In the port city of Manistee on the coast of Lake Michigan lives a girl named Mary. Mary's father is a sailor who works on a lake freighter called the Big Laker. The Big Laker delivers iron, stone, and coal to the many cities along the Great Lakes. Mary's father will not be home this year for his birthday and Mary wants to send him a card. But Mary's card can't be delivered by a mail carrier like other letters. Her father gets his mail by a pail!

This is a delightful story that illustrates the mail delivery system for Great Lakes freighters. The J. W. Westcott Company operates the mailboat for the U.S. Postal Service marine post office in Detroit --the only mailboat that delivers mail to freighters while they are moving. The colorful pictures and expressive words in Mail by the Pail will interest young readers as well as anyone living in the states that border the Great Lakes.