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