The Four Corners

"No wonder then they found something to say," laughed Nan. "Now run along and get ready for school. Mary Lee will start later and I may not get there at all."

"There isn't going to be any school to-day," returned Jean.

"Why not? Who said so?"

"Jack said so."

"How did she find out?"

"I don't know. She said this morning when we were getting dressed that there wasn't going to be any school to-day."

"It isn't a holiday. I'd like to know why," said Nan reflectively. "Are you sure, Jean?"

"Yes, I'm sure. I asked Jack twice and both times she said: 'There isn't going to be any school.'"

"To be sure we weren't there yesterday," said Nan, "and she probably heard from some one over at Cousin Mag's. Where is Jack?"

"I don't know."

"Go find her, there's a good girl."

Jean went out. She saw nothing of her twin, so she sought the dog who would be a willing and able help in finding Jack.

As she stood at the gate, looking up and down the street, the two boys came out. "What are you looking for?" asked Randolph.

"I'm looking for Trouble," she replied.

The boy gave a short laugh. "You'll find it soon enough if you look for it," he said, passing on and leaving Jean much puzzled by his remark. Finding neither Jack nor Trouble in this direction, she sought Unc' Landy and Trouble was discovered gnawing a ham bone by the old man's cabin door. "Come, Trouble, find Jack," called Jean.

The dog dropped his bone, cocked his head to one side, flopped an ear over one eye and looked at her brightly.

"Find Jack. Come, where's Jack?" repeated Jean. Then Trouble understood, and set off down the street, Jean following.

Just before the schoolhouse was reached, Jack was discovered sitting on the steps of a vacant house. She had settled herself there before any of the school children came that way. There were too many interesting things occurring for Jack to wish to waste her time at school, and she had argued out a plan of proceeding which ought to satisfy everybody, she reflected. There could be no school without scholars and she would see to it that there were no scholars. As each child came along she promptly called out: "There isn't going to be any school to-day." She felt that this was strict truth. The first arrivals turned back all too readily and repeated Jack's words to the others they met, so that within the schoolroom the teacher wondered and waited till ten o'clock. By that time Jack, feeling that the day was saved, left the steps where she had been sitting and went to the station to wait the first train in from Washington.

Before this, however, Trouble had discovered her to Jean in his most polite manner. "Nan wants you, Jack," announced Jean, running up.

"I don't care. She's not my mother," returned Jack.

"You'd better come."

"I will when I'm ready."

"I'm going straight home to tell her."

"I don't care."

"I don't see what you want to sit here for all by yourself."

"Because I choose."

In this mood Jack was not companionable, as Jean knew to her sorrow, and so, after a look of virtuous reproach at her sister, and a lifting of her head in scorn, she walked off with switching skirts, pounding down her heels very hard and calling back: "I'll tell Aunt Sarah too."

"She hasn't come yet," called Jack in return.

"You don't know whether she has or not," came the reply in fainter tones.

"I do so. The train doesn't get in till eleven. Ba-ah!" Then Jean indignantly pursued her way to pour forth her grievance in Nan's ear.

"She was sitting on the steps of the old Southall house," she reported, "and she wouldn't come when I said you wanted her. She said 'Ba-ah!' too, and she told me she'd come when she was ready."

Nan knew Jack's eccentricities of old, and that she should choose to be sitting on the steps of the Southall house was not a matter of surprise, though she wondered why Jack preferred to be there to enjoying her own home garden on a holiday. But she did not think it wise to try to force an obedience which very likely would not be given, so she said: "Well, never mind, let her stay there if she likes it. Perhaps she is waiting for some one. Isn't that Mitty coming? It looks like her yellow hat."

"It is Mitty," Jean assured her, "but her hat looks funny and she's got on an old calico wrapper."

Mitty entered rather shamefacedly. She had a tale of woe to tell. She had been caught in the rain and her clothes had suffered. She had gone to the "fessible," however, but it rained so hard that she, with most of the others, had to stay all night. There was a fight which scared her nearly to death, and there was no place to sleep, for the older persons took up all the floor space. She had walked home when daylight came, and had gone to bed at her mother's, but she was "clean tuckered out." And, indeed, at intervals during the rest of the day, one or another of the girls came upon her sound asleep over her work.

At eleven o'clock came Aunt Sarah, accompanied by Jack, who had met her at the train. Ordinarily Nan would not have been so overjoyed to see Aunt Sarah. There were too frequent passages of arms between them for the girl to look forward to her great aunt's visit with unalloyed pleasure, but this time Miss Dent was given an exuberant welcome, not only by Nan, but by the others. "We thought you would never get here," said Nan.

"I thought so myself," returned Aunt Sarah. "Henry Dent made me miss the train by five minutes yesterday morning, so I had to take the afternoon train. That was an hour late owing to a washout, so I couldn't make connection in Washington, but had to stay all night there with Cousin Lou, though I did get the earliest train this morning. Your mother got off safely, Jack tells me. Why aren't you children at school?"

"There wasn't any school to-day," promptly replied Jean.

"How's that?" Miss Dent turned sharply.

"I don't know," said Jean.

"Did you hear the reason?" asked Nan, turning to Jack. She had been so occupied that the question of school had given her very little thought that day.

"There wasn't one of the scholars there," replied Jack truthfully and with a guileless look.

"How do you know?"

"I was down there and saw."

"Down where? Did you go to the schoolhouse?"

"I didn't go in."

"Didn't Miss Lawrence come?"

Jack hesitated, but she was equal to the emergency. "I didn't see her," she made answer.

"I wonder if she is ill," said Mary Lee. "We didn't hear that she was yesterday, and yet Jack knew this morning before breakfast that there wasn't to be any school. She told us so."

"How did you find out?" Aunt Sarah fixed a keen look upon Jack. "Look here, Jacqueline Corner, it strikes me that there is a screw loose somewhere. Did you tell your sister that there wouldn't be any school so you could have a holiday?"

Jack faced her questioner unflinchingly. "It's just as I said, Aunt Sarah. There wasn't truly any school to-day."