The Four Corners

Encouraged by this, and not to be outdone by her twin, Jack rushed to the kitchen and came back with a cake and an apple which she offered to the interesting visitor.

Daniella eyed the apple for a moment and then shook her head. She was not going to seem to need food in the presence of these more favored children. But she seemed to take comfort in cuddling Ruby and they felt that they had done all that they could.

In the course of an hour Colonel Lewis came in with his daughter and Miss Sarah. "Tom and I have arranged it," he told Phil in answer to the eager questions he put as he ran out to meet them. "We've found a place to take the grandfather. He must go to the County Asylum, as his mind is impaired. We must get Nan home right away, so Tom or I will drive up for her and bring the old man back. They'll keep him at the hospital to-night and to-morrow he can go to the place I spoke of. He will be well cared for."

"And what about Daniella?" asked Phil.

"That's not settled yet. She will stay here till we can determine what is best to be done. The main thing now is to get Nan home. I feel very loth to leave her there alone a moment longer than necessary. Mrs. Boggs is in good hands and is improving."

As Polly entered the room, she said, "Now, Daniella, you may go to see your mother." Down went Ruby, awakened rudely from the nap she was taking in Daniella's lap, and the little girl, without waiting for further invitation, darted out the door. She ran down to the gate so fast that Polly could not overtake her. "Wait, Daniella, wait," she called. "You don't know which way to go." Then Daniella paused and those watching saw them go swiftly down the street.

During the time that all this was going on, Nan was patiently keeping watch in the cabin. The short winter day was drawing to a close when she stirred the fire and tried to set a kettle of water to boil. Little as she was used to cooking, she was less used to an open fire, and found some difficulty in making the coffee. But she accomplished it at last, emptied some into a bowl and poured into it a liberal supply of "long sweetening" which she discovered to be molasses, then putting some of the corn bread upon a plate, she set it before the old man. He was able to feed himself which he did noisily, but with evident enjoyment. Nan could touch none of the food herself, though she was hungry after a picnic lunch taken on the drive up the mountain. The hours began to drag wearily. Once in a while, the old man would make some meaningless remark, supposing Nan to be his granddaughter. Two or three times he attempted to meddle with the fire, but Nan was able to stop him. He was simple and harmless, but, like a child, in danger of doing himself an injury by some sudden piece of mischief.

Nan wondered how Daniella could stand living in the little cooped up, bare cabin, how she could endure the privations and the lack of companionship. As the shadows deepened, she began to fear it might be possible that she would have to stay there all night, and was relieved to hear the sound of wheels, and then her Cousin Tom Lewis's voice.

"Heigho, Nan!" he cried, "Ran and I have come for you."

"Is Daniella with you?" asked Nan, peering out the door.

"No," answered Tom as he came up to the cabin.

"Oh, then I can't leave. I'll have to stay with the old man," returned Nan with a great feeling of disappointment. "I promised, you know."

Tom came forward. "No, you won't stay," he said. "We are going to take the old man, too. Where is he?"

"In there by the fire. Oh, Cousin Tom, who says he is to go, and where are you going to take him? What's become of Daniella, and has anything happened to her mother?"

"One question at a time, please. It is all right about the old gentleman, so don't you bother. The first thing to do is to get him ready, and then there'll be time to answer your questions on the way home. I've brought an old army overcoat to wrap him up in, for I didn't suppose we should find much here, from what Polly said."

The bewildered old man was soon bundled into the carriage. He whimpered like a child at being taken from the cabin, and kept saying over and over, "I'm innercent, I'm innercent. I never took no hand in the business."

"He probably imagines we are sheriffs after him for a moonshiner," said Tom. "Poor old chap!" He tried to reassure the old man but found it was no use, and after a while he lapsed into silence, seeming to find comfort alone in the supposed fact that his granddaughter was with him.

On the way down the mountain, Nan learned of all that had happened since morning, and kept up such a running fire of questions and comments as made Tom declare she must have been all day thinking them up.

She felt that she had been away for weeks when at last they stopped before her own door. Was it only that morning that they had started out to take the red jacket to Daniella?

Mary Lee and the twins rushed out to meet her, full of the day's happenings. "Daniella's here," cried Mary Lee.

"Yes, and she's been to see her mother at the hospital," said Jack.

"And her mother is crite ill," put in Jean. "Cousin Polly says she can't take any food except licrids because she has such a fever. She was hurt awfully, but she told Cousin Polly they couldn't have done more for her if she had been a creen."

"We want to keep Daniella here," Mary Lee went on, "and Aunt Sarah is thinking about it."

"Where is Daniella now?" asked Nan.

"She's at the hospital. Cousin Tom is going to bring her back when he takes her grandfather there. Isn't it a good thing that Cousin Philip is one of the directors? He had everything hurried up and settled so much sooner. Was it very awful staying up there all day, Nan? Were you scared?"

"It was lonesome, but I wasn't frightened. There wasn't anything to do but give the old man his supper and keep him from fooling with the fire. I couldn't eat their messes myself."

"Then you must be half starved," said Mary Lee. "You poor child. We waited supper for you all. Mitty is putting it on the table now."

Nan thought that never before in her life had batter bread and cold ham tasted so good. Never had biscuits and baked apples such a flavor.

After supper, Miss Sarah called the four girls to her. "Now, children," she said, "the little girl will be here presently, and before she gets here we must understand whether she is to stay or not. They will take her in at the Children's Home or the St. Mary's Orphan Asylum, while her mother is ill, so we need not feel that she will not be looked after."

"Oh, but it would be dreadful to shut up that little wild thing in a strict place like the Home or the Asylum," said Nan, with keen appreciation of what Daniella would suffer.

"But you know, my dear, that every penny counts with us, and that all that can be spared must go for your mother's expenses. If we keep the child here, even for a couple of months, she will have to have clothing, her board will cost something, and it will mean sacrifices on the part of all of us. Now, the question is: What are you willing to give up?"

"I think I can get along without anything more in the way of clothes this winter," said Nan, visions of a new frock fading away.

"And I am sure I can if Nan can," said Mary Lee, readily.

"I'll wear hand-me-downs and not say a word," said Jack, "and I'll give Daniella all my rice pudding."

"Because you don't like it," Jean spoke with scorn.

"Well, never mind, if she likes it, what's the difference?" said Jack, argumentatively. "If I gave up something she didn't like and that I did, it wouldn't do her any good. You haven't said yet that you'd give up anything."

"Of course I'll give up something," declared Jean, offended. "I'll give up whatever Aunt Sarah says I ought."

"Good little girl," said Aunt Sarah, approvingly. "I hope you will not have to give up much. You younger ones can always take the clothes of the older ones, and as for food we shall not be able to set a very much plainer table on account of our boarders. I think there will be rice pudding enough for every one, but we'll have gingerbread instead of rich cake, and eat more oatmeal instead of so many hot griddle-cakes."

"I suppose they do take a crauntity of butter," sighed Jean, who liked griddle-cakes above all things.

"We'll eat 'long sweetening' on them," said Nan, with a smile at the recollection of the Boggs's molasses jug. "By the way, I never thought of Daniella's chickens and her little pig. They killed the big pig, and there is quite a lot of meat up there. Some one will have to go up there after those things."

"They can be sold," said Aunt Sarah, "and that will help out their expenses."

"Oh, can't we keep the chickens and the little pig? Then Daniella won't cost us anything for eggs."

"But the chickens will cost us something for food," argued Miss Sarah.

"Oh, dear, I forgot that they must be fed. I always think of chickens just picking and scratching around for a living," said Nan. "Well, Aunt Sarah, is it settled? Do we keep Daniella here or don't we?"

"If you all are willing to make the sacrifices, we will keep her, but you must not murmur. I want you to realize what it means. Now, in the flush of your generous spirit, it seems easy, but after a while, when your coat looks shabby, Nan, and your best frock is too short, and when Mary Lee must wear her old hat and Jack must be satisfied with made-over clothing, and rice-pudding oftener, when Jean can't have griddle-cakes swimming in butter, and must have her shoes mended and remended, it may not seem so easy. My own inclination is always to fling wide a hospitable door, but we must think of what is due to your mother before anything else."

The four children were silent. They realized the truth of all this. At last Jack spoke up. "I don't care; I'd just as soon have the made-overs; you don't have to be near so careful of them."

"There is some comfort in that," agreed Nan. "Yes, Aunt Sarah, we'll do it, won't we, Mary Lee?"

"I will, if you will."

"Then it's settled," Nan declared. "Daniella is to be ours till further notice. Will she go to school, Aunt Sarah? She doesn't know even how to read."

"We can see about that later," Aunt Sarah told her.

Later, this question did come up, for when the chickens and pig were domiciled at the Corners' and Daniella had become used to her surroundings, she realized that if she would be like the rest she must know much more than she did. At first she was like some little wild animal, and could not be kept in the house, saying she could not breathe there. She was shy of every one but Nan and Mary Lee, and fled at the approach of strangers. She did not know how to wear the clothing provided for her, nor had she ever been inside a church. Shops were a marvel and a school was something that had to be elaborately explained, but in time she came to understand that she was unlike the rest of the world and that if she would be in it she must be of it. Then she told Nan she wanted to know what was inside books, and she would go to school. One day of the routine was enough for her. She escaped before the morning was half over to Nan's mortification.

"You ought at least to have stayed till noon," she said, chidingly.

"I couldn't, I couldn't," replied Daniella vehemently. "I felt like a wild creetur in a trap, and them gals starin' and snickerin' made me feel like a fool thing. I ain't goin' to set alongside o' babies, an' I ain't no right with gals my own size. I don't want to hev nothin' to do with none of 'em, 'scusin' you an' Mary Lee. If I never l'arns nothin', I ain't goin' to be cooped up lak a po' trapped rabbit or a bird in a cage. I don't keer if I don't know nothin'. Maw'll love me jest the same."

Nan was quite distressed. She had felt a real missionary spirit in rescuing Daniella from the depths of her ignorance. She dreamed of the day when she should be proud of her, when pretty little Daniella would appear as well as any girl, but now her hopes were blasted. She thought long upon the subject. She discussed it with her sisters, with her Aunt Sarah, with Cousin Polly and Cousin Mag but no one could seem to offer a solution to the problem. It was cruel, every one thought, to send a girl to school who felt so keenly about it. Why make her miserable for the short time she was living in a civilized community? After a while she would have to return to her wild life, then where would be the good of having made her unhappy?

But Nan felt differently about it. She had a scheme of teaching Daniella herself, but the mountain girl spurned it, and said she wasn't goin' to hav no gal her own size l'arnin' her, though if the truth were known, she really did not want to give Nan the task. So at last Nan took her difficulty to her Aunt Helen, and here she found a friend in need, for Miss Helen declared that nothing would interest her more than to teach Daniella for an hour or two a day.

"She is like a blank, unwritten page," she said. "And I'd like the experience of putting my mark upon her. I should like to try some of my own theories. You say she is bright, Nan?"

"Real bright. Not like schooly brightness, but in a queer way, that shows she thinks a lot more than you suppose."

"So much the better. I can try to bring out what is in her, by my own methods."

Then Nan, by coaxing and arguing induced Daniella to try the experiment of going to Uplands for an hour each day, and after her very first trial it seemed that Miss Helen had solved the problem, and that Daniella's education had fairly begun.

CHAPTER XVI

PARTY FROCKS

Thanksgiving Day went by quietly; there was little made of it here in Virginia, and the girls would scarcely have remembered it if their mother had not written asking each one to tell her what she was most thankful for. The answers were very characteristic.

Jean wrote: "I am thankful that the wildcat didn't get Phil and Mary Lee, and that Daniella is here. I am thankful that her mother and my mother are both getting better."

Jack wrote: "I am thankful that I don't like rice pudding and that I do like molasses on my batter cakes. I am thankful that old clothes don't last as long as new ones, and that people don't make such a fuss when you get spots on them or tear them. I am thankful I don't get into quite so many scrapes in winter as I do in summer."

Mary Lee's thankfulness was expressed in these words: "I am thankful that little wild creatures have warm holes and nests to creep into. I am thankful that birds can fly south where it is warm. I am thankful we have enough to eat and to keep us comfortable, and I am thankful we do not have to live in a little cabin on the mountain, and dear mother, I am very thankful you are getting better."

Said Nan: "I am thankful, you dearest of mothers, for so many things I don't know how to choose, but first and foremost I am thankful for you. I might as well say, too, that I am thankful for all my kinsfolk, for I am even thankful now for Aunt Sarah, since I had to cook that supper for the boys and since she nursed me so patiently when I broke my arm. I certainly am thankful for Aunt Helen. She is such a dear. You know she is teaching Daniella, and, yes, I am thankful for grandmother, if she is cranky. I am thankful for the whole world, for music, for books, for pictures, for trees and flowers and sky, and even the snow on the ground. It looks so perfectly pure and clean and makes me think of white souls. I am thankful for all these things, but oh, mother, I shall be thankfuller, thankfullest when you get home."

Though the letters eased the mother's loneliness, they brought a rain of tears to her eyes, and filled her with longing to see her four girls. "They are so like them," she murmured. "Each one has written herself so plainly."

Daniella's becoming a part of the household made less of a change than the girls had expected, for Aunt Sarah managed well, and spread out her economies so that they covered all meals very slightly, and the extras were little missed. When one has rice pudding once a week instead of once in ten days, or when griddle-cakes are served only on Saturdays instead of Wednesdays and Saturdays, it really makes little difference.

However a time did come when the sacrifice loomed up more largely and for a time there were four rather unhappy little girls. It was just after a neat maid left at the door four small white envelopes which, when opened, were discovered to be invitations to a party given by Betty Wise, a little girl who was not an intimate acquaintance, but whom each of the four Corners admired greatly. Betty lived in such a beautiful old house, two hundred years old, and was considered to belong to one of the best families in the county. The grounds around the house were always in beautiful order; Betty herself was the most daintily clad of little maidens, and in church the four girls who sat in a row in the pew behind her gave many a thought to Betty Wise's pretty hats, handsome coats, and the delicate ribbons she always wore on her hair. To be invited to Judge Wise's house was an honor not to be underrated and the four Corners clutched their envelopes and looked at each other with shining eyes.

"Isn't it splendid?" said Nan. "A real sure enough party. I expect it will be perfectly beautiful. It was so perfectly lovely of Betty to invite all four of us."

"It certainly was lovely," sighed Mary Lee, "but, Nan, what are we going to wear?"

Nan's face fell. What indeed? She hastily made an inventory of her last summer's white frocks. Not one that would do. "We can manage something for Jack and Jean, I am sure," she said, "though there isn't one of us has a decent sash, and as for slippers, Jean is the only one who has a pair that will do."

Deep gloom fell upon the little group. The silence was broken by Mary Lee. "We can't ask Aunt Sarah, for we promised that we would not have a single thing new this winter if she would let us have Daniella. I almost wish we had never gone up that old mountain."

"Oh, don't say that, Mary Lee," said Nan. "Just think what would have become of Daniella if we hadn't gone. She might have perished by this time."

"Oh, of course, I don't exactly mean that, but I wish, I almost wish, we had not insisted upon keeping her here." It was so nearly the actual wish at that moment of the other three that no one said a word.

After a pause, Nan drew a long sigh. "Well," she said, "you and I can't possibly go, but perhaps we can fix up the twins. Jean is all right and there is a frock of yours that would do on a pinch for Jack if we can manage slippers. We can look over the stock. She may have grown up to some of our castaways, and even if we should find a pair a little too large, we can stuff cotton in the toes. As for sashes we'll have to look over everything and see what we come across."

"I don't want to go if you don't, so there," said Jack.

"Neither do I," chimed in Jean.

"Oh, but some of us must go. We couldn't be so rude as to decline for all four of us," said Nan. "Besides, I shall want to hear all about it even if I can't go. It is ten days off so I am not going to decline till I have to."

"I suppose there is no use in saying anything to Aunt Sarah about it," said Mary Lee with a glimmer of hope.

Nan shook her head. "No, we must not act as if we were trying to slide out of our promise. I was just thinking that perhaps Cousin Polly could lend us one or two sashes, and perhaps a pair of slippers; she has such little feet, but she couldn't provide for all of us. She is generous enough but she hasn't enough to go around."

"She could let us have two pairs of slippers if she were a craudruped," said Jean.

"You'd better tell her that," said Nan, laughing.

"Invitations came for Ran and Ashby, too," Mary Lee remarked, "and I suppose Phil has one." Deeper gloom fell upon the group especially when Nan said solemnly: "And the boys will have to know why we can't go."

For the next two or three days, the girls avoided the subject of the party when those of their schoolmates who had received invitations spoke of it. Neither was it mentioned in the presence of the boys. Once in a while one or the other of the four sisters made to the rest some tragic statement such as: "Flossy Garrett is going to wear white China silk." "Lizzie Carter has a new Roman sash," or "Nell Page's sister is going to lend her a lovely locket and chain." Deep sighs and mournful countenances always attended these statements.

With a feeling of proud reserve, Nan never referred to the party when talking to her Aunt Helen. Not for worlds would she so much as hint that she might go if properly costumed; not when that store of pretty things still lay untouched and unbestowed.

Jack, however, had no such scruples, and with a distinct purpose and a defiant front, she went one afternoon to Uplands. Seating herself directly in front of her grandmother she observed her solemnly and thoughtfully.

"You seem to be in a brown study this afternoon, Jack," said Mrs. Corner. "What are you thinking about?"

Jack gave a long sigh. "I was thinking how nice it would be if there were really fairies or if there were really enchanted lamps and things like Nan loves to talk about. Anyhow, I wish we could sometimes change places with people."

"And with whom would you change places?" asked her grandmother, ready to encourage her to talk.

"With you," returned Jack.

"With me?" Mrs. Corner looked perfectly astounded, then she sighed. "You'd soon want to change back again, little Jack."

"Oh, I know that. I shouldn't care to be a grandmother for more than an hour."

"But why wish to be a grandmother at all?" Mrs. Corner's curiosity was aroused. She wondered what the little girl's fancy could be. "Do listen to the child, Helen," she said. "She would like to be her own grandmother."

"Oh, I'd like to be Nan's and Mary Lee's and Jean's, too," Jack told her.

"But why?"

"If I were a grandmother and had four nice little girl grandchildren," Jack went on, "I'd do something or other so they could go to the party at Judge Wise's."

"And why can't they go? What's to prevent?" Mrs. Corner asked.

"No frocks, no sashes, no slippers, no money to buy them with," said Jack, and having delivered herself of this laconic confession, she faced her grandmother with a set expression of countenance. The worst was said.

Mrs. Corner's delicate fingers trembled in the wool she was crocheting.

"Who is giving the party?" said Miss Helen gently. "Tell me all about it, Jack."

"It's to be at Judge Wise's. Betty is going to have it and it certainly will be fine. Maybe Jean and I can go if Cousin Polly's slippers will fit and she will lend us two sashes, but Nan says she and Mary Lee are just obliged and compelled to stay at home because they wouldn't be seen in dowdy old frocks and old high shoes."

A little pink flush burned on Mrs. Corner's cheeks. "Mary Lee has never been near her grandmother," she said. "You could hardly expect me to forget that."

"I wasn't saying anything about your doing things," said Jack ingenuously. "I was only saying what I would do if I were a grandmother and had lovely things put away, and had granddaughters just crazy to go to a party. I shouldn't mind when three of them had been polite if one wouldn't be, and I don't see why they all would have to be done mean on account of one."

Jack sat thoughtfully considering the matter. "I reckon," she said, "Mary Lee is something like you. She wouldn't come here unless you specially asked her, and you wouldn't go to see her unless she specially asked you. If mother were at home she would do something, 'cause mother can do anything; she is as near a fairy that way as any one can be, but you know mother isn't here, and we can't do things ourselves and Aunt Sarah won't. You know," she added, "it's all on account of Daniella. We promised Aunt Sarah if she let us keep Daniella at our house, we wouldn't ask for anything new this winter, and we would wear our old clothes. So, of course, when we promised, we can't change our minds."

"Why did your aunt exact such a promise from you?" asked Mrs. Corner, a little haughtily.

"Oh, because she couldn't afford to have her unless we did. Mother needs all the boys' board money, and Aunt Sarah does as well as she can, Nan says. We have rice pudding only once a week and that really isn't very often."

"Miss Dent is a wonderfully self-sacrificing woman," said Miss Helen in a low voice. "It is entirely due to her willingness to take charge of six children that Mary is able to stay at Saranac."