 2. CHEAPSIDE It was a great day at the doctor's post office when Cheapside, the London Sparrow, arrived from Puttleby to look after the city deliveries for Fentipo. The doctor was eating his lunch of sandwiches at the information desk when the little bird popped his head through the window and said in his cheeky cockney voice, Hello doctor, here we are again. What a hoe. The old firm. Who would have thought you'd come to this? Cheapside was a character. Anyone on seeing him for the first time would probably guess that he spent his life in city streets. His whole expression was different from other birds. In Speedy's eyes, for instance, though nobody would dream of thinking him stupid, there was an almost noble look of country honesty. But in the eyes of Cheapside, the London Sparrow, there was a saucy, daredevil expression that seemed to say, Don't you think for one moment that you'll ever get the better of me? I'm a cockney bird. Why, Cheapside, cried doctor Dolittle, at last you've come. My, but it's good to see you. Did you have a pleasant journey? Not bad, not half bad. Said Cheapside, eyeing some crumbs from doctor's lunch, which lay up on the desk. No storms, a pretty decent traveling, or, well, I should say it was ought, ought enough for an otten-tot. Great place you have here, sort of a barge. By this time, all the animals had heard Cheapside arriving, and they came rushing in to see the traveller and to hear the news of Puddleby and England. How was the old horse in the stable? asked John Dolittle. Pretty spry, said Cheapside. Of course, he ain't as young as he used to be, but he's lively enough for an olden. He asked me to bring you a bunch of crimson ramblers, just blooming over the stable door they was. But I, says to him, I says, what do you take me for, an omnibus? Fancy a feller in my time of life carrying a bunch of roses all the way down the Atlantic. Folks would think I was going to a wedding at the South Pole. Racious, Cheapside, said the doctor, laughing, it makes me quite homesick for England to hear your cockney chirp. And me too, side-chip. Were there many rats in the woodshed, Cheapside? Hundreds of them, said the sparrow, as big as rabbits, and that up as you think they own the place. I'll soon settle them when I get back, said-chip. I hope we go soon. How does the garden look, Cheapside? asked the doctor. A-one, said the sparrow, weighed in the path, of course, but the iris under the kitchen window looked something lovely they did. Anything new in London? asked the white mouse, who was also city bread. Yes, said Cheapside. There's always something going in good old London. They've got a new kind of cab there, goes on two wheels instead of four. A man called Anson invented it. Much faster than the old acne's they are. You see them everywhere, and there's a new green grocery shop near the Royal Exchange. I'm going to have a green grocery shop of my own when I grow up. Murmured gub-gub. In England, where they grow good vegetables, I'm awfully tired of Africa, and then I'll watch the new vegetables coming into season all the year round. He's always talking about that, said Tutu. Such an ambition and life to have, to run a green grocery shop. Ah, England, cried gub-gub sentimentally. What is there more beautiful in life than the heart of a young lettuce in the spring? Ark at M, said Cheapside, raising his eyebrows. Ain't either poetical porker. Why don't you write a bunch of sonnets to the skunk kiss cabbages of Louisiana, Mr. Bacon? Well, now look here, Cheapside, said the doctor. We want you to get these city deliveries straightened out for us in the town of Fentipo. Our post-birds are having great difficulty finding the right houses to take letters to. You're a city bird born in bread. Do you think you can help us? I'll see what I can do for you, doc, said the sparrow. After I've taken a look around this eathen town of yours, but first I want a bath. I'm all heat up from flying under a brawn and sun. Ain't you got no puddles around here for a bird to take a bath in? No, this isn't puddley climate, said the doctor. You're not in England, you know. But I'll bring you my shaving mug, and you can take a bath in that. Mind you wash the soap out first, doc, chirped the sparrow. It gets into my eyes. The next day after Cheapside had had a good sleep to rest up from his long journey, the doctor took the London sparrow to show him around the town of Fentipo. Well, doc, said Cheapside, after they had seen the sights. As a town, I don't think much of it. Really, I don't. It's big, I'll say that for it. I had no idea they had towns as big as this in Africa. But the streets is so narrow. I can see why they don't have no cabs here. Already room for a goat to pass, let alone a four-wheeler. And as for the houses, they seem to be made of the insides of old mattresses. The first thing we'll have to do is to make old King Coconut tell his subjects to put door knockers on their doors. What is home without a door knocker? I'd like to know. Of course, your postman can't deliver the letters when they've no knockers to knock with. I'll attend to that, said the doctor. I'll see the King about it this afternoon. And then they've got no letter boxes in the doors, said Cheapside. There ought to be slots made to poke the letters in. The only place these Bloomin' Ethan's have for a postman to put a letter is down the chimney. Very well, said the doctor. I'll attend to that, too. Shall I have the letter boxes in the middle of the door, or would you like them on one side? Put them on each side of the doors, two to every house, said Cheapside. What's that for, asked the doctor. Now that's a little idea of my own, said the sparrow. We'll have one box for the bills and one for sure enough letters. You see, people are so disappointed when they hear the postman knock and come to the door expecting to find a nice letter from a friend or news that money's been left them. And all they get is a bill from the tailor. But if we have two boxes on each door, one marked bills and the other letters, the postman could put all the bills in one box and the honest letters in the other. As I said, it's a little idea of my own. We might as well be real up to date. What do you think of it? I think it's a splendid notion, said the doctor. Then the people need only have one disappointment when they clear the bill box on the day set for paying their debts. That's the idea, said Cheapside. And tell the postbirds, as soon as we've got the knockers on, to knock once for a bill and twice for a letter, so the folks in the house will know whether to come and get the mail or not. Oh, I tell you, we'll show these poor pagans a thing or two before we're finished. We'll have a post office in Fentipsey that really is a post office. And now, how about Christmas boxes, doctor? Postmen always expect a handsome present around Christmas time, you know. Well, I'm rather afraid, said the doctor, doubtfully, that these people don't celebrate Christmas as a holiday. Don't celebrate Christmas? cried Cheapside in a shocked voice. What a disgraceful scandal! Well, look here, doctor. You just tell King Coco Butter that if Ian is people don't celebrate the festive season by giving us postbirds Christmas boxes, there ain't going to be no mail delivered in Fentipsey from New Years to Easter. And you can tell him, I said so. It's high time somebody enlightened his ignorance. All right, said the doctor, I'll attend to that, too. Tell him, said Cheapside, we'll expect two lumps of sugar on every doorstep Christmas morning for the postbirds. No sugar, no letters. That afternoon the doctor called upon the king and explained to him the various things that Cheapside wanted, and his majesty gave in to them every one. Beautiful brass knockers were screwed on all the doors, light ones which the birds could easily lift, and very elegant they looked, by far the most up-to-date part of the ramshackled dwellings. The double boxes were also put up with one place for bills and one for the letters. John Doolittle instructed King Coco as well in the meaning of Christmas time we should be a season for giving gifts. And among the Fentipo people the custom of making presents at Christmas became very general, not only to postmen, but to friends and relatives, too. That is why, when several years after the doctor had left this country, some missionaries visited that part of Africa they found to their astonishment that Christmas was celebrated there, although the people were heathens. But they never learned that the custom had been brought about by Cheapside the cheeky London sparrow. And now, very soon, Cheapside took entire charge of the city delivery of males in Fentipo. Of course, as soon as the males began to get heavy, when the people got the habit of writing more to their friends and relatives, Cheapside could not deal with all the male himself. So he sent a message by a swallow to get fifty sparrows from the streets of London, who were like himself accustomed to city ways, to help him with the delivery of letters. And around the native holiday seasons, the harvest moon and the coming of the rains, he had to send for fifty more to deal with the extra male. And if you happened to pass down the main street of Fentipo at nine in the morning or four in the afternoon, you would hear the rat-tat-tat out of the post sparrows, knocking on the doors, tat-tat if it was a real letter and just rat if it was a bill. Of course they could not carry more than one or two letters at a time, being such small birds. But it only took them a moment to fly back to the houseboat for another load, where Tutu was waiting for them at the city window with aisles of male sorted out into boxes marked Central, West Central, Southwest, etc., for the different parts of the town. This was another idea of Cheapsides, to divide up the city into districts the same as they did in London, so the male could be delivered quickly without too much hunting for streets. Cheapside's help was indeed most valuable to the doctor. The king himself said that the males were wonderfully managed. The letters were brought regularly and never left at the wrong house. He had only one fault, had Cheapside, and that was being cheeky. Whenever he got into an argument his cockney swearing was just dreadful, and in spite of the doctors having issued orders time and again that he expected his post office clerks and male birds to be strictly polite to the public, Cheapside was always getting into rouse, which he usually started himself. One day, when King Coco's pet white peacock came to the doctor and complained that the cockney sparrow had made faces at him over the palace wall, the doctor became quite angry and read the city manager a long lecture. Then Cheapside got together a gang of his tough London sparrow friends, and one night they flew into the palace garden and mobbed the white peacock and pulled three feathers out of his beautiful tail. This last piece of rowdyism was too much for John Doolittle, and calling up Cheapside he discharged him on the spot, though he was very sorry to do it. But when the sparrow went all his London friends went with him, and the post office was left with no city birds to attend to the city deliveries. The swallows and other birds tried their hardest to get letters around to the houses properly, but they couldn't, and before long complaints began to come in from the townspeople. Then the doctor was sorry and wished he hadn't discharged Cheapside, who seemed to be the only one who could manage this part of the males properly. But one day to the doctor's great delight, though he tried hard to look angry, Cheapside strolled into the post office with a straw in the corner of his mouth, looking as though nothing had happened. John Doolittle had thought that he and his friends had gone home to London, but they hadn't. They knew the doctor would need them and they had just hung around outside the town. And then the doctor, after lecturing Cheapside again about politeness, gave him back his job. But the next day the rowdy little sparrow threw a bottle of post office ink over the royal white peacock when he came to the houseboat with the came to take tea. Then the doctor discharged Cheapside again. In fact, the doctor used to discharge him for rudeness regularly about once a month. And the city males always got tied up soon after that. But to the doctor's great relief, the city manager always came back just when the tie-up was at its worst and put things right again. Cheapside was a wonderful bird, but it seemed as though he just couldn't go through a whole month without being rude to somebody. The doctor said it was in his nature. End of Pt. 2, Chapter 3 of Dr. Doolittle's post office by Hugh Lofting. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Pt. 2, Chapter 3. The Birds That Helped Columbus After the doctor had written his first letter by swallow mail to the cat's meat man, he began to think of all the other people to whom he had neglected to write for years and years, and very soon every spare moment he had was filled in writing to friends and acquaintances everywhere. And then, of course, there were the letters he sent to and received from birds and animals all over the world. First, he wrote to the various bird leaders who were in charge of the branch offices at Cape Horn, Tibet, Tahiti, Kashmir, Christmas Island, Greenland, and Puttleby on the Marsh. To them he gave careful instructions how the branch post offices were to be run, always insisting on strict politeness from the post office clerks, and he answered all the questions that the branch post masters wrote asking for guidance. And he sent letters to various fellow naturalists whom he knew in different countries and gave them a whole lot of information about the yearly flights or migrations of birds, because, of course, in the bird mail business he learned a great deal on that subject that had never been known to naturalists before. Outside the post office he had a notice board set up on which were posted the outgoing and incoming mails. The notices would read something like this. Next Wednesday, July 18, the red-winged plovers will leave this office for Denmark and points on the skagger rack. Post your mail early, please. All letters should bear a four-penny stamp. Small packages will also be carried on this flight for Morocco, Portugal, and the Channel Islands. Whenever a new flight of birds were expected at no man's land, the doctor always had a big supply of food of their particular kind got ready for their arrival beforehand. He had, at the big meeting with the leaders, put down in his notebook the dates of all the yearly flights of the different kinds of birds, where they started from and where they went to, and this notebook was kept with great care. One day Speedy was sitting on top of the weighing scale when the doctor was starting a large pile of outgoing letters. Suddenly this skimmer cried out, Great Heaven's doctor, I've gained an ounce. I'll never be able to fly in the races again. Look, it says four and a half ounces. No, Speedy, said the doctor. See, you have an ounce weight on the pan as well as yourself. That makes you only three and a half ounces. Oh, said skimmer, is that the trouble? I was never good at arithmetic. Oh, what a relief. Thank goodness I haven't gained. Listen, Speedy, said the doctor. In this batch of mail we have a lot of letters from Panama. What mail have we got going out tomorrow? I'm not sure, said Speedy. I'll go and look at the notice board. I think it's the Golden Jays. Yes, he said, coming back in a moment. That's right, the Golden Jays tomorrow, Tuesday the 15th, weather permitting. Where are they bound for, Speedy? asked the doctor. My notebook's in the safe. From Dahomey to Venezuela, said Speedy, raising his right foot to Smollery Yon. Good, said Dr. Doolittle. Then they can take these Panama letters for me. It won't be much out of their way. What do Golden Jays eat? They are very fond of acorns, said Speedy. All right, said the doctor. Please tell Gub Gub for me to go across to the island and get the wild boars to gather up a couple of sacks of acorns. I want all the birds who work for us to have a good feed before they leave the main office for their flights. The next morning, when the doctor woke up, he heard a tremendous chatter ring all around the post office, and he knew that the Golden Jays had arrived overnight. And after he had dressed and come out onto the veranda, there, sure enough, they were, myriads of very handsome gold and black birds swarming everywhere, gossiping away at a great rate, and gobbling up the acorns laid out for them in bushels. The leader, who already knew the doctor, of course, came forward to get orders and to see how much mail there was to be carried. After everything had been arranged and the leader had decided he needed to expect no tornadoes or bad weather for the next twenty-four hours, he gave a command. Then all the birds rose in the air to fly away, whistling farewell to postmaster general Doolittle and the head office. Oh, by the way, doctor, said the leader, turning back a moment. Did you ever hear of a man called Christopher Columbus? Oh, surely, said the doctor, he discovered America in 1492. Well, I just wanted to tell you, said the Jays, that if it hadn't been for an ancestor of mine, he wouldn't have discovered it in 1492, later perhaps, but not in 1492. Oh, indeed, said John Doolittle, tell me more about it. And he pulled a notebook out of his pocket and started to write. Well, said the Jays, the story was handed down to me by my mother, who heard it from my grandmother, who got it from my great grandmother, and so on, way back to an ancestor of ours who lived in America in the 15th century. Our kind of birds in those days did not come across to this side of the Atlantic, neither summer nor winter. We used to spend from March to September in the Bermudas, and the rest of the year in Venezuela, and when we made the autumn journey south, we used to stop at the Bahama Islands to rest on the way. The fall of the year 1492 was a stormy season, gales and squalls were blowing up all the time, and we did not get started on our trip until the second week in October. My ancestor had been the leader of the flock for a long time, but he had grown sort of old and feeble and a younger bird was elected in his place to lead the Golden Jays to Venezuela that year. The new leader was a conceited youngster, and because he had been chosen he thought he knew everything about navigation and weather and sea crossings. Shortly after the birds started, they cited, to their great astonishment, a number of boats sailing on a westward course. This was about halfway between the Bermudas and the Bahamas. The ships were much larger than anything they had ever seen before. All they had been accustomed to up to that time were little canoes with Indians in them. The new leader immediately got scared and gave the order for the Jays to swing in further toward the land so they wouldn't be seen by the men who crowded these large boats. He was a superstitious leader and anything he didn't understand he kept away from. But my ancestor did not go with the flock, but came straight for the ships. He was gone about twenty minutes and presently he flew after the other birds and said to the new leader, over there in those ships a brave man is in great danger. They come from Europe, seeking land. The sailors, not knowing how near they are to sighting it, have mutiny against their admiral. I'm an old bird and I know this brave seafarer. Once when I was making a crossing, the first I ever made, a gale came up and I was separated from my fellows. For three days I had to fly with a battering wind. And finally I was blown eastward near the old world. Just when I was ready to drop into the sea from exhaustion, I spied a ship. I simply had to rest. I was weather-beaten and starving, so I made for the boat and fell half dead upon the deck. The sailors were going to put me in a cage, but the captain of the ship, this same navigator whose life is now threatened by his rebellious crew in those ships over there, fed me crumbs and nursed me back to life. Then he let me go free to fly to Venezuela when the weather was fair. We are landbirds. Let us now save this good man's life by going to his ship and showing ourselves to his sailors. They will then know that land is near and be obedient to their captain. Yes, yes, said the doctor, go on. I remember Columbus writing of landbirds in his diary. Go on. So, said the J. The whole flock turned and made for Columbus's fleet. They were only just in time. For the sailors were ready to kill their admiral, who they said had brought them on a fool's errand to find land when there was none. He must turn back and sail for Spain, they said, or be killed. But when the sailors saw a great flock of landbirds passing over the ship going southwest instead of west, they took Newhart, for they were sure land must lie not far to the southwestward. So we led them on to the Bahamas, and on the seventh day, very early in the morning, the crew, with the cry of land, land, fell down upon their knees and gave thanks to heaven. Warlings Island, one of the smaller Bahamas, lay ahead of them, smiling in the sea. Then the sailors gathered about the admiral, Christopher Columbus, whom a little before they were going to kill, and cheered and called him the greatest navigator in the world, which in truth he was. But even Columbus himself never learned to his dying day that it was the weather-beaten bird who had fallen on his friendly deck some years before, who had led him by the shortest cut to the land of the New World. So you see, doctor, the jay ended, picking up his letters and getting ready to fly. If it hadn't been for my ancestor, Christopher Columbus would have had to turn back to please his sailors or be killed. If it hadn't been for him, America would not have been discovered in 1492, later perhaps, but not in 1492. Goodbye, I must be going, thanks for the acorns. End of part two, chapter three. Part two, chapter four of Dr. Doolittle's Post Office by Hugh Lofting. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Part two, chapter four, Cape Stephen Light. On the coast of West Africa, about twenty miles to the northward of Fantipo, there was a cape running out into the sea which had a lighthouse on it called the Cape Stephen Light. This light was kept carefully burning by the government who controlled that part of Africa in order that ships should see it from the sea and know where they were. It was a dangerous part of the coast, this. There were many rocks and shallows near the end of Cape Stephen, and if the light were ever allowed to go out at night, of course ships travelling that part of the sea would be in great danger of running into the long cape and wrecking themselves. Now, one evening, not long after the golden jays had gone west, the doctor was writing letters in the post office by the light of a candle. It was late and all the animals were fast asleep long ago. Presently, while he wrote, he heard a sound a long way off, coming through the open window at his elbow. He put down his pen and listened. It was the sound of a seabird calling way out at sea. Now, seabirds don't, as a rule, call very much unless they are in great numbers. This call sounded like a single bird. The doctor put his head through the window and looked out. It was a dark night, as black as pitch, and he couldn't see a thing, especially as his eyes were used to the light of the candle. The mysterious call was repeated again and again, like a cry of distress from the sea. The doctor didn't know quite what to make of it. But soon he thought it seemed to be coming nearer, and grabbing his hat, he ran out onto the veranda. What is it? What's the matter? He shouted into the darkness over the sea. He got no answer. But soon, with a rush of wings that nearly blew his candle out, a great seagull swept down onto the houseboat rail beside him. Doctor! panted the gull. The cape's steven light is out. I don't know what's the matter. It has never gone out before. We use it as a landmark, you know, when we are flying after dark. The night's as black as ink. I'm afraid some ship will surely run into the cape. I thought I'd come and tell you. Good heavens! cried the doctor. What can have happened? There's the lighthouse keeper living there to attend to it. Was it lighted earlier in the evening? I don't know, said the gull. I was coming in from catching herring. They're running just now, you know, a little to the north, and, expecting to see the light, I lost my way and flew miles too far south. When I found out my mistake, I went back, flying close down by the shore, and I came to steven cape. But it had no light. It was black as anything, and I would have run right into the rocks myself if I hadn't been going carefully. How far would it be from here? asked Doctor Doolittle. Well, by land it would be twenty-five miles to where the lighthouse stands, said the gull, but by water it would be only about twelve, I should say. All right, said the doctor, hurrying into his coat. Wait just a moment till I wake Dab-Dab. The doctor ran into the post office kitchen and woke the poor housekeeper, who was slumbering soundly beside the kitchen stove. Listen, Dab-Dab, said the doctor, shaking her. Wake up! The Cape Stephen's light's gone out. Was that, said Dab-Dab, sleepily opening her eyes. Stove's gone out? Know the lighthouse on Cape Stephen, said the doctor. A gull just came and told me. The shipping's in danger. Rex, you know and all that. Wake up and look sensible for pity's sake. At last poor Dab-Dab fully awakened, understood what was the matter, and in a moment she was up and doing. I know where it is, Doctor. I'll fly right over there. No, I won't need the gull to guide me. You keep him to show you the way. Follow me immediately in the canoe. If I can find out anything, I'll come back and meet you halfway. If not, I'll wait for you by the lighthouse tower. Thank goodness it's a calm night, anyway, even if it is dark. With a flap of her wings, Dab-Dab flew right through the open window and was gone into the night, while the doctor grabbed his little black medicine bag and, calling to the gull to follow him, ran down to the other end of the houseboat, untied the canoe, and jumped in. Then he pushed off, heading around the island of no man's land and paddled for all he was worth for the seaward end of Cape Stephen. About half way to the long neck of land that jutted out into the gloomy ocean, the doctor's canoe was met by Dab-Dab, though how she found it in the darkness, with only the sound of the paddle to guide her, goodness only knows. Doctor, said she, if the lighthouse keeper was in there at all, he must be sick or something. I hammered on the windows, but nobody answered. Dear me, muttered the doctor, paddling harder than ever, I wonder what can have happened. And that's not the worst, said Dab-Dab. On the far side of the cape you can't see it from here. There's the headlight of a big sailing ship bearing down southward, making straight for the rocks. They can't see the lighthouse and they don't know what danger they're in. Good Lord, groaned the doctor, and he nearly broke the paddle as he churned the water-resturn to make the canoe go faster yet. How far off the rocks is the ship now, asked the gull. About a mile, I should say, said Dab-Dab, but she's a big one, judging by the height of her mass light, and she won't be long before she's a ground on the cape. Keep right on, doctor, said the gull. I'm going off to get some friends of mine. And the seagulls spread his wings and flew away toward the land, calling the same cry as the doctor had heard through the post office window. John Doolittle had no idea of what he meant to do, nor was the gull himself sure that he would be in time to succeed with the plan he had in mind. But presently, to his delight, the seabird heard his call being answered from the rocky shores, surrounded in darkness, and soon he had hundreds of his brother gulls circling round him in the night. Then he took them to the great ship, which was sailing calmly onward toward the rocks and destruction. And there, going forward to where the helmsman held the spokes of the wheel, and watched the compass swinging before him in the light of a little dim lamp, the gulls started dashing themselves into the wheel-man's face and covering the glass of the compass so he could not steer the ship. The helmsman, battling with the birds, set up a yell for help, saying he couldn't see to steer the boat. Then the officers and sailors rushed up to his assistants and tried to beat the birds off. In the meantime, the doctor in his canoe had reached the end of Cape Stephen, and, springing ashore, he scrambled up the rocks to where the great tower of the lighthouse rose skyward over the black, unlighted sea. Feeling and fumbling, he found the door and hammered on it, yelling to be let in. But no one answered him, and Dab-Dab whispered in a hoarse voice that the light of the ship was nearer now, less than half a mile from the rocks. Then the doctor drew back for a run and threw his whole weight against the door. But the hinges and lock had been made to stand the beating of the sea, and they budged no more than if it had been a fly. At last, with a roar of rage, the doctor grabbed up a rock from the ground as big as a chair, and banged it with all his might against the lock of the lighthouse door. With a crash, the door flew open and the doctor sprang within. On the ship, the seamen were still fighting with the gulls. The captain, seeing that no helmsman could steer the boat right with thousands of wings fluttering in his eyes, gave the order to lay the ship to for a little and to get out the hose-pipes. And a strong stream of water was turned on to the gulls around the helmsman so they could no longer get near him. Then the ship got underway again and came on toward the cape once more. Inside the lighthouse, the doctor found the darkness blacker still. With hands outstretched before him, he hurried forward, and the first thing he did was to stumble over a man who was lying on the floor just within the door. Without waiting to see what was the matter with him, the doctor jumped over his body and began to grope his way up the winding stairs of the tower that led to the big lamp at the top. Meanwhile, Dab-Dab stayed below at the door, looking out over the sea at the masked light of the ship, which, after a short delay, was now coming on again toward the rocks. At any minute she expected the great beam of the lighthouse lamp to flare out over the sea, as soon as the doctor should get it lit to warn the sailors of their dangers. But instead she presently heard the doctor's agonized voice calling from the head of the stairs. Dab-Dab! Dab-Dab! I can't light it! We forgot to bring matches! Well, what have you done with the matches, doctor? Called Dab-Dab. They were always in your coat. I left them beside my pipe on the information desk, came the doctor's voice from the top of the dark stairs. But there must be matches in the lighthouse somewhere. We must find them. What chance have we of that? shouted Dab-Dab. It's as black as black down here, and the ship is coming nearer every minute. Feel in the man's pockets, called John Doolittle. Hurry! In a minute Dab-Dab went through the pockets of the man who lay so still upon the floor. He hasn't any matches on him, she shouted, not a single one. Con found the luck, muttered John Doolittle. And then there was a solemn silence in the lighthouse, while the doctor above and Dab-Dab below thought gloomily of that big ship sailing onward to her wreck because they had no matches. But suddenly out of the black stillness came a small sweet voice singing somewhere near. Dab-Dab! cried the doctor in a whisper. Do you hear that? A canary. There's a canary singing somewhere. Probably in a cage in the lighthouse kitchen. In a moment he was clattering down the stairs. Come on, he cried. We must find the kitchen. That canary will know where the matches are kept. Find the kitchen. Then the two of them went stumbling around in the darkness, feeling the walls, and presently they came upon a low door, opened it, and fell headlong down a short flight of steps that led to the lighthouse kitchen. This was a little underground room, like a cellar, cut out of the rock on which the lighthouse stood. If there was any fire or stove in it, it had long since gone out, for the darkness here was as black as anywhere else. But as soon as the door had opened, the trills of the songbird grew louder. Tell me, called Dr. Doolittle in canary language, where are the matches quick? Oh, at last you come, said a high, small, polite voice out of the darkness. Would you mind putting a cover over my cage? That is draft and I can't sleep. Nobody's been near me since midday. I don't know what can have happened to the keeper. He always covers up my cage at tea time, but tonight I wasn't covered at all, so I went on singing. You'll find my cover up on the matches, matches, where are the matches? Screamed Dab-Dab. The lights out and there's a ship in danger. Where are the matches kept? On the mantelpiece, next to the pepper box, said the canary. Come over here to my cage and feel along to your left, high up, and your hand will fall right on them. The doctor sprang across the room, upsetting a chair on his way, and felt along the wall. His hand touched the corner of a stone shelf, and the next moment Dab-Dab gave a deep sigh of relief, for she heard the cheerful rattle of a box of matches as the doctor fumbled to strike a light. You'll find a candle on the table. There, look, behind you, said the canary, when the matchlight dimly lit up the kitchen. With trembling fingers the doctor lit the candle, then shielding the flame with his hand, he bound it out of the room and up the stairs. At last, he muttered, let's hope I'm not too late. At the head of the kitchen steps he met the seagull, coming into the lighthouse with two companions. Doctor! cried the gull. We held off the ship as long as we could, but the stupid sailors, not knowing we were trying to save them, turned hoses on us and we had to give up. The ship is terribly near now. Without a word the doctor sped on up the winding steps of the tower. Round and round he went upward till he was ready to drop from dizziness. At last, reaching the great glass lamp chamber at the top, he sat down his candle and, striking two matches at once, he held one in each hand and lit the big wick in two places. By this time, Dab-Dab had gone outside again and was watching over the sea for the oncoming ship, and when at last the great light from the big lamp at the top of the tower suddenly flared out over the sea, there was the bow of the vessel not more than a hundred yards from the rocky shore of the cape. Then came a cry from the lookout, shouted orders from the captain, much blowing of whistles and ringing of bells, and just in time to save herself from a watery grave, the big ship swung her nose out to sea, and sailed safely past upon her way. End of part two, chapter four. Part two, chapter five of Dr. Doolittle's post office by Hugh Lofting. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Part two, chapter five, gulls and ships. The morning sun, peeping in at the window of the lighthouse, found the doctor still working over the keeper where he lay at the foot of the tower stairs. He's coming, too, said Dab-Dab. See, his eyes are beginning to blink. Get me some more clean water from the kitchen, said the doctor, who was bathing a large lump on the side of the man's head. Presently the keeper opened his eyes wide and stared up into the doctor's face. Who? What? he murmured stupidly. The light! I must attend to the light! I must attend to the light! And he struggled weakly to get up. It's all right, said the doctor. The light has been lit and it's nearly day now. Here, drink this, then you'll feel better. And the doctor held some medicine to his lips, which he had taken from the little black bag. In a short while the man grew strong enough to stand on his feet. Then, with the doctor's help, he walked as far as the kitchen, where John Doolittle and Dab-Dab made him comfortable in an arm chair, lit the stove, and cooked his breakfast for him. I'm mighty grateful to you, stranger, whoever you are, said the man. Usually there's two of us here, me and my partner, Fred. But yesterday morning I let Fred go off with the catch to get oysters. That's why I'm alone. I was coming down the stairs about noon from putting new wicks in the lamp. When my foot slipped and I took a tumble to the bottom, my head fetched up against the wall and knocked the senses right out of me. How long I lay there before you found me, I don't know. Well, all's well that ends well, said the doctor. Take this, you must nearly be starved. And he handed the keeper a large cup of steaming coffee. About ten o'clock in the morning, Fred, the partner, returned in the little sailboat from his oyster-gathering expedition. He was very much worried when he heard of the accident which had happened while he had been off duty. Fred, like the other keeper, was a Londoner and a seaman. He was a pleasant fellow when both he and his partner, who was now almost entirely recovered from his injury, were very glad of the doctor's company to break the tiresome dullness of their lonely life. They took John Dolittle all over the lighthouse to see the workings of it. And outside they showed him with great pride the tiny garden of tomatoes and nasturgeums which they had planted near the foot of the tower. They only got holiday once a year, they told John Dolittle, when a government ship stopped near Cape Stephen and took them back to England for six weeks' vacation, leaving two other men in their place to take care of the lighthouse while they were gone. They asked the doctor if he could give them any news of their beloved London, but he had to admit that he also had been away from that city for a long time. However, while they were talking, Cheapside came into the lighthouse kitchen looking for the doctor. The city sparrow was delighted to find that the keepers were also cockneys, and he gave them, through the doctor, all the latest gossip of Wapping, Limehouse, and the East India Docks, and the wharves and the shipping of London River. The two keepers thought that the doctor was surely crazy when he started a conversation of chirps with Cheapside, but from the answers they got to their questions, they could see there was no fake about the news of the city which the sparrow gave. Cheapside said the faces of those two cockney seamen were the best scenery he had looked on since he had come to Africa, and after that first visit he was always flying over to the lighthouse in his spare time to see his new friends. Of course he couldn't talk to them because neither of them knew sparrow talk, not even cockney sparrow talk, but Cheapside loved being with them anyway. They're such a nice wholesome Christian change, he said, that to these there even idolaters, and you should just hear Fred sing, see that my graves kept green. The lighthouse keepers were sorry to have the doctor go, and they wouldn't let him leave till he promised to come and take dinner with them next Sunday. Then after they had loaded his canoe with a bushel of rosy tomatoes and a bouquet of nostrogens, the doctor with dab-dab and Cheapside paddled away for Fantipo while the keepers waved to them from the lighthouse door. The doctor had not paddled very far on his return journey to the post office, when the seagull who had brought him the news of the light overtook him. Everything all right now, doctor? He asked as he swept in graceful circles around the canoe. Yes, said doctor Doolittle, munching a tomato. The man got an awful crack on the head from that fall, but he will be all over it in a little while. If it hadn't been for the canary, though, who told us where the matches were, and for you, too, holding back the sailors, we would never have saved that ship. The doctor threw a tomato skin out of the canoe, and the gull caught it neatly in the air before it touched the water. Well, I'm glad we were in time, said the bird. Tell me, asked the doctor, watching him thoughtfully, as he hovered and swung and circled around the tiny boat. What made you come and bring me the news about the light? Gulls don't, as a rule, bother much about people or what happens to ships, do they? You're a mistaken doctor, said the gull, catching another skin with deadly accuracy. Ships and the men in them are very important to us, not so much down here in the south, but up north, why, if it wasn't for the ships in the winter, we gulls would often have a hard time finding enough to eat. You see, after it gets cold, fish and seafoods become sort of scarce. Sometimes we make out by going up the rivers to towns and hanging about the artificial lakes and parks where fancy waterfowl are kept. The people come to the parks and throw biscuits into the lakes for the waterfowl, but if we are around the biscuits get caught before they hit the lake, like that. And the gulls snatched a third tomato skin on the wing with a lightning lunge. But you were speaking of ships, said the doctor. Yes, the gull went on, rather indistinctly, because his mouth was full of tomato skin. We find ships much better for winter feeding. You see, it isn't really fair of us to go and bag all the food from the fancy waterfowl and parks, so we never do it unless we have to. Usually in winter we stick to the ships. Why, two years ago, I and a cousin of mine lived the whole year round following ships for the food scraps the stewards threw out into the sea. The rougher the weather, the more food we got, because then the passengers don't feel like eating, and most of the grub gets thrown out. Yes, I and my cousin attached ourselves, as it were, to the transatlantic packet line, which runs ships from Glasgow to Philadelphia, and travel back and forth with them across the ocean dozens of trips. But later on we've changed over to the Binnacle line, Tilbury to Boston. Why, asked the doctor. We found they ran a better table for their passengers, with the Binnacle, who threw us out wanting biscuits, afternoon tea and sandwiches, last thing at night, as well as three square meals a day, we lived like fighting cocks. It nearly made sailors of us for good. It's a great life, all you do is eat. I should say goals are interested in men and ships, doctor. Very much so. Why, I wouldn't have an accident happen to a ship for anything, especially a passenger ship. Hmm, that's very interesting, murmured the doctor. And have you seen many accidents, ships in trouble? Oh, heaps of times, said the gull. Storms, collisions at night, ships going aground in the fog and the rest. Oh, yes, I've seen lots of boats in trouble at sea. Ah, said the doctor, looking up from his paddling. See, we are already back at the post office. And there's the push me pull you ringing the lunch bell. We're just in time. I smell liver and bacon. These tomatoes will go with it splendidly. Won't you come in and join us? He asked the gull. I would like to hear more about your life with ships. You given me an idea. Thank you, said the gull. I am feeling kind of peckish myself. You are very kind. This is the first time I've eaten a ship's food inside a ship. And when the canoe was tied up, they went into the houseboat and sat down to lunch at the kitchen table. Well, now, said the doctor to the gull as soon as they were seated, you were speaking of fogs. What do you do yourself in that kind of weather? I mean, you can't see any more in the fog than the sailors can. Can you? No, said the gull. We can't see any more. It is true. But my goodness, if we were as helpless in the fog as the sailors are, we'd always be lost. What we do, if we are going anywhere special and we run into a fog, is to fly up above it way up where the air is clear. Then we can find our way as well as ever. I see, said the doctor. But the storms, what do you do in them to keep yourself safe? Well, of course, in storms, bad storms, even seabirds can't always go where they want. We seagulls never try to battle our way against a real gull. The petrels sometimes do, but we don't. It's too tiring. And even when you can come down and rest on the water swimming every once in a while, it's a dangerous game. We fly with the storm, just let it carry us where it will. Then when the wind dies down, we come back and finish our journey. But that takes a long time, doesn't it? asked the doctor. Oh, yes, said the gull. It wastes a little time. But you know, we very seldom let ourselves get caught by a storm. How do you mean? asked John Doolittle. We know, before we reach one, where it is, and we go around it. No experienced seabird ever runs his head into a bad storm. But how do you know where the storms are? asked the doctor. Well, said the gull. I suppose two great advantages we birds have over the sailors in telling when and where to expect bad weather, or our good eyesight and our experience. For one thing, we can always rise high in the air and look over the sea for a distance of 50 or 60 miles. Then if we see gulls approaching, we can turn and run for it. And we can put on more speed than the fastest gull that ever blew. And then another thing, our experience is so much better than sailors. Sailors, board duffers, think they know the sea, that they spend their life on it. They don't, believe me, they don't. Half the time they spend in the cabin, part of the time they spend on shore, and a lot of the time they spend sleeping. And even when they are on deck, they're not always looking at the sea. They fiddle around with ropes and paint brushes and mops and buckets. You very seldom see a sailor looking at the sea. I suppose they get rather tired of it, poor fellows, murmured the doctor. Maybe, but after all, if you want to be a good seaman, the sea is the thing that counts, isn't it? That's the thing you've got to look at to study. Now we sea birds spend nearly all our lives night and day, spring, summer, autumn, and winter, looking at the sea. And what is the result? Estagal, taking a fresh piece of toast from the rack that Dab-Dab handed him. The result is we know the sea. Why, doctor, if you were to shut me up in a little box with no windows in it, and take me out into the middle of any ocean you liked, and then open the box and let me look at the sea, even if there wasn't a speck of land in sight. I could tell you what ocean it was and almost to a mile what part of it we were in. But of course I'd have to know what date it was. Marvelous, cried the doctor. How do you do it? From the color of it, from the little particles of things that float in it, from the kind of fishes and sea creatures swimming in it, from the way the little ripples rippled and the big waves waved, from the smell of it, from the taste, the saltiness of it, and a couple of hundred other things. But, you know, in most cases, not always, but in most cases, I could tell you where we were with my eyes shut as soon as I got out of the box, just from the wind blowing on my feathers. Great heavens, the doctor exclaimed. You don't say. That's the main trouble with sailors, doctor. They don't know winds the way they ought. They can tell a north-east wind from a west wind, and a strong one from a weak one, and that's about all. But when you've spent most of your life the way we have, flying among the winds, using them to climb on, to swoop on and to hover on, you get to know that there's a lot more to a wind beside its direction and its stress. How often it puffs upward or downward, how often it grows weak or grows strong, will tell you, if you know the science of winds, a whole lot. When the lunch was over, the doctor took an armchair beside the kitchen stove and lit his pipe. I am thinking, he said to the gull, of starting a new department in my post office. Many of the birds who have helped me in this male business seem to be remarkably good weather profits, and what you have just told me about your knowledge of the sea and storms has given me the idea of opening a weather bureau. What's that? asked Jip, who was brushing up the table-crumbs, to be put out later for the birds on the houseboat deck. A weather bureau said the doctor is a very important thing, especially for shipping and farmers. It's an office for telling you what kind of weather you're going to have. How do they do it? asked Gub-Gub. They don't, said the doctor. At least they do sometimes. But as often as not, they're wrong. They do it with instruments, thermometers, barometers, hydrometers, and wind gauges and things. But most weather bureaus so far have been pretty poor. I think I can do much better with my birds. They very seldom go wrong in prophesying the weather. Well, for what parts of the world do you want to know the weather, doctor? asked the gull. If it's just for Fentipo or West Africa, it will be easy as pie. All you ever get here is tornadoes. The rest of the year is just frying heat. But if you want to prophesy the weather for the Straits of Magellan or Nova Zimbla, or those countries where they have all sorts of fancy weathers, it will be a different matter. Even prophesying the weather for England would keep you busy. Myself, I never thought that the weather itself knew what it was going to do next in England. The English climate's all right, put in sheep's side. His feathers ruffling up for a fight. Don't you get turning up your long nautical nose at England, my lad? What do you call this ear a climate? Well, I should call it a Turkish bath. In England we like variety at our climate and we get it. That's why Englishmen have such already red faces. Ear the poor creatures turn black. I would like, said the doctor, to be able to prophesy weather for every part of the world. I really don't see why I shouldn't. This office, together with my branch offices, is in communication with birds going to every corner of the earth. I can improve the forming and the agriculture of the whole human race, but also, and especially, I want to have a bureau for ocean weather to help the ships. Ah, said the gull, for land weather I wouldn't be much help to you. But when it comes to the oceans, I know a bird who can tell you more about sea weather than any bureau ever knew. Oh, said the doctor, who is that? We call him one eye, said the gull. He's an old, old albatross. Nobody knows how old. He lost an eye fighting with a fish eagle over a flounder. But he's the most marvelous weather prophet that ever lived. All sea birds have the greatest respect for his opinions. He has never been known to make a mistake. Indeed, said the doctor, I would like very much to meet him. I'll get him for you, said the gull. His home is not very far from here, out on a rock off the Angola coast. He lives there because the shellfish are so plentiful on the rock, and he's too feeble with his bad sight to catch the other kinds of livelier fish. It's a sort of dull life for his old age, after all the great traveling he has done. He'll be no in-place to know you want his help. I'll go and tell him right away. That would be splendid, said the doctor. I think your friend should be very helpful to us. So the gull, after thanking the doctor and dab-dab for a very excellent luncheon, took a couple of postcards which were going to Angola and flew off to get One Eye, the albatross. Later in the afternoon the gull returned and with him came the great One Eye, oldest of bird weather prophets. The doctor said afterward that he had never seen a bird who reminded him so much of a sailor. He had the rolling, straddling walk of a seafaring man. He smelt strongly of fish, and whenever he spoke of the weather he had an odd trick of squinting up at the sky with his One Eye the way old sailors often do. He agreed with the doctor that the idea of a bird weather bureau was quite a possible thing, and would lead to much better weather reports than had so far been possible. Then for a whole hour and a half he gave the doctor a lecture on winds. Every word of this John Doolittle wrote down in a notebook. Now the wind is the chief thing that changes the weather, and if for incidents you know that it is raining in the Channel Islands at tea time under thirsty and there's a northeast wind blowing, you can be pretty sure that the rain will reach England sometime Thursday night. The next thing that the doctor did was to write to all the branch postmasters and have them arrange exactly with the different kinds of birds a time for them to start their yearly migrations, not just the second week in November or anything like that, but an exact day and hour. Then by knowing how fast each kind of bird flies he could calculate almost to a minute what time they should arrive at their destination, and if they were late in arriving then he would know that bad weather had delayed them on the way, or that they had put off their starting till storms died down. The doctor, the gull, one eye, dab, dab, cheap side, speedy the skimmer, and tutu the mathematician put their heads together and discussed far into the night, working out a whole lot more arrangements and particulars for running a good weather bureau, and a few weeks later a brand new notice board appeared on the walls of the doctor's post office, beside the one for outgoing and incoming males. The new notice was marked at the top, weather report, and would read something like this. The green herons were one day three hours and nine minutes late in their arrival at Cape Horn from the Sandwich Islands wind coming south southeast. Blustery weather can be expected along the west coast of Chile and light gales in the Antarctic Sea, and then the land birds, particularly those living on berries, were very helpful to the doctor in telling him by letter if the winter was going to be a hard one or not in their particular countries, and he used to write to farmers all over the world advising them whether they could expect a sharp frost, a wet spring, or a dry summer, which of course helped them in their farming tree mindlessly. And then the Phantippians, who so far had been very timid about going far out to sea on account of storms, now that they had a good weather bureau and knew what weather to expect, began building larger sailboats instead of their little frail canoes, and they became what is called a mercantile nation, traded up and down the shores of West Africa, and even went as far as the Cape of Good Hope and entered the Indian Ocean to traffic in goods with people of foreign lands. This made the kingdom of Phantippo much richer and more important than it had been before, of course, and a large grant of money was given by the king to foreign males post office, which was used by the doctor in making the houseboat better and bigger, and soon the no man's land weather bureau began to get known abroad. The farmers in England, who had received such good weather reports by letter from the doctor, went up to London and told the government that their own reports were no good, that a certain Dr. Dolittle M.D. was writing them much better reports from some place in Africa, and the government got quite worked up about it, and they sent a royal meteorologist, an old gray haired weatherman, down to Phantippo to see how the doctor was doing it. John Dolittle saw him one day snooping around the post office, looking at the notice boards and trying to find out things, but he found out nothing, and when he got back to England he said to the government, he hasn't any new instruments at all, the man's a fake, all he has down there is an old barge and a whole lot of messy birds flying around. End of part two, chapter six. Part two, chapter seven of Dr. Dolittle's post office by Hugh Lofting. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Part two, chapter seven, teaching by male. The educational side of the doctor's post office was a very important one and it grew all the time. As he had said to the skimmer at the beginning, as soon as the birds and animals realized the helpfulness of having a post office of their own, they used it more and more. And of course, as Speedy had foretold, they wrote most of their letters to the doctor. Soon the poor man was swamped with mail asking for medical advice. The Eskimo slay dogs wrote all the way from the Arctic continent to know what they should do about their hair falling out. Hair, which was all the poor creatures had to keep them warm against the polar winds, was of course very important to them. And John Dolittle spent a whole Saturday and Sunday experimenting with hair tonics on Gyp to find a way to cure their trouble. Gyp was very patient about it, knowing that the doctor was doing it for the good of his fellow dogs. And he did not grumble, although he did mention to Dab-Dab that he felt like a chemist shopped from all the different hair oils the doctor had used on him. He said they ruined his keen nose entirely for two weeks so he couldn't smell straight. And beside the letters asking for medical advice, the doctor got all sorts of requests from animals all over the world for information about food for their babies, nesting materials, and a thousand other things. In their new thirst for education, the animals asked all manner of questions, some of which neither the doctor nor anyone else could answer. What were the stars made of? Why did the tide rise and fall? And could it be stopped? Then, in order to deal with this wide demand for information which had been brought about by his post office, John Dolittle started, for the first time in history, courses by correspondence for animals. And he had printed forms made called Things a Young Rabbit Should Know, The Care of Feet in Frosty Weather, etc., etc., These he sent out by mail in thousands. And then, because so many letters were written to him about good manners and proper behavior, he wrote A Book of Etiquette for Animals. It is still a very famous work, though copies of it are rare now, but when he wrote it, the doctor printed a first edition of fifty thousand copies and sent them all out by mail in one week. It was at this time, too, that he wrote and circulated another very well-known book of his called One Act Plays for Penguins. But, alas, instead of making the number of letters he had to answer less, the doctor found that by sending out books of information he increased a hundredfold the already enormous mail he had to attend to. This is a letter he received from a pig in Patagonia. Dear doctor, I have read your Book of Etiquette for Animals and liked it very much. I am shortly to be married. Would it be proper for me to ask the guest to bring turnips to my wedding instead of flowers? In introducing one well-bred pig to another, should you say Miss Virginia Ham or Meet Mr. Frank Footer or Get Acquainted? Yours truly, Bertha Bacon. PS. I have always worn my engagement ring in my nose. Is this the right place? And the doctor wrote back, Dear Bertha, in introducing one pig to another, I would avoid using the word meet. Get acquainted is quite all right. Remember that the object of all etiquette and manners should be to make people comfortable, not uncomfortable. I think turnips at a wedding quite proper. You might ask the guest to leave the tops on, then they will look more like a bouquet. Sincerely yours, John Doolittle. End of Pt. 2, Chapter 7. Pt. 3, Chapter 1 of Dr. Doolittle's Post Office by Hugh Lofting. Next thing I must tell you about is the prize story competition. The fame of the Puttleby Fireside Circle, where the doctor had amused his pets with so many interesting tales, had become quite a famous institution. Tutu had gossiped about it, gub-gub, gyp, and the white mouse had boasted of it. You see, they were always proud that they could say they were part of the great man's regular household. And before long, through this new post office of their own, creatures all over the world were speaking of it and discussing it by letter. Next thing, the doctor began to receive requests for stories by mail. He had become equally famous as an animal doctor, an animal educator, and an animal author. From the far north, letters came in by the dozen from polar bears and walruses and foxes, asking that he send them some light entertaining reading, as well as his medical pamphlet and books of etiquette. The winter nights, weeks and weeks long up there, grew frightfully monotonous, they said, after their own supply of stories had run out. Because you couldn't possibly sleep all the time and something had to be done for amusement on the lonely ice floes and in the dens and lairs beneath the blizzard-swept snow. For some time the doctor was kept, oh, busy with more serious things, that he was unable to attend to it, but he kept it in his mind until he should be able to think out the best way of dealing with the problem. Now his pets, after the post office work got sort of settled in regular, often found it somewhat hard to amuse themselves in the evenings. One night they were all sitting around on the veranda of the houseboat, wondering what game they could play when Jip suddenly said, I know what we can do. Let's get the doctor to tell us a story. Oh, you heard all my stories, said the doctor. Why don't you play Hunt the Slipper? The houseboat isn't big enough, said Dab-Dab. Last time we played it, Gub-Gub got stuck by the push-me-pull-use horns. You've got plenty of stories. Tell us one, doctor. Just a short one. Well, but what shall I tell you a story about? asked John Doolittle. About a turnip field, said Gub-Gub. No, that won't do, said Jip. Doctor, why don't you do what you did sometimes by the fire in Puddlebee? Turn your pockets out upon the table till you come to something that reminds you of a story. You remember? All right, said the doctor, but... And then an idea came to him. Look here, he said. You know I've been asked for stories by mail. The creatures around the North Pole wanted some light reading for the long winter nights. I'm going to start an animals magazine for them. I'm calling it the Arctic Monthly. It will be sent by mail and be distributed by the Nova Zimbla branch office. So far so good, but the great problem is how to get sufficient stories and pictures and articles and things to fill a monthly magazine. No easy matter. Now listen. If I tell you animals a story tonight, you'll have to do something to help me with my new magazine. Every night, when you want to amuse yourselves, we'll take it in turns to tell a story. That will give us seven stories right away. There will be only one story printed every month. Each month, the rest of the magazine will be news of the day, a medical advice column, a baby's and mother's page, and odds and ends. Then we'll have a prize story competition. The reader shall judge which is the best, and when they write to us here and tell us, we'll give the prize to the winner. What do you say? What a splendid idea, said Gubb Gubb. I'll tell my story tomorrow night. I know a good one. Now go ahead, doctor. Then John Doolittle started turning his trousers pockets out onto the table to try and find something that reminded him of a story. It was certainly a wonderful collection of objects that he brought forth. There were pieces of string and pieces of wire, stub ends of pencils, pocket knives with the blades broken, coat buttons, boot buttons, a magnifying glass, a compass and a corkscrew. There doesn't seem to be anything very hopeful here, said the doctor. Try and your waistcoat pockets, said Tutu. They were always the most interesting. You haven't turned them out since you left Puttleby. There must be lots in them. So the doctor turned out his waistcoat pockets. These brought forth two watches, one that went and one that didn't, a measuring tape, a piece of cobbler's wax, a penny with a hole through it, and a clinical thermometer. What's that? asked Gubb Gubb, pointing to the thermometer. That's for taking people's temperature with, said the doctor. Oh, that reminds me. Of a story? cried Tutu. I knew it would, said Jip. A thing like that must have a story to it. What's the name of the story, doctor? Well, said the doctor, settling himself back in his chair. I think I'll call this story The Invalid's Strike. What's a strike? asked Gubb Gubb. And what on earth is an invalid? cried the push-me-pull-you. A strike, said the doctor, is when people stop doing their own particular work in order to get somebody else to give them what they want. And an invalid? Well, an invalid is a person who is always or more or less ill. But what kind of work is Invalid's work? asked the white mouse. Their work is, uh, staying ill, said the doctor. Stop asking questions or I'll never get this story started. Wait a minute, said Gubb Gubb. My foot's gone to sleep. Oh, bother your feet, said Dab Dabb. Let the doctor get on with this story. Is it a good story? asked Gubb Gubb. Well, said the doctor, I'll tell it. And then you can decide for yourself. Stop fidgeting now and let me begin. It's getting late. End of part three, chapter one. Part three, chapter two of Dr. Doolittle's Post Office by Hugh Lofting. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. Part three, chapter two, the doctor's story. As soon as the doctor had lit his pipe and got it well going, he began. Many years ago, at the time I bought this thermometer, I was a very young doctor, full of hope, just starting out in business. I fancied myself a very good doctor, but I found that the rest of the world did not seem to think so. And for many months after I began, I did not get a single patient. I had no one to try my new thermometer on. I tried it on myself quite often. But I was always so frightfully healthy I never had any temperature anyway. I tried to catch a cold. I didn't really want a cold, you understand. But I did want to make sure that my new thermometer worked. But I couldn't even catch a cold. I was very sad, healthy, but sad. Well, about this time I met another young doctor who was in the same fix as myself, having no patience. Said he to me, I'll tell you what we'll do. Let's start a sanitarium. What's a sanitarium? asked Gubb Gubb. A sanitarium, said the doctor, is a sort of mixture between a hospital and a hotel, where people stay who are invalids. Well, I agreed to this idea. Then I and my young friend, his name was Phipps, Dr. Cornelius Cufipps, took a beautiful place way off in the country, and we furnished it with wheelchairs and hot water bottles and ear trumpets, and the things that invalids like. And very soon patients came to us in hundreds, and our sanitarium was quite full up, and my new thermometer was kept very busy. Of course we made a lot of money because all these people paid us well, and Phipps was very happy. But I was not so happy. I had noticed a peculiar thing. None of the invalids ever seemed to get well and go away. And finally I spoke of this to Phipps. My dear do little, he said, go away? Of course not. We don't want them to go away. We want them to stay here, so they'll keep on paying us. Phipps, I said, I don't think that's honest. I became a doctor to cure people not to pamper them. Well, on this point we fell out and quarreled. I got very angry and told him I would not be his partner any longer, that I would pack up and go the following day. As I left his room still very angry, I passed one of the invalids in his wheelchair. It was Sir Timothy Quisby, our most important and expensive patient. He asked me as I passed to take his temperature, as he thought he had a new fever. Now I had never been able to find anything wrong with Sir Timothy, and had decided that being an invalid was a sort of hobby with him. So still, very angry, instead of taking his temperature, I said quite rudely, oh go to the dickens. Sir Timothy was furious, and calling for Dr. Phipps, he demanded that I apologize. I said I wouldn't. Then Sir Timothy told Phipps that if I didn't, he would start an invalids strike. Phipps got terribly worried and implored me to apologize to this very special patient. I still refused. Then a peculiar thing happened. Sir Timothy, who had always so far seemed too weak to walk, got right out of his wheelchair and waving his ear trumpet wildly, ran around all over the sanitarium, making speeches to the other invalids, saying how shamefully he had been treated and calling on them to strike for their rights. And they did strike, and no mistake. That night at dinner, they refused to take their medicine, either before or after meals. Dr. Phipps argued with them, prayed with them, implored them to behave like proper invalids, and carry out their doctor's orders. But they wouldn't listen to him. They ate all the things they had been forbidden to eat, and after dinner, those who had been ordered to go for a walk stayed at home, and those who had been ordered to stay quiet went outside and ran up and down the street. They finished the evening, having a pillow fight with their hot water bottles, when they should have been in bed. The next morning they all packed their own trunks and left. And that was the end of our sanitarium. But the most peculiar thing of all was this. I found out afterward that every single one of those patients had got well. Getting out of their wheelchairs and going on strike had done them so much good they stopped being invalids all together. As a sanitarium doctor, I suppose I was not a success. Still, I don't know. Certainly, I cured a great many more patients by going out of the sanitarium business than Phipps ever did by going into it. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. For 3 Chapter 3 Gub Gub's Story The next night when they were again seated around the veranda after supper, the doctor asked, Now who's going to tell us a story tonight? Didn't Gub Gub say he had one for us? Oh, don't let him tell one doctor, said Jip. It's sure to be stupid. He isn't old enough to tell a good story, said Dab Dab. He hasn't had any experience. His only interest in life is food, anyway, said Tutu. Let someone else tell a story. No, now wait a minute, cried the doctor. Don't all be jumping on him this way. We were all young once. Let him tell his story. He may win the prize. Who knows? Come along, Gub Gub. Tell us your story. What's the name of it? Gub Gub fidgeted his feet, bushing up to his ears, and finally said, This is a kind of a crazy story, but it's a good one. It's, uh, a pig-ish fairytale. It's called the Magic Cucumber. Gosh, growled Jip. More food, murmured Tutu. What did I tell you? Tee-hee-hee, tittered the white mouse. Go on, Gub Gub, said the doctor. Don't take any notice of them. I'm listening. Once upon a time, Gub Gub began, a small pig went out into the forest with his father to dig for truffles. The father was a very clever truffle digger, and just by smelling the ground he could tell with great sureness the places where truffles were to be found. Well, this day they came upon a place beneath some big oak trees, and they started digging. Presently, after the father pig had dug up an enormous truffle, and they were both eating it, they heard, too, their great astonishment, the sound voices coming from the hole out of which they had dug the truffle. The father pig hurried away with his child because he did not like magic. But that night the baby pig, when his mother and father were fast asleep, crept out of his thigh and went off into the woods. He wanted to find out the mystery of those voices coming from under the ground. So, reaching the hole where his father had dug up the truffle, he set to work digging for himself. He had not dug very long when the earth caved right in underneath him, and he felt himself falling and falling and falling. At last he came to a stop upside down in the middle of a dining table. The table was all set for dinner, and he had fallen into the soup. He looked about him and saw, seated around the table, many tiny little men, none of them more than half as big as himself, and all a dark green in color. Where am I? asked the baby pig. You're in the soup, said the little men. The baby pig was at first terribly frightened, but when he saw how small were the men around him, his fear left him, and before he got out of the soup-terrain on the table, he drank up all the soup. He then asked the little men who they might be, and they said, We are the cook-goblins. We live under the ground, and we spend half our time inventing new things to eat, and the other half in eating them. The noise you heard coming out of the hole was us singing our food hymns. We always sing food hymns whenever we are preparing particularly fine dishes. Good! said the pig. I've come to the right place. Let us go on with the dinner. But just as they were about to begin on the fish, the soup was already gone, you see. There was a great noise outside the dining hall, and in rushed another lot of little men, a bright red in color. These were the toadstool sprites, ancient enemies of the cook-goblins. A tremendous fight began, one side using toothpicks for spears, and the other using nutcrackers for clubs. The pig took the side of his friends, the cook-goblins, and being as big as any two of the enemy put together, he soon had the toadstool sprites running for their lives. When the fight was over and the dining hall cleared, the cook-goblins were very grateful to the baby pig for his valuable assistance. They called him a conquering hero, and, crowning him with a wreath of parsley, they invited him to the seat of honor at the dining table and went on with the meal. Never had the baby pig enjoyed a meal so much in all his life as he did that one. He found that the cook-goblins, as well as inventing new and marvelous tasty dishes, had also thought out a lot of new things in the way of table furnishings. For instance, they served pin cushions with the fish. These were to stick your fish bones in instead of leaving them to clutter up your plate. Putting fans were another of their novelties. Fans for cooling off your pudding with instead of blowing on it. Then they had cocoa skin clothes lines, little toy clothes lines to hang the skin off your cocoa on neatly. You know what a nasty mess it makes draped over the rim of your own cup. And when the fruit came on, tennis rackets were handed around also, and if anyone at the other end of the table asked you for an apple, instead of going to all the work of handing down a heavy bowl of fruit, you just took an apple and served it at him like a tennis ball, and he would catch it at the other end of the table on the point of a fork. These things added a good deal of jolliness to the meal, and some of them were very clever inventions. Why, they even had a speaking tube for things you are not allowed to mention at table. A speaking tube, the white mouse interrupted. How is it used? I don't understand. Well, said gub-gub, you know how people are always telling you you mustn't speak about those things at the table. Well, the cook goblins had a speaking tube in the wall, which led at the other end to the open air outside. And whenever you wanted to talk about any of the things forbidden at the table, you left the table and went and set it into the speaking tube, then you came back to your seat. It was a very great invention. Well, as I was saying, the baby pig enjoyed himself tremendously, and when the meal was over he said he must be going back because he wanted to get into the sty before his mother and father should be awake. The cook goblins were very sorry to see him go, and as a farewell present in return for the help he had given them against their enemies, they gave him the magic cucumber. Now, this cucumber, if you cut off even the smallest part of it and planted it, it would grow immediately into a whole field of any fruit or vegetable you wished. All you had to do was to say the name of the vegetable you wanted. The baby pig thanked the cook goblins, kissed them all good-bye, and went home. He found his mother and father still asleep when he got back. So, after carefully hiding his magic cucumber under the floor of the cow-born, he crept into the sty and went fast asleep. Now it happened that a few days later a neighboring king made war upon the king that owned the country where the pig family lived. Things went very badly for the pig's king, and seeing that the enemy were close at hand he gave orders that all cattle and farm animals and people should be brought inside the castle walls. The pig family was also driven into the castle grounds, but before he left the baby pig went and bit off a piece of his magic cucumber and took it along with him. Soon after the enemy's army closed about the castle and tried to storm it. Then for many weeks they remained there, knowing that sooner or later the king and the people in the castle would run short of food and have to give in. Now it happened that the queen had noticed the baby pig within the castle grounds, and, being a princess of Irish blood, she took a great fancy to him, and had a piece of green ribbon tied about his neck and made a regular pet of him, much to the disgust of her husband the king. Well the fourth week after the enemy came, the food in the castle was all gone, and the king gave orders that the pigs must be eaten. The queen raised a great outcry and begged that her pet should be spared, but the king was very firm. My soldiers are starving, said he. Your pet madam must be turned into sausages. Then the baby pig saw that the time to use the goblin's magic gift had come, and rushing out into the castle garden, he dug a hole and planted his piece of cucumber right in the middle of the king's best rose bed. Par snips, he grunted as he filled in the hole, may they blossom acres wide. And sure enough he had hardly said the words before all over the king's garden, par snips began springing up thick and fast. Even the gravel walks were covered with them. Then the king and his army had plenty of food, and growing strong on the nutritious par snips, they salad forth from the castle, smote the enemy, hip and thigh, and put them to flight. And the queen was allowed to keep her pet pig, which rejoiced her kind heart greatly, she being of Irish blood royal, and he became a great hero with the court, and was given a stye studied with jewels in the center of the castle garden, on the very spot where he had planted the magic cucumber. And they all lived happily ever after, and that is the end of the pigish fairytale. Part 3, Chapter 4, Dab-Dab's Story The animals now began to look forward to the evening's storytelling, the way people do to regular habits that are pleasant, and for the next night they arranged among themselves beforehand that it should be Dab-Dab's turn to tell a tale. After they were all seated on the veranda, the housekeeper preened her feathers and in a very dignified voice began, On the outskirts of Puttleby on the Marsh there lives a farmer who swears to this day that his cat can understand every word he says. It isn't true, but both the farmer and his wife think it is, and I am now going to tell you how they came to get that idea. Once when the doctor was away in Scotland looking for fossils, he left me behind to take charge of the house. The old horse in the stable complained to me one night that the rats were eating up all his corn while I was walking around the stable trying to think out what I should do about it. I spied an enormous white Persian cat stalking about the premises. Now I myself have no love for cats. For one thing they eat ducklings, and for another they always seem to me sort of sneaky things. So I ordered this one to get off the doctor's property. To my surprise she behaved very politely, said she didn't know she was trespassing and turned to leave. Then I felt sort of guilty knowing the doctor liked to be hospitable to every kind of animal, and after all the cat wasn't doing any harm there. So I overtook her and told her that if she didn't kill anything on the place she could come and go if she pleased. Well we got chatting the way people do, and I found out that the cat lived at a farmer's house about a quarter of a mile down the Uxenthorpe Road. Then I walked part of the way home with her, still chatting, and I found that she was a very agreeable individual. I told her about the rats in the stable and the difficulty I had in making them behave, because the doctor wouldn't allow any one to kill them. And she said if I wished she'd sleep in the stable a few nights and the rats would probably leave as soon as they smelt her around. This she did, and the results were excellent. The rats deported in a body, and the old horse's corn bin was left undisturbed. Then she disappeared, and for several nights I saw nothing of her, so one evening I thought it would be only decent of me to call at her farm down the Uxenthorpe Road to thank her. I went to the farm and found her in the farmyard. I thanked her for what she had done and asked her why she hadn't been around to my place of late. I've just had kittens, she said, six, and I haven't been able to leave them a moment. They are in the farmer's parlour now. Come in and I'll show them to you. So we went in, and on the parlour floor, in a round basket, there were six of the prettiest kittens you ever saw. While we were looking at them, we heard the farmer and his wife coming downstairs, so thinking they might not like to have a duck in the parlour. Some folks are so snobbish and persnickety, you know, not like the doctor. I hid myself behind a closet door just as the farmer and his wife came into the room. They leaned over the basket of kittens, stroked the white cat, and started talking. Now the cat didn't understand what they said, of course, but I, being round the doctor so much and discussing with him the differences between duck grammar and people's grammar, understood every word they uttered. And this is what I heard the farmer say to his wife. We'll keep the black and white kitten, Liza. I'll drown the other five tomorrow morning. Won't never do to have all them cats running around the place. This grammar was atrocious. As soon as they had gone, I came out of the closet and I said to the white cat, I shall expect you to bring up these kittens to leave ducklings alone. Now listen. Tonight, after the farmer and his wife are in bed, take all your kittens except the black and white one and hide them in the attic. The farmer means to drown them and is going to keep only one. The cat did as I bait her, and next morning, when the farmer came to take the kittens away, he found only the black and white one, the one he meant to keep. He could not understand it. Some weeks later, however, when the farmer's wife was spring cleaning, she came upon the others in the attic, where the mother cat had hidden them and nursed them secretly. But they were now grown big enough to escape through the window, and they went off to find new homes for themselves. And that is why, to this day, that farmer and his wife swear their cat can understand English, because they say she must have heard them when they were talking over the basket, and whenever she's in the room and they are gossiping about the neighbors, they always speak in whispers lest she overhear. But between you and me, she doesn't really understand a single word they say.