The Story of Doctor Dolittle
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.
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.
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!”
* * * * *
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.