Aunt Sarah Dent often came to make long stays with the family after the death of the children's father. A small life insurance and the little place at the end of the street was about all that was left to their mother. Aunt Sarah had a modest income of her own which she cheerfully added to the family exchequer and, therefore, her coming usually meant some added comforts, so they managed fairly well. A woman came in to wash and clean, but the rest of the work was done by the family with the assistance of a half-grown colored girl, and an old negro man, Landy by name. It was supposed that his name in its beginning had been Philander, but he had forgotten and no one else knew. He was a little bent, dried-up old darky, but was tough and wiry and could accomplish more than many younger ones of his color, whom he scorned openly.
Add to the family an old mule named Pete, a handsome Angora cat called Lady Gray, and a mongrel dog whose name was Trouble, and you have its membership.
It was one afternoon in late summer that Nan, having been called Sharp Corner more times than her temper would amiably permit, had gone to a haunt much favored by herself. This was at the extreme edge of the place, a little nook where the orchard ended and a few stunted pines lapped over into the next field. The field had not been cultivated for some time and was overgrown with weeds and a young growth of pine and fir trees. It was rather a desolate spot, for the nearest house was hidden in summer by a thick grove, and the slope of the hill prevented the road from being seen from this point.
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:
[Music: A lone-ly child goes wand'ring by, Blue his eyes as sum-mer's sky, On his lash-es tear-drops lie, For his feet tread the dust-y av-e-nue, Wea-ri-ly the whole day through Home-less he and or-phaned too Lit-tle Ja-mie.]