Hardie Gramatky Quotes

“At the foot of an old, old wharf lived the cutest little tugboat you ever saw. His name was Little Toot. Blow hard as he could, the only sound that came out of his whistle was a small, merry toot-toot-toot”

“Little Toot was so excited he puffed more and more smoke balls. They gave him a wonderful idea. Those smoke balls could probably be seen all the way up the river, where his father and grandfather were. So he puffed a signal…S.O.S.”

“So there was always exciting work for tugboats to do. They pushed the big ships into the docks to be unloaded. They towed the ships down the river to the wide, deep ocean.”

“Or he made fancy figure 8′s. He liked to make bigger and bigger ones. One day, carried away by the joy of it, he made one so big it took up the whole river.”

“Little Toot felt very lonely. He wasn’t wanted anywhere or by anyone. With his spirits drooping he let the tide carry him where it willed. He did not see the sky grow dark. He did not feel the wind blowing harder and harder. The wind was whipping into a real storm.”

“Little Toot was right in the middle of all the excitement. He watched his father work hard. Big Toot was the biggest and fastest tugboat on the river.”

“It was Little Toot. He was not fighting the waves. He was riding on top of them, bouncing from one wave to the next like a rubber ball. The pounding hurt like anything, but Little Toot kept right on going.”

“All the other tugboats made fun of Little Toot, calling him a silly tugboat who only knew how to play. Poor Little Toot. He felt ashamed and angry. As he sailed away, puffing a trail of smoke balls, the other boats just laughed at him.”

“The sight of the brave, bustling tugboats made Little Toot think. Suddenly a great new idea came to him. ‘I don’t want to be a silly tugboat anymore,’ he thought. ‘I want to be a real tugboat, the best tugboat on the river. Then I’ll make my father proud of me.’ ”

“Against the black sky climbed a brilliant, flaming rocket. It was a ship’s danger flare. Little Toot looked hard and saw a ship jammed between two huge rocks. It was an ocean liner his father had towed many times down the river.”