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“How did he save your life, Mr. Pigeon?” asked Dooley.

“Just call me Sam,” said the bird, his frosty demeanor a thing of the past now that he’d discovered we had a mutual friend in Tex. “Well, I recently hurt my left wing, see. I accidentally flew into a window and it hurt like hell. In fact it hurt so much I couldn’t fly anymore, and so I just figured that was that, you know. It’s hard for a pigeon to go through life without the capacity to fly. So I just sat here one day, feeling sorry for myself and generally figuring the end was near, when suddenly the Doc saw me, and picked me up and inspected me and said, ‘What seems to be thetrouble, little fella?’ Those were his exact words,” said Sam, a smile on his face at the recollection of that magical moment. “So I told him my wing was hurting and I couldn’t fly, and you know what he did?”

“I have no idea,” I said, not wanting to spoil Sam’s story by giving away the ending, which I figured was probably a given, since he’d just proven to us that he could, indeed, fly.

“He inspected my wing, said it was probably broken, then took me inside, put me under some kind of machine, and said that my wing was broken. And so he put my wing in what he called a splint, and then kept me in that small space next to his office for the next two weeks, hand-fed me, fetched me worms and other delicious grub, and nursed me back to health, if you please! And the upshot was that when he took off that splint, I could fly again!”

“Amazing!” said Dooley, who’d been so engrossed in the story that he’d practically forgotten to breathe.

“Yeah, and so I told a couple of my friends, and then they told their friends, and now whenever one of us is in some kind of trouble, we all come here, and Doc Poole treats us and makes us well again. The man is a miracle worker, I can tell you that, and he does all this out of the goodness of his own heart, and without asking for anything in return.”

“Did you hear that, Max?” said Dooley. “Tex is a miracle man.”

“Yeah, I heard that, Dooley,” I said. “But what I don’t understand is why we’re only hearing about this now.”

“Well, anyway, I gotta fly,” said Sam. “But if you see Doc Poole, tell him I said hi, and that I’m sending over a badger tonight who got something in his eye. Toodle-oo.”

“Toodle-oo,” I said as we watched Sam take flight and disappear from view with a few powerful strokes of his now fully healed wings.

“Amazing, isn’t it, Max?” said Dooley. “And here we thought that Tex is a closet alcoholic, and all this time he’s actually a closet Dr. Dolittle!”

“Yeah, that is pretty amazing,” I agreed. Just then, the sound of a loud argument came from inside the kitchen, and when we looked through the window, we saw that its participants were none other than Tex and Gran, and from the sound of things, their discussion was more than a little heated!

19

“Tex, you have got to stop doing this to yourself!” Vesta was saying. She didn’t like raising her voice, but sometimes that’s what it took to get through to her stubborn son-in-law.

“I know,” said Tex, looking miserable. He was leaning against the kitchen counter, a cup of hot java in his hand and taking an occasional disconsolate sip. “But how can I?”

“Look, if you don’t stop, someone is bound to find out sooner or later, and then what?”

“I’ll think of something,” said the doctor as a pained expression crept up his face.

“Think of what? How will you ever be able to face your patients again? If you’ll even have any patients left, that is. Which I’m pretty sure you won’t.”

“No one can know, Vesta,” said Tex, a pleading note creeping into his voice. “Why can’t this simply be our little secret, huh? I’m not doing anyone any harm, am I?”

“You’re making promises you can’t keep.” Tex’s mother-in-law shook her head and a sound of exasperation escaped her lips. “Why I ever agreed to keep this a secret, I don’t know. I should have told Marge the day I walked in on you and caught you red-handed.”

Tex looked up in alarm.“You haven’t told her, have you?”

“No, I haven’t, though by all rights I should. Don’t you think your wife is entitled to the truth? Or your daughter?”

“I can’t tell them,” said Tex stubbornly. “At least not yet.”

“If not now, when? You’ve gotta give me something, Tex. It’s hard for me to sit out there in that office and keep a straight face while basically telling your patients a bunch of lies.”

Tex groaned.“I know, I know. Do you think it’s easy for me? I have to sit there and listen to all of their… stuff.”

They were both quiet for a moment, then Tex just happened to glance out the kitchen window and suddenly cried,“Oh, no!”