Chapter 17 Doctor Dolittle in the Moon by Hugh Lofting
WE HEAR OF "THE COUNCIL"
This expedition on the trail of the Whispering Vines proved to be one of the most fruitful and satisfactory of all our excursions.
When we finally arrived at the home of this species, we found it a very beautiful place. It was a rocky gulch hard by the jungle, where a dense curtain of creepers hung down into a sort of pocket precipice with a spring-fed pool at the bottom. In such a place you could imagine fairies dancing in the dusk, wild beasts of the forest sheltering, or outlaws making their headquarters.
With a squawk Polynesia flew up and settled in the hanging tendrils that draped the rock wall. Instantly we saw a general wave of movement go through the vines and a whispering noise broke out which could be plainly heard by any ears. Evidently the vines were somewhat disturbed at this invasion by a bird they did not know. Polynesia, a little upset herself, flew back to us at once.
"Shiver my timbers!" said she in a disgruntled mutter. "This country would give a body the creeps. Those vines actually moved and squirmed like snakes when I took a hold of them."
"They are not used to you, Polynesia," laughed the Doctor. "You probably scared them to death. Let us see if we can get into conversation with them."
Here the Doctor's experience with the Singing Trees came in very helpfully. I noticed as I watched him go to work with what small apparatus he had brought with him that he now seemed much surer of how to begin. And it was indeed a surprisingly short time before he was actually in conversation with them, as though he had almost been talking with them all his life.
Presently he turned to me and spoke almost the thought that was in my mind.
"Stubbins," he said, "the ease with which these plants answer me would almost make me think they have spoken with a man before! Look, I can actually make responses with the lips, like ordinary human speech."
He dropped the little contrivance he held in his hands and hissing softly through his teeth he gave out a sort of whispered cadence. It was a curious combination between some one humming a tune and hissing a conversational sentence.
Usually it had taken John Dolittle some hours, occasionally some days, to establish a communication with these strange almost human moon trees good enough to exchange ideas with them. But both Chee-Chee and I grunted with astonishment at the way they instantly responded to his whispered speech. Swinging their leafy tendrils around to meet the breeze at a certain angle, they instantly gave back a humming, hissing message that might have been a repetition of that made by the Doctor himself.
"They say they are glad to see us, Stubbins," he jerked out over his shoulder.
"Why, Doctor," I said, "this is marvellous! You got results right away. I never saw anything like it."
"They have spoken with a man before," he repeated. "Not a doubt of it. I can tell by the way they—Good gracious, what's this?"
He turned and found Chee-Chee tugging at his left sleeve. I have never seen the poor monkey so overcome with fright. He stuttered and jibbered but no intelligible sounds came through his chattering teeth.
"Why, Chee-Chee!" said the Doctor. "What is it?—What's wrong?"
"Look!"—was all he finally managed to gulp.
He pointed down to the margin of the pond lying at the foot of the cliff. We had scaled up to a shelf of rock to get nearer to the vines for convenience. Where the monkey now pointed there was clearly visible in the yellow sand of the pool's beach two enormous footprints such as we had seen by the shores of the lake.
"The Moon Man!" the Doctor whispered.—"Well, I was sure of it—that these vines had spoken with a man before. I wonder—"
"Sh!" Polynesia interrupted. "Don't let them see you looking. But when you get a chance glance up towards the left-hand shoulder of the gulch."
Both the Doctor and I behaved as though we were proceeding with our business of conversing with the vines. Then pretending I was scratching my ear I looked up in the direction the parrot had indicated. There I saw several birds. They were trying to keep themselves hidden among the leaves. But there was no doubt that they were there on the watch.
As we turned back to our work an enormous shadow passed over us, shutting off the light of the sun. We looked up, fearing as any one would, some attack or danger from the air. Slowly a giant moth of the same kind that had brought us to this mysterious world sailed across the heavens and disappeared.
A general silence fell over us all that must have lasted a good three minutes.
"Well," said the Doctor at length, "if this means that the Animal Kingdom has decided finally to make our acquaintance, so much the better. Those are the first birds we have seen—and that was the first insect—since our moth left us. Curious, to find the bird life so much smaller than the insect. However, I suppose they will let us know more when they are ready. Meantime we have plenty to do here. Have you a note book, Stubbins?"
"Yes, Doctor," said I. "I'm quite prepared whenever you are."
Thereupon the Doctor proceeded with his conversation with the Whispering Vines and fired off questions and answers so fast that I was kept more than busy booking what he said.
It was indeed, as I have told you, by far the most satisfactory inquiry we had made into the life of the Moon, animal or vegetable, up to that time. Because while these vines had not the almost human appearance of the Vanity Lilies, they did seem to be in far closer touch with the general life of the Moon. The Doctor asked them about this warfare which we had heard of from the last plants we had visited—the struggle that occurred when one species of plant wished for more room and had to push away its intruding neighbours. And it was then for the first time we heard about the Council.
"Oh," said they, "you mustn't get the idea that one species of plant is allowed to make war for its own benefit regardless of the lives or rights of others. Oh, dear, no! We folk of the Moon have long since got past that. There was a day when we had constant strife, species against species, plants against plants, birds against insects, and so on. But not any more."
"Well, how do you manage?" asked the Doctor, "when two different species want the same thing?"
"It's all arranged by the Council," said the vines.
"Er—excuse me," said the Doctor. "I don't quite understand. What council?"
"Well, you see," said the vines, "some hundreds of years ago—that is, of course, well within the memory of most of us, we—"
"Excuse me again," the Doctor interrupted. "Do you mean that most of the plants and insects and birds here have been living several centuries already?"
"Why, certainly," said the Whispering Vines. "Some, of course, are older than others. But here on the Moon we consider a plant or a bird or a moth quite young if he has seen no more than two hundred years. And there are several trees, and a few members of the Animal Kingdom too, whose memories go back to over a thousand years."
"You don't say!" murmured the Doctor. "I realized, of course, that your lives were much longer than ours on the Earth. But I had no idea you went as far back as that. Goodness me!—Well, please go on."
"In the old days, then, before we instituted the Council," the vines continued, "there was a terrible lot of waste and slaughter. They tell of one time when a species of big lizard overran the whole Moon. They grew so enormous that they ate up almost all the green stuff there was. No tree or bush or plant got a chance to bring itself to seeding-time because as soon as it put out a leaf it was gobbled up by those hungry brutes. Then the rest of us got together to see what we could do."
"Er—pardon," said the Doctor. "But how do you mean, got together? You plants could not move, could you?"
"Oh, no," said the vines. "We couldn't move, But we could communicate with the rest—take part in conferences, as it were, by means of messengers—birds and insects, you know."
"How long ago was that?" asked the Doctor.—"I mean, for how long has the animal and vegetable world here been able to communicate with one another?"
"Precisely," said the vines, "we can't tell you. Of course, some sort of communication goes back a perfectly enormous long way, some hundreds of thousands of years. But it was not always as good as it is now. It has been improving all the time. Nowadays it would be impossible for anything of any importance at all to happen in our corner of the Moon without its being passed along through plants and trees and insects and birds to every other corner of our globe within a few moments. For instance, we have known almost every movement you and your party have made since you landed in our world."
"Dear me!" muttered the Doctor. "I had no idea. However, please proceed."
"Of course," they went on, "it was not always so. But after the institution of the Council communication and co-operation became much better and continued to grow until it reached its present stage."