the person who would carry the mail from Gingoo
to the Point for the smallest amount of money, was to have it for a
year.

One woman offered to carry it for eighty dollars; another for seventy;
one big boy offered for sixty-five; he'd make the girls at home do the
work, he said,--they hadn't anything else to do,--and he would give
them each a new ribbon to pay for it: and between you and me, I am
very glad that that boy didn't get the job.

Without saying a word to his family about it, Que made up his mind
that he would carry the mail himself. When the others sent in their
bids he sent in his, for fifty dollars. _So_ it happened that Que was
mail-carrier. He was so little and bow-legged, that there were not
many things that he could do; for instance, he couldn't run. His head
and feet were very large, and his arms and intermediate body very
small; therefore he could dream and wonder what he should do when he
grew up, and walk (with care) as much as he pleased, but was not a
favorite among the boys in playing games.

Of course he was not baptized into the name Que, but was called, by
his parents and the christening minister, John Quincy Adams Pond, Jr.;
named for his father, you see. They began to call him Que before he
was out of his babyhood; for they had one boy named John Lee, but as
they always called him Lee, they entirely forgot that fact till after
the ceremony of Que's christening. And they really weren't much to
blame, for they had nine other boys, and poor memories; and though
both are misfortunes, they can't be helped. To avoid mixing their two
Johns, they called one Lee and the other Que.

Que looked upon seven miles a day as no walk at all, and upon fifty
dollars a year as a fortune, and upon "United States mail-carrier" as
a title little below "Hon." or "Esq." He had hoped, all his life, that
he should, some fine day, have a right to one or the other of these
titles. Probably the fact that his name already ended with a "Jr."
excited his ambition in that particular direction. Money and dignity
seemed to Que the two things most to be desired in life, unless I
might add a small family.

Now, we will leave Que's antecedents behind, and go on to his life
while he carried the mail; and a very queer little life it was, as you
will say when you get to the end of it, though I don't know when that
will be, for Que isn't there himself yet. The mail contract was from
July 1, 1860, to July 1, 1861, and if your m