In his other hand he held a bundle of letters for a man his father said was crazy, and if his father said a man was crazy then that man was. In the boy’s mind, any man who could fix tractors also had the authority to summate the life of another man. Still, it was the boy’s job to carry the mail from his father’s farm the two miles along the track to old Joe Free­man’s hut. His father said that Joe might be crazy, bush crazy, but he was still a good bloke, who did no harm, worked hard and had to be treated with respect.