Part II Chapter 15 Doctor Dolittle's Return by Hugh Lofting
A GRAND PARTY
At this moment the Doctor was called away to see a patient in the dispensary. I went with him. It was a weasel with a sprained back—not an easy matter to put right at all. I helped the Doctor with the case.
After hours of working on it we got the small creature into a sort of jacket made of twigs, like a tube, so that he couldn't bend his spine in any direction. It looked as though it was very uncomfortable for the weasel. They are naturally squirmy, wriggly things. But this one soon found, when the Doctor had laid him down in one of his little box beds which he kept for cases of this kind, that the pain of his back was greatly eased as long as he did what the Doctor told him to—which was to keep perfectly still. We moved him into the small-animal hospital in the attic.
As we started to go downstairs Chee-Chee met us with the news that a heron was waiting to see him with severe gout trouble in the leg joints.
"There you are, Stubbins," said John Dolittle, "you see? What chance is there for me to get this book finished—with all the experiments that have to be made-while I have to look after these patients? I can't neglect them, can I? What am I to do?"
"Look here, Doctor," said I. "I have an idea. While you were away many cases came to the house. I told them that you were not here—wouldn't be back for some time. Well, some of them needed attention right away. They asked me to see to them. I was awfully scared at first, afraid I wouldn't do the right thing. But you see, being your assistant so long, I had learned a good deal."
At this point I noticed Polynesia hopping up the stairs to meet us.
"Some of the cases, Doctor," I said, "were quite tricky. But you were not here and I had to take them on. I actually set a wren's broken wing. What do you think of that?"
"Why, Stubbins!" he cried, "that's splendid! Setting a wing on a bird as small as that is about as delicate a job as I know of. Splendid, splendid! And it came out all right?"
"It certainly did, Doctor," said Polynesia. "I was there and I know. Remember, I gave Tommy his first lessons in bird languages, the same as I did to you. I always knew he'd turn out a good naturalist."
"Now you see, Doctor," I said, "there's no reason why you should not turn over the dispensary to me. If any particularly difficult job should come along I can always call you in. But you need not bother with the ordinary work of the patients. Go ahead and write your book in peace here, in your own home. Why not?"
"Er—yes, Stubbins," he said slowly. "After all, why not? An excellent idea!—Anyhow, we can see how it works."
And so the plan was actually tried out. Dab-Dab and Polynesia gave orders to everybody in the household that as soon as a patient appeared at the gate I should be sent for and not the Doctor. I was a little bit scared at first, fearing still that I might make some serious mistakes with the more ticklish cases; and while I was better off than when the Doctor had been away, I did not want to call upon him for help too often.
But on the whole things went very well. I made Chee-Chee and Polynesia my assistants. The monkey was a wonderful help with his small hands. For all such work as rolling narrow bandages (some of them no wider than a shoe-lace) his slender fingers were just the thing. He was, too, a naturally kindly soul and the animal patients liked him. I taught him how to count a pulse with the watch and take temperatures with the thermometer.
Polynesia I used mostly as a special interpreter when difficulties in animal languages cropped up. We often had new and rare animals coming to the dispensary, like bats and voles and bitterns and choughs. And without the old parrot's help it would have been very hard for me to talk with them.
As soon as I had the whole thing running smoothly I must admit I felt very proud—especially when the Doctor came and visited us and said he thought we were doing exceedingly well.
And of course all the members of the household were more than delighted. They saw now a chance of keeping the beloved Doctor under his own roof for a long time, since he was busy on a book and his experiments in moon vegetables.
One evening just as I was closing up the dispensary they all came to me in a body and asked me to do them a special favour. Naturally I asked them what it was before I made any promises.
"Well, Tommy, it's like this," said Gub-Gub. "While we are no end pleased that the Doctor is staying with us for a time, we don't see as much of him as we used to. He sticks at that book all the time. We think he ought to give himself a holiday once in a while. And then again, we miss him awful much at our evening chats over the kitchen fire. You know what splendid stories and disgustings—" ("Discussions, you booby, discussions!" snapped Jip in his ear.) "Yes—er—discussions is what I mean," Gub-Gub went on. "And it isn't the same any more now."
"Yes, I understand that," I said.
"So we all thought," said Gub-Gub, "that it would be a good way to celebrate the Doctor's returning home to ask him to come to one of our after-supper parties in the kitchen—as he used to."
"And you see, Tommy," said the white mouse, "it will be specially nice now because we're well into Autumn and we can have a roaring fire."
"Exactly," said Gub-Gub. "Only yesterday I was thinking of covering my spinach" (Gub-Gub always spoke of everything in the garden as "my"—"my rhubarb," "my parsley," "my tomatoes," etc.). "We may have frost any day now," he went on. "And after all a fire is a real fire only when there's frost in the air. What do you say, Tommy?"
"Well, Gub-Gub," said I, "I think it would do the Doctor good to get away from his work for one evening. I'll go and talk with him and see what he says."
As a matter of fact, it was not easy for me to persuade the Doctor. I found him in his study, writing busily as usual. Sheets of papers with notes on them lay all over the floor; more pieces of paper were pinned on the walls around his desk; plates full of sandwiches (which the devoted Dab-Dab brought him three times a day) were scattered round the room, many of them untouched. I explained to him what the animals had asked of me.
"Well, Stubbins," he said. "I would most willingly come down to the kitchen after supper—I used to regularly at one time, you know. But—er—well—just now it's different. I'm behindhand with the book. Thought I would have been much further along with it by this time. And then there are the experiments with the plants waiting for me. You see, I'm dividing the book into two parts. The first part is concerned with my discoveries on the moon; animal, vegetable and mineral, you know. I haven't got half-way through that yet. The second part is about my trying to grow certain moon things down here on the earth—mostly vegetable, but some insect forms. And it is in that, Stubbins, that I hope to discover some of the really big secrets—such as the great length of life up there, almost everlasting life. Yes, perhaps even that itself—with scientific guidance—everlasting life!"
"But listen, Doctor," I said. "It will do you good to leave your desk for one evening. The animals have set their hearts on it. They want to celebrate your coming back to your own home—to them. You know, whether you like it or not, they do feel you belong to them."
He smiled. Then he laughed. Then he threw his pencil down on the desk.
"All right, Stubbins," he said. "It probably will do me no harm to get away for a while."
He rose from his chair and we left the study.
It was indeed a very successful evening. Everybody was there: Jip, Too-Too, Polynesia, Chee-Chee, Gub-Gub, Whitey, Dab-Dab and Cheapside. Matthew Mugg had dropped in again, so we had him too. And the old lame horse, when he heard that the Doctor was going to be present, said he would like to be there. We got him into the house through the big double doors we had used for the Doctor when he was still a giant. And though Dab-Dab was terribly scared that he would knock the dresser over, we finally managed to bed him down under the windows where he could see and hear everything that went on.
And then there was Itty. The moon cat now came and went about the house without any one's being afraid of her. I had been amused to notice that the two who had raised the biggest rumpus about her at first, Whitey and Jip, had become the best friends she had in the whole family circle.
Piles and piles of wood had been gathered in the kitchen and stacked near the hearth. The air was cold and brisk, and a splendid fire was roaring up the chimney. Dab-Dab had prepared plates of sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, toasted cheese on biscuits, radishes and glasses of milk. Gub-Gub had brought for himself a large heap of rosy Autumn apples. (He said he always listened best on apples.) The big kitchen table looked like a grand picnic.
When the Doctor came in he was greeted by a noisy chorus of cheers.
"Ah!" the white mouse whispered to me as he climbed to his place on the mantelpiece. "This, Tommy, is really like old times. Hand me up one of those cheese-biscuits, will you?"
Well, stories were told by everybody, new stories, old stories, true stories and stories that might have been true. Jip told one; Too-Too told one; Chee-Chee told one; the Doctor told four, and I told two. The white mouse told the latest jokes from the Rat and Mouse Club. Cheapside gave us all the up-to-date news from London. Gub-Gub recited one of his salad poems and another romantic piece of his own (which we had heard before) called, "Meet Me on the Garbage Heap When the Moon Is Hanging Low." And old Polynesia sang us sea-songs in five different languages. I have never heard so much laughing, gaiety and chattering in all my life. The kitchen floor was simply covered with the shells of hard-boiled eggs, radish-tops and sandwich crumbs. It was a grand party.
I was beginning to think it never would break up, when at last, somewhere about two o'clock in the morning, Matthew said he ought to be getting back home. This gave Dab-Dab, who wanted to get the kitchen cleaned up before breakfast-time, a chance to shoo the family off to bed. The Doctor, Matthew and I went into the study.
"'Ow are you gettin' on with the book, Doctor?" asked the Cats'-meat-Man.
"Well, Matthew," said John Dolittle, "not as fast as I would like. But I'll be all right now that Stubbins is taking over the patients for me. You heard about that? Isn't it splendid? What would I have done without him?"
"But listen, Doctor," I said. "You won't sit up too late, will you? You'll have plenty of time to work in the morning now, you know."
"Time, Stubbins?" said he, a strange dreamy look coming into his eyes—"Time! If I'm successful with my book and my experiments I'm going to make time for everybody—for all the world!"
"I'm afraid I don't quite understand, Doctor," I said.
"Why—er—life," said he—"long life; perhaps everlasting life. Think of it, Stubbins, to live as long as your own world lives! That's what they're doing up there in the moon, or they will do it-some of them—I'm sure. If I can only find the secret!"
He sat down at his big desk and turned up the wick of the whale-oil reading-lamp. There was a slight frown on his face.
"That's it—" he muttered, "if I can only find it. All my life I've never had time enough. It's getting to be the same with most people now. Life seems to grow busier every day. We are always rushing, afraid we won't have time enough—to do all the things we want to—before we die. But the older we grow the more worried we get. Worried! Worried that we won't get what we want done."
He suddenly turned around in his chair and faced us both.
"But if we never grow old?" he asked. "What then? Always young. All the time we want—for everything. Never to have to worry again about time. History tells us that philosophers, scientists before me, have always been seeking this thing. They called it 'The Fountain of Youth,' or some such name. Whenever an explorer found a new world he always heard some legend among the natives, some story of a wonderful spring or something whose waters would keep men for ever young. But they were all just—just stories and nothing more. But there in the moon I have seen it. Creatures living on and on—in good health. That's the thing I'm working for—to bring everlasting life down to the earth. To bring back peace to Mankind, so we shall never have to worry again—about Time."
He turned back to his desk as though he had a new thought he wanted to make a note of.
"I'm just going to see Matthew down to the gate, Doctor," I said. "Now please don't work too late."
The Cats'-meat-Man and I stepped out into the garden. On our way round the house to the front, we had to pass the study window. We both stopped and gazed in a moment. John Dolittle was already writing away furiously. The little reading-lamp with its green glass shade threw a soft light on his serious, kindly face.
"There 'e is," whispered Matthew, "workin' away. Ain't it like 'im?—Tryin' to set the world to rights? Well, it takes all kinds.... You know, Tommy, me, I never seemed to 'ave time to bother about settin' the world to rights. The world was always tryin' to set me to rights—if yer know what I mean.... Everlastin' life! Ain't it like 'im? D'yer think 'e'll ever find it, Tommy?"
"Yes, Matthew," I whispered back, "I believe he will. He has always succeeded in anything he's set his heart on, you know."
"Humph!" muttered the Cats'-meat-Man. "Yus, I wouldn't wonder but what you're right, Tommy."
And silently we walked away through the darkness towards the garden gate.