"Nix on swiping anything," suggested John Poldowski, solemnly.
"Very good," said Stuart. "Good law."
"Never poison anything but rats," said Anthony Brendisi.
"That's no good," said Stuart. "It's unfair to rats. A law has to be fair to everybody."
Anthony looked sulky. "But rats are unfair to us," he said. "Rats are objectionable."
"I know they are," said Stuart. "But from a rat's point of view, poison is objectionable. A Chairman has to see all sides to a problem."
"Have you got a rat's point of view?" asked Anthony. "You look a little like a rat."
"No," replied Stuart, "I have more the point of view of a mouse, which is very different. I see things whole. It's obvious to me that rats are underprivileged. They've never been able to get out in the open."
"Rats don't like the open," said Agnes Beretska.
"That's because whenever they come out, somebody socks them. Rats might like the open if they were allowed to use it. Any other ideas for laws?"
Agnes Beretska raised her hand. "There ought to be a law against fighting."
"Impractical," said Stuart. "Men like to fight. But you're getting warm, Agnes."
"No scrapping?" asked Agnes, timidly. Stuart shook his head.
"Absolutely no being mean," suggested Mildred Hoffenstein.
"Very fine law," said Stuart. "When I am Chairman, anybody who is mean to anybody else is going to catch it."
"That won't work," remarked Herbert Prendergast. "Some people are just naturally mean. Albert Fernstrom is always being mean to me."
"I'm not saying it'll work," said Stuart. "It's a good law and we'll give it a try. We'll give it a try right here and now. Somebody do something mean to somebody. Harry Jamieson, you be mean to Katharine Stableford. Wait a minute, now, what's that you've got in your hand, Katharine?"
"It's a little tiny pillow stuffed with sweet balsam."
"Does it say 'For you I pine, for you I balsam' on it?"
"Yes," said Katharine.
"Do you love it very much?" asked Stuart.
"Yes, I do," said Katharine.
"O.K., Harry, grab it, take it away!"
Harry ran over to where Katharine sat, grabbed the little pillow from her hand, and ran back to his seat, while Katharine screamed.
"Now then," said Stuart in a fierce voice, "hold on. my good people, while your Chairman consults the book of rules!" He pretended to thumb through a book. "Here we are. Page 492. 'Absolutely no being mean.' Page 560. 'Nix on swiping anything.' Harry Jamieson has broken two laws--the law against being mean and the law against swiping. Let's get Harry and set him back before he becomes so mean people will hardly recognize him any more! Come on!"
Stuart ran for the yardstick and slid down, like a fireman coming down a pole in a firehouse. He ran toward Harry, and the other children jumped up from their seats and raced up and down the aisles and crowded around Harry while Stuart demanded that he give up the little pillow. Harry looked frightened, although he knew it was just a test. He gave Katharine the pillow.
"There, it worked pretty well," said Stuart. "No being mean is a perfectly good law." He wiped his face with his handkerchief, for he was quite warm from the exertion of being Chairman of the World. It had taken more running and leaping and sliding than he had imagined. Katharine was very much pleased to have her pillow back.
"Let's see that little pillow a minute," said Stuart, whose curiosity was beginning to get the better of him. Katharine showed it to him. It was about as long as Stuart was high, and Stuart suddenly thought what a fine sweet-smelling bed it would make for him. He began to want the pillow himself.
"That's a very pretty thing," said Stuart, trying to hide his eagerness. "You don't want to sell it, do you?"
"Oh, no," replied Katharine. "It was a present to me."
"I suppose it was given you by a boy you met at Lake Hopatcong last summer, and it reminds you of him," murmured Stuart, dreamily.
"Yes, it was," said Katharine, blushing.
"Ah," said Stuart, "summers are wonderful, aren't they, Katharine?"
"Yes, and last summer was the most wonderful summer I have ever had in all my life."
"I can imagine," replied Stuart. "You're sure you wouldn't want to sell that little pillow?"
Katharine shook her head.
"Don't know as I blame you," replied Stuart, quietly. "Summertime is important. It's like a shaft of sunlight."
"Or a note in music," said Elizabeth Acheson.
"Or the way the back of a baby's neck smells if its mother keeps it tidy," said Marilyn Roberts.
Stuart sighed. "Never forget your summertimes, my dears," he said. "Well, I've got to be getting along. It's been a pleasure to know you all. Class is dismissed!"
Stuart strode rapidly to the door, climbed into the car, and with a final wave of the hand drove off in a northerly direction, while the children raced alongside and screamed "Good-by, good-by, good-by!" They all wished they could have a substitute every day, instead of Miss Gunderson.
XIII. Ames' Crossing
IN THE loveliest town of all, where the houses were white and high and the elm trees were green and higher than the houses, where the front yards were wide and pleasant and the back yards were bushy and worth finding out about, where the streets sloped down to the stream and the stream flowed quietly under the bridge, where the lawns ended in orchards and the orchards ended in fields and the fields ended in pastures and the pastures climbed the hill and disappeared over the top toward the wonderful wide sky, in this loveliest of all towns Stuart stopped to get a drink of sarsaparilla.
Parking his car in front of the general store, he stepped out and the sun felt so good that he sat down on the porch for a few moments to enjoy the feeling of being in a new place on a fine day. This was the most peaceful and beautiful spot he had found in all his travels. It seemed to him a place he would gladly spend the rest of his life in, if it weren't that he might get homesick for the sights of New York and for his family, Mr. and Mrs. Frederick C. Little and George, and if it weren't for the fact that something deep inside him made him want to find Margalo.
After a while the storekeeper came out to smoke a cigarette, and he joined Stuart on the front steps. He started to offer Stuart a cigarette but when he noticed how small he was, he changed his mind.
"Have you any sarsaparilla in your store?" asked Stuart. "I've got a ruinous thirst."
"Certainly," said the storekeeper. "Gallons of it. Sarsaparilla, root beer, birch beer, ginger ale, Moxie, lemon soda, Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola, Dipsi Cola, Pipsi Cola, Popsi Cola, and raspberry cream tonic. Anything you want."
"Let me have a bottle of sarsaparilla, please," said Stuart, "and a paper cup."
The storekeeper went back into the store and returned with the drink. He opened the bottle, poured some out into the cup, and set the cup down on the step below Stuart, who whipped off his cap, lay down on his stomach, and dipped up some of the cool refreshing drink, using his cap as a dipper.
"That's very refreshing," remarked Stuart. "There's nothing like a long, cool drink in the heat of the day, when you're traveling."
"Are you going far?" asked the storekeeper.
"Perhaps very far," replied Stuart. "I'm looking for a bird named Margalo. You haven't sighted her, have you?"
"Can't say I have," said the storekeeper. "What does she look like?"
"Perfectly beautiful," replied Stuart, wiping the sarsaparilla off his lips with the corner of his sleeve. "She's a remarkable bird. Anybody would notice her. She comes from a place where there are thistles."
The storekeeper looked at Stuart closely.
"How tall are you?" he asked.
"You mean in my stocking feet?" said Stuart.
"Yes."
"Two inches nothing and a quarter," answered Stuart. "I haven't been measured recently, however. I may have shot up a bit."
"You know," said the storekeeper, thoughtfully, "there's somebody in this t
own you really ought to meet."
"Who's that?" asked Stuart, yawning.
"Harriet Ames," said the storekeeper. "She's just your size--maybe a trifle shorter, if anything."
"What's she like?" asked Stuart. "Fair, fat, and forty?"
"No, Harriet is young and she is quite pretty. She is considered one of the best dressed girls in this town, too. All her clothes are tailored specially for her."
"That so?" remarked Stuart.
"Yes. Harriet's quite a girl. Her people, the Ameses, are rather prominent in this town. One of her ancestors used to be the ferryman here in Revolutionary days. He would carry anybody across the stream--he didn't care whether they were British soldiers or American soldiers, as long as they paid their fare. I guess he did pretty well. Anyway, the Ameses have always had plenty of money. They live in a big house with a lot of servants. I know Harriet would be very much interested to meet you."
"That's very kind of you," replied Stuart, "but I'm not much of a society man these days. Too much on the move. I never stay long anywhere--I blow into a town and blow right out again, here today, gone tomorrow, a will o' the wisp. The highways and byways are where you'll find me, always looking for Margalo. Sometimes I feel that I'm quite near to her and that she's just around the turn of the road. Other times I feel that I'll never find her and never hear her voice again. Which reminds me, it's time I was on my way." Stuart paid for his drink, said good-by to the storekeeper, and drove off.
But Ames' Crossing seemed like the finest town he had ever known, and before he reached the end of the main street he swerved sharp left, turned off onto a dirt road, and drove down to a quiet spot on the bank of the river. That afternoon he swam and lay on his back on the mossy bank, his hands crossed under his head, his thoughts returning to the conversation he had had with the storekeeper.
"Harriet Ames," he murmured.
Evening came, and Stuart still lingered by the stream. He ate a light supper of a cheese sandwich and a drink of water, and slept that night in the warm grass with the sound of the stream in his ears.
In the morning the sun rose warm and bright and Stuart slipped into the river again for an early dip. After breakfast he left his car hidden under a skunk cabbage leaf and walked up to the post office. While he was filling his fountain pen from the public inkwell he happened to glance toward the door and what he saw startled him so that he almost lost his balance and fell into the ink. A girl about two inches high had entered and was crossing the floor toward the mail boxes. She wore sports clothes and walked with her head held high. In her hair was a stamen from a flower.
Stuart began to tremble from excitement.
"Must be the Ames girl," he said to himself. And he kept out of sight behind the inkwell as he watched her open her mail box, which was about a quarter of an inch wide, and pull out her letters. The storekeeper had told the truth: Harriet was pretty. And of course she was the only girl Stuart had ever encountered who wasn't miles and miles taller than he was. Stuart figured that if the two of them were to walk along together, her head would come a little higher than his shoulder. The idea filled him with interest. He wanted to slide down to the floor and speak to her, but he didn't dare. All his boldness had left him and he stayed hidden behind the inkwell until Harriet had gone. When he was sure that she was out of sight, he stole out of the post office and slunk down the street to the store, half hoping that he would meet the beautiful little girl, half fearing that he would.
"Have you any engraved stationery?" he asked the storekeeper. "I'm behind on my correspondence."
The storekeeper helped Stuart up onto the counter and found some letter paper for him--small paper, marked with the initial "L." Stuart whipped out his fountain pen and sat down against a five-cent candy bar and began a letter to Harriet:
"MY DEAR MISS AMES," he wrote. "I am a young person of modest proportions. By birth I am a New Yorker, but at the moment I am traveling on business of a confidential nature. My travels have brought me to your village. Yesterday the keeper of your local store, who has an honest face and an open manner, gave me a most favorable report of your character and appearance."
At this point in the letter Stuart's pen ran dry from the long words and Stuart had to get the storekeeper to lower him head-first into a bottle of ink so that he could refill the pen. Then he went back to letter writing. . . .
"Pray forgive me, Miss Ames," continued Stuart, "for presuming to strike up an acquaintance on so slender an excuse as our physical similarity; but of course the fact is, as you yourself must know, there are very few people who are only two inches in height. I say 'two inches'--actually I am somewhat taller than that. My only drawback is that I look something like a mouse. I am nicely proportioned, however. Am also muscular beyond my years. Let me be perfectly blunt: my purpose in writing this brief note is to suggest that we meet. I realize that your parents may object to the suddenness and directness of my proposal, as well as to my somewhat mouselike appearance, so I think probably it might be a good idea if you just didn't mention the matter to them. What they don't know won't hurt them. However, you probably understand more about dealing with your father and mother than I do, so I won't attempt to instruct you but will leave everything to your good judgment.
"Being an outdoors person, I am camped by the river in an attractive spot at the foot of Tracy's Lane. Would you care to go for a paddle with me in my canoe? How about tomorrow afternoon toward sundown, when the petty annoyances of the day are behind us and the river seems to flow more quietly in the long shadows of the willows? These tranquil spring evenings are designed by special architects for the enjoyment of boatmen. I love the water, dear Miss Ames, and my canoe is like an old and trusted friend."
Stuart forgot, in the excitement of writing Harriet, that he did not own a canoe.
"If you wish to accept my invitation, be at the river tomorrow about five o'clock. I shall await your arrival with all the eagerness I can muster. And now I must close this offensive letter and catch up with my affairs.
Yours very truly,
STUART LITTLE."
After Stuart had sealed his letter in an envelope, he turned to the storekeeper.
"Where can I get hold of a canoe?" he asked.
"Right here," replied the storekeeper. He walked over to his souvenir counter and took down a little birchbark canoe with the words SUMMER MEMORIES stamped on the side. Stuart examined it closely.
"Does she leak?" asked Stuart.
"It's a nice canoe," replied the storekeeper, bending it gently back into shape with his fingers. "It will cost you seventy-five cents plus a penny tax."
Stuart took out his money and paid the man. Then he looked inside the canoe and noticed that there were no paddles.
"What about paddles?" he said, making his voice sound businesslike. The storekeeper hunted around among the souvenirs but he couldn't seem to find any paddles, so he went over to the ice cream counter and came back with two little cardboard spoons--the kind you use for eating ice cream on picnics.
"These will work out all right as paddles," he said.
Stuart took the spoons, but he was disgusted with the looks of them.
"They may work out all right," said Stuart, "but I would hate to meet an American Indian while I had one of these things in my hand."
The storekeeper carried the canoe and the paddles out in front of the store and set them down in the street. He wondered what this tiny boatman would do next, but Stuart never hesitated. Taking a piece of thread from his pocket, he lashed the paddles to the thwarts, swung the canoe lightly up on his head, and walked off with it as calmly as though he were a Canadian guide. He was very proud of his ability with boats and he liked to show off.
XIV. An Evening on the River
WHEN Stuart arrived at his camp site by the river, he was tired and hot. He put the canoe in the water and was sorry to see that it leaked badly. The birch bark at the stern was held together by a lacing, and the water came in through the seam. In a very
few seconds the canoe was half full of water.
"Darn it!" said Stuart, "I've been swindled." He had paid seventy-six cents for a genuine Indian birchbark canoe, only to find that it leaked.
"Darn, darn, darn," he muttered.
Then he bailed out his canoe and hauled it up on the beach for repairs. He knew he couldn't take Harriet out in a leaky boat--she wouldn't like it. Tired though he was, he climbed a spruce tree and found some spruce gum. With this he plugged the seam and stopped the leak. Even so, the canoe turned out to be a cranky little craft. If Stuart had not had plenty of experience on the water, he would have got into serious trouble with it. It was a tippy boat even for a souvenir. Stuart carried stones from the beach down to the water's edge and ballasted the canoe with the stones until it floated evenly and steadily. He made a back-rest so that Harriet would be able to lean back and trail her fingers in the water if she wished. He also made a pillow by tying one of his clean handkerchiefs around some moss. Then he went for a paddle to practise his stroke. He was angry that he didn't have anything better than a paper spoon for a paddle, but he decided that there was nothing he could do about it. He wondered whether Harriet would notice that his paddle was really just an ice cream spoon.
All that afternoon Stuart worked on the canoe, adjusting ballast, filling seams, and getting everything shipshape for the morrow. He could think of nothing else but his date with Harriet. At suppertime he took his ax, felled a dandelion, opened a can of deviled ham, and had a light supper of ham and dandelion milk. After supper, he propped himself up against a fern, bit off some spruce gum for a chew, and lay there on the bank dreaming and chewing gum. In his imagination he went over every detail of tomorrow's trip with Harriet. With his eyes shut he seemed to see the whole occasion plainly--how she would look when she came down the path to the water, how calm and peaceful the river was going to be in the twilight, how graceful the canoe would seem, drawn up on the shore. In imagination he lived every minute of their evening together. 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.)