If you go on like this, none of the best people will have you for a doctor.' Squire Jenkins and the Parson say they wouldn't come near your house again-no matter how sick they are. Then his sister, Sarah Dolittle, came to him and said, 'John, how can you expect sick people to come and see you when you keep all these animals in the house? It's a fine doctor would have his parlor full of hedgehogs and mice! That's the fourth personage these animals have driven away. And one day when an old lady with rheumatism came to see the Doctor, she sat on the hedgehog who was sleeping on the sofa and never came to see him anymore, but drove every Saturday all the way to Oxenthorpe, another town ten miles off, to see a different doctor. His sister used to grumble about all these animals and said they made the house untidy. But his favorite pets were Dab-Dab the duck, Jip the dog, Gub-Gub the baby pig, Polynesia the parrot, and the owl Too-Too. He had a cow with a calf too, and an old lame horse-twenty-five years of age-and chickens, and pigeons, and two lambs, and many other animals. Besides the goldfish in the pond at the bottom of his garden, he had rabbits in the pantry, white mice in his piano, a squirrel in the linen closet, and a hedgehog in the cellar. He was very fond of animals and kept many kinds of pets. His sister, Sarah Dolittle, was housekeeper for him, but the Doctor looked after the garden himself. The house he lived in, on the edge of the town, was quite small, but his garden was very large and had a wide lawn and stone seats and weeping willows hanging over. And whenever he walked down the street in his high hat everyone would say, 'There goes the Doctor! He's a clever man.' And the dogs and the children would all run up and follow behind him and even the crows that lived in the church tower would caw and nod their heads. All the folks, young and old, knew him well by sight. He lived in a little town called Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. 'M.D.' means that he was a proper doctor and knew a whole lot. ONCE UPON A TIME, MANY YEARS AGO-WHEN OUR grandfathers were little children-there was a doctor, and his name was Dolittle-John Dolittle, M.D.

The story of doctor dolittle