Parnassus on Wheels

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 someone 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: tomorrow 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.

After writing to Andrew I thought I would send a message to the Professor. I had already written him a long letter in my mind, but somehow when I began putting it on paper a sort of awkwardness came over me. I didn’t know just how to begin. I thought how much more fun it would be if he were there himself and I could listen to him talk. And then, while I was writing the first few sentences, some of the drummers came back into the room.

“Thought you’d like to see a Sunday paper,” said one of them.

I picked up the newspaper with a word of thanks and ran an eye over the headlines. The ugly black letters stood up before me, and my heart gave a great contraction. I felt my fingertips turn cold.

Disastrous wreck on the Shore Line

Express runs into open switch

Ten lives lost, and more than a score injured

Failure of block signals

The letters seemed to stand up before me as large as a Malted Milk signboard. With a shuddering apprehension I read the details. Apparently the express that left Providence at four o’clock on Saturday afternoon had crashed into an open siding near Willdon about six o’clock, and collided with a string of freight empties. The baggage car had been demolished and the smoker had turned over and gone down an embankment. There were ten men killed⁠ ⁠… my head swam. Was that the train the Professor had taken? Let me see. He left Woodbridge on a local train at three. He had said the day before that the express left Port Vigor at five⁠ ⁠… If he had changed to the express⁠ ⁠…

In a kind of fascinated horror my eye caught the list of the dead. I ran down the names. Thank God, no, Mifflin was not among them. Then I saw the last entry:

Unidentified Man, Middle-Aged.

What if that should be the Professor?

And I suddenly felt dizzy, and for the first time in my life I fainted.

Thank goodness, no one else was in the room. The drummers had gone outside again, and no one heard me flop off the chair. I came to in a moment, my heart whirling like a spinning top. At first I did not realize what was wrong. Then my eye fell on the newspaper again. Feverishly I reread the account, and the names of the injured, too, which I had missed before. Nowhere was there a name I knew. But the tragic words “unidentified man” danced before my eyes. Oh! if it were the Professor⁠ ⁠…

In a wave the truth burst upon me. I loved that little man: I loved him, I loved him. He had brought something new into my life, and his brave, quaint ways had warmed my fat old heart. For the first time, in an intolerable gush of pain, I seemed to know that my life could never again be endurable without him. And now⁠—what was I to do?

How could I learn the truth? Certainly if he had been on the train, and had escaped from the wreck unhurt, he would have sent a message to Sabine Farm to let me know. At any rate, that was a possibility. I rushed to the telephone to call up Andrew.

Oh! the agonizing slowness of telephone connections when urgent hurry is needed! My voice shook as I said “Redfield 158 J” to the operator. Throbbing with nervousness I waited to hear the familiar click of the receiver at the other end. I could hear the Redfield switchboard receive the call, and put in the plug to connect with