介绍:
For three days everybody hunted all over the house for Margalo without finding so much as a feather.
一连三天，所有人都在房子里到处寻找着玛戈，却连她的一根羽毛都没发现。
"I guess she had spring fever," said George. "A normal bird doesn't stay indoors this kind of weather."
“我猜她可能得了一种思念春天的病，”乔治说。“在这种天气里一个正常的鸟儿是不愿意呆在室内的。”
"Perhaps she has a husband somewhere and has gone to meet him," suggested Mr. Little.
“可能她到什么地方找她的丈夫去了，”利特尔先生猜。
"She has not!" sobbed Stuart, bitterly. "That's just a lot of nonsense."
"How do you know?" asked George.
"Because I asked her one time," cried Stuart. "She told me she was a single bird."
“她没有丈夫！”斯图亚特痛苦地小声哭着。“你在胡说。”
“你怎么知道的？”乔治问。
“因为我问过她一次，”斯图亚特哭着说。“她告诉我她是一只独身的鸟儿。”
Everybody questioned Snowbell closely, but the cat insisted he knew nothing about Margalo's disappearance. "I don't see why you have to make a pariah out of me just because that disagreeable little chippy flew the coop," said Snowbell, irritably.
每个人都在追问雪球，可是他却坚持说对玛戈的失踪一无所知。“明明是那个讨厌的浪荡女人自己从笼子里飞走的嘛，你们干吗拼命地拷问我？我真搞不懂。”雪球生气地说。
Stuart was heartbroken. He had no appetite, refused food, and lost weight. Finally he decided that he would run away from home without telling anybody, and go out into the world and look for Margalo. "While I am about it, I might as well seek my fortune, too," he thought.
斯图亚特心碎了。他没有了胃口，拒绝吃任何食物，体重开始下降。最后他决定悄悄地离开家，到外面去寻找玛戈。“我这么做，也是想找找我的运气。”他想。
Before daybreak next morning he got out his biggest handkerchief and in it he placed his toothbrush, his money, his soap, his comb and brush, a clean suit of underwear, and his pocket compass.
第二天破晓前，他摊开他最大的一条手绢，将他的牙刷，钱，肥皂，梳子，画笔，一套干净的内衣，还有袖珍指南针都放在上面。
"I ought to take along something to remember my mother by," he thought. So he crept into his mother's bedroom where she was still asleep, climbed the lamp cord to her bureau, and pulled a strand of Mrs. Little's hair from her comb. He rolled the hair up neatly and laid it in the handkerchief for the other things. Then he rolled everything up into a bundle and tied it onto one end of a wooden match. With his gray felt hat cocked jauntily on one side of his head and his pack slung across his shoulder, Stuart stole softly out of the house.
“我该带上一些能想念起我妈妈的东西，”他想。于是他爬进他妈妈的卧室，当时她还在睡着。他顺着灯绳爬上她的梳妆台，从她的梳子上拽下了一根利特尔太太的头发。他把这根头发和手绢里的其它东西放在一起。又把手绢系成一个小包，放到一个火柴盒里。然后他把他的灰毡帽很帅地歪戴到头上，将小手绢包神气地挎到肩膀上，才蹑手蹑脚的离开了家。
"Good-bye, beautiful home," he whispered.
"I wonder if I will ever see you again."
Stuart stood uncertainly for a moment in the street in front of the house. The world was a big place in which to go looking for a lost bird. North, south, east, or west--which way should he go? Stuart decided that he needed advice on such an important matter, so he started uptown to find his friend Dr. Carey, the surgeon dentist, owner of the schooner Wasp.
“再见，美丽的家，”他低语。
“我不知道能否再看见你了。”
往北，往南，往东还是往西——他该往什么方向走呢？斯图亚特觉得这个重要的决定应该在听取别人的意见后才能作出，便往上城区去寻找他的朋友，那个黄蜂号的船主，凯里牙医。
The doctor was glad to see Stuart. He took him right into his inner office where he was busy pulling a man's tooth. The man's name was Edward Clydesdale, and he had several wads of gauze in his cheek to hold his mouth open good and wide. The tooth was a hard one to get out, and the Doctor let Stuart sit on his instrument tray so they could talk during the operation.
医生见到斯图亚特很高兴。他直接把他带到他的办公室里，他正在那里忙着给一个男人拔牙呢。这个男人名叫爱德华·克莱德代勒，他的腮帮子附近塞了些棉球，这样就使他的嘴可以很好的撑开了。这颗牙非常难拔，所以医生就让斯图亚特坐在他放拔牙工具的托盘上，这样就可以一边拔牙，一边和他讲话了。
"This is my friend, Stuart Little," he said to the man with the gauze in his cheek.
"How 'oo oo, Soo'rt," replied the man, as best he could.
"Very well, thank you," replied Stuart.
"Well, what's on your mind, Stuart?" asked Dr. Carey, seizing hold of the man's tooth with a pair of pincers and giving a strong pull.
"I ran away from home this morning," explained Stuart. "I am going out into the world to seek my fortune and to look for a lost bird. Which direction do you think I should start out in?"
Dr. Carey twisted the tooth a bit and racked it back and forth. "What color is the bird?" he asked.
"Brown," said Stuart.
"Better go north," said Dr. Carey.
"Don't you think so, Mr. Clydesdale?"
"'ook in 'entral 'ark," said Mr. Clydesdale.
"What?" cried Stuart.
"I 'ay, 'ook in 'entral 'ark," said Mr. Clydesdale.
"He says look in Central Park," explained Dr. Carey, tucking another big wad of gauze into Mr. Clydesdale's cheek.
"And it's a good suggestion. Oftentimes people with decayed teeth have sound ideas. Central Park is a favorite place for birds in the spring."
Mr. Clydesdale was nodding his head vigorously, and seemed about to speak again.
"If 'oo 'on't 'ocate a 'ird in 'entral 'ark, 'ake a 'ew 'ork 'ew 'aven and 'artford 'ailway 'n 'ook in 'onnecticut."
"What?" cried Stuart, delighted at this new kind of talk. "What say, Mr. Clydesdale?"
"If 'oo 'on't 'ocate a 'ird in 'entral 'ark, 'ake a 'ew 'ork 'ew 'aven and 'artford 'ailway 'n 'ook in 'onnecticut."
"He says if you can't locate the bird in Central Park, take a New York New Haven and Hartford Railway train and look in Connecticut," said Dr. Carey.
Then he removed the rolls of gauze from Mr. Clydesdale's mouth. "Rinse, please!" he said.
Mr. Clydesdale took a glass of mouthwash that was beside the chair and rinsed his mouth out.
"Tell me this, Stuart," said Dr. Carey. "How are you traveling? On foot?"
"Yes, sir," said Stuart.
"Well, I think you'd better have a car. As soon as I get this tooth out, we'll see what can be done about it. Open, please, Mr. Clydesdale."
Dr. Carey grabbed the tooth with the pincers again, and this time he pulled so long and so hard and with such determination that the tooth popped out, which was a great relief to everybody, particularly to Mr. Clydesdale. The Doctor then led Stuart into another room. From a shelf he took a tiny automobile, about six inches long--the most perfect miniature automobile Stuart had ever seen. It was bright yellow with black fenders, a streamlined car of graceful design. "I made this myself," Dr. Carey said. "I enjoy building model cars and boats and other things when I am not extracting teeth. This car has a real gasoline motor in it. It has quite a good deal of power--do you think you can handle it, Stuart?"
"Certainly," replied Stuart, looking into the driver's seat and blowing the horn. "But isn't it going to attract too much attention? Won't everybody stop and stare at such a small automobile?"
"They would if they could see you," replied Dr. Carey, "but nobody will be able to see you, or the car."
"Why not?" asked Stuart.
"Because this automobile is a thoroughly modern car. It's not only noiseless, it's invisible.
Nobody can see it."
"I can see it," remarked Stuart.
"Push that little button!" said the Doctor, pointing to a button on the instrument panel.
Stuart pushed the button. Instantly the car vanished from sight.
"Now push it again," said the Doctor.
"How can I push it when I can't see it?" asked Stuart.
"Feel around for it."
So Stuart felt around until his hand came in contact with a button. It seemed like the same button, and Stuart pushed it. He heard a slight grinding noise and felt something slip out from under his hand.
"Hey, watch out!" yelled Dr. Carey.
"You pushed the starter button. She's off! There she goes! She's away! She's loose in the room--now we'll never catch her." He grabbed Stuart up and placed him on a table where he wouldn't be hit by a runaway car.
"Oh, mercy! Oh, mercy!" Stuart cried when he realized what he had done. It was a very awkward situation. Neither Dr. Carey nor Stuart could see the little automobile, yet it was rushing all around the room under its own power, bumping into things. First there came a crashing noise over by the fireplace. The hearth broom fell down. Dr. Carey leapt for the spot and pounced on the place where the sound had come from. But though he was quick, he had hardly got his hands on the place when there was another crash over by the wastebasket.
The Doctor pounced again. Pounce! Crash! Pounce! Crash! The Doctor was racing all over the room, pouncing and missing. It is almost impossible to catch a speedy invisible model automobile even when one is a skillful dentist.
于是医生又往废纸篓那里猛扑。猛扑！哗啦！猛扑！哗啦！医生扑遍了整个房间，却还是屡扑屡空。看来，就是一个医术超群的牙医也难抓住一辆看不见的疾驰中的现代式模型车。
"Oh, oh," yelled Stuart, jumping up and down. "I'm sorry, Dr. Carey, I'm dreadfully sorry!"
"Get a butterfly net!" shouted the Doctor.
"I can't," said Stuart. "I'm not big enough to carry a butterfly net."
"That's true," said Dr. Carey. "I forgot. My apologies, Stuart."
"The car is bound to stop sometime," said Stuart, "because it will run out of gas."
"That's true, too," said the Doctor. And so he and Stuart sat down and waited patiently until they no longer heard any crashing sounds in the room. Then the Doctor got down on his hands and knees and crawled cautiously all over, feeling here and there, until at last he found the car. It was in the fireplace, buried up to its hubs in wood ashes. The Doctor pressed the proper button and there it stood in plain sight again, its front fenders crumpled, its radiator leaking, its headlights broken, its windshield shattered, its right rear tire punctured, and quite a bit of yellow paint scratched off the hood.
“也对，”医生说。于是他就和斯图亚特坐下来耐心地等着，直到房间里再也听不到任何哗啦声为止。然后医生开始四肢着地，小心地在四处爬着，伸出手到处划拉着，最后他终于发现了那辆小车。它停在壁炉里， 轮子陷在炉灰之中。医生摁了一下正确的按钮，小车便又出现在视线里了，它前面的护泥板已经皱成了一团，冷却器也漏了，车头灯碎了，挡风玻璃被撞成了碎片，车后面的轮胎被扎瘪了，车盖上的黄漆也刮掉了很大一片。
"What a mess!" groaned the Doctor.
"Stuart, I hope this will be a lesson to you: never push a button on an automobile unless you are sure of what you are doing."
"Yes, sir," answered Stuart, and his eyes filled with tears, each tear being smaller than a drop of dew. It had been an unhappy morning, and Stuart was already homesick.
He was sure that he was never going to see Margalo again.
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