The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle

“Oh you do, do you?” murmured the Doctor. “Humph!—Well!—Dear me!—You don’t say!—Well, well! Have you er—have you spoken to your mother and father about it?”

“No, not yet,” I said. “I want you to speak to them for me. You would do it better. I want to be your helper—your assistant, if you’ll have me. Last night my mother was saying that she didn’t consider it right for me to come here so often for meals. And I’ve been thinking about it a good deal since. Couldn’t we make some arrangement—couldn’t I work for my meals and sleep here?”

“But my dear Stubbins,” said the Doctor, laughing, “you are quite welcome to come here for three meals a day all the year round. I’m only too glad to have you. Besides, you do do a lot of work, as it is. I’ve often felt that I ought to pay you for what you do—But what arrangement was it that you thought of?”

“Well, I thought,” said I, “that perhaps you would come and see my mother and father and tell them that if they let me live here with you and work hard, that you will teach me to read and write. You see my mother is awfully anxious to have me learn reading and writing. And besides, I couldn’t be a proper naturalist without, could I?”

“Oh, I don’t know so much about that,” said the Doctor. “It is nice, I admit, to be able to read and write. But naturalists are not all alike, you know. For example: this young fellow Charles Darwin that people are talking about so much now—he’s a Cambridge graduate—reads and writes very well. And then Cuvier—he used to be a tutor. But listen, the greatest naturalist of them all doesn’t even know how to write his own name nor to read the A B C.”

“Who is he?” I asked.

“He is a mysterious person,” said the Doctor—“a very mysterious person. His name is Long Arrow, the son of Golden Arrow. He is a Red Indian.”

“Have you ever seen him?” I asked.

“No,” said the Doctor, “I’ve never seen him. No white man has ever met him. I fancy Mr. Darwin doesn’t even know that he exists. He lives almost entirely with the animals and with the different tribes of Indians—usually somewhere among the mountains of Peru. Never stays long in one place. Goes from tribe to tribe, like a sort of Indian tramp.”

“How do you know so much about him?” I asked—“if you’ve never even seen him?”

“The Purple Bird-of-Paradise,” said the Doctor—“she told me all about him. She says he is a perfectly marvelous naturalist. I got her to take a message to him for me last time she was here. I am expecting her back any day now. I can hardly wait to see what answer she has brought from him. It is already almost the last week of August. I do hope nothing has happened to her on the way.”

“But why do the animals and birds come to you when they are sick?” I said—“Why don’t they go to him, if he is so very wonderful?”

“It seems that my methods are more up to date,” said the Doctor. “But from what the Purple Bird-of-Paradise tells me, Long Arrow’s knowledge of natural history must be positively tremendous. His specialty is botany—plants and all that sort of thing. But he knows a lot about birds and animals too. He’s very good on bees and beetles—But now tell me, Stubbins, are you quite sure that you really want to be a naturalist?”

“Yes,” said I, “my mind is made up.”

“Well you know, it isn’t a very good profession for making money. Not at all, it isn’t. Most of the good naturalists don’t make any money whatever. All they do is spend money, buying butterfly-nets and cases for birds’ eggs and things. It is only now, after I have been a naturalist for many years, that I am beginning to make a little money from the books I write.”

“I don’t care about money,” I said. “I want to be a naturalist. Won’t you please come and have dinner with my mother and father next Thursday—I told them I was going to ask you—and then you can talk to them about it. You see, there’s another thing: if I’m living with you, and sort of belong to your house and business, I shall be able to come with you next time you go on a voyage.”

“Oh, I see,” said he, smiling. “So you want to come on a voyage with me, do you?—Ah hah!”

“I want to go on all your voyages with you. It would be much easier for you if you had someone to carry the butterfly-nets and note-books. Wouldn’t it now?”

For a long time the Doctor sat thinking, drumming on the desk with his fingers, while I waited, terribly impatiently, to see what he was going to say.

At last he shrugged his shoulders and stood up.

“Well, Stubbins,” said he, “I’ll come and talk it over with you and your parents next Thursday. And—well, we’ll see. We’ll see. Give your mother and father my compliments and thank them for their invitation, will you?”

Then I tore home like the wind to tell my mother that the Doctor had promised to come.

THE THIRTEENTH CHAPTER

A TRAVELER ARRIVES

THE next day I was sitting on the wall of the Doctor’s garden after tea, talking to Dab-Dab. I had now learned so much from Polynesia that I could talk to most birds and some animals without a great deal of difficulty. I found Dab-Dab a very nice, old, motherly bird—though not nearly so clever and interesting as Polynesia. She had been housekeeper for the Doctor many years now.

Well, as I was saying, the old duck and I were sitting on the flat top of the garden-wall that evening, looking down into the Oxenthorpe Road below. We were watching some sheep being driven to market in Puddleby; and Dab-Dab had just been telling me about the Doctor’s adventures in Africa. For she had gone on a voyage with him to that country long ago.

Suddenly I heard a curious distant noise down the road, towards the town. It sounded like a lot of people cheering. I stood up on the wall to see if I could make out what was coming. Presently there appeared round a bend a great crowd of school-children following a very ragged, curious-looking woman.

“What in the world can it be?” cried Dab-Dab.

The children were all laughing and shouting. And certainly the woman they were following was most extraordinary. She had very long arms and the most stooping shoulders I have ever seen. She wore a straw hat on the side of her head with poppies on it; and her skirt was so long for her it dragged on the ground like a ball-gown’s train. I could not see anything of her face because of the wide hat pulled over her eyes. But as she got nearer to us and the laughing of the children grew louder, I noticed that her hands were very dark in color, and hairy, like a witch’s.

Then all of a sudden Dab-Dab at my side startled me by crying out in a loud voice,

“Why, it’s Chee-Chee!—Chee-Chee come back at last! How dare those children tease him! I’ll give the little imps something to laugh at!”

And she flew right off the wall down into the road and made straight for the children, squawking away in a most terrifying fashion and pecking at their feet and legs. The children made off down the street back to the town as hard as they could run.

The strange-looking figure in the straw hat stood gazing after them a moment and then came wearily up to the gate. It didn’t bother to undo the latch but just climbed right over the gate as though it were something in the way. And then I noticed that it took hold of the bars with its feet, so that it really had four hands to climb with. But it was only when I at last got a glimpse of the face under the hat that I could be really sure it was a monkey.

Chee-Chee—for it was he—frowned at me suspiciously from the top of the gate, as though he thought I was going to laugh at him like the other boys and girls. Then he dropped into the garden on the inside and immediately started taking off his clothes. He tore the straw hat in two and threw it down into the road. Then he took off his bodice and skirt, jumped on them savagely and began kicking them round the front garden.

Presently I heard a screech from the house, and out flew Polynesia, followed by the Doctor and Jip.

“Chee-Chee!—Chee-Chee!” shouted the parrot. “You’ve come at last! I always told the Doctor you’d find a way. How ever did you do it?”

They all gathered round him shaking him by his four hands, laughing and asking him a million questions at once. Then they all started back for the house.

“Run up to my bedroom, Stubbins,” said the Doctor, turning to me. “You’ll find a bag of peanuts in the small left-hand drawer of the bureau. I have always kept them there in case he might come back unexpectedly some day. And wait a minute—see if Dab-Dab has any bananas in the pantry. Chee-Chee hasn’t had a banana, he tells me, in two months.”

When I came down again to the kitchen I found everybody listening attentively to the monkey who was telling the story of his journey from Africa.

THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER

CHEE-CHEE’S VOYAGE

It seems that after Polynesia had left, Chee-Chee had grown more homesick than ever for the Doctor and the little house in Puddleby. At last he had made up his mind that by hook or crook he would follow her. And one day, going down to the seashore, he saw a lot of people, black and white, getting on to a ship that was coming to England. He tried to get on too. But they turned him back and drove him away. And presently he noticed a whole big family of funny people passing on to the ship. And one of the children in this family reminded Chee-Chee of a cousin of his with whom he had once been in love. So he said to himself, “That girl looks just as much like a monkey as I look like a girl. If I could only get some clothes to wear I might easily slip on to the ship amongst these families, and people would take me for a girl. Good idea!”

So he went off to a town that was quite close, and hopping in through an open window he found a skirt and bodice lying on a chair. They belonged to a fashionable black lady who was taking a bath. Chee-Chee put them on. Next he went back to the seashore, mingled with the crowd there and at last sneaked safely on to the big ship. Then he thought he had better hide, for fear people might look at him too closely. And he stayed hidden all the time the ship was sailing to England—only coming out at night, when everybody was asleep, to find food.

When he reached England and tried to get off the ship, the sailors saw at last that he was only a monkey dressed up in girl’s clothes; and they wanted to keep him for a pet. But he managed to give them the slip; and once he was on shore, he dived into the crowd and got away. But he was still a long distance from Puddleby and had to come right across the whole breadth of England.

He had a terrible time of it. Whenever he passed through a town all the children ran after him in a crowd, laughing; and often silly people caught hold of him and tried to stop him, so that he had to run up lamp-posts and climb to chimney-pots to escape from them. At night he used to sleep in ditches or barns or anywhere he could hide; and he lived on the berries he picked from the hedges and the cob-nuts that grew in the copses. At length, after many adventures and narrow squeaks, he saw the tower of Puddleby Church and he knew that at last he was near his old home.

When Chee-Chee had finished his story he ate six bananas without stopping and drank a whole bowlful of milk.

“My!” he said, “why wasn’t I born with wings, like Polynesia, so I could fly here? You’ve no idea how I grew to hate that hat and skirt. I’ve never been so uncomfortable in my life. All the way from Bristol here, if the wretched hat wasn’t falling off my head or catching in the trees, those beastly skirts were tripping me up and getting wound round everything. What on earth do women wear those things for? Goodness, I was glad to see old Puddleby this morning when I climbed over the hill by Bellaby’s farm!”

“Your bed on top of the plate-rack in the scullery is all ready for you,” said the Doctor. “We never had it disturbed in case you might come back.”

“Yes,” said Dab-Dab, “and you can have the old smoking-jacket of the Doctor’s which you used to use as a blanket, in case it is cold in the night.”

“Thanks,” said Chee-Chee. “It’s good to be back in the old house again. Everything’s just the same as when I left—except the clean roller-towel on the back of the door there—that’s new—Well, I think I’ll go to bed now. I need sleep.”

Then we all went out of the kitchen into the scullery and watched Chee-Chee climb the plate-rack like a sailor going up a mast. On the top, he curled himself up, pulled the old smoking-jacket over him, and in a minute he was snoring peacefully.

“Good old Chee-Chee!” whispered the Doctor. “I’m glad he’s back.”

“Yes—good old Chee-Chee!” echoed Dab-Dab and Polynesia.

Then we all tip-toed out of the scullery and closed the door very gently behind us.

THE FIFTEENTH CHAPTER

I BECOME A DOCTOR’S ASSISTANT

WHEN Thursday evening came there was great excitement at our house. My mother had asked me what were the Doctor’s favorite dishes, and I had told her: spare ribs, sliced beet-root, fried bread, shrimps and treacle-tart. To-night she had them all on the table waiting for him; and she was now fussing round the house to see if everything was tidy and in readiness for his coming.

At last we heard a knock upon the door, and of course it was I who got there first to let him in.

The Doctor had brought his own flute with him this time. And after supper was over (which he enjoyed very much) the table was cleared away and the washing-up left in the kitchen-sink till the next day. Then the Doctor and my father started playing duets.

They got so interested in this that I began to be afraid that they would never come to talking over my business. But at last the Doctor said,

“Your son tells me that he is anxious to become a naturalist.”

And then began a long talk which lasted far into the night. At first both my mother and father were rather against the idea—as they had been from the beginning. They said it was only a boyish whim, and that I would get tired of it very soon. But after the matter had been talked over from every side, the Doctor turned to my father and said,

“Well now, supposing, Mr. Stubbins, that your son came to me for two years—that is, until he is twelve years old. During those two years he will have time to see if he is going to grow tired of it or not. Also during that time, I will promise to teach him reading and writing and perhaps a little arithmetic as well. What do you say to that?”

“I don’t know,” said my father, shaking his head. “You are very kind and it is a handsome offer you make, Doctor. But I feel that Tommy ought to be learning some trade by which he can earn his living later on.”

Then my mother spoke up. Although she was nearly in tears at the prospect of my leaving her house while I was still so young, she pointed out to my father that this was a grand chance for me to get learning.

“Now Jacob,” she said, “you know that many lads in the town have been to the Grammar School till they were fourteen or fifteen years old. Tommy can easily spare these two years for his education; and if he learns no more than to read and write, the time will not be lost. Though goodness knows,” she added, getting out her handkerchief to cry, “the house will seem terribly empty when he’s gone.”

“I will take care that he comes to see you, Mrs. Stubbins,” said the Doctor—“every day, if you like. After all, he will not be very far away.”

Well, at length my father gave in; and it was agreed that I was to live with the Doctor and work for him for two years in exchange for learning to read and write and for my board and lodging.

“Of course,” added the Doctor, “while I have money I will keep Tommy in clothes as well. But money is a very irregular thing with me; sometimes I have some, and then sometimes I haven’t.”

“You are very good, Doctor,” said my mother, drying her tears. “It seems to me that Tommy is a very fortunate boy.”

And then, thoughtless, selfish little imp that I was, I leaned over and whispered in the Doctor’s ear,

“Please don’t forget to say something about the voyages.”

“Oh, by the way,” said John Dolittle, “of course occasionally my work requires me to travel. You will have no objection, I take it, to your son’s coming with me?”

My poor mother looked up sharply, more unhappy and anxious than ever at this new turn; while I stood behind the Doctor’s chair, my heart thumping with excitement, waiting for my father’s answer.

“No,” he said slowly after a while. “If we agree to the other arrangement I don’t see that we’ve the right to make any objection to that.”

Well, there surely was never a happier boy in the world than I was at that moment. My head was in the clouds. I trod on air. I could scarcely keep from dancing round the parlor. At last the dream of my life was to come true! At last I was to be given a chance to seek my fortune, to have adventures! For I knew perfectly well that it was now almost time for the Doctor to start upon another voyage. Polynesia had told me that he hardly ever stayed at home for more than six months at a stretch. Therefore he would be surely going again within a fortnight. And I—I, Tommy Stubbins, would go with him! Just to think of it!—to cross the Sea, to walk on foreign shores, to roam the World!

PART TWO

THE FIRST CHAPTER

THE CREW OF “THE CURLEW”

FROM that time on of course my position in the town was very different. I was no longer a poor cobbler’s son. I carried my nose in the air as I went down the High Street with Jip in his gold collar at my side; and snobbish little boys who had despised me before because I was not rich enough to go to school now pointed me out to their friends and whispered, “You see him? He’s a doctor’s assistant—and only ten years old!”

But their eyes would have opened still wider with wonder if they had but known that I and the dog that was with me could talk to one another.

Two days after the Doctor had been to our house to dinner he told me very sadly that he was afraid that he would have to give up trying to learn the language of the shellfish—at all events for the present.

“I’m very discouraged, Stubbins, very. I’ve tried the mussels and the clams, the oysters and the whelks, cockles and scallops; seven different kinds of crabs and all the lobster family. I think I’ll leave it for the present and go at it again later on.”

“What will you turn to now?” I asked.

“Well, I rather thought of going on a voyage, Stubbins. It’s quite a time now since I’ve been away. And there is a great deal of work waiting for me abroad.”

“When shall we start?” I asked.

“Well, first I shall have to wait till the Purple Bird-of-Paradise gets here. I must see if she has any message for me from Long Arrow. She’s late. She should have been here ten days ago. I hope to goodness she’s all right.”

“Well, hadn’t we better be seeing about getting a boat?” I said. “She is sure to be here in a day or so; and there will be lots of things to do to get ready in the mean time, won’t there?”

“Yes, indeed,” said the Doctor. “Suppose we go down and see your friend Joe, the mussel-man. He will know about boats.”

“I’d like to come too,” said Jip.

“All right, come along,” said the Doctor, and off we went.

Joe said yes, he had a boat—one he had just bought—but it needed three people to sail her. We told him we would like to see it anyway.

So the mussel-man took us off a little way down the river and showed us the neatest, prettiest, little vessel that ever was built. She was called The Curlew. Joe said he would sell her to us cheap. But the trouble was that the boat needed three people, while we were only two.

“Of course I shall be taking Chee-Chee,” said the Doctor. “But although he is very quick and clever, he is not as strong as a man. We really ought to have another person to sail a boat as big as that.”

“I know of a good sailor, Doctor,” said Joe—“a first-class seaman who would be glad of the job.”

“No, thank you, Joe,” said Doctor Dolittle. “I don’t want any seamen. I couldn’t afford to hire them. And then they hamper me so, seamen do, when I’m at sea. They’re always wanting to do things the proper way; and I like to do them my way—Now let me see: who could we take with us?”

“There’s Matthew Mugg, the cat’s-meat-man,” I said.

“No, he wouldn’t do. Matthew’s a very nice fellow, but he talks too much—mostly about his rheumatism. You have to be frightfully particular whom you take with you on long voyages.”

“How about Luke the Hermit?” I asked.

“That’s a good idea—splendid—if he’ll come. Let’s go and ask him right away.”

THE SECOND CHAPTER

LUKE THE HERMIT

THE Hermit was an old friend of ours, as I have already told you. He was a very peculiar person. Far out on the marshes he lived in a little bit of a shack—all alone except for his brindle bulldog. No one knew where he came from—not even his name. Just “Luke the Hermit” folks called him. He never came into the town; never seemed to want to see or talk to people. His dog, Bob, drove them away if they came near his hut. When you asked anyone in Puddleby who he was or why he lived out in that lonely place by himself, the only answer you got was, “Oh, Luke the Hermit? Well, there’s some mystery about him. Nobody knows what it is. But there’s a mystery. Don’t go near him. He’ll set the dog on you.”

Nevertheless there were two people who often went out to that little shack on the fens: the Doctor and myself. And Bob, the bulldog, never barked when he heard us coming. For we liked Luke; and Luke liked us.

This afternoon, crossing the marshes we faced a cold wind blowing from the East. As we approached the hut Jip put up his ears and said,

“That’s funny!”

“What’s funny?” asked the Doctor.

“That Bob hasn’t come out to meet us. He should have heard us long ago—or smelt us. What’s that queer noise?”

“Sounds to me like a gate creaking,” said the Doctor. “Maybe it’s Luke’s door, only we can’t see the door from here; it’s on the far side of the shack.”

“I hope Bob isn’t sick,” said Jip; and he let out a bark to see if that would call him. But the only answer he got was the wailing of the wind across the wide, salt fen.

We hurried forward, all three of us thinking hard.

When we reached the front of the shack we found the door open, swinging and creaking dismally in the wind. We looked inside. There was no one there.

“Isn’t Luke at home then?” said I. “Perhaps he’s out for a walk.”

“He is always at home,” said the Doctor frowning in a peculiar sort of way. “And even if he were out for a walk he wouldn’t leave his door banging in the wind behind him. There is something queer about this—What are you doing in there, Jip?”

“Nothing much—nothing worth speaking of,” said Jip examining the floor of the hut extremely carefully.

“Come here, Jip,” said the Doctor in a stern voice. “You are hiding something from me. You see signs and you know something—or you guess it. What has happened? Tell me. Where is the Hermit?”

“I don’t know,” said Jip looking very guilty and uncomfortable. “I don’t know where he is.”

“Well, you know something. I can tell it from the look in your eye. What is it?”

But Jip didn’t answer.

For ten minutes the Doctor kept questioning him. But not a word would the dog say.

“Well,” said the Doctor at last, “it is no use our standing around here in the cold. The Hermit’s gone. That’s all. We might as well go home to luncheon.”

As we buttoned up our coats and started back across the marsh, Jip ran ahead pretending he was looking for water-rats.

“He knows something all right,” whispered the Doctor. “And I think he knows what has happened too. It’s funny, his not wanting to tell me. He has never done that before—not in eleven years. He has always told me everything—Strange—very strange!”

“Do you mean you think he knows all about the Hermit, the big mystery about him which folks hint at and all that?”

“I shouldn’t wonder if he did,” the Doctor answered slowly. “I noticed something in his expression the moment we found that door open and the hut empty. And the way he sniffed the floor too—it told him something, that floor did. He saw signs we couldn’t see—I wonder why he won’t tell me. I’ll try him again. Here, Jip! Jip!—Where is the dog? I thought he went on in front.”