Hugh Lofting - Doctor Dolittle's Post Office

"So presently, picking out the tree where I had seen the chief himself go and hide, I browsed along underneath it, pretending I suspected nothing at all. Then when the chief dropped on what he thought was my hindquarters, I struck upward with my other horns, hidden under the cowhide, and gave him a jab he will remember the rest of his days.

"With a howl of superstitious fright, he called out to his men that he had been stuck by the devil. And they all ran across the country like wildfire and I was never hunted or bothered by them again."

Everybody had now told a tale and the Arctic Monthly's Prize Story Competition was declared closed. The first number of the first animals' magazine ever printed was, shortly after that, issued and circulated by Swallow Mail to the inhabitants of the frozen North. It was a great success. Letters of thanks and votes on the competition began pouring in from seals and sea–lions and caribou and all manner of polar creatures. Too–Too, the mathematician, became editor; Dab–Dab ran the Mothers' and Babies' Page, while Gub–Gub wrote the Gardening Notes and the Pure Foods Column. And the Arctic Monthly continued to bring happiness to homes and dens and icebergs as long as the Doctor's Post office existed.

One day Gub–Gub came to the Doctor and said:

"Doctor, why don't you start a parcel post?"

"Great heavens, Gub–Gub!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Don't you think I'm busy enough already? What do you want a parcel post for?"

"I'll bet it's something to do with food," said Too–Too, who was sitting on the stool next to the Doctor's, adding up figures.

"Well," said Gub–Gub, "I was thinking of sending to England for some fresh vegetables."

"There you are!" said Too–Too. "He has a vegetable mind."

"But parcels would be too heavy for the birds to carry, Gub–Gub," said the Doctor—"except perhaps the small parcels by the bigger birds."

"Yes, I know. I had thought of that," said the pig. "But this month the Brussels sprouts will be coming into season in England. They're my favorite vegetable, you know—after parsnips. And I hear that a special kind of thrushes will be leaving England next week to come to Africa. It wouldn't be too much to ask them to bring a single Brussels sprout apiece, would it? There will be hundreds of birds in the flight and if they each brought a sprout we'd have enough to last us for months. I haven't tasted any fresh English vegetables since last Autumn, Doctor. And I'm so sick of these yams and okras and African rubbish."

"All right, Gub–Gub," said the Doctor, "I'll see what I can do. We will send a letter to England by the next mail going out and ask the thrushes to bring you your Brussels sprouts."

Well, that was how still another department, the Parcel Post, was added to the Foreign Mails Office of Fantippo. Gub–Gub's sprouts arrived (tons of them, because this was a very big flight of birds), and after that many kinds of animals came to the Doctor and asked him to send for foreign foods for them when their own ran short. In this way, too, bringing seeds and plants from other lands by birds, the Doctor tried quite a number of experiments in planting, and what is called acclimatizing, fruits and vegetables and even flowers.

And very soon he had an old–fashioned window–box garden on the houseboat post office blooming with geraniums and marigolds and zinnias raised from the seeds and cuttings his birds brought him from England. And that is why many of the same vegetables that grow in England can still be found in a wild state in Africa. They came there through Gub–Gub's passion for the foods he had been brought up on.

A little while after that, by using the larger birds to carry packages, a regular parcel post every two months was put at the service of the Fantippans; and alarm clocks and all sorts of things from England were sent for.

King Koko even sent for a new bicycle. It was brought over in pieces, two storks carrying a wheel each, an eagle the frame and crows the smaller parts, like the pedals, the spanners and the oil can.

When they started to put it together again in the post office a part—one of the nuts—was found to be missing. But that was not the fault of the Parcel Post. It had been left out by the makers, who shipped it from Birmingham. But the Doctor wrote a letter of complaint by the next mail and a new nut was sent right away. Then the King rode triumphantly through the streets of Fantippo on his new bicycle and a public holiday was held in honor of the occasion. And he gave his old bicycle to his brother, Prince Wolla–Bolla. And the Parcel Post, which had really been started by Gub–Gub, was declared a great success.

"Putting the King's bicycle together"

Some weeks later the Doctor received this letter from a farmer in Lincolnshire:

"Dear Sir: Thank you for your excellent weather reports. By their help I managed to raise the finest crop of Brussels sprouts this year ever seen in Lincolnshire. But the night before I was going to pick them for market they disappeared from my fields—every blessed one of them. How, I don't know. Maybe you could give me some advice about this.

"Your obedient servant,

"NICHOLAS SCROGGINS."

"Great heavens!" said the Doctor: "I wonder what happened to them."

"Gub–Gub ate them," said Too–Too. "Those are the sprouts, no doubt, that the thrushes brought here."

"Dear me!" said the Doctor. "That's too bad. Well, I dare say I'll find some way to pay the farmer back."

For a long time Dab–Dab, the motherly housekeeper, had been trying to get the Doctor to take a holiday from his post–office business.

"You know, Doctor," said she, "you're going to get sick—that's what's going to happen to you, as sure as you're alive. No man can work the way you've been doing for the last few months and not pay for it. Now you've got the post office going properly, why don't you hand it over to the King's postmen to run and give yourself a rest? And, anyway, aren't you ever going back to Puddleby?"

"Oh, yes," said John Dolittle. "All in good time, Dab–Dab."

"But you must take a holiday," the duck insisted. "Get away from the post office for a while. Go up the coast in a canoe for a change of air—if you won't go home."

Well, the Doctor kept saying that he would go. But he never did—until something happened in the natural history line of great enough importance to take him from his post–office work. This is how it came about:

One day the Doctor was opening the mail addressed to him, when he came upon a package about the size and shape of a large egg. He undid the outer wrapper, which was made of seaweed. Inside he found a letter and a pair of oyster shells tied together like a box.

"Dab–Dab looked over his shoulder"

Somewhat puzzled, the Doctor first read the letter, while Dab–Dab, who was still badgering him about taking a holiday, looked over his shoulder. The letter said:

"Dear Doctor: I am sending you, inclosed, some pretty pebbles which I found the other day while cracking open oysters. I never saw pebbles of this color before, though I live by the seashore and have been opening shellfish all my life. My husband says they're oyster's eggs. But I don't believe it. Would you please tell me what they are? And be careful to send them back, because my children use them as playthings and I have promised them they shall have them to keep."

Then the Doctor put down the letter and, taking his penknife, he cut the seaweed strings that neatly held the oyster shells together. And when he opened the shells he gave a gasp of astonishment.

"Oh, Dab–Dab," he cried, "how beautiful! Look, look!"