“At dawn,” said the Moon Man. Even in these modern days ideas of time on the Moon seemed strangely simple. “We will wait on you at sunrise. Till then, pleasant dreams and good rest!”
THE TWENTY-FOURTH CHAPTER
Doctor Dolittle Opens His Surgery on the Moon
Even the garrulous Polynesia was too tired to talk much more that night. For all of us it had been a long and steady session, that interview, tense with excitement. The Moon Man and his Council had barely departed before every one of us was dozing off without a change of clothes or a bite to eat. I am sure that nothing on Earth—or Moon—could have disturbed our slumbers.
The daylight was just beginning to show when we were awakened. I am not certain who was the first to arouse himself (probably John Dolittle) but I do know that I was the first to get up.
What a strange sight! In the dim light hundreds, perhaps thousands, of gigantic insects, all invalids, stood about our camp staring at the tiny human physician who had come so far to cure their ailments. Some of these creatures we had not so far seen and never even suspected their presence on the Moon: caterpillars as long as a village street with gout in a dozen feet; immense beetles suffering from an affliction of the eyes; grasshoppers as tall as a three-storey house with crude bandages on their gawky joints; enormous birds with a wing held painfully in an odd position. The Doctor’s home had become once more a clinic; and all the halt and lame of Moon Society had gathered at his door.
The great man, when I finally roused him, swallowed two or three gulps of melon, washed them down with a draft of honey and water, took off his coat and set to work.
“Grasshoppers with crude bandages on their gawky joints”
Of course the poor little black bag, which had done such yeoman service for many years in many lands, was not equal to a demand like this. The first thing to run out was the supply of bandages. Chee-Chee and I tore up blankets and shirts to make more. Then the embrocation became exhausted; next the iodine and the rest of the antiseptics. But in his botanical studies of the trees and plants of this world the Doctor had observed and experimented with several things which he had found helpful in rheumatic conditions and other medical uses. Chee-Chee and Polynesia were despatched at once to find the herbs and roots and leaves that he wanted.
For hours and hours he worked like a slave. It seemed as though the end of the line of patients would never be reached. But finally he did get the last of them fixed up and despatched. It was only then he realized that the Moon Man had let all the other sufferers come forward ahead of himself. Dusk was coming on. The Doctor peered round the great space about our camp. It was empty, save for a giant figure that squatted silent, motionless and alone, by the forest’s edge.