The Four Corners

A half suspicion was forming in Nan's brain. She began to tremble. "I – I – don't know," she faltered.

"Better have it here in the hall," said the man, "and when it's unpacked you can move it where you like." And the huge box was brought in and set near the door of the living-room.

The men went out and Nan stood gazing helplessly at the box while Jean ran calling: "Aunt Sarah, Mary Lee, Jack, come see what Nan's got. Ran, Ashby, come see."

Presently the man came back. "I forgot this here was to go with it," he said, taking a note from his cap.

Nan received it mechanically. She still stood gazing at the box.

Ran was the first to arrive on the scene. "Ho!" he exclaimed. "I reckon I know what that is."

Nan clutched him excitedly. "What!" she whispered, hoarsely.

"A piano, of course."

"I don't believe it, I don't. It couldn't be."

"Of course, that is just what it is. Ours looked exactly that way when it came, and if you'll come here and look on this side of the box you will see the name of the manufacturer stamped on it."

Nan sank down on the floor and covered her face with her hands. "I won't believe it, I won't, I won't," she said. "Nobody would do such a thing for me. Nobody would."

"Here, let me get a hatchet and I'll soon show you," said Ran, going toward the kitchen.

"What is the matter, Nan? Have you hurt yourself?" asked Miss Sarah, coming out into the hall.

"I'm so excited it hurts," she replied, looking up with the unopened note clasped close to her breast.

Ran returned with the hatchet and they all gathered around. One by one the boards fell away, then the packing was revealed, and then, indeed, the shining surface of a dear little upright piano came to view.

At sight of it Nan sobbed hysterically, as she looked from one to another. "Is it mine? Are you sure it is mine?" she asked.

"Why don't you read what's in that note and find out?" said Aunt Sarah.

Nan opened the note and read: "A merry Christmas to you, my dear granddaughter. May you enjoy the piano as much as I enjoy giving it. We have some little presents for you all, so come over, every one of you, and get them."

"Your loving grandmother,

"Grace Helena Corner."

"It is! It is!" cried Nan ecstatically. "Grandmother has sent it to me, and she wants us all to come over and get more presents."

"Where's the cake?" cried Jack.

"Get the wreaths," said Jean.

"Here, here," said Aunt Sarah, "get this stuff cleared away first. Come, all of you. We must get this piano out of the hall." So they tarried long enough to see the piano in place and then with the cake in a basket, the wreaths on their arms and the palm carefully protected from the too sharp winds, they trooped forth to Uplands.

Nan was the first to rush into the house. She fell on her knees before her grandmother and buried her head in her lap. "How could you, how could you do such a lovely thing?" she gasped out. "I don't deserve it. Oh, grandmother, if you had searched the world over, you couldn't have given me anything I wanted more."

"That's what I thought," said Mrs. Corner.

"I can't thank you," said Nan. "There aren't enough words in the Century Dictionary to do it."

Her grandmother laughed. "Take this excitable, grateful creature into the other room, Helen," she said. "You'll have to chain her down, I'm afraid, or she'll take wings. She is ready to fly now." Nan followed her aunt to where the other children had been already summoned. For each, except Nan, her Aunt Helen had a pretty book such as she knew would most appeal to the various tastes. For each, except Nan their grandmother had stuff for a new frock. The material for Nan's came instead of a book from her Aunt Helen.

Then the cake was presented receiving all the praise it deserved. "It was a sweet, thoughtful thing for you to do," said Mrs. Corner evidently gratified. "And it is my favorite cake. Did you know that?"

"Jack found out that it was," Nan told her.

The wreaths then were hung up and the palm given to Aunt Helen.

"But, Nan, darling," said her aunt, "I know you have given me your own palm, and that you are very fond of it, for you have often spoken of it to me."

"Do you think I would give you something I didn't like when I love you so much?" said Nan, indignantly, and Aunt Helen said not another word of protest.

After the children had gone, Mrs. Corner sat looking thoughtfully into the fire, a smile upon her face. "Next year," she said, "I shall have all my grandchildren here to dinner. Mary will come too. She will, won't she, Helen?"

"I am sure she will," said Miss Helen.

"It will be a great pleasure to have all Jack's family at Uplands," continued Mrs. Corner sighing. "I am glad we came back, Helen."

CHAPTER XIX

FIRE!

A little after the first of the year Daniella and her mother were on their way to Texas. Daniella's departure was not made without tears and vows of eternal friendship. "If I can't write very well yet," she said, "I'll try, and somebody kin tell me how to spell the words."

"We'll all write," the four girls promised, "and some day we shall expect to see you again."

"Where?" asked Daniella eagerly.

"We don't know just where," returned Nan, "but one never knows what will happen in this world, Aunt Sarah says, and so I am going to say we will meet again." It always pleased Nan to anticipate the improbable.

They all went to the station to see the Boggs's off, and, as the train moved out, they saw a pair of tearful eyes at the car window, and that was the last of Daniella for many a day. Both she and her mother had been comfortably provided for through many contributions of clothing and money, so they did not go away empty-handed.

"Well," said Nan with a long sigh as they watched the smoke from the train drift toward the mountains, "I am glad we can think of them somewhere else than in that lonely little cabin up there."

"It is a comfort," said Mary Lee, "but I really shall miss Daniella very much, and hasn't she learned a lot since that time we found her, a wild, little scary thing in the mountains?"

"Aunt Helen says there are all sort of possibilities in Daniella, if she ever gets any sort of a chance."

"She won't get much on a ranch," returned Mary Lee.

"Who knows?" said Nan thoughtfully.

Nan's music lessons commenced before the holidays were over. She went three times a week to her Aunt Helen, and, although there were days when instead of wrist movements, five finger exercises, and close legato, she gave more time to playing tunes by ear, on the whole, she was conscientious in her practicing, and it took very few words to fire her ambition or to make her appreciate the necessity of patient striving.

"All musicians must go through just this uninteresting drudgery," her aunt would tell her. "Think, Nan, even Beethoven and Chopin and Wagner had to train their fingers by these exercises and scales, so you must not expect to do less." Then Nan would try her utmost and the next time would show the improvement naturally following diligent, painstaking study. It was fortunate for her that Miss Helen knew how to appeal to her imagination and that she varied her talks, upon the dry details, with little anecdotes of the great masters, and with snatches of their best compositions to illustrate what she was saying, so that Nan, with her knowledge of the rudiments of music, gained also a knowledge of musical history which made her work much more interesting.