The four Corners in California

by Amy Ella Blanchard

IN SANTA BARBARA

To children brought up in sight of mountains and far from the sea, Santa Barbara offered new pleasures, for here the sea stretched before them, "the sun-kissed sea," and though they regretted the little home which had been theirs for three months, they were eager for fresh scenes. Here Carter's car came in for daily service, over the mountain drive for twelve miles, to Montecito valley, to Carpinteria to see the largest grape-vine in the world, and where the motor car could not go Carter was ready to lead as escort on horseback over some of the numerous trails which gave them many a happy day's outing.

"Carter is a great institution," said Miss Helen returning one day from a particularly delightful expedition. "I shall have to write to his mother a special letter of thanks. How well you are looking, Mary. Surely this winter has done you good."

"Surely it has," returned Mrs. Corner. "I feel as if I were almost safe. I hope Carter may be."

"I hope so. He thinks seriously of settling in this sunny land, he tells me, and I think he would be wise to do it. To be on the safe side is much better than to take any risks. The doctors tell him that he will be likely to live as long as any one if he settles here, but with that incipient tendency he will not feel quite sure at home. He is so young I believe in a few years he may entirely outgrow his trouble."

"His poor mother," said Mrs. Corner, "how will she stand the separation?"

"Better than if he were removed altogether," said Miss Helen gravely. "Mollie Carter is no weakling; she will not dissuade him from what is for his best good. Moreover her other children will soon be old enough to be left at home and she can then come to Carter at least once a year. Dear me, Mary, how many mothers must be separated from their children. Their daughters marry and follow their husbands to any part of the world; their sons accept positions which take them across the ocean; it is one of the trials of motherhood, I admit, but it is not a rare one. Now, you, my dear, will soon have to settle what is to be done in your own case for next year. Shall it be California again or shall we go to Southern France and Italy? I do so want you to see Europe."

"Can't I wait till my girls are ready to go, too?" said Mrs. Corner helplessly. "I cannot bear to put the ocean between us."

"But you don't want to risk a winter in the east and run the danger of leaving them altogether?"

"Oh, no, not that."

"Then suppose you let me tell you what I propose and you can think it over. Mrs. Roberts and I have had a talk about the girlies. She knows of an excellent school near Boston where only a few girls are admitted as boarders. I think a little New England experience will not hurt our lassies. Nan could go to the Boston Conservatory and could have the musical advantages which I should like for her. You know our old friend, Mr. Harmer is there and would take a personal interest in her. The Lorings, too, would make a special effort to be nice on Mrs. Roberts's account. Miss Sarah seems so content with the present arrangement at home that she would be glad to continue it for another year, I know. You and I would then be free to go abroad for the winter, or, if you found you could not stand being away so long, you could come back when you pleased and go to the Adirondacks or North Carolina. Now, there is something for you to think about. Don't decide now, but let it soak in and tell me any time you may make up your mind."

Mrs. Corner sat with a very thoughtful look on her face after her sister left the room. Nan, coming in, found her so. "Sweetest and loveliest," she said, "what are you thinking about? You didn't hear me and I called you twice." She stooped over and kissed her mother's cheek.

"I was thinking of my bairns and was wondering what would be best for us all next winter." She drew Nan very close to her. "I can't bear to be parted from you, darling. This has been such a happy winter compared to last."

"Hasn't it been?" said Nan. "It has been wonderful. I never dreamed of anything like it, and I hate to think of its being over, of our leaving California and the friends we have made here. Mrs. Roberts writes that her father is quite broken up by our going and goes around as if he didn't know what to do with himself. She says the Corner family have bewitched him and that she will not be able to keep him with her much longer. Of course he didn't intend to stay as long as he has done, but she likes to put it that way. Then there is the señorita, I know she feels very badly at the idea of parting from us. Well, muzzy, dear, have you made any plans?"

"Nothing is determined yet. I shall have some time in which to decide, but your Aunt Helen has made a proposition which I am thinking over."

"Tell me if it is tellable; I'll not mention it if it is a secret."

"I wouldn't speak of it yet because the little girls could not understand the whys and wherefores," and then she told what Miss Helen had proposed.

"I don't wonder you were so thoughtful and serious," said Nan gravely, when her mother had finished speaking. "Gracious, but that is a problem to solve."

"Should you like your part of the plan, Nan?"

"I should, and I shouldn't. It is delightful in some respects, all but the separation from you," she added with a little catch in her voice, and bending to lay her cheek against her mother's hand. "Oh, if we could only have this winter all over again. Why couldn't we?"

"For two or three reasons. I think your Aunt Helen pines for Europe. She has lived so long abroad that she misses the art, the music, the older civilization, and I cannot bear to have her sacrifice herself for us. To be sure she could go alone, but we are all she has and she clings to us so. I cannot forget that she has been willing to give us half of what was legally hers."

"It was what her mother and father both wanted her to do, and she couldn't have done differently, it seems to me."

"Some persons would have. She has been more than generous, with her half, too."

"And you have never been to Europe," said Nan slowly. "I think, mother, you'd better go."

"Oh, Nan!"

The girl's eyes were full of tears which her mother did not see. "Yes, I do," she answered bravely, "but you don't have to decide yet, do you? There is plenty of time."

"Plenty."

"Then don't let us cross that bridge till we come to it. Who knows what may turn up before we leave this Sunset Land? I, for one, am not going to think about it yet. Isn't this Santa Barbara the dearest place? I loved San Diego; I was perfectly happy at Los Angeles; I thought no spot could be lovelier than Pasadena, and I'd like to stay here years; that is the way it goes all along the King's highway. I like that name; the Camino Real, for it is so much more than an every-day road. I think of those old mission fathers traveling it and I hope that it will be opened up and kept in good order."

"You love the missions, don't you, daughter?"

"Yes, I do; they seem so much a part of the old life. Aunt Helen says they are this country's saving grace, that beside them all the big pumpkins and giant grape-vines are as vulgar nothings, and that the country would be painfully new if it were not for what the Spaniards left behind. Yes, I do love the missions. Weren't you pleased with the one here, the one H. H. describes when she tells of the christening of one of its towers?"

"It is certainly most interesting."

"But, oh, dear, I was disappointed when I found that no woman was allowed to enter the garden. For once I wanted to be the wife of a king or of the president, so as to have the privilege. There is Jack calling me. I wonder what now; that is a voice of trouble, I am afraid," and she ran out to see what was wrong with her little sister.

There was nothing worse than a cut finger and that was soon tied up to Jack's satisfaction, and she went off again to her play, while Nan hunted up Mary Lee.

If Nan had regrets at leaving California Mary Lee had pangs, for did it not also mean parting with her beloved Miss Dolores? She spent all the time she could in her idol's company, clung to her side when they were out walking and had a nightly weep when she calculated that there was one less day to be spent in the dear presence.

"You make me tired, Mary Lee," Nan would say. "I do wish you would stop that sniffling; I just know you are crying about the señorita."

"You're so heartless, Nan," Mary Lee would reply. "I don't believe you care one bit that after another week you will never see her again."

"I'm not going to think that, besides it doesn't make it any better to cry about it," and Nan would unsympathetically turn over and go to sleep.

"Shall you miss me one little bit?" Mary Lee asked Miss Dolores one day when it was near the time for them to leave Santa Barbara.

"Certainly," she replied. "More than I can say. Except my aunt no one has ever been so good and kind to me as your mother and aunt, and to you, my pupils, I give much affection. It will be a sad parting, but I hope to earn my living somewhere. Your aunt thinks in San Francisco I shall have much opportunity to get a situation and she will help me. She says my experience of the past three months will help me."

"If you only had some relatives," said Mary Lee, "cousins, or something, it would be much better. Cousins are a great help; we have some that we are very fond of and when mother was away last winter I don't know what we should have done without them."

"I had a little cousin to whom I gave much love," said the señorita. "She died when she was fifteen. Like myself she lived with an aunt and we were great friends."

"What was her name?" asked Mary Lee.

"Pepita we called her. It is the Spanish for Josephine, or rather it is the diminutive, as you would say, Josie."

"It is a very pretty name; I like it much better than Josie. Did she have no mother?"

"No, her mother died when she was born, but she had a good home and a happy little life. Like myself she was of the Spanish, the old Spanish, for her mother and mine were cousins, and neither remembered that she had had such parent. Yes, we were happy little girls. All that is passed now." The señorita sighed.

"I don't like to have you sad," said Mary Lee, "and you always are when you talk of those old times."

"It is all so different now; I belong to no one and no one belongs to me; that is why I sigh. But never let us speak so much of it. I have not been to San Francisco; it must be a fine city, so large, so gay, something like Paris. I think we shall like that city, and when I have a fine position with wealthy family I shall save my money and some day when you are in Virginia you will look from the window and say: 'Who is that stranger who comes to our house?' Then the others will look and will say, 'She is rather old, but the face has familiar look.' Another will say, 'Perhaps she comes to the wrong house.' Then when your servant brings you the name of Dolores Garcia you will look puzzled and say, 'Who is this?'"

"Oh, Miss Dolores," expostulated Mary Lee, "how could you think we would ever forget you?"

The señorita laughed. "Ah, will you not? You should not say that; you do not know how easy it is to forget sometimes, and when one is young."

"But not you; I couldn't forget you," Mary Lee said, earnestly. "If I forgot every one else I should still remember you, for you do not know how dear you are to me, Miss Dolores."

Here Nan came running to find them. "Mr. Pinckney has come," she announced. "He said he couldn't stand it any longer without seeing us. Jack is jumping all over the place with delight, and Jean is eating chocolates as fast as she can pop them into her mouth; he has brought a great big box of them; you'd better come if you want any."

The double attraction was too enticing and Mary Lee followed her sister to where Mr. Pinckney sat surrounded by a smiling company.

"Doesn't it seem good to see the dear old fat thing sitting there?" said Nan. "I declare I didn't know how fond I was of him till I saw him coming puffing and blowing up the steps."

"I wonder if he has seen Jo Poker," said Mary Lee.

"Of course you would think of that first thing," returned Nan.

"Wouldn't you have thought of it?"

"I would have after while, but not yet."

They took occasion to make their inquiries later. "Couldn't find him," Mr. Pinckney told them. "They told me he had come up in this direction somewhere, so I'll try to look him up, if it is to be done."

"He may be in San Francisco by this time," said Mary Lee. "Mr. Sanders thought he would probably go there from his place."

"Humph!" said Mr. Pinckney; "I am afraid it will be a tough job to find him. Well, how do you like the idea of leaving California?"

"Don't like it at all," said Nan, "but I do want to see some of the other places we are going to. It is lovely here, don't you think?"

"Pretty fine, but I sometimes pine for old Broadway and our own vile climate. If I were a youngster I should think it rather monotonous if I couldn't switch around from flying kites to coasting and skating once a year. There are people who can live on climate, but I am not one of them. I enjoy California, bless you, yes, but I enjoy New York, too. Now, let us see, when do you leave here?"

"Aunt Helen thinks day after to-morrow. Carter wants some of us to go on his car with him, but I don't think we shall."

"The señorita is going, of course."

"Yes, of course."

"Mrs. Roberts thinks she has heard of a position which may suit the young lady, and asked me to tell her about it. I fancy she would rather be with some one we know all about than to go among entire strangers."

"Is it in Los Angeles?" asked Mary Lee, eagerly.

"In Pasadena, I believe."

"Oh, if she takes it, I do hope Mrs. Bobs will think of her sometimes and ask her to come to see her."

"Trust her for that. It was for that very reason she was anxious that Miss Garcia should apply for this position. No, young lady, you needn't have any fear but that Jennie will have an eye on her, and if she is lonely it will not be my daughter's fault."

"Shall I go tell her that you want to see her?" asked Mary Lee.

"Suppose you do, then we'll settle it right here." So Mary Lee went off to seek Miss Dolores and presently left her in close conversation with Mr. Pinckney.