To the Highest Bidder

ABRAM HEWETT and his son “Al” were distributing the mail in the narrow space behind the high tier of numbered glass boxes which occupied the left-hand corner of the general store known as “Hewett’s grocery.” There were not many letters and papers in the old leathern bag whose marred outer surface bore evidence to its many hurried departures and ignominious arrivals. Only the “locals” stopped at Barford; the expresses whizzed disdainfully past, discharging the mailbag on the platform of the ugly little station like a well-aimed bullet.