Stuart Little (4 page)

“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.

IX. A Narrow Escape

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.

X. Springtime

Snowbell, the cat, enjoyed
nighttime more than daytime. Perhaps it was because his eyes liked the dark.But
I think it was because there are always so many worth-while things going on in New
York at night.

Snowbell had several friends
in the neighborhood. Some of them were house cats, others were store cats. He
knew a Maltese cat in the AandPeople, a white Persian in the apartment house
next door, a tortoise-shell in the delicatessen, a tiger cat in the basement of
the branch library, and a beautiful young Angora who had escaped from a cage in
a pet shop on Third Avenue and had gone to live a free life of her own in the
tool house of the small park near Stuart’s home.