style="font-size:15px;"> So I led the Doctor to my bedroom at the top of the house and showed him the squirrel in the packing-case filled with straw.
The animal, who had always seemed very much afraid of me—though I had tried hard to make him feel at home, sat up at once when the Doctor came into the room and started to chatter. The Doctor chattered back in the same way and the squirrel when he was lifted up to have his leg examined, appeared to be rather pleased than frightened.
I held a candle while the Doctor tied the leg up in what he called “splints,” which he made out of match-sticks with his pen-knife.
“I think you will find that his leg will get better now in a very short time,” said the Doctor closing up his bag. “Don’t let him run about for at least two weeks yet, but keep him in the open air and cover him up with dry leaves if the nights get cool. He tells me he is rather lonely here, all by himself, and is wondering how his wife and children are getting on. I have assured him you are a man to be trusted; and I will send a squirrel who lives in my garden to find out how his family are and to bring him news of them. He must be kept cheerful at all costs. Squirrels are naturally a very cheerful, active race. It is very hard for them to lie still doing nothing. But you needn’t worry about him. He will be all right.”
Then we went back again to the parlor and my mother and father kept him playing the flute till after ten o’clock.
Although my parents both liked the Doctor tremendously from the first moment that they saw him, and were very proud to have him come and play to us (for we were really terribly poor) they did not realize then what a truly great man he was one day to become. Of course now, when almost everybody in the whole world has heard about Doctor Dolittle and his books, if you were to go to that little house in Puddleby where my father had his cobbler’s shop you would see, set in the wall over the old-fashioned door, a stone with writing on it which says: “JOHN DOLITTLE, THE FAMOUS NATURALIST, PLAYED THE FLUTE IN THIS HOUSE IN THE YEAR 1839.”
I often look back upon that night long, long ago. And if I close my eyes and think hard I can see that parlor just as it was then: a funny little man in coat-tails, with a round kind face, playing away on the flute in front of the fire; my mother on one side of him and my father on the other, holding their breath and listening with their eyes shut; myself, with Jip, squatting on the carpet at his feet, staring into the coals; and Polynesia perched on the mantlepiece beside his shabby high hat, gravely swinging her head from side to side in time to the music. I see it all, just as though it were before me now.
And then I remember how, after we had seen the Doctor out at the front door, we all came back into the parlor and talked about him till it was still later; and even after I did go to bed (I had never stayed up so late in my life before) I dreamed about him and a band of strange clever animals that played flutes and fiddles and drums the whole night through.
THE SEVENTH CHAPTER
SHELLFISH TALK
THE next morning, although I had gone to bed so late the night before, I was up frightfully early. The first sparrows were just beginning to chirp sleepily on the slates outside my attic window when I jumped out of bed and scrambled into my clothes.
I could hardly wait to get back to the little house with the big garden—to see the Doctor and his private zoo. For the first time in my life I forgot all about breakfast; and creeping down the stairs on tip-toe, so as not to wake my mother and father, I opened the front door and popped out into the empty, silent street.
When I got to the Doctor’s gate I suddenly thought that perhaps it was too early to call on any one: and I began to wonder if the Doctor would be up yet. I looked into the garden. No one seemed to be about. So I opened the gate quietly and went inside.
As I turned to the left to go down a path between some hedges, I heard a voice quite close to me say,
“Good morning. How early you are!”
I turned around, and there, sitting on the top of a privet hedge, was the gray parrot, Polynesia.
“Good morning,” I said. “I suppose I am rather early. Is the Doctor still in bed?”
“Oh no,” said Polynesia. “He has been up an hour and a half. You’ll find him in the house somewhere. The front door is open. Just push it and go in. He is sure to be in the kitchen cooking breakfast—or working in his study. Walk right in. I am waiting to see the sun rise. But upon my word I believe it’s forgotten to rise. It is an awful climate, this. Now if we were in Africa the world would be blazing with sunlight at this hour of the morning. Just see that mist rolling over those cabbages. It is enough to give you rheumatism to look at it. Beastly climate—Beastly! Really I don’t know why anything but frogs ever stay in England—Well, don’t let me keep you. Run along and see the Doctor.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll go and look for him.”
When I opened the front door I could smell bacon frying, so I made my way to the kitchen. There I discovered a large kettle boiling away over the fire and some bacon and eggs in a dish upon the hearth. It seemed to me that the bacon was getting all dried up with the heat. So I pulled the dish a little further away from the fire and went on through the house looking for the Doctor.
I found him at last in the Study. I did not know then that it was called the Study. It was certainly a very interesting room, with telescopes and microscopes and all sorts of other strange things which I did not understand about but wished I did. Hanging on the walls were pictures of animals and fishes and strange plants and collections of birds’ eggs and sea-shells in glass cases.
The Doctor was standing at the main table in his dressing-gown. At first I thought he was washing his face. He had a square glass box before him full of water. He was holding one ear under the water while he covered the other with his left hand. As I came in he stood up.
“Good morning, Stubbins,” said he. “Going to be a nice day, don’t you think? I’ve just been listening to the Wiff-Waff. But he is very disappointing—very.”
“Why?” I said. “Didn’t you find that he has any language at all?”
“Oh yes,” said the Doctor, “he has a language. But it is such a poor language—only a few words, like ‘yes’ and ‘no’—‘hot’ and ‘cold.’ That’s all he can say. It’s very disappointing. You see he really belongs to two different families of fishes. I thought he was going to be tremendously helpful—Well, well!”
“I suppose,” said I, “that means he hasn’t very much sense—if his language is only two or three words?”
“Yes, I suppose it does. Possibly it is the kind of life he leads. You see, they are very rare now, these Wiff-Waffs—very rare and very solitary. They swim around in the deepest parts of the ocean entirely by themselves—always alone. So I presume they really don’t need to talk much.”
“Perhaps some kind of a bigger shellfish would talk more,” I said. “After all, he is very small, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” said the Doctor, “that’s true. Oh I have no doubt that there are shellfish who are good talkers—not the least doubt. But the big shellfish—the biggest of them, are so hard to catch. They are only to be found in the deep parts of the sea; and as they don’t swim very much, but just crawl along the floor of the ocean most of the time, they are very seldom taken in nets. I do wish I could find some way of going down to the bottom of the sea. I could learn a lot if I could only do that. But we are forgetting all about breakfast—Have you had breakfast yet, Stubbins?”
I
