The four Corners in California

by Amy Ella Blanchard

"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.