The Story of Doctor Dolittle

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THE
Story of
DOCTOR DOLITTLE
BEING THE
HISTORY OF HIS PECULIAR LIFE
AT HOME AND ASTONISHING ADVENTURES
IN FOREIGN PARTS NEVER BEFORE PRINTED.

TO
ALL CHILDREN
CHILDREN IN YEARS AND CHILDREN IN HEART
I DEDICATE THIS STORY

There are some of us now reaching
middle age who discover themselves to be
lamenting the past in one respect if in none other,
that there are no books written now for children
comparable with those of thirty years ago. I
say written FOR children because the new
psychological business of writing ABOUT them as though
they were small pills or hatched in some
especially scientific method is extremely popular
today. Writing for children rather than about
them is very difficult as everybody who has tried
it knows. It can only be done, I am convinced,
by somebody having a great deal of the child
in his own outlook and sensibilities. Such was
the author of "The Little Duke" and "The
Dove in the Eagle's Nest," such the author of
"A Flatiron for a Farthing," and "The Story
of a Short Life." Such, above all, the author of
"Alice in Wonderland." Grownups imagine
that they can do the trick by adopting baby
language and talking down to their very critical
audience. There never was a greater mistake.
The imagination of the author must be a child's
imagination and yet maturely consistent, so that
the White Queen in "Alice," for instance, is
seen just as a child would see her, but she
continues always herself through all her distressing
adventures. The supreme touch of the white
rabbit pulling on his white gloves as he hastens
is again absolutely the child's vision, but the
white rabbit as guide and introducer of Alice's
adventures belongs to mature grown insight.

Geniuses are rare and, without being at all
an undue praiser of times past, one can say without
hesitation that until the appearance of Hugh
Lofting, the successor of Miss Yonge, Mrs.
Ewing, Mrs. Gatty and Lewis Carroll had not
appeared. I remember the delight with which
some six months ago I picked up the first
"Dolittle" book in the Hampshire bookshop at
Smith College in Northampton. One of Mr.
Lofting's pictures was quite enough for me.
The picture that I lighted upon when I first
opened the book was the one of the monkeys
making a chain with their arms across the gulf.
Then I looked further and discovered Bumpo
reading fairy stories to himself. And then
looked again and there was a picture of John
Dolittle's house.

But pictures are not enough although most
authors draw so badly that if one of them happens
to have the genius for line that Mr. Lofting
shows there must be, one feels, something in his
writing as well. There is. You cannot read the
first paragraph of the book, which begins in the
right way "Once upon a time" without knowing
that Mr. Lofting believes in his story quite
as much as he expects you to. That is the first
essential for a story teller. Then you discover
as you read on that he has the right eye for the
right detail. What child-inquiring mind could
resist this intriguing sentence to be found on the
second page of the book:

"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."

And then when you read a little further you
will discover that the Doctor is not merely a
peg on whom to hang exciting and various
adventures but that he is himself a man of original
and lively character. He is a very kindly,
generous man, and anyone who has ever written
stories will know that it is much more difficult
to make kindly, generous characters interesting
than unkindly and mean ones. But Dolittle is
interesting. It is not only that he is quaint but
that he is wise and knows what he is about. The
reader, however young, who meets him gets very
soon a sense that if he were in trouble, not
necessarily medical, he would go to Dolittle and ask
his advice about it. Dolittle seems to extend
his hand from the page and grasp that of his
reader, and I can see him going down the
centuries a kind of Pied Piper with thousands of
children at his heels. But not only is he a
darling and alive and credible but his creator has
also managed to invest everybody else in the
book with the same kind of life.

Now this business of giving life to animals,
making them talk and behave like human
beings, is an extremely difficult one. Lewis Carroll
absolutely conquered the difficulties, but I
am not sure that anyone after him until Hugh
Lofting has really managed the trick; even in
such a masterpiece as "The Wind in the Willows"
we are not quite convinced. John Dolittle's
friends are convincing because their creator
never forces them to desert their own
characteristics. Polynesia, for instance, is natural
from first to last. She really does care about
the Doctor but she cares as a bird would care,
having always some place to which she is going
when her business with her friends is over. And
when Mr. Lofting invents fantastic animals he
gives them a kind of credible possibility which
is extraordinarily convincing. It will be
impossible for anyone who has read this book not
to believe in the existence of the pushmi-pullyu,
who would be credible enough even were there
no drawing of it, but the picture on page 145
settles the matter of his truth once and for all.

In fact this book is a work of genius and, as
always with works of genius, it is difficult to
analyze the elements that have gone to make
it. There is poetry here and fantasy and humor,
a little pathos but, above all, a number of
creations in whose existence everybody must believe
whether they be children of four or old men of
ninety or prosperous bankers of forty-five. I
don't know how Mr. Lofting has done it; I
don't suppose that he knows himself. There it
is--the first real children's classic since "Alice."
HUGH WALPOLE.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

I PUDDLEBY
II ANIMAL LANGUAGE
III MORE MONEY TROUBLES
IV A MESSAGE FROM AFRICA
V THE GREAT JOURNEY
VI POLYNESIA AND THE KING
VII THE BRIDGE OF APES
VIII THE LEADER OF THE LIONS
IX THE MONKEYS COUNCIL
X THE RAREST ANIMAL OF ALL
XI THE BLACK PRINCE
XII MEDICINE AND MAGIC
XIII RED SAILS AND BLUE WINGS
XIV THE RATS WARNING
XV THE BARBARY DRAGON
XVI TOO-TOO, THE LISTENER
XVII THE OCEAN GOSSIPS
XVIII SMELLS
XIX THE ROCK
XX THE FISHERMAN'S TOWN
XXI HOME AGAIN

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 animal-doctor?"
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 bird-language," 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 horse-language. 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
animal-doctor 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 plow-horse 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
harvest-mice 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."

THE THIRD CHAPTER

MORE MONEY TROUBLES

AND soon now the Doctor began to make money
again; and his sister, Sarah, bought a new
dress and was happy. Some of the animals
who came to see him were so sick that they had
to stay at the Doctor's house for a week. And
when they were getting better they used to sit in
chairs on the lawn.

And often even after they got well, they did
not want to go away--they liked the Doctor
and his house so much. And he never had the
heart to refuse them when they asked if they
could stay with him. So in this way he went
on getting more and more pets.

Once when he was sitting on his garden wall,
smoking a pipe in the evening, an Italian organ-
grinder came round with a monkey on a string.
The Doctor saw at once that the monkey's collar
was too tight and that he was dirty and
unhappy. So he took the monkey away from the
Italian, gave the man a shilling and told him
to go. The organ-grinder got awfully angry
and said that he wanted to keep the monkey.
But the Doctor told him that if he didn't go
away he would punch him on the nose. John
Dolittle was a strong man, though he wasn't
very tall. So the Italian went away saying rude
things and the monkey stayed with Doctor
Dolittle and had a good home. The other
animals in the house called him "Chee-Chee"--
which is a common word in monkey-language,
meaning "ginger."

And another time, when the circus came to
Puddleby, the crocodile who had a bad tooth-
ache escaped at night and came into the Doctor's
garden. The Doctor talked to him in
crocodile-language and took him into the house
and made his tooth better. But when the crocodile
saw what a nice house it was--with all the
different places for the different kinds of
animals--he too wanted to live with the Doctor.
He asked couldn't he sleep in the fish-pond at
the bottom of the garden, if he promised not
to eat the fish. When the circus-men came to
take him back he got so wild and savage that
he frightened them away. But to every one in
the house he was always as gentle as a kitten.

But now the old ladies grew afraid to send
their lap-dogs to Doctor Dolittle because of the
crocodile; and the farmers wouldn't believe that
he would not eat the lambs and sick calves they
brought to be cured. So the Doctor went to
the crocodile and told him he must go back
to his circus. But he wept such big tears, and
begged so hard to be allowed to stay, that the
Doctor hadn't the heart to turn him out.

So then the Doctor's sister came to him and said,
"John, you must send that creature away.
Now the farmers and the old ladies are afraid
to send their animals to you--just as we were
beginning to be well off again. Now we shall
be ruined entirely. This is the last straw. I
will no longer be housekeeper for you if you
don't send away that alligator."

"It isn't an alligator," said the Doctor--"it's
a crocodile."

"I don't care what you call it," said his sister.
"It's a nasty thing to find under the bed. I
won't have it in the house."

"But he has promised me," the Doctor
answered, "that he will not bite any one. He
doesn't like the circus; and I haven't the money
to send him back to Africa where he comes
from. He minds his own business and on the
whole is very well behaved. Don't be so fussy."

"I tell you I WILL NOT have him around," said
Sarah. "He eats the linoleum. If you don't send
him away this minute I'll--I'll go and get married!"

"All right," said the Doctor, "go and get
married. It can't be helped." And he took
down his hat and went out into the garden.

So Sarah Dolittle packed up her things and
went off; and the Doctor was left all alone with
his animal family.

And very soon he was poorer than he had
ever been before. With all these mouths to fill,
and the house to look after, and no one to do
the mending, and no money coming in to pay
the butcher's bill, things began to look very
difficult. But the Doctor didn't worry at all.

"Money is a nuisance," he used to say.
"We'd all be much better off if it had never
been invented. What does money matter, so
long as we are happy?"

But soon the animals themselves began to get
worried. And one evening when the Doctor
was asleep in his chair before the kitchen-fire
they began talking it over among themselves in
whispers. And the owl, Too-Too, who was
good at arithmetic, figured it out that there was
only money enough left to last another week--
if they each had one meal a day and no more.

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