The four Corners

by Amy Ella Blanchard

Creeping through the rail fence Nan felt that she had placed herself outside trammeling conditions and made her way to where a fallen log, covered with moss, invited her. This was Nan's piano. She seated herself upon a pile of sticks and stones which she had heaped up before the log. In front of her she had constructed a sort of rack, using a bit of wood which she had nailed to the log. Against the rack she placed a newspaper clipping which she secured from blowing away by means of a pin. After a few graceful sweeps of her hands up and down the pretended key-board, she wailed forth to a silent accompaniment:

There was more of the song but Nan sang the first stanza over and over again. At the close of the performance her eyes were full of tears and her voice vibrated with emotion as she quavered forth: "Little Jamie." A flock of crows in the field beyond rose from the stubbly undergrowth with solemn caws and sailed off to the grove beyond. The birds of ill-omen exactly suited Nan's mood. She took an æsthetic delight in their presence. They seemed to be applauding her. She went to the other side of the log and lay down upon the dry pine needles, her head against the log and her eyes fixed upon the blue sky. Her thoughts were with the verses she had cut from a country newspaper. She thought they were delightful, and her fancy brought before her an orphan boy tattered and torn but beautiful as a dream. She felt all the enthusiasm of a true composer as she hummed over the tune she had made.

"I will publish it some day," she said. "The next time everybody is busy and out of the sitting-room, I will try to write it so I will not forget it. I think, myself, that it is lovely and I ought to get a great deal of money for it, enough to buy a piano."

The possession of a piano was Nan's dearest wish. The only musical instrument of which the family could boast was an old wheezy melodeon which stood in the sitting-room. It skipped notes once in a while, especially in its middle range, and was at once a source of pleasure and disappointment to Nan. Her Aunt Sarah declared that it drove her wild to hear Nan try to pick out tunes on it, so the girl usually had to be sure of having the place to herself before she dared to make attempts at music. Feeble little attempts these were, for she knew scarce anything beyond the mere rudiments. But to a great love of music she added a true ear, a good memory, and boundless ambition and perseverance.

"It will be autumn soon," Nan went on to herself, her thoughts still wandering in a vague dream. "I think I like autumn best of all seasons. I'd like to write poetry about it. When I am a great musician, I will write a piece of music and call it 'Autumn Whispers,' and it will sound like the wind in the trees and the corn shocks. Then I will write another and that will be called 'Autumn Secrets.' It will be about golden sunshine and shining red leaves and little pools of water in the hollows that look as if a piece of blue sky had dropped in them. I wish I could write music that would be a picture and a poem, too; it would be nice to have them all together. Trouble, where did you come from? I know Phil is around somewhere," she exclaimed, suddenly, sitting up very straight. "I don't want him to find me here. He has called me 'Sharp Corner' once too often to-day."

She jumped up and bending low, ran along the line of fence toward the hollow which intervened between this and the next rise of ground. Trouble stood still for a moment, uncertainly looking after her, then he trotted off in an opposite direction.

Pursuing her way, Nan reached the small stream which ran through the hollow. Ferns and mosses were here in abundance. Here and there a cardinal flower flaunted its red banner. Low aground trailed the hedge bindweed, and in the field beyond a slim spire of goldenrod showed itself. This attracted Nan's notice. "I said it would be autumn soon," she said, "for there is the first goldenrod of the season. I must get that piece for Aunt Sarah, though if she has an idea of where it came from, she won't have it." She gave a hasty glance in the direction of the house beyond sheltering trees as she gained the other side of the brook to gather her ambitious spray of goldenrod, for that house set in the grove of oaks belonged to Grandmother Corner, whose grandchildren were strangers to her. The running brook was the barrier which they seldom crossed and, when they did, it was secretly. The big buff house was closed, the green shutters tightly fastened, the door boarded up and the gate locked, for its owner was abroad. With her daughter Helen, she had been in Europe ever since Nan could remember.

Sometimes Nan would push her way through the hedge which surrounded the lawn, plunge through the long grass and stand staring up at the silent house where her father had been born. Certain accounts given by old Landy made her believe that it was of palatial magnificence and she longed to see its interior. Once when the care-taker had made one of his infrequent visits, one of the lower windows was opened, and Nan who had long watched and waited for such an opportunity, tiptoed up to peep in. At first she saw nothing but ghostly sheeted furniture and pictures shrouded in muslin cases, bare floors and uncurtained windows. She was about to creep away disappointed when she saw the man upon a ladder uncovering a picture. It was of a stately lady in a velvet gown, the slender fingers half hidden by costly lace, and Nan gazed with all her eyes at the haughty face. Was it her grandmother's portrait, she wondered. She watched till the man readjusted the covering and then she crept away dreaming of a day when she might see the original of the portrait and when she might be allowed to walk through those silent rooms again restored to their former splendor.