Stuart Little (8 page)

They would paddle to a large
water-lily pad upstream, and he would invite Harriet to step out on the pad and
sit awhile. Stuart planned to wear his swimming trunks under his clothes so
that he could dive off the lily pad into the cool stream. He would swim the
crawl stroke, up and down and all around the lily pad, while Harriet watched,
admiring his ability as a swimmer. (stuart chewed the spruce gum very rapidly
as he thought about this part of the episode.)

Suddenly Stuart opened his
eyes and sat up. He thought about the letter he had sent and he wondered whether
it had ever been delivered. It was an unusually small letter, of course, and
might have gone unnoticed in the letterbox. This idea filled him with fears and
worries. But soon he let his thoughts return to the river, and as he lay there
a whippoorwill began to sing on the opposite shore, darkness spread over the
land, and Stuart dropped off to sleep.

The next day dawned cloudy.
Stuart had to go up to the village to have the oil changed in his car, so he
hid the canoe under some leaves, tied it firmly to a stone, and went off on his
errand, still thinking about Harriet and wishing it were a nicer day. The sky
looked rainy.

Stuart returned from the
village with a headache, but he hoped that it would be better before five o’clock.

He felt rather nervous, as he
had never taken a girl canoeing before. He spent the afternoon lying around camp,
trying on different shirts to see which looked best on him and combing his
whiskers. He would no sooner get a clean shirt on than he would discover that
it was wet under the arms, from nervous perspiration, and he would have to
change it for a dry one. He put on a clean shirt at two o’clock, another at three o’clock, and another at quarter past four. This took up most of the
afternoon. As five o’clock drew near, Stuart grew more and more nervous. He
kept looking at his watch, glancing up the path, combing his hair, talking to
himself, and fidgeting. The day had turned chilly

and Stuart was almost sure
that there was going to be rain.He couldn’t imagine what he would do if it
should rain just as Harriet Ames showed up to go canoeing.

At last five o’clock arrived. Stuart heard someone coming down the path. It was Harriet. She had accepted his
invitation. Stuart threw himself down against a stump and tried to strike an
easy attitude, as though he were accustomed to taking girls out. He waited till
Harriet was within a few feet of him, then got up.

“Hello there,” he said,
trying to keep his voice from trembling.

“Are you Mr. Little?” asked
Harriet.

“Yes,” said Stuart. “It’s
nice of you

to come.”

“Well, it was very good of
you to ask me,” replied Harriet. She was wearing a white sweater, a tweed
skirt, short white wool socks, and sneakers. Her hair was tied with a bright colored
handkerchief, and Stuart noticed that she carried a box of peppermints in her
hand.

“Not at all, glad to do it,”
said Stuart. “I only wish we had better weather. Looks rather sticky, don’t
you think?” Stuart was trying to make his voice sound as though he had an English
accent.

Harriet looked at the sky
and nodded. “Oh, well,” she said, “if it rains, it rains.”

“Sure,” repeated Stuart, “if
it rains, it rains. My canoe is a short distance up the shore. May I help you
over the rough places in the path?” Stuart was a courteous mouse by nature, but
Harriet said she didn’t need any help. She was an active girl and not at all
inclined to stumble or fall. Stuart led the way to where he had hidden the
canoe, and Harriet followed, but when they reached the spot Stuart was horrified
to discover that the canoe was not there. It had disappeared.

Stuart’s heart sank. He felt
like crying.

“The canoe is gone,” he
groaned.

Then he began racing wildly
up and down the bank, looking everywhere. Harriet joined in the search, and
after a while they found the canoe—but it was a mess. Some one had been playing
with it. A long piece of heavy string was tied to one end. The ballast rocks
were gone. The pillow was gone. The back rest was gone. The spruce gum had come
out of the seam. Mud was all over everything, and one of the paddles was all
bent and twisted. It was just a mess. It looked just the way a birchbark canoe looks
after some big boys are finished playing with it.

Stuart was heartbroken. He
did not know what to do. He sat down on a twig and buried his head in his
hands. “Oh, gee,” he kept saying, “oh, gee whiz.”

“What’s the trouble?” asked
Harriet.

“Miss Ames,” said Stuart in
a trembling

voice, “I assure you I had
everything beautifully arranged—everything. And now look!”

Harriet was for fixing the
canoe up and going out on the river anyway, but Stuart couldn’t stand that idea.

“It’s no use,” he said
bitterly, “it wouldn’t be the same.”

“The same as what?” asked
Harriet.

“The same as the way it was
going to be, when I was thinking about it yesterday. I’m afraid a woman can’t
understand these things. Look at that string!It’s tied on so tight I could
never get it off.”

“Well,” suggested Harriet, “couldn’t
we just let it hang over in the water and trail along after us?”

Stuart looked at her in
despair. “Did you ever see an Indian paddling along some quiet unspoiled river
with a great big piece of rope dragging astern?” he asked.

“We could pretend we were
fishing,” said Harriet, who didn’t realize that some people are fussy about
boats.

“I don’t want to pretend I’m
fishing,” cried Stuart, desperately. “Besides, look at that mud! Look at it!”
He was screaming now.

Harriet sat down on the twig
beside Stuart. She offered him a peppermint but he shook his head.

“Well,” she said, “it’s
starting to rain, and I guess I’d better be running along if you are not going
to take me paddling in your canoe. I don’t see why you have to sit here and
sulk. Would you like to come up to my house? After dinner you could take me to
the dance at the Country Club. It might cheer you up.”

“No, thank you,” replied
Stuart. “I don’t know how to dance. Besides, I plan to make an early start in
the morning. I’ll probably be on the road at daybreak.”

“Are you going to sleep out
in all this rain?” asked Harriet.

“Certainly,” said Stuart. “I’ll
crawl in under the canoe.”

Harriet shrugged her
shoulders. “Well,” she said, “good-by, Mr. Little.”

“Good-by, Miss Ames,” said
Stuart. “I am sorry our evening on the river had to end like this.”

“So am I,” said Harriet. And
she walked away along the wet path toward Tracy’s Lane, leaving Stuart alone
with his broken dreams and his damaged canoe.

XV. Heading North

Stuart slept under the canoe
that night. He awakened at four to find that the rain had stopped.

The day would break clear.
Already the birds were beginning to stir and make bright sounds in the branches
overhead. Stuart never let a bird pass without looking to see if it was
Margalo.

At the edge of the town he
found a filling station and stopped to take on some gas.

“Five, please,” said Stuart
to the attendant.

The man looked at the tiny
automobile in amazement.

“Five what?” he asked.

“Five drops,” said Stuart.
But the man

shook his head and said that
he couldn’t sell such a small amount of gas.

“Why can’t you?” demanded
Stuart. “You need the money and I need the gas. Why can’t we work something out
between us?”

The filling station man went
inside and came back with a medicine dropper. Stuart unscrewed the cap of the
tank and the man put in five drops of gasoline. “I’ve never done anything like
this before,” he said.

“Better look at the oil,
too,” said Stuart.

After everything had been
checked and the money had been paid, Stuart climbed in, started the engine, and
drove out onto the highway. The sky was growing brighter, and along the river
the mists of morning hung in the early light. The village was still asleep.
Stuart’s car purred along smoothly. Stuart felt refreshed and glad to be on
the move again.

Half a mile out of town the
road forked. One road seemed to go off toward the west, the other road
continued north. Stuart drew up to the side of the northbound road and got out
to look the situation over. To his surprise he discovered that there was a man
sitting in the ditch, leaning against a signpost. The man wore spurs on his
legs. He also wore a heavy leather belt, and Stuart realized that he must be a
repairman for the telephone company.

“Good morning,” said Stuart
in a friendly voice. The repairman raised one hand to his head in a salute.
Stuart sat down in the ditch beside him and breathed deeply of the fresh, sweet
air. “It’s going to be a fine day,” he observed.

“Yes,” agreed the repairman,
“a fine day. I am looking forward to climbing my poles.”

“I wish you fair skies and a
tight grip,” said Stuart. “By the way, do you ever see any birds at the tops of
your poles?”

“Yes, I see birds in great
numbers,” replied the repairman.

“Well, if you ever run
across a bird named Margalo,” said Stuart, “I’d appreciate it if you would drop
me a line. Here’s my card.”

“Describe the bird,” said
the repairman, taking out pad and pencil.

“Brown,” said Stuart. “Brown,
with a streak of yellow on her bosom.”

“Know where she comes from?”
asked the man.

“She comes from fields once
tall with wheat, from

pastures deep in fern and
thistle; she comes from vales of meadowsweet, and she loves to whistle.”

The repairman wrote it all
down briefly. “Fields—wheat—pastures, fern and thistle. Vales, meadowsweet.
Enjoys whistling.” Then he put the pad back in his pocket, and tucked Stuart’s
card away in his wallet. “I’ll keep my eyes open,” he promised.

Stuart thanked him. They sat
for a while in silence. Then the man spoke.

“Which direction are you
headed?” he asked.

“North,” said Stuart.

“North is nice,” said the
repairman.

“I’ve always enjoyed going
north. Of course, south-west is a fine direction, too.”

“Yes, I suppose it is,” said
Stuart, thoughtfully.

“And there’s east,”
continued the repairman. “I once had an interesting experience on an easterly
course. Do you want me to tell you about it?”

“No, thanks,” said Stuart.

The repairman seemed
disappointed, but he kept right on talking. “There’s something about north,” he
said, “something that sets it apart from all other directions. A person who is
heading north is not making any mistake, in my opinion.”

“That’s the way I look at
it,” said Stuart. “I rather expect that from now on I shall be traveling north
until the end of my days.”

“Worse things than that
could happen to a person,” said the repairman.

“Yes, I know,” answered
Stuart.

“Following a broken
telephone line north,

I have come upon some
wonderful places,” continued the repairman. “Swamps where cedars grow and turtles
wait on logs but not for anything in particular; fields bordered by crooked
fences broken by years of standing still; orchards so old they have forgotten
where the farmhouse is. In the north I have eaten my lunch in pastures rank
with ferns and junipers, all under fair skies with a wind blowing. My business
has taken me into spruce woods on winter nights where the snow lay deep and
soft, a perfect place for a carnival of rabbits. I have sat at peace on the
freight platforms of railroad junctions in the north, in the warm hours
andwiththe warm smells. I know fresh lakes in the north, undisturbed except by
fish and hawk and, of course, by the Telephone Company, which has to follow its
nose. I know all these places well. They are a long way from here—don’t forget
that. And a person who is looking for something doesn’t travel very fast.”

“That’s perfectly true,”
said Stuart.

“Well, I guess I’d better be
going.

Thank you for your friendly
remarks.”

“Not at all,” said the
repairman. “I hope you find that bird.”

Stuart rose from the ditch,
climbed into his car, and started up the road that led toward the north. The
sun was just coming up over the hills on his right.

As he peered ahead into the
great land that stretched before him, the way seemed long. But the sky was
bright, and he somehow felt he was headed in the right direction.