Eleanor Estes Quotes

“Suddenly she paused and shuddered. She pictured herself in the school yard, a new target for Peggy and the girls. Peggy might ask where she got the dress she had on, and Maddie would have to say that it was one of Peggy’s old ones that Maddie’s mother had tried to disguise with new trimmings so that no one in Room 13 would recognize it.”

″‘A hundred dresses,’ repeated Wanda stolidly, ‘All lined in my closet.‘”

“Nobody knew exactly why Wanda sat in the seat unless it was because she came all the way from Boggins Heights, and her feet were usually caked with dry mud that she picked up coming down the country roads.”

“At last Maddie sat up in bed and pressed her forehead tight in her hands and really thought. This was the hardest thinking she had ever done. After a long, long time she reached an important conclusion. She would never stand by and say nothing again.”

“Wanda didn’t have any friends. She came to school alone and went home alone. She always wore a faded blue dress that didn’t hang right. It was clean, but it looked as though it had never been ironed properly.”

″... she knew she’d never have the courage to speak right out to Peggy, to say, ‘Hey, Peg, let’s stop asking Wanda how many dresses she has.’ When she finished her arithmetic, she did start a note to Peggy. Suddenly she paused and shuddered. She pictured herself in the school yard, a new target for Peggy and the girls.”

“If she ever heard anybody picking on someone because they were funny looking or because they had strange names, she’d speak up. Even if it meant losing Peggy’s friendship. She had no way of making things right with Wanda, but from now on she would never make anybody else so unhappy again.”

“Yes, that was the way it had all begun, the game of the hundred dresses. It all happened so suddenly and unexpectedly, with everyone falling right in, that even if you felt uncomfortable as Maddie had there wasn’t anything you could do about it.”

“Nobody in the room thought about Wanda at all except when it was her turn to stand up for oral reading. Then they all hoped she would hurry up and finish and sit down, because it took her forever to read a paragraph.”

“Today, Monday, Wanda Petronski was not in her seat. But nobody, not even Peggy and Madeline, the girls who started all the fun, noticed her absence.”

“The colors in the dress were so vivid she had scarcely noticed the face and head of the drawing. But it looked like her, Maddie! It really did. The same short blond hair, blue eyes, and wide straight mouth. Why, it really looked like her own self! Wanda had really drawn this for her.”

“For now Peggy seemed to think a day was lost if she had not had some fun with Wanda, winning the approving laughter of the girls.”

“The Moffats tells about four young children and their mother who live in a small town in Connecticut. Their adventures are based on Estes’ memories of her childhood and focus on a working-class, single-parent American family during World War I.”

“The Moffats are a fatherless family in Cranbury, Connecticut, which Estes modeled after her hometown of West Haven. Mama is a dressmaker with four children: Sylvie, Joey, Janey and Rufus.”

“The two youngest, ten-year-old Janey and five-year-old Rufus, are the focus of these stories. When the book opens, Janey watches as a strange man nails a For Sale sign on their house.”

“They have lived there since shortly after her father died, and Janey cannot imagine living anywhere else. Mama tells the children not to worry about it until it sells.”

“When the first day of school arrives and Rufus goes to kindergarten, he takes very seriously the instruction to watch over his young friend Hughie.”

“The way Mama could peel apples! A few turns of the knife and there the apple was, all skinned! Jane could not take her eyes from her mother’s hands. They had a way of doing things, peeling apples, sprinkling salt, counting pennies, that fascinated her.”

“There wasn’t anyone to play with, so Jane picked up her doll, Hildegarde, stuck her in her knitting bag, and went out the back door. All the fruit trees in the yard looked inviting to Jane. She had half a mind to c limb the old apple tree, sit in one of its forks, and do some knitting.”

“When Hughie runs away from school and hides on a train, Rufus follows him, and a helpful engineer gets them back just in time for lunch.”

“Another time, the children decide to rig up a ghost in their attic to scare the neighborhood bully Peter Frost. They use their Mama’s dressmaker’s form (called Madame-the-Bust), a pumpkin with real teeth and a scooter.”

“There is Sylvie, the oldest, the cleverest, and-most days at least-the responsible one; Joey, who though only twelve is the man of the house...sometimes.”

“Even the most ordinary Moffat day is packed with extraordinary fun. Only a Moffat could get locked in a bread box all afternoon, or dance with a dog in front of the whole town, or hitch a ride on a boxcar during kindergarten recess.”

“Would Gracie-the-cat be jealous if the Pyes got another pet_a dog? That was what Jerry Pye wanted to know and what he was dreaming about as he sat with Rachel, his sister, on their little upstairs veranda.”

“Ginger was a smart dog. He even located the school that Jerry goes to. Almost all his neighbors and friends knew Ginger.”

“When the Pye family’s puppy, Ginger, disappears on Thanksgiving Day, the children are convinced that he has been abducted by a stranger in a yellow hat.”

“She had been a wedding present to Mama, and she was known in the neighborhood as ‘the New York Cat.’ Jerry was trying to figure what Gracie’s feelings would be if the Pye did get another pet_a dog.”

“Jerry Pye, a resident in Cranbury, Connecticut in 1919, bought a puppy he wanted from Ms. Speedy for a hard-earned dollar he made while dusting the pews in the church for Sam Doody.”

“Jerry was pleased with the puppy and headed home. On the way home, Jerry and his sister Rachel heard footsteps behind them.”

“When they turned back, they did not see anything. Jerry decided that if anyone was following them, then that follower was after his dog.”

″ After a few days, Jerry remembered that he hadn’t given his puppy a name! He asked his mother and his mother said Ginger because he is the color of ginger and has a gingery temperament. ”

“Ginger Pye went missing on Thanksgiving Day. Jerry and his sister Rachel searched for the puppy all around Cranbury but could not find him.”

“They discover Ginger tied up in a shed, and uncover the identity of the thief: Wally Bullwinkle. Ginger home safe to a happy family.”

“Sylvie was the oldest Moffat. When Mama introduced Sylvie to the ladies who came to try one, she always said, ‘this is Sylvie, my oldest child.’ Sylvie was sweet sixteen. On her last birthday her aunt had sent her sixteen lumps of sugar tied with pink ribbon all in a cluster.”

“Well, though Jane, if she doesn’t ask me, I’ll have to ask her.′ ‘What’s your name?’ she said. ‘Clara Pringle. This is my brother. Brud, we call him.’ ‘Oh...’ said Jane. Now you ask me, she thought. And after watching Jane for a while in silence, Clara did ask her.”

“I’m Jane, the mysterious middle Moffat,′ she tried. No. What was there mysterious about her? Nothing. She certainly didn’t wear a musk or o around on tiptoe saying She-sh-sh! like Hawkshaw, the detective. Everybody knew who she was or could very easily find out.”

“So Jane went on. ‘Middle Moffat, that’s me, is not mysterious. The middle of the night is.’ ‘The mysterious middle Moffat is not mysterious,’ said the oldest inhabitant thoughtfully. ‘No,’ agreed Jane, laughing politely. Mr. Buckle put his finger on the side of his nose the way Hawkshaw, the detective, did in the pictures, and he beamed down at her.”

“A furious black kitten abandoned on their doorstep endears itself to the whole family--even Ginger--and foreshadows another addition to the Pye family that will change their lives forever.”

“Jane wound a strip of bright red cloth around her crochet hook. The middle of other things was good, too, she thought. The middle of a sandwich and the middle of a pie. The middle of the night, when exciting things happened in books.”

“Where were all the other neighbors? My, this was a quiet street. It was a little short street, and it didn’t have any other children on it at all. Just the Moffats. Some children might move into the big house which had just been built next door.”

“Jane thumbed through the little black notebook where Mama kept the measurements of all the ladies she sewed for. At the beginning of the book were the ladies she had sewn for in New York, before she came to live in Cranbury.”

“The Moffats had not been living on this street very long, and everybody didn’t know them yet. Very likely there were lots of people who would like to know who this girl was, sitting under this tree, how old she was, and what room she was in the school.”

“But now, here came another person. Jane recognized him. It was Mr. Buckle, the oldest inhabitant. He was ninety-nine years old and soon he would be one hundred. A century! Jane was ten. He was almost ten times ten. Phew! He was a veteran of the Civil War.”

“Meet Pinky, a furious black kitten who adopts the Pye family. The Pyes have some of the smartest pets around—there’s Ginger the intellectual dog, and Gracie the ...”

“A BANDID, said the sign. ‘A bandid?’ said Rachel. ‘Must mean bandit. A bandit.’ Everybody laughed at this idea, and the kitten, trying desperately to get loose, spat at them all.”

“Abandoned!′ said Papa, who was excellent at riddles. ‘That’s what this sign means. Abandoned.’ ‘An abandoned kitten!’ they exclaimed compassionately. ‘Is there anything else on the note?’ asked Jerry, and, turning it over, he saw that there was. ‘My name is Pinky,’ he read, and, ‘I don’t know how old is I.”

“It is about a small museum that the four Moffat children set up to help them remember the special times in their lives now that they are growing up.”

“The Moffats should have a museum! Suddenly the idea popped into Jane’s head…′ Staring idly at the family’s barn one day, Jane gets the amazing idea for a Moffat Family Museum...”

“Ordinarily the Pyes never went away from Cranbury either, except for Papa, who was a renowned ornithologist and accustomed to travelin placer near, faraway, and even dangerous.”

“A Moffat Family Museum to hold any first or treasured things the Moffat children can think of. The first artifact for their museum is the bike that all four of them used to learn to ride.”

“It’s a good time for the Moffats to be storing up memories, because things are changing.”

″... he came home and found Joey, Jane, and Sylvie all reading in the front yard. Joey and Jane were sitting on the steps of the porch and Sylvie was sprawled in the hammock, a book in one hand, and chocolate-covered peppermint in the other.”

“The only bird that Papa had was a stuffed screech owl in his study, and this had been the gift of Mrs. Moffat, who had donated it to him when she had moved from the Yellow House on New Dollar Street, because, in her new and smaller house on Ashbellows Place, she had no attic...”

“The check from The Auk had come, on time. ‘Hurray!‘, said Papa. ‘We can go! We can spend the whole summer. I can write ten books!’ he said. Papa was always about ten books behind in his writings.”

“Rufus’ teacher will be spending the summer in London, and she tells the class about the wax museum she plans on visiting while she’s there.”

“When barbarians invade Rome, Miranda the cat and her daughter Punka must find a safe place to hide from the chaos. ”

“Miranda was a good singer, too, and often sang in the nighttime of these happy days. She lived with a little girl named Claudia, who was seven. Claudia had had Miranda since she was a tiny kitten and had watched her grow..”

“Fire Island is a long and skinny island just south of Long Island, which is also a long and skinny island, though it is fatter than Fire Island and much longer.”

“Rufus is inspired to become a wax statue for the museum, and gathers all the crayons and candles and odd bits of wax in the house to transform himself into ‘Rufus, the Waxworks Boy.”

“Miranda the cat and her daughter Punka make their way through the burning city, collecting motherless kittens as they go. At last they reach the Colosseum--but even there, danger lurks!”

“How these fortunate felines survive to become the noble ancestors of the cats of modern Rome is all due to the cleverness of the cat they come to call Miranda the Great, Queen of the Colosseum!”

“Claudia friends called Miranda and Punka ‘giant cats.’ ‘Why, they were colosal!’ they exclaimed. Punka, though more than a year younger, was even larger than her mother.”

‘You’ve never met anyone quite like Rufus Moffat. He gets things done, but he gets them done his way.”

“Specimens were what Jerry was interested in, not birds that fly away before one can be sure what they are but specimens of rock that may be scrutinized at leisure in one’s room by lamplight, late.”

“Baby Rufus is growing up, and Sylvie is getting ready to marry Reverend Mr. Abbot. Soon Joey will be taking a full-time job.”

“The book doesn’t leave out the difficulties a low-income family might experience at that time, Silvey also praises the sense of sadness some of the characters feel at the changes taking place...”

“Claudia’s father, Marcus, was a senator in the Roman Forum. Before this, he had been a mighty soldier in the army and had fought in Spain. It was there that Marcus had found Zag, their great and wise dog.”

“This is Jane, the middle Moffat,′ said Jane, trying to act as though she were Mama, introducing her one of the ladies she showed for. That is not the way Mama actually introduced her to these ladies.”

“Right now the, as the family stood waiting for the boat to come, Lydia, with eyes as liquid as the blue sky above the bay, looked up expectantly at Rachel from the crate on which she lay sprawling.”

“But the museum helps them celebrate and remember their past as they face the future together.”

“Miranda and Punka always raced to the flower garden, shaking their heads as though they had gotten a drop of water on them, and hid from the noisy man.”

“When he wants to check out library books, Rufus teaches himself to write... even though he doesn’t yet know how to read.”

“Now the Moffats lived in a tiny little house set far back from the streets on Ashbellows Place. And Rufus could write and print the offat part of Moffat as well as Rufus M. He could do this with either hand, his right hand or his left hand.”

“The Moffat Museum is set in small Cranbury, Connecticut in the early 1900s.”

“Once last winter, after a terrible and unusual snowstorm, Miranda had chased sixteen dogs off their street. They were trotting along happily through the deep and snowy ravine in the middle of the street where men and animals had worn a path.”

“When food is scarce, he plants some special ‘Rufus beans’ that actually grow... despite his digging them up every day to check on them.”

“And no cat was allowed on her street either. The cats of Rome knew this by now. However there had been one cat who came in the night. This was the great and awful lizard cat with the broken tail who had come from Barcelona in Spain to Rome.”

“And Rufus has friends that other people don’t even know exist! He discover the only invisible piano player in town.”

“Today was Punka’s birthday. She was one year old. Claudia had given her a dish of cream to celebrate, and now Miranda was washing her face. Miranda was telling Punka that she was goind to have some more kittens soon, any day now.”

“He has his own personal flying horse for a day, and tours town with the Cardboard boy, his dearest friend_ and enemy.”

“Toot-toot!′ Rufus hurried down the street. When he arrived at the library, he hid his scooter in the pine trees that grew under the windows besides the steps. Christmas trees, Rufus called them.”

“He surprised Mama by asking to have his hands washed.When this was done, he mounted his scooter again and returned all the long way to the library. It was just a little trip to the library. it was a long one.”

“Rufus held his hard-earned application in one hand and steered his scooter with the other. When he reached home Joey, Jane, and Sylvie were not around any longer. Mama signed his card for him, saying, ‘My! So you’ve learned how to write!”