THE next day I was sitting on the wall of the Doctor’s garden after
tea, talking to Dab-Dab. I had now learned so much from Polynesia that
I could talk to most birds and some animals without a great deal of
difficulty. I found Dab-Dab a very nice, old, motherly bird—though not
nearly so clever and interesting as Polynesia. She had been housekeeper
for the Doctor many years now.
Well, as I was saying, the old duck and I were sitting on the flat top
of the garden-wall that evening, looking down into the Oxenthorpe Road
below. We were watching some sheep being driven to market in Puddleby;
and Dab-Dab had just been telling me about the Doctor’s adventures in
Africa. For she had gone on a voyage with him to that country long ago.
Suddenly I heard a curious distant noise down the road, towards the
town. It sounded like a lot of people cheering. I stood up on the wall
to see if I could make out what was coming. Presently there appeared
round a bend a great crowd of school-children following a very ragged,
curious-looking woman.
“What in the world can it be?” cried Dab-Dab.
The children were all laughing and shouting. And certainly the woman
they were following was most extraordinary. She had very long arms and
the most stooping shoulders I have ever seen. She wore a straw hat on
the side of her head with poppies on it; and her skirt was so long for
her it dragged on the ground like a ball-gown’s train. I could not see
anything of her face because of the wide hat pulled over her eyes. But
as she got nearer to us and the laughing of the children grew louder,
I noticed that her hands were very dark in color, and hairy, like a
witch’s.
Then all of a sudden Dab-Dab at my side startled me by crying out in a
loud voice,
“Why, it’s Chee-Chee!—Chee-Chee come back at last! How dare those
children tease him! I’ll give the little imps something to laugh at!”
And she flew right off the wall down into the road and made straight
for the children, squawking away in a most terrifying fashion and
pecking at their feet and legs. The children made off down the street
back to the town as hard as they could run.
The strange-looking figure in the straw hat stood gazing after them a
moment and then came wearily up to the gate. It didn’t bother to undo
the latch but just climbed right over the gate as though it were
something in the way. And then I noticed that it took hold of the bars
with its feet, so that it really had four hands to climb with. But it
was only when I at last got a glimpse of the face under the hat that I
could be really sure it was a monkey.
[Illustration: A traveler arrives]
Chee-Chee—for it was he—frowned at me suspiciously from the top of the
gate, as though he thought I was going to laugh at him like the other
boys and girls. Then he dropped into the garden on the inside and
immediately started taking off his clothes. He tore the straw hat in
two and threw it down into the road. Then he took off his bodice and
skirt, jumped on them savagely and began kicking them round the front
garden.
Presently I heard a screech from the house, and out flew Polynesia,
followed by the Doctor and Jip.
“Chee-Chee!—Chee-Chee!” shouted the parrot. “You’ve come at last! I
always told the Doctor you’d find a way. How ever did you do it?”
They all gathered round him shaking him by his four hands, laughing and
asking him a million questions at once. Then they all started back for
the house.
“Run up to my bedroom, Stubbins,” said the Doctor, turning to me.
“You’ll find a bag of peanuts in the small left-hand drawer of the
bureau. I have always kept them there in case he might come back
unexpectedly some day. And wait a minute—see if Dab-Dab has any bananas
in the pantry. Chee-Chee hasn’t had a banana, he tells me, in two
months.”
When I came down again to the kitchen I found everybody listening
attentively to the monkey who was telling the story of his journey from
Africa.
_THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER_