Doctor Dolittle and the Green Canary E-Book

Hugh Lofting

• Herausgeber: Classica Libris
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Pippinella, the canary with the marvellous voice, tells the Doctor the story of her life. Together with his animal friends, the Doctor determines to find Pippinella’s master and his mysterious stolen papers. The author wrote about Doctor Dolittle in his letters home to entertain his two children.

Leseprobe

Hugh Lofting

DOCTOR DOLITTLE AND THE GREEN CANARY

Copyright

First published in 1924

Copyright © 2019 Classica Libris

Introduction

If you have ever read Doctor Dolittle’s Caravan you will remember Pippinella, the green canary—half canary, half greenfinch—whom Doctor Dolittle had bought from a pet shop, and how she became the prima donna of his opera company.

In the evenings she told such fascinating stories about her life that the Doctor said, “You’re a born story-teller, Pippinella. Would you be willing to help me write your biography?”

Of course, Pippinella was delighted to help, so evening after evening she related her experiences and the Doctor wrote them down, and all the animals listened with great attention—except Gub-Gub, who sometimes interrupted. They heard how she had lived in a wicked marquis’s castle, worked as an air tester in a coal mine and flown to an uninhabited island, and all about her owners, from kind, silly Aunt Rosie to the best of all, a lonely window-cleaner who wrote books.

Pippinella brought her story right up to date, so then all it needed was a happy ending. Fortunate as she considered herself in joining the Dolittle household, she still longed to know what had become of her best master, the kind window-cleaner, for after many adventures and many happy days, they had been cruelly separated, and now she had no idea whether he was alive or dead. So once again Doctor Dolittle put off returning to his dear old home in Puddleby, to search for Pippinella’s friend.

Foreword

When my husband, Hugh Lofting, wrote and illustrated this story of Pippinella, the green canary, for the New York Herald Tribune his intention was some day to publish the material in book form. Towards this end he wrote Doctor Dolittle’s Caravan, in which the little canary appeared as the prima donna of the Doctor’s canary opera and became a well-loved and established member of the Doctor’s household. However, by the time the Caravan was ended, Mr Lofting found so much of Pippinella’s story still untold that he began to work on another book to include all the exciting adventures which had befallen the Doctor’s little friend before she joined the caravan. He also found that he had to tell the many readers, who wrote and requested further knowledge of this unique little bird, how the Doctor and his family helped to bring her tragic life story to a happy conclusion.

It was never finished. But so near had Mr Lofting come to doing so that I felt I must find a way to do it for him. When my sister, Olga Michael, whose inclination to write had been applauded and encouraged by my husband, and who had helped him during the compiling of the new material for Pippinella, offered to finish it, I and the publishers were delighted.

And so, here it is; the completed story of the green canary with only a brief first chapter to introduce the Doctor and his family to new readers and a dramatic and exciting conclusion to round out the life of the unusual little bird, Pippinella. I believe my husband would have approved.

Josephine Lofting

PART ONE

Chapter 1

THE DOCTOR MEETS THE GREEN CANARY

This story of the further adventures of Pippinella, the green canary, begins during the time of the Dolittle Circus. It will tell—in much greater detail—the strange events which took place in the life of the little bird before she came to live with John Dolittle.

Pippinella was a rare kind of canary which the Doctor had found in an animal shop while taking a walk with Matthew Mugg, the Cats’-Meat-Man. Thinking he had made a bad bargain because—as he thought—hen canaries couldn’t sing, he had been greatly astonished, on getting her back to the caravan, to find she had a most unusual mezzo-contralto voice.

And what was more unusual still, she had travelled many thousands of miles and lived a most varied and interesting life. When she had told the Doctor some of the dramatic happenings which led up to her being sold to the animal shop he interrupted her to say:

“You know, Pippinella, for many years now, I have wanted to do a series of animal biographies. But, because most birds and animals have such poor memories for details, I have never been able to get on to paper a complete record of any one animal. However, you seem to be different—to have the knack for remembering the proper things. You’re a born storyteller. Would you be willing to help me write your biography?”

“Why, certainly, Doctor,” replied Pippinella. “When would you like to begin?”

“Any time you feel rested enough,” said the Doctor. “I’ll have Too-Too fetch some extra notebooks from the storage tent. How about tomorrow evening after the circus is closed up for the night?”

“All right,” said the canary. “I’ll be harry to begin tomorrow. I am rather tired tonight; this has been a most trying day. You know, Doctor Dolittle, for a few moments this afternoon I was afraid you were going to pass right by that dreadful shop and leave me there.”

“Indeed, I might have,” said John Dolittle, “if your cage hadn’t been hanging in the window where I could see how disappointed you looked as I began to move away.”

“Thank heaven you came back!” sighed Pippinella. “I don’t know how I could have borne another moment in that dirty shop.”

“Well,” said the Doctor, “that’s all over now. I hope you’ll be very happy with us. We live quite simply here—as you can see. These animals and birds I call my family, and—for the time being—this wagon is our home. One day when we have had enough of circus life, you shall return to Puddleby with us. There you will find life a great deal quieter—but pleasant just the same.”

This conversation, which the Doctor had with the green canary, was all carried on in the bird’s own language. You will remember—from previous stories about John Dolittle and his animal family—that he had learned, many years before, to speak the language of animals and birds. This unique ability had earned for him the friendship and loyalty of all living creatures and had influenced him to change his doctoring of humans to a busy life of caring for the illnesses and injuries of animals, fish and birds.

While the Doctor was talking with the Pippinella about writing her biography, the members of his household had withdrawn to a corner of the wagon and were carrying on a lively discussion. Gub-Gub, the pig, as well as Dab-Dab, the duck, Jip, the dog, and Too-Too, the owl, were quite indignant that the Doctor should choose a newcomer to the group for this great honour. Whitey, the white mouse, being more timid than the others, just listened and thought about the idea. But Gub-Gub, the most conceited of the lot, said that he was going to speak to the Doctor about it.

So the next evening, when the family had gathered in the wagon to hear the continuation of the canary’s story, Gub-Gub cleared his throat nervously and spoke up.

“I don’t see why anyone would want to read the biography of a mere canary,” he grumbled. “My life is much more interesting. Why, the places I’ve been! Africa, Asia, and the Fiji Islands. Not to mention the food I’ve eaten. I’m a celebrity for that if for nothing else. Now, what can a canary know about food—eating nothing but dried-up seeds and bread-crumbs? And where could she go—cooped up in a cage most of her life?”

“Food! Food! That’s all you think about,” snapped Too-Too. “I think it’s more important to be a good mathematician. Take me, for instance; I know to the penny how much gold there is in the Bank of England!”

“I have a gold collar from a king,” said Jip. “That’s something!”

“I suppose it’s nothing that I can make a bed, so it’s fit for decent folk to sleep in!” snapped Dab-Dab. “And who, I’d like to know, keeps you all healthy and well fed. I think that’s more important!”

Whitey just sat there and didn’t say a word; he didn’t really think his life was interesting enough for a biography. When the Doctor looked at him with a questioning expression on his face Whitey dropped his eyelids and pretended to be asleep.

“Haven’t you anything to say, Whitey?” asked the Doctor.

“No, sir—I mean, yes!” said the white mouse timidly. “I think the biography of Pippinella will be very nice.”

“Well, let’s get on with it, then,” said the Doctor. “Please—if you’re ready—we are, Pippinella.”

The canary then told them how she was born in an aviary—a small one where the man who bred canaries gave her special attention because of her unusual voice; how she came to be such a rare shade of green because her father was a lemon-yellow Harz Mountain canary and her mother a greenfinch of very good family; and how she shared a nest with three brothers and two sisters—until it was discovered that she was that rare thing: a hen bird who sang as beautifully as a cock.

Pippinella explained that it was not true—that hens could not sing as well as cocks. It was only that cocks did not encourage their womenfolk to sing, saying that a woman’s job was to care for and to feed the young, and to make a home for her husband and children.

It was because of her beautiful voice that Pippinella finally acquired a master who bought her and carried her off to a new home; an inn where travellers from all over the world stopped on their way to the seaport to eat and sleep the night.

After the canary had described the inn more fully the Doctor interrupted her to ask:

“Pardon me, Pippinella. Could that have been the Inn on the road from London to Liverpool?—I believe it is called The Inn of The Seven Seas.”

“That’s the one, Doctor,” answered the little bird. “Have you been there?”

“Indeed we have,” replied John Dolittle, “several times.”

Gub-Gub jumped up so suddenly from his chair that he crashed into the table where Pippinella sat telling her story and sent the water out of the canary’s drinking dish sloshing over the sides.

“I remember!” he cried. “That’s where the turnips were especially good—done with a parsley sauce and a little dash of nutmeg.”

“If I’m not mistaken,” said Jip. “I felt a perfectly good knuckle-bone buried there. Cook gave it to me right after dinner and I planned to eat it later. But the Doctor was in such a hurry to move on I hadn’t a moment to dig it up before we left.”

“I’ll bet you wished many times that you had it, eh, Jip?” said Too-Too. “But then, you must have had plenty of bones buried back at Puddleby.”

“Not more than three or four,” Jip replied. “Those were lean days.”

“They would have been leaner if I’d not found that gold sovereign just as we were leaving,” piped up Whitey.

“Gold sovereign?” asked the Doctor. “You didn’t tell me about it. Whatever did you do with it, Whitey?”

Whitey looked confused and kept glancing from Dab-Dab back to the Doctor. He wished he’d kept quiet about the sovereign.

Dab-Dab ruffled her feathers and made a clucking noise.

“He gave it to me. John Dolittle!” she said crossly. “How do you think we would have eaten at all after that scoundrel, Blossom, departed with all the circus funds? You know our larder was empty, Doctor. Except for about a tea-spoonful of tea and some mouldy tapioca.”

“But the sovereign didn’t belong to you,” said the Doctor.

“It did—just as much as to anyone else,” said Whitey. “It was lying in the dust right smack between the hind feet of one of the coach horses. And he was trampling and kicking up the dirt so that I could hardly keep my eyes on it—good as they are.”

“No one but Whitey—with his microscopic eyes—would ever have seen it,” said Dab-Dab. “There was no point in running around asking stable-boys and kitchen-maids if it belonged to them. Who could recognize a gold sovereign as his? Anyway, it’s spent now—that was almost a year ago.”

“Well, well,” sighed the doctor. “I suppose it was all right. Shall we get on with the story, Pippinella?”

“I was treated with great respect and admiration by the owner of the inn and his wife and children,” continued the canary. “And I made many friends there. Everybody stopped to speak to me and listen to my songs—it was very gratifying.

“The coming and going of coaches from all directions, and the busy, cheerful people who worked for my master, inspired me with no end of ideas for new songs. It was a wonderful place for composing!

“On nice days my master would hang my cage on a hook high up beside the entrance to the inn. There I would greet the incoming guests with my very best songs. One little verse I made up and set to music became very popular with everyone who heard it. I called it ‘Maids, come out, the coach is here’ and whenever I heard the sound of approaching horses I’d sing it at the top of my lungs to announce to the stable-boys and porters that another coach-load of travellers was nearing the inn.

“Among the people who came to be my friends was one named Jack, who drove the night coach from the North. For him I composed a merry tune called ‘The Harness Jingle Song’. Old Jack would call out to me, as he rolled his coach into the noisy courtyard, ‘Hulloa, there Pip! Hulloa!’ and I’d answer him by singing another verse of his song.”

Chapter 2

THE INN OF THE SEVEN SEAS

After a short pause in which the green canary seemed to be lost in thought she continued her story.

“Besides the many friends that I made among the people in that place I made lots more among the animals. I knew all the coach horses and I would hail them by names as they came trotting into the yard. And dog friends I had too: the watchdog who lived in a kennel by the gate and several terriers who hung about the stables. They knew all the local gossip of the town. There was a dovecote above the loft where they kept the hay for the horses. And here carrier pigeons lived who were trained to fly long distances with messages. And many were the interesting tales that they could tell of an evening, when they sat on the gutters of the roof or strutted about the yard beneath my cage, picking up the bits of corn that had fallen from the horses’ nosebags.

“Yes, as I look back over all the places I have been, that nice, busy old inn seems as good a home as any cage bird could wish to find.

“I had been there, I suppose, about five months when, just as the poplars were beginning to turn yellow, I noticed a peculiar thing: knots of people used to gather in the yard of an evening and talk with serious, worried faces. I listened to such conversations as were near enough for me to hear. But although I knew by this time the meaning of a great number of human words I couldn’t make anything out of this talk. It seemed to be mostly about what you call politics. There was an air of restlessness. Everybody seemed to be expecting or fearing something.

“And then one day for the first time I saw soldiers. They came tramping into the inn yard in the morning. They had heavy packs on their backs. Evidently they had been marching all night, because many of them were so weary that they sat down against the stable wall with their boots covered with dust and slept. They stayed with us till the following day, eating their meals in the yard out of little tin dishes which they took from the packs they had carried.

“Some of them had friends among the maids of the inn. And when they left I noticed that two of the maids who waved to them from the dining-room window were weeping. There was quite a crowd to see them go off. And very smart they looked in their red coats, marching out of the gate in rows of four with their guns on their shoulders and their packs on their backs, stepping in time to the drummer’s rap—rap, rappatap, tap, tap!

“Not many days after they had gone we had another new kind of excitement, another army. But this one did not wear smart uniforms or march to the beat of a drum. It was composed of ragged people, wild-eyed, untidy and disorderly! They came scrambling into the inn yard, shouting and waving sticks. A leader among them stood on an upturned bucket and made them a speech. The owner of the inn begged the leader to take them away. He was evidently very worried about having them in his yard. But the leader wouldn’t listen. When one speech was finished another would begin. But what any of them was about I couldn’t make out.

“Finally the ragged mob drifted away of its own accord. And as soon as the yard was clear the innkeeper shut and locked the gate so they couldn’t come back.

“I asked one of my pigeon friends what it all meant. He shook his head seriously:

“‘I don’t quite know,’ he said. ‘Something’s been going on for weeks now. I hope it isn’t war. Two of the carriers, the best flyers in the dovecote, were taken away last Monday. We don’t know where they went to. But those two pigeons were used for carrying war messages before.’

“‘What is war?’ I asked.

“‘Oh, it’s a messy, stupid business,’ he said. ‘Two sides wave flags and beat drums and shoot one another dead. It always begins this way, making speeches, talking, about rights, and all that sort of thing.’

“‘But what is it for? What do they get out of it?’

“‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t think they know themselves. When I was young I carried war messages myself once. But it never seemed to me that anyone, not even the generals, knew any more of what it was all about than I did.’”

Pippinella stopped in her story long enough to take a sip of water and then went on again.

“That same week that the ragged people came to the inn to make speeches we had still another unusual arrival. This was a frightfully elegant private coach. It had a wonderful picture painted on the door, handles and mountings of silver, outriders on fine horses to guard it, and altogether it was the grandest equipage I had ever seen.

“On its first appearance way down the road I had started singing my usual song, ‘Maids, come out,’ and so forth. And I was still singing when it came to a halt in the yard and a tall superior sort of gentleman got out of it. The innkeeper was already on the steps, bowing low, and porters were standing around to help the guest out and to attend to his luggage. But strangely enough, the first thing that the elegant person took any notice of was me.

“‘By Jove!’ he said, putting a quizzing glass to his eye and sauntering towards my cage. ‘What a marvellous singer! Is it a canary?’

“‘Yes, my lord,’ said the host, coming forward, ‘a green canary.’

“‘I’ll buy it from you,’ said the elegant gentleman. ‘Buckley, my secretary, will pay you whatever the price is. Have it ready to travel with me in the morning, please.’

“I saw the innkeeper’s face fall at this. For he was very much attached to me and the idea of selling me, even for a big price, evidently did not appeal to him. But this grand person was clearly someone whom he was afraid to displease by refusing.

“‘Very good, my lord,’ said he in a low voice, and he followed the guest into the hotel.

“For my part I was greatly disturbed. Life here was very pleasant. I did not wish to exchange it for something I knew nothing of. However, I had been sold. There was nothing I could do about it. That is perhaps the biggest disadvantage in being a cage bird: you’re not allowed to choose your own owner or home.

“Well, after they had gone inside the inn I was sitting on my perch pondering rather miserably over this new turn of affairs, when along came my chaffinch friend who nested in the yard.

“‘Listen,’ I said. ‘Who is this haughty person who drove up in the coach just now?’

“‘Oh, that’s the Marquis,’ said he. ‘A very big swell. He owns half the country around here, mills, mines, farms and everything. He’s frightfully rich and powerful. Why do you ask?’

“‘He has bought me,’ I said. ‘Just told the innkeeper to wrap me up, like a pound of cheese or something—without even asking first if he wanted to sell me.’

“‘Yes,’ said the chaffinch, nodding his head, ‘the Marquis is like that. He takes it for granted that everybody will do what he wants—and most people do, for that manner. He’s awfully powerful. However, there are some who think things are going to change. That meeting, you remember, when the workmen and ragged people came here making speeches? Well, that was mostly over him. He has put a whole lot of machinery into the mills and mines, it seems. There has been a terrible lot of grumbling and bad feeling over it. It is even widespread that the Marquis’s life is in danger all the time now.’

“‘Well,’ I said, ‘he won’t get me to do what he wants. If he takes me away from here I won’t sing another note. So there!’

“‘I don’t see why you should grumble,’ he said. ‘You will have the most elegant home. Why, he lives in a castle with over a hundred servants, they say. I know he has a tremendous lot of gardeners myself, because I’ve built my nest in his garden and I’ve seen them. If you ask me I should say you are very lucky.’

“‘I don’t care anything about his hundred servants,’ I said. ‘I don’t like his face. I want to live here with the host and his family and old Jack and the other coach drivers. They are my friends. If the Marquis takes me away I’ll stop singing.’

“‘That’s rather a joke,’ chuckled the chaffinch thoughtfully. ‘The all-powerful Marquis getting defied by a cage bird. He got his way with everybody till he met a canary who didn’t like his face! Splendid! I must go to tell that to the wife.’

“Well, the next morning my cage was wrapped up while the children of the family stood around weeping. I was ready to weep myself, too, to tell the truth. After I was all covered up the youngest one broke a hole in the top of my paper to say a last farewell to me. She dropped a couple of large tears on my head, too. Then I felt myself being carried out into the yard.

“And so, after weeks and months of watching people arrive and depart from my inn, I, too, was to set forth by coach along the white road that led away to the horizon. Whither was I going? What adventures were in store for me? I fell to thinking of good old Jack. I wondered how his cheery face would look as he swung into the gate this evening to find my cage gone from the wall and no Pip to whistle ‘Thank you’ for his lump of sugar. Would he care very much, I asked myself. After all, to him I was only a canary—not even his canary at that. Oh, well, I thought, as the horses started forward with a jerk, it was no use being sentimental over it, I would face the future with a stout heart.”

Chapter 3

AT THE MARQUIS’S CASTLE

“It was long journey. Sometimes I felt the coach going uphill, the horses panting, slowed to a walk. At other times we descended into valleys with the brakes creaking and groaning on the wheels. At last, after about seven hours of driving, we came to a halt and I heard the patter of hurrying feet. By the echoes I gathered that we had passed into some kind of a courtyard or the stone portico to a big building. My cage was taken out and carried up a long, long winding flight of stairs.

“At length, on the wrapping paper being taken off, I found myself in a small, very beautifully furnished round room. There were two people in it—the Marquis and a woman. The woman had a very nice face. She seemed sort of scared of the Marquis.

“‘Marjorie,’ said he, ‘I’ve brought you a present. This canary is a magnificent singer.’

“‘Thank you Henry,’ said she. ‘It was very thoughtful of you.’

“And that was all, I could see there was something wrong. Marjorie was evidently the Marquis’s wife. But after his being away from her for several days that was all she said: ‘Thank you. It was very thoughtful of you.’

“After he had gone a cage was produced by the servants, the most elegant thing in cages you ever saw. It was made of solid silver. It had perches of carved ivory, food troughs of enamelled gold and a swing made of mother-of-pearl. As I was changed into it I wondered what other birds had lived in this gorgeous home and whether they had led happy lives.

“Well, after a few days at the castle I decided that I had not made such a bad move after all. Fortune had again been kind. I was certainly treated royally. My cage was cleaned out scrupulously every day. A piece of apple was given me in the morning and a leaf of lettuce in the evening. The quality of the seed was of the very best. I was given a silver pannikin of warm water to bathe in every other day. And altogether the care and service given me left nothing to be wished for.

“To all this, Marjorie, the Marquis’s kind and gentle wife, herself attended—although she evidently had any number of servants to wait on her if she only rang the bell. I became very much attached to her. A thing that bothered me a good deal was that she did a lot of secret weeping. She was clearly very unhappy about something and I wondered what it was. You remember I had sworn I wouldn’t sing a note if I was taken from the inn. And I didn’t for over a week—much to the Marquis’s disgust. He was all for sending me back to the inn when he found out that I hadn’t sung since I had been in the castle. But his wife begged him to let her keep me, and he consented. That night—later, I saw her weeping again. And I felt so sorry for her that I suddenly started singing at the top of my voice to see if I could cheer her up. And sure enough she raised her head and smiled and came and talked to me. After that I often sang to drive her tears away all the happy songs I knew, like ‘Maids, come out, the coach is here,’ and the jingling harness, curry-comb song. But I wouldn’t sing for the Marquis—not a note. And whenever he came into the room, if I was in the middle of a song, I’d stop at once.

“In that same small, round room I lived all the times I was at the castle. It was apparently a special, letter-writing room, part of the private apartments of the Marquis’s wife—or the Marchioness, as she was called. On warm days she would hang my cage on a nail outside the window, and from there I had a wonderfully fine view of the grounds and all the country for miles and miles around.

“One evening I got some idea of the thing—or one of the things—that was wrong between the Marquis and his wife. They had a long argument. It was all about the workmen in the mines and the mills. She wanted him to be kinder to them and to keep more of them working. But he said that with the new machinery he did not need even as many as he had. She told him that a lot of workmen’s wives and children were starving. He said that wasn’t his fault.

“Further, I gathered from this discussion that in one mine some distance away the workmen who had been dismissed had come back in a crowd and smashed the machines and wrecked the mine. Then soldiers had been called in and many workers were shot, and women left widows and children orphans. The Marchioness begged her husband on her knees to stop this kind of thing. He only laughed. The machines were bound to come, he said, to take men’s places and do more work. In all the mills and mines throughout the country machinery was being put in and idle men were opposing it. It was the march of time, he told her.

“After the Marquis had gone a letter came for the Marchioness. I could see her getting terribly agitated as she read it. She called in a trusted companion, sort of secretary she had, and told her all about it. It was from a woman in one of the mill towns within the Marquis’s lands. It told of the awful distress in the homes of idle workmen, starving children and what not. And that night the Marchioness dressed herself like a working woman and stole out of the castle grounds by the little orchard gate. I saw her from my window in the tower. With loaves of bread and foodstuffs in a basket she went miles and miles on foot to find the woman who had written the letter. When she came back it was after two in the morning. And I, who had been left on my peg outside the window all that time, was nearly frozen in the chill morning air. She brought me in and wept over me when she discovered her forgetfulness. But I quite understood—and, anyway, it was the only time she had ever neglected me.

“Two days after that news came in that another factory had had its machinery smashed. The Marquis was furious, though, as usual, he was very quiet and dignified and cold even in his fury. He sent word for more soldiers to protect the mines and factories. And it seems that the same day that the soldiers arrived one of the sergeants got into a quarrel with a workman. Before anybody knew what was happening a general battle had begun between the troops and the workers. When it was over it was found that one hundred and fifty workers had been killed.