The four Corners in California

by Amy Ella Blanchard

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.