The Story of Doctor Dolittle Read online

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  _THE STORY OF DOCTOR DOLITTLE_

  “A little town called Puddleby-on-the-Marsh”]

  THE _Story of_ DOCTOR DOLITTLE

  _BEING THE HISTORY OF HIS PECULIAR LIFE AT HOME AND ASTONISHING ADVENTURES IN FOREIGN PARTS. NEVER BEFORE PRINTED._

  _TOLD BY HUGH LOFTING_ _ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR_

 

  _Published by FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY at 443 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK._

  _A.D. 1920_

  WITH AN INTRODUCTION TO THE TENTH PRINTING

  BY HUGH WALPOLE

  _Copyright, 1920, by_ FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

  _All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages_

  First Printing, Aug. 24, 1920 Second Printing, Dec. 17, 1920 Third Printing, April 16, 1921 Fourth Printing, July 7, 1921 Fifth Printing, Sept. 1, 1921 Sixth Printing, Oct. 26, 1921 Seventh Printing, Dec. 5, 1921 Eighth Printing, April 3, 1922 Ninth Printing, Aug. 18, 1922 Tenth Printing, Nov. 28, 1922 Eleventh Printing, April 2, 1923

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  TO ALL CHILDREN

  CHILDREN IN YEARS AND CHILDREN IN HEART I DEDICATE THIS STORY

  _INTRODUCTION TO THE TENTH PRINTING_

  THERE are some of us now reaching middle age who discover themselvesto be lamenting the past in one respect if in none other, that thereare no books written now for children comparable with those of thirtyyears ago. I say written _for_ children because the new psychologicalbusiness of writing _about_ them as though they were small pills orhatched in some especially scientific method is extremely popularto-day. Writing for children rather than about them is very difficultas everybody who has tried it knows. It can only be done, I amconvinced, by somebody having a great deal of the child in his ownoutlook 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 aFarthing,” and “The Story of a Short Life.” Such, above all, the authorof “Alice in Wonderland.” Grownups imagine that they can do the trickby adopting baby language and talking down to their very criticalaudience. There never was a greater mistake. The imagination of theauthor must be a child’s imagination and yet maturely consistent,so that the White Queen in “Alice,” for instance, is seen just as achild would see her, but she continues always herself through all herdistressing adventures. The supreme touch of the white rabbit pullingon his white gloves as he hastens is again absolutely the child’svision, but the white rabbit as guide and introducer of Alice’sadventures belongs to mature grown insight.

  Geniuses are rare and, without being at all an undue praiser of timespast, one can say without hesitation that until the appearance ofHugh Lofting, the successor of Miss Yonge, Mrs. Ewing, Mrs. Gatty andLewis Carroll had not appeared. I remember the delight with which somesix months ago I picked up the first “Dolittle” book in the Hampshirebookshop at Smith College in Northampton. One of Mr. Lofting’s pictureswas quite enough for me. The picture that I lighted upon when I firstopened the book was the one of the monkeys making a chain with theirarms across the gulf. Then I looked further and discovered Bumporeading fairy stories to himself. And then looked again and there was apicture of John Dolittle’s house.

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

  “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 theDoctor is not merely a peg on whom to hang exciting and variousadventures but that he is himself a man of original and livelycharacter. He is a very kindly, generous man, and anyone who has everwritten stories will know that it is much more difficult to makekindly, generous characters interesting than unkindly and mean ones.But Dolittle is interesting. It is not only that he is quaint but thathe 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, notnecessarily medical, he would go to Dolittle and ask his advice aboutit. Dolittle seems to extend his hand from the page and grasp that ofhis reader, and I can see him going down the centuries a kind of PiedPiper with thousands of children at his heels. But not only is he adarling and alive and credible but his creator has also managed toinvest everybody else in the book with the same kind of life.

  Now this business of giving life to animals, making them talk andbehave like human beings, is an extremely difficult one. Lewis Carrollabsolutely conquered the difficulties, but I am not sure that anyoneafter him until Hugh Lofting has really managed the trick; even insuch a masterpiece as “The Wind in the Willows” we are not quiteconvinced. John Dolittle’s friends are convincing because their creatornever forces them to desert their own characteristics. Polynesia, forinstance, is natural from first to last. She really does care about theDoctor but she cares as a bird would care, having always some place towhich she is going when her business with her friends is over. And whenMr. Lofting invents fantastic animals he gives them a kind of crediblepossibility which is extraordinarily convincing. It will be impossiblefor anyone who has read this book not to believe in the existence ofthe pushmi-pullyu, who would be credible enough even were there nodrawing of it, but the picture on page 153 settles the matter of histruth once and for all.

  In fact this book is a work of genius and, as always with works ofgenius, it is difficult to analyze the elements that have gone tomake it. There is poetry here and fantasy and humor, a little pathosbut, above all, a number of creations in whose existence everybodymust believe whether they be children of four or old men of ninety orprosperous bankers of forty-five. I don’t know how Mr. Lofting has doneit; I don’t suppose that he knows himself. There it is—the first realchildren’s classic since “Alice.”

  HUGH WALPOLE.

  _CONTENTS_

  INTRODUCTION vii CHAPTER PAGE I PUDDLEBY 1 II ANIMAL LANGUAGE 7 III MORE MONEY TROUBLES 19 IV A MESSAGE FROM AFRICA 29 V THE GREAT JOURNEY 37 VI POLYNESIA AND THE KING 47 VII THE BRIDGE OF APES 55 VIII THE LEADER OF THE LIONS 67 IX THE MONKEYS’ COUNCIL 75 X THE RAREST ANIMAL OF ALL 81 XI THE BLACK PRINCE 91 XII MEDICINE AND MAGIC 99 XIII RED SAILS AND BLUE WINGS 111 XIV THE RATS’ WARNING 117 XV THE BARBARY DRAGON 125 XVI TOO-TOO, THE LISTENER 133 XVII THE OCEAN GOSSIPS 141 XVIII SMELLS 149 XIX THE ROCK 159 XX THE FISHERMAN’S TOWN 167 XXI HOME AGAIN 174

 
_ILLUSTRATIONS_

  “A little town called Puddleby-on-the-Marsh” _Frontispiece_ PAGE “And she never came to see him any more” 3 “He could see as well as ever” 14 “They came at once to his house on the edge of the town” 15 “They used to sit in chairs on the lawn” 19 “‘All right,’ said the Doctor, ‘go and get married’” 23 “One evening when the Doctor was asleep in his chair” 24 “‘I felt sure there was twopence left’” 31 “And the voyage began” 35 “‘We must have run into Africa’” 41 “‘I got into it because I did not want to be drowned’” 44 “And Queen Ermintrude was asleep” 48 “‘Who’s that?’” 52 “Cheering and waving leaves and swinging out of the branches to greet him” 61 “John Dolittle was the last to cross” 65 “He made all the monkeys who were still well come and be vaccinated” 68 “‘_ME, the King of Beasts_, to wait on a lot of dirty monkeys?’” 70 “Then the Grand Gorilla got up” 76 “‘Lord save us!’ cried the duck. ‘How does it make up its mind?’” 85 “He began reading the fairy-stories to himself” 96 “Crying bitterly and waving till the ship was out of sight” 109 “‘They are surely the pirates of Barbary’” 114 “‘And you have heard that rats always leave a sinking ship?’” 119 “‘Look here, Ben Ali—’” 127 “‘Sh!—Listen!—I do believe there’s someone in there!’” 136 “‘You stupid piece of warm bacon!’” 153 “‘Doctor!’ he cried. ‘I’ve got it!’” 160 “And she kissed the Doctor many times” 170 “The Doctor sat in a chair in front” 176 “He began running round the garden like a crazy thing” 178

  _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 littlechildren—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 thestreet in his high hat everyone would say, “There goes the Doctor!—He’sa clever man.” And the dogs and the children would all run up andfollow behind him; and even the crows that lived in the church-towerwould 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 seatsand weeping-willows hanging over. His sister, Sarah Dolittle, washousekeeper for him; but the Doctor looked after the garden himself.

  He was very fond of animals and kept many kinds of pets. Besides thegold-fish in the pond at the bottom of his garden, he had rabbits inthe pantry, white mice in his piano, a squirrel in the linen closetand a hedgehog in the cellar. He had a cow with a calf too, and an oldlame horse—twenty-five years of age—and chickens, and pigeons, and twolambs, and many other animals. But his favorite pets were Dab-Dab theduck, Jip the dog, Gub-Gub the baby pig, Polynesia the parrot, and theowl Too-Too.

  “And she never came to see him any more”]

  His sister used to grumble about all these animals and said they madethe house untidy. And one day when an old lady with rheumatism came tosee the Doctor, she sat on the hedgehog who was sleeping on the sofaand never came to see him any more, but drove every Saturday allthe way to Oxenthorpe, another town ten miles off, to see a differentdoctor.

  Then his sister, Sarah Dolittle, came to him and said,

  “John, how can you expect sick people to come and see you when youkeep all these animals in the house? It’s a fine doctor would havehis parlor full of hedgehogs and mice! That’s the fourth personagethese animals have driven away. Squire Jenkins and the Parson say theywouldn’t come near your house again—no matter how sick they are. Weare getting poorer every day. If you go on like this, none of the bestpeople 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 thepeople who came to see him got less and less. Till at last he hadno one left—except the Cat’s-meat-Man, who didn’t mind any kind ofanimals. But the Cat’s-meat-Man wasn’t very rich and he only got sickonce a year—at Christmas-time, when he used to give the Doctor sixpencefor 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, noone knows what would have happened.

  And he kept on getting still more pets; and of course it cost a lot tofeed 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. Butthe money he got for that too began to go, so he sold the brown suit hewore on Sundays and went on becoming poorer and poorer.

  And now, when he walked down the street in his high hat, people wouldsay to one another, “There goes John Dolittle, M.D.! There was a timewhen he was the best known doctor in the West Country—Look at himnow—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 followedhim 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 talkingwith 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 ananimal-doctor?” asked the Cat’s-meat-Man.

  The parrot, Polynesia, was sitting in the window looking out at therain and singing a sailor-song to herself. She stopped singing andstarted to listen.

  “You see, Doctor,” the Cat’s-meat-Man went on, “you know all aboutanimals—much more than what these here vets do. That book youwrote—about cats, why, it’s wonderful! I can’t read or write myself—ormaybe _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 allcan be said—wonderful. You might have been a cat yourself. You knowthe way they think. And listen: you can make a lot of money doctoringanimals. Do you know that? You see, I’d send all the old women who hadsick cats or dogs to you. And if they didn’t get sick fast enough, Icould 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’tbe right.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean real sick,” answered the Cat’s-meat-Man. “Just alittle 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’llget 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 weaklambs—they’d come. Be an animal-doctor.”

  When the Cat’s-meat-Man had gone the parrot flew off the window on tothe Doctor’s table and said,

  “That man’s got sense. That’s what you ought to do. Be ananimal-doctor. Give the silly people up—if they haven’t brains enoughto see you’re the best doctor in the world. Take care of animalsinstead—_they_’ll soon find
it out. Be an animal-doctor.”

  “Oh, there are plenty of animal-doctors,” said John Dolittle, puttingthe flower-pots outside on the window-sill to get the rain.

  “Yes, there _are_ plenty,” said Polynesia. “But none of them are anygood at all. Now listen, Doctor, and I’ll tell you something. Did youknow that animals can talk?”

  “I knew that parrots can talk,” said the Doctor.

  “Oh, we parrots can talk in two languages—people’s language andbird-language,” said Polynesia proudly. “If I say, ‘Polly wants acracker,’ 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 tome before.”

  “What would have been the good?” said Polynesia, dusting somecracker-crumbs off her left wing. “You wouldn’t have understood me if Ihad.”

  “Tell me some more,” said the Doctor, all excited; and he rushedover to the dresser-drawer and came back with the butcher’s book anda pencil. “Now don’t go too fast—and I’ll write it down. This isinteresting—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 languageof their own and could talk to one another. And all that afternoon,while it was raining, Polynesia sat on the kitchen table giving himbird words to put down in the book.