Part II Chapter 12 Doctor Dolittle's Garden by Hugh Lofting
"THE DAYS BEFORE THERE WAS A MOON"
I don't know that I have ever seen the Doctor more interested in anything than he seemed to be in this story of Otho Bludge and Pippiteepa.
"Tell me, Chee-Chee," said he, "you say your grandmother told you this story, eh?"
"Yes," Chee-Chee replied, "it was one of her favourite ones. I must have heard her tell it at least a dozen times."
"Humph!" the Doctor grunted, "very curious—most peculiar. Did she ever say anything which might give you an idea of when—how long ago—this took place?"
"Well," said Chee-Chee, "of course to me it only seemed like a—er—a legend, I think you call it—something that might have never happened but which was believed by almost every one."
"But the time?" the Doctor repeated. "You have no idea about when this was supposed to have happened—I mean anything else that was spoken of as belonging to the same period which might give us some clue?"
"No, I don't think so," Chee-Chee answered.—"And yet, wait, there was something. I remember she always began the story this way: 'In the days before there was a Moon,' I could never understand why. It didn't seem to me very important."
Doctor Dolittle almost leapt out of his chair.
"Did your grandmother ever speak of the Moon further, Chee-Chee—I mean anything more than just that?"
"Yes," said Chee-Chee, evidently cudgelling his brain to remember things long past. "It seems that in monkey history, which was of course always a mouth to mouth business, there was a belief that the Moon was once a part of the Earth. And there came a great explosion or something and part of it was shot off into the skies and somehow got stuck there. But how it became round like a ball I could never understand nor find anyone who could explain it to me. Because they used to say that the piece of the earth that got shot off was the land where the Pacific Ocean now is and that isn't round at all. But of course the whole thing is by no means certain. Myself, I've always had grave doubts about the truth of any part of the story."
The household was quite delighted over Chee-Chee's story, not only with the entertainment of the tale itself, but because the Doctor became so absorbed in the subject of the Moon and the legends of monkey history that he kept us all up till long after midnight.
"You know, Stubbins," he said to me, "no matter how wild this story may sound, it is curiously borne out by several things. For instance, I remember that in my conversation with the Giant Sea Snail he told me of a belief which was firmly held by the older forms of sea life that some such shooting off of part of the Earth's surface made the deep ocean and accounted for the Moon. Also my geological observations when we were travelling across the floor of the Atlantic certainly pointed to some such violent cleavage—only Chee-Chee says his grandmother spoke of the Pacific Ocean, not the Atlantic. You know it makes me almost want to go back to Africa and question some of the older monkeys there. I might get other versions and more details of this strange story of Otho Bludge and Pippiteepa."
"Well, Doctor," said I, scenting a chance to get him off on a voyage after all—for I felt he sorely needed one—"why not? Last time when you were in Africa, according to Polynesia anyway, you were so busy with hospital work and getting away from the Jolliginki army that there must have been a great deal of interesting work that had to go undone."
"Oh, but," said he, shaking his head impatiently, "I mustn't be tempted. One would never get anything accomplished by just running off after every attractive idea that pulled one this way or that. I must stick to this insect language game till I feel I have really done something worth while with it. I want to follow up the story the moth told me about a giant species. It is funny, these legends in animal history—the monkeys and the Moon: the moths and the Giants. There is something in that I feel sure. The moths are a very mysterious race. I don't believe that one tenth part of what they do in the general economy of the animal and vegetable kingdoms is appreciated. And imagine what a moth the size of a house might do!"
"But surely," said I, "if there were such enormous flies flopping about the world somewhere other people must have seen them. I confess I can hardly believe the story."
"It sounds incredible enough, I know," said he. "But I'm sure that if there were not something in it the story would not exist among the moths."