Doctor Dolittle’s Zoo. Hugh Lofting
listen to you all night.”
“All right, Cross-eyes, all right,” said Cheapside, picking up a crumb from the table and talking with his mouth full, “keep your feathers on. 'Ow long 'ave you owned this 'ouse, anyway? Hey, Speedy, come over 'ere where it's warmer.”
The famous swallow, champion speed flyer of Europe, Africa and America, modestly came forward to a warmer place under the branching candlesticks. He had returned to England a little earlier this year than usual, but the warm weather which had tempted him northward had given way to a cold snap. And now in the brighter light near the center of the table we could plainly see that he was shivering.
“Glad to see you, Doctor,” said he quietly. “Excuse us interrupting you like this. Please begin, won't you?”
THE FOURTH CHAPTER THE NEW ZOO
SO, far into the night, John Dolittle told his household the story of his voyage. Gub-Gub kept falling asleep and then waking up very angry with himself because he was afraid he had missed the best parts.
Somewhere around two o'clock in the morning, although he was not more than half done, the Doctor insisted that everybody go to bed and the rest of the adventures be put off until to-morrow night.
The following day was, I think, the busiest day I have ever seen the Doctor put in. Everybody and everything demanded his attention at once. First of all, of course, there were patients waiting at the surgery door: a squirrel with a broken claw, a rabbit who was losing his fur, a fox with a sore eye.
Then there was the garden, the Doctor's well-beloved garden. What a mess it was in, to be sure! Three years of weeds, three years of over-growth, three years of neglect! He almost wept as he stepped out of the kitchen door and saw the desolation of it fully revealed in the bright morning sunlight. Luckily the country birds who had been waiting all night to greet him helped to take his mind off it for a while. It reminded me of the pictures of St. Francis and the pigeons, as the starlings, crows, robins and blackbirds swarmed down about him in clouds as soon as he appeared.
Bumpo and I, realizing how deeply affected he was by the sad state of his garden, decided to put our shoulder to the wheel and see what we could do toward cleaning it up. Chee-Chee also volunteered to help, and so did a great number of smaller animals like field mice, rats, badgers and squirrels. And, despite their tiny size, it was astonishing to see how much they could do. For example, two families of moles (who are usually a great pest in a garden) dug up, after the Doctor had explained what he wanted, the entire herb bed next to the peach wall and turned it over better than any professional gardener would have done. They sorted out the weeds from the herb roots and gathered them into neat piles, which Chee-Chee collected in his wheelbarrow. The squirrels were splendid as general clean-up men. They collected all the fallen twigs and leaves and other refuse which littered the gravel walks and carried them to the compost heap behind the potting shed. The badgers helped by burrowing down and pruning the roots of the apple trees underground.
Then, in the middle of the morning Too-Too, the accountant, wanted to go into money matters with the Doctor, so that Dab-Dab might see how much she had to keep house with. Fortunately, the Spanish silver we had brought back from the Capa Blancas (largely out of Bumpo's bet, which the Doctor didn't know anything about) looked, when changed into English pounds, as though it should keep us all comfortably for some months at least without worry. This was a great relief to Dab-Dab, though, as usual, she kept an anxious eye on any new schemes of the Doctor's, remembering from the past that the more money he had, the more extravagant he was likely to be.
It was a funny sight to see those wiseacres, Too-Too, Polynesia and Dab-Dab, putting their heads together over the Doctor's money affairs while his back was turned.
“But, look here,” Polynesia put in, “the Doctor ought to make a lot of money out of all these new and precious herbs of Long Arrow's which he brought back.”
“Oh, hardly,” said I. “You'll probably find he'll refuse to profit by them at all. In his eyes they are medicines for humanity's benefit; not things to sell.”
And then, in addition to all the other departments of his strange establishment which claimed the Doctor's attention that morning, there was the zoo. Matthew Mugg was on hand very early to go over it with him. Not very many of the old inmates were there now. Quite a number had been sent away before the Doctor left, because he felt that in his absence their care would be too ticklish a job for Matthew to manage alone. But there were a few who had begged very hard to remain, some of the more northerly animals like the Canadian woodchucks and the minks.
“You know, Stubbins,” said the Doctor as we passed down between the clean, empty houses (Matthew had in our absence really kept the place in wonderful condition), “I have a notion to change the whole system of my zoo.”
“How do you mean?” I asked.
“Well,” said he, “so far I had kept it mostly for foreign exhibits—rather unusual animals—though, as you know, I always avoided the big hunting creatures. But now I think I'll give it over almost entirely to our native animals. There are a great many who want to live with me—many more than we can possibly manage in the house. You see, we have a big space here, over an acre, altogether. It used to be a sort of a bowling green hundreds of years ago, when an old castle stood where the house is now. It is walled in—private and secluded. Look at it. We could make this into a regular ideal Animal Town. Something quite new. You can help me with the planning of it. I thought I would have several clubs in it. The Rat and Mouse Club is one that I have been thinking of for a long time. Several rats and mice have asked me to start it. And, then, the Home for Cross-Bred Dogs is another. A tremendous lot of dogs—of no particular breed—call on me from time to time and ask if they can live with me. Jip will tell you all about it. I hate to turn them away, because I know many of them have no place to live—and people don't want them because they're not what is called thoroughbred. Silly idea. Myself, I've usually found that the mongrels had more character and sense than the prize winners. But there you are. What do you think of my idea?”
“I think it's just a marvelous idea, Doctor,” I cried. “And it will certainly relieve poor old Dab-Dab of an awful lot of worry. She is always grumbling over the way the mice eat the pillow slips in the linen closet and use the fringes off the bath towels to make their nests with.”
“Yes,” said the Doctor, “and we've never been able to find out who the culprits are. Each one, when I ask him, says he didn't do it. But the linen goes on disappearing, just the same. Of course, myself, I'm not very particular if a pillow slip has an extra hole in it or not. And bath towels don't have to have fringes. But Dab-Dab's awfully persnickety. Her linen closet—gracious!—for her it is the same as the garden is for me: the most important thing!... Well, now, Stubbins, supposing as soon as we get some of these poor old fruit trees into shape you plan out the new zoo for me. Get Polynesia to help you. She's full of ideas, as you know. Unfortunately, I've got my hands more than full already with the surgery and the writing up of the notebooks we brought back (I'll want you to help me on that, too)—to say nothing of Long Arrow's collection. Otherwise I could work with you on the first lay-out of the zoo. But you and Polynesia can do it between you. By the way, consult the white mouse about the quarters for the Rat and Mouse Club, will you?”
Well, that was the beginning of the new Dolittle Zoo. It was, of course, a thing that interested me tremendously, and I felt very proud that the Doctor had intrusted such a large measure of the responsibility to me. But I had very little idea, at the outset, into what an enormous institution it was to grow. “Animal Town” or “Animal Clubland” is really what it should have been called, instead of a zoo. But we had always called that part of the garden the zoo, and that name persisted.
But if it wasn't