The Story of Doctor Dolittle / История Доктора Дулиттла. Уровень 1

At tea-time, when the dog, Jip, came in, the parrot said to the Doctor, “See, he’s talking to you.”

“Looks to me as though he were scratching his ear,” said the Doctor.

“But animals don’t always speak with their mouths,” said the parrot and raised her eyebrows. “They talk with their ears, with their feet, with their tails—with everything. Sometimes they don’t want to make a noise. Do you see now the way he’s moving his nose to a side?”

“What does that mean?” asked the Doctor.

“He is asking you, �Is it still raining?’” Polynesia answered. “Dogs nearly always use their noses for asking questions.”

After a while, with the parrot’s help, the Doctor learned the language of the animals. Now he could talk to them himself and understand everything they said. Then he gave up being a people’s doctor altogether.

Soon the meat seller told everyone that John Dolittle became an animal-doctor. Old ladies began to bring him their pet dogs who ate too much cake; and farmers came many miles to show him sick cows and sheep.

One day someone brought a horse to him. The poor thing was terribly glad to find a man who could talk in horse-language.

“You know, Doctor,” said the horse, “that vet over the hill knows nothing at all. I tried to tell him I am going blind in one eye. But he couldn’t understand a word of horse-language. What I need is glasses. There’s no reason why horses shouldn’t wear glasses, the same as people.”

“Of course—of course,” said the Doctor.

“I’ll get you some at once.”

“I would like a pair like yours,” said the horse, “only green. They’ll keep the sun out of my eyes while I’m working in the field.”

“Okay,” said the Doctor. “I’ll get you green ones.”

“You know, Sir, sadly everyone thinks”, said the horse before he left, “everyone thinks he can doctor animals—just because the animals don’t complain. Actually, it takes a much cleverer man to be a really good animal-doctor than it does to be a good people’s doctor.

My farmer’s boy thinks he knows all about horses. If only you saw him! His face is so fat that he looks as though he has no eyes. And he has as much brain as a potato-bug. He tried to put a mustard-plaster on me last week.”

“Where did he put it?” asked the Doctor.

“Oh, he didn’t put it anywhere on me,” said the horse. “He only tried to. I kicked him into the duck-pond.