The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle

THE EIGHTH CHAPTER

ARE YOU A GOOD NOTICER?

JUST at that moment Polynesia came into the room and said something to the Doctor in bird language. Of course I did not understand what it was. But the Doctor at once put down his knife and fork and left the room.

“You know it is an awful shame,” said the parrot as soon as the Doctor had closed the door. “Directly he comes back home, all the animals over the whole countryside get to hear of it and every sick cat and mangy rabbit for miles around comes to see him and ask his advice. Now there’s a big fat hare outside at the back door with a squawking baby. Can she see the Doctor, please!—Thinks it’s going to have convulsions. Stupid little thing’s been eating Deadly Nightshade again, I suppose. The animals are so inconsiderate at times—especially the mothers. They come round and call the Doctor away from his meals and wake him out of his bed at all hours of the night. I don’t know how he stands it—really I don’t. Why, the poor man never gets any peace at all! I’ve told him time and again to have special hours for the animals to come. But he is so frightfully kind and considerate. He never refuses to see them if there is anything really wrong with them. He says the urgent cases must be seen at once.”

“Why don’t some of the animals go and see the other doctors?” I asked.

“Oh Good Gracious!” exclaimed the parrot, tossing her head scornfully. “Why, there aren’t any other animal-doctors—not real doctors. Oh of course there are those vet persons, to be sure. But, bless you, they’re no good. You see, they can’t understand the animals’ language; so how can you expect them to be any use? Imagine yourself, or your father, going to see a doctor who could not understand a word you say—nor even tell you in your own language what you must do to get well! Poof!—those vets! They’re that stupid, you’ve no idea!—Put the Doctor’s bacon down by the fire, will you?—to keep hot till he comes back.”

“Do you think I would ever be able to learn the language of the animals?” I asked, laying the plate upon the hearth.

“Well, it all depends,” said Polynesia. “Are you clever at lessons?”

“I don’t know,” I answered, feeling rather ashamed. “You see, I’ve never been to school. My father is too poor to send me.”

“Well,” said the parrot, “I don’t suppose you have really missed much—to judge from what I have seen of school-boys. But listen: are you a good noticer?—Do you notice things well? I mean, for instance, supposing you saw two cock-starlings on an apple-tree, and you only took one good look at them—would you be able to tell one from the other if you saw them again the next day?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never tried.”

“Well that,” said Polynesia, brushing some crumbs off the corner of the table with her left foot—“that is what you call powers of observation—noticing the small things about birds and animals: the way they walk and move their heads and flip their wings; the way they sniff the air and twitch their whiskers and wiggle their tails. You have to notice all those little things if you want to learn animal language. For you see, lots of the animals hardly talk at all with their tongues; they use their breath or their tails or their feet instead. That is because many of them, in the olden days when lions and tigers were more plentiful, were afraid to make a noise for fear the savage creatures heard them. Birds, of course, didn’t care; for they always had wings to fly away with. But that is the first thing to remember: being a good noticer is terribly important in learning animal language.”

“It sounds pretty hard,” I said.

“You’ll have to be very patient,” said Polynesia. “It takes a long time to say even a few words properly. But if you come here often I’ll give you a few lessons myself. And once you get started you’ll be surprised how fast you get on. It would indeed be a good thing if you could learn. Because then you could do some of the work for the Doctor—I mean the easier work, like bandaging and giving pills. Yes, yes, that’s a good idea of mine. ’Twould be a great thing if the poor man could get some help—and some rest. It is a scandal the way he works. I see no reason why you shouldn’t be able to help him a great deal—That is, if you are really interested in animals.”

“Oh, I’d love that!” I cried. “Do you think the Doctor would let me?”

“Certainly,” said Polynesia—“as soon as you have learned something about doctoring. I’ll speak of it to him myself—Sh! I hear him coming. Quick—bring his bacon back on to the table.”

THE NINTH CHAPTER

THE GARDEN OF DREAMS

WHEN breakfast was over the Doctor took me out to show me the garden. Well, if the house had been interesting, the garden was a hundred times more so. Of all the gardens I have ever seen that was the most delightful, the most fascinating. At first you did not realize how big it was. You never seemed to come to the end of it. When at last you were quite sure that you had seen it all, you would peer over a hedge, or turn a corner, or look up some steps, and there was a whole new part you never expected to find.

It had everything—everything a garden can have, or ever has had. There were wide, wide lawns with carved stone seats, green with moss. Over the lawns hung weeping-willows, and their feathery bough-tips brushed the velvet grass when they swung with the wind. The old flagged paths had high, clipped, yew hedges either side of them, so that they looked like the narrow streets of some old town; and through the hedges, doorways had been made; and over the doorways were shapes like vases and peacocks and half-moons all trimmed out of the living trees. There was a lovely marble fish-pond with golden carp and blue water-lilies in it and big green frogs. A high brick wall alongside the kitchen garden was all covered with pink and yellow peaches ripening in the sun. There was a wonderful great oak, hollow in the trunk, big enough for four men to hide inside. Many summer-houses there were, too—some of wood and some of stone; and one of them was full of books to read. In a corner, among some rocks and ferns, was an outdoor fire-place, where the Doctor used to fry liver and bacon when he had a notion to take his meals in the open air. There was a couch as well on which he used to sleep, it seems, on warm summer nights when the nightingales were singing at their best; it had wheels on it so it could be moved about under any tree they sang in. But the thing that fascinated me most of all was a tiny little tree-house, high up in the top branches of a great elm, with a long rope ladder leading to it. The Doctor told me he used it for looking at the moon and the stars through a telescope.

It was the kind of a garden where you could wander and explore for days and days—always coming upon something new, always glad to find the old spots over again. That first time that I saw the Doctor’s garden I was so charmed by it that I felt I would like to live in it—always and always—and never go outside of it again. For it had everything within its walls to give happiness, to make living pleasant—to keep the heart at peace. It was the Garden of Dreams.

One peculiar thing I noticed immediately I came into it; and that was what a lot of birds there were about. Every tree seemed to have two or three nests in it. And heaps of other wild creatures appeared to be making themselves at home there, too. Stoats and tortoises and dormice seemed to be quite common, and not in the least shy. Toads of different colors and sizes hopped about the lawn as though it belonged to them. Green lizards (which were very rare in Puddleby) sat up on the stones in the sunlight and blinked at us. Even snakes were to be seen.

“You need not be afraid of them,” said the Doctor, noticing that I started somewhat when a large black snake wiggled across the path right in front of us. “These fellows are not poisonous. They do a great deal of good in keeping down many kinds of garden-pests. I play the flute to them sometimes in the evening. They love it. Stand right up on their tails and carry on no end. Funny thing, their taste for music.”

“Why do all these animals come and live here?” I asked. “I never saw a garden with so many creatures in it.”

“Well, I suppose it’s because they get the kind of food they like; and nobody worries or disturbs them. And then, of course, they know me. And if they or their children get sick I presume they find it handy to be living in a doctor’s garden—Look! You see that sparrow on the sundial, swearing at the blackbird down below? Well, he has been coming here every summer for years. He comes from London. The country sparrows round about here are always laughing at him. They say he chirps with such a Cockney accent. He is a most amusing bird—very brave but very cheeky. He loves nothing better than an argument, but he always ends it by getting rude. He is a real city bird. In London he lives around St. Paul’s Cathedral. ‘Cheapside,’ we call him.”

“Are all these birds from the country round here?” I asked.

“Most of them,” said the Doctor. “But a few rare ones visit me every year who ordinarily never come near England at all. For instance, that handsome little fellow hovering over the snapdragon there, he’s a Ruby-throated Humming-bird. Comes from America. Strictly speaking, he has no business in this climate at all. It is too cool. I make him sleep in the kitchen at night. Then every August, about the last week of the month, I have a Purple Bird-of-Paradise come all the way from Brazil to see me. She is a very great swell. Hasn’t arrived yet of course. And there are a few others, foreign birds from the tropics mostly, who drop in on me in the course of the summer months. But come, I must show you the zoo.”

THE TENTH CHAPTER

THE PRIVATE ZOO

I  DID not think there could be anything left in that garden which we had not seen. But the Doctor took me by the arm and started off down a little narrow path and after many windings and twistings and turnings we found ourselves before a small door in a high stone wall. The Doctor pushed it open.

Inside was still another garden. I had expected to find cages with animals inside them. But there were none to be seen. Instead there were little stone houses here and there all over the garden; and each house had a window and a door. As we walked in, many of these doors opened and animals came running out to us evidently expecting food.

“Haven’t the doors any locks on them?” I asked the Doctor.

“Oh yes,” he said, “every door has a lock. But in my zoo the doors open from the inside, not from the out. The locks are only there so the animals can go and shut themselves in any time they want to get away from the annoyance of other animals or from people who might come here. Every animal in this zoo stays here because he likes it, not because he is made to.”

“They all look very happy and clean,” I said. “Would you mind telling me the names of some of them?”

“Certainly. Well now: that funny-looking thing with plates on his back, nosing under the brick over there, is a South American armadillo. The little chap talking to him is a Canadian woodchuck. They both live in those holes you see at the foot of the wall. The two little beasts doing antics in the pond are a pair of Russian minks—and that reminds me: I must go and get them some herrings from the town before noon—it is early-closing to-day. That animal just stepping out of his house is an antelope, one of the smaller South African kinds. Now let us move to the other side of those bushes there and I will show you some more.”

“Are those deer over there?” I asked.

“Deer!” said the Doctor. “Where do you mean?”

“Over there,” I said, pointing—“nibbling the grass border of the bed. There are two of them.”

“Oh, that,” said the Doctor with a smile. “That isn’t two animals: that’s one animal with two heads—the only two-headed animal in the world. It’s called the ‘pushmi-pullyu.’ I brought him from Africa. He’s very tame—acts as a kind of night-watchman for my zoo. He only sleeps with one head at a time, you see—very handy—the other head stays awake all night.”

“Have you any lions or tigers?” I asked as we moved on.

“No,” said the Doctor. “It wouldn’t be possible to keep them here—and I wouldn’t keep them even if I could. If I had my way, Stubbins, there wouldn’t be a single lion or tiger in captivity anywhere in the world. They never take to it. They’re never happy. They never settle down. They are always thinking of the big countries they have left behind. You can see it in their eyes, dreaming—dreaming always of the great open spaces where they were born; dreaming of the deep, dark jungles where their mothers first taught them how to scent and track the deer. And what are they given in exchange for all this?” asked the Doctor, stopping in his walk and growing all red and angry—“What are they given in exchange for the glory of an African sunrise, for the twilight breeze whispering through the palms, for the green shade of the matted, tangled vines, for the cool, big-starred nights of the desert, for the patter of the waterfall after a hard day’s hunt? What, I ask you, are they given in exchange for these? Why, a bare cage with iron bars; an ugly piece of dead meat thrust in to them once a day; and a crowd of fools to come and stare at them with open mouths!—No, Stubbins. Lions and tigers, the Big Hunters, should never, never be seen in zoos.”

The Doctor seemed to have grown terribly serious—almost sad. But suddenly his manner changed again and he took me by the arm with his same old cheerful smile.

“But we haven’t seen the butterfly-houses yet—nor the aquariums. Come along. I am very proud of my butterfly-houses.”

Off we went again and came presently into a hedged enclosure. Here I saw several big huts made of fine wire netting, like cages. Inside the netting all sorts of beautiful flowers were growing in the sun, with butterflies skimming over them. The Doctor pointed to the end of one of the huts where little boxes with holes in them stood in a row.

“Those are the hatching-boxes,” said he. “There I put the different kinds of caterpillars. And as soon as they turn into butterflies and moths they come out into these flower-gardens to feed.”

“Do butterflies have a language?” I asked.

“Oh I fancy they have,” said the Doctor—“and the beetles too. But so far I haven’t succeeded in learning much about insect languages. I have been too busy lately trying to master the shellfish-talk. I mean to take it up though.”

At that moment Polynesia joined us and said, “Doctor, there are two guinea-pigs at the back door. They say they have run away from the boy who kept them because they didn’t get the right stuff to eat. They want to know if you will take them in.”

“All right,” said the Doctor. “Show them the way to the zoo. Give them the house on the left, near the gate—the one the black fox had. Tell them what the rules are and give them a square meal—Now, Stubbins, we will go on to the aquariums. And first of all I must show you my big, glass, sea-water tank where I keep the shellfish.”

THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER

MY SCHOOLMASTER, POLYNESIA

WELL, there were not many days after that, you may be sure, when I did not come to see my new friend. Indeed I was at his house practically all day and every day. So that one evening my mother asked me jokingly why I did not take my bed over there and live at the Doctor’s house altogether.

After a while I think I got to be quite useful to the Doctor, feeding his pets for him; helping to make new houses and fences for the zoo; assisting with the sick animals that came; doing all manner of odd jobs about the place. So that although I enjoyed it all very much (it was indeed like living in a new world) I really think the Doctor would have missed me if I had not come so often.

And all this time Polynesia came with me wherever I went, teaching me bird language and showing me how to understand the talking signs of the animals. At first I thought I would never be able to learn at all—it seemed so difficult. But the old parrot was wonderfully patient with me—though I could see that occasionally she had hard work to keep her temper.

Soon I began to pick up the strange chatter of the birds and to understand the funny talking antics of the dogs. I used to practise listening to the mice behind the wainscot after I went to bed, and watching the cats on the roofs and pigeons in the market-square of Puddleby.

And the days passed very quickly—as they always do when life is pleasant; and the days turned into weeks, and weeks into months; and soon the roses in the Doctor’s garden were losing their petals and yellow leaves lay upon the wide green lawn. For the summer was nearly gone.

One day Polynesia and I were talking in the library. This was a fine long room with a grand mantlepiece and the walls were covered from the ceiling to the floor with shelves full of books: books of stories, books on gardening, books about medicine, books of travel; these I loved—and especially the Doctor’s great atlas with all its maps of the different countries of the world.

This afternoon Polynesia was showing me the books about animals which John Dolittle had written himself.

“My!” I said, “what a lot of books the Doctor has—all the way around the room! Goodness! I wish I could read! It must be tremendously interesting. Can you read, Polynesia?”

“Only a little,” said she. “Be careful how you turn those pages—don’t tear them. No, I really don’t get time enough for reading—much. That letter there is a k and this is a b.”

“What does this word under the picture mean?” I asked.

“Let me see,” she said, and started spelling it out. “B-A-B-O-O-N—that’s Monkey. Reading isn’t nearly as hard as it looks, once you know the letters.”

“Polynesia,” I said, “I want to ask you something very important.”

“What is it, my boy?” said she, smoothing down the feathers of her right wing. Polynesia often spoke to me in a very patronizing way. But I did not mind it from her. After all, she was nearly two hundred years old; and I was only ten.

“Listen,” I said, “my mother doesn’t think it is right that I come here for so many meals. And I was going to ask you: supposing I did a whole lot more work for the Doctor—why couldn’t I come and live here altogether? You see, instead of being paid like a regular gardener or workman, I would get my bed and meals in exchange for the work I did. What do you think?”

“You mean you want to be a proper assistant to the Doctor, is that it?”

“Yes. I suppose that’s what you call it,” I answered. “You know you said yourself that you thought I could be very useful to him.”

“Well”—she thought a moment—“I really don’t see why not. But is this what you want to be when you grow up, a naturalist?”

“Yes,” I said, “I have made up my mind. I would sooner be a naturalist than anything else in the world.”

“Humph!—Let’s go and speak to the Doctor about it,” said Polynesia. “He’s in the next room—in the study. Open the door very gently—he may be working and not want to be disturbed.”

I opened the door quietly and peeped in. The first thing I saw was an enormous black retriever dog sitting in the middle of the hearth-rug with his ears cocked up, listening to the Doctor who was reading aloud to him from a letter.

“What is the Doctor doing?” I asked Polynesia in a whisper.

“Oh, the dog has had a letter from his mistress and he has brought it to the Doctor to read for him. That’s all. He belongs to a funny little girl called Minnie Dooley, who lives on the other side of the town. She has pigtails down her back. She and her brother have gone away to the seaside for the Summer; and the old retriever is heart-broken while the children are gone. So they write letters to him—in English of course. And as the old dog doesn’t understand them, he brings them here, and the Doctor turns them into dog language for him. I think Minnie must have written that she is coming back—to judge from the dog’s excitement. Just look at him carrying on!”

Indeed the retriever seemed to be suddenly overcome with joy. As the Doctor finished the letter the old dog started barking at the top of his voice, wagging his tail wildly and jumping about the study. He took the letter in his mouth and ran out of the room snorting hard and mumbling to himself.

“He’s going down to meet the coach,” whispered Polynesia. “That dog’s devotion to those children is more than I can understand. You should see Minnie! She’s the most conceited little minx that ever walked. She squints too.”

THE TWELFTH CHAPTER

MY GREAT IDEA

PRESENTLY the Doctor looked up and saw us at the door.

“Oh—come in, Stubbins,” said he, “did you wish to speak to me? Come in and take a chair.”