The Moose Hotel, Bath,
Sunday morning.

DEAR ANDREW: 

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.