Although my parents both liked the Doctor tremendously from the first moment that they saw him, and were very proud to have him come and play to us (for we were really terribly poor) they did not realize then what a truly great man he was one day to become.  Of course now, when almost everybody in the whole world has heard about Doctor Dolittle and his books, if you were to go to that little house in Puddleby where my father had his cobbler’s shop you would see, set in the wall over the old-fashioned door, a stone with writing on it which says:  “John Dolittle, the famous naturalist, played the flute in this house in the year 1839.”

I often look back upon that night long, long ago.  And if I close my eyes and think hard I can see that parlor just as it was then:  a funny little man in coat-tails, with a round kind face, playing away on the flute in front of the fire; my mother on one side of him and my father on the other, holding their breath and listening with their eyes shut; myself, with Jip, squatting on the carpet at his feet, staring into the coals; and Polynesia perched on the mantlepiece beside his shabby high hat, gravely swinging her head from side to side in time to the music.  I see it all, just as though it were before me now.

And then I remember how, after we had seen the Doctor out at the front door, we all came back into the parlor and talked about him till it was still later; and even after I did go to bed (I had never stayed up so late in my life before) I dreamed about him and a band of strange clever animals that played flutes and fiddles and drums the whole night through.

THE SEVENTH CHAPTER

SHELLFISH TALK

The next morning, although I had gone to bed so late the night before, I was up frightfully early.  The first sparrows were just beginning to chirp sleepily on the slates outside my attic window when I jumped out of bed and scrambled into my clothes.

I could hardly wait to get back to the little house with the big garden—­to see the Doctor and his private zoo.  For the first time in my life I forgot all about breakfast; and creeping down the stairs on tip-toe, so as not to wake my mother and father, I opened the front door and popped out into the empty, silent street.

When I got to the Doctor’s gate I suddenly thought that perhaps it was too early to call on any one:  and I began to wonder if the Doctor would be up yet.  I looked into the garden.  No one seemed to be about.  So I opened the gate quietly and went inside.

As I turned to the left to go down a path between some hedges, I heard a voice quite close to me say,

“Good morning.  How early you are!”

I turned around, and there, sitting on the top of a privet hedge, was the gray parrot, Polynesia.