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.

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 animaldoctor?" 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 birdlanguage," 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 horselanguage. 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 animaldoctor 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!"

Then John Dolittle got a fine, big pair of green spectacles; and the plowhorse 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.

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 harvestmice 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."