| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII | HTML | PDF ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: The Story of Doctor Dolittle
Author: Lofting, Hugh
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Story of Doctor Dolittle" ***
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)
_THE STORY OF DOCTOR DOLITTLE_
[Illustration: “A little town called Puddleby-on-the-Marsh”]
THE
_Story of_
DOCTOR DOLITTLE
_BEING THE
HISTORY OF HIS PECULIAR LIFE
AT HOME AND ASTONISHING ADVENTURES
IN FOREIGN PARTS. NEVER BEFORE PRINTED._
_TOLD BY HUGH LOFTING_ _ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR_
[Illustration]
_Published by FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY at 443 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK._
_A.D. 1920_
WITH AN INTRODUCTION TO THE TENTH PRINTING
BY HUGH WALPOLE
_Copyright, 1920, by_
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
_All rights reserved, including that of translation
into foreign languages_
First Printing, Aug. 24, 1920
Second Printing, Dec. 17, 1920
Third Printing, April 16, 1921
Fourth Printing, July 7, 1921
Fifth Printing, Sept. 1, 1921
Sixth Printing, Oct. 26, 1921
Seventh Printing, Dec. 5, 1921
Eighth Printing, April 3, 1922
Ninth Printing, Aug. 18, 1922
Tenth Printing, Nov. 28, 1922
Eleventh Printing, April 2, 1923
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO
ALL CHILDREN
CHILDREN IN YEARS AND CHILDREN IN HEART
I DEDICATE THIS STORY
_INTRODUCTION TO THE TENTH PRINTING_
THERE are some of us now reaching middle age who discover themselves
to be lamenting the past in one respect if in none other, that there
are no books written now for children comparable with those of thirty
years ago. I say written _for_ children because the new psychological
business of writing _about_ them as though they were small pills or
hatched in some especially scientific method is extremely popular
to-day. Writing for children rather than about them is very difficult
as everybody who has tried it knows. It can only be done, I am
convinced, by somebody having a great deal of the child in his own
outlook and sensibilities. Such was the author of “The Little Duke” and
“The Dove in the Eagle’s Nest,” such the author of “A Flatiron for a
Farthing,” and “The Story of a Short Life.” Such, above all, the author
of “Alice in Wonderland.” Grownups imagine that they can do the trick
by adopting baby language and talking down to their very critical
audience. There never was a greater mistake. The imagination of the
author must be a child’s imagination and yet maturely consistent,
so that the White Queen in “Alice,” for instance, is seen just as a
child would see her, but she continues always herself through all her
distressing adventures. The supreme touch of the white rabbit pulling
on his white gloves as he hastens is again absolutely the child’s
vision, but the white rabbit as guide and introducer of Alice’s
adventures belongs to mature grown insight.
Geniuses are rare and, without being at all an undue praiser of times
past, one can say without hesitation that until the appearance of
Hugh Lofting, the successor of Miss Yonge, Mrs. Ewing, Mrs. Gatty and
Lewis Carroll had not appeared. I remember the delight with which some
six months ago I picked up the first “Dolittle” book in the Hampshire
bookshop at Smith College in Northampton. One of Mr. Lofting’s pictures
was quite enough for me. The picture that I lighted upon when I first
opened the book was the one of the monkeys making a chain with their
arms across the gulf. Then I looked further and discovered Bumpo
reading fairy stories to himself. And then looked again and there was a
picture of John Dolittle’s house.
But pictures are not enough although most authors draw so badly that if
one of them happens to have the genius for line that Mr. Lofting shows
there must be, one feels, something in his writing as well. There is.
You cannot read the first paragraph of the book, which begins in the
right way “Once upon a time” without knowing that Mr. Lofting believes
in his story quite as much as he expects you to. That is the first
essential for a story teller. Then you discover as you read on that he
has the right eye for the right detail. What child-inquiring mind could
resist this intriguing sentence to be found on the second page of the
book:
“Besides the gold-fish in the pond at the bottom of his
garden, he had rabbits in the pantry, white mice in his
piano, a squirrel in the linen closet and a hedgehog in
the cellar.”
And then when you read a little further you will discover that the
Doctor is not merely a peg on whom to hang exciting and various
adventures but that he is himself a man of original and lively
character. He is a very kindly, generous man, and anyone who has ever
written stories will know that it is much more difficult to make
kindly, generous characters interesting than unkindly and mean ones.
But Dolittle is interesting. It is not only that he is quaint but that
he is wise and knows what he is about. The reader, however young,
who meets him gets very soon a sense that if he were in trouble, not
necessarily medical, he would go to Dolittle and ask his advice about
it. Dolittle seems to extend his hand from the page and grasp that of
his reader, and I can see him going down the centuries a kind of Pied
Piper with thousands of children at his heels. But not only is he a
darling and alive and credible but his creator has also managed to
invest everybody else in the book with the same kind of life.
Now this business of giving life to animals, making them talk and
behave like human beings, is an extremely difficult one. Lewis Carroll
absolutely conquered the difficulties, but I am not sure that anyone
after him until Hugh Lofting has really managed the trick; even in
such a masterpiece as “The Wind in the Willows” we are not quite
convinced. John Dolittle’s friends are convincing because their creator
never forces them to desert their own characteristics. Polynesia, for
instance, is natural from first to last. She really does care about the
Doctor but she cares as a bird would care, having always some place to
which she is going when her business with her friends is over. And when
Mr. Lofting invents fantastic animals he gives them a kind of credible
possibility which is extraordinarily convincing. It will be impossible
for anyone who has read this book not to believe in the existence of
the pushmi-pullyu, who would be credible enough even were there no
drawing of it, but the picture on page 153 settles the matter of his
truth once and for all.
In fact this book is a work of genius and, as always with works of
genius, it is difficult to analyze the elements that have gone to
make it. There is poetry here and fantasy and humor, a little pathos
but, above all, a number of creations in whose existence everybody
must believe whether they be children of four or old men of ninety or
prosperous bankers of forty-five. I don’t know how Mr. Lofting has done
it; I don’t suppose that he knows himself. There it is—the first real
children’s classic since “Alice.”
HUGH WALPOLE.
_CONTENTS_
INTRODUCTION vii
CHAPTER PAGE
I PUDDLEBY 1
II ANIMAL LANGUAGE 7
III MORE MONEY TROUBLES 19
IV A MESSAGE FROM AFRICA 29
V THE GREAT JOURNEY 37
VI POLYNESIA AND THE KING 47
VII THE BRIDGE OF APES 55
VIII THE LEADER OF THE LIONS 67
IX THE MONKEYS’ COUNCIL 75
X THE RAREST ANIMAL OF ALL 81
XI THE BLACK PRINCE 91
XII MEDICINE AND MAGIC 99
XIII RED SAILS AND BLUE WINGS 111
XIV THE RATS’ WARNING 117
XV THE BARBARY DRAGON 125
XVI TOO-TOO, THE LISTENER 133
XVII THE OCEAN GOSSIPS 141
XVIII SMELLS 149
XIX THE ROCK 159
XX THE FISHERMAN’S TOWN 167
XXI HOME AGAIN 174
_ILLUSTRATIONS_
“A little town called Puddleby-on-the-Marsh” _Frontispiece_
PAGE
“And she never came to see him any more” 3
“He could see as well as ever” 14
“They came at once to his house on the edge of the town” 15
“They used to sit in chairs on the lawn” 19
“‘All right,’ said the Doctor, ‘go and get married’” 23
“One evening when the Doctor was asleep in his chair” 24
“‘I felt sure there was twopence left’” 31
“And the voyage began” 35
“‘We must have run into Africa’” 41
“‘I got into it because I did not want to be drowned’” 44
“And Queen Ermintrude was asleep” 48
“‘Who’s that?’” 52
“Cheering and waving leaves and swinging out of the branches
to greet him” 61
“John Dolittle was the last to cross” 65
“He made all the monkeys who were still well come and be
vaccinated” 68
“‘_ME, the King of Beasts_, to wait on a lot of dirty
monkeys?’” 70
“Then the Grand Gorilla got up” 76
“‘Lord save us!’ cried the duck. ‘How does it make up its
mind?’” 85
“He began reading the fairy-stories to himself” 96
“Crying bitterly and waving till the ship was out of sight” 109
“‘They are surely the pirates of Barbary’” 114
“‘And you have heard that rats always leave a sinking ship?’” 119
“‘Look here, Ben Ali—’” 127
“‘Sh!—Listen!—I do believe there’s someone in there!’” 136
“‘You stupid piece of warm bacon!’” 153
“‘Doctor!’ he cried. ‘I’ve got it!’” 160
“And she kissed the Doctor many times” 170
“The Doctor sat in a chair in front” 176
“He began running round the garden like a crazy thing” 178
_THE STORY OF DOCTOR DOLITTLE_
THE STORY OF DOCTOR DOLITTLE
_THE FIRST CHAPTER_
PUDDLEBY
ONCE upon a time, many years ago—when our grandfathers were little
children—there was a doctor; and his name was Dolittle—John Dolittle,
M.D. “M.D.” means that he was a proper doctor and knew a whole lot.
He lived in a little town called, Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. All the folks,
young and old, knew him well by sight. And whenever he walked down the
street in his high hat everyone would say, “There goes the Doctor!—He’s
a clever man.” And the dogs and the children would all run up and
follow behind him; and even the crows that lived in the church-tower
would caw and nod their heads.
The house he lived in, on the edge of the town, was quite small;
but his garden was very large and had a wide lawn and stone seats
and weeping-willows hanging over. His sister, Sarah Dolittle, was
housekeeper for him; but the Doctor looked after the garden himself.
He was very fond of animals and kept many kinds of pets. Besides the
gold-fish in the pond at the bottom of his garden, he had rabbits in
the pantry, white mice in his piano, a squirrel in the linen closet
and a hedgehog in the cellar. He had a cow with a calf too, and an old
lame horse—twenty-five years of age—and chickens, and pigeons, and two
lambs, and many other animals. But his favorite pets were Dab-Dab the
duck, Jip the dog, Gub-Gub the baby pig, Polynesia the parrot, and the
owl Too-Too.
[Illustration: “And she never came to see him any more”]
His sister used to grumble about all these animals and said they made
the house untidy. And one day when an old lady with rheumatism came to
see the Doctor, she sat on the hedgehog who was sleeping on the sofa
and never came to see him any more, but drove every Saturday all
the way to Oxenthorpe, another town ten miles off, to see a different
doctor.
Then his sister, Sarah Dolittle, came to him and said,
“John, how can you expect sick people to come and see you when you
keep all these animals in the house? It’s a fine doctor would have
his parlor full of hedgehogs and mice! That’s the fourth personage
these animals have driven away. Squire Jenkins and the Parson say they
wouldn’t come near your house again—no matter how sick they are. We
are getting poorer every day. If you go on like this, none of the best
people will have you for a doctor.”
“But I like the animals better than the ‘best people’,” said the Doctor.
“You are ridiculous,” said his sister, and walked out of the room.
So, as time went on, the Doctor got more and more animals; and the
people who came to see him got less and less. Till at last he had
no one left—except the Cat’s-meat-Man, who didn’t mind any kind of
animals. But the Cat’s-meat-Man wasn’t very rich and he only got sick
once a year—at Christmas-time, when he used to give the Doctor sixpence
for a bottle of medicine.
Sixpence a year wasn’t enough to live on—even in those days, long ago;
and if the Doctor hadn’t had some money saved up in his money-box, no
one knows what would have happened.
And he kept on getting still more pets; and of course it cost a lot to
feed them. And the money he had saved up grew littler and littler.
Then he sold his piano, and let the mice live in a bureau-drawer. But
the money he got for that too began to go, so he sold the brown suit he
wore on Sundays and went on becoming poorer and poorer.
And now, when he walked down the street in his high hat, people would
say to one another, “There goes John Dolittle, M.D.! There was a time
when he was the best known doctor in the West Country—Look at him
now—He hasn’t any money and his stockings are full of holes!”
But the dogs and the cats and the children still ran up and followed
him through the town—the same as they had done when he was rich.
_THE SECOND CHAPTER_
ANIMAL LANGUAGE
IT happened one day that the Doctor was sitting in his kitchen talking
with the Cat’s-meat-Man who had come to see him with a stomach-ache.
“Why don’t you give up being a people’s doctor, and be an
animal-doctor?” asked the Cat’s-meat-Man.
The parrot, Polynesia, was sitting in the window looking out at the
rain and singing a sailor-song to herself. She stopped singing and
started to listen.
“You see, Doctor,” the Cat’s-meat-Man went on, “you know all about
animals—much more than what these here vets do. That book you
wrote—about cats, why, it’s wonderful! I can’t read or write myself—or
maybe _I’d_ write some books. But my wife, Theodosia, she’s a scholar,
she is. And she read your book to me. Well, it’s wonderful—that’s all
can be said—wonderful. You might have been a cat yourself. You know
the way they think. And listen: you can make a lot of money doctoring
animals. Do you know that? You see, I’d send all the old women who had
sick cats or dogs to you. And if they didn’t get sick fast enough, I
could put something in the meat I sell ’em to make ’em sick, see?”
“Oh, no,” said the Doctor quickly. “You mustn’t do that. That wouldn’t
be right.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean real sick,” answered the Cat’s-meat-Man. “Just a
little something to make them droopy-like was what I had reference to.
But as you say, maybe it ain’t quite fair on the animals. But they’ll
get sick anyway, because the old women always give ’em too much to eat.
And look, all the farmers round about who had lame horses and weak
lambs—they’d come. Be an animal-doctor.”
When the Cat’s-meat-Man had gone the parrot flew off the window on to
the Doctor’s table and said,
“That man’s got sense. That’s what you ought to do. Be an
animal-doctor. Give the silly people up—if they haven’t brains enough
to see you’re the best doctor in the world. Take care of animals
instead—_they_’ll soon find it out. Be an animal-doctor.”
“Oh, there are plenty of animal-doctors,” said John Dolittle, putting
the flower-pots outside on the window-sill to get the rain.
“Yes, there _are_ plenty,” said Polynesia. “But none of them are any
good at all. Now listen, Doctor, and I’ll tell you something. Did you
know that animals can talk?”
“I knew that parrots can talk,” said the Doctor.
“Oh, we parrots can talk in two languages—people’s language and
bird-language,” said Polynesia proudly. “If I say, ‘Polly wants a
cracker,’ you understand me. But hear this: _Ka-ka oi-ee, fee-fee?_”
“Good Gracious!” cried the Doctor. “What does that mean?”
“That means, ‘Is the porridge hot yet?’—in bird-language.”
“My! You don’t say so!” said the Doctor. “You never talked that way to
me before.”
“What would have been the good?” said Polynesia, dusting some
cracker-crumbs off her left wing. “You wouldn’t have understood me if I
had.”
“Tell me some more,” said the Doctor, all excited; and he rushed
over to the dresser-drawer and came back with the butcher’s book and
a pencil. “Now don’t go too fast—and I’ll write it down. This is
interesting—very interesting—something quite new. Give me the Birds’
A.B.C. first—slowly now.”
So that was the way the Doctor came to know that animals had a language
of their own and could talk to one another. And all that afternoon,
while it was raining, Polynesia sat on the kitchen table giving him
bird words to put down in the book.
At tea-time, when the dog, Jip, came in, the parrot said to the Doctor,
“See, _he_’s talking to you.”
“Looks to me as though he were scratching his ear,” said the Doctor.
“But animals don’t always speak with their mouths,” said the parrot in
a high voice, raising her eyebrows. “They talk with their ears, with
their feet, with their tails—with everything. Sometimes they don’t
_want_ to make a noise. Do you see now the way he’s twitching up one
side of his nose?”
“What’s that mean?” asked the Doctor.
“That means, ‘Can’t you see that it has stopped raining?’” Polynesia
answered. “He is asking you a question. Dogs nearly always use their
noses for asking questions.”
After a while, with the parrot’s help, the Doctor got to learn the
language of the animals so well that he could talk to them himself
and understand everything they said. Then he gave up being a people’s
doctor altogether.
As soon as the Cat’s-meat-Man had told every one that John Dolittle was
going to become an animal-doctor, old ladies began to bring him their
pet pugs and poodles who had eaten too much cake; and farmers came many
miles to show him sick cows and sheep.
One day a plow-horse was brought to him; and the poor thing was
terribly glad to find a man who could talk in horse-language.
“You know, Doctor,” said the horse, “that vet over the hill knows
nothing at all. He has been treating me six weeks now—for spavins. What
I need is _spectacles_. I am going blind in one eye. There’s no reason
why horses shouldn’t wear glasses, the same as people. But that stupid
man over the hill never even looked at my eyes. He kept on giving me
big pills. I tried to tell him; but he couldn’t understand a word of
horse-language. What I need is spectacles.”
“Of course—of course,” said the Doctor. “I’ll get you some at once.”
“I would like a pair like yours,” said the horse—“only green. They’ll
keep the sun out of my eyes while I’m plowing the Fifty-Acre Field.”
“Certainly,” said the Doctor. “Green ones you shall have.”
“You know, the trouble is, Sir,” said the plow-horse as the Doctor
opened the front door to let him out—“the trouble is that _anybody_
thinks he can doctor animals—just because the animals don’t complain.
As a matter of fact it takes a much cleverer man to be a really good
animal-doctor than it does to be a good people’s doctor. My farmer’s
boy thinks he knows all about horses. I wish you could see him—his face
is so fat he looks as though he had no eyes—and he has got as much
brain as a potato-bug. He tried to put a mustard-plaster on me last
week.”
“Where did he put it?” asked the Doctor.
“Oh, he didn’t put it anywhere—on me,” said the horse. “He only tried
to. I kicked him into the duck-pond.”
“Well, well!” said the Doctor.
“I’m a pretty quiet creature as a rule,” said the horse—“very patient
with people—don’t make much fuss. But it was bad enough to have that
vet giving me the wrong medicine. And when that red-faced booby started
to monkey with me, I just couldn’t bear it any more.”
“Did you hurt the boy much?” asked the Doctor.
“Oh, no,” said the horse. “I kicked him in the right place. The vet’s
looking after him now. When will my glasses be ready?”
“I’ll have them for you next week,” said the Doctor. “Come in again
Tuesday—Good morning!”
[Illustration: “He could see as well as ever”]
Then John Dolittle got a fine, big pair of green spectacles; and the
plow-horse stopped going blind in one eye and could see as well as ever.
And soon it became a common sight to see farm-animals wearing glasses
in the country round Puddleby; and a blind horse was a thing unknown.
And so it was with all the other animals that were brought to him. As
soon as they found that he could talk their language, they told him
where the pain was and how they felt, and of course it was easy for him
to cure them.
[Illustration: “They came at once to his house on the edge of the town”]
Now all these animals went back and told their brothers and friends
that there was a doctor in the little house with the big garden who
really _was_ a doctor. And whenever any creatures got sick—not only
horses and cows and dogs—but all the little things of the fields, like
harvest-mice and water-voles, badgers and bats, they came at once to
his house on the edge of the town, so that his big garden was nearly
always crowded with animals trying to get in to see him.
There were so many that came that he had to have special doors made for
the different kinds. He wrote “HORSES” over the front door, “COWS” over
the side door, and “SHEEP” on the kitchen door. Each kind of animal
had a separate door—even the mice had a tiny tunnel made for them into
the cellar, where they waited patiently in rows for the Doctor to come
round to them.
And so, in a few years’ time, every living thing for miles and miles
got to know about John Dolittle, M.D. And the birds who flew to other
countries in the winter told the animals in foreign lands of the
wonderful doctor of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh, who could understand their
talk and help them in their troubles. In this way he became famous
among the animals—all over the world—better known even than he had
been among the folks of the West Country, And he was happy and liked
his life very much.
One afternoon when the Doctor was busy writing in a book, Polynesia
sat in the window—as she nearly always did—looking out at the leaves
blowing about in the garden. Presently she laughed aloud.
“What is it, Polynesia?” asked the Doctor, looking up from his book.
“I was just thinking,” said the parrot; and she went on looking at the
leaves.
“What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking about people,” said Polynesia. “People make me sick.
They think they’re so wonderful. The world has been going on now for
thousands of years, hasn’t it? And the only thing in animal-language
that _people_ have learned to understand is that when a dog wags his
tail he means ‘I’m glad!’—It’s funny, isn’t it? You are the very first
man to talk like us. Oh, sometimes people annoy me dreadfully—such
airs they put on—talking about ‘the dumb animals.’ _Dumb!_—Huh! Why I
knew a macaw once who could say ‘Good morning!’ in seven different
ways without once opening his mouth. He could talk every language—and
Greek. An old professor with a gray beard bought him. But he didn’t
stay. He said the old man didn’t talk Greek right, and he couldn’t
stand listening to him teach the language wrong. I often wonder what’s
become of him. That bird knew more geography than people will ever
know.—_People_, Golly! I suppose if people ever learn to fly—like any
common hedge-sparrow—we shall never hear the end of it!”
“You’re a wise old bird,” said the Doctor. “How old are you really? I
know that parrots and elephants sometimes live to be very, very old.”
“I can never be quite sure of my age,” said Polynesia. “It’s either a
hundred and eighty-three or a hundred and eighty-two. But I know that
when I first came here from Africa, King Charles was still hiding in
the oak-tree—because I saw him. He looked scared to death.”
_THE THIRD CHAPTER_
MORE MONEY TROUBLES
AND soon now the Doctor began to make money again; and his sister,
Sarah, bought a new dress and was happy.
Some of the animals who came to see him were so sick that they had
to stay at the Doctor’s house for a week. And when they were getting
better they used to sit in chairs on the lawn.
[Illustration: “They used to sit in chairs on the lawn”]
And often even after they got well, they did not want to go away—they
liked the Doctor and his house so much. And he never had the heart to
refuse them when they asked if they could stay with him. So in this way
he went on getting more and more pets.
Once when he was sitting on his garden wall, smoking a pipe in the
evening, an Italian organ-grinder came round with a monkey on a string.
The Doctor saw at once that the monkey’s collar was too tight and
that he was dirty and unhappy. So he took the monkey away from the
Italian, gave the man a shilling and told him to go. The organ-grinder
got awfully angry and said that he wanted to keep the monkey. But the
Doctor told him that if he didn’t go away he would punch him on the
nose. John Dolittle was a strong man, though he wasn’t very tall. So
the Italian went away saying rude things and the monkey stayed with
Doctor Dolittle and had a good home. The other animals in the house
called him “Chee-Chee”—which is a common word in monkey-language,
meaning “ginger.”
And another time, when the circus came to Puddleby, the crocodile
who had a bad toothache escaped at night and came into the Doctor’s
garden. The Doctor talked to him in crocodile-language and took him
into the house and made his tooth better. But when the crocodile
saw what a nice house it was—with all the different places for the
different kinds of animals—he too wanted to live with the Doctor. He
asked couldn’t he sleep in the fish-pond at the bottom of the garden,
if he promised not to eat the fish. When the circus-men came to take
him back he got so wild and savage that he frightened them away. But to
every one in the house he was always as gentle as a kitten.
But now the old ladies grew afraid to send their lap-dogs to Doctor
Dolittle because of the crocodile; and the farmers wouldn’t believe
that he would not eat the lambs and sick calves they brought to be
cured. So the Doctor went to the crocodile and told him he must go back
to his circus. But he wept such big tears, and begged so hard to be
allowed to stay, that the Doctor hadn’t the heart to turn him out.
So then the Doctor’s sister came to him and said,
“John, you must send that creature away. Now the farmers and the
old ladies are afraid to send their animals to you—just as we were
beginning to be well off again. Now we shall be ruined entirely. This
is the last straw. I will no longer be housekeeper for you if you don’t
send away that alligator.”
“It isn’t an alligator,” said the Doctor—“it’s a crocodile.”
“I don’t care what you call it,” said his sister. “It’s a nasty thing
to find under the bed. I won’t have it in the house.”
“But he has promised me,” the Doctor answered, “that he will not bite
any one. He doesn’t like the circus; and I haven’t the money to send
him back to Africa where he comes from. He minds his own business and
on the whole is very well behaved. Don’t be so fussy.”
“I tell you I _will not_ have him around,” said Sarah. “He eats the
linoleum. If you don’t send him away this minute I’ll—I’ll go and get
married!”
“All right,” said the Doctor, “go and get married. It can’t be
helped.” And he took down his hat and went out into the garden.
So Sarah Dolittle packed up her things and went off; and the Doctor was
left all alone with his animal family.
[Illustration: “‘All right,’ said the Doctor, ‘go and get married’”]
And very soon he was poorer than he had ever been before. With all
these mouths to fill, and the house to look after, and no one to do the
mending, and no money coming in to pay the butcher’s bill, things began
to look very difficult. But the Doctor didn’t worry at all.
“Money is a nuisance,” he used to say. “We’d all be much better off if
it had never been invented. What does money matter, so long as we are
happy?”
[Illustration: “One evening when the Doctor was asleep in his chair”]
But soon the animals themselves began to get worried. And one evening
when the Doctor was asleep in his chair before the kitchen-fire they
began talking it over among themselves in whispers. And the owl,
Too-Too, who was good at arithmetic, figured it out that there was only
money enough left to last another week—if they each had one meal a day
and no more.
Then the parrot said, “I think we all ought to do the housework
ourselves. At least we can do that much. After all, it is for our sakes
that the old man finds himself so lonely and so poor.”
So it was agreed that the monkey, Chee-Chee, was to do the cooking and
mending; the dog was to sweep the floors; the duck was to dust and make
the beds; the owl, Too-Too, was to keep the accounts, and the pig was
to do the gardening. They made Polynesia, the parrot, housekeeper and
laundress, because she was the oldest.
Of course at first they all found their new jobs very hard to do—all
except Chee-Chee, who had hands, and could do things like a man. But
they soon got used to it; and they used to think it great fun to watch
Jip, the dog, sweeping his tail over the floor with a rag tied onto it
for a broom. After a little they got to do the work so well that the
Doctor said that he had never had his house kept so tidy or so clean
before.
In this way things went along all right for a while; but without money
they found it very hard.
Then the animals made a vegetable and flower stall outside the
garden-gate and sold radishes and roses to the people that passed by
along the road.
But still they didn’t seem to make enough money to pay all the
bills—and still the Doctor wouldn’t worry. When the parrot came to him
and told him that the fishmonger wouldn’t give them any more fish, he
said,
“Never mind. So long as the hens lay eggs and the cow gives milk we can
have omelettes and junket. And there are plenty of vegetables left in
the garden. The Winter is still a long way off. Don’t fuss. That was
the trouble with Sarah—she would fuss. I wonder how Sarah’s getting
on—an excellent woman—in some ways—Well, well!”
But the snow came earlier than usual that year; and although the old
lame horse hauled in plenty of wood from the forest outside the town,
so they could have a big fire in the kitchen, most of the vegetables in
the garden were gone, and the rest were covered with snow; and many of
the animals were really hungry.
_THE FOURTH CHAPTER_
A MESSAGE FROM AFRICA
THAT Winter was a very cold one. And one night in December, when they
were all sitting round the warm fire in the kitchen, and the Doctor
was reading aloud to them out of books he had written himself in
animal-language, the owl, Too-Too, suddenly said,
“Sh! What’s that noise outside?”
They all listened; and presently they heard the sound of some one
running. Then the door flew open and the monkey, Chee-Chee, ran in,
badly out of breath.
“Doctor!” he cried, “I’ve just had a message from a cousin of mine in
Africa. There is a terrible sickness among the monkeys out there. They
are all catching it—and they are dying in hundreds. They have heard of
you, and beg you to come to Africa to stop the sickness.”
“Who brought the message?” asked the Doctor, taking off his spectacles
and laying down his book.
“A swallow,” said Chee-Chee. “She is outside on the rain-butt.”
“Bring her in by the fire,” said the Doctor. “She must be perished with
the cold. The swallows flew South six weeks ago!”
So the swallow was brought in, all huddled and shivering; and although
she was a little afraid at first, she soon got warmed up and sat on the
edge of the mantelpiece and began to talk.
When she had finished the Doctor said,
“I would gladly go to Africa—especially in this bitter weather. But
I’m afraid we haven’t money enough to buy the tickets. Get me the
money-box, Chee-Chee.”
So the monkey climbed up and got it off the top shelf of the dresser.
There was nothing in it—not one single penny!
“I felt sure there was twopence left,” said the Doctor.
“There _was_” said the owl. “But you spent it on a rattle for that
badger’s baby when he was teething.”
“Did I?” said the Doctor—“dear me, dear me! What a nuisance money is,
to be sure! Well, never mind. Perhaps if I go down to the seaside I
shall be able to borrow a boat that will take us to Africa. I knew a
seaman once who brought his baby to me with measles. Maybe he’ll lend
us his boat—the baby got well.”
[Illustration: “‘I felt sure there was twopence left’”]
So early the next morning the Doctor went down to the sea-shore. And
when he came back he told the animals it was all right—the sailor was
going to lend them the boat.
Then the crocodile and the monkey and the parrot were very glad and
began to sing, because they were going back to Africa, their real home.
And the Doctor said,
“I shall only be able to take you three—with Jip the dog, Dab-Dab the
duck, Gub-Gub the pig and the owl, Too-Too. The rest of the animals,
like the dormice and the water-voles and the bats, they will have to
go back and live in the fields where they were born till we come home
again. But as most of them sleep through the Winter, they won’t mind
that—and besides, it wouldn’t be good for them to go to Africa.”
So then the parrot, who had been on long sea-voyages before, began
telling the Doctor all the things he would have to take with him on the
ship.
“You must have plenty of pilot-bread,” she said—“‘hard tack’ they call
it. And you must have beef in cans—and an anchor.”
“I expect the ship will have its own anchor,” said the Doctor.
“Well, make sure,” said Polynesia. “Because it’s very important. You
can’t stop if you haven’t got an anchor. And you’ll need a bell.”
“What’s that for?” asked the Doctor.
“To tell the time by,” said the parrot. “You go and ring it every
half-hour and then you know what time it is. And bring a whole lot of
rope—it always comes in handy on voyages.”
Then they began to wonder where they were going to get the money from
to buy all the things they needed.
“Oh, bother it! Money again,” cried the Doctor. “Goodness! I shall be
glad to get to Africa where we don’t have to have any! I’ll go and ask
the grocer if he will wait for his money till I get back—No, I’ll send
the sailor to ask him.”
So the sailor went to see the grocer. And presently he came back with
all the things they wanted.
Then the animals packed up; and after they had turned off the water so
the pipes wouldn’t freeze, and put up the shutters, they closed the
house and gave the key to the old horse who lived in the stable. And
when they had seen that there was plenty of hay in the loft to last the
horse through the Winter, they carried all their luggage down to the
seashore and got on to the boat.
The Cat’s-meat-Man was there to see them off; and he brought a large
suet-pudding as a present for the Doctor because, he said he had been
told, you couldn’t get suet-puddings in foreign parts.
As soon as they were on the ship, Gub-Gub, the pig, asked where the
beds were, for it was four o’clock in the afternoon and he wanted his
nap. So Polynesia took him downstairs into the inside of the ship and
showed him the beds, set all on top of one another like book-shelves
against a wall.
“Why, that isn’t a bed!” cried Gub-Gub. “That’s a shelf!”
“Beds are always like that on ships,” said the parrot. “It isn’t a
shelf. Climb up into it and go to sleep. That’s what you call ‘a bunk.’”
[Illustration: “And the voyage began”]
“I don’t think I’ll go to bed yet,” said Gub-Gub. “I’m too excited. I
want to go upstairs again and see them start.”
“Well, this is your first trip,” said Polynesia. “You will get used to
the life after a while.” And she went back up the stairs of the ship,
humming this song to herself,
I’ve seen the Black Sea and the Red Sea;
I rounded the Isle of Wight;
I discovered the Yellow River,
And the Orange too—by night.
Now Greenland drops behind again,
And I sail the ocean Blue.
I’m tired of all these colors, Jane,
So I’m coming back to you.
They were just going to start on their journey, when the Doctor said he
would have to go back and ask the sailor the way to Africa.
But the swallow said she had been to that country many times and would
show them how to get there.
So the Doctor told Chee-Chee to pull up the anchor and the voyage
began.
_THE FIFTH CHAPTER_
THE GREAT JOURNEY
NOW for six whole weeks they went sailing on and on, over the rolling
sea, following the swallow who flew before the ship to show them the
way. At night she carried a tiny lantern, so they should not miss her
in the dark; and the people on the other ships that passed said that
the light must be a shooting star.
As they sailed further and further into the South, it got warmer and
warmer. Polynesia, Chee-Chee and the crocodile enjoyed the hot sun no
end. They ran about laughing and looking over the side of the ship to
see if they could see Africa yet.
But the pig and the dog and the owl, Too-Too, could do nothing in such
weather, but sat at the end of the ship in the shade of a big barrel,
with their tongues hanging out, drinking lemonade.
Dab-Dab, the duck, used to keep herself cool by jumping into the sea
and swimming behind the ship. And every once in a while, when the top
of her head got too hot, she would dive under the ship and come up
on the other side. In this way, too, she used to catch herrings on
Tuesdays and Fridays—when everybody on the boat ate fish to make the
beef last longer.
When they got near to the Equator they saw some flying-fishes coming
towards them. And the fishes asked the parrot if this was Doctor
Dolittle’s ship. When she told them it was, they said they were glad,
because the monkeys in Africa were getting worried that he would never
come. Polynesia asked them how many miles they had yet to go; and the
flying-fishes said it was only fifty-five miles now to the coast of
Africa.
And another time a whole school of porpoises came dancing through the
waves; and they too asked Polynesia if this was the ship of the famous
doctor. And when they heard that it was, they asked the parrot if the
Doctor wanted anything for his journey.
And Polynesia said, “Yes. We have run short of onions.”
“There is an island not far from here,” said the porpoises, “where the
wild onions grow tall and strong. Keep straight on—we will get some and
catch up to you.”
So the porpoises dashed away through the sea. And very soon the parrot
saw them again, coming up behind, dragging the onions through the waves
in big nets made of seaweed.
The next evening, as the sun was going down, the Doctor said,
“Get me the telescope, Chee-Chee. Our journey is nearly ended. Very
soon we should be able to see the shores of Africa.”
And about half an hour later, sure enough, they thought they could see
something in front that might be land. But it began to get darker and
darker and they couldn’t be sure.
Then a great storm came up, with thunder and lightning. The wind
howled; the rain came down in torrents; and the waves got so high they
splashed right over the boat.
Presently there was a big BANG! The ship stopped and rolled over on its
side.
“What’s happened?” asked the Doctor, coming up from downstairs.
“I’m not sure,” said the parrot; “but I think we’re ship-wrecked. Tell
the duck to get out and see.”
So Dab-Dab dived right down under the waves. And when she came up she
said they had struck a rock; there was a big hole in the bottom of the
ship; the water was coming in; and they were sinking fast.
“We must have run into Africa,” said the Doctor. “Dear me, dear
me!—Well—we must all swim to land.”
But Chee-Chee and Gub-Gub did not know how to swim.
“Get the rope!” said Polynesia. “I told you it would come in handy.
Where’s that duck? Come here, Dab-Dab. Take this end of the rope, fly
to the shore and tie it on to a palm-tree; and we’ll hold the other
end on the ship here. Then those that can’t swim must climb along the
rope till they reach the land. That’s what you call a ‘life-line.’”
[Illustration: “‘We must have run into Africa’”]
So they all got safely to the shore—some swimming, some flying; and
those that climbed along the rope brought the Doctor’s trunk and
hand-bag with them.
But the ship was no good any more—with the big hole in the bottom; and
presently the rough sea beat it to pieces on the rocks and the timbers
floated away.
Then they all took shelter in a nice dry cave they found, high up in
the cliffs, till the storm was over.
When the sun came out next morning they went down to the sandy beach to
dry themselves.
“Dear old Africa!” sighed Polynesia. “It’s good to get back. Just
think—it’ll be a hundred and sixty-nine years to-morrow since I was
here! And it hasn’t changed a bit!—Same old palm-trees; same old red
earth; same old black ants! There’s no place like home!”
And the others noticed she had tears in her eyes—she was so pleased to
see her country once again.
Then the Doctor missed his high hat; for it had been blown into the sea
during the storm. So Dab-Dab went out to look for it. And presently she
saw it, a long way off, floating on the water like a toy-boat.
When she flew down to get it, she found one of the white mice, very
frightened, sitting inside it.
“What are you doing here?” asked the duck. “You were told to stay
behind in Puddleby.”
“I didn’t want to be left behind,” said the mouse. “I wanted to see
what Africa was like—I have relatives there. So I hid in the baggage
and was brought on to the ship with the hard-tack. When the ship sank
I was terribly frightened—because I cannot swim far. I swam as long as
I could, but I soon got all exhausted and thought I was going to sink.
And then, just at that moment, the old man’s hat came floating by; and
I got into it because I did not want to be drowned.”
So the duck took up the hat with the mouse in it and brought it to the
Doctor on the shore. And they all gathered round to have a look.
“That’s what you call a ‘stowaway,’” said the parrot.
Presently, when they were looking for a place in the trunk where the
white mouse could travel comfortably, the monkey, Chee-Chee, suddenly
said,
“Sh! I hear footsteps in the jungle!”
They all stopped talking and listened. And soon a black man came down
out of the woods and asked them what they were doing there.
[Illustration: “‘I got into it because I did not want to be drowned’”]
“My name is John Dolittle—M.D.,” said the Doctor. “I have been asked to
come to Africa to cure the monkeys who are sick.”
“You must all come before the King,” said the black man.
“What king?” asked the Doctor, who didn’t want to waste any time.
“The King of the Jolliginki,” the man answered. “All these lands belong
to him; and all strangers must be brought before him. Follow me.”
So they gathered up their baggage and went off, following the man
through the jungle.
_THE SIXTH CHAPTER_
POLYNESIA AND THE KING
WHEN they had gone a little way through the thick forest, they came to
a wide, clear space; and they saw the King’s palace which was made of
mud.
This was where the King lived with his Queen, Ermintrude, and their
son, Prince Bumpo. The Prince was away fishing for salmon in the river.
But the King and Queen were sitting under an umbrella before the palace
door. And Queen Ermintrude was asleep.
When the Doctor had come up to the palace the King asked him his
business; and the Doctor told him why he had come to Africa.
“You may not travel through my lands,” said the King. “Many years ago a
white man came to these shores; and I was very kind to him. But after
he had dug holes in the ground to get the gold, and killed all the
elephants to get their ivory tusks, he went away secretly in his ship—
without so much as saying ‘Thank you.’ Never again shall a white man
travel through the lands of Jolliginki.”
[Illustration: “And Queen Ermintrude was asleep”]
Then the King turned to some of the black men who were standing near
and said, “Take away this medicine-man—with all his animals, and lock
them up in my strongest prison.”
So six of the black men led the Doctor and all his pets away and shut
them up in a stone dungeon. The dungeon had only one little window,
high up in the wall, with bars in it; and the door was strong and thick.
Then they all grew very sad; and Gub-Gub, the pig, began to cry. But
Chee-Chee said he would spank him if he didn’t stop that horrible
noise; and he kept quiet.
“Are we all here?” asked the Doctor, after he had got used to the dim
light.
“Yes, I think so,” said the duck and started to count them.
“Where’s Polynesia?” asked the crocodile. “She isn’t here.”
“Are you sure?” said the Doctor. “Look again. Polynesia! Polynesia!
Where are you?”
“I suppose she escaped,” grumbled the crocodile. “Well, that’s just
like her!—Sneaked off into the jungle as soon as her friends got into
trouble.”
“I’m not that kind of a bird,” said the parrot, climbing out of the
pocket in the tail of the Doctor’s coat. “You see, I’m small enough
to get through the bars of that window; and I was afraid they would
put me in a cage instead. So while the King was busy talking, I hid in
the Doctor’s pocket—and here I am! That’s what you call a ‘ruse,’” she
said, smoothing down her feathers with her beak.
“Good Gracious!” cried the Doctor. “You’re lucky I didn’t sit on you.”
“Now listen,” said Polynesia, “to-night, as soon as it gets dark, I
am going to creep through the bars of that window and fly over to the
palace. And then—you’ll see—I’ll soon find a way to make the King let
us all out of prison.”
“Oh, what can _you_ do?” said Gub-Gub, turning up his nose and
beginning to cry again. “You’re only a bird!”
“Quite true,” said the parrot. “But do not forget that although I am
only a bird, _I can talk like a man_—and I know these darkies.”
So that night, when the moon was shining through the palm-trees and
all the King’s men were asleep, the parrot slipped out through the
bars of the prison and flew across to the palace. The pantry window had
been broken by a tennis ball the week before; and Polynesia popped in
through the hole in the glass.
She heard Prince Bumpo snoring in his bedroom at the back of the
palace. Then she tip-toed up the stairs till she came to the King’s
bedroom. She opened the door gently and peeped in.
The Queen was away at a dance that night at her cousin’s; but the King
was in bed fast asleep.
Polynesia crept in, very softly, and got under the bed.
Then she coughed—just the way Doctor Dolittle used to cough. Polynesia
could mimic any one.
The King opened his eyes and said sleepily: “Is that you, Ermintrude?”
(He thought it was the Queen come back from the dance.)
Then the parrot coughed again—loud, like a man. And the King sat up,
wide awake, and said, “Who’s that?”
“I am Doctor Dolittle,” said the parrot—just the way the Doctor would
have said it.
“What are you doing in my bedroom?” cried the King. “How dare you get
out of prison! Where are you?—I don’t see you.”
[Illustration: “‘Who’s that?’”]
But the parrot just laughed—a long, deep* jolly laugh, like the
Doctor’s.
“Stop laughing and come here at once, so I can see you,” said the King.
“Foolish King!” answered Polynesia. “Have you forgotten that you
are talking to John Dolittle, M.D.—the most wonderful man on earth?
Of course you cannot see me. I have made myself invisible. There is
nothing I cannot do. Now listen: I have come here to-night to warn
you. If you don’t let me and my animals travel through your kingdom,
I will make you and all your people sick like the monkeys. For I can
make people well: and I can make people ill—just by raising my little
finger. Send your soldiers at once to open the dungeon door, or you
shall have mumps before the morning sun has risen on the hills of
Jolliginki.”
Then the King began to tremble and was very much afraid.
“Doctor,” he cried, “it shall be as you say. Do not raise your little
finger, please!” And he jumped out of bed and ran to tell the soldiers
to open the prison door.
As soon as he was gone, Polynesia crept downstairs and left the palace
by the pantry window.
But the Queen, who was just letting herself in at the backdoor with a
latch-key, saw the parrot getting out through the broken glass. And
when the King came back to bed she told him what she had seen.
Then the King understood that he had been tricked, and he was
dreadfully angry. He hurried back to the prison at once.
But he was too late. The door stood open. The dungeon was empty. The
Doctor and all his animals were gone.
_THE SEVENTH CHAPTER_
THE BRIDGE OF APES
QUEEN ERMINTRUDE had never in her life seen her husband so terrible as
he got that night. He gnashed his teeth with rage. He called everybody
a fool. He threw his tooth-brush at the palace cat. He rushed round in
his night-shirt and woke up all his army and sent them into the jungle
to catch the Doctor. Then he made all his servants go too—his cooks and
his gardeners and his barber and Prince Bumpo’s tutor—even the Queen,
who was tired from dancing in a pair of tight shoes, was packed off to
help the soldiers in their search.
All this time the Doctor and his animals were running through the
forest towards the Land of the Monkeys as fast as they could go.
Gub-Gub, with his short legs, soon got tired; and the Doctor had to
carry him—which made it pretty hard when they had the trunk and the
hand-bag with them as well.
The King of the Jolliginki thought it would be easy for his army to
find them, because the Doctor was in a strange land and would not know
his way. But he was wrong; because the monkey, Chee-Chee, knew all the
paths through the jungle—better even than the King’s men did. And he
led the Doctor and his pets to the very thickest part of the forest—a
place where no man had ever been before—and hid them all in a big
hollow tree between high rocks.
“We had better wait here,” said Chee-Chee, “till the soldiers have gone
back to bed. Then we can go on into the Land of the Monkeys.”
So there they stayed the whole night through.
They often heard the King’s men searching and talking in the jungle
round about. But they were quite safe, for no one knew of that
hiding-place but Chee-Chee—not even the other monkeys.
At last, when daylight began to come through the thick leaves overhead,
they heard Queen Ermintrude saying in a very tired voice that it was
no use looking any more—that they might as well go back and get some
sleep.
As soon as the soldiers had all gone home, Chee-Chee brought the Doctor
and his animals out of the hiding-place and they set off for the Land
of the Monkeys.
It was a long, long way; and they often got very tired—especially
Gub-Gub. But when he cried they gave him milk out of the cocoanuts,
which he was very fond of.
They always had plenty to eat and drink; because Chee-Chee and
Polynesia knew all the different kinds of fruits and vegetables that
grow in the jungle, and where to find them—like dates and figs and
ground-nuts and ginger and yams. They used to make their lemonade out
of the juice of wild oranges, sweetened with honey which they got from
the bees’ nests in hollow trees. No matter what it was they asked for,
Chee-Chee and Polynesia always seemed to be able to get it for them—or
something like it. They even got the Doctor some tobacco one day, when
he had finished what he had brought with him and wanted to smoke.
At night they slept in tents made of palm-leaves, on thick, soft beds
of dried grass. And after a while they got used to walking such a lot
and did not get so tired and enjoyed the life of travel very much.
But they were always glad when the night came and they stopped for
their resting-time. Then the Doctor used to make a little fire of
sticks; and after they had had their supper, they would sit round it
in a ring, listening to Polynesia singing songs about the sea, or to
Chee-Chee telling stories of the jungle.
And many of the tales that Chee-Chee told were very interesting.
Because although the monkeys had no history-books of their own before
Doctor Dolittle came to write them for them, they remember everything
that happens by telling stories to their children. And Chee-Chee spoke
of many things his grandmother had told him—tales of long, long,
long ago, before Noah and the Flood,—of the days when men dressed in
bear-skins and lived in holes in the rock and ate their mutton raw,
because they did not know what cooking was—having never seen a fire.
And he told them of the Great Mammoths and Lizards, as long as a train,
that wandered over the mountains in those times, nibbling from the
tree-tops. And often they got so interested listening, that when he
had finished they found their fire had gone right out; and they had to
scurry round to get more sticks and build a new one.
Now when the King’s army had gone back and told the King that they
couldn’t find the Doctor, the King sent them out again and told them
they must stay in the jungle till they caught him. So all this time,
while the Doctor and his animals were going along towards the Land of
the Monkeys, thinking themselves quite safe, they were still being
followed by the King’s men. If Chee-Chee had known this, he would most
likely have hidden them again. But he didn’t know it.
One day Chee-Chee climbed up a high rock and looked out over the
tree-tops. And when he came down he said they were now quite close to
the Land of the Monkeys and would soon be there.
And that same evening, sure enough, they saw Chee-Chee’s cousin and a
lot of other monkeys, who had not yet got sick, sitting in the trees by
the edge of a swamp, looking and waiting for them. And when they saw
the famous doctor really come, these monkeys made a tremendous noise,
cheering and waving leaves and swinging out of the branches to greet
him.
They wanted to carry his bag and his trunk and everything he had—and
one of the bigger ones even carried Gub-Gub who had got tired again.
Then two of them rushed on in front to tell the sick monkeys that the
great doctor had come at last.
But the King’s men, who were still following, had heard the noise of
the monkeys cheering; and they at last knew where the Doctor was, and
hastened on to catch him.
The big monkey carrying Gub-Gub was coming along behind slowly, and he
saw the Captain of the army sneaking through the trees. So he hurried
after the Doctor and told him to run.
[Illustration: “Cheering and waving leaves and swinging out of the
branches to greet him”]
Then they all ran harder than they had ever run in their lives; and
the King’s men, coming after them, began to run too; and the Captain
ran hardest of all.
Then the Doctor tripped over his medicine-bag and fell down in the mud,
and the Captain thought he would surely catch him this time.
But the Captain had very long ears—though his hair was very short. And
as he sprang forward to take hold of the Doctor, one of his ears caught
fast in a tree; and the rest of the army had to stop and help him.
By this time the Doctor had picked himself up, and on they went again,
running and running. And Chee-Chee shouted,
“It’s all right! We haven’t far to go now!”
But before they could get into the Land of the Monkeys, they came to a
steep cliff with a river flowing below. This was the end of the Kingdom
of Jolliginki; and the Land of the Monkeys was on the other side—across
the river.
And Jip, the dog, looked down over the edge of the steep, steep cliff
and said,
“Golly! How are we ever going to get across?”
“Oh, dear!” said Gub-Gub. “The King’s men are quite close now—Look at
them! I am afraid we are going to be taken back to prison again.” And
he began to weep.
But the big monkey who was carrying the pig dropped him on the ground
and cried out to the other monkeys,
“Boys—a bridge! Quick!—Make a bridge! We’ve only a minute to do it.
They’ve got the Captain loose, and he’s coming on like a deer. Get
lively! A bridge! A bridge!”
The Doctor began to wonder what they were going to make a bridge out
of, and he gazed around to see if they had any boards hidden any place.
But when he looked back at the cliff, there, hanging across the river,
was a bridge all ready for him—made of living monkeys! For while his
back was turned, the monkeys—quick as a flash—had made themselves into
a bridge, just by holding hands and feet.
And the big one shouted to the Doctor, “Walk over! Walk over—all of
you—hurry!”
Gub-Gub was a bit scared, walking on such a narrow bridge at that dizzy
height above the river. But he got over all right; and so did all of
them.
John Dolittle was the last to cross. And just as he was getting to the
other side, the King’s men came rushing up to the edge of the cliff.
Then they shook their fists and yelled with rage. For they saw they
were too late. The Doctor and all his animals were safe in the Land of
the Monkeys and the bridge was pulled across to the other side.
Then Chee-Chee turned to the Doctor and said,
“Many great explorers and gray-bearded naturalists have lain long weeks
hidden in the jungle waiting to see the monkeys do that trick. But we
never let a white man get a glimpse of it before. You are the first to
see the famous ‘Bridge of Apes.’”
And the Doctor felt very pleased.
[Illustration: “John Dolittle was the last to cross”]
_THE EIGHTH CHAPTER_
THE LEADER OF THE LIONS
JOHN DOLITTLE now became dreadfully, awfully busy. He found hundreds
and thousands of monkeys sick—gorillas, orang-outangs, chimpanzees,
dog-faced baboons, marmosettes, gray monkeys, red ones—all kinds. And
many had died.
The first thing he did was to separate the sick ones from the well
ones. Then he got Chee-Chee and his cousin to build him a little house
of grass. The next thing: he made all the monkeys who were still well
come and be vaccinated.
And for three days and three nights the monkeys kept coming from
the jungles and the valleys and the hills to the little house of
grass, where the Doctor sat all day and all night, vaccinating and
vaccinating.
[Illustration: “He made all the monkeys who were still well come and be
vaccinated”]
Then he had another house made—a big one, with a lot of beds in it; and
he put all the sick ones in this house.
But so many were sick, there were not enough well ones to do the
nursing. So he sent messages to the other animals, like the lions and
the leopards and the antelopes, to come and help with the nursing.
But the Leader of the Lions was a very proud creature. And when he came
to the Doctor’s big house full of beds he seemed angry and scornful.
“Do you dare to ask me, Sir?” he said, glaring at the Doctor. “Do you
dare to ask me—_ME, the King of Beasts_, to wait on a lot of dirty
monkeys? Why, I wouldn’t even eat them between meals!”
Although the lion looked very terrible, the Doctor tried hard not to
seem afraid of him.
“I didn’t ask you to eat them,” he said quietly. “And besides, they’re
not dirty. They’ve all had a bath this morning. _Your_ coat looks
as though it needed brushing—badly. Now listen, and I’ll tell you
something: the day may come when the lions get sick. And if you don’t
help the other animals now, the lions may find themselves left all
alone when _they_ are in trouble. That often happens to proud people.”
[Illustration: “‘_ME, the King of Beasts_, to wait on a lot of dirty
monkeys?’”]
“The lions are never _in_ trouble—they only _make_ trouble,” said the
Leader, turning up his nose. And he stalked away into the jungle,
feeling he had been rather smart and clever.
Then the leopards got proud too and said they wouldn’t help. And then
of course the antelopes—although they were too shy and timid to be
rude to the Doctor like the lion—_they_ pawed the ground, and smiled
foolishly, and said they had never been nurses before.
And now the poor Doctor was worried frantic, wondering where he could
get help enough to take care of all these thousands of monkeys in bed.
But the Leader of the Lions, when he got back to his den, saw his wife,
the Queen Lioness, come running out to meet him with her hair untidy.
“One of the cubs won’t eat,” she said. “I don’t know _what_ to do with
him. He hasn’t taken a thing since last night.”
And she began to cry and shake with nervousness—for she was a good
mother, even though she was a lioness.
So the Leader went into his den and looked at his children—two very
cunning little cubs, lying on the floor. And one of them seemed quite
poorly.
Then the lion told his wife, quite proudly, just what he had said to
the Doctor. And she got so angry she nearly drove him out of the den.
“You never _did_ have a grain of sense!” she screamed. “All the animals
from here to the Indian Ocean are talking about this wonderful man,
and how he can cure any kind of sickness, and how kind he is—the only
man in the whole world who can talk the language of the animals! And
now, _now_—when we have a sick baby on our hands, you must go and
offend him! You great booby! Nobody but a fool is ever rude to a _good_
doctor. You—,” and she started pulling her husband’s hair.
“Go back to that white man at once,” she yelled, “and tell him you’re
sorry. And take all the other empty-headed lions with you—and those
stupid leopards and antelopes. Then do everything the Doctor tells you.
Work like niggers! And perhaps he will be kind enough to come and see
the cub later. Now be off!—_Hurry_, I tell you! You’re not fit to be a
father!”
And she went into the den next door, where another mother-lion lived,
and told her all about it.
So the Leader of the Lions went back to the Doctor and said, “I
happened to be passing this way and thought I’d look in. Got any help
yet?”
“No,” said the Doctor. “I haven’t. And I’m dreadfully worried.”
“Help’s pretty hard to get these days,” said the lion. “Animals don’t
seem to want to work any more. You can’t blame them—in a way.... Well,
seeing you’re in difficulties, I don’t mind doing what I can—just to
oblige you—so long as I don’t have to wash the creatures. And I have
told all the other hunting animals to come and do their share. The
leopards should be here any minute now.... Oh, and by the way, we’ve
got a sick cub at home. I don’t think there’s much the matter with
him myself. But the wife is anxious. If you are around that way this
evening, you might take a look at him, will you?”
Then the Doctor was very happy; for all the lions and the leopards and
the antelopes and the giraffes and the zebras—all the animals of the
forests and the mountains and the plains—came to help him in his work.
There were so many of them that he had to send some away, and only kept
the cleverest.
And now very soon the monkeys began to get better. At the end of a
week the big house full of beds were half empty. And at the end of the
second week the last monkey had got well.
Then the Doctor’s work was done; and he was so tired he went to bed and
slept for three days without even turning over.
_THE NINTH CHAPTER_
THE MONKEYS’ COUNCIL
CHEE-CHEE stood outside the Doctor’s door, keeping everybody away till
he woke up. Then John Dolittle told the monkeys that he must now go
back to Puddleby.
They were very surprised at this; for they had thought that he was
going to stay with them forever. And that night all the monkeys got
together in the jungle to talk it over.
And the Chief Chimpanzee rose up and said,
“Why is it the good man is going away? Is he not happy here with us?”
But none of them could answer him.
Then the Grand Gorilla got up and said,
“I think we all should go to him and ask him to stay. Perhaps if
we make him a new house and a bigger bed, and promise him plenty
of monkey-servants to work for him and to make life pleasant for
him—perhaps then he will not wish to go.”
Then Chee-Chee got up; and all the others whispered, “Sh! Look!
Chee-Chee, the great Traveler, is about to speak!”
And Chee-Chee said to the other monkeys,
“My friends, I am afraid it is useless to ask the Doctor to stay. He
owes money in Puddleby; and he says he must go back and pay it.”
And the monkeys asked him, “What is _money_?”
[Illustration: “Then the Grand Gorilla got up”]
Then Chee-Chee told them that in the Land of the White Men you could
get nothing without money; you could _do_ nothing without money—that
it was almost impossible to _live_ without money.
And some of them asked, “But can you not even eat and drink without
paying?”
But Chee-Chee shook his head. And then he told them that even he, when
he was with the organ-grinder, had been made to ask the children for
money.
And the Chief Chimpanzee turned to the Oldest Orang-outang and said,
“Cousin, surely these Men be strange creatures! Who would wish to live
in such a land? My gracious, how paltry!”
Then Chee-Chee said,
“When we were coming to you we had no boat to cross the sea in and
no money to buy food to eat on our journey. So a man lent us some
biscuits; and we said we would pay him when we came back. And we
borrowed a boat from a sailor; but it was broken on the rocks when we
reached the shores of Africa. Now the Doctor says he must go back and
get the sailor another boat—because the man was poor and his ship was
all he had.”
And the monkeys were all silent for a while, sitting quite still upon
the ground and thinking hard.
At last the Biggest Baboon got up and said,
“I do not think we ought to let this good man leave our land till we
have given him a fine present to take with him, so that he may know we
are grateful for all that he has done for us.”
And a little, tiny red monkey who was sitting up in a tree shouted down,
“I think that too!”
And then they all cried out, making a great noise, “Yes, yes. Let us
give him the finest present a White Man ever had!”
Now they began to wonder and ask one another what would be the best
thing to give him. And one said, “Fifty bags of cocoanuts!” And
another—“A hundred bunches of bananas!—At least he shall not have to
buy his fruit in the Land Where You Pay to Eat!”
But Chee-Chee told them that all these things would be too heavy to
carry so far and would go bad before half was eaten.
“If you want to please him,” he said, “give him an animal. You may be
sure he will be kind to it. Give him some rare animal they have not got
in the menageries.”
And the monkeys asked him, “What are _menageries_?”
Then Chee-Chee explained to them that menageries were places in the
Land of the White Men, where animals were put in cages for people to
come and look at. And the monkeys were very shocked and said to one
another,
“These Men are like thoughtless young ones—stupid and easily amused.
Sh! It is a prison he means.”
So then they asked Chee-Chee what rare animal it could be that they
should give the Doctor—one the White Men had not seen before. And the
Major of the Marmosettes asked,
“Have they an iguana over there?”
But Chee-Chee said, “Yes, there is one in the London Zoo.”
And another asked, “Have they an okapi?”
But Chee-Chee said, “Yes. In Belgium, where my organ-grinder took me
five years ago, they had an okapi in a big city they call Antwerp.”
And another asked, “Have they a pushmi-pullyu?”
Then Chee-Chee said, “No. No White Man has ever seen a pushmi-pullyu.
Let us give him that.”
_THE TENTH CHAPTER_
THE RAREST ANIMAL OF ALL
PUSHMI-PULLYUS are now extinct. That means, there aren’t any more. But
long ago, when Doctor Dolittle was alive, there were some of them still
left in the deepest jungles of Africa; and even then they were very,
very scarce. They had no tail, but a head at each end, and sharp horns
on each head. They were very shy and terribly hard to catch. The black
men get most of their animals by sneaking up behind them while they are
not looking. But you could not do this with the pushmi-pullyu—because,
no matter which way you came towards him, he was always facing you.
And besides, only one half of him slept at a time. The other head
was always awake—and watching. This was why they were never caught
and never seen in Zoos. Though many of the greatest huntsmen and
the cleverest menagerie-keepers spent years of their lives searching
through the jungles in all weathers for pushmi-pullyus, not a single
one had ever been caught. Even then, years ago, he was the only animal
in the world with two heads.
Well, the monkeys set out hunting for this animal through the forest.
And after they had gone a good many miles, one of them found peculiar
footprints near the edge of a river; and they knew that a pushmi-pullyu
must be very near that spot.
Then they went along the bank of the river a little way and they saw a
place where the grass was high and thick; and they guessed that he was
in there.
So they all joined hands and made a great circle round the high grass.
The pushmi-pullyu heard them coming; and he tried hard to break through
the ring of monkeys. But he couldn’t do it. When he saw that it was no
use trying to escape, he sat down and waited to see what they wanted.
They asked him if he would go with Doctor Dolittle and be put on show
in the Land of the White Men.
But he shook both his heads hard and said, “Certainly not!”
They explained to him that he would not be shut up in a menagerie but
would just be looked at. They told him that the Doctor was a very kind
man but hadn’t any money; and people would pay to see a two-headed
animal and the Doctor would get rich and could pay for the boat he had
borrowed to come to Africa in.
But he answered, “No. You know how shy I am—I hate being stared at.”
And he almost began to cry.
Then for three days they tried to persuade him.
And at the end of the third day he said he would come with them and see
what kind of a man the Doctor was, first.
So the monkeys traveled back with the pushmi-pullyu. And when they came
to where the Doctor’s little house of grass was, they knocked on the
door.
The duck, who was packing the trunk, said, “Come in!”
And Chee-Chee very proudly took the animal inside and showed him to the
Doctor.
“What in the world is it?” asked John Dolittle, gazing at the strange
creature.
“Lord save us!” cried the duck. “How does it make up its mind?”
“It doesn’t look to me as though it had any,” said Jip, the dog.
“This, Doctor,” said Chee-Chee, “is the pushmi-pullyu—the rarest animal
of the African jungles, the only two-headed beast in the world! Take
him home with you and your fortune’s made. People will pay any money to
see him.”
“But I don’t want any money,” said the Doctor.
“Yes, you do,” said Dab-Dab, the duck. “Don’t you remember how we had
to pinch and scrape to pay the butcher’s bill in Puddleby? And how are
you going to get the sailor the new boat you spoke of—unless we have
the money to buy it?”
[Illustration: “‘Lord save us!’ cried the duck. ‘How does it make up
its mind?’”]
“I was going to make him one,” said the Doctor.
“Oh, do be sensible!” cried Dab-Dab. “Where would you get all the wood
and the nails to make one with?—And besides, what are we going to
live on? We shall be poorer than ever when we get back. Chee-Chee’s
perfectly right: take the funny-looking thing along, do!”
“Well, perhaps there is something in what you say,” murmured the
Doctor. “It certainly would make a nice new kind of pet. But does the
er—what-do-you-call-it really want to go abroad?”
“Yes, I’ll go,” said the pushmi-pullyu who saw at once, from the
Doctor’s face, that he was a man to be trusted. “You have been so kind
to the animals here—and the monkeys tell me that I am the only one who
will do. But you must promise me that if I do not like it in the Land
of the White Men you will send me back.”
“Why, certainly—of course, of course,” said the Doctor. “Excuse me,
surely you are related to the Deer Family, are you not?”
“Yes,” said the pushmi-pullyu—“to the Abyssinian Gazelles and the
Asiatic Chamois—on my mother’s side. My father’s great-grandfather was
the last of the Unicorns.”
“Most interesting!” murmured the Doctor; and he took a book out of the
trunk which Dab-Dab was packing and began turning the pages. “Let us
see if Buffon says anything—”
“I notice,” said the duck, “that you only talk with one of your mouths.
Can’t the other head talk as well?”
“Oh, yes,” said the pushmi-pullyu. “But I keep the other mouth for
eating—mostly. In that way I can talk while I am eating without being
rude. Our people have always been very polite.”
When the packing was finished and everything was ready to start, the
monkeys gave a grand party for the Doctor, and all the animals of the
jungle came. And they had pineapples and mangoes and honey and all
sorts of good things to eat and drink.
After they had all finished eating, the Doctor got up and said,
“My friends: I am not clever at speaking long words after dinner, like
some men; and I have just eaten many fruits and much honey. But I wish
to tell you that I am very sad at leaving your beautiful country.
Because I have things to do in the Land of the White Men, I must go.
After I have gone, remember never to let the flies settle on your food
before you eat it; and do not sleep on the ground when the rains are
coming. I—er—er—I hope you will all live happily ever after.”
When the Doctor stopped speaking and sat down, all the monkeys clapped
their hands a long time and said to one another, “Let it be remembered
always among our people that he sat and ate with us, here, under the
trees. For surely he is the Greatest of Men!”
And the Grand Gorilla, who had the strength of seven horses in his
hairy arms, rolled a great rock up to the head of the table and said,
“This stone for all time shall mark the spot.”
And even to this day, in the heart of the jungle, that stone still
is there. And monkey-mothers, passing through the forest with their
families, still point down at it from the branches and whisper to their
children, “Sh! There it is—look—where the Good White Man sat and ate
food with us in the Year of the Great Sickness!”
Then, when the party was over, the Doctor and his pets started out to
go back to the seashore. And all the monkeys went with him as far as
the edge of their country, carrying his trunk and bags, to see him
off.
_THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER_
THE BLACK PRINCE
BY the edge of the river they stopped and said farewell.
This took a long time, because all those thousands of monkeys wanted to
shake John Dolittle by the hand.
Afterwards, when the Doctor and his pets were going on alone, Polynesia
said,
“We must tread softly and talk low as we go through the land of the
Jolliginki. If the King should hear us, he will send his soldiers to
catch us again; for I am sure he is still very angry over the trick I
played on him.”
“What I am wondering,” said the Doctor, “is where we are going to get
another boat to go home in.... Oh well, perhaps we’ll find one lying
about on the beach that nobody is using. ‘Never lift your foot till you
come to the stile.’”
One day, while they were passing through a very thick part of the
forest, Chee-Chee went ahead of them to look for cocoanuts. And while
he was away, the Doctor and the rest of the animals, who did not know
the jungle-paths so well, got lost in the deep woods. They wandered
around and around but could not find their way down to the seashore.
Chee-Chee, when he could not see them anywhere, was terribly upset.
He climbed high trees and looked out from the top branches to try and
see the Doctor’s high hat; he waved and shouted; he called to all the
animals by name. But it was no use. They seemed to have disappeared
altogether.
Indeed they had lost their way very badly. They had strayed a long way
off the path, and the jungle was so thick with bushes and creepers
and vines that sometimes they could hardly move at all, and the
Doctor had to take out his pocket-knife and cut his way along. They
stumbled into wet, boggy places; they got all tangled up in thick
convolvulus-runners; they scratched themselves on thorns, and twice
they nearly lost the medicine-bag in the under-brush. There seemed no
end to their troubles; and nowhere could they come upon a path.
At last, after blundering about like this for many days, getting their
clothes torn and their faces covered with mud, they walked right into
the King’s back-garden by mistake. The King’s men came running up at
once and caught them.
But Polynesia flew into a tree in the garden, without anybody seeing
her, and hid herself. The Doctor and the rest were taken before the
King.
“Ha, ha!” cried the King. “So you are caught again! This time you shall
not escape. Take them all back to prison and put double locks on the
door. This White Man shall scrub my kitchen-floor for the rest of his
life!”
So the Doctor and his pets were led back to prison and locked up. And
the Doctor was told that in the morning he must begin scrubbing the
kitchen-floor.
They were all very unhappy.
“This is a great nuisance,” said the Doctor. “I really must get back
to Puddleby. That poor sailor will think I’ve stolen his ship if I
don’t get home soon.... I wonder if those hinges are loose.”
But the door was very strong and firmly locked. There seemed no chance
of getting out. Then Gub-Gub began to cry again.
All this time Polynesia was still sitting in the tree in the
palace-garden. She was saying nothing and blinking her eyes.
This was always a very bad sign with Polynesia. Whenever she said
nothing and blinked her eyes, it meant that somebody had been making
trouble, and she was thinking out some way to put things right. People
who made trouble for Polynesia or her friends were nearly always sorry
for it afterwards.
Presently she spied Chee-Chee swinging through the trees still looking
for the Doctor. When Chee-Chee saw her, he came into her tree and asked
her what had become of him.
“The Doctor and all the animals have been caught by the King’s men and
locked up again,” whispered Polynesia. “We lost our way in the jungle
and blundered into the palace-garden by mistake.”
“But couldn’t you guide them?” asked Chee-Chee; and he began to scold
the parrot for letting them get lost while he was away looking for the
cocoanuts.
“It was all that stupid pig’s fault,” said Polynesia. “He would keep
running off the path hunting for ginger-roots. And I was kept so busy
catching him and bringing him back, that I turned to the left, instead
of the right, when we reached the swamp.—Sh!—Look! There’s Prince Bumpo
coming into the garden! He must not see us.—Don’t move, whatever you
do!”
And there, sure enough, was Prince Bumpo, the King’s son, opening the
garden-gate. He carried a book of fairy-tales under his arm. He came
strolling down the gravel-walk, humming a sad song, till he reached
a stone seat right under the tree where the parrot and the monkey
were hiding. Then he lay down on the seat and began reading the
fairy-stories to himself.
Chee-Chee and Polynesia watched him, keeping very quiet and still.
[Illustration: “He began reading the fairy-stories to himself”]
After a while the King’s son laid the book down and sighed a weary
sigh.
“If I were only a _white_ prince!” said he, with a dreamy, far-away
look in his eyes.
Then the parrot, talking in a small, high voice like a little girl,
said aloud,
“Bumpo, some one might turn thee into a white prince perchance.”
The King’s son started up off the seat and looked all around.
“What is this I hear?” he cried. “Methought the sweet music of a
fairy’s silver voice rang from yonder bower! Strange!”
“Worthy Prince,” said Polynesia, keeping very still so Bumpo couldn’t
see her, “thou sayest winged words of truth. For ’tis I, Tripsitinka,
the Queen of the Fairies, that speak to thee. I am hiding in a
rose-bud.”
“Oh tell me, Fairy-Queen,” cried Bumpo, clasping his hands in joy, “who
is it can turn me white?”
“In thy father’s prison,” said the parrot, “there lies a famous
wizard, John Dolittle by name. Many things he knows of medicine and
magic, and mighty deeds has he performed. Yet thy kingly father leaves
him languishing long and lingering hours. Go to him, brave Bumpo,
secretly, when the sun has set; and behold, thou shalt be made the
whitest prince that ever won fair lady! I have said enough. I must now
go back to Fairyland. Farewell!”
“Farewell!” cried the Prince. “A thousand thanks, good Tripsitinka!”
And he sat down on the seat again with a smile upon his face, waiting
for the sun to set.
_THE TWELFTH CHAPTER_
MEDICINE AND MAGIC
VERY, very quietly, making sure that no one should see her, Polynesia
then slipped out at the back of the tree and flew across to the prison.
She found Gub-Gub poking his nose through the bars of the window,
trying to sniff the cooking-smells that came from the palace-kitchen.
She told the pig to bring the Doctor to the window because she wanted
to speak to him. So Gub-Gub went and woke the Doctor who was taking a
nap.
“Listen,” whispered the parrot, when John Dolittle’s face appeared:
“Prince Bumpo is coming here to-night to see you. And you’ve got to
find some way to turn him white. But be sure to make him promise you
first that he will open the prison-door and find a ship for you to
cross the sea in.”
“This is all very well,” said the Doctor. “But it isn’t so easy to turn
a black man white. You speak as though he were a dress to be re-dyed.
It’s not so simple. ‘Shall the leopard change his spots, or the
Ethiopian his skin,’ you know?”
“I don’t know anything about that,” said Polynesia impatiently. “But
you _must_ turn this coon white. Think of a way—think hard. You’ve got
plenty of medicines left in the bag. He’ll do anything for you if you
change his color. It is your only chance to get out of prison.”
“Well, I suppose it _might_ be possible,” said the Doctor. “Let me
see—,” and he went over to his medicine-bag, murmuring something about
“liberated chlorine on animal-pigment—perhaps zinc-ointment, as a
temporary measure, spread thick—”
Well, that night Prince Bumpo came secretly to the Doctor in prison and
said to him,
“White Man, I am an unhappy prince. Years ago I went in search of The
Sleeping Beauty, whom I had read of in a book. And having traveled
through the world many days, I at last found her and kissed the lady
very gently to awaken her—as the book said I should. ’Tis true indeed
that she awoke. But when she saw my face she cried out, ‘Oh, he’s
black!’ And she ran away and wouldn’t marry me—but went to sleep
again somewhere else. So I came back, full of sadness, to my father’s
kingdom. Now I hear that you are a wonderful magician and have many
powerful potions. So I come to you for help. If you will turn me white,
so that I may go back to The Sleeping Beauty, I will give you half my
kingdom and anything besides you ask.”
“Prince Bumpo,” said the Doctor, looking thoughtfully at the bottles in
his medicine-bag, “supposing I made your hair a nice blonde color—would
not that do instead to make you happy?”
“No,” said Bumpo. “Nothing else will satisfy me. I must be a white
prince.”
“You know it is very hard to change the color of a prince,” said the
Doctor—“one of the hardest things a magician can do. You only want your
face white, do you not?”
“Yes, that is all,” said Bumpo. “Because I shall wear shining armor and
gauntlets of steel, like the other white princes, and ride on a horse.”
“Must your face be white all over?” asked the Doctor.
“Yes, all over,” said Bumpo—“and I would like my eyes blue too, but I
suppose that would be very hard to do.”
“Yes, it would,” said the Doctor quickly. “Well, I will do what I can
for you. You will have to be very patient though—you know with some
medicines you can never be very sure. I might have to try two or three
times. You have a strong skin—yes? Well that’s all right. Now come
over here by the light—Oh, but before I do anything, you must first go
down to the beach and get a ship ready, with food in it, to take me
across the sea. Do not speak a word of this to any one. And when I have
done as you ask, you must let me and all my animals out of prison.
Promise—by the crown of Jolliginki!”
So the Prince promised and went away to get a ship ready at the
seashore.
When he came back and said that it was done, the Doctor asked Dab-Dab
to bring a basin. Then he mixed a lot of medicines in the basin and
told Bumpo to dip his face in it.
The Prince leaned down and put his face in—right up to the ears.
He held it there a long time—so long that the Doctor seemed to get
dreadfully anxious and fidgety, standing first on one leg and then on
the other, looking at all the bottles he had used for the mixture, and
reading the labels on them again and again. A strong smell filled the
prison, like the smell of brown paper burning.
At last the Prince lifted his face up out of the basin, breathing very
hard. And all the animals cried out in surprise.
For the Prince’s face had turned as white as snow, and his eyes, which
had been mud-colored, were a manly gray!
When John Dolittle lent him a little looking-glass to see himself in,
he sang for joy and began dancing around the prison. But the Doctor
asked him not to make so much noise about it; and when he had closed
his medicine-bag in a hurry he told him to open the prison-door.
Bumpo begged that he might keep the looking-glass, as it was the only
one in the Kingdom of Jolliginki, and he wanted to look at himself all
day long. But the Doctor said he needed it to shave with.
Then the Prince, taking a bunch of copper keys from his pocket, undid
the great double locks. And the Doctor with all his animals ran as fast
as they could down to the seashore; while Bumpo leaned against the wall
of the empty dungeon, smiling after them happily, his big face shining
like polished ivory in the light of the moon.
When they came to the beach they saw Polynesia and Chee-Chee waiting
for them on the rocks near the ship.
“I feel sorry about Bumpo,” said the Doctor. “I am afraid that
medicine I used will never last. Most likely he will be as black as
ever when he wakes up in the morning—that’s one reason why I didn’t
like to leave the mirror with him. But then again, he _might_ stay
white—I had never used that mixture before. To tell the truth, I was
surprised, myself, that it worked so well. But I had to do something,
didn’t I?—I couldn’t possibly scrub the King’s kitchen for the rest
of my life. It was such a dirty kitchen!—I could see it from the
prison-window.—Well, well!—Poor Bumpo!”
“Oh, of course he will know we were just joking with him,” said the
parrot.
“They had no business to lock us up,” said Dab-Dab, waggling her tail
angrily. “We never did them any harm. Serve him right, if he does turn
black again! I hope it’s a dark black.”
“But _he_ didn’t have anything to do with it,” said the Doctor. “It was
the King, his father, who had us locked up—it wasn’t Bumpo’s fault....
I wonder if I ought to go back and apologize—Oh, well—I’ll send him
some candy when I get to Puddleby. And who knows?—he may stay white
after all.”
“The Sleeping Beauty would never have him, even if he did,” said
Dab-Dab. “He looked better the way he was, I thought. But he’d never be
anything but ugly, no matter what color he was made.”
“Still, he had a good heart,” said the Doctor—“romantic, of course—but
a good heart. After all, ‘handsome is as handsome does.’”
“I don’t believe the poor booby found The Sleeping Beauty at all,”
said Jip, the dog. “Most likely he kissed some farmer’s fat wife who
was taking a snooze under an apple-tree. Can’t blame her for getting
scared! I wonder who he’ll go and kiss this time. Silly business!”
Then the pushmi-pullyu, the white mouse, Gub-Gub, Dab-Dab, Jip and
the owl, Too-Too, went on to the ship with the Doctor. But Chee-Chee,
Polynesia and the crocodile stayed behind, because Africa was their
proper home, the land where they were born.
And when the Doctor stood upon the boat, he looked over the side
across the water. And then he remembered that they had no one with them
to guide them back to Puddleby.
The wide, wide sea looked terribly big and lonesome in the moonlight;
and he began to wonder if they would lose their way when they passed
out of sight of land.
But even while he was wondering, they heard a strange whispering noise,
high in the air, coming through the night. And the animals all stopped
saying Good-by and listened.
The noise grew louder and bigger. It seemed to be coming nearer to
them—a sound like the Autumn wind blowing through the leaves of a
poplar-tree, or a great, great rain beating down upon a roof.
And Jip, with his nose pointing and his tail quite straight, said,
“Birds!—millions of them—flying fast—that’s it!”
And then they all looked up. And there, streaming across the face of
the moon, like a huge swarm of tiny ants, they could see thousands and
thousands of little birds. Soon the whole sky seemed full of them, and
still more kept coming—more and more. There were so many that for a
little they covered the whole moon so it could not shine, and the sea
grew dark and black—like when a storm-cloud passes over the sun.
And presently all these birds came down close, skimming over the water
and the land; and the night-sky was left clear above, and the moon
shone as before. Still never a call nor a cry nor a song they made—no
sound but this great rustling of feathers which grew greater now than
ever. When they began to settle on the sands, along the ropes of the
ship—anywhere and everywhere except the trees—the Doctor could see that
they had blue wings and white breasts and very short, feathered legs.
As soon as they had all found a place to sit, suddenly, there was no
noise left anywhere—all was quiet; all was still.
And in the silent moonlight John Dolittle spoke:
“I had no idea that we had been in Africa so long. It will be nearly
Summer when we get home. For these are the swallows going back.
Swallows, I thank you for waiting for us. It is very thoughtful of you.
Now we need not be afraid that we will lose our way upon the sea....
Pull up the anchor and set the sail!”
[Illustration: “Crying bitterly and waving till the ship was out of
sight”]
When the ship moved out upon the water, those who stayed behind,
Chee-Chee, Polynesia and the crocodile, grew terribly sad. For never in
their lives had they known any one they liked so well as Doctor John
Dolittle of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh.
And after they had called Good-by to him again and again and again,
they still stood there upon the rocks, crying bitterly and waving till
the ship was out of sight.
_THE THIRTEENTH CHAPTER_
RED SAILS AND BLUE WINGS
SAILING homeward, the Doctor’s ship had to pass the coast of Barbary.
This coast is the seashore of the Great Desert. It is a wild, lonely
place—all sand and stones. And it was here that the Barbary pirates
lived.
These pirates, a bad lot of men, used to wait for sailors to be
shipwrecked on their shores. And often, if they saw a boat passing,
they would come out in their fast sailing-ships and chase it. When they
caught a boat like this at sea, they would steal everything on it; and
after they had taken the people off they would sink the ship and sail
back to Barbary singing songs and feeling proud of the mischief they
had done. Then they used to make the people they had caught write home
to their friends for money. And if the friends sent no money, the
pirates often threw the people into the sea.
Now one sunshiny day the Doctor and Dab-Dab were walking up and down on
the ship for exercise; a nice fresh wind was blowing the boat along,
and everybody was happy. Presently Dab-Dab saw the sail of another ship
a long way behind them on the edge of the sea. It was a red sail.
“I don’t like the look of that sail,” said Dab-Dab. “I have a feeling
it isn’t a friendly ship. I am afraid there is more trouble coming to
us.”
Jip, who was lying near taking a nap in the sun, began to growl and
talk in his sleep.
“I smell roast beef cooking,” he mumbled—“underdone roast beef—with
brown gravy over it.”
“Good gracious!” cried the Doctor. “What’s the matter with the dog? Is
he _smelling_ in his sleep—as well as talking?”
“I suppose he is,” said Dab-Dab. “All dogs can smell in their sleep.”
“But what is he smelling?” asked the Doctor. “There is no roast beef
cooking on our ship.”
“No,” said Dab-Dab. “The roast beef must be on that other ship over
there.”
“But that’s ten miles away,” said the Doctor. “He couldn’t smell that
far surely!”
“Oh, yes, he could,” said Dab-Dab. “You ask him.”
Then Jip, still fast asleep, began to growl again and his lip curled up
angrily, showing his clean, white teeth.
“I smell bad men,” he growled—“the worst men I ever smelt. I smell
trouble. I smell a fight—six bad scoundrels fighting against one brave
man. I want to help him. Woof—oo—WOOF!” Then he barked, loud, and woke
himself up with a surprised look on his face.
“See!” cried Dab-Dab. “That boat is nearer now. You can count its three
big sails—all red. Whoever it is, they are coming after us.... I wonder
who they are.”
“They are bad sailors,” said Jip; “and their ship is very swift. They
are surely the pirates of Barbary.”
“Well, we must put up more sails on our boat,” said the Doctor, “so we
can go faster and get away from them. Run downstairs, Jip, and fetch me
all the sails you see.”
The dog hurried downstairs and dragged up every sail he could find.
[Illustration: “‘They are surely the pirates of Barbary’”]
But even when all these were put up on the masts to catch the wind, the
boat did not go nearly as fast as the pirates’—which kept coming on
behind, closer and closer.
“This is a poor ship the Prince gave us,” said Gub-Gub, the pig—“the
slowest he could find, I should think. Might as well try to win a race
in a soup-tureen as hope to get away from them in this old barge. Look
how near they are now!—You can see the mustaches on the faces of the
men—six of them. What are we going to do?”
Then the Doctor asked Dab-Dab to fly up and tell the swallows that
pirates were coming after them in a swift ship, and what should he do
about it.
When the swallows heard this, they all came down on to the Doctor’s
ship; and they told him to unravel some pieces of long rope and make
them into a lot of thin strings as quickly as he could. Then the
ends of these strings were tied on to the front of the ship; and the
swallows took hold of the strings with their feet and flew off, pulling
the boat along.
And although swallows are not very strong when only one or two are
by themselves, it is different when there are a great lot of them
together. And there, tied to the Doctor’s ship, were a thousand
strings; and two thousand swallows were pulling on each string—all
terribly swift fliers.
And in a moment the Doctor found himself traveling so fast he had to
hold his hat on with both hands; for he felt as though the ship itself
were flying through waves that frothed and boiled with speed.
And all the animals on the ship began to laugh and dance about in the
rushing air, for when they looked back at the pirates’ ship, they could
see that it was growing smaller now, instead of bigger. The red sails
were being left far, far behind.
_THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER_
THE RATS’ WARNING
DRAGGING a ship through the sea is hard work. And after two or three
hours the swallows began to get tired in the wings and short of breath.
Then they sent a message down to the Doctor to say that they would
have to take a rest soon; and that they would pull the boat over to an
island not far off, and hide it in a deep bay till they had got breath
enough to go on.
And presently the Doctor saw the island they had spoken of. It had a
very beautiful, high, green mountain in the middle of it.
When the ship had sailed safely into the bay where it could not be seen
from the open sea, the Doctor said he would get off on to the island to
look for water—because there was none left to drink on his ship. And
he told all the animals to get out too and romp on the grass to stretch
their legs.
Now as they were getting off, the Doctor noticed that a whole lot of
rats were coming up from downstairs and leaving the ship as well. Jip
started to run after them, because chasing rats had always been his
favorite game. But the Doctor told him to stop.
And one big black rat, who seemed to want to say something to the
Doctor, now crept forward timidly along the rail, watching the dog out
of the corner of his eye. And after he had coughed nervously two or
three times, and cleaned his whiskers and wiped his mouth, he said,
“Ahem—er—you know of course that all ships have rats in them, Doctor,
do you not?”
And the Doctor said, “Yes.”
“And you have heard that rats always leave a sinking ship?”
“Yes,” said the Doctor—“so I’ve been told.”
“People,” said the rat, “always speak of it with a sneer—as though it
were something disgraceful. But you can’t blame us, can you? After
all, who _would_ stay on a sinking ship, if he could get off it?”
[Illustration: “‘And you have heard that rats always leave a sinking
ship?’”]
“It’s very natural,” said the Doctor—“very natural. I quite
understand.... Was there—Was there anything else you wished to say?”
“Yes,” said the rat. “I’ve come to tell you that we are leaving this
one. But we wanted to warn you before we go. This is a bad ship you
have here. It isn’t safe. The sides aren’t strong enough. Its boards
are rotten. Before to-morrow night it will sink to the bottom of the
sea.”
“But how do you know?” asked the Doctor.
“We always know,” answered the rat. “The tips of our tails get that
tingly feeling—like when your foot’s asleep. This morning, at six
o’clock, while I was getting breakfast, my tail suddenly began to
tingle. At first I thought it was my rheumatism coming back. So I went
and asked my aunt how she felt—you remember her?—the long, piebald
rat, rather skinny, who came to see you in Puddleby last Spring with
jaundice? Well—and she said _her_ tail was tingling like everything!
Then we knew, for sure, that this boat was going to sink in less than
two days; and we all made up our minds to leave it as soon as we got
near enough to any land. It’s a bad ship, Doctor. Don’t sail in it any
more, or you’ll be surely drowned.... Good-by! We are now going to
look for a good place to live on this island.”
“Good-by!” said the Doctor. “And thank you very much for coming to
tell me. Very considerate of you—very! Give my regards to your aunt. I
remember her perfectly.... Leave that rat alone, Jip! Come here! Lie
down!”
So then the Doctor and all his animals went off, carrying pails and
saucepans, to look for water on the island, while the swallows took
their rest.
“I wonder what is the name of this island,” said the Doctor, as he was
climbing up the mountainside. “It seems a pleasant place. What a lot of
birds there are!”
“Why, these are the Canary Islands,” said Dab-Dab. “Don’t you hear the
canaries singing?”
The Doctor stopped and listened.
“Why, to be sure—of course!” he said. “How stupid of me! I wonder if
they can tell us where to find water.”
And presently the canaries, who had heard all about Doctor Dolittle
from birds of passage, came and led him to a beautiful spring of cool,
clear water where the canaries used to take their bath; and they showed
him lovely meadows where the bird-seed grew and all the other sights of
their island.
And the pushmi-pullyu was glad they had come; because he liked the
green grass so much better than the dried apples he had been eating on
the ship. And Gub-Gub squeaked for joy when he found a whole valley
full of wild sugar-cane.
A little later, when they had all had plenty to eat and drink, and
were lying on their backs while the canaries sang for them, two of the
swallows came hurrying up, very flustered and excited.
“Doctor!” they cried, “the pirates have come into the bay; and they’ve
all got on to your ship. They are downstairs looking for things to
steal. They have left their own ship with nobody on it. If you hurry
and come down to the shore, you can get on to their ship—which is very
fast—and escape. But you’ll have to hurry.”
“That’s a good idea,” said the Doctor—“splendid!”
And he called his animals together at once, said Good-by to the
canaries and ran down to the beach.
When they reached the shore they saw the pirate-ship, with the three
red sails, standing in the water; and—just as the swallows had
said—there was nobody on it; all the pirates were downstairs in the
Doctor’s ship, looking for things to steal.
So John Dolittle told his animals to walk very softly and they all
crept on to the pirate-ship.
_THE FIFTEENTH CHAPTER_
THE BARBARY DRAGON
EVERYTHING would have gone all right if the pig had not caught a cold
in his head while eating the damp sugar-cane on the island. This is
what happened:
After they had pulled up the anchor without a sound, and were moving
the ship very, very carefully out of the bay, Gub-Gub suddenly sneezed
so loud that the pirates on the other ship came rushing upstairs to see
what the noise was.
As soon as they saw that the Doctor was escaping, they sailed the other
boat right across the entrance to the bay so that the Doctor could not
get out into the open sea.
Then the leader of these bad men (who called himself “Ben Ali, The
Dragon”) shook his fist at the Doctor and shouted across the water,
“Ha! Ha! You are caught, my fine friend! You were going to run off in
my ship, eh? But you are not a good enough sailor to beat Ben Ali, the
Barbary Dragon. I want that duck you’ve got—and the pig too. We’ll have
pork-chops and roast duck for supper to-night. And before I let you go
home, you must make your friends send me a trunk-full of gold.”
Poor Gub-Gub began to weep; and Dab-Dab made ready to fly to save her
life. But the owl, Too-Too, whispered to the Doctor,
“Keep him talking, Doctor. Be pleasant to him. Our old ship is bound
to sink soon—the rats said it would be at the bottom of the sea before
to-morrow-night—and the rats are never wrong. Be pleasant, till the
ship sinks under him. Keep him talking.”
“What, until to-morrow night!” said the Doctor. “Well, I’ll do my
best.... Let me see—What shall I talk about?”
“Oh, let them come on,” said Jip. “We can fight the dirty rascals.
There are only six of them. Let them come on. I’d love to tell that
collie next door, when we get home, that I had bitten a real pirate.
Let ’em come. We can fight them.”
[Illustration: “‘Look here, Ben Ali—’”]
“But they have pistols and swords,” said the Doctor. “No, that would
never do. I must talk to him.... Look here, Ben Ali—”
But before the Doctor could say any more, the pirates began to sail the
ship nearer, laughing with glee, and saying one to another, “Who shall
be the first to catch the pig?”
Poor Gub-Gub was dreadfully frightened; and the pushmi-pullyu began to
sharpen his horns for a fight by rubbing them on the mast of the ship;
while Jip kept springing into the air and barking and calling Ben Ali
bad names in dog-language.
But presently something seemed to go wrong with the pirates; they
stopped laughing and cracking jokes; they looked puzzled; something was
making them uneasy.
Then Ben Ali, staring down at his feet, suddenly bellowed out,
“Thunder and Lightning!—Men, _the boat’s leaking_!”
And then the other pirates peered over the side and they saw that the
boat was indeed getting lower and lower in the water. And one of them
said to Ben Ali,
“But surely if this old boat were sinking we should see the rats
leaving it.”
And Jip shouted across from the other ship,
“You great duffers, there are no rats there to leave! They left two
hours ago! ‘Ha, ha,’ to you, ‘my fine friends!’”
But of course the men did not understand him.
Soon the front end of the ship began to go down and down, faster and
faster—till the boat looked almost as though it were standing on its
head; and the pirates had to cling to the rails and the masts and
the ropes and anything to keep from sliding off. Then the sea rushed
roaring in through all the windows and the doors. And at last the ship
plunged right down to the bottom of the sea, making a dreadful gurgling
sound; and the six bad men were left bobbing about in the deep water of
the bay.
Some of them started to swim for the shores of the island; while others
came and tried to get on to the boat where the Doctor was. But Jip kept
snapping at their noses, so they were afraid to climb up the side of
the ship.
Then suddenly they all cried out in great fear,
“_The sharks!_ The sharks are coming! Let us get on to the ship before
they eat us! Help, help!—The sharks! The sharks!”
And now the Doctor could see, all over the bay, the backs of big fishes
swimming swiftly through the water.
And one great shark came near to the ship, and poking his nose out of
the water he said to the Doctor,
“Are you John Dolittle, the famous animal-doctor?”
“Yes,” said Doctor Dolittle. “That is my name.”
“Well,” said the shark, “we know these pirates to be a bad
lot—especially Ben Ali. If they are annoying you, we will gladly eat
them up for you—and then you won’t be troubled any more.”
“Thank you,” said the Doctor. “This is really most attentive. But I
don’t think it will be necessary to eat them. Don’t let any of them
reach the shore until I tell you—just keep them swimming about, will
you? And please make Ben Ali swim over here that I may talk to him.”
So the shark went off and chased Ben Ali over to the Doctor.
“Listen, Ben Ali,” said John Dolittle, leaning over the side. “You
have been a very bad man; and I understand that you have killed many
people. These good sharks here have just offered to eat you up for
me—and ’twould indeed be a good thing if the seas were rid of you. But
if you will promise to do as I tell you, I will let you go in safety.”
“What must I do?” asked the pirate, looking down sideways at the big
shark who was smelling his leg under the water.
“You must kill no more people,” said the Doctor; “you must stop
stealing; you must never sink another ship; you must give up being a
pirate altogether.”
“But what shall I do then?” asked Ben Ali. “How shall I live?”
“You and all your men must go on to this island and be
bird-seed-farmers,” the Doctor answered. “You must grow bird-seed for
the canaries.”
The Barbary Dragon turned pale with anger, “_Grow bird-seed!_” he
groaned in disgust. “Can’t I be a sailor?”
“No,” said the Doctor, “you cannot. You have been a sailor long
enough—and sent many stout ships and good men to the bottom of the
sea. For the rest of your life you must be a peaceful farmer. The shark
is waiting. Do not waste any more of his time. Make up your mind.”
“Thunder and Lightning!” Ben Ali muttered—“_Bird-seed!_” Then he looked
down into the water again and saw the great fish smelling his other leg.
“Very well,” he said sadly. “We’ll be farmers.”
“And remember,” said the Doctor, “that if you do not keep your
promise—if you start killing and stealing again, I shall hear of it,
because the canaries will come and tell me. And be very sure that I
will find a way to punish you. For though I may not be able to sail a
ship as well as you, so long as the birds and the beasts and the fishes
are my friends, I do not have to be afraid of a pirate chief—even
though he call himself ‘The Dragon of Barbary.’ Now go and be a good
farmer and live in peace.”
Then the Doctor turned to the big shark, and waving his hand he said,
“All right. Let them swim safely to the land.”
_THE SIXTEENTH CHAPTER_
TOO-TOO, THE LISTENER
HAVING thanked the sharks again for their kindness, the Doctor and his
pets set off once more on their journey home in the swift ship with the
three red sails.
As they moved out into the open sea, the animals all went downstairs
to see what their new boat was like inside; while the Doctor leant on
the rail at the back of the ship with a pipe in his mouth, watching the
Canary Islands fade away in the blue dusk of the evening.
While he was standing there, wondering how the monkeys were getting
on—and what his garden would look like when he got back to Puddleby,
Dab-Dab came tumbling up the stairs, all smiles and full of news.
“Doctor!” she cried. “This ship of the pirates is simply
beautiful—absolutely. The beds downstairs are made of primrose
silk—with hundreds of big pillows and cushions; there are thick, soft
carpets on the floors; the dishes are made of silver; and there are all
sorts of good things to eat and drink—special things; the larder—well,
it’s just like a shop, that’s all. You never saw anything like it in
your life—Just think—they kept five different kinds of sardines, those
men! Come and look.... Oh, and we found a little room down there with
the door locked; and we are all crazy to get in and see what’s inside.
Jip says it must be where the pirates kept their treasure. But we can’t
open the door. Come down and see if you can let us in.”
So the Doctor went downstairs and he saw that it was indeed a beautiful
ship. He found the animals gathered round a little door, all talking
at once, trying to guess what was inside. The Doctor turned the handle
but it wouldn’t open. Then they all started to hunt for the key. They
looked under the mat; they looked under all the carpets; they looked
in all the cupboards and drawers and lockers—in the big chests in the
ship’s dining-room; they looked everywhere.
While they were doing this they discovered a lot of new and wonderful
things that the pirates must have stolen from other ships: Kashmir
shawls as thin as a cobweb, embroidered with flowers of gold; jars of
fine tobacco from Jamaica; carved ivory boxes full of Russian tea; an
old violin with a string broken and a picture on the back; a set of big
chess-men, carved out of coral and amber; a walking-stick which had
a sword inside it when you pulled the handle; six wine-glasses with
tourquoise and silver round the rims; and a lovely great sugar-bowl,
made of mother o’ pearl. But nowhere in the whole boat could they find
a key to fit that lock.
So they all came back to the door, and Jip peered through the key-hole.
But something had been stood against the wall on the inside and he
could see nothing.
While they were standing around, wondering what they should do, the
owl, Too-Too, suddenly said,
“Sh!—Listen!—I do believe there’s some one in there!”
They all kept still a moment. Then the Doctor said,
[Illustration: “‘Sh!—Listen!—I do believe there’s some one in there!’”]
“You must be mistaken, Too-Too. I don’t hear anything.”
“I’m sure of it,” said the owl. “Sh!—There it is again—Don’t you hear
that?”
“No, I do not,” said the Doctor. “What kind of a sound is it?”
“I hear the noise of some one putting his hand in his pocket,” said the
owl.
“But that makes hardly any sound at all,” said the Doctor. “You
couldn’t hear that out here.”
“Pardon me, but I can,” said Too-Too. “I tell you there is some one
on the other side of that door putting his hand in his pocket. Almost
everything makes _some_ noise—if your ears are only sharp enough
to catch it. Bats can hear a mole walking in his tunnel under the
earth—and they think they’re good hearers. But we owls can tell you,
using only one ear, the color of a kitten from the way it winks in the
dark.”
“Well, well!” said the Doctor. “You surprise me. That’s very
interesting.... Listen again and tell me what he’s doing now.”
“I’m not sure yet,” said Too-Too, “if it’s a man at all. Maybe it’s a
woman. Lift me up and let me listen at the key-hole and I’ll soon tell
you.”
So the Doctor lifted the owl up and held him close to the lock of the
door.
After a moment Too-Too said,
“Now he’s rubbing his face with his left hand. It is a small hand and
a small face. It _might_ be a woman—No. Now he pushes his hair back off
his forehead—It’s a man all right.”
“Women sometimes do that,” said the Doctor.
“True,” said the owl. “But when they do, their long hair makes quite
a different sound.... Sh! Make that fidgety pig keep still. Now all
hold your breath a moment so I can listen well. This is very difficult,
what I’m doing now—and the pesky door is so thick! Sh! Everybody quite
still—shut your eyes and don’t breathe.”
Too-Too leaned down and listened again very hard and long.
At last he looked up into the Doctor’s face and said,
“The man in there is unhappy. He weeps. He has taken care not to
blubber or sniffle, lest we should find out that he is crying. But I
heard—quite distinctly—the sound of a tear falling on his sleeve.”
“How do you know it wasn’t a drop of water falling off the ceiling on
him?” asked Gub-Gub.
“Pshaw!—Such ignorance!” sniffed Too-Too. “A drop of water falling off
the ceiling would have made ten times as much noise!”
“Well,” said the Doctor, “if the poor fellow’s unhappy, we’ve got to
get in and see what’s the matter with him. Find me an axe, and I’ll
chop the door down.”
_THE SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER_
THE OCEAN GOSSIPS
RIGHT away an axe was found. And the Doctor soon chopped a hole in the
door big enough to clamber through.
At first he could see nothing at all, it was so dark inside. So he
struck a match.
The room was quite small; no window; the ceiling, low. For furniture
there was only one little stool. All round the room big barrels stood
against the walls, fastened at the bottom so they wouldn’t tumble with
the rolling of the ship; and above the barrels, pewter jugs of all
sizes hung from wooden pegs. There was a strong, winey smell. And in
the middle of the floor sat a little boy, about eight years old, crying
bitterly.
“I declare, it is the pirates’ rum-room!” said Jip in a whisper.
“Yes. Very rum!” said Gub-Gub. “The smell makes me giddy.”
The little boy seemed rather frightened to find a man standing there
before him and all those animals staring in through the hole in the
broken door. But as soon as he saw John Dolittle’s face by the light of
the match, he stopped crying and got up.
“You aren’t one of the pirates, are you?” he asked.
And when the Doctor threw back his head and laughed long and loud, the
little boy smiled too and came and took his hand.
“You laugh like a friend,” he said—“not like a pirate. Could you tell
me where my uncle is?”
“I am afraid I can’t,” said the Doctor. “When did you see him last?”
“It was the day before yesterday,” said the boy. “I and my uncle were
out fishing in our little boat, when the pirates came and caught us.
They sunk our fishing-boat and brought us both on to this ship. They
told my uncle that they wanted him to be a pirate like them—for he was
clever at sailing a ship in all weathers. But he said he didn’t want to
be a pirate, because killing people and stealing was no work for a good
fisherman to do. Then the leader, Ben Ali, got very angry and gnashed
his teeth, and said they would throw my uncle into the sea if he didn’t
do as they said. They sent me downstairs; and I heard the noise of a
fight going on above. And when they let me come up again next day, my
uncle was nowhere to be seen. I asked the pirates where he was; but
they wouldn’t tell me. I am very much afraid they threw him into the
sea and drowned him.”
And the little boy began to cry again.
“Well now—wait a minute,” said the Doctor. “Don’t cry. Let’s go and
have tea in the dining-room, and we’ll talk it over. Maybe your uncle
is quite safe all the time. You don’t _know_ that he was drowned, do
you? And that’s something. Perhaps we can find him for you. First we’ll
go and have tea—with strawberry-jam; and then we will see what can be
done.”
All the animals had been standing around listening with great
curiosity. And when they had gone into the ship’s dining-room and were
having tea, Dab-Dab came up behind the Doctor’s chair and whispered.
“Ask the porpoises if the boy’s uncle was drowned—they’ll know.”
“All right,” said the Doctor, taking a second piece of bread-and-jam.
“What are those funny, clicking noises you are making with your
tongue?” asked the boy.
“Oh, I just said a couple of words in duck-language,” the Doctor
answered. “This is Dab-Dab, one of my pets.”
“I didn’t even know that ducks had a language,” said the boy. “Are all
these other animals your pets, too? What is that strange-looking thing
with two heads?”
“Sh!” the Doctor whispered. “That is the pushmi-pullyu. Don’t let him
see we’re talking about him—he gets so dreadfully embarrassed.... Tell
me, how did you come to be locked up in that little room?”
“The pirates shut me in there when they were going off to steal things
from another ship. When I heard some one chopping on the door, I
didn’t know who it could be. I was very glad to find it was you. Do you
think you will be able to find my uncle for me?”
“Well, we are going to try very hard,” said the Doctor. “Now what was
your uncle like to look at?”
“He had red hair,” the boy answered—“very red hair, and the picture of
an anchor tattooed on his arm. He was a strong man, a kind uncle and
the best sailor in the South Atlantic. His fishing-boat was called _The
Saucy Sally_—a cutter-rigged sloop.”
“What’s ‘cutterigsloop’?” whispered Gub-Gub, turning to Jip.
“Sh!—That’s the kind of a ship the man had,” said Jip. “Keep still,
can’t you?”
“Oh,” said the pig, “is that all? I thought it was something to drink.”
So the Doctor left the boy to play with the animals in the dining-room,
and went upstairs to look for passing porpoises.
And soon a whole school came dancing and jumping through the water, on
their way to Brazil.
When they saw the Doctor leaning on the rail of his ship, they came
over to see how he was getting on.
And the Doctor asked them if they had seen anything of a man with red
hair and an anchor tattooed on his arm.
“Do you mean the master of _The Saucy Sally_?” asked the porpoises.
“Yes,” said the Doctor. “That’s the man. Has he been drowned?”
“His fishing-sloop was sunk,” said the porpoises—“for we saw it lying
on the bottom of the sea. But there was nobody inside it, because we
went and looked.”
“His little nephew is on the ship with me here,” said the Doctor. “And
he is terribly afraid that the pirates threw his uncle into the sea.
Would you be so good as to find out for me, for sure, whether he has
been drowned or not?”
“Oh, he isn’t drowned,” said the porpoises. “If he were, we would be
sure to have heard of it from the deep-sea Decapods. We hear all the
salt-water news. The shell-fish call us ‘The Ocean Gossips.’ No—tell
the little boy we are sorry we do not know where his uncle is; but we
are quite certain he hasn’t been drowned in the sea.”
So the Doctor ran downstairs with the news and told the nephew, who
clapped his hands with happiness. And the pushmi-pullyu took the little
boy on his back and gave him a ride round the dining-room table; while
all the other animals followed behind, beating the dish-covers with
spoons, pretending it was a parade.
_THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER_
SMELLS
“YOUR uncle must now be _found_,” said the Doctor—“that is the next
thing—now that we know he wasn’t thrown into the sea.”
Then Dab-Dab came up to him again and whispered,
“Ask the eagles to look for the man. No living creature can see better
than an eagle. When they are miles high in the air they can count the
ants crawling on the ground. Ask the eagles.”
So the Doctor sent one of the swallows off to get some eagles.
And in about an hour the little bird came back with six different kinds
of eagles: a Black Eagle, a Bald Eagle, a Fish Eagle, a Golden Eagle,
an Eagle-Vulture, and a White-tailed Sea Eagle. Twice as high as the
boy they were, each one of them. And they stood on the rail of the
ship, like round-shouldered soldiers all in a row, stern and still and
stiff; while their great, gleaming, black eyes shot darting glances
here and there and everywhere.
Gub-Gub was scared of them and got behind a barrel. He said he felt as
though those terrible eyes were looking right inside of him to see what
he had stolen for lunch.
And the Doctor said to the eagles,
“A man has been lost—a fisherman with red hair and an anchor marked on
his arm. Would you be so kind as to see if you can find him for us?
This boy is the man’s nephew.”
Eagles do not talk very much. And all they answered in their husky
voices was,
“You may be sure that we will do our best—for John Dolittle.”
Then they flew off—and Gub-Gub came out from behind his barrel to see
them go. Up and up and up they went—higher and higher and higher still.
Then, when the Doctor could only just see them, they parted company
and started going off all different ways—North, East, South and West,
looking like tiny grains of black sand creeping across the wide, blue
sky.
“My gracious!” said Gub-Gub in a hushed voice. “What a height! I wonder
they don’t scorch their feathers—so near the sun!”
They were gone a long time. And when they came back it was almost night.
And the eagles said to the Doctor,
“We have searched all the seas and all the countries and all the
islands and all the cities and all the villages in this half of the
world. But we have failed. In the main street of Gibraltar we saw
three red hairs lying on a wheelbarrow before a baker’s door. But they
were not the hairs of a man—they were the hairs out of a fur-coat.
Nowhere, on land or water, could we see any sign of this boy’s uncle.
And if _we_ could not see him, then he is not to be seen.... For John
Dolittle—we have done our best.”
Then the six great birds flapped their big wings and flew back to their
homes in the mountains and the rocks.
“Well,” said Dab-Dab, after they had gone, “what are we going to do
now? The boy’s uncle _must_ be found—there’s no two ways about that.
The lad isn’t old enough to be knocking around the world by himself.
Boys aren’t like ducklings—they have to be taken care of till they’re
quite old.... I wish Chee-Chee were here. He would soon find the man.
Good old Chee-Chee! I wonder how he’s getting on!”
“If we only had Polynesia with us,” said the white mouse. “_She_ would
soon think of some way. Do you remember how she got us all out of
prison—the second time? My, but she was a clever one!”
“I don’t think so much of those eagle-fellows,” said Jip. “They’re just
conceited. They may have very good eyesight and all that; but when you
ask them to find a man for you, they can’t do it—and they have the
cheek to come back and say that nobody else could do it. They’re just
conceited—like that collie in Puddleby. And I don’t think a whole lot
of those gossipy old porpoises either. All they could tell us was that
the man isn’t in the sea. We don’t want to know where he _isn’t_—we
want to know where he _is_.”
“Oh, don’t talk so much,” said Gub-Gub. “It’s easy to talk; but it
isn’t so easy to find a man when you have got the whole world to hunt
him in. Maybe the fisherman’s hair has turned white, worrying about
the boy; and that was why the eagles didn’t find him. You don’t know
everything. You’re just talking. You are not doing anything to help.
You couldn’t find the boy’s uncle any more than the eagles could—you
couldn’t do as well.”
[Illustration: “‘You stupid piece of warm bacon!’”]
“Couldn’t I?” said the dog. “That’s all you know, you stupid piece of
warm bacon! I haven’t begun to try yet, have I? You wait and see!”
Then Jip went to the Doctor and said,
“Ask the boy if he has anything in his pockets that belonged to his
uncle, will you, please?”
So the Doctor asked him. And the boy showed them a gold ring which he
wore on a piece of string around his neck because it was too big for
his finger. He said his uncle gave it to him when they saw the pirates
coming.
Jip smelt the ring and said,
“That’s no good. Ask him if he has anything else that belonged to his
uncle.”
Then the boy took from his pocket a great, big red handkerchief and
said, “This was my uncle’s too.”
As soon as the boy pulled it out, Jip shouted,
“_Snuff_, by Jingo!—Black Rappee snuff. Don’t you smell it? His uncle
took snuff—Ask him, Doctor.”
The Doctor questioned the boy again; and he said, “Yes. My uncle took a
lot of snuff.”
“Fine!” said Jip. “The man’s as good as found. ’Twill be as easy as
stealing milk from a kitten. Tell the boy I’ll find his uncle for him
in less than a week. Let us go upstairs and see which way the wind is
blowing.”
“But it is dark now,” said the Doctor. “You can’t find him in the dark!”
“I don’t need any light to look for a man who smells of Black Rappee
snuff,” said Jip as he climbed the stairs. “If the man had a hard
smell, like string, now—or hot water, it would be different. But
_snuff_!—Tut, tut!”
“Does hot water have a smell?” asked the Doctor.
“Certainly it has,” said Jip. “Hot water smells quite different from
cold water. It is warm water—or ice—that has the really difficult
smell. Why, I once followed a man for ten miles on a dark night by the
smell of the hot water he had used to shave with—for the poor fellow
had no soap.... Now then, let us see which way the wind is blowing.
Wind is very important in long-distant smelling. It mustn’t be too
fierce a wind—and of course it must blow the right way. A nice, steady,
damp breeze is the best of all.... Ha!—This wind is from the North.”
Then Jip went up to the front of the ship and smelt the wind; and he
started muttering to himself,
“Tar; Spanish onions; kerosene oil; wet raincoats; crushed
laurel-leaves; rubber burning; lace-curtains being washed—No, my
mistake, lace-curtains hanging out to dry; and foxes—hundreds of
’em—cubs; and—”
“Can you really smell all those different things in this one wind?”
asked the Doctor.
“Why, of course!” said Jip. “And those are only a few of the easy
smells—the strong ones. Any mongrel could smell those with a cold in
the head. Wait now, and I’ll tell you some of the harder scents that
are coming on this wind—a few of the dainty ones.”
Then the dog shut his eyes tight, poked his nose straight up in the air
and sniffed hard with his mouth half-open.
For a long time he said nothing. He kept as still as a stone. He hardly
seemed to be breathing at all. When at last he began to speak, it
sounded almost as though he were singing, sadly, in a dream.
“Bricks,” he whispered, very low—“old yellow bricks, crumbling with
age in a garden-wall; the sweet breath of young cows standing in a
mountain-stream; the lead roof of a dove-cote—or perhaps a granary—with
the mid-day sun on it; black kid gloves lying in a bureau-drawer of
walnut-wood; a dusty road with a horses’ drinking-trough beneath the
sycamores; little mushrooms bursting through the rotting leaves;
and—and—and—”
“Any parsnips?” asked Gub-Gub.
“No,” said Jip. “You always think of things to eat. No parsnips
whatever. And no snuff—plenty of pipes and cigarettes, and a few
cigars. But no snuff. We must wait till the wind changes to the South.”
“Yes, it’s a poor wind, that,” said Gub-Gub. “I think you’re a fake,
Jip. Who ever heard of finding a man in the middle of the ocean just by
smell! I told you you couldn’t do it.”
“Look here,” said Jip, getting really angry. “You’re going to get a
bite on the nose in a minute! You needn’t think that just because
the Doctor won’t let us give you what you deserve, that you can be as
cheeky as you like!”
“Stop quarreling!” said the Doctor—“Stop it! Life’s too short. Tell me,
Jip, where do you think those smells are coming from?”
“From Devon and Wales—most of them,” said Jip—“The wind is coming that
way.”
“Well, well!” said the Doctor. “You know that’s really quite
remarkable—quite. I must make a note of that for my new book. I wonder
if you could train me to smell as well as that.... But no—perhaps I’m
better off the way I am. ‘Enough is as good as a feast,’ they say.
Let’s go down to supper. I’m quite hungry.”
“So am I,” said Gub-Gub.
_THE NINETEENTH CHAPTER_
THE ROCK
UP they got, early next morning, out of the silken beds; and they saw
that the sun was shining brightly and that the wind was blowing from
the South.
Jip smelt the South wind for half an hour. Then he came to the Doctor,
shaking his head.
“I smell no snuff as yet,” he said. “We must wait till the wind changes
to the East.”
But even when the East wind came, at three o’clock that afternoon, the
dog could not catch the smell of snuff.
The little boy was terribly disappointed and began to cry again, saying
that no one seemed to be able to find his uncle for him. But all Jip
said to the Doctor was,
“Tell him that when the wind changes to the West, I’ll find his uncle
even though he be in China—so long as he is still taking Black Rappee
snuff.”
Three days they had to wait before the West wind came. This was on a
Friday morning, early—just as it was getting light. A fine rainy mist
lay on the sea like a thin fog. And the wind was soft and warm and wet.
[Illustration: “‘Doctor!’ he cried. ‘I’ve got it!’”]
As soon as Jip awoke he ran upstairs and poked his nose in the air.
Then he got most frightfully excited and rushed down again to wake the
Doctor up.
“Doctor!” he cried. “I’ve got it! Doctor! Doctor! Wake up! Listen!
I’ve got it! The wind’s from the West and it smells of nothing but
snuff. Come upstairs and start the ship—quick!”
So the Doctor tumbled out of bed and went to the rudder to steer the
ship.
“Now I’ll go up to the front,” said Jip; “and you watch my
nose—whichever way I point it, you turn the ship the same way. The man
cannot be far off—with the smell as strong as this. And the wind’s all
lovely and wet. Now watch me!”
So all that morning Jip stood in the front part of the ship, sniffing
the wind and pointing the way for the Doctor to steer; while all the
animals and the little boy stood round with their eyes wide open,
watching the dog in wonder.
About lunch-time Jip asked Dab-Dab to tell the Doctor that he was
getting worried and wanted to speak to him. So Dab-Dab went and fetched
the Doctor from the other end of the ship and Jip said to him,
“The boy’s uncle is starving. We must make the ship go as fast as we
can.”
“How do you know he is starving?” asked the Doctor.
“Because there is no other smell in the West wind but snuff,” said Jip.
“If the man were cooking or eating food of any kind, I would be bound
to smell it too. But he hasn’t even fresh water to drink. All he is
taking is snuff—in large pinches. We are getting nearer to him all the
time, because the smell grows stronger every minute. But make the ship
go as fast as you can, for I am certain that the man is starving.”
“All right,” said the Doctor; and he sent Dab-Dab to ask the swallows
to pull the ship, the same as they had done when the pirates were
chasing them.
So the stout little birds came down and once more harnessed themselves
to the ship.
And now the boat went bounding through the waves at a terrible speed.
It went so fast that the fishes in the sea had to jump for their lives
to get out of the way and not be run over.
And all the animals got tremendously excited; and they gave up looking
at Jip and turned to watch the sea in front, to spy out any land or
islands where the starving man might be.
But hour after hour went by and still the ship went rushing on, over
the same flat, flat sea; and no land anywhere came in sight.
And now the animals gave up chattering and sat around silent, anxious
and miserable. The little boy again grew sad. And on Jip’s face there
was a worried look.
At last, late in the afternoon, just as the sun was going down, the
owl, Too-Too, who was perched on the tip of the mast, suddenly startled
them all by crying out at the top of his voice,
“Jip! Jip! I see a great, great rock in front of us—look—way out there
where the sky and the water meet. See the sun shine on it—like gold! Is
the smell coming from there?”
And Jip called back,
“Yes. That’s it. That is where the man is.—At last, at last!”
And when they got nearer they could see that the rock was very large—as
large as a big field. No trees grew on it, no grass—nothing. The great
rock was as smooth and as bare as the back of a tortoise.
Then the Doctor sailed the ship right round the rock. But nowhere on
it could a man be seen. All the animals screwed up their eyes and
looked as hard as they could; and John Dolittle got a telescope from
downstairs.
But not one living thing could they spy—not even a gull, nor a
star-fish, nor a shred of sea-weed.
They all stood still and listened, straining their ears for any sound.
But the only noise they heard was the gentle lapping of the little
waves against the sides of their ship.
Then they all started calling, “Hulloa, there!—HULLOA!” till their
voices were hoarse. But only the echo came back from the rock.
And the little boy burst into tears and said,
“I am afraid I shall never see my uncle any more! What shall I tell
them when I get home!”
But Jip called to the Doctor,
“He must be there—he must—_he must_! The smell goes on no further. He
must be there, I tell you! Sail the ship close to the rock and let me
jump out on it.”
So the Doctor brought the ship as close as he could and let down the
anchor. Then he and Jip got out of the ship on to the rock.
Jip at once put his nose down close to the ground and began to run
all over the place. Up and down he went, back and forth—zig-zagging,
twisting, doubling and turning. And everywhere he went, the Doctor ran
behind him, close at his heels—till he was terribly out of breath.
At last Jip let out a great bark and sat down. And when the Doctor came
running up to him, he found the dog staring into a big, deep hole in
the middle of the rock.
“The boy’s uncle is down there,” said Jip quietly. “No wonder those
silly eagles couldn’t see him!—It takes a dog to find a man.”
So the Doctor got down into the hole, which seemed to be a kind of
cave, or tunnel, running a long way under the ground. Then he struck
a match and started to make his way along the dark passage with Jip
following behind.
The Doctor’s match soon went out; and he had to strike another and
another and another.
At last the passage came to an end; and the Doctor found himself in a
kind of tiny room with walls of rock.
And there, in the middle of the room, his head resting on his arms, lay
a man with very red hair—fast asleep!
Jip went up and sniffed at something lying on the ground beside him.
The Doctor stooped and picked it up. It was an enormous snuff-box. And
it was full of Black Rappee!
_THE TWENTIETH CHAPTER_
THE FISHERMAN’S TOWN
GENTLY then—very gently, the Doctor woke the man up.
But just at that moment the match went out again. And the man thought
it was Ben Ali coming back, and he began to punch the Doctor in the
dark.
But when John Dolittle told him who it was, and that he had his little
nephew safe on his ship, the man was tremendously glad, and said he was
sorry he had fought the Doctor. He had not hurt him much though—because
it was too dark to punch properly. Then he gave the Doctor a pinch of
snuff.
And the man told how the Barbary Dragon had put him on to this rock and
left him there, when he wouldn’t promise to become a pirate; and how he
used to sleep down in this hole because there was no house on the rock
to keep him warm.
And then he said,
“For four days I have had nothing to eat or drink. I have lived on
snuff.”
“There you are!” said Jip. “What did I tell you?”
So they struck some more matches and made their way out through the
passage into the daylight; and the Doctor hurried the man down to the
boat to get some soup.
When the animals and the little boy saw the Doctor and Jip coming back
to the ship with a red-headed man, they began to cheer and yell and
dance about the boat. And the swallows up above started whistling at
the top of their voices—thousands and millions of them—to show that
they too were glad that the boy’s brave uncle had been found. The
noise they made was so great that sailors far out at sea thought that
a terrible storm was coming. “Hark to that gale howling in the East!”
they said.
And Jip was awfully proud of himself—though he tried hard not to look
conceited. When Dab-Dab came to him and said, “Jip, I had no idea you
were so clever!” he just tossed his head and answered,
“Oh, that’s nothing special. But it takes a dog to find a man, you
know. Birds are no good for a game like that.”
Then the Doctor asked the red-haired fisherman where his home was. And
when he had told him, the Doctor asked the swallows to guide the ship
there first.
And when they had come to the land which the man had spoken of, they
saw a little fishing-town at the foot of a rocky mountain; and the man
pointed out the house where he lived.
And while they were letting down the anchor, the little boy’s mother
(who was also the man’s sister) came running down to the shore to meet
them, laughing and crying at the same time. She had been sitting on a
hill for twenty days, watching the sea and waiting for them to return.
And she kissed the Doctor many times, so that he giggled and blushed
like a school-girl. And she tried to kiss Jip too; but he ran away and
hid inside the ship.
“It’s a silly business, this kissing,” he said. “I don’t hold by it.
Let her go and kiss Gub-Gub—if she _must_ kiss something.”
[Illustration: “And she kissed the Doctor many times”]
The fisherman and his sister didn’t want the Doctor to go away again
in a hurry. They begged him to spend a few days with them. So John
Dolittle and his animals had to stay at their house a whole Saturday
and Sunday and half of Monday.
And all the little boys of the fishing-village went down to the beach
and pointed at the great ship anchored there, and said to one another
in whispers,
“Look! That was a pirate-ship—Ben Ali’s—the most terrible pirate that
ever sailed the Seven Seas! That old gentleman with the high hat,
who’s staying up at Mrs. Trevelyan’s, _he_ took the ship away from The
Barbary Dragon—and made him into a farmer. Who’d have thought it of
him—him so gentle-like and all!... Look at the great red sails! Ain’t
she the wicked-looking ship—and fast?—My!”
All those two days and a half that the Doctor stayed at the little
fishing-town the people kept asking him out to teas and luncheons and
dinners and parties; all the ladies sent him boxes of flowers and
candies; and the village-band played tunes under his window every night.
At last the Doctor said,
“Good people, I must go home now. You have really been most kind. I
shall always remember it. But I must go home—for I have things to do.”
Then, just as the Doctor was about to leave, the Mayor of the town came
down the street and a lot of other people in grand clothes with him.
And the Mayor stopped before the house where the Doctor was living; and
everybody in the village gathered round to see what was going to happen.
After six page-boys had blown on shining trumpets to make the people
stop talking, the Doctor came out on to the steps and the Mayor spoke.
“Doctor John Dolittle,” said he: “It is a great pleasure for me to
present to the man who rid the seas of the Dragon of Barbary this
little token from the grateful people of our worthy Town.”
And the Mayor took from his pocket a little tissue-paper packet, and
opening it, he handed to the Doctor a perfectly beautiful watch with
real diamonds in the back.
Then the Mayor pulled out of his pocket a still larger parcel and said,
“Where is the dog?”
Then everybody started to hunt for Jip. And at last Dab-Dab found him
on the other side of the village in a stable-yard, where all the dogs
of the country-side were standing round him speechless with admiration
and respect.
When Jip was brought to the Doctor’s side, the Mayor opened the larger
parcel; and inside was a dog-collar made of solid gold! And a great
murmur of wonder went up from the village-folk as the Mayor bent down
and fastened it round the dog’s neck with his own hands.
For written on the collar in big letters were these words: “JIP—_The
Cleverest Dog in the World._”
Then the whole crowd moved down to the beach to see them off. And after
the red-haired fisherman and his sister and the little boy had thanked
the Doctor and his dog over and over and over again, the great, swift
ship with the red sails was turned once more towards Puddleby and they
sailed out to sea, while the village-band played music on the shore.
_THE LAST CHAPTER_
HOME AGAIN
MARCH winds had come and gone; April’s showers were over; May’s buds
had opened into flower; and the June sun was shining on the pleasant
fields, when John Dolittle at last got back to his own country.
But he did not yet go home to Puddleby. First he went traveling through
the land with the pushmi-pullyu in a gipsy-wagon, stopping at all the
country-fairs. And there, with the acrobats on one side of them and the
Punch-and-Judy show on the other, they would hang out a big sign which
read, “COME AND SEE THE MARVELOUS TWO-HEADED ANIMAL FROM THE JUNGLES OF
AFRICA. Admission SIXPENCE.”
And the pushmi-pullyu would stay inside the wagon, while the other
animals would lie about underneath. The Doctor sat in a chair in front
taking the sixpences and smiling on the people as they went in; and
Dab-Dab was kept busy all the time scolding him because he would let
the children in for nothing when she wasn’t looking.
And menagerie-keepers and circus-men came and asked the Doctor to sell
them the strange creature, saying they would pay a tremendous lot of
money for him. But the Doctor always shook his head and said,
“No. The pushmi-pullyu shall never be shut up in a cage. He shall be
free always to come and go, like you and me.”
Many curious sights and happenings they saw in this wandering life; but
they all seemed quite ordinary after the great things they had seen and
done in foreign lands. It was very interesting at first, being sort of
part of a circus; but after a few weeks they all got dreadfully tired
of it and the Doctor and all of them were longing to go home.
[Illustration: “The Doctor sat in a chair in front”]
But so many people came flocking to the little wagon and paid the
sixpence to go inside and see the pushmi-pullyu that very soon the
Doctor was able to give up being a showman.
And one fine day, when the hollyhocks were in full bloom, he came back
to Puddleby a rich man, to live in the little house with the big garden.
And the old lame horse in the stable was glad to see him; and so were
the swallows who had already built their nests under the eaves of his
roof and had young ones. And Dab-Dab was glad, too, to get back to the
house she knew so well—although there was a terrible lot of dusting to
be done, with cobwebs everywhere.
And after Jip had gone and shown his golden collar to the conceited
collie next-door, he came back and began running round the garden
like a crazy thing, looking for the bones he had buried long ago,
and chasing the rats out of the tool-shed; while Gub-Gub dug up the
horseradish which had grown three feet high in the corner by the
garden-wall.
[Illustration: “He began running round the garden like a crazy thing”]
And the Doctor went and saw the sailor who had lent him the boat, and
he bought two new ships for him and a rubber-doll for his baby; and
he paid the grocer for the food he had lent him for the journey to
Africa. And he bought another piano and put the white mice back in
it—because they said the bureau-drawer was drafty.
Even when the Doctor had filled the old money-box on the dresser-shelf,
he still had a lot of money left; and he had to get three more
money-boxes, just as big, to put the rest in.
“Money,” he said, “is a terrible nuisance. But it’s nice not to have to
worry.”
“Yes,” said Dab-Dab, who was toasting muffins for his tea, “it is
indeed!”
And when the Winter came again, and the snow flew against the
kitchen-window, the Doctor and his animals would sit round the big,
warm fire after supper; and he would read aloud to them out of his
books.
But far away in Africa, where the monkeys chattered in the palm-trees
before they went to bed under the big yellow moon, they would say to
one another,
“I wonder what The Good Man’s doing now—over there, in the Land of the
White Men! Do you think he ever will come back?”
And Polynesia would squeak out from the vines,
“I think he will—I guess he will—I hope he will!”
And then the crocodile would grunt up at them from the black mud of the
river,
“I’m SURE he will—Go to sleep!”
[Illustration: THE END]
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
Page 79, period added at end of sentence (had not seen before.)
Page 119, single closing quote added to caption about rats.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Story of Doctor Dolittle" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.