Stuart Little: Chapters 7–9

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“Never mind the weather!” cried the owner. “Watch out for flotsam dead ahead!”

The world seemed cold and ominous.

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.

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.

Stuart grabbed the foresail boom and pulled with all his might. Slowly the schooner paid off and began to gather headway.

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.

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!”

The juice was cold. Stuart shivered, and his teeth chattered together.

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.

“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.

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

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.

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.

“Certainly,” replied Stuart, modestly.

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

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

“Pew!” said Margalo, when they were high in the air, “you smell awful, Stuart.”
“I know I do,” he replied, gloomily.

“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.”