THE FIFTH CHAPTER ANIMAL TOWN
ONE of the greatest difficulties the Doctor had in all his dealings with the Animal Kingdom was that of keeping anything secret. But then, I suppose, when we remember how hard it is for people to keep secrets, that need not be so surprising. Polynesia, as soon as I told her about the idea of the new zoo, immediately warned me.
“Keep this to yourself, now, Tommy, as long as you can. If you don't, neither you nor the Doctor will get any peace.”
I certainly kept it to myself. But nevertheless the news leaked out somehow that John Dolittle was reorganizing and enlarging his zoo in order that a lot of new animals might live with him. And then, exactly as Polynesia had prophesied, we were pestered to death morning, noon and night with applications. You would think that all the animals in the world had been waiting the whole of their lives for a chance to get into the Doctor's household.
He at once had it announced that as I was to be the assistant manager of the new zoo all applications must be made through me. But even so, of course, while that did relieve him of a good deal of annoyance, a great many animals who had known him a long time applied to him direct for a home in the new establishment.
And then we had quite a difficult time sending away some of the old tenants. The Doctor had found that for many foreigners the climate of Puddleby was quite unsuitable. There were a pair of beavers, for example, who had been sick a good deal and quite noticeably out of condition almost the whole time. But they were so attached to the Doctor that although he had often suggested sending them back to Canada they had always politely but stubbornly declined. However, on the Doctor's return this time he found them in such poor health he decided it would be kinder to be firm.
“Listen,” he said to them, “you may not know it, but this climate is very, very bad for you. It is either not cold enough or not dry enough—or something. I can't have you throwing your health away like this out of mere sentiment. You've got to go back to Canada.”
Well, the beavers just burst into tears, both of them. And it was not until John Dolittle had promised them that they should come back after two years—if at the end of that time they still wanted to—that they were consoled and consented to go.
It was part of my duties as assistant manager to secure the beavers' passage back to Canada. This was no simple matter, as you can easily imagine, because, of course, I could not just hand them over to any one. I spent several days around the docks of Tilbury before I found a ship's steward whose references for honesty and reliability were such as to satisfy the Doctor. For a certain sum of money he agreed to take them to Halifax on his ship's next voyage to Nova Scotia and to let them go at the mouth of a river well outside the limits of the town.
Not only were there many applications from single animals and families of animals for accommodations in our zoo, but as soon as it got abroad that John Dolittle was going to set up his long-promised Rat and Mouse Club every other species of animal on earth, it seemed to me, sent committees to him to ask couldn't they have a club, too.
“I told you what it would be like,” said Polynesia, as she and I were pondering one day over a map of the new zoo which I had laid out. “If the space you had was ten times as big you couldn't accommodate them all.”
“But look here,” said the white mouse (it was most amusing to see how important he had become now that he was being consulted in the Doctor's schemes), “suppose we set out on your drawing here all the different establishments, private houses, flats, hotels, clubs and what not, then we can see better how much room there is left and how many clubs we can have.”
“Yes,” I said, “that's a good idea, because once we get the zoo running it will be very hard to dig things out and change them around afterwards. The animals would very naturally object to that.”
“And then I think we ought to have some shops,” said the white mouse. “Don't you?”
“Shops!” I cried. “What on earth for?”
“Well, you see,” said he, “by the time we're finished it will be like a town anyhow—an animal town—with a main street, I suppose, and the houses and clubs either side. A few shops where the squirrels could buy nuts and the mice could get acorns and grains of wheat—don't you see?—it would liven things up a bit. Nothing cheers a town up so much as good shops. And I think a restaurant or two where we could go and get our meals if we came home late and hadn't time to raise our own supper—yes, that's a good notion—we should surely have a restaurant or two.”
“But who are you going to get to run these shops?” asked Polynesia. “Stores and cafés don't run themselves, you know.”
“Oh, that's easy,” laughed the white mouse. “I know lots of mice—and rats, too—who would jump at the chance to run a nut store or a restaurant—just have a natural gift for business, especially catering.”
“Maybe, for the rats and mice,” said Polynesia. “But they're not the only ones in the zoo, remember. This isn't just a rat and mouse town.”
“Well, I imagine it will probably separate itself into districts anyway,” said the white mouse. “You won't forget, Tommy, that you've promised us the top end, near the gate, for our club? I have that whole section laid out in my mind's eye complete. And it is going to be just the niftiest little neighborhood you ever saw.”
Well, after a tremendous amount of planning and working out we finally got the new zoo going. The list of public institutions with which it began was as follows: The Rabbits' Apartment House (this consisted of an enormous mound full of rabbit holes with a community lettuce garden attached), the Home for Cross-Bred Dogs, the Rat and Mouse Club, the Badgers' Tavern, the Foxes' Meeting House and the Squirrels' Hotel.
Each of these was a sort of club in its way. And we had to be most particular about limiting the membership, because from the outset thousands of creatures of each kind wanted to join. The best we could do for those who were not taken in was to keep their names on a waiting list, and as members left (which was very seldom) admit them one by one. Each club had its president and committee who were responsible for the proper organization and orderly carrying on of the establishment.
As the white mouse had prophesied, our new animal town within the high walls of the old bowling green did naturally divide itself up into districts. And the animals from each, while they often mingled in the main street with those from other quarters of the town, minded their own business, and no one interfered with anybody else.
This we had to make the first and most important rule of the Dolittle Zoo: within the walls of the town all hunting was forbidden. No member of the Home for Cross-Bred Dogs was allowed to go ratting—in the zoo. No fox was permitted to chase birds or squirrels.
And it was surprising how, when the danger of pursuit by their natural enemies was removed, all the different sorts of animals