CHAPTER XVII

DR. GOOSE’S LECTURE

“Light house,” said the Great Huge Bear; after which remark he dropped off into another of his half-naps.

The audience that gathered to hear Doctor Goose was small indeed. There was Buddie, who really wished to hear the lecture; the Donkey, who would as soon hear it as not; the Rabbit, who was present under protest; Doctor Fox, wearing his most critical air, and prepared to contradict every third statement; the Bear, who would as soon be dozing there as elsewhere; the Yellow Dog, who came out of curiosity; and the Loon, who never missed a chance to shriek “Hear! hear!”

“Birds and quadrupeds,” began Doctor Goose, “my topic this week is The Evolution of--”

“Fore!”

A ball driven by the Golf Lynx carried away the Doctor’s manuscript.

“I’ll put a stop to that!” cried the Rabbit, starting after the Golf Lynx. But the Lynx saw him coming and discreetly took to his heels. Meantime Buddie had recovered the scattered manuscript, and Doctor Goose proceeded, as if there had been no interruption:

“--the Man Story. It is impossible to fix the date of the first man story, because we do not know precisely at what time geese began to write.”

“Literature,” interrupted Doctor Fox, “began with the Fox family.”

“You are mistaken, my dear colleague,” returned the lecturer, warmly. “Literature began with the goose-quill.”

“I leave it,” said Doctor Fox, excitedly, “to my learned friend, Professor Bray.”

The Donkey bowed.

“I have always believed,” he said, “that a donkey wrote the first book; I _know_ he wrote the last one. I regret to say that I am unacquainted with any literature by the Fox family, with the exception of the _Book of Martyrs_, a most excellent work, as instructive, though not so entertaining, as the rhymes of Mother Goose. The first is the older, but the second is the more popular.”

This decision was, as usual, agreeable to both disputants, and Doctor Goose continued:

“At all events, it may safely be assumed that the earliest man stories were merely records of the chase. After a man had been pursued, captured and eaten by a bear--”

“Eh? What’s that?” asked the Great Huge Bear, unclosing his eyes. “I never did anything of the sort.”

“I was speaking of the old and savage days,” replied Doctor Goose, and the Bear dozed off again.

“After such a successful hunt, it was the custom to relate the details, with more or less exaggeration, to a circle of companions; and this was the beginning of the man story. For centuries these tales of the chase held their popularity; but as reason superseded mere instinct and animals advanced in civilization, they hunted man less and studied him more. Gradually they began to believe that this strange creature, whose kind spread all over the world, possessed reasoning faculties similar to their own--he might even have a soul; and to-day it is generally admitted that the line between the lowest animals and the highest man is so fine as scarcely to be discerned.”

At this point the Rabbit returned to announce, with a little swagger, the complete discomfiture of the Golf Lynx. Buddie was not so sure of this; she could see the Lynx peeping from behind a tree at the farther end of the amphitheater; whereas, according to the Rabbit, he should be “running yet.”

“That the average animal,” resumed Doctor Goose, “is superior to the average man in the common virtues of cleanliness, orderliness, straightforwardness, common sense, and capacity for sane enjoyment, goes without saying.”

“Like a hickory nut,” remarked Doctor Fox.

“Why like a hickory nut?” asked Buddie.

“That’s a hard nut to crack,” replied Doctor Fox, mysteriously.

“Hear! hear!” shrieked the Loon; and this time there was some sense in the usually meaningless remark, as Doctor Goose was waiting patiently for a chance to go on. If, Little One, instead of interrupting a speaker, people would cry “Hear! hear!” when a speaker is interrupted, much time would be saved; for then there would be no interruptions.

Buddie tried to keep interested in the lecture, but her attention wandered to the Golf Lynx, who had come out of hiding and was again knocking the ball about the green.

“I don’t suppose he can help it,” she thought; “any more than Colonel can help running after sticks and stones.”

Meanwhile Doctor Goose was droning along:

“It is only in the purely intellectual field that we have come to regard man as a present equal and a possible superior.”

“I doubt that,” said Doctor Fox.

“Fore!”

This time the ball carried away the lecturer’s spectacles, and confusion reigned. The Golf Lynx took to his heels, and after him raced all of Doctor Goose’s audience except Buddie, who remained to help search for the spectacles. But hunt high, hunt low, they were nowhere to be found.

“Never mind; I can get another pair,” said Doctor Goose. “Perhaps you’d like to take the lecture home and read it.”

“Thank you,” replied Buddie, accepting the manuscript rather doubtfully. “Shan’t you want it again?”

“Oh dear, no. I have stacks and stacks of them. I write nearly all the time. But it is _so_ hard to get people to listen.” Doctor Goose sighed and looked about him pensively. The world was at play; nobody cared about lectures. “Good afternoon,” he said, and walked sadly away.

“Poor Goose!” said Buddie, sitting down under a tree to examine the manuscript.

“My, what hard words! I wonder what they mean. ‘P-s-y-c-h-o-l-o-g-y.’ That can’t be right; there ought to be a letter between the ‘p’ and the ‘s.’ ‘P-s’ doesn’t spell anything. Here’s another big word--‘I-n-t-e-l-l-e-c-t-u-a-l-i-t-y.’ That looks all right, and I suppose it means a lot.”

So she turned the pages of the manuscript, which was as easy to read as print, until she grew weary of spelling out words and wondering what they meant, and began to look about for something more interesting.

Presently she saw the Donkey, the Rabbit, and the Yellow Dog returning from the pursuit of the Golf Lynx.

“The next thing, I suppose,” she said, “is to find out why the Rabbit wabbles his nose.”