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Show Nada. Even the pittance he got thus was misleading because much of the outgoing mail consisted of letters he sent out or personal letters and parcels the Culmsees mailed, and we had to buy our stamps just as others did. Most impressive and most puzzling was the Book of Regulations, three inches thick, which Father got. The volume must have grown by sheer accumulation since 18th century Benjamin Franklin was postmaster general for the Colonies. It contained numerous contradictions that would baffle a lawyer or give him a career untangling them. They also sent a "Nada" rubber stamp on which the dateline could be changed for each day's mail. The Department provided a quart of vile-smelling ink, pens, and some scratchy pen-points that plowed up almost any paper. They sputtered and blotted. We decided a contractor must have profiteered on the Department. But the ink and the pens lasted forever-no one used them for any other purpose. We kids watched, much impressed, as Father cancelled the first stamps and tied with tan twine the letters into packages, sorted as to directions they were going. The twine looked like a poorly spun ragged vegetable fiber, but it was tough. Father stowed the mail in the mailbag. The latter was a very thick gray canvas pouch with a leather bottom stiff and heavy as sole leather and with a top that was a forbidding mass of straps and rings with a big heavy padlock that would have defied a safe-cracker. Father must divide the packages and letters between the bottom and the top of the bag, then buckle a strap around the middle. That first evening we "exchanged the mail" was an occasion. While Mother tended store El Vera and I boarded the surrey with Father. Frank hauled us down to Nada "station" where a mail crane had been installed. It was a lanky wood-and-steel object that did remind one of a crane or some other long-legged bird, except that it was nine feet tall. so Father had left time before the 'local' passenger train was to arrive at 7:30 p that he could experiment with hanging the mail bag on the crane. At the thick-m. |