FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117  
118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   >>   >|  
e and the Old Squire were gone. Aunt Nabbie was grandmother's sister, and she and Uncle Mowbray had been talking all that season of coming to visit us. But September had been spoken of as the time they were coming. They changed their minds, however. Uncle Pascal desired to look after some business venture of his in Portland, and decided to come in August. It was a somewhat sudden change of plan, but they sent us a letter the day before they started, thinking that we would get it and meet them at the railway station. Now, all dear city cousins, aunts, uncles and the rest of you who visit your country relatives, summer or winter, hear me! Do not hold back your letter telling them you are coming till the day before you start. Nine times out of ten they will not get it. You will get there before the letter does; and the chances are that you will have to provide your own transportation for the six or ten miles from the railway station to the farm, and you will think that distance longer than all the rest of the journey. Most likely, too, you will find the farmer gone to a Grange meeting; and by the time you have sat round the farmhouse door on your trunk till he gets back at sunset, you will be homesick, and maybe hungry. Also--for there are two sides to the matter--your country brother and his wife will be troubled about it. So send your letter at least a week ahead. The first we knew of the coming of Uncle Pascal and Aunt Nabbie, they drove into the yard with a livery team from the village, and an express wagon coming on behind with their trunks. Besides Uncle and Aunt, there was a smiling, dark-haired youth with them, a grand-nephew of Uncle Mowbray, named Olin Randall, whom we had heard of often as a kind of third or fourth cousin, but had never seen. He had never beheld Maine before, and was regarding everything with curiosity and a little grin of condescension. That grin of his nearly upset us, particularly Ellen and "Doad," who for a hundred reasons wished to make a very favorable impression on Uncle and Aunt Mowbray and all the family. I nearly forgot to mention that Uncle Mowbray was reputed very fussy and particular about his food. Our two-story farmhouse was comfortable and big, and we had plenty of everything; but of course it was not altogether like one of the finest houses in Philadelphia. For Uncle Mowbray was a wealthy man, one of those thrifty, prosperous Philadelphia merchants of the e
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117  
118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Mowbray
 

coming

 

letter

 

railway

 

farmhouse

 
country
 
station
 

Nabbie

 
Pascal
 

Philadelphia


smiling

 

haired

 
nephew
 

thrifty

 
Randall
 

prosperous

 
merchants
 
express
 

trunks

 

village


livery

 

Besides

 

fourth

 

comfortable

 

troubled

 

hundred

 

family

 

favorable

 

forgot

 

mention


reasons

 
wished
 

reputed

 

houses

 

finest

 
beheld
 

cousin

 
impression
 

plenty

 
condescension

altogether
 

curiosity

 
wealthy
 
distance
 

started

 

thinking

 
change
 

sudden

 
August
 

uncles