Part 6

“Better make them large enough,” said the Doctor, waving a pair of scissors over our rock worktable. “Goodness only knows how soon we’ll outgrow them.”

We had a lot of fun at one another’s expense when at length the suits were completed and we tried them on.

“We look like a family of Robinson Crusoes,” said John Dolittle. “No matter: they will serve our purpose. Any port in a storm.”

For underwear we cut up all we had and made one garment out of two or three. We were afraid as yet to try our new tailoring next the skin. Luckily we only had to provide for a very mild climate.

“Now what about footwear?” said I when I had my coat and trousers on. “My shoes are all split across the top.”

“That part is easy,” said Chee-Chee. “I know a tree in the jungle which I found when hunting for fruits. The bark strips off easily and you can cut it into sandals that will last quite a while. The only hard part will be plaiting thongs strong enough to keep them in place on your feet.”

He guided us to the tree he had spoken of and we soon had outfitted ourselves with footgear which would last us at least a week.

“Good!” said the Doctor. “Now we need not worry about clothes for a while anyway and can give our attention to more serious matters.”

THE SIXTEENTH CHAPTER Monkey Memories of the Moon

It was when we were on our way to visit still another new kind of plant that the subject of the Moon’s early history came up again in conversation. The Doctor had heard of a “whispering vine” which used, as a method of conversation, the rattling or whispering of its leaves.

“Do you remember, Chee-Chee?” the Doctor asked, “if your grandmother ever spoke, in her stories of very ancient times, of any peculiar or extraordinary plants or trees?”

“I don’t think so, Doctor,” he replied. “My grandmother in her talks of the Time Before There Was a Moon kept pretty much to animals and people. She hardly ever mentioned the trees or vegetable world, except to say of this country or that, that it was heavily wooded, or bare and desert. Why?”

“Well, of course in my mind there is no doubt that the Moon was once a part of the Earth, as many scientists believe. And if so I am wondering why we do not see more plants and trees of our own home kinds here.”

“Well, but we have, Doctor,” said Polynesia. “How about the Asparagus Forests?”

“Quite so,” said the Doctor. “There have been many that reminded one of earthly species in their shapes, even if they have grown into giants here. But this speech among plants and trees—and other evidences of social advance and development in the Vegetable Kingdom—is something so established and accepted here I am all the time wondering if something like it had not started on the Earth long ago—say in the Days Before There Was a Moon. And it was merely because our naturalists were not quick enough to—er—catch on to it, that we supposed there was no means of communication among flowers and trees.”

[Illustration: “_‘Let me think,’ said Chee-Chee_”]

“Let me think,” said Chee-Chee, and he held his forehead tightly with both hands.

“No,” he said after a while. “I don’t recall my grandmother’s speaking of things like that at all. I remember in her story of Otho Bludge, the pre-historic artist, that she told us about certain woods he used to make handles for his flint chisels and other tools and household implements. She described the wood, for instance, that he used to make bowls out of for carrying water in. But she never spoke of trees and plants that could talk.”

It was about midday and we had halted for lunch on our excursion in search of the Whispering Vines we had been told of. We were not more than two or three hours’ walk from our old base camp. But that, with the speed so easy in moon marching, means a much greater distance than it does on the Earth. From this camp where the Doctor had set up his apparatus for his special botanical studies, we had now for nearly a week been making daily expeditions in search of the various new species that the Vanity Lilies had described for us. But we always got back before nightfall. Well, this noon the Doctor was leaning back, munching a large piece of yellow yam—a vegetable we got from the edges of the jungle and which we had found so nourishing we had made it almost our chief article of diet.

“Tell me, Chee-Chee,” said he: “what was the end of that story about Otho Bludge the pre-historic artist? It was a most fascinating tale.”

[Illustration: “_Leaning back munching a piece of yellow yam_”]

“Well, I think I have told you,” said Chee-Chee, “pretty nearly all there was to tell. In the Days Before There Was a Moon, as Grandmother always began, Otho Bludge was a man alone, a man apart. Making pictures on horn and bone with a stone knife, that was his hobby. His great ambition was to make a picture of Man. But there was no one to draw from, for Otho Bludge was a man alone. One day, when he wished aloud for some one to make a picture from, he saw this beautiful girl—Pippiteepa was her name—kneeling on a rock waiting for him to make a portrait of her. He made it—the best work he ever did, carved into the flat of a reindeer’s antler. About her right ankle she wore a string of blue stone beads. When the picture was finished she started to disappear again into the mountains’ evening mist, as mysteriously as she had come. Otho called to her to stay. She was the only human being he had ever seen besides his own image in the pools. He wanted her company, poor Otho Bludge, the carver of horn, the man apart. But even as she passed into the twilight forever she cried out to him that she could not stay—for she was of the Fairy Folk and not of his kin. He rushed to the rock where she had knelt; but all he found was the string of blue stone beads which she had worn about her ankle. Otho, broken-hearted, took them and bound them on his own wrist where he wore them night and day, hoping always that she would come back.

“There is nothing more. We youngsters used to pester my grandmother for a continuance of the tale. It seemed so sad, so unsatisfying, an ending. But the old lady insisted that that was the end. Not long after apparently Otho Bludge, the carver of horn and the man apart, just disappeared, completely, as though the Earth had swallowed him up.”

“Humph!” muttered the Doctor. “Have you any idea when?”

“No,” said the monkey. “You see, even my grandmother’s ideas of time and place in these stories she told us were very hazy. She had only had them handed down to her by her parents and grandparents, just as she passed them on to us. But I am pretty sure it was around the time of the Great Flood. Grandmother used to divide her stories into two periods: those belonging to The Days Before There Was a Moon and those that happened after. The name of Otho Bludge the artist only came into those before.”

“I see,” said the Doctor thoughtfully. “But tell me: can you recall anything your grandmother said about the time of the change—I mean, when the one period left off and the other began?”

“Not a very great deal,” said Chee-Chee. “It was the same when we questioned her about the Flood. That that event had taken place, there was no doubt; but, except for a few details, very little seemed to have been handed down as to how it came about, or of what was going on on the Earth at the time, or immediately after it. I imagine they were both great catastrophes—perhaps both came together—and such confusion fell upon all creatures that they were far too busy to take notes, and too scattered afterwards to keep a very clear picture in their minds. But I do remember that my grandmother said the first night when the Moon appeared in the sky some of our monkey ancestors saw a group of men kneeling on a mountain-top worshiping it. They had always been sun-worshipers and were now offering up prayers to the Moon also, saying it must be the Sun’s Wife.”

“But,” asked the Doctor, “did not Man know that the Moon must have flown off from the Earth?”

“That is not very clear,” said Chee-Chee. “We often questioned my grandmother on this point. But there were certainly some awful big gaps in her information. It was like a history put together from odd bits that had been seen from different sides of the Earth and filled in by gossip and hearsay generations after. It seems that to begin with the confusion was terrible. Darkness covered the Earth, the noise of a terrible explosion followed and there was great loss of life. Then the sea rushed into the hole that had been made, causing more havoc and destruction still. Man and beast slunk into caves for shelter or ran wild across the mountains, or just lay down and covered their eyes to shut out the dreadful vision. From what Monkey History has to relate, none lived who had actually seen the thing take place. But that I have always doubted. And much later there was a regular war among mankind when human society had pulled itself together again sufficiently to get back to something like the old order.”

“What was the war about?” asked the Doctor.

[Illustration: “_A terrible explosion followed_”]

“Well, by that time,” said Chee-Chee, “Man had multiplied considerably and there were big cities everywhere. The war was over the question: Was the Moon a goddess, or was she not? The old sun-worshipers said she was the wife or daughter of the Sun and was therefore entitled to adoration. Those who said the Moon had flown off from the flanks of the Earth had given up worshiping the Sun. They held that if the Earth had the power to shoot off another world like that, that _it_ should be adored, as the Mother Earth from which we got everything, and not the Sun. They said it showed the Earth was the center of all things, since the Sun had never shot off children. Then there were others who said that the Sun and the new Earth should be adored as gods—and yet others that wanted all three, Sun and Earth and Moon, to form a great triangle of Almighty Power. The war was a terrible one, men killing one another in thousands—greatly to the astonishment of the Monkey People. For to us it did not seem that any of the various parties really _knew_ anything for certain about the whole business.”

“Dear, dear,” the Doctor muttered as Chee-Chee ended. “The first religious strife—the first of so many. What a pity!—Just as though it mattered to any one what his neighbor believed so long as he himself led a sincere and useful life and was happy!”

THE SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER We Hear of “The Council”

This expedition on the trail of the Whispering Vines proved to be one of the most fruitful and satisfactory of all our excursions.

When we finally arrived at the home of this species, we found it a very beautiful place. It was a rocky gulch hard by the jungle, where a dense curtain of creepers hung down into a sort of pocket precipice with a spring-fed pool at the bottom. In such a place you could imagine fairies dancing in the dusk, wild beasts of the forest sheltering, or outlaws making their headquarters.

With a squawk Polynesia flew up and settled in the hanging tendrils that draped the rock wall. Instantly we saw a general wave of movement go through the vines and a whispering noise broke out which could be plainly heard by any ears. Evidently the vines were somewhat disturbed at this invasion by a bird they did not know. Polynesia, a little upset herself, flew back to us at once.

“Shiver my timbers!” said she in a disgruntled mutter. “This country would give a body the creeps. Those vines actually moved and squirmed like snakes when I took a hold of them.”

“They are not used to you, Polynesia,” laughed the Doctor. “You probably scared them to death. Let us see if we can get into conversation with them.”

Here the Doctor’s experience with the Singing Trees came in very helpfully. I noticed as I watched him go to work with what small apparatus he had brought with him that he now seemed much surer of how to begin. And it was indeed a surprisingly short time before he was actually in conversation with them, as though he had almost been talking with them all his life.

[Illustration: “_It was a rocky gulch_”]

Presently he turned to me and spoke almost the thought that was in my mind.

“Stubbins,” he said, “the ease with which these plants answer me would almost make me think _they have spoken with a man before_! Look, I can actually make responses with the lips, like ordinary human speech.”

He dropped the little contrivance he held in his hands and hissing softly through his teeth he gave out a sort of whispered cadence. It was a curious combination between some one humming a tune and hissing a conversational sentence.

Usually it had taken John Dolittle some hours, occasionally some days, to establish a communication with these strange almost human moon trees good enough to exchange ideas with them. But both Chee-Chee and I grunted with astonishment at the way they instantly responded to his whispered speech. Swinging their leafy tendrils around to meet the breeze at a certain angle, they instantly gave back a humming, hissing message that might have been a repetition of that made by the Doctor himself.

“They say they are glad to see us, Stubbins,” he jerked out over his shoulder.

“Why, Doctor,” I said, “this is marvelous! You got results right away. I never saw anything like it.”

“They have spoken with a man before,” he repeated. “Not a doubt of it. I can tell by the way they—Good gracious, what’s this?”

He turned and found Chee-Chee tugging at his left sleeve. I have never seen the poor monkey so overcome with fright. He stuttered and jibbered but no intelligible sounds came through his chattering teeth.

“Why, Chee-Chee!” said the Doctor. “What is it?—What’s wrong?”

“Look!”—was all he finally managed to gulp.

He pointed down to the margin of the pond lying at the foot of the cliff. We had scaled up to a shelf of rock to get nearer to the vines for convenience. Where the monkey now pointed there was clearly visible in the yellow sand of the pool’s beach two enormous foot-prints such as we had seen by the shores of the lake.

“_The Moon Man!_” the Doctor whispered.—“Well, I was sure of it—that these vines had spoken with a man before. I wonder—”

“Sh!” Polynesia interrupted. “Don’t let them see you looking. But when you get a chance glance up towards the left-hand shoulder of the gulch.”

Both the Doctor and I behaved as though we were proceeding with our business of conversing with the vines. Then pretending I was scratching my ear I looked up in the direction the parrot had indicated. There I saw several birds. They were trying to keep themselves hidden among the leaves. But there was no doubt that they were there on the watch.

As we turned back to our work an enormous shadow passed over us, shutting off the light of the sun. We looked up, fearing as any one would, some attack or danger from the air. Slowly a giant moth of the same kind that had brought us to this mysterious world sailed across the heavens and disappeared.

[Illustration: “_There was no doubt that they were on the watch_”]

A general silence fell over us all that must have lasted a good three minutes.

“Well,” said the Doctor at length, “if this means that the Animal Kingdom has decided finally to make our acquaintance, so much the better. Those are the first birds we have seen—and that was the first insect—since our moth left us. Curious, to find the bird life so much smaller than the insect. However, I suppose they will let us know more when they are ready. Meantime we have plenty to do here. Have you a notebook, Stubbins?”

“Yes, Doctor,” said I. “I’m quite prepared whenever you are.”

Thereupon the Doctor proceeded with his conversation with the Whispering Vines and fired off questions and answers so fast that I was kept more than busy booking what he said.

It was indeed, as I have told you, by far the most satisfactory inquiry we had made into the life of the Moon, animal or vegetable, up to that time. Because while these vines had not the almost human appearance of the Vanity Lilies, they did seem to be in far closer touch with the general life of the Moon. The Doctor asked them about this warfare which we had heard of from the last plants we had visited—the struggle that occurred when one species of plant wished for more room and had to push away its intruding neighbors. And it was then for the first time we heard about the Council.

[Illustration: “_Proceeded with his conversation with the vines_”]

“Oh,” said they, “you mustn’t get the idea that one species of plant is allowed to make war for its own benefit regardless of the lives or rights of others. Oh, dear, no! We folk of the Moon have long since got past that. There was a day when we had constant strife, species against species, plants against plants, birds against insects, and so on. But not any more.”

“Well, how do you manage?” asked the Doctor, “when two different species want the same thing?”

“It’s all arranged by the Council,” said the vines.

“Er—excuse me,” said the Doctor. “I don’t quite understand. What council?”

“Well, you see,” said the vines, “some hundreds of years ago—that is of course well within the memory of most of us, we—”

“Excuse me again,” the Doctor interrupted. “Do you mean that most of the plants and insects and birds here have been living several centuries already?”

“Why, certainly,” said the Whispering Vines. “Some of course are older than others. But here on the Moon we consider a plant or a bird or a moth quite young if he has seen no more than two hundred years. And there are several trees, and a few members of the Animal Kingdom too, whose memories go back to over a thousand years.”

“You don’t say!” murmured the Doctor. “I realized of course that your lives were much longer than ours on the Earth. But I had no idea you went as far back as that. Goodness me!—Well, please go on.”

“In the old days, then, before we instituted the Council,” the vines continued, “there was a terrible lot of waste and slaughter. They tell of one time when a species of big lizard overran the whole Moon. They grew so enormous that they ate up almost all the green stuff there was. No tree or bush or plant got a chance to bring itself to seeding-time because as soon as it put out a leaf it was gobbled up by those hungry brutes. Then the rest of us got together to see what we could do.”

[Illustration: “_A species of big lizard overran the Moon_”]

“Er—pardon,” said the Doctor. “But how do you mean, got together? You plants could not move, could you?”

“Oh, no,” said the vines. “We couldn’t move. But we could communicate with the rest—take part in conferences, as it were, by means of messengers—birds and insects, you know.”

“How long ago was that?” asked the Doctor.—“I mean for how long has the animal and vegetable world here been able to communicate with one another?”

“Precisely,” said the vines, “we can’t tell you. Of course some sort of communication goes back a perfectly enormous long way, some hundreds of thousands of years. But it was not always as good as it is now. It has been improving all the time. Nowadays it would be impossible for anything of any importance at all to happen in our corner of the Moon without its being passed along through plants and trees and insects and birds to every other corner of our globe within a few moments. For instance we have known almost every movement you and your party have made since you landed in our world.”

“Dear me!” muttered the Doctor. “I had no idea. However, please proceed.”

“Of course,” they went on, “it was not always so. But after the institution of the Council communication and cooperation became much better and continued to grow until it reached its present stage.”

THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER The President

The Whispering Vines then went on to tell the Doctor in greater detail of that institution which they had vaguely spoken of already, “The Council.” This was apparently a committee or general government made up of members from both the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms. Its main purpose was to regulate life on the Moon in such a way that there should be no more warfare. For example, if a certain kind of shrub wanted more room for expansion, and the territory it wished to take over was already occupied by, we’ll say, bullrushes, it was not allowed to thrust out its neighbors without first submitting the case to the Council. Or if a certain kind of butterfly wished to feed upon the honey of some flower and was interfered with by a species of bee or beetle, again the argument had to be put to the vote of this all-powerful committee before any action could be taken.

This information explained a great deal which had heretofore puzzled us.

“You see, Stubbins,” said the Doctor, “the great size of almost all life here, the development of intelligence in plant forms, and much more besides, could not possibly have come about if this regulation had not been in force. Our world could learn a lot from the Moon, Stubbins—the Moon, its own child whom it presumes to despise! We have no balancing or real protection of life. With us it is, and always has been, ‘dog eat dog.’”

The Doctor shook his head and gazed off into space to where the globe of our mother Earth glowed dimly. Just so had I often seen the Moon from Puddleby by daylight.

[Illustration: “_Where the globe of the Earth glowed dimly_”]