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 era ending with the Civil War. He never let a dollar escape him.
They came just at dusk. We boys were doing the chores. The girls were getting supper. Theodora had resolved to try her hand at a batch of "mug-bread" for the next day, and had set "Old Hannah" up for it.
The unexpected arrival upset us all a good deal, particularly Ellen and Theodora, who had to bear the brunt of grandmother's absence, get tea, see to the spare rooms and do everything else. And then there was Olin, mildly grinning. His presence disturbed the girls worse than everything else. But Aunt Nabbie smoothed away their anxieties, and helped to make all comfortable.
We got through the evening better than had at first seemed likely, and in the morning the girls rose at five and tried to hurry that "mug-bread" along, with other things, so as to have some of it for dinner, for they found that they were short of bread.