A Dixie School Girl

This is a story book. PM Four straight country roads running at right angles. You cannot see where they begin because they have their beginning - over the hills and far away, - but you can see where they end at - Four Corners, - the hub of that universe, for there stand the general store, which is also the postoffice, the - tavern, - as it is called in that part of the world, the church, the rectory, and perhaps a dozen private dwellings. - Four Corners - is oddly mis-named, because there are no corners there at all. It is a circle. Maybe it was originally four corners, but today it is certainly a circle with a big open space in the center, and in the very middle of that stands a flag staff upon which floats the stars and stripes. The whole open space is covered with the softest green turf. Not a lawn, mind you, such as one may see in almost any immaculately kept northern town, with artistic flower beds dotting it, and a carefully trimmed border of foliage plants surrounding it. No, this circle has real Virginia turf; the thick, rich, indestructible turf one finds in England, which, as an old gardener told the writer',we rolls and tills it for a thousand year'.