Stuart Little

While Doctor Carey is repairing the car, Stuart goes shopping for the clothes and accessories he will need for his journey. He spends the night at the doctor’s apartment and sets out early the next morning, headed north (being careful not to touch the invisibility button). Coming to a town, Stuart passes a man seated despondently by the side of the road and stops to ask if he needs help. The man is the superintendent and one of his teachers, Miss Gunderson, is out sick. He can’t find a substitute, and school is about to begin. Stuart offers to fill in, and the superintendent gratefully accepts.

Stuart changes from his driving costume into a jacket, tie, and spectacles suitable for a teacher. He strides confidently into the classroom and climbs a yardstick to the top of Miss Gunderson’s desk. The students are impressed by his size and costume and quickly take their seats.

Stuart dismisses the usual subjects—reading, writing, and arithmetic—as not worth wasting time on. He proposes that they spend their time talking about what they would do if they were chairman of the world. They decide on a few laws: no being mean, and no stealing. After some experimentation, they decide the laws are good and will work fine.

Part of the lesson revolves around a little pillow stuffed with pine needles belonging to one of the girls. At the end of the lesson, Stuart finds he desperately longs for that pillow to use as his bed. He asks the girl, Katharine, if he can buy it from her, but she won’t part with it because it is a token of the most beautiful summer of her life. Stuart accepts that he cannot have the pillow and advises the students to never forget their summers. He then dismisses the class, gets in his car, and resumes his journey.

Stuart passes through many towns, but the loveliest is Ames’ Crossing. Stuart pauses at the general store for a drink of sarsaparilla, and the storekeeper tells him about a young woman who lives in the town, Harriet Ames, who is no taller than Stuart. He suggests that they ought to meet. Stuart declines, saying that his quest keeps him too much on the move for a social life.

He pays for his drink and leaves, but Ames’ Crossing exerts too strong a pull for him to drive away, and he stops for the night by a stream. In the morning, he goes to the post office to fill his fountain pen at the inkwell. He is there when Harriet Ames enters. Stuart is struck by both her beauty and the fact that her head is hardly higher than his shoulder. He doesn’t dare speak to her but waits until she is out of sight. Then, hurrying to a nearby shop, he finds a tiny sheet of paper and writes her a letter.

His letter is formal and somewhat pompous. In it, he describes himself as being “somewhat mouselike” in appearance, and invites her in poetic language to go for a ride with him in his canoe. The trouble is that he doesn’t have a canoe. Closing the letter, he asks the shopkeeper where he could find one, and the shopkeeper sells him a tiny souvenir canoe of birchbark with the words “Summer Memories” stamped on it. The shopkeeper offers Stuart a couple of little paper ice cream spoons as paddles. Stuart is dismayed by the makeshift paddles because they don’t fit his picture of a proper canoe. Nevertheless, he carries the canoe—paddles and all—back to his little campground by the stream, eager to show off his prowess as a boatman.

The canoe is a great disappointment. It leaks. Stuart spends the afternoon repairing it, then has to ballast it with stones and make a backrest and pillow for Harriet’s comfort. He’s angry that the paddles look ridiculous; it isn’t what he imagined. He spends the evening imagining every detail of his date with Harriet—how everything will look, how perfect and beautiful it will be, and how much she will admire him.

The next morning is cloudy, and Stuart is afraid the date will not go as he wishes. Harriet arrives, and Stuart tries to appear careless and confident. He greets her in what he hopes sounds like an English accent.

Escorting Harriet back to his little campground, Stuart finds that his canoe has disappeared. Ready to cry, he rushes up and down the bank, looking for it. When he finds it, the canoe has been ruined. Some child has found and played with it, and it is nearly destroyed. Harriet suggests that they repair it and go out anyway, but Stuart rejects the idea. He is furious that his fantasy has been spoiled. Harriet then suggests they simply change their plans; they might dine at her house and go dancing at the Country Club. Stuart rejects her proposal, and Harriet goes home, leaving Stuart alone.

Stuart wakes to a new day; the sun is shining, and every bird twittering in the trees might be Margalo. Stuart sets out in his little car and comes to a fork in the road. One way goes west and the other north. He spies a telephone repairman sitting by the side of the road and stops to ask if the repairman ever sees birds atop the telephone poles. The repairman affirms that he does, and Stuart asks whether, if he ever came across Margalo, he contact Stuart. The repair man carefully takes down a description of Margalo—a plain brown bird with a streak of yellow on her breast—and promises to contact Stuart if he should ever meet her.

Stuart tells the repairman that he is traveling north, and the repairman replies that north is a good direction. They agree that while all the other directions are good in their own ways, there is something special about the north. Stuart says that he thinks he will probably go north for the rest of his days, and the repairman says there are worse things a person might do.

Stuart climbs in his car and turns his face toward the north, toward an endless horizon, and feels that he is going in the right direction.