Chapter 10 Doctor Dolittle's Zoo by Hugh Lofting
THE NEW LEARNING
As the white mouse had prophesied, the new education was taken up with great enthusiasm by all classes of Rat and Mouse Society. The famous and truly rare first imprint from the press of Stubbins & Stubbins did not survive to be handed down to posterity. It was torn to shreds in the first week by the zealous public, who thronged the Animal Public Library in the Dolittle Zoo.
For the white mouse had insisted that the book be put into the library, and that institution officially opened with great pomp and ceremony. This was an occasion also for another of his favorite celebrations. But the more serious purpose was to attract public attention in Animal Town toward education and reading generally.
But the rats and mice continued to be the most keen to learn for themselves. There was a mystery about this new art that appealed to their natural inquisitiveness. The others, dogs, badgers, squirrels, foxes and rabbits, were quite content to be read to aloud. And for the first part of its career the Public Library chiefly did duty as a general recreation room where the white mouse read aloud every afternoon to a mixed and motley company.
The demand for books in the mouse code was enormous. The public, curiously enough, seemed to be very keen about poetry—especially comic poetry. The institution of the Public Library and of the Rat and Mouse Club Library (which was established a little later) seemed to encourage this art tremendously. And many rats and mice who had no idea of being poetic heretofore suddenly, with the new education, blossomed forth into verse.
It became the custom at the restaurant in Mousetown (they called it “The Stilton Cheese”) for rat poets to get up and recite their own ballads to the assembled diners. The audience expressed its opinion of the verse by hooting or cheering. If the poet had a good voice he often sang his ballad, and when it was well received a collection was usually taken up for him by the proprietor. An egg-shell was used as a hat and it was passed round among the tables and the public dropped acorns or grains of barley into it instead of money. Nearly all the mouse poets, as I said, wrote in a cheerful vein and their comic songs were usually the most popular. Often around suppertime if the Doctor and I passed near the zoo wall we would hear shrieks of high-pitched, squeaky laughter; and then we would know that some comic ballad monger85 was singing his latest lampoon to the gay company at The Stilton Cheese.
Another thing that greatly encouraged the new zest for education was the mouse magazine which the Doctor established. It was called “Cellar Life,” and was issued on the first of every month. This, too, was a semi-comic periodical, and besides giving the latest news and gossip of the zoo, it contained jokes and funny pictures.
Now, on the mantelpiece of the Doctor's old waiting room, disused ever since he had given up his practise, a miniature had always stood. It was a tiny portrait painted on ivory of John Dolittle as a young man, and for years it had never been moved from its place between the Empire clock and a Dresden china shepherdess. But one day the miniature disappeared and no one could account for it. The Doctor asked Dab-Dab, and that good housekeeper said she had seen it the previous day when she had given the waiting room its weekly dusting, but had no idea at what hour it had disappeared nor what could have become of it.
The Doctor asked Jip, Too-Too, Chee-Chee, Polynesia and me, but none of us could throw any light on the mystery. John Dolittle valued the picture only because his mother had had it painted by a well-known artist the year he had graduated in medicine. However, he had a great many things to keep him occupied, and after a few more86 inquiries, which met with no better success, he dismissed the matter from his mind.
It was about two weeks after the opening of the Animal Public Library that the white mouse called on the Doctor one evening, when he and I were busy over a new book he was writing on deep-sea plants.
“I have two things I would like to speak to you about, Doctor,” said the Mayor of Animal Town, gravely stroking his white whiskers. “One is, I would like to have a book written—in the mouse code, of course, a textbook on mouse traps. We need it—especially for the new generation. Young boy and girl mice wander off from the nest as soon as they get big enough. And before they've had time to learn anything about the world at all they get caught in the first trap that entices them with a piece of moldy cheese.”
“All right,” said the Doctor. “I think that can be done—if Stubbins here can make the pictures of the traps small enough to go into a mouse-octavo volume.”
“Oh, it could be done in rat-quarto if necessary,” said the white mouse. “This is a textbook, you see. And we are going to make it compulsory for all parents who are members of the club to read it aloud to their children. The accidents from traps this last month have been just appalling. I would like to have every known kind of mouse and rat trap shown. It should be a complete work. Of course, I will help with the writing of it. You will need an expert, an old hand, to describe what the traps smell and look like from a mouse's point of view.”
“Oh, my gracious!” put in Dab-Dab, who was listening down by the fire. “Then we'll have the whole world overrun with mice. It is too bad we haven't got a few good mouse traps in my linen closet.”
“Yes, but you wouldn't like it if there were duck traps there as well,” the white mouse responded, his whiskers bristling with indignation.
“Well, now, what was the other thing you wanted to see me about?” the Doctor asked.
“The other thing is also very important,” said the white mouse. “I've come on behalf of the house committee to invite you and Tommy here to our club's Mooniversary Dinner.”
“Mooniversary,” the Doctor murmured. “Er—what does that mean?”
“Yes, it's a new word,” said the white mouse, rather proudly. “But then all languages have special words, haven't they, which the other languages haven't? So why shouldn't the mouse code have a word or two of its own? It happened this way: the house committee was having a meeting and the Railway Rat—he's one of the members, lived in a railway station, decent fellow, but he smells of89 kerosene—the Railway Rat got up and proposed that since the club had now been going on successfully for some time we ought to have an anniversary dinner to celebrate.”
“You're always celebrating,” muttered Dab-Dab from the fireside.
“Then,” the white mouse continued, “the Hansom Cab Mouse—he's another member, lived under the floor of an old cab, knows London like a book—he gets up and he says, 'Anniversary means a year. The club hasn't been going for a year. A year's a long time in a mouse's life. I suggest we call it the Club's Mooniversary Dinner, to celebrate our month's birthday, not our year's birthday.'
“Well, they argued about it a good deal, but the suggestion was finally accepted—that our celebration banquet should be called the Mooniversary Dinner. Then the Church Mouse—he's another member, lived in a church, awful poor, fed on candle wax mostly, kind of religious type, always wants us to sing hymns instead of comic songs—he gets up and he says, 'I would like to suggest to the committee that the Mooniversary Dinner would not be complete without the presence of Doctor John Dolittle, through whose untiring efforts' (he rather fancies himself as a speaker, does the Church Mouse—I suppose he's heard an awful lot of sermons)—'through whose untiring efforts,' says he, 'for the welfare of rat and mouse society this club first came into being. I propose we invite the Doctor to the Mooniversary Dinner—also that strange lad called Thomas Stubbins who has made a very good assistant manager to the Dolittle Zoo.'
“That motion was carried, too, without any question. And they chose me to come and present the club's invitation. The dinner's to-morrow night, Doctor. You won't have to change or anything. Wear just whatever clothes you happen to have on. But say you'll come.”
“Why, of course,” said John Dolittle, “I shall be delighted—and I'm sure Stubbins will, too.”