Stuart Little (5 page)

One fine spring evening
Snowbell had been calling on the Angora in the park. He started home, late, and
it was such a lovely night she said she would walk along with him to keep him company.
When they got to Mr. Little’s house, the two cats sat down at the foot of a tall
vine which ran up the side of the house past George’s bedroom. This vine was
useful to Snowbell, because he could climb it at night and crawl into the house
through George’s open window. Snowbell began telling his friend about Margalo
and Stuart.

“Goodness,” said the Angora
cat, “you mean to say you live in the same house with a bird and a mouse and
don’t do anything about it?”

“That’s the situation,”
replied Snowbell. “But what can I do about it? Please remember that Stuart is
a member of the family, and the bird is a permanent guest, like myself.”

“Well,” said Snowbell’s
friend, “all I can say is, you’ve got more self-control than I have.”

“Doubtless,” said Snowbell. “However,
I sometimes think I’ve got too much self-control for my own good. I’ve been
terribly nervous and upset lately, and I think it’s because I’m always holding
myself in.”

The cats’ voices grew
louder, and they talked so loudly that they never heard a slight rustling in
the vine a few feet above their heads. It was a gray pigeon, who had been
asleep there and who had awakened at the sound of cats and begun to listen. “This
sounds like an interesting conversation,” said the pigeon to himself. “Maybe I’d
better stay around and see if I can learn something.”

“Look here,” he heard the
Angora cat say to Snowbell, “I admit that a cat has a duty toward her own
people, and that under the circumstances it would be wrong for you to eat
Margalo. But I’m not a member of your family and there is nothing to stop me
from eating her, is there?”

“Nothing that I can think of
offhand,” said Snowbell.

“Then here I go,” said the Angora,
starting up the vine. The pigeon was wide awake by this time, ready to fly
away; but the voices down below continued.

“Wait a minute,” said
Snowbell, “don’t be in such a hurry. I don’t think you’d better go in there
tonight.”

“Why not?” asked the other
cat.

“Well, for one thing, you’re
not supposed to enter our house. It’s unlawful entry, and you might get into
trouble.”

“I won’t get into any
trouble,” said the Angora.

“Please wait till tomorrow
night,” said

Snowbell, firmly. “Mr. and
Mrs. Little will be going out tomorrow night, and you won’t be taking such a risk.
It’s for your own good I’m suggesting this.”

“Oh, all right,” agreed the Angora.
“I guess I can wait. But tell me where I’ll find the bird, after I do get in.”

“That’s simple,” said
Snowbell. “Climb this vine, enter George’s room through the open window, then
go downstairs and you’ll find the bird asleep in the Boston fern on the
bookcase.”

“Easy enough,” said the Angora,
licking her chops. “I’m obliged to you, sir.”

“Well, the old thing!”
whispered the pigeon to himself, and he flew away quickly to find a piece of
writing paper and a pencil. Snowbell said goodnight to his friend and climbed
up the vine and went in to bed.

Next morning Margalo found a
note on the branch of her fern when she woke. It said:

BEWARE OF A STRANGE CAT WHO
WILL

COME BY NIGHT. It was signed A
WELL

WISHER. She kept the note
under her wing all day long, wondering what she had better do, but she didn’t
dare show it to anyone—not even to Stuart. She couldn’t eat, she was so
frightened.

“What had I better do?” she
kept saying to herself.

Finally, just before dark,
she hopped up to an open window and without saying anything to anybody she flew
away. It was springtime, and she flew north, just as fast as she could fly,
because something inside her told her that north was the way for a bird to go
when spring comes to the land.

XI. The Automobile

For three days everybody
hunted all over the house for Margalo without finding so much as a feather.

“I guess she had spring
fever,” said George. “A normal bird doesn’t stay indoors this kind of weather.”

“Perhaps she has a husband
somewhere and has gone to meet him,” suggested Mr. Little.

“She has not!” sobbed
Stuart, bitterly.

“That’s just a lot of
nonsense.”

“How do you know?” asked
George.

“Because I asked her one
time,” cried

Stuart. “She told me she was a
single bird.”

Everybody questioned
Snowbell closely, but the cat insisted he knew nothing about Margalo’s disappearance.
“I don’t see why you have to make a pariah out of me just because that
disagreeable little chippy flew the coop,” said Snowbell, irritably.

Stuart was heartbroken. He
had no appetite, refused food, and lost weight.

Finally he decided that he
would run away from home without telling anybody, and go out into the world and
look for Margalo. “While I am about it, I might as well seek my fortune, too,”
he thought.

Before daybreak next morning
he got out his biggest handkerchief and in it he placed his toothbrush, his money,
his soap, his comb and brush, a clean suit of underwear, and his pocket
compass.

“I ought to take along
something to remember my mother by,” he thought. So he crept into his mother’s bedroom
where she was still asleep, climbed the lamp cord to her bureau, and pulled a
strand of Mrs.

Little’s hair from her comb.
He rolled the hair up neatly and laid it in the handkerchief with the other things.
Then he rolled everything up into a bundle and tied it onto one end of a wooden
match. With his gray felt hat cocked jauntily on one side of his head and his
pack slung across his shoulder, Stuart stole softly out of the house.

“Good-by, beautiful home,”
he whispered.

“I wonder if I will ever see
you again.”

Stuart stood uncertainly for
a moment in the street in front of the house. The world was a big place in
which to go looking for a lost bird. North, south, east, or west—which way
should he go? Stuart decided that he needed advice on such an important matter,
so he started uptown to find his friend Dr. Carey, the surgeon-dentist, owner of
the schooner Wasp.

The doctor was glad to see
Stuart. He took him right into his inner office where he was busy pulling a man’s
tooth. The man’s name was Edward Clydesdale, and he had several wads of gauze
in his cheek to hold his mouth open good and wide. The tooth was a hard one to
get out, and the Doctor let Stuart sit on his instrument tray so they could
talk during the operation.

“This is my friend, Stuart
Little,” he said to the man with the gauze in his cheek.

“How ‘oo oo, Soo’rt,”
replied the man, as best he could.

“Very well, thank you,”
replied Stuart.

“Well, what’s on your mind,
Stuart?” asked Dr. Carey, seizing hold of the man’s tooth with a pair of
pincers and giving a strong pull.

“I ran away from home this
morning,” explained Stuart. “I am going out into the world to seek my fortune
and to look for a lost bird. Which direction do you think I should start out
in?”

Dr. Carey twisted the tooth
a bit and racked it back and forth. “What color is the bird?” he asked.

“Brown,” said Stuart.

“Better go north,” said Dr.
Carey.

“Don’t you think so, Mr.
Clydesdale?”

“’ook in ‘entral ‘ark,” said
Mr.

Clydesdale.

“What?” cried Stuart.

“I ‘ay, ‘ook in ‘entral ‘ark,”
said Mr.

Clydesdale.

“He says look in Central
Park,” explained Dr. Carey, tucking another big wad of gauze into Mr.
Clydesdale’s cheek. “And it’s a good suggestion. Oftentimes people with decayed
teeth have sound ideas. Central Park is a favorite place for birds in the
spring.” Mr. Clydesdale was nodding his head vigorously, and seemed about to
speak again.

“If ‘oo ‘on’t ‘ocate a ‘ird
in ‘entral ‘ark, ‘ake a ‘ew ‘ork ‘ew ‘aven and ‘artford ‘ailway ‘n ‘ook in ‘onnecticut.”

“What?” cried Stuart,
delighted at this new kind of talk. “What say, Mr.

Clydesdale?”

“If ‘oo ‘on’t ‘ocate a ‘ird
in ‘entral ‘ark, ‘ake a ‘ew ‘ork ‘ew ‘aven and ‘artford ‘ailway ‘n ‘ook in ‘onnecticut.”

“He says if you can’t locate
the bird in Central Park, take a New York New Haven and Hartford Railway train
and look in Connecticut,” said Dr. Carey. Then he removed the rolls of gauze
from Mr. Clydesdale’s mouth. “Rinse, please!” he said.

Mr. Clydesdale took a glass
of

mouthwash that was beside the
chair and rinsed his mouth out.

“Tell me this, Stuart,” said
Dr. Carey.

“How are you traveling? On
foot?”

“Yes, sir,” said Stuart.

“Well, I think you’d better
have a car. As soon as I get this tooth out, we’ll see what can be done about
it. Open, please, Mr. Clydesdale.”

Dr. Carey grabbed the tooth
with the pincers again, and this time he pulled so long and so hard and with
such determination that the tooth popped out, which was a great relief to
everybody, particularly to Mr. Clydesdale. The Doctor then led Stuart into
another room. From a shelf he took a tiny automobile, about six inches long—the
most perfect miniature automobile Stuart had ever seen. It was bright yellow
with black fenders, a streamlined car of graceful design. “I made this myself,”
Dr. Carey said. “I enjoy building model cars and boats and other things when I
am not extracting teeth. This car has a real gasoline motor in it. It has quite
a good deal of power—do you think you can handle it, Stuart?”

“Certainly,” replied Stuart,
looking into the driver’s seat and blowing the horn. “But isn’t it going to
attract too much attention? Won’t everybody stop and stare at such a small automobile?”

“They would if they could
see you,” replied Dr. Carey, “but nobody will be able to see you, or the car.”

“Why not?” asked Stuart.

“Because this automobile is
a thoroughly modern car. It’s not only noiseless, it’s invisible.

Nobody can see it.”

“I can see it,” remarked
Stuart.

“Push that little button!”
said the Doctor, pointing to a button on the instrument panel. Stuart pushed
the button. Instantly the car vanished from sight.

“Now push it again,” said
the Doctor.

“How can I push it when I
can’t see it?” asked Stuart.

“Feel around for it.”

So Stuart felt around until
his hand came in contact with a button. It seemed like the same button, and
Stuart pushed it. He heard a slight grinding noise and felt something slip out
from under his hand.

“Hey, watch out!” yelled Dr.
Carey. “You pushed the starter button. She’s off! There she goes! She’s away!
She’s loose in the room—now we’ll never catch her.” He grabbed Stuart up and
placed him on a table where he wouldn’t be hit by a runaway car.

“Oh, mercy! Oh, mercy!” Stuart
cried when he realized what he had done. It was a very awkward situation.
Neither Dr. Carey nor Stuart could see the little automobile, yet it was rushing
all over the room under its own power, bumping into things. First there came a
crashing noise over by the fireplace. The hearth broom fell down. Dr. Carey
leapt for the spot and pounced on the place where the sound had come from. But
though he was quick, he had hardly got his hands on the place when there was
another crash over by the wastebasket. The Doctor pounced again. Pounce!
Crash! Pounce! Crash! The Doctor was racing all over the room, pouncing and
missing. It is almost impossible to catch a speedy invisible model automobile
even when one is a skillful dentist.

“Oh, oh,” yelled Stuart,
jumping up and down. “I’m sorry, Dr. Carey, I’m dreadfully sorry!”

“Get a butterfly net!”
shouted the Doctor.

“I can’t,” said Stuart. “I’m
not big enough to carry a butterfly net.”

“That’s true,” said Dr.
Carey. “I forgot. My apologies, Stuart.”

“The car is bound to stop
sometime,” said Stuart, “because it will run out of gas.”

“That’s true, too,” said the
Doctor. And so he and Stuart sat down and waited patiently until they no longer
heard any crashing sounds in the room. Then the Doctor got down on his hands and
knees and crawled cautiously all over, feeling here and there, until at last he
found the car. It was in the fireplace, buried up to its hubs in wood ashes.
The Doctor pressed the proper button and there it stood in plain sight again,
its front fenders crumpled, its radiator leaking, its headlights broken, its windshield
shattered, its right rear tire punctured, and quite a bit of yellow paint scratched
off the hood.

“What a mess!” groaned the
Doctor. “Stuart, I hope this will be a lesson to you: never push a button on
an automobile unless you are sure of what you are doing.”

“Yes, sir,” answered Stuart,
and his eyes filled with tears, each tear being smaller than a drop of dew. It
had been an unhappy morning, and Stuart was already homesick. He was sure that
he was never going to see Margalo again.

XII. The Schoolroom

While Dr. Carey was making
repairs on the car, Stuart went shopping. He decided that, since he was about
to take a long motor trip, he should have the proper clothes. He went to a doll’s
shop, where they had things which were the right size for him, and outfitted
himself completely, with new luggage, suits, shirts, and accessories. He
charged everything and was well pleased with his purchases. That night he slept
at the Doctor’s apartment.

The next morning, Stuart
started early, to avoid traffic. He thought it would be a good idea to get out
on the road before there were too many cars and trucks. He drove through Central
Park to One Hundred and Tenth Street, then over to the West Side Highway, then
north to the Saw Mill River Parkway. The car ran beautifully and although
people were inclined to stare at him,