Part IV Chapter 10 Doctor Dolittle's Post Office by Hugh Lofting
THE POSTMASTER GENERAL'S LAST ORDER
When Dab-Dab roused the party next morning the sun was shining through the mist upon the lake doing its best to brighten up the desolate scenery around them.
Poor Mudface awoke with an acute attack of gout. He had not been bothered by this ailment since the Doctor's arrival. But now he could scarcely move at all without great pain. And Dab-Dab brought his breakfast to him where he lay.
John Dolittle was inclined to blame himself for having asked him to go hunting in the lake for souvenirs the night before.
"I'm afraid that was what brought on the attack," said the Doctor, getting out his little black bag from the canoe and mixing some medicines. "But you know you really ought to move out of this damp country to some drier climate. I am aware that turtles can stand an awful lot of wet. But at your age one must be careful, you know."
"There isn't any other place I like as well," said Mudface. "It's so hard to find a country where you're not disturbed these days."
"Here, drink this," the Doctor ordered, handing him a tea-cup full of some brown mixture. "I think you will find that that will soon relieve the stiffness in your front legs."
The turtle drank it down. And in a minute or two he said he felt much better and could now move his legs freely without pain.
"It's a wonderful medicine, that," said he. "You are surely a great Doctor. Have you got any more of it?"
"I will make up several bottles of the mixture and leave them with you before I go," said John Dolittle. "But you really ought to get on high ground somewhere. This muddy little hummock is no place for you to live. Isn't there a regular island in the lake, where you could make your home—if you're determined not to leave the Junganyika country?"
"Not one," said the turtle. "It's all like this, just miles and miles of mud and water. I used to like it—in fact I do still. I wouldn't wish for anything better if it weren't for this wretched gout of mine."
"Well," said the Doctor, "if you haven't got an island we must make one for you."
"Make one!" cried the turtle. "How would you go about it?"
"I'll show you very shortly," said John Dolittle. And he called Cheapside to him.
"Will you please fly down to Fantippo," he said to the City Manager, "and give this message to Speedy-the-Skimmer. And ask him to send it out to all the postmasters of the branch offices: The Swallow Mail is very shortly to be closed—at all events for a considerable time. I must now be returning to Puddleby and it will be impossible for me to continue the service in its present form after I have left No-Man's-Land. I wish to convey my thanks to all the birds, postmasters, clerks and letter-carriers who have so generously helped me in this work. The last favor which I am going to ask of them is a large one; and I hope they will give me their united support in it. I want them to build me an island in the middle of Lake Junganyika. It is for Mudface the turtle, the oldest animal living, who in days gone by did a very great deal for man and beast—for the whole world in fact—when the earth was passing through the darkest chapters in all its history. Tell Speedy to send word to all bird leaders throughout the world. Tell him I want as many birds as possible right away to build a healthy home where this brave turtle may end his long life in peace. It is the last thing I ask of the post office staff and I hope they will do their best for me."
Cheapside said that the message was so long he was afraid he would never be able to remember it by heart. So John Dolittle told him to take it down in bird scribble and he dictated it to him all over again.
That letter, the last circular order issued by the great Postmaster General to the staff of the Swallow Mail, was treasured by Cheapside for many years. He hid it under his untidy nest in St. Edmund's left ear on the south side of the chancel of St. Paul's Cathedral. He always hoped that the pigeons who lived in the front porch of the British Museum would some day get it into the Museum for him. But one gusty morning, when men were cleaning the outside of the cathedral, it got blown out of St. Edmund's ear and, before Cheapside could overtake it, it sailed over the housetops into the river and sank.
The sparrow got back to Junganyika late that afternoon. He reported that Speedy had immediately, on receiving the Doctor's message, forwarded it to the postmasters of the branch offices with orders to pass it on to all the bird-leaders everywhere. It was expected that the first birds would begin to arrive here early the following morning.
It was Speedy himself who woke the Doctor at dawn the next day. And while breakfast was being eaten he explained to John Dolittle the arrangements that had been made.
The work, the Skimmer calculated, would take three days. All birds had been ordered to pick up a stone or a pebble or a pinch of sand from the seashore on their way and bring it with them. The larger birds (who would carry stones) were to come first, then the middle-sized birds and then the little ones with sand.
Soon, when the sky over the lake was beginning to fill up with circling ospreys, herons and albatrosses, Speedy left the Doctor and flew off to join them. There, taking up a position in the sky right over the centre of the lake, he hovered motionless, as a marker for the stone-droppers. Then the work began.
All day long a never-ending stream of big birds, a dozen abreast, flew up from the sea and headed across Lake Junganyika. The line was like a solid black ribbon, the birds, dense, packed and close, beak to tail. And as each dozen reached the spot where Speedy hovered, twelve stones dropped into the water. The procession was so continuous and unbroken that it looked as though the sky were raining stones. And the constant roar of them splashing into the water out of the heavens could be heard a mile off.
The lake in the centre was quite deep. And of course tons and tons of stone would have to be dropped before the new island would begin to show above the water's surface. This gathering of birds was greater even than the one the Doctor had addressed in the hollow of No-Man's-Land. It was the biggest gathering of birds that had ever been seen. For now not only the leaders came but thousands and millions of every species. John Dolittle got tremendously excited and jumping into his canoe he started to paddle out nearer to the work. But Speedy grew impatient that the top of the stone-pile was not yet showing above the water; and he gave the order to double up the line—and then double again, as still more birds came to help from different parts of the world. And soon, with a thousand stones falling every fraction of a second, the lake got so rough that the Doctor had to put back for the turtle's hummock lest his canoe capsize.
All that day, all that night and half the next day, this continued. At last about noon on the morrow the sound of the falling stones began to change. The great mound of seething white water, like a fountain in the middle of the lake, disappeared; and in its place a black spot showed. The noise of splashing changed to the noise of stone rattling on stone. The top of the island had begun to show.
"It's like the mountains peeping out after the Flood," Mudface muttered to the Doctor.
Then Speedy gave the order for the middle-sized birds to join in; and soon the note of the noise changed again—shriller—as tons and tons of pebbles and gravel began to join the downpour.
Another night and another day went by, and at dawn the gallant Skimmer came down to rest his weary wings; for the workers did not need a marker any longer—now that a good-sized island stood out on the bosom of the lake for the birds to drop their burdens on.
Bigger and bigger grew the home-made land and soon Mudface's new estate was acres wide. Still another order from Speedy; and presently the rattling noise changed to a gentle hiss. The sky now was simply black with birds; the pebble-shower had ceased; it was raining sand. Last of all, the birds brought seeds: grass seeds, the seeds of flowers, acorns and the kernels of palms. The turtle's new home was to be provided with turf, with wild gardens, with shady avenues to keep off the African sun.
When Speedy came to the hummock and said, "Doctor, it is finished," Mudface gazed thoughtfully out into the lake and murmured:
"Now proud Shalba is buried indeed: she has an island for a tombstone! It's a grand home you have given me, John Dolittle.—Alas, poor Shalba!—Mashtu the king passes. But Mudface the turtle—lives on!"