Booksellers and bookselling -- Fiction; Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction
It seems absurd to think that it's only three days since I left
Sabine Farm. Honestly, more has happened to me in these three days
than in three years at home.
I'm sorry that you and Mr. Mifflin disagreed but I quite understood
your feelings. But I'm very angry that you should have tried to
stop that check I gave him. It was none of your business, Andrew.
I telephoned Mr. Shirley and made him send word to the bank in
Woodbridge to give Mifflin the money. Mr. Mifflin did not swindle me
into buying Parnassus. I did it of my own free will. If you want to
know the truth, it was your fault! I bought it because I was scared
_you_ would if I didn't. And I didn't want to be left all alone on
the farm from now till Thanksgiving while you went off on another
trip. So I decided to do the thing myself. I thought I'd see how you
would like being left all alone to run the house. I thought it'd be
pretty nice for me to get things off my mind a while and have an
adventure of my own.
Now, Andrew, here are some directions for you:
1. Don't forget to feed the chickens twice a day, and collect _all_
the eggs. There's a nest behind the wood pile, and some of the
Wyandottes have been laying under the ice house.
2. Don't let Rosie touch grandmother's blue china, because she'll
break it as sure as fate if she lays her big, thick Swedish fingers
on it.
3. Don't forget your warmer underwear. The nights are getting
chilly.
4. I forgot to put the cover on the sewing machine. Please do that
for me or it'll get all dusty.
5. Don't let the cat run loose in the house at night: he always
breaks something.
6. Send your socks and anything else that needs darning over to Mrs.
McNally, she can do it for you.
7. Don't forget to feed the pigs.
8. Don't forget to mend the weathervane on the barn.
9. Don't forget to send that barrel of apples over to the cider mill
or you won't have any cider to drink when Mr. Decameron comes up to
see us later in the fall.
10. Just to make ten commandments, I'll add one more: You might
'phone to Mrs. Collins that the Dorcas will have to meet at some
one else's house next week, because I don't know just when I'll get
back. I may be away a fortnight more. This is my first holiday in a
long time and I'm going to chew it before I swallow it.
The Professor (Mr. Mifflin, I mean) has gone back to Brooklyn to
work on his book. I'm sorry you and he had to mix it up on the high
road like a couple of hooligans. He's a nice little man and you'd
like him if you got to know him.
I'm spending Sunday in Bath: to-morrow I'm going on toward Hastings.
I've sold five dollars' worth of books this morning even if it is
Sunday.
Your affte sister
HELEN McGiLL.
P.S. Don't forget to clean the separator after using it, or it'll
get in a fearful state.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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