anything about Stuart but me.”

Mrs. Little began to cry.

“My poor dear little son!” she said.

“I know he’ll get wedged somewhere.”

“Just because you can’t travel comfortably in a mousehole doesn’t mean that it isn’t a perfectly suitable place for Stuart,” said Mr. Little.

“Just don’t get yourself all worked up.”

“Maybe we ought to lower some food to him,” suggested George.

“That’s what the State Police did when a man got stuck in a cave.”

George darted into the kitchen and came running back with a dish of applesauce.

“We can pour some of this in, and it will run down to where he is.”

George spooned out a bit of the applesauce and started to poke it into the hole.

“Stop that!” bellowed Mr. Little.

“George, will you kindly let me handle this situation?

Put that applesauce away immediately!”

Mr. Little glared fiercely at George.

“I was just trying to help my own brother,” said George, shaking his head as he carried the sauce back to the kitchen.

“Let’s all call to Stuart,” suggested Mrs. Little.

“It is quite possible that the mousehole branches and twists about, and that he has lost his way.”

“Very well,” said Mr. Little.

“I will count three, then we will all call, then we will all keep perfectly quiet for three seconds, listening for the answer.”

He took out his watch.

Mr. and Mrs. Little and George got down on their hands and knees and put their mouths as close as possible to the mousehole.

Then they all called: “Stooooo-art!”

And then they all kept perfectly still for three seconds.

Stuart, from his cramped position inside the rolled-up shade, heard them yelling in the pantry and called back, “Here I am!”

But he had such a weak voice and was so far inside the shade that the other members of the family did not hear his answering cry.

“Again!” said Mr. Little.

“One, two, three—Stooooo-art!”

It was no use.

No answer was heard.

Mrs. Little went up to her bedroom, lay down, and sobbed.

Mr. Little went to the telephone and called up the Bureau of Missing Persons, but when the man asked for a description of Stuart and was told that he was only two inches high, he hung up in disgust.

George meantime went down cellar and hunted around to see if he could find the other entrance to the mousehole.

He moved a great many trunks, suitcases, flower pots, baskets, boxes, and broken chairs from one end of the cellar to the other in order to get at the section of wall which he thought was likeliest, but found no hole.

He did, however, come across an old discarded rowing machine of Mr. Little’s, and becoming interested in this, carried it upstairs with some difficulty and spent the rest of the morning rowing.

When lunchtime came (everybody had forgotten about breakfast) all three sat down to a lamb stew which Mrs. Little had prepared, but it was a sad meal, each one trying not to stare at the small empty chair which Stuart always occupied, right next to Mrs. Little’s glass of water.

No one could eat, so great was the sorrow.

George ate a bit of dessert but nothing else.

When lunch was over Mrs. Little broke out crying again, and said she thought Stuart must be dead.

“Nonsense, nonsense!” growled Mr. Little.

“If he is dead,” said George, “we ought to pull down the shades all through the house.”

And he raced to the windows and began pulling down the shades.

“George!” shouted Mr. Little in an exasperated tone, “if you don’t stop acting in an idiotic fashion, I will have to punish you.

We are having enough trouble today without having to cope with your foolishness.”

But George had already run into the living room and had begun to darken it, to show his respect for the dead.

He pulled a cord and out dropped Stuart onto the window sill.

“Well, for the love of Pete,” said George.

“Look who’s here, Mom!”

“It’s about time somebody pulled down that shade,” remarked Stuart.

“That’s all I can say.”

He was quite weak and hungry.

Mrs. Little was so overjoyed to see him that she kept right on crying.

Of course, everybody wanted to know how it had happened.

“It was simply an accident that might happen to anybody,” said Stuart.

“As for my hat and cane being found at the entrance to the mousehole, you can draw your own conclusions.”

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CHAPTER VI. A FAIR BREEZE

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One morning when the wind was from the west, Stuart put on his sailor suit and his sailor hat, took his spyglass down from the shelf, and set out for a walk, full of the joy of life and the fear of dogs.

With a rolling gait he sauntered along toward Fifth Avenue, keeping a sharp lookout.

Whenever he spied a dog through his glass, Stuart would hurry to the nearest doorman, climb his trouser-leg, and hide in the tails of his uniform.

And once, when no doorman was handy, he had to crawl into a yesterday’s paper and roll himself up in the second section till danger was past.

At the corner of Fifth Avenue there were several people waiting for the uptown bus, and Stuart joined them.

Nobody noticed him, because he wasn’t tall enough to be noticed.

“I’m not tall enough to be noticed,” thought Stuart, “yet I’m tall enough to want to go to Seventy-second Street.”

When the bus came into view, all the men waved their canes and brief cases at the driver, and Stuart waved his spyglass.

Then, knowing that the step of the bus would be too high for him, Stuart seized hold of the cuff of a gentleman’s pants and was swung aboard without any trouble or inconvenience whatever.

Stuart never paid any fare on buses, because he wasn’t big enough to carry an ordinary dime.

The only time he had ever attempted to carry a dime, he had rolled the coin along like a hoop while he raced along beside it; but it had got away from him on a hill and had been snatched up by an old woman with no teeth.

After that experience Stuart contented himself with the tiny coins which his father made for him out of tin foil.

They were handsome little things, although rather hard to see without putting on your spectacles.

When the conductor came around to collect the fares, Stuart fished in his purse and pulled out a coin no bigger than the eye of a grasshopper.

“What’s that you’re offering me?” asked the conductor.

“It’s one of my dimes,” said Stuart.

“Is it, now?” said the conductor.

“Well, I’d have a fine time explaining that to the bus company.

Why, you’re no bigger than a dime yourself.”

“Yes I am,” replied Stuart angrily.

“I’m more than twice as big as a dime.

A dime only comes up to here on me.”

And Stuart pointed to his hip.

“Furthermore,” he added, “I didn’t come on this bus to be insulted.”

“I beg pardon,” said the conductor.

“You’ll have to forgive me, for I had no idea that in all the world there was such a small sailor.”

“Live and learn,” muttered Stuart, tartly, putting his change purse back in his pocket.

When the bus stopped at Seventy-second Street, Stuart jumped out and hurried across to the sailboat pond in Central Park.

Over the pond the west wind blew, and into the teeth of the west wind sailed the sloops and schooners, their rails well down, their wet decks gleaming.

The owners, boys and grown men, raced around the cement shores hoping to arrive at the other side in time to keep the boats from bumping.

Some of the toy boats were not as small as you might think, for when you got close to them you found that their mainmast was taller than a man’s head, and they were beautifully made, with everything shipshape and ready for sea.

To Stuart they seemed enormous, and he hoped he would be able to get aboard one of them and sail away to the far corners of the pond.

(He was an adventurous little fellow and loved the feel of the breeze in his face and the cry of the gulls overhead and the heave of the great swell under him.)

As he sat cross-legged on the wall that surrounds the pond, gazing out at the ships through his spyglass, Stuart noticed one boat that seemed to him finer and prouder than any other.

Her name was Wasp.

She was a big, black schooner flying the American flag.

She had a clipper bow, and on her foredeck was mounted a three-inch cannon.

She’s the ship for me, thought Stuart.

And the next time she sailed in, he ran over to where she was being turned around.

“Excuse me, sir,” said Stuart to the man who was turning her, “but are you the owner of the schooner Wasp?”

“I am,” replied the man, surprised to be addressed by a mouse in a sailor suit.

“I’m looking for a berth in a good ship,” continued Stuart, “and I thought perhaps you might sign me on.

I’m strong and I’m quick.”

“Are you sober?” asked the owner of the Wasp.

“I do my work,” said Stuart, crisply.

The man looked sharply at him.

He couldn’t help admiring the trim appearance and bold manner of this diminutive seafaring character.

“Well,” he said at length, pointing the prow of the Wasp out toward the center of the pond, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you.

You see that big racing sloop out there?”

“I do,” said Stuart.

“That’s the Lillian B. Womrath,” said the man, “and I hate her with all my heart.”

“Then so do I,” cried Stuart, loyally.

“I hate her because she is always bumping into my boat,” continued the man, “and because her owner is a lazy boy who doesn’t understand sailing and who hardly knows a squall from a squid.”

“Or a jib from a jibe,” cried Stuart.

“Or a luff from a leech,” bellowed the man.

“Or a deck from a dock,” screamed Stuart.

“Or a mast from a mist,” yelled the man.

“But hold on, now, no more of this!

I’ll tell you what we’ll do.

The Lillian B. Womrath has always been able to beat the Wasp sailing, but I believe that if my schooner were properly handled it would be a different story.

Nobody knows how I suffer, standing here on shore, helpless, watching the Wasp blunder along, when all she needs is a steady hand on her helm.

So, my young friend, I’ll let you sail the Wasp across the pond and back, and if you can beat that detestable sloop I’ll give you a regular job.”

“Aye, aye, sir!” said Stuart, swinging himself aboard the schooner and taking his place at the wheel.

“Ready about!”

“One moment,” said the man.

“Do you mind telling me how you propose to beat the other boat?”

“I intend to crack on more sail,” said Stuart.

“Not in my boat, thank you,” replied the man quickly.

“I don’t want you capsizing in a squall.”

“Well, then,” said Stuart, “I’ll catch the sloop broad on, and rake her with fire from my forward gun.”

“Foul means!” said the man.

“I want this to be a boat race, not a naval engagement.”

“Well, then,” said Stuart cheerfully, “I’ll sail the Wasp straight and true, and let the Lillian B. Womrath go yawing all over the pond.”

“Bravo!” cried the man, “and good luck go with you!”

And so saying, he let go of the Wasp’s prow.

A puff of air bellied out the schooner’s headsail and she paid off and filled away on the port tack, heeling gracefully over to the breeze while Stuart twirled her wheel and braced himself against a deck cleat.

“By the by,” yelled the man, “you haven’t told me your name.”

“Name is Stuart Little,” called Stuart at the top of his lungs.

“I’m the second son of Frederick C. Little, of this city.”

“Bon voyage, Stuart,” hollered his friend, “take care of yourself and bring the Wasp home safe.”

“That I will,” shouted Stuart.

And he was so proud and happy, he let go of the wheel for a second and did a little dance on the sloping deck, never noticing how narrowly he escaped hitting a tramp steamer that was drifting in his path, with her engines disabled and her decks awash.

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CHAPTER VII. THE SAILBOAT RACE

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When the people in Central Park learned that one of the toy sailboats was being steered by a mouse in a sailor suit, they all came running.

Soon the shores of the pond were so crowded that a policeman was sent from headquarters to announce that everybody would have to stop pushing, but nobody did.

People in New York like to push each other.

The most excited person of all was the boy who owned the Lillian B. Womrath.

He was a fat, sulky boy of twelve, named LeRoy.

He wore a blue serge suit and a white necktie stained with orange juice.

“Come back here!” he called to Stuart.

“Come back here and get on my boat.

I want you to steer my boat.

I will pay you five dollars a week and you can have every Thursday afternoon off and a radio in your room.”

“I thank you for your kind offer,” replied Stuart, “but I am happy aboard the Wasp—happier than I have ever been before in all my life.”

And with that he spun the wheel over smartly and headed his schooner down toward the starting line, where LeRoy was turning his boat around by poking it with a long stick, ready for the start of the race.

“I’ll be the referee,” said a man in a bright green suit.

“Is the Wasp ready?”

“Ready, sir!” shouted Stuart, touching his hat.

“Is the Lillian B. Womrath ready?” asked the referee.

“Sure, I’m ready,” said LeRoy.

“To the north end of the pond and back again!” shouted the referee.

“On your mark, get set, GO!”

“Go!” cried the people along the shore.

“Go!” cried the owner of the Wasp.

“Go!” yelled the policeman.

And away went the two boats for the north end of the pond, while the seagulls wheeled and cried overhead and the taxicabs tooted and honked from Seventy-second Street and the west wind (which had come halfway across America to get to Central Park) sang and whistled in the rigging and blew spray across the decks, stinging Stuart’s cheeks with tiny fragments of flying peanut shell tossed up from the foamy deep.

“This is the life for me!” Stuart murmured to himself.

“What a ship!

What a day!

What a race!”

Before the two boats had gone many feet, however, an accident happened on shore.

The people were pushing each other harder and harder in their eagerness to see the sport, and although they really didn’t mean to, they pushed the policeman so hard they pushed him right off the concrete wall and into the pond.

He hit the water in a sitting position, and got wet clear up to the third button of his jacket.

He was soaked.

This particular policeman was not only a big, heavy man, but he had just eaten a big, heavy meal, and the wave he made went curling outward, cresting and billowing, upsetting all manner of small craft and causing every owner of a boat on the pond to scream with delight and consternation.

When Stuart saw the great wave approaching he jumped for the rigging, but he was too late.

Towering above the Wasp like a mountain, the wave came crashing and piling along the deck, caught Stuart up and swept him over the side and into the water, where everybody supposed he would drown.

Stuart had no intention of drowning.

He kicked hard with his feet, and thrashed hard with his tail, and in a minute or two he climbed back aboard the schooner, cold and wet but quite unharmed.

As he took his place at the helm, he could hear people cheering for him and calling, “Atta mouse, Stuart!

Atta mouse!”

He looked over and saw that the wave had capsized the Lillian B. Womrath but that she had righted herself and was sailing on her course, close by.

And she stayed close alongside till both boats reached the north end of the pond.

Here Stuart put the Wasp about and LeRoy turned the Lillian around with his stick, and away the two boats went for the finish line.

“This race isn’t over yet,” thought Stuart.

The first warning he had that there was trouble ahead came when he glanced into the Wasp’s cabin and observed that the barometer had fallen sharply.

That can mean only one thing at sea—dirty weather.

Suddenly a dark cloud swept across the sun, blotting it out and leaving the earth in shadow.

Stuart shivered in his wet clothes.

He turned up his sailor blouse closer around his neck, and when he spied the Wasp’s owner among the crowd on shore he waved his hat and called out: “Dirty weather ahead, sir!

Wind backing into the south-west, seas confused, glass falling.”

“Never mind the weather!” cried the owner.

“Watch out for flotsam dead ahead!”

Stuart peered ahead into the gathering storm, but saw nothing except gray waves with white crests.

The world seemed cold and ominous.

Stuart glanced behind him.

There came the sloop, boiling along fast, rolling up a bow wave and gaining steadily.

“Look out, Stuart!

Look out where you’re going!”

Stuart strained his eyes, and suddenly, dead ahead, right in the path of the Wasp, he saw an enormous paper bag looming up on the surface of the pond.

The bag was empty and riding high, its open end gaping wide like the mouth of a cave.

Stuart spun the wheel over but it was too late: the Wasp drove her bowsprit straight into the bag and with a fearful whooosh the schooner slowed down and came up into the wind with all sails flapping.

Just at this moment Stuart heard a splintering crash, saw the bow of the Lillian plow through his rigging, and felt the whole ship tremble from stem to stern with the force of the collision.

“A collision!” shouted the crowd on shore.

In a jiffy the two boats were in a terrible tangle.

Little boys on shore screamed and danced up and down.

Meanwhile the paper bag sprang a leak and began to fill.

The Wasp couldn’t move because of the bag.

The Lillian B. Womrath couldn’t move because her nose was stuck in the Wasp’s rigging.

Waving his arms, Stuart ran forward and fired off his gun.

Then he heard, above the other voices on shore, the voice of the owner of the Wasp yelling directions and telling him what to do.

“Stuart!

Stuart!

Down jib!

Down staysail!”

Stuart jumped for the halyards, and the jib and the forestaysail came rippling down.

“Cut away all paper bags!” roared the owner.

Stuart whipped out his pocketknife and slashed away bravely at the soggy bag until he had the deck cleared.

“Now back your foresail and give her a full!” screamed the owner of the Wasp.

Stuart grabbed the foresail boom and pulled with all his might.

Slowly the schooner paid off and began to gather headway.

And as she heeled over to the breeze she rolled her rail out from under the Lillian’s nose, shook herself free, and stood away to the southard.

A loud cheer went up from the bank.

Stuart sprang to the wheel and answered it.

Then he looked back, and to his great joy he perceived that the Lillian had gone off in a wild direction and was yawing all over the pond.

Straight and true sailed the Wasp, with Stuart at the helm.

After she had crossed the finish line, Stuart brought her alongside the wall, and was taken ashore and highly praised for his fine seamanship and daring.

The owner was delighted and said it was the happiest day of his life.

He introduced himself to Stuart, said that in private life he was Dr. Paul Carey, a surgeondentist.

He said model boats were his hobby and that he would be delighted to have Stuart take command of his vessel at any time.

Everybody shook hands with Stuart—everybody, that is, except the policeman, who was too wet and mad to shake hands with a mouse.

When Stuart got home that night, his brother George asked him where he had been all day.

“Oh, knocking around town,” replied Stuart.

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CHAPTER VIII. MARGALO

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Because he was so small, Stuart was often hard to find around the house.

His father and his mother and his brother George seldom could locate him by looking for him—usually they had to call him; and the house often echoed with cries of “Stuart! Stooo-art!”

You would come into a room, and he might be curled up in a chair, but you wouldn’t see him.

Mr. Little was in constant fear of losing him and never finding him again.

He even made him a tiny red cap, such as hunters wear, so that he would be easier to see.

One day when he was seven years old, Stuart was in the kitchen watching his mother make tapioca pudding.

He was feeling hungry, and when Mrs. Little opened the door of the electric refrigerator to get something, Stuart slipped inside to see if he could find a piece of cheese.

He supposed, of course, his mother had seen him, and when the door swung shut and he realized he was locked in, it surprised him greatly.

“Help!” he called.

“It’s dark in here.

It’s cold in this refrigerator.

Help!

Let me out!

I’m getting colder by the minute.”

But his voice was not strong enough to penetrate the thick wall.

In the darkness he stumbled and fell into a saucer of prunes.

The juice was cold.

Stuart shivered, and his teeth chattered together.

It wasn’t until half an hour later that Mrs. Little again opened the door and found him standing on a butter plate, beating his arms together to try to keep warm, and blowing on his hands, and hopping up and down.

“Mercy!” she cried.

“Stuart, my poor little boy.”

“How about a nip of brandy?” said Stuart.

“I’m chilled to the bone.”

But his mother made him some hot broth instead, and put him to bed in his cigarette box with a doll’s hot-water bottle against his feet.

Even so, Stuart caught a bad cold, and this turned into bronchitis, and Stuart had to stay in bed for almost two weeks.

During his illness, the other members of the family were extremely kind to Stuart.

Mrs. Little played tick-tack-toe with him.

George made him a soap bubble pipe and a bow and arrow.

Mr. Little made him a pair of ice skates out of two paper clips.

One cold afternoon Mrs. Little was shaking her dustcloth out of the window when she noticed a small bird lying on the windowsill, apparently dead.

She brought it in and put it near the radiator, and in a short while it fluttered its wings and opened its eyes.

It was a pretty little hen-bird, brown, with a streak of yellow on her breast.

The Littles didn’t agree on what kind of bird she was.

“She’s a wall-eyed vireo,” said George, scientifically.

“I think she’s more like a young wren,” said Mr. Little.

Anyway, they fixed a place for her in the living room, and fed her, and gave her a cup of water.

Soon she felt much better and went hopping around the house, examining everything with the greatest care and interest.

Presently she hopped upstairs and into Stuart’s room where he was lying in bed.

“Hello,” said Stuart.

“Who are you?

Where did you come from?”

“My name is Margalo,” said the bird, softly, in a musical voice.

“I come from fields once tall with wheat, from pastures deep in fern and thistle; I come from vales of meadowsweet, and I love to whistle.”

Stuart sat bolt upright in bed.

“Say that again!” he said.

“I can’t,” replied Margalo.

“I have a sore throat.”

“So have I,” said Stuart.

“I’ve got bronchitis.

You better not get too near me, you might catch it.”

“I’ll stay right here by the door,” said Margalo.

“You can use some of my gargle if you want to,” said Stuart.

“And here are some nose drops, and I have plenty of Kleenex.”

“Thank you very much, you are very kind,” replied the bird.

“Did they take your temperature?” asked Stuart, who was beginning to be genuinely worried about his new friend’s health.

“No,” said Margalo, “but I don’t think it will be necessary.”

“Well, we better make sure,” said Stuart, “because I would hate to have anything happen to you.

Here. . . .”

And he tossed her the thermometer.

Margalo put it under her tongue, and she and Stuart sat very still for three minutes.

Then she took it out and looked at it, turning it slowly and carefully.

“Normal,” she announced.

Stuart felt his heart leap for gladness.

It seemed to him that he had never seen any creature so beautiful as this tiny bird, and he already loved her.

“I hope,” he remarked, “that my parents have fixed you up with a decent place to sleep.”

“Oh, yes,” Margalo replied.

“I’m going to sleep in the Boston fern on the bookshelf in the living room.

It’s a nice place, for a city location.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I shall go to bed—I see it’s getting dark outside.

I always go to bed at sundown.

Good night, sir!”

“Please don’t call me ‘sir,’” cried Stuart.

“Call me Stuart.”

“Very well,” said the bird.

“Good night, Stuart!”

And she hopped off, with light, bouncing steps.

“Good night, Margalo,” called Stuart.

“See you in the morning.”

Stuart settled back under the bedclothes again.

“There’s a mighty fine bird,” he whispered, and sighed a tender sigh.

When Mrs. Little came in, later, to tuck Stuart in for the night and hear his prayers, Stuart asked her if she thought the bird would be quite safe sleeping down in the living room.

“Quite safe, my dear,” replied Mrs. Little.

“What about that cat Snowbell?” asked Stuart, sternly.

“Snowbell won’t touch the bird,” his mother said.

“You go to sleep and forget all about it.”

Mrs. Little opened the window and turned out the light.

Stuart closed his eyes and lay there in the dark, but he couldn’t seem to go to sleep.

He tossed and turned, and the bedclothes got all rumpled up.

He kept thinking about the bird downstairs asleep in the fern.

He kept thinking about Snowbell and about the way Snowbell’s eyes gleamed.

Finally, unable to stand it any longer, he switched on the light.

“There’s just something in me that doesn’t trust a cat,” he muttered.

“I can’t sleep, knowing that Margalo is in danger.”

Pushing the covers back, Stuart climbed out of bed.

He put on his wrapper and slippers.

Taking his bow and arrow and his flashlight, he tiptoed out into the hall.

Everybody had gone to bed and the house was dark.

Stuart found his way to the stairs and descended slowly and cautiously into the living room, making no noise.

His throat hurt him, and he felt a little bit dizzy.

“Sick as I am,” he said to himself, “this has got to be done.”

Being careful not to make a sound, he stole across to the lamp by the bookshelf, shinnied up the cord, and climbed out onto the shelf.

There was a faint ray of light from the street lamp outside, and Stuart could dimly see Margalo, asleep in the fern, her head tucked under her wing.

“Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast,” he whispered, repeating a speech he had heard in the movies.

Then he hid behind a candlestick and waited, listening and watching.

For half an hour he saw nothing, heard nothing but the faint ruffle of Margalo’s wings when she stirred in dream.

The clock struck ten, loudly, and before the sound of the last stroke had died away Stuart saw two gleaming yellow eyes peering out from behind the sofa.

“So!” thought Stuart.

“I guess there’s going to be something doing after all.”

He reached for his bow and arrow.

The eyes came nearer.

Stuart was frightened, but he was a brave mouse, even when he had a sore throat.

He placed the arrow against the cord of the bow and waited.

Snowbell crept softly toward the bookshelf and climbed noiselessly up into the chair within easy reach of the Boston fern where Margalo was asleep.

Then he crouched, ready to spring.

His tail waved back and forth.

His eyes gleamed bright.

Stuart decided the time had come.

He stepped out from behind the candlestick, knelt down, bent his bow, and took careful aim at Snowbell’s left ear—which was the nearest to him.

“This is the finest thing I have ever done,” thought Stuart.

And he shot the arrow straight into the cat’s ear.

Snowbell squealed with pain and jumped down and ran off toward the kitchen.

“A direct hit!” said Stuart.

“Thank heaven!

Well, there’s a good night’s work done.”

And he threw a kiss toward Margalo’s sleeping form.

It was a tired little mouse that crawled into bed a few minutes later— tired but ready for sleep at last.

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CHAPTER IX. A NARROW ESCAPE

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Margalo liked it so well at the Littles’ house she decided to stay for a while instead of returning to the open country.

She and Stuart became fast friends, and as the days passed it seemed to Stuart that she grew more and more beautiful.

He hoped she would never go away from him.

One day when Stuart had recovered from bronchitis he took his new skates and put on his ski pants and went out to look for an ice pond.

He didn’t get far.

The minute he stepped out into the street he saw an Irish terrier, so he had to shinny up an iron gate and jump into a garbage can, where he hid in a grove of celery.

While he was there, waiting for the dog to go away, a garbage truck from the Department of Sanitation drove up to the curb and two men picked up the can.

Stuart felt himself being hoisted high in the air.

He peered over the side and saw that in another instant he and everything in the can would be dumped into the big truck.

“If I jump now I’ll kill myself,” thought Stuart.

So he ducked back into the can and waited.

The men threw the can with a loud bump into the truck, where another man grabbed it, turned it upside down, and shook everything out.

Stuart landed on his head, buried two feet deep in wet slippery garbage.

All around him was garbage, smelling strong.

Under him, over him, on all four sides of him—garbage.

Just an enormous world of garbage and trash and smell.

It was a messy spot to be in.

He had egg on his trousers, butter on his cap, gravy on his shirt, orange pulp in his ear, and banana peel wrapped around his waist.

Still hanging on to his skates, Stuart tried to make his way up to the surface of the garbage, but the footing was bad.

He climbed a pile of coffee grounds, but near the top the grounds gave way under him and he slid down and landed in a pool of leftover rice pudding.

“I bet I’m going to be sick at my stomach before I get out of this,” said Stuart.

He was anxious to work his way up to the top of the pile because he was afraid of being squashed by the next can-load of garbage.

When at last he did succeed in getting to the surface, tired and smelly, he observed that the truck was not making any more collections but was rumbling rapidly along.

Stuart glanced up at the sun.

“We’re going east,” he said to himself.

“I wonder what that means.”

There was no way for him to get out of the truck, the sides were too high.

He just had to wait.

When the truck arrived at the East River, which borders New York City on the east and which is a rather dirty but useful river, the driver drove out onto the pier, backed up to a garbage scow, and dumped his load.

Stuart went crashing and slithering along with everything else and hit his head so hard he fainted and lay quite still, as though dead.

He lay that way for almost an hour, and when he recovered his senses he looked about him and saw nothing but water.

The scow was being towed out to sea.

“Well,” thought Stuart, “this is about the worst thing that could happen to anybody.

I guess this will be my last ride in this world.”

For he knew that the garbage would be towed twenty miles out and dumped into the Atlantic Ocean.

“I guess there’s nothing I can do about it,” he thought, hopelessly.

“I’ll just have to sit here bravely and die like a man.

But I wish I didn’t have to die with egg on my pants and butter on my cap and gravy on my shirt and orange pulp in my ear and banana peel wrapped around my middle.”

The thought of death made Stuart sad, and he began to think of his home and of his father and mother and brother and of Margalo and Snowbell and of how he loved them (all but Snowbell) and of what a pleasant place his home was, specially in the early morning with the light just coming in through the curtains and the household stirring and waking.

The tears came into his eyes when he realized that he would never see them again.

He was still sobbing when a small voice behind him whispered: “Stuart!”

He looked around, through his tears, and there, sitting on a Brussels sprout, was Margalo.

“Margalo!” cried Stuart.

“How did you get here?”

“Well,” said the bird, “I was looking out the window this morning when you left home and I happened to see you get dumped into the garbage truck, so I flew out the window and followed the truck, thinking you might need help.”

“I’ve never been so glad to see anybody in all my life,” said Stuart.

“But how are you going to help me?”

“I think that if you’ll hang onto my feet,” said Margalo, “I can fly ashore with you.

It’s worth trying anyway.

How much do you weigh?”

“Three ounces and a half,” said Stuart.

“With your clothes on?” asked Margalo.

“Certainly,” replied Stuart, modestly.

“Then I believe I can carry you all right.”

“Suppose I get dizzy,” said Stuart.

“Don’t look down,” replied Margalo.

“Then you won’t get dizzy.”

“Suppose I get sick at my stomach.”

“You’ll just have to be sick,” the bird replied.

“Anything is better than death.”

“Yes, that’s true,” Stuart agreed.

“Hang on, then!

We may as well get started.”

Stuart tucked his skates into his shirt, stepped gingerly onto a tuft of lettuce, and took a firm grip on Margalo’s ankles.

“All ready!” he cried.

With a flutter of wings, Margalo rose into the sky, carrying Stuart along, and together they flew out over the ocean and headed toward home.

“Pew!” said Margalo, when they were high in the air, “you smell awful, Stuart.”

“I know I do,” he replied, gloomily.

“I hope it isn’t making you feel bad.”

“I can hardly breathe,” she answered.

“And my heart is pounding in my breast.

Isn’t there something you could drop to make yourself lighter?”

“Well, I could drop these ice skates,” said Stuart.

“Goodness me,” the little bird cried, “I didn’t know you had skates hidden in your shirt.

Toss those heavy skates away quickly or we will both come down in the ocean and perish.”

Stuart threw his skates away and watched them fall down, down, till they disappeared in the gray waves below.

“That’s better,” said Margalo.

“Now we’re all right.

I can already see the towers and chimneys of New York.”

Fifteen minutes later, in they flew through the open window of the Littles’ living room and landed on the Boston fern.

Mrs. Little, who had left the window up when she missed Margalo, was glad to see them back, for she was beginning to worry.

When she heard what had happened and how near she had come to losing her son, she took Stuart in her hand, even though his clothes smelled nasty, and kissed him.

Then she sent him upstairs to take a bath, and sent George out to take Stuart’s clothes to the cleaner.

“What was it like, out there in the Atlantic Ocean?” inquired Mr. Little, who had never been very far from home.

So Stuart and Margalo told all about the ocean, and the gray waves curling with white crests, and the gulls in the sky, and the channel buoys and the ships and the tugs and the wind making a sound in your ears.

Mr. Little sighed and said some day he hoped to get away from business long enough to see all those fine things.

Everyone thanked Margalo for saving Stuart’s life; and at suppertime Mrs. Little presented her with a tiny cake, which had seeds sprinkled on top.