Hugh Lofting: Doctor Dolittle and the Green Canary

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.'

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!