_THE EIGHTH CHAPTER_
THE LEADER OF THE LIONS
JOHN DOLITTLE now became dreadfully, awfully busy. He found hundredsand thousands of monkeys sick—gorillas, orang-outangs, chimpanzees,dog-faced baboons, marmosettes, gray monkeys, red ones—all kinds. Andmany had died.
The first thing he did was to separate the sick ones from the wellones. Then he got Chee-Chee and his cousin to build him a little houseof grass. The next thing: he made all the monkeys who were still wellcome and be vaccinated.
And for three days and three nights the monkeys kept coming fromthe jungles and the valleys and the hills to the little house ofgrass, where the Doctor sat all day and all night, vaccinating andvaccinating.
“He made all the monkeys who were still well come and bevaccinated”]
Then he had another house made—a big one, with a lot of beds in it; andhe put all the sick ones in this house.
But so many were sick, there were not enough well ones to do thenursing. So he sent messages to the other animals, like the lions andthe leopards and the antelopes, to come and help with the nursing.
But the Leader of the Lions was a very proud creature. And when he cameto the Doctor’s big house full of beds he seemed angry and scornful.
“Do you dare to ask me, Sir?” he said, glaring at the Doctor. “Do youdare to ask me—_ME, the King of Beasts_, to wait on a lot of dirtymonkeys? Why, I wouldn’t even eat them between meals!”
Although the lion looked very terrible, the Doctor tried hard not toseem afraid of him.
“I didn’t ask you to eat them,” he said quietly. “And besides, they’renot dirty. They’ve all had a bath this morning. _Your_ coat looksas though it needed brushing—badly. Now listen, and I’ll tell yousomething: the day may come when the lions get sick. And if you don’thelp the other animals now, the lions may find themselves left allalone when _they_ are in trouble. That often happens to proud people.”
“‘_ME, the King of Beasts_, to wait on a lot of dirtymonkeys?’”]
“The lions are never _in_ trouble—they only _make_ trouble,” said theLeader, turning up his nose. And he stalked away into the jungle,feeling he had been rather smart and clever.
Then the leopards got proud too and said they wouldn’t help. And thenof course the antelopes—although they were too shy and timid to berude to the Doctor like the lion—_they_ pawed the ground, and smiledfoolishly, and said they had never been nurses before.
And now the poor Doctor was worried frantic, wondering where he couldget help enough to take care of all these thousands of monkeys in bed.
But the Leader of the Lions, when he got back to his den, saw his wife,the Queen Lioness, come running out to meet him with her hair untidy.
“One of the cubs won’t eat,” she said. “I don’t know _what_ to do withhim. He hasn’t taken a thing since last night.”
And she began to cry and shake with nervousness—for she was a goodmother, even though she was a lioness.
So the Leader went into his den and looked at his children—two verycunning little cubs, lying on the floor. And one of them seemed quitepoorly.
Then the lion told his wife, quite proudly, just what he had said tothe Doctor. And she got so angry she nearly drove him out of the den.
“You never _did_ have a grain of sense!” she screamed. “All the animalsfrom here to the Indian Ocean are talking about this wonderful man,and how he can cure any kind of sickness, and how kind he is—the onlyman in the whole world who can talk the language of the animals! Andnow, _now_—when we have a sick baby on our hands, you must go andoffend him! You great booby! Nobody but a fool is ever rude to a _good_doctor. You—,” and she started pulling her husband’s hair.
“Go back to that white man at once,” she yelled, “and tell him you’resorry. And take all the other empty-headed lions with you—and thosestupid leopards and antelopes. Then do everything the Doctor tells you.Work like niggers! And perhaps he will be kind enough to come and seethe cub later. Now be off!—_Hurry_, I tell you! You’re not fit to be afather!”
And she went into the den next door, where another mother-lion lived,and told her all about it.
So the Leader of the Lions went back to the Doctor and said, “Ihappened to be passing this way and thought I’d look in. Got any helpyet?”
“No,” said the Doctor. “I haven’t. And I’m dreadfully worried.”
“Help’s pretty hard to get these days,” said the lion. “Animals don’tseem to want to work any more. You can’t blame them—in a way.... Well,seeing you’re in difficulties, I don’t mind doing what I can—just tooblige you—so long as I don’t have to wash the creatures. And I havetold all the other hunting animals to come and do their share. Theleopards should be here any minute now.... Oh, and by the way, we’vegot a sick cub at home. I don’t think there’s much the matter withhim myself. But the wife is anxious. If you are around that way thisevening, you might take a look at him, will you?”
Then the Doctor was very happy; for all the lions and the leopards andthe antelopes and the giraffes and the zebras—all the animals of theforests and the mountains and the plains—came to help him in his work.There were so many of them that he had to send some away, and only keptthe cleverest.
And now very soon the monkeys began to get better. At the end of aweek the big house full of beds were half empty. And at the end of thesecond week the last monkey had got well.
Then the Doctor’s work was done; and he was so tired he went to bed andslept for three days without even turning over.