Stuart Little by E. B. White, Garth Williams Page B

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, andwitha 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