The Story of Doctor Dolittle
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?”
“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.
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.