Member-only story
The Doctor Dolittle Books
Who was Hugh Lofting and how did he dream up the Doctor Dolittle books?
Given the success of the Doctor Dolittle books, Hugh Lofting was often invited to speak to library groups. He was on his way home from one of these events when he decided to visit his son Colin, who was working on a cattle ranch in Wyoming. Colin was not looking forward to his father’s visit. The fifteen-year-old boy wondered how he could explain to his companions, a bunch of grizzled cowboys, that his father wrote “books about a little doctor who spoke to animals.”
As it turned out, Lofting got along fine with the cowboys and was out riding with them the next day when he saw a disgusting sight. Some roughnecks in the area had been rounding up wild horses to sell to the glue factory to pay for their drinks. So that they could gather the horses days later, they’d been hobbling them — that is, tying the horses’ legs so the creatures couldn’t move easily. The cowboys Lofting was riding with also found this practice objectionable.
The next day they were out riding again and Lofting suddenly veered off to a box canyon. Suspecting trouble, his companions galloped to catch up with him and came upon Lofting fighting with a fellow who had pulled a knife. Lofting’s companions rode up just in time to stop a second fellow with a rifle; and…
