TEXT:Chapter 21 - Home again

THE LAST CHAPTER

HOME AGAIN

MARCH winds had come and gone; April's showers were
over; May's buds had opened into flower; and the June sun
was shining on the pleasant fields, when John Dolittle at
last got back to his own country.

But he did not yet go home to Puddleby.
First he went traveling through the land with
the pushmi-pullyu in a gipsy-wagon, stopping at
all the country-fairs. And there, with the acrobats
on one side of them and the Punch-and-
Judy show on the other, they would hang out
a big sign which read, "COME AND SEE THE
MARVELOUS TWO-HEADED ANIMAL FROM THE
JUNGLES OF AFRICA. Admission SIXPENCE."

And the pushmi-pullyu would stay inside the
wagon, while the other animals would lie about
underneath. The Doctor sat in a chair in front
taking the sixpences and smiling on the people
as they went in; and Dab-Dab was kept busy
all the time scolding him because he would
let the children in for nothing when she wasn't
looking.

And menagerie-keepers and circus-men came
and asked the Doctor to sell them the strange
creature, saying they would pay a tremendous
lot of money for him. But the Doctor always
shook his head and said.

"No. The pushmi-pullyu shall never be shut
up in a cage. He shall be free always to come
and go, like you and me."

Many curious sights and happenings they saw
in this wandering life; but they all seemed quite
ordinary after the great things they had seen
and done in foreign lands. It was very interesting
at first, being sort of part of a circus;
but after a few weeks they all got dreadfully
tired of it and the Doctor and all of them were
longing to go home.

But so many people came flocking to the
little wagon and paid the sixpence to go inside and
see the pushmi-pullyu that very soon the Doctor
was able to give up being a showman.

And one fine day, when the hollyhocks were
in full bloom, he came back to Puddleby a rich
man, to live in the little house with the big
garden.

And the old lame horse in the stable was glad
to see him; and so were the swallows who had
already built their nests under the eaves of his
roof and had young ones. And Dab-Dab was
glad, too, to get back to the house she knew so
well--although there was a terrible lot of dusting
to be done, with cobwebs everywhere.

And after Jip had gone and shown his golden
collar to the conceited collie next-door, he came
back and began running round the garden like
a crazy thing, looking for the bones he had
buried long ago, and chasing the rats out of the
tool-shed; while Gub-Gub dug up the horseradish
which had grown three feet high in the
corner by the garden-wall.

And the Doctor went and saw the sailor who
had lent him the boat, and he bought two new
ships for him and a rubber-doll for his baby;
and he paid the grocer for the food he had lent
him for the journey to Africa. And he bought
another piano and put the white mice back in
it--because they said the bureau-drawer was
drafty.

Even when the Doctor had filled the old
money-box on the dresser-shelf, he still had a
lot of money left; and he had to get three more
money-boxes, just as big, to put the rest in.

"Money," he said, "is a terrible nuisance.
But it's nice not to have to worry."

"Yes," said Dab-Dab, who was toasting
muffins for his tea, "it is indeed!"

And when the Winter came again, and the
snow flew against the kitchen-window, the Doctor
and his animals would sit round the big,
warm fire after supper; and he would read aloud
to them out of his books.

But far away in Africa, where the monkeys
chattered in the palm-trees before they went to
bed under the big yellow moon, they would say
to one another,

"I wonder what The Good Man's doing now
--over there, in the Land of the White Men!
Do you think he ever will come back?"

And Polynesia would squeak out from the vines,

"I think he will--I guess he will--I hope he will!"

And then the crocodile would grunt up at
them from the black mud of the river,

"I'm SURE he will--Go to sleep!"