The four Corners in California

by Amy Ella Blanchard

MAKING ACQUAINTANCES

The travelers had scarcely arrived at Los Angeles before Mr. Pinckney called with his daughter, Mrs. Roberts. The latter was a tall, slender woman with lovely dark eyes and hair. She was much more quiet, though more nervous than her father. Both Mrs. Corner and Miss Helen liked her immensely, finding her gentle and sympathetic, yet with a keen sense of humor. She was admired, too, by the four girls, and they all became on friendly terms straightway. Mr. Roberts was a short, keen-eyed, middle-aged man who adored his wife and who made much of the Corner children. In fact, the friendship formed seemed to promise so pleasantly that Mrs. Corner and Miss Helen decided to choose Los Angeles as a home for several months, for it was found that Mrs. Corner's cough yielded to the climate and that she felt stronger here than elsewhere.

The Roberts and Mr. Pinckney were eager to help them select a proper house, so that it seemed that arrangements might be made with little exertion.

"It certainly is a great thing to have friends at hand who know the country thoroughly and who are so ready to give us their assistance in getting settled," said Mrs. Corner with a satisfied air, "and it was certainly a lucky day for us when the girls met Mr. Pinckney."

"Met him?" ejaculated Nan. "You would have thought it was a meeting if you could have seen Jack bump into him."

Every one laughed but Jack who had a far-away, thoughtful look upon her face. "You see, after all," she said presently, "that it was very lucky that I got caught in the elevator that day, for if I hadn't we shouldn't have had time to go for the pralines, and if we hadn't gone we should never have known Mr. St. Nick," a fact which no one could deny.

It was only a day or two later that the girls were sitting on the broad veranda of Mrs. Roberts' pleasant home. Mr. Pinckney had descended upon them that morning early, and nothing would do but he must bear the four away with him. "Jennie has set her heart on their coming to spend the day," he told Mrs. Corner, and so they were permitted to go, though their mother protested that it was an imposition to inflict Mrs. Roberts with the four at once.

"Do, Mary Lee," she gave this last charge, "do look after Jack, and see that she doesn't get into any dreadful mischief."

Mary Lee gave an affirmative nod of the head. "I'll look after her," she promised. As a rule Mary Lee and Jean could be relied upon to return home from an expedition in about as good trim as when they started out, but Jack never did, and even Nan met with more frequent mishaps than her more orderly sisters.

Up the hill steeps the little party had driven to arrive at last before the door of Mrs. Roberts' pretty home. Roses clambered over the veranda vying with fuchsias and heliotrope in their efforts to climb to the very roof of the house. Scarlet geraniums set off the pure white of calla lilies both forming a thick hedge in front of the garden. Flowers, flowers everywhere. "The trouble here is not to coax them to grow," said Mr. Pinckney, "but to keep them from over-running the whole place."

"And how do you like California?" was Mrs. Roberts' first question after she had welcomed the girls.

"We like it very strongly," replied Jack politely, who was foremost of the group.

Mrs. Roberts smiled at the odd expression, and disposed the girls about the veranda. Jack in some way felt that she must answer for the rest, since Mr. Pinckney was her special acquaintance, and so she established herself nearest to Mrs. Roberts.

"You haven't any little girls, have you?" she asked by way of beginning a chat.

"No," replied her hostess, "I am not as fortunate as your mother who has four. Don't you think she could spare me one?"

Jack considered this for a moment. "I don't know which one it could be," she said, "unless it were Mary Lee. Jean and I are twins, you know, so we couldn't be separated, and Nan always gets me out of scrapes so it wouldn't do to let her go. Do you think you would like to have Mary Lee? She behaves better than any of us and always keeps her hands clean."

Mrs. Roberts laughed. "I think it is very likely your mother wouldn't be willing to part with her any sooner than with one of the others. Have you any brothers?"

"No." Jack shook her head. "That's why they call me Jack; because mother wanted one of us to have papa's name. Have you any brothers?" she asked in turn.

Mrs. Roberts looked grave. "No," she said after a moment's silence. "I had a dear brother when I was your age, however," she added.

"And haven't you him now?" Jack slipped a sympathetic hand into her friend's.

"No, I haven't him now." Mrs. Roberts drew the child to her.

"Did he die when he was a little boy?" whispered Jack in an awestruck voice.

"No, not till he was a grown man."

"Oh." Jack pondered over this, then she said: "He was Mr. St. Nick's little boy, wasn't he?"

"Mr. St. Nick? You mean——?"

"Your father," returned Jack. "Don't you think he looks exactly like the pictures in 'Twas the night before Christmas?"

Mrs. Roberts had to smile, for Jack so evidently thought she was paying Mr. Pinckney a compliment. "I never had my attention called to it before," was the reply. "You see I have thought of him only as looking like my father."

This sufficiently explained it to Jack who remarked: "Yes, I suppose that must be so. I should never think of my mother as Mother Goose nor the old woman who lived in the shoe, no matter how she might look or how old she might be." Some one called Mrs. Roberts aside at this juncture, and Jack went over to where the other three were listening to Mr. Pinckney's account of a bee ranch. They had not heard the conversation between Mrs. Roberts and Jack and were surprised when the latter climbed upon Mr. Pinckney's knee and said: "Tell me about your little boy."

An expression came over Mr. Pinckney's face such as Jack had never seen there before, as he put her down abruptly and walked off without a word. Jack gazed after him in astonishment.

"There now, what have you said, Jack?" said Mary Lee reprovingly.

"I only asked him about his little boy," replied Jack in an injured tone.

"What little boy?"

"His little boy. Mrs. Roberts told me she used to have a little brother. He died, though, but I wanted to ask Mr. St. Nick about him."

"Don't you see it made him feel very badly? You must never mention the subject to him again," said Mary Lee in a severe tone.

"Well, then, I won't," said Jack, "but I do want to know."

"We're going to have honey; all we can eat," Jean informed her. "Mr. St. Nick said so."

"You ought just to hear him tell about the bees, Jack," said Mary Lee. "You see there are so many flowers all the time out here that the bees can gather such loads of honey. I think I will have a bee ranch when I settle in California."

"I'm going to have grapes or oranges, I don't know which," said Nan. "The orange trees look so beautiful with the blossoms and fruit on them at the same time, though the vines are pretty, too, and I like raisins immensely."

"I think I'll have peanuts," decided Jean.

"Just think, Jack, of elderberry bushes seven feet around," Nan went on, "and of pumpkins weighing three hundred pounds; they beat mine all hollow, don't they? Do you like Mrs. Roberts, Jack?"

"Oh, she is fine," returned Jack, enthusiastically. "She wants Mary Lee for a daughter. I shouldn't be surprised if she asks mother for her."

"What?" Mary Lee stopped short in her measurement of a tall calla lily.

Jack nodded. "Yes, she does. She wants one of us and I thought you'd be the best for her."

"Jack Corner, I'd like to know what you mean by thinking my mother would give me away?" Mary Lee was righteously indignant.

"Why," said Jack calmly, "wouldn't you like to be Mr. St. Nick's granddaughter? I would. He wants one the worst kind; he told me he did."

"Well, he won't get me," retorted Mary Lee, walking off with an offended air.

"Who won't get who?" asked Mr. Pinckney, into whom in her dudgeon she almost ran.

Mary Lee stopped short. "Oh, it is just some of Jack's nonsense," she said.

"She doesn't want to be your granddaughter," said Jack in an explanatory tone, "and I don't see how we'll manage it unless you were to have Jean and me both. I told her, too, that you never had had any granddaughter."

Mr. Pinckney was smiling down rather wistfully into the upturned little face. "I certainly ought to have one," he said. "Come over here, kid, and I will tell you about something. You must excuse my leaving you so suddenly just now, but the truth is it was a great sorrow to me to lose my son, and I cannot always speak of it calmly. His name, my dear, was the same as yours, Jack; he was always Jack to me. You never saw a dearer little lad, but after he grew up he was a little headstrong. He was bent upon traveling and seeing the world; he had always longed to visit California and he came out here where he met a Mexican girl whom he married without consulting his family. I suppose he thought there would be objections raised and that he would run no risks of being separated from the girl. I was more easily angered then than I am now, and I wrote him a harsh letter in the heat of my first feelings. I refused to acknowledge his wife and bade him not to bring her home. I did not hear from him after that, though it was always my intention to forgive him finally. At the end of a year I had a few lines from his wife; it told me of his death." The old gentleman's voice broke as he uttered these words.

Jack had edged up close to him and now put her arms around him. "And did you come and find his wife?" she asked.

"My daughter and I came as soon as possible. We found my son's grave, but his wife had disappeared. We knew only her first name, for I would express no interest in her and made no inquiries of my son. She was a Mexican, I said, and that was all I wanted to know. I do not know to this day where they were married or where he met her. His last letter was from San Diego, but there could be found no clue to him there. So you see, little Jack, that perhaps, after all I would not make a very good grandfather when I made so poor a father."

"Oh, but you would, I know you would," said Jack comfortingly. "Even my mother is very cross with me sometimes, but she gets over it and is lovely afterward."

Mr. Pinckney smiled down at her and stroked her hair softly as he went on. "My daughter met Mr. Roberts out here, and married, so that brings me to California every little while, and I am still searching. There now, that is the whole story; we won't speak of it again," and the girls all understood that from henceforth they were to avoid the subject. Yet sometimes when a grave expression came into Mr. St. Nick's cheery face each said to herself: "He is thinking of his son."

Mrs. Roberts' home was something more than a pleasant house surrounded by grounds, for it was a place of several acres where Mr. Roberts raised grapes for turning into raisins, and where he could display many fruit trees which it pleased his fancy to cultivate; here, too, many beehives showed that the bees reveled in the flowery fields near at hand. Altogether it was a delightful spot in which to spend the day. Mary Lee was most interested in the bees. "What fields and fields of flowers they have to roam over," she said as she looked up toward the hills, and down toward the valley. "If I were a bee I should choose California for my home, for then I should have flowers all the year round."

Nan admired the graceful pepper trees and the orange groves. The California of other days appealed strongly to her imagination and she asked a thousand questions about Ramona's home, about the Indians, the Mexicans and such things as suggested romance and poetry. The twins applied their thoughts to anything that came handy and spent most of their time watching a pet paisano, or chaparral cock, which Mr. Roberts had tamed. They were much diverted, too, by the Chinese cook who wagged his head at them every time he came out of the kitchen and said "Velly nice lil gallee," to their great amusement. "Oh, I do wish we could have a Chinese cook when we get a house," said Jean.

"We are going to," answered Jack; "Aunt Helen said so."

But it was all on account of her interest in John Chinaman that the day did not pass without trouble for Jack who, as usual, could not escape from some disaster. John, or Wah Sing as was his real name, was trotting back and forth from kitchen to garden, his long queue neatly wound around the back of his head, and his shoes making little noise as he moved about. His blue jacket was a pleasant bit of color in the landscape where the more brilliant hues of blossoms abounded. Jack followed after him, being vastly amused by his methods and finding in his childlike smile a certain fascination. When Jean had tired of watching Wah Sing, Jack still hovered around him, but finally the fascination was changed into horror as she saw him secure two chickens which he carried to the kitchen door and left tied till he should go inside. Jack waited for him to come out. What was he going to do next? Kill the chickens, she feared. Would he shoot them, wring their necks, chop off their heads? She did not want to see the process but she would stay till she saw what he was going to do and then she would run away.

She stood her ground till John came out with a large kettle of boiling water, and then to her horror and dismay she saw him pick up one of the chickens and plunge it into the steaming caldron alive. With a shriek of protest Jack rushed forward, wrested the unfortunate chicken from the Chinaman's grasp, and fled toward the veranda, her hands smarting from holding the victim. She did not stop till she had sobbingly laid the squawking fowl at Mrs. Roberts' feet.

"Oh, he is wicked, wicked," she cried. "He was scalding it to death; oh, you'll not let him do it, you'll not."

Mrs. Roberts hurried to comfort the distressed child. "Why, you poor darling, what is it? Can't you tell me?" she said taking Jack in her arms.

"John-Wah Sing put the poor chicken into boiling water when it was alive," sobbed Jack. "I couldn't let him do it, and I got it out, but if it hurts my hands so, how much more it must have hurt the poor chicken."

"Your little hands haven't feathers on them though," said Mrs. Roberts, "and I don't suppose it hurt the chicken any more than it did you, but it is a fiendish way those Chinamen sometimes have of preparing chickens for plucking." She turned to her father. "How many times I have told Wah Sing that I will not allow him to practice his heathenish methods here, but I suppose to-day he thought he must have everything extra nice and his theory is that a chicken is much better so prepared. Will you go and see him and be as wrathy as you can. I must see to this dear child's poor little hands." She called one of the house servants who bore away the rescued chicken, which it must be said was promptly despatched in a more humane way. Then, while Mr. Pinckney gave Wah Sing a piece of his mind, Mrs. Roberts gave herself up to Jack whose hands were not so badly burned as one might imagine, and though the child suffered for awhile, by the time dinner was ready the worst was over and she was able to enjoy her dainty meal though nothing would induce her to touch the chicken.

Mr. Pinckney devoted himself to her, and piled her plate with all sorts of good things so that she did not miss having chicken, but she did not care to go near the Chinaman again.

"They are not all like that," Mrs. Roberts told her, "and indeed I am sure our man will never do so again while he is in this house."

Yet when Jack reached home she begged her mother never to employ a Chinese servant, and it was a long time before she could recover from her horror of Wah Sing.

To relieve the situation, Mr. Pinckney and his daughter strove to tease Mary Lee that they might divert Jack's thoughts from the painful subject, and they succeeded so well so far as Mary Lee was concerned that she really began to fear that they were in earnest in meaning to adopt her. She was very quiet during the drive home, but as soon as she had gained her mother's side, she rushed into her arms crying, "Don't give me up, mother! Don't!"

This was so unlike the placid Mary Lee that her mother wondered. "What does she mean?" she asked looking around. Mr. Pinckney seeing that he carried matters a little too far said: "It is all our fault, Mrs. Corner. Mrs. Roberts and I told the kid that as you had four daughters you might spare us one, and she seemed to think Prisms, here, could be most readily parted with, so we have been teasing Mary Lee till the child really believes we mean to wheedle you into giving her away. Now, if we take any one it must be the twins, for I have come to the conclusion that one will not be enough, for Mrs. Roberts might want her at the same time that I did and there would be trouble in the family, so we'll take the twins, please."

This was turning the tables on Jack who, when it came to the test, was appalled at the idea of belonging to any one but her mother, and she precipitately fled to her room dragging Jean with her. After locking the door they hid under the bed where they kept very quiet for a time.

"They shan't have us," whispered Jack. "I don't want to be adopted, do you, Jean?"

"No," agreed Jean, "not even by Mr. St. Nick or Mrs. Bobs. I reckon he'd give us lots of pretty things," she remarked after a short silence.

"But we couldn't have mother nor Nan nor Aunt Helen and we'd have to be named Pinckney or Roberts and we'd have to live here always," returned Jack. "It would be dreadful not to see our own kin, you know."

"Yes, it would," Jean answered. "I want to belong to my own mother, I reckon. Do you suppose he'll send a police officer after us?" she asked after a while.

"Oh, no, I don't believe he would do that."

"Nor soldiers."

"Of course not; he's not a general nor a king."

"Then why did we run and hide?" asked Jean with less imagination than her twin sister.

"Oh, just because he might have grabbed us and have done something or other." Jack was rather vague as to her ideas of what was possible danger to them.

"Maybe he'll forget it," said Jean when the time of imprisonment seemed becoming wearisome and when no exciting pursuit thrilled her with alarm.

"Perhaps he will," Jack admitted, "and at any rate he will know we don't want to be adopted and he'll go home and tell Mrs. Bobs and she will say, 'Well, we'll have to get some one else who has no mother.'"

"I don't want them to get any one else," said Jean, "because," she added greedily, "the adopted child would get all the candy."

Jack considered this thoughtfully, lying stretched out at full length, her head poking out from under the bed like a turtle from its shell. "I reckon," she said after a while, "they can get along without any child; they have done it all this time and they can just keep on doing it. Which would you rather belong to, Jean, Mrs. Bobs or Mr. St. Nick?"

"Mrs. Bobs, I think."

"I'd rather belong to Mr. St. Nick. Then your name would be Jean Roberts and mine would be Jack Pinckney; wouldn't that be queer?"

"Awfully qreer. I shouldn't like my name to be different from yours; we wouldn't seem like trins any more. There's somebody coming, Jack."

"Keep very still," whispered Jack.

There came a pounding on the door and a voice called: "Where are you, children?"

"It's Nan," whispered Jack drawing her head back under the bed.

"Where are you?" repeated Nan.

No answer.

"Mr. St. Nick has gone and mother wants you," came next.

"He's gone," whispered Jean. "He won't take us to-day, Jack. Let's get out." So out they crawled and joined the others on the veranda.

"Come here, you silly little girls," said their mother. "Don't you know that I would never part with one of my blessed children under any circumstances? You are little goosies to get such an idea into your heads. I am sure Mary Lee, at least, ought to have known better."

"They seemed so tremendously in earnest," said Mary Lee ruefully. "You would have thought it absolutely had to be if you had been there."

Mrs. Corner laughed. "I am afraid after all you haven't had a very happy day," she said.

"Oh, we did, we did," declared Mary Lee, "even if I was teased and Jack did get her hands hurt. They are perfectly dear lovely people and I want to go there whenever I can." The others echoed Mary Lee's opinion, even Jack, who concluded the matter by saying:

"I think we ought to try to get a granddaughter for Mr. St. Nick when he wants one so much," a remark which bore fruit in the future in a way no one expected.