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 a regular zoo to the ordinary public's way of thinking, it was very certainly Doctor Dolittle's idea of one. In his opinion, a zoo should be an animals' home, not an animals' prison. Every detail of our zoo (as with the first one the Doctor had shown me long ago) was worked out with this idea foremost in mind, that the animals should be made comfortable and happy. Many of the old things were kept the same. For example, the latches to the houses were all on the inside, so that the animals could come in and go out when they chose. Latchkeys were given out (if a tenant wanted one) when a house or room or hole was let. There were certain rules, it is true, although the Doctor was not fond of rules, but they were all drawn up to protect the animals against one another, rather than to enslave them or cut off their liberty in any way. For instance, any one wishing to give a party had to notify his next-door neighbor (they were very close, of course); and no tenant was allowed to sing comic songs after midnight.
THE FIFTH CHAPTER ANIMAL TOWN
ONE of the greatest difficulties the Doctor had in all his dealings with the Animal Kingdom was that of keeping anything secret. But then, I suppose, when we remember how hard it is for people to keep secrets, that need not be so surprising. Polynesia, as soon as I told her about the idea of the new zoo, immediately warned me.
“Keep this to yourself, now, Tommy, as long as you can. If you don't, neither you nor the Doctor will get any peace.”
I certainly kept it to myself. But nevertheless the news leaked out somehow that John Dolittle was reorganizing and enlarging his zoo in order that a lot of new animals might live with him. And then, exactly as Polynesia had prophesied, we were pestered to death morning, noon and night with applications. You would think that all the animals in the world had been waiting the whole of their lives for a chance to get into the Doctor's household.
He at once had it announced that as I was to be the assistant manager of the new zoo all applications must be made through me. But even so, of course, while that did relieve him of a good deal of annoyance, a great many animals who had known him a long time applied to him direct for a home in the new establishment.
And then we had quite a difficult time sending away some of the old tenants. The Doctor had found that for many foreigners the climate of Puddleby was quite unsuitable. There were a pair of beavers, for example, who had been sick a good deal and quite noticeably out of condition almost the whole time. But they were so attached to the Doctor that although he had often suggested sending them back to Canada they had always politely but stubbornly declined. However, on the Doctor's return this time he found them in such poor health he decided it would be kinder to be firm.
“Listen,” he said to them, “you may not know it, but this climate is very, very bad for you. It is either not cold enough or not dry enough—or something. I can't have you throwing your health away like this out of mere sentiment. You've got to go back to Canada.”
Well, the beavers just burst into tears, both of them. And it was not until John Dolittle had promised them that they should come back after two years—if at the end of that time they still wanted to—that they were consoled and consented to go.
It was part of my duties as assistant manager to secure the beavers' passage back to Canada. This was no simple matter, as you can easily imagine, because, of course, I could not just hand them over to any one. I spent several days around the docks of Tilbury before I found a ship's steward whose references for honesty and reliability were such as to satisfy the Doctor. For a certain sum of money he agreed to take them to Halifax on his ship's next voyage to Nova Scotia and to let them go at the mouth of a river well outside the limits of the town.
Not only were there many applications from single animals and families of animals for accommodations in our zoo, but as soon as it got abroad that John Dolittle was going to set up his long-promised Rat and Mouse Club every other species of animal on earth, it seemed to me, sent committees to him to ask couldn't they have a club, too.
“I told you what it would be like,” said Polynesia, as she and I were pondering one day over a map of the new zoo which I had laid out. “If the space you had was ten times as big you couldn't accommodate them all.”
“But look here,” said the white mouse (it was most amusing to see how important he had become now that he was being consulted in the Doctor's schemes), “suppose we set out on your drawing here all the different establishments, private houses, flats, hotels, clubs and what not, then we can see better how much room there
