Stuart Little (3 page)

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 headsails 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.

VII. The Sailboat Race

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 andwitha
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 surgeon-dentist. 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.

VIII. Margalo

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.