Part III Chapter 5 Doctor Dolittle's Post Office by Hugh Lofting
THE WHITE MOUSE'S STORY
"Who's turn is it to give us a story now?" asked the Doctor, when the supper things were cleared away the following evening.
"I think the white mouse ought to tell us one," said Jip.
"Very well," said the white mouse. "I will tell you one of the days of my youth. The Doctor knows this story, but the rest of you have never heard it."
And smoothing back his white whiskers and curling his pink tail snugly about his small, sleek body, he blinked his eyes twice and began:
"When I was born I was one of seven twins. But all my brothers and sisters were ordinary mouse color and I alone out of the whole family was white. My color worried my mother and father a great deal. They said I was so conspicuous and would certainly, as soon as I left the nest, get caught by the first owl or cat that came along.
"We were city folk, my family were—and proud of it. We lived under the floor of a miller's shop. Across the street from our place was a butcher's shop, and next door to us was a dyer's—where they dyed cloth different colors before it went to the tailor's to be made into suits.
"Now, when we children grew up big enough to go off for ourselves our parents gave us all sorts of careful instructions about escaping cats and ferrets and weasels and dogs. But over poor me they shook their heads. They really felt that there was not much hope of my leading a peaceful life with white fur that could be seen a mile off.
"Well, they were quite right. My color got me into trouble the first week that I set out to seek my fortune—but not in the way they thought it would. The son of the miller who owned the shop where we lived found me one morning in a bin of oats.
"'Ah, hah!' he cried. 'A white mouse! The very thing I've been wanting!'
"And he caught me in a fishing net and put me in a cage, to keep as a pet.
"I was very sad at first. But after a while I got sort of used to the life. The boy—he was only eight years old—treated me kindly and fed me regularly each day. I grew almost fond of the funny, snub-nosed lad and became so tame that he would let me out of my cage sometimes and I would run up and down his sleeve. But I never got a chance to escape.
"After some months I began to grow weary of the silly life I was leading. And then, too, the wild mice were so mean to me. They used to come around at night and point at me through the wire of my cage, saying:
"'Look at the tame white mouse! Tee-hee-hee! A plaything for children! Good little mousey! Come and have 'ims facey washed!' The stupid little idiots!
"Well, finally I set to work and thought out a clever plan of escape. I gnawed a hole through the wooden floor of my cage and kept it covered with straw, so the boy couldn't see it. And one night when I heard him safely snoring—he always kept my cage at the head of his bed—I slipped out of the hole and got away.
"I had many adventures with cats. It was winter time and the snow lay thick upon the ground. I started off to explore the world, rejoicing in my liberty. Going around to the back of the house, I passed from the miller's yard into the dyer's yard, next door. In the yard was a dyeing shed and I noticed two owls sitting on the top of it in the moonlight.
"Entering the shed, I met a rat, very old and very thin. Said he to me:
"'I am the oldest rat in the town and I know a great deal. But, tell me, why do you come here into the dyeing shed?'
"'I was looking for food,' I said.
"The old rat laughed a cracked and quavering laugh, with no joy in it at all.
"'There's no food here,' he said, 'only dyes of different colors.' And he pointed to the big dye vats, all in a row, that towered in the half darkness above our heads.
"'Any food there was here I've eaten,' he went on sadly, 'and I dare not go out for more because the owls are waiting on the roof. They'd see my dark body against the snow and I'd stand no chance of escape. I am nearly starved.' And he swayed weakly on his old feet. 'But now you've come, it's different. Some good fairy must have sent you to me. I've been sitting here for days and nights on end, hoping a white mouse might come along. With your white fur, you understand, the owls can't see you so well against the snow. That's what's called protective coloration. I know all about natural history—I'm very old, you see. That is why you managed to get in here without being caught. Go out now, for pity's sake, and bring me the first food of any kind that you can find. The owls by night and the cats by day have kept me shut in here since the snow came without a bite to eat. You are only just in time to save my life.'
"So off I went across the moonlit snow and the blinking owls on the roof of the dyeing shed never spotted me. Against the whiteness I was nearly invisible. I felt quite proud. At last my white fur was coming in handy.
"I found a garbage can and, picking out some bacon rinds, I carried them back to the starving rat. The old fellow was ever so grateful. He ate and ate—my whiskers, how he ate! Finally he said:
"'Ah! Now I feel better.'
"'You know,' said I, 'I have only just escaped from captivity. I was kept as a pet by a boy. So far being white has only been a great inconvenience to me. The cats could see me so well life wasn't worth living.'
"'Well, now, I'll tell you what we'll do,' said he, 'you come and live in this dyeing shed with me. It isn't a bad place—quite warm and snug under the floors, and the foundations are simply riddled with holes and corridors and hiding places. And while the snow is here you can go out and get the food for both of us—because you can't be seen so well against the snow. And when the Winter is over and the earth is black again I will do the food hunting outside and you can do the staying at home. You see, this is a good place to live in in another way—there is nothing for rats and mice to destroy here, so people don't bother about you. Other places—like houses and food shops and mills—folks are always setting traps and sending ferrets after you. But no one minds rats living in a dyeing shed, see? Foolish young rats and mice go and live where there's lots of food. But not for me! I'm a wise one, I am.'
"Well, we agreed upon this arrangement and for a whole year I lived at the dyer's with the old wise rat. And we lived high—no mistake! Not a soul ever bothered us. In the winter days I did the foraging and when Summer came my old partner, who knew where to get the choicest foods in town, kept our larder stocked with the daintiest delicacies. Ah, many's the jolly meal I've had under the floor of the dye shed with that old veteran, chuckling in whispers as we heard the dyers overhead mixing the dyes in the great big vats and talking over the news of the town!
"But none of us are ever content for long, you know—foolish creatures that we are. And by the time the second Summer was coming I was longing to be a free mouse, to roam the world and all that sort of thing. And then, too, I wanted to get married. Maybe the Spring was getting into my blood. So one night I said to the old rat:
"'Rat,' I said, 'I'm in love. All Winter, every night I went out to gather fodder, I've been keeping company with a lady mouse—well-bred she is, with elegant manners. I've a mind to settle down and have a family of my own. Now, here comes the Summer again and I've got to stay shut up in this miserable shed on account of my beastly color.'
"The old rat gazed at me thoughtfully a moment and I knew that he was going to say something particularly wise.
"'Young man,' says he at last, 'if you've a mind to go I reckon I can't stop you—foolish young mad-cap though I think you. And how I'll ever shift for myself after you've gone goodness only knows. But, seeing you have been so useful to me this past year and more, I'll help you.'
"So saying, he takes me upstairs to where the dye vats stood. It was twilight and the men were gone. But we could see the dim shapes of the big vats towering above our heads. Then he takes a string that lay upon the floor and, scaling up the middle vat, he lets the string down inside.
"'What's that for?' I asked.
"'That's for you to climb out by, after you've taken a bath. For you to go abroad in Summer with a coat like yours would mean certain death. So I'm going to dye you black.'
"'Jumping Cheese!' I cried. 'Dye me black!'
"'Just that,' says he. 'It's quite simple. Scale up that middle vat now—on to the edge—and dive right in. Don't be afraid. There's a string there for you to climb out by.'
"Well, I was always adventurous by nature. And, plucking up my courage, I scrambled up the vat, on to the edge of it. It was awful dark and I could just see the dye, glimmering murky and dim, far down inside.
"'Go ahead,' said the old rat. 'Don't be afraid—and be sure you dip your head and all under.'
"Well, it took an awful lot of nerve to take that plunge. And if I hadn't been in love I don't suppose I'd ever have done it. But I did—I dove right down into the dye.
"I thought I'd never come up again, and even when I did I nearly drowned before I found the string in the dark and scrambled, gasping for breath, out of the vat.
"'Fine!' says the old rat. 'Now run around the shed a few times, so you won't take a chill. And then go to bed and cover up. In the morning when it's light you'll find yourself very different.'
"Well—tears come to my eyes when I think of it—the next day, when I woke up, expecting to find myself a smart, decent black, I found instead that I had dyed myself a bright and gaudy blue! That stupid old rat had made a mistake in the vats!"
The white mouse paused a moment in his story, as though overcome with emotion. Presently he went on:
"Never have I been so furious with anyone in my life as I was with that old rat.
"'Look! Look what you've done to me now!' I cried. 'It isn't even a navy blue. You've made me just hideous!'
"'I can't understand it,' he murmured. 'The middle vat used to be the black one, I know. They must have changed them. The blue one was always the one on the left.'
"'You're a stupid old duffer!' I said. And I left the dye shed in great anger and never went back to it again.
"Well, if I had been conspicuous before, now I was a hundred times more so. Against the black earth, or the green grass, or the white snow, or brown floors my loud, sky-blue coat could be seen as plain as a pikestaff. The minute I got outside the shed a cat jumped for me. I gave her the slip and got out into the street. There some wretched children spotted me and, calling to their friends that they had seen a blue mouse, they hunted me along the gutter. At the corner of the street two dogs were fighting. They stopped their fight and joined the chase after me. And very soon I had the whole blessed town at my heels. It was awful. I didn't get any peace till after night had fallen, and by that time I was so exhausted with running I was ready to drop.
"About midnight I met the lady mouse with whom I was in love, beneath a lamp-post. And, would you believe it? She wouldn't speak to me! Cut me dead, she did.
"'It was for your sake I got myself into this beastly mess,' I said, as she stalked by me with her nose in the air. 'You're an ungrateful woman, that's what you are.'
"'Oh, la, la, la!' said she, smirking. 'You wouldn't expect any self-respecting person to keep company with a blue mouse, would you?'
"Later, when I was trying to find a place to sleep, all the mice I met, wherever there was any light at all, made fun of me and pointed at me and jeered. I was nearly in tears. Then I went down to the river, hoping I might wash the dye off and so get white again. That, at least, would be better than the way I was now. But I washed and I swam and I rinsed, all to no purpose. Water made no impression on me.
"So there I sat, shivering on the river bank, in the depths of despair. And presently I saw the sky in the east growing pale and I knew that morning was coming. Daylight! That for me meant more hunting and running and jeering, as soon as the sun should show my ridiculous color.
"And then I came to a very sad decision—probably the saddest decision that a free mouse ever made. Rather than be hunted and jeered at any more I decided that I would sooner be back in a cage, a pet mouse! Yes, there at least I was well treated and well fed by the snub-nosed miller lad. I would go back and be a captive mouse. Was I not spurned by my lady love and jeered at by my friends? Very well then, I would turn my back upon the world and go into captivity. And then my lady love would be sorry—too late!
"So, picking myself up wearily, I started off for the miller's shop. On the threshold I paused a moment. It was a terrible step I was about to take. I gazed miserably down the street, thinking upon the hardness of life and the sadness of love, and there, coming toward me, with a bandage around his tail, was my own brother!
"As he took a seat beside me on the doorstep I burst into tears and told him all that had happened to me since we left our parents' home.
"'I am terribly sorry for your bad luck,' said he when I had ended. 'But I'm glad I caught you before you went back into captivity. Because I think I can guide you to a way out of your troubles.'
"'What way is there?' I said. 'For me life is over!'
"'Go and see the Doctor,' said my brother.
"'What doctor?'" I asked.
"'There is only one Doctor,' he answered. 'You don't mean to say you've never heard of him!'
"And then he told me all about Doctor Dolittle. This was around the time when the Doctor first began to be famous among the animals. But I, living alone with the old rat at the dyer's shed, had not heard the news.
"'I've just come from the Doctor's office,' said my brother. 'I got my tail caught in a trap and he bandaged it up for me. He's a marvelous man—kind and honest. And he talks animals' language. Go to him and I'm sure he'll know some way to clean blue dye off a mouse. He knows everything.'
"So that is how I first came to John Dolittle's house in Puddleby. The Doctor, when I told my troubles to him, took a very small pair of scissors and cut off all my fur, so I was as bald and as pink as a pig. Then he rubbed me with some special hair restorer for mice—a patent invention of his own. And very soon I grew a brand new coat of fur, as white as snow!
"And then, hearing what difficulty I had had keeping away from cats, the Doctor gave me a home in his own house—in his own piano, in fact. And no mouse could wish for more than that. He even offered to send for the lady I was in love with, who would, no doubt, think differently about me, now that I was white again. But I said:
"'No, Doctor. Let her be. I'm through with women for good.'"