Maybe I'm too old, but these stories amount to "in an old rural area, where everybody knew everybody, paying postage on the kid provided a decent excuse for Post Office managers to look the other way when folks wanted an employee to escort their kid somewhere".
When (a few decades later) I first started walking to kindergarten as a kid, my mother paid an older (maybe 5th grade) neighbor kid 10 cents a day to make sure I got there & back okay. (It was a bit over 1/2 mile each way, otherwise alone. And 10 cents would easily buy a full-sized candy bar back then.)
When (a few decades later) I first started walking to kindergarten as a kid, my mother paid an older (maybe 5th grade) neighbor kid 10 cents a day to make sure I got there & back okay. (It was a bit over 1/2 mile each way, otherwise alone. And 10 cents would easily buy a full-sized candy bar back then.)