Stuart was an early riser: he was almost always the first person up in the morning. He liked the feeling of being the first one stirring; he enjoyed the quiet rooms with the books standing¹ still on the shelves, the pale light coming in through the windows, and the fresh smell of day. In wintertime it would be quite dark when he climbed from his bed made out of the cigarette box, and he sometimes shivered with cold as he stood in his nightgown doing his exercises. (stuart touched his toes ten times every morning to keep himself in good condition. He had seen his brother George do it, and George had explained that it kept the stomach muscles firm and was a fine abdominal² thing to do.)

After exercising, Stuart would slip on his handsome wool wrapper, tie the cord tightly³ around his waist, and start for the bathroom, creeping silently through the long dark hall past his mother’s and father’s room, past the hall closet where the carpet sweeper was kept, past George’s room, and along by the head of the stairs till he got to the bathroom.

Of course, the bathroom would be dark, too, but Stuart’s father had thoughtfully tied a long string to the pull-chain of the light. The string reached clear to the floor. By grasping it as high up as he could and throwing his whole weight on it, Stuart was able to turn on the light. Swinging on the string this way, with his long bathrobe trailing around his ankles, he looked like a little old friar pulling the bellrope in an abbey.

To get to the washbasin, Stuart had to climb a tiny rope ladder which his father had fixed⁴ for him.

George had promised to build Stuart a small special washbasin only one inch high andwitha little rubber tube through which water would flow; but George was always saying that he was going to build something and then forgetting about it. Stuart just went ahead and climbed the rope ladder to the family washbasin every morning to wash his face and hands and brush his teeth. Mrs. Little had provided him with a doll’s size toothbrush, a doll’s size cake of soap, a doll’s size washcloth, and a doll’s comb—which he used for combing his whiskers. He carried these things in his bathrobe pocket, and when he reached the top of the ladder he took them out, laid them

分享到：