Stuart Little. Garth Williams

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 to the cellar and hunted around to see if he could find the other entrance to the mousehole. He moved a great many trunks, suitcases, flowerpots, 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 on to the windowsill.

      ‘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.’

6. A Fair Breeze

      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 trouserleg, 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 briefcases 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.’