Publisher’s Story Summary: Nowadays it's no big deal or a girl to travel seventy-five miles. But when Charlotte May Pierstorff wanted to cross seventy-five miles of Idaho mountains to see her grandma in 1914, it was a very big deal indeed. There was no highway except the railroad, and a train ticket would have cost her parents a full day's pay.

Here is the true story of how May got to visit her grandma, thanks to her won spunk, her father's ingenuity, and the U.S. mail.

LESSON: MAILING MAY

Lesson Summary

In 1914, May really wants to visit her grandmother. Her parents had promised her a trip, but the train ticket costs a full day's work. So her parents "mail" her there, and she rides through the Idaho mountains in the Postal car of the train!

Concept:  Opportunity Cost

Definition: When you make a decision, the most valuable alternative you give up is your opportunity cost.

Comprehension Questions

Describe the family's scarcity situation that required them to make an economic decision.
They didn't have enough money for May to ride the train to visit her grandma.

Identify the two services in the story that would allow May to travel to her grandmother's.
Passenger train, postal service.

Compare the benefits and costs of each type of travel.
Passenger train benefits - comfortable ride, costs - $1.55;
postal service-train mail car benefits - $0.53; costs - not a comfortable ride; May disguising herself as a package.

May could go visit her grandma by passenger train or mail car. When the decision was made for May to be "mailed," what was her opportunity cost?
Sending May to visit her grandma by the more comfortable passenger train.

Explain the importance of the job of May's uncle Leonard.
Loaded and sorted mail to be delivered by the train; took care of a very special "package" - May

Other Concepts: Economic Wants, Goods and Services, Trade and Money, Scarcity, Consumers, Price

  Opportunity Cost