Chapter 8 Doctor Dolittle's Zoo by Hugh Lofting
THE PUDDLEBY GOLD RUSH
This is lucky,” whispered Polynesia as we came to a halt before the hole which the badger had dug. “Puddleby Common, public property—don't you see, Tommy? Even if any one does see us digging here they can't stop us. Just the same, we must not give the show away. Get your spade now and go to work.”
I was still very sleepy. But little by little the fascination of hunting in the earth for treasure took hold of me. And before long I was working away as though my life depended on it, and, despite the chill of the morning air, the perspiration was running down my forehead in streams and I had to stop often and dry it off.
We had explained to the badger what we were after, and his assistance was very helpful. He began by going down to the bottom of the hole and bringing up several shapeless pieces of gravelly metal. These, when I cut into them with a pen-knife, showed the soft, yellow gold of which they were composed.
“That's the piece I broke my tooth on,” said the66 badger—”and it is the last of it. Is the stuff any good?”
“Why, my gracious!” said Polynesia, “of course it is. That's what they make money out of—sovereigns. Are you sure this is all there is? If we can get enough we have made the Doctor a rich man for life.”
The badger went back and dug the hole still deeper, and with my spade I cut away the bank all around and leveled out tons of gravel, which we searched and raked over diligently. But not another nugget could we find.
“Well, just the same,” said Polynesia, inspecting the array of pieces which I had laid out on my open handkerchief, “we have a tidy little fortune as it is. Now let's get away before any one sees what we've been up to.”
When we told the Doctor about it at breakfast he was much more interested in it from the geological, the scientific point of view, than he was from that of money or profit.
“It is most extraordinary,” he said, examining the specimens I had brought home in the handkerchief. “If you had found old gold coins it would not have been so surprising. But these look like nuggets—native gold. Geologically, this is something quite new for England. I would like to see the place where you found it.”
“In the meantime,” said Dab-Dab, “leave these68 nuggets with me, will you? I know a safe place to keep them till we can turn them into cash.”
When the Doctor set out with me and Polynesia to examine the place where the gold had been found, Jip and Gub-Gub, though they had not been invited, came along too.
Our prospecting exploration was very thorough. We searched the whole length of that gravel bank, digging and sifting and testing. Gub-Gub caught the fever, and Jip, too. They burrowed into the slope like regular prospectors, Gub-Gub using his nose as though he were digging for truffles and Jip scraping out the earth with his front paws the way he always did when he was going after rats.
But we found no more gold.
“It's very puzzling,” said the Doctor; “very. Quite a geological mystery. This is not really gold-bearing gravel at all. And yet that gold is exactly as it would be found in gravel—in nugget form. The only explanation I can think of is that it was dug up elsewhere by some very early miners and then buried here for safe keeping.”
But if we were not successful in finding a real gold mine, we were successful in starting a prospecting boom. By the time the Doctor had finished his survey of the ground it was quite late in the morning. As we left the Common and started on our way home we noticed that one or two people had been watching us. Later we questioned Matthew Mugg and Bumpo, who had accompanied the expedition, and they swore they never told any one. Nevertheless, it apparently leaked out that gold had been found in a gravel bank on Puddleby Common. And by four o'clock that afternoon the place was crowded with people armed with picks, shovels, garden trowels, fire tongs—every imaginable implement—all hunting for gold.
The whole of Puddleby had gone prospecting mad. Nursemaids with perambulators left their charges to bawl while they scratched in the ground with button-hooks and shoe-horns for gold. Loafers, poachers, gipsies, pedlars, the town tradesmen, respectable old gentlemen, school children—they came from all ranks and classes.
One rumor had it that the Doctor had discovered a lot of ancient Roman goblets, made of gold, and several old saucepans and kettles were dug up by the prospectors and taken away to be tested to see what they were made of.
After the second day the poor Common looked as though a cyclone or an earthquake had visited it. And the Town Council said they were going to prosecute the Doctor for the damage he had brought to public property.
For over a week the gold boom continued. People came from outside, real mining experts from London, to look into this strange rumor which had set every one agog.
Gub-Gub, who of all the Doctor's household had the prospecting fever the worst, could hardly be kept away from the Common. He was sure he had found his real profession at last.
“Why,” said he, “I can dig better holes with my nose than any of those duffers can with a spade—and quicker.”
He kept begging to be allowed to go back to continue the hunt. He was so afraid these other people might any minute discover a real mine which ought to be the property of the Dolittle household.
“You need not be worried, Gub-Gub,” said the Doctor. “It isn't a mineral-bearing gravel at all. The gold we got came there by accident. The badger was probably right—there is no more than just that little hoard, which must have been specially buried there ages and ages ago.”
But Gub-Gub, while the boom continued, was not to be dissuaded, and his mining fever got worse rather than better. When the Doctor would not allow him to go back to the Common (he went several times secretly at night) he consoled himself by prospecting in the kitchen garden for mushrooms. He even brought his new profession to the table with him and went prospecting for raisins in the rice pudding.
By whatever means the gold had come, Dab-Dab was very pleased that Polynesia's businesslike attention had secured it all for the Doctor. Left to himself he would most likely not have profited by it at all. The Town Council insisted that he give it up as Crown property. And this he willingly consented to do. But the wily Matthew Mugg consulted an attorney and found that under ancient law the finder was entitled to half of it. Even this sum, when the gold was weighed, proved to be quite considerable.
“Well,” sighed Dab-Dab, “as the Doctor would say, 'it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good.' That old badger breaking his tooth was a stroke of luck. It was just in time. I really didn't know where the next meal was coming from. Now, thank goodness, we shan't have to worry about the bills for another six months, anyhow.”