Part 5
The lilies, when seen in great banks, presented a very gorgeous and wonderful appearance. The flowers would be, I should judge, about eighteen inches across, trumpet-shaped and brilliantly colored. The background was a soft cream tone and on this great blotches of violet and orange were grouped around a jet-black tongue in the center. The leaves were a deep olive green.
But it was that extraordinary look of alive intelligence that was the most uncanny thing about them. No one, no matter how little he knew of natural history in general or of the Moon’s Vegetable Kingdom, could see those wonderful flowers without immediately being arrested by this peculiar character. You felt at once that you were in the presence of people rather than plants; and to talk with them, or to try to, seemed the most natural thing in the world.
[Illustration: “_The flowers would be about eighteen inches across_”]
I filled up two of those numerous note books of the Doctor’s on his conversations with the Vanity Lilies. Often he came back to these flowers later, when he wanted further information about the Moon’s Vegetable Kingdom. For as he explained to us, it was in this species that Plant Life—so far at all events as it was known on either the Moon or the Earth—had reached its highest point of development.
THE THIRTEENTH CHAPTER The Flower of Many Scents
Another peculiar thing that baffled us completely, when we first came into the marshy regions of the Vanity Lily’s home, was the variety of scents which assailed our noses. For a mile or so around the locality there was no other flower visible; the whole of the marsh seemed to have been taken up by the lilies and nothing else intruded on their domain. Yet at least half a dozen perfumes were distinct and clear. At first we thought that perhaps the wind might be bringing us scents from other plants either in the jungle or the flowering heath lands. But the direction of the breeze was such that it could only come over the sandy desert areas and was not likely to bring perfumes as strong as this.
It was the Doctor who first hit upon the idea that possibly the lily could give off more than one scent at will. He set to work to find out right away. And it took no more than a couple of minutes to convince him that it could. He said he was sorry he had not got Jip with him. Jip’s expert sense of smell would have been very useful here. But for ordinary purposes it required nothing more delicate than an average human’s nose to tell that this flower, when John Dolittle had communicated the idea to it, was clearly able to give out at least half a dozen different smells as it wished.
The majority of these perfumes were extremely agreeable. But there were one or two that nearly knocked you down. It was only after the Doctor had asked the lilies about this gift of theirs that they sent forth obnoxious ones in demonstrating all the scents that they could give out. Chee-Chee just fainted away at the first sample. It was like some deadly gas. It got into your eyes and made them run. The Doctor and I only escaped suffocation by flight—carrying the body of the unconscious monkey along with us.
[Illustration: “_Chee-Chee just fainted away at the first sample_”]
The Vanity Lilies, seeing what distress they had caused, immediately threw out the most soothing lovely scent I have ever smelled. Clearly they were anxious to please us and cultivate our acquaintance. Indeed it turned out later from their conversation with the Doctor (which I took down word for word) that in spite of being a stationary part of the Moon’s landscape, they had heard of John Dolittle, the great naturalist, and had been watching for his arrival many days. They were in fact the first creatures in our experience of the Moon that made us feel we were among friends.
I think I could not do better, in trying to give you an idea of the Doctor’s communication with the Vegetable Kingdom of the Moon, than to set down from my diary, word for word, some parts of the conversation between him and the Vanity Lilies as he translated them to me for dictation at the time. Even so, there are many I am sure who will doubt the truth of the whole idea: that a man could talk with the flowers. But with them I am not so concerned. Any one who had followed John Dolittle through the various stages of animal, fish, and insect languages would not, I feel certain, find it very strange, when the great man did at last come in touch with plant life of unusual intelligence, that he should be able to converse with it.
On looking over my diary of those eventful days the scene of that occasion comes up visibly before my eyes. It was about an hour before dusk—that is the slight dimming of the pale daylight which proceeded a half darkness, the nearest thing to real night we ever saw on the Moon. The Doctor, as we left the camp, called back over his shoulder to me to bring an extra note book along as he expected to make a good deal of progress to-night. I armed myself therefore with three extra books and followed him out.
Halting about twenty paces in front of the lily beds (we had camped back several hundred yards from them after they had nearly suffocated Chee-Chee) the Doctor squatted on the ground and began swaying his head from side to side. Immediately the lilies began moving their heads in answer, swinging, nodding, waving, and dipping.
[Illustration: “‘_Are you ready, Stubbins?_’”]
“Are you ready, Stubbins?” asked John Dolittle.
“Yes, Doctor,” said I, making sure my pencil point would last awhile.
“Good,” said he.—“Put it down”:
_The Doctor_—“Do you like this stationary life—I mean, living in the same place all the time, unable to move?”
_The Lilies_—(Several of them seemed to answer in chorus)—“Why, yes—of course. Being stationary doesn’t bother us. We hear about all that is going on.”
_The Doctor_—“From whom, what, do you hear it?”
_The Lilies_—“Well, the other plants, the bees, the birds, bring us news of what is happening.”
_The Doctor_—“Oh, do you communicate with the bees and the birds?”
_The Lilies_—“Why, certainly, of course!”
_The Doctor_—“Yet the bees and the birds are races different from your own.”
_The Lilies_—“Quite true, but the bees come to us for honey. And the birds come to sit among our leaves—especially the warblers—and they sing and talk and tell us of what is happening in the world. What more would you want?”
_The Doctor_—“Oh, quite so, quite so. I didn’t mean you should be discontented. But don’t you ever want to move, to travel?”
_The Lilies_—“Good gracious, no! What’s the use of all this running about? After all, there’s no place like home—provided it’s a good one. It’s a pleasant life we lead—and very safe. The folks who rush around are always having accidents, breaking legs and so forth. Those troubles can’t happen to us. We sit still and watch the world go by. We chat sometimes among ourselves and then there is always the gossip of the birds and the bees to entertain us.”
_The Doctor_—“And you really understand the language of the birds and bees!—You astonish me.”
_The Lilies_—“Oh, perfectly—and of the beetles and moths too.”
[Illustration: “_He struck a light_”]
It was at about this point in our first recorded conversation that we made the astonishing discovery that the Vanity Lilies could _see_. The light, as I have told you, was always somewhat dim on the Moon. The Doctor, while he was talking, suddenly decided he would like a smoke. He asked the lilies if they objected to the fumes of tobacco. They said they did not know because they had never had any experience of it. So the Doctor said he would light his pipe and if they did not like it he would stop.
So taking a box of matches from his pocket he struck a light. We had not fully realized before how soft and gentle was the light of the Moon until that match flared up. It is true that in testing our woods for smoke fuel we had made much larger blazes. But then, I suppose we had been more intent on the results of our experiments than on anything else. Now, as we noticed the lilies suddenly draw back their heads and turn aside from the flare, we saw that the extra illumination of a mere match had made a big difference to the ordinary daylight they were accustomed to.
THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER Mirrors for Flowers
When the Doctor noticed how the lilies shrank away from the glow of the matches he became greatly interested in this curious unexpected effect that the extra light had had on them.
“Why, Stubbins,” he whispered, “they could not have felt the heat. We were too far away. If it is the glare that made them draw back it must be that they have some organs so sensitive to light that quite possibly _they can see_! I must find out about this.”
Thereupon he began questioning the lilies again to discover how much they could tell him of their sense of vision. He shot his hand out and asked them if they knew what movement he had made. Every time (though they had no idea of what he was trying to find out) they told him precisely what he had done. Then going close to one large flower he passed his hand all round it; and the blossom turned its head and faced the moving hand all the way round the circle.
There was no doubt in our minds whatever, when we had finished our experiments, that the Vanity Lilies could in their own way see—though where the machinery called eyes was placed in their anatomy we could not as yet discover.
The Doctor spent hours and days trying to solve this problem. But, he told me, he met with very little success. For a while he was forced to the conclusion (since he could not find in the flowers any eyes such as we knew) that what he had taken for a sense of vision was only some other sense, highly developed, which produced the same results as seeing.
[Illustration: “_He passed his hand all around it_”]
“After all, Stubbins,” said he, “just because we ourselves only have five senses, it doesn’t follow that other creatures can’t have more. It has long been supposed that certain birds had a sixth sense. Still, the way those flowers feel light, can tell colors, movement, and form, makes it look very much as though they had found a way of seeing—even if they haven’t got eyes. . . . Humph! Yes, one might quite possibly see with other things besides eyes.”
Going through his baggage that night after our day’s work was done, the Doctor discovered among his papers an illustrated catalogue which had somehow got packed by accident. John Dolittle, always a devoted gardener, had catalogues sent to him from nearly every seed merchant and nurseryman in England.
“Why, Stubbins!” he cried, turning over the pages of gorgeous annuals in high glee—“Here’s a chance: if those lilies can see we can test them with this.—Pictures of flowers in color!”
The next day he interviewed the Vanity Lilies with the catalogue and his work was rewarded with very good results. Taking the brightly colored pictures of petunias, chrysanthemums and hollyhocks, he held them in a good light before the faces of the lilies. Even Chee-Chee and I could see at once that this caused quite a sensation. The great trumpet-shaped blossoms swayed downwards and forwards on their slender stems to get a closer view of the pages. Then they turned to one another as though in critical conversation.
Later the Doctor interpreted to me the comments they had made and I booked them among the notes. They seemed most curious to know _who_ these flowers were. They spoke of them (or rather of their species) in a peculiarly personal way. This was one of the first occasions when we got some idea or glimpses of lunar _Vegetable Society_, as the Doctor later came to call it. It almost seemed as though these beautiful creatures were surprised, like human ladies, at the portraits displayed and wanted to know all about these foreign beauties and the lives they led.
[Illustration: “_He held them before the lilies_”]
This interest in personal appearance on the part of the lilies was, as a matter of fact, what originally led the Doctor to call their species the Vanity Lily. In their own strange tongue they questioned him for hours and hours about these outlandish flowers whose pictures he had shown them. They seemed very disappointed when he told them the actual size of most earthly flowers. But they seemed a little pleased that their sisters of the other world could not at least compete with them in that. They were also much mystified when John Dolittle explained to them that with us no flowers or plants (so far as was known) had communicated with Man, birds, or any other members of the Animal Kingdom.
Questioning them further on this point of personal appearance, the Doctor was quite astonished to find to what an extent it occupied their attention. He found that they always tried to get near water so that they could see their own reflections in the surface. They got terribly upset if some bee or bird came along and disturbed the pollen powder on their gorgeous petals or set awry the angle of their pistils.
The Doctor talked to various groups and individuals; and in the course of his investigations he came across several plants who, while they had begun their peaceful lives close to a nice pool or stream which they could use as a mirror, had sadly watched while the water had dried up and left nothing but sun-baked clay for them to look into.
So then and there John Dolittle halted his questioning of the Vanity Lilies for a spell while he set to work to provide these unfortunates, whose natural mirrors had dried up, with something in which they could see themselves.
We had no regular looking-glasses of course, beyond the Doctor’s own shaving mirror, which he could not very we part with. But from the provisions we dug out various caps and bottoms of preserved fruits and sardine tins. These we polished with clay and rigged up on sticks so that the lilies could see themselves in them.
“It is a fact, Stubbins,” said the Doctor, “that the natural tendency is always to grow the way you want to grow. These flowers have a definite conscious idea of what they consider beautiful and what they consider ugly. These contrivances we have given them, poor though they are, will therefore have a decided effect on their evolution.”
[Illustration: “_These we rigged up on sticks_”]
That is one of the pictures from our adventures in the Moon which always stands out in my memory: the Vanity Lilies, happy in the possession of their new mirrors, turning their heads this way and that to see how their pollen-covered petals glowed in the soft light, swaying with the wind, comparing, whispering and gossiping.
I truly believe that if other events had not interfered, the Doctor would have been occupied quite contentedly with his study of these very advanced plants for months. And there was certainly a great deal to be learned from them. They told him for instance of another species of lily that he later came to call the _Poison Lily_ or _Vampire Lily_. This flower liked to have plenty of room and it obtained it by sending out deadly scents (much more serious in their effects than those unpleasant ones which the Vanities used) and nothing round about it could exist for long.
Following the directions given by the Vanity Lilies we finally ran some of these plants down and actually conversed with them—though we were in continual fear that they would be displeased with us and might any moment send out their poisonous gases to destroy us.
From still other plants which the Vanities directed us to the Doctor learned a great deal about what he called “methods of propagating.” Certain bushes, for example, could crowd out weeds and other shrubs by increasing the speed of their growth at will and by spreading their seed abroad several times a year.
In our wanderings, looking for these latter plants, we came across great fields of the “moon-bells” flourishing and growing under natural conditions. And very gorgeous indeed they looked, acres and acres of brilliant orange. The air was full of their invigorating perfume. The Doctor wondered if we would see anything of our giant moth near these parts. But though we hung about for several hours we saw very few signs of insect life.
THE FIFTEENTH CHAPTER Making New Clothes
“I don’t understand it at all,” John Dolittle muttered. “What reason at least can the moth who brought us here have for keeping out of our way?”
“His reasons may not be his own,” murmured Polynesia.
“What do you mean?” asked the Doctor.
“Well,” said she, “others may be keeping him—and the rest, away from us.”
“You mean the Moon Man?” said John Dolittle.
But to this Polynesia made no reply and the subject was dropped.
“That isn’t the thing that’s bothering me so much,” said Chee-Chee.
There was a pause. And before he went on I know that all of us were quite sure what was in his mind.
“It’s our getting back home,” he said at last. “Getting here was done for us by these moon folks—for whatever reason they had. But we’d stand a mighty poor chance of ever reaching the Earth again if they’re going to stand off and leave us to ourselves to get back.”
Another short spell of silence—during which we all did a little serious and gloomy thinking.
“Oh, well,” said the Doctor, “come, come! Don’t let’s bother about the stiles till we reach them. After all we don’t know for certain that these—er—whoever it is—are definitely unfriendly to us. They may have reasons of their own for working slowly. You must remember that we are just as strange and outlandish to them as they and their whole world are to us. We mustn’t let any idea of that kind become a nightmare. We have only been here, let’s see, not much over two weeks. It is a pleasant land and there is lots to be learned. The Vegetable Kingdom is clearly well disposed towards us. And if we give them time I’m sure that the—er—others will be too, in the end.”
[Illustration: “‘_Tommy, you seem to be getting enormously tall_’”]
Another matter which came up about this time was the effect of moon food on ourselves. Polynesia was the first to remark upon it.
“Tommy,” said she one day, “you seem to be getting enormously tall—and fat, aren’t you?”
“Er—am I?” said I. “Well, I _had_ noticed my belt seemed a bit tight. But I thought it was just ordinary growing.”
“And the Doctor too,” the parrot went on. “I’ll swear he’s bigger—unless my eyesight is getting queer.”
“Well, we can soon prove that,” said John Dolittle. “I know my height exactly—five feet two and a half. I have a two-foot rule in the baggage. I’ll measure myself against a tree right away.”
When the Doctor had accomplished this he was astonished to find that his height had increased some three inches since he had been on the Moon. Of what my own had been before I landed, I was not so sure; but measurement made it too a good deal more than I had thought it. And as to my waist line, there was no doubt that it had grown enormously. Even Chee-Chee, when we came to look at him, seemed larger and heavier. Polynesia was of course so small that it would need an enormous increase in her figure to make difference enough to see.
[Illustration: “_His height had increased some three inches_”]
But there was no question at all that the rest of us had grown considerably since we had been here.
“Well,” said the Doctor, “I suppose it is reasonable enough. All the vegetable and insect world here is tremendously much larger than corresponding species in our own world. Whatever helped them to grow—climate, food, atmosphere, air pressure, etc.—should make us do the same. There is a great deal in this for the investigation of biologists and physiologists. I suppose the long seasons—or almost no seasons at all, you might say—and the other things which contribute to the long life of the animal and vegetable species would lengthen our lives to hundreds of years, if we lived here continually. You know when I was talking to the Vampire Lilies the other day they told me that even cut flowers—which with them would mean of course only blossoms that were broken off by the wind or accident—live perfectly fresh for weeks and even months—provided they get a little moisture. That accounts for the moon-bells which the moth brought down with him lasting so well in Puddleby. No, we’ve got to regard this climate as something entirely different from the Earth’s. There is no end to the surprises it may spring on us yet. Oh, well, I suppose we will shrink back to our ordinary size when we return home. Still I hope we don’t grow too gigantic. My waistcoat feels most uncomfortably tight already. It’s funny we didn’t notice it earlier. But, goodness knows, we have had enough to keep our attention occupied.”
It had been indeed this absorbing interest in all the new things that the Moon presented to our eyes that had prevented us from noticing our own changed condition. The following few days, however, our growth went forward at such an amazing pace that I began seriously to worry about it. My clothes were literally splitting and the Doctor’s also. Finally, taking counsel on the matter, we proceeded to look into what means this world offered of making new ones.
Luckily the Doctor, while he knew nothing about tailoring, did know something about the natural history of those plants and materials that supply clothes and textile fabrics for Man.
“Let me see,” said he one afternoon when we had decided that almost everything we wore had become too small to be kept any longer: “Cotton is out of the question. The spinning would take too long, even if we had any, to say nothing of the weaving. Linen? No, likewise.—I haven’t seen anything that looked like a flax plant. About all that remains is root-fiber, though heaven help us if we have to wear that kind of material next to our skins! Well, we must investigate and see what we can find.”
With the aid of Chee-Chee we searched the woods. It took us several days to discover anything suitable, but finally we did. It was an odd-looking swamp tree whose leaves were wide and soft. We found that when these were dried in the proper way they kept a certain pliability without becoming stiff or brittle. And yet they were tough enough to be sewn without tearing. Chee-Chee and Polynesia supplied us with the thread we needed. This they obtained from certain vine tendrils—very fine—which they shredded and twisted into yarn. Then one evening we set to work and cut out our new suits.
[Illustration: “‘_We look like a family of Robinson Crusoes_’”]