Pollyanna

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POLLYANNA

POLLYANNA

by
ELEANOR H. PORTER

L. C. PAGE & COMPANY

New York.

Copyright, 1912,
BY THE CHRISTIAN HERALD

Copyright, 1913
BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY

All rights reserved

MANUFACTURED IN THE U.S.A.
AMERICAN BOOK- STRATFORD PRESS INC., NEW YORK

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PROPERTY OF .//J

|£ ' CITY OF NEW YORK /V ff

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

XVII.

XVIII.

XIX.

XX.

XXI.

XXII.

XXIII.

XXIV.

XXV.

XXVI.

XXVII.

XXVIII.

Miss POLLY

OLD TOM AND NANCY .
THE COMING OF POLLYANNA
THE LITTLE ATTIC ROOM .

THE GAME

A QUESTION OF DUTY .
POLLYANNA AND PUNISHMENTS .
POLLYANNA PAYS A VISIT .
WHICH TELLS OF THE MAN .
A SURPRISE FOR MRS. SNOW .
INTRODUCING JIMMY .
BEFORE THE LADIES' AID .
IN PENDLETON WOODS .
JUST A MATTER OF JELLY .
DR. CHILTON ....
A RED ROSE AND A LACE SHAWL
"JusT LIKE A BOOK" .
PRISMS .....
WHICH Is SOMEWHAT SURPRISING
WHICH Is MORE SURPRISING
A QUESTION ANSWERED
SERMONS AND WOODBOXES .
AN ACCIDENT ....
JOHN PENDLETON
A WAITING GAME
A DOOR AJAR ....

Two VISITS

THE GAME AND ITS PLAYERS

PAGX
I

8

13
24

36
44
57
65
78
84

97
in

117
126

134

148

i59
168
176
181
190
199

2IO
218
228
236
241

251

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XXIX. THROUGH AN OPEN WINDOW . .269

XXX. JIMMY TAKES THE HELM . . .276

XXXI. A NEW UNCLE 281

XXXII. WHICH Is A LETTER FROM POLLYANNA 284

POLLYANNA

POLLYANNA

CHAPTER I

MISS POLLY

Miss POLLY HARRINGTON entered her kitchen a
little hurriedly this June morning. Miss Polly did
not usually make hurried movements; she specially
prided herself on her repose of manner. But to-day
she was hurrying — actually hurrying.

Nancy, washing dishes at the sink, looked up in
surprise. Nancy had been working in Miss Polly's
kitchen only two months, but already she knew that
her mistress did not usually hurry.

"Nancy! "

" Yes, ma'am." Nancy answered cheerfully, but
she still continued wiping the pitcher in her hand.

" Nancy," —Miss Polly's voice was very stern
now — " when I'm talking to you, I wish you to
stop your work and listen to what I have to
say."

Nancy flushed miserably. She set the pitcher

1

POLLYANNA

down at once, with the cloth still about it, thereby
nearly tipping it over — which did not add to her
composure.

" Yes, ma'am; I will, ma'am," she stammered,
righting the pitcher, and turning hastily. " I was
only keepin' on with my work 'cause you specially
told me this mornin' ter hurry with my dishes, ye
know."

Her mistress frowned.

" That will do, Nancy. I did not ask for ex-
planations. I asked for your attention."

" Yes, ma'am." Nancy stifled a sigh. She was
wondering if ever in any way she could please this
woman. Nancy had never " worked out" before;
but a sick mother suddenly widowed and left with
three younger children besides Nancy herself, had
forced the girl into doing something toward their
support, and she had been so pleased when she
found a place in the kitchen of the great house on
the hill — Nancy had come from " The Corners,"
six miles away, and she knew Miss Polly Harring-
ton only as the mistress of the old Harrington home-
stead, and one of the wealthiest residents of the
town. That was two months before. She knew
Miss Polly now as a stern, severe-faced woman who
frowned if a knife clattered to the floor, or if a
door banged — but who never thought to smile even
when knives and doors were still.

2

MISS POLLY

" When you've finished your morning work,
Nancy," Miss Polly was saying now, " you may
clear the little room at the head of the stairs in the
attic, and make up the cot bed. Sweep the room
and clean it, of course, after you clear out the trunks
and boxes."

" Yes, ma'am. And where shall I put the things,
please, that I take out? '

" In the front attic." Miss Polly hesitated, then
went on: "I suppose I may as well tell you now,
Nancy. My niece, Miss Pollyanna Whittier, is
coming to live with me. She is eleven years old,
and will sleep in that room."

"A little girl- -coming here, Miss Harrington?
Oh, won't that be nice ! : ' cried Nancy, thinking of
the sunshine her own little sisters made in the home
at " The Corners."

"Nice? Well, that isn't exactly the word I
should use," rejoined Miss Polly, stiffly. " How-
ever, I intend to make the best of it, of course. I
am a good woman, I hope; and I know my duty."

Nancy colored hotly.

" Of course, ma'am; it was only that I thought
a little girl here might — might brighten things up
— for you," she faltered.

" Thank you," rejoined the lady, dryly. " I can't
say, however, that I see any immediate need for
that."

3

POLLYANNA

" But, of course, you — you'd want her, your
sister's child," ventured Nancy, vaguely feeling that
somehow she must prepare a welcome for this lonely
little stranger.

Miss Polly lifted her chin haughtily.

" Well, really, Nancy, just because I happened
to have a sister who was silly enough to marry and
bring unnecessary children into a world that was
already quite full enough, I can't see how I should
particularly want to have the care of them myself.
However, as I said before, I hope I know my duty.
See that you clean the corners, Nancy," she finished
sharply, as she left the room.

" Yes, ma'am," sighed Nancy, picking up the
half-dried pitcher — now so cold it must be rinsed
again.

In her own room, Miss Polly took out once more
the letter which she had received two days before
from the far-away Western town, and which had
been so unpleasant a surprise to her. The letter
was addressed to Miss Polly Harrington, Beldings-
ville, Vermont; and it read as follows:

"DEAR MADAM: — I regret to inform you that
the Rev. John Whittier died two weeks ago, leav-
ing one child, a girl eleven years old. He left
practically nothing else save a few books; for, as

4

MISS POLLY

you doubtless know, he was the pastor of this small
mission church, and had a very meagre salary.

" I believe he was your deceased sister's husband,
but he gave me to understand the families were not
on the best of terms. He thought, however, that
for your sister's sake you might wish to take the
child and bring her up among her own people in
the East. Hence I am writing to you.

" The little girl will be all ready to start by the
time you get this letter; and if you can take her,
we would appreciate it very much if you would
write that she might come at once, as there is a
man and his wife here who are going East very
soon, and they would take her with them to Boston,
and put her on the Beldingsville train. Of course
you would be notified what day and train to expect
Pollyanna on.

" Hoping to hear favorably from you soon, I re-
main,

" Respectfully yours,

" JEREMIAH O. WHITE."

With a frown Miss Polly folded the letter and
tucked it into its envelope. She had answered it the
day before, and she had said she would take the
child, of course. She hoped she knew her duty well
enough for that ! — disagreeable as the task would
be.

5

POLLYANNA

As she sat now, with the letter in her hands, her
thoughts went back to her sister, Jennie, who had
been this child's mother, and to the time when Jen-
nie, as a girl of twenty, had insisted upon marrying
the young minister, in spite of her family's remon-
strances. There had been a man of wealth who had
wanted her — and the family had much preferred
him to the minister; but Jennie had not. The man
of wealth had more years, as well as more money,
to his credit, while the minister had only a young
head full of youth's ideals and enthusiasm, and a
heart full of love. Jennie had preferred these —
quite naturally, perhaps; so she had married the
minister, and had gone south with him as a home
missionary's wife.

The break had come then. Miss Polly remem-
bered it well, though she had been but a girl of fif-
teen, the youngest, at the time. The family had
had little more to do with the missionary's wife.
To be sure, Jennie herself had written, for a time,
and had named her last baby " Pollyanna ' for
her two sisters, Polly and Anna — the other
babies had all died. This had been the last time
that Jennie had written; and in a few years
there had come the news of her death, told in
a short, but heart-broken little note from the
minister himself, dated at a little town in the
West.

6

MISS POLLY

Meanwhile, time had not stood still for the occu-
pants of the great house on the hill. Miss Polly,
looking out at the far-reaching valley below,
thought of the changes those twenty-five years had
brought to her.

She was forty now, and quite alone in the world.
Father, mother, sisters — all were dead. For years,
now, she had been sole mistress of the house and
of the thousands left her by her father. There were
people who had openly pitied her lonely life, and
who had urged her to have some friend or compan-
ion to live with her; but she had not welcomed
either their sympathy or their advice. She was not
lonely, she said. She liked being by herself. She
preferred quiet. But now —

Miss Polly rose with frowning face and closely-
shut lips. She was glad, of course, that she was
a good woman, and that she not only knew her
duty, but had sufficient strength of character to
perform it. But — Polly anna! — what a ridiculous
namel

CHAPTER II

OLD TOM AND NANCY

IN the little attic room Nancy swept and scrubbed
vigorously, paying particular attention to the cor-
ners. There were times, indeed, when the vigor
she put into her work was more of a relief to her
feelings than it was an ardor to efface dirt —
Nancy, in spite of her frightened submission to her
mistress, was no saint.

"I — just — wish — I could — dig -— out —
the corners - — of — her — soul ! ' she muttered
jerkily, punctuating her words with murderous jabs
of her pointed cleaning-stick. " There's plenty of
'em needs cleanin' all right, all right! The idea of
stickin' that blessed child 'way off up here in this
hot little room — with no fire in the winter, too;
and all this big house ter pick and choose from!
Unnecessary children, indeed! Humph! :' snapped
Nancy, wringing her rag so hard her fingers ached
from the strain; "I guess it ain't children what
is most unnecessary just now, just now! :

For some time she worked in silence; then, her

8

OLD TOM AND NANCY

task finished, she looked about the bare little room
in plain disgust.

" Well, it's done — my part, anyhow," she sighed.
" There ain't no dirt here - - and there's mighty
little else. Poor little soul! • -a pretty place this
is ter put a homesick, lonesome child into! ; she
finished, going out and closing the door with a bang.
"Oh! : she ejaculated, biting her lip. Then, dog-
gedly: "Well, I don't care. I hope she did hear
the bang- -I do, I do! "

In the garden that afternoon, Nancy found a few
minutes in which to interview Old Tom, who had
pulled the weeds and shovelled the paths about the
place for uncounted years.

" Mr. Tom," began Nancy, throwing a quick
glance over her shoulder to make sure she was un-
observed; "did you know a little girl was comin'
here ter live with Miss Polly? '

"A- -what?' demanded the old man, straight-
ening his bent back with difficulty.

" A little girl — to live with Miss Polly."

" Go on with yer jokin'," scoffed unbelieving
Tom. "Why don't ye tell me the sun is a-goin'
ter set in the East ter-morrer? '

" But it's true. She told me so herself," main-
tained Nancy. " It's her niece; and she's eleven
years old."

The man's jaw fell.

9

POLLYANNA

"Sho! — I wonder, now," he muttered; then a
tender light came into his faded eyes. " It ain't —
but it must be — Miss Jennie's little gal! There
wasn't none of the rest of 'em married. Why,
Nancy, it must be Miss Jennie's little gal. Glory
be ter praise! ter think of my old eyes a-seein'
this! "

"Who was Miss Jennie?"

" She was an angel straight out of Heaven,"
breathed the man, fervently; "but the old master
and missus knew her as their oldest daughter. She
was twenty when she married and went away from
here long years ago. Her babies all died, I heard,
except the last one; and that must be the one what's
a-comin'."

She's eleven years old."
Yes, she might be," nodded the old man.
And she's goin' ter sleep in the attic — more
shame ter her! ' scolded Nancy, with another
glance over her shoulder toward the house behind
her.

Old Tom frowned. The next moment a curious
smile curved his lips.

" I'm a-wonderin' what Miss Polly will do with
a child in the house," he said.

" Humph! Well, I'm a-wonderin' what a child
will do with Miss Polly in the house! : snapped
Nancy.

10

u
a
a

OLD TOM AND NANCY

The old man laughed.

" I'm afraid you ain't fond of Miss Polly," he
grinned.

"As if ever anybody could be fond of her! :
scorned Nancy.

Old Tom smiled oddly. He stooped and began
to work again.

" I guess maybe you didn't know about Miss
Polly's love affair," he said slowly.

" Love affair- -her! No! - -and I guess nobody
else didn't neither."

" Oh, yes they did," nodded the old man. " And
the feller's livin' ter-day — right in this town, too."

"Who is he?"

" I ain't a-tellin' that. It ain't fit that I should."
The old man drew himself erect. In his dim blue
eyes, as he faced the house, there was the loyal
servant's honest pride in the family he has served
and loved for long years.

" But it don't seem possible — her and a lover,"
still maintained Nancy.

Old Tom shook his head.

"You didn't know Miss Polly as I did," he
argued. " She used ter be real handsome — and
she would be now, if she'd let herself be."

" Handsome! Miss Polly! "

" Yes. If she'd just let that tight hair of hern
all out loose and careless-like, as it used ter be, and

11

POLLYANNA

wear the sort of bunnits with posies in 'em, and the
kind o' dresses all lace and white things — you'd
see she'd be handsome! Miss Polly ain't old,
Nancy."

" Ain't she, though? Well, then she's got an
awfully good imitation of it — she has, she has ! !
sniffed Nancy.

" Yes, I know. It begun then — at the time of
the trouble with her lover," nodded Old Tom; " and
it seems as if she'd been feedin' on wormwood an'
thistles ever since — she's that bitter an' prickly ter
deal with."

" I should say she was," declared Nancy, indig-
nantly. " There's no pleasin' her, nohow, no matter
how you try! I wouldn't stay if 'twa'n't for the
wages and the folks at home what's needin' 'em.
But some day — some day I shall jest b'ile over;
and when I do, of course it'll be good-by Nancy
for me. It will, it will."

Old Tom shook his head.

" I know. I've felt it. It's nart'ral — but 'tain't
best, child; 'tain't best. Take my word for it,
'tain't best." And again he bent his old head to
the work before him.

"Nancy! :' called a sharp voice.

" Y-yes, ma'am," stammered Nancy; and hur-
ried toward the house.

12

CHAPTER III

THE COMING OF POLLYANNA

IN due time came the telegram announcing that
Pollyanna would arrive in Beldingsville the next
day, the twenty-fifth of June, at four o'clock. Miss
Polly read the telegram, frowned, then climbed the
stairs to the attic room. She still frowned as she
looked about her.

The room contained a small bed, neatly made,
two straight-backed chairs, a washstand, a bureau
— without any mirror — and a small table. There
were no drapery curtains at the dormer windows,
no pictures on the wall. All day the sun had been
pouring down upon the roof, and the little room
was like an oven for heat. As there were no
screens, the windows had not been raised. A big
fly was buzzing angrily at one of them now, up and
down, up and down, trying to get out.

Miss Polly killed the fly, swept it through the
window (raising the sash an inch for the purpose),
straightened a chair, frowned again, and left the
room.

" Nancy," she said a few minutes later, at the

13

POLLYANNA

kitchen door, " I found a fly tip-stairs in Miss Polly-
anna's room. The window must have been raised
at some time. I have ordered screens, but until
they come I shall expect you to see that the win-
dows remain closed. My niece will arrive to-mor-
row at four o'clock. I desire you to meet her at
the station. Timothy will take the open buggy and
drive you over. The telegram says l light hair, red-
checked gingham dress, and straw hat.' That is
all I know, but I think it is sufficient for your pur-
pose."

" Yes, ma'am; but — -you — '

Miss Polly evidently read the pause aright, for
she frowned and said crisply:

" No, I shall not go. It is not necessary that I
should, I think. That is all." And she turned away
— Miss Polly's arrangements for the comfort of
her niece, Pollyanna, were complete.

In the kitchen, Nancy sent her flatiron with a
vicious dig across the dish-towel she was ironing.

" ' Light hair, red-checked gingham dress, and
straw hat' — all she knows, indeed! Well, I'd be
ashamed ter own it up, that I would, I would —
and her my onliest niece what was a-comin' from
'way across the continent! '

Promptly at twenty minutes to four the next
afternoon Timothy and Nancy drove off in the open
buggy to meet the expected guest. Timothy was

THE COMING OF POLLYANNA

Old Tom's son. It was sometimes said in the town
that if Old Tom was Miss Polly's right-hand man,
Timothy was her left.

Timothy was a good-natured youth, and a good-
looking one, as well. Short as had been Nancy's
stay at the house, the two were already good
friends. To-day, however, Nancy was too full of
her mission to be her usual talkative self; and al-
most in silence she took the drive to the station and
alighted to wait for the train.

Over and over in her mind she was saying it —
"light hair, red-checked dress, straw hat." Over
and over again, she was wondering just what sort
of child this Pollyanna was, anyway.

" I hope for her sake she's quiet and sensible, and
don't drop knives nor bang doors," she sighed to
Timothy, who had sauntered up to her.

" Well, if she ain't, nobody knows what'll be-
come of the rest of us," grinned Timothy. " Im-
agine Miss Polly and a noisy kid! Gorry! there
goes the whistle now ! :

" Oh, Timothy, I - - 1 think it was mean ter send
me," chattered the suddenly frightened Nancy, as
she turned and hurried to a point where she could
best watch the passengers alight at the little station.

It was not long before Nancy saw her — the
slender little girl in the red-checked gingham with
two fat braids of flaxen hair hanging down her

15

POLLYANNA

back. Beneath the straw hat, an eager, freckled
little face turned to the right and to the left, plainly
searching for some one.

Nancy knew the child at once, but not for some
time could she control her shaking knees sufficiently
to go to her. The little girl was standing quite by
herself when Nancy finally did approach her.

" Are you Miss — Pollyanna? " she faltered.
The next moment she found herself half smothered
in the clasp of two gingham-clad arms.

" Oh, I'm so glad, glad, GLAD to see you," cried
an eager voice in her ear. " Of course I'm Polly-
anna, and I'm so glad you came to meet me! I
hoped you would."

"You — you did?' stammered Nancy, vaguely
wondering how Pollyanna could possibly have
known her — and wanted her. " You — you did? '
she repeated, trying to straighten her hat.

" Oh, yes; and I've been wondering all the way
here what you looked like," cried the little girl,
dancing on her toes, and sweeping the embarrassed
Nancy from head to foot, with her eyes. " And
now I know, and I'm glad you look just like you
do look."

Nancy was relieved just then to have Timothy
come up. Pollyanna's words had been most con-
fusing.

16

THE COMING OF POLLYANNA

" This is Timothy. Maybe you have a trunk,"
she stammered.

" Yes, I have," nodded Pollyanna, importantly.
" I've got a brand-new one. The Ladies' Aid
bought it for me- -and wasn't it lovely of them,
when they wanted the carpet so? Of course I don't
know how much red carpet a trunk could buy, but
it ought to buy some, anyhow- -much as half an
aisle, don't you think? I've got a little thing here
in my bag that Mr. Gray said was a check, and that
I must give it to you before I could get my trunk.
Mr. Gray is Mrs. Gray's husband. They're cousins
of Deacon Carr's wife. I came East with them,
and they're lovely! And- -there, here 'tis," she
finished, producing the check after much fumbling
in the bag she carried.

Nancy drew a long breath. Instinctively she felt
that some one had to draw one - - after that speech.
Then she stole a glance at Timothy. Timothy's
eyes were studiously turned away.

The three were off at last, with Pollyanna's trunk
in behind, and Pollyanna herself snugly ensconced
between Nancy and Timothy. During the whole
process of getting started, the little girl had kept
up an uninterrupted stream of comments and ques-
tions, until the somewhat dazed Nancy found her-
self quite out of breath trying to keep up with her.

17

POLLYANNA

"There! Isn't this lovely? Is it far? I hope
'tis — I love to ride," sighed Pollyanna, as the
wheels began to turn. " Of course, if 'tisn't far, I
sha'n't mind, though, 'cause I'll be glad to get there
all the sooner, you know. What a pretty street!
I knew 'twas going to be pretty; father told me — "

She stopped with a little choking breath. Nancy,
looking at her apprehensively, saw that her small
chin was quivering, and that her eyes were full of
tears. In a moment, however, she hurried on, with
a brave lifting of her head.

" Father told me all about it. He remembered.
And — and I ought to have explained before. Mrs.
Gray told me to, at once — about this red gingham
dress, you know, and why I'm not in black. She
said you'd think 'twas queer. But there weren't
any black things in the last missionary barrel, only
a lady's velvet basque which Deacon Carr's wife
said wasn't suitable for me at all; besides, it had
white spots — worn, you know — on both elbows,
and some other places. Part of the Ladies' Aid
wanted to buy me a black dress and hat, but the
other part thought the money ought to go toward
the red carpet they're trying to get — for the
church, you know. Mrs. White said maybe it was
just as well, anyway, for she didn't like children
in black — that is, I mean, she liked the children,
of course, but not the black part."

18

THE COMING OF POLLYANNA

Pollyanna paused for breath, and Nancy managed
to stammer:

" Well, I'm sure it — it'll be all right."

" I'm glad you feel that way. I do, too," nodded
Pollyanna, again with that choking little breath.
" Of course, 'twould have been a good deal harder
to be glad in black — '

" Glad! " gasped Nancy, surprised into an inter-
ruption.

11 Yes- -that father's gone to Heaven to be with
mother and the rest of us, you know. He said I
must be glad. But it's been pretty hard to — to
do it, even in red gingham, because I — I wanted
him, so; and I couldn't help feeling I ought to have
him, specially as mother and the rest have God and
all the angels, while I didn't have anybody but the
Ladies' Aid. But now I'm sure it'll be easier be-
cause I've got you, Aunt Polly. I'm so glad I've
got you! '

Nancy's aching sympathy for the poor little for-
lornness beside her turned suddenly into shocked
terror.

" Oh, but — but you've made an awful mistake,
d-dear," she faltered. " I'm only Nancy. I ain't
your Aunt Polly, at all! "

"You — you aren't?'' stammered the little girl,
in plain dismay.

" No. I'm only Nancy. I never thought of your

19

POLLYANNA

takin' me for her. We — we ain't a bit alike —
we ain't, we ain't! :

Timothy chuckled softly; but Nancy was too
disturbed to answer the merry flash from his eyes.

" But who are you? ' questioned Pollyanna.
" You don't look a bit like a Ladies' Aider ! :

Timothy laughed outright this time.

" I'm Nancy, the hired girl. I do all the work
except the washin' an' hard ironin'. Mis' Durgin
does that."

" But there is an Aunt Polly? ' demanded the
child, anxiously.

" You bet your life there is," cut in Timothy.

Pollyanna relaxed visibly.

" Oh, that's all right, then." There was a mo-
ment's silence, then she went on brightly: "And
do you know? I'm glad, after all, that she didn't
come to meet me; because now I've got her still
coming, and I've got you besides."

Nancy flushed. Timothy turned to her with a
quizzical smile.

" I call that a pretty slick compliment," he said.
" Why don't you thank the little lady? "

"I — I was thinkin' about — Miss Polly," fal-
tered Nancy.

Pollyanna sighed contentedly.

" I was, too. I'm so interested in her. You
know she's all the aunt I've got, and I didn't know

20

THE COMING OF POLLYANNA

I had her for ever so long. Then father told me.
He said she lived in a lovely great big house 'way
on top of a hill."

" She does. You can see it now," said Nancy.
" It's that big white one with the green blinds, 'way
ahead."

" Oh, how pretty! — and what a lot of trees and
grass all around it! I never saw such a lot of green
grass, seems so, all at once. Is my Aunt Polly rich,
Nancy? '

" Yes, Miss."

" I'm so glad. It must be perfectly lovely to have
lots of money. I never knew any one that did have,
only the Whites - - they're some rich. They have
carpets in every room and ice-cream Sundays. Does
Aunt Polly have ice-cream Sundays? '

Nancy shook her head. Her lips twitched. She
threw a merry look into Timothy's eyes.

" No, Miss. Your aunt don't like ice-cream, I
guess; leastways I never saw it on her table."

Pollyanna's face fell.

" Oh, doesn't she? I'm so sorry! I don't see
how she can help liking ice-cream. But — anyhow,
I can be kinder glad about that, 'cause the ice-cream
you don't eat can't make your stomach ache like
Mrs. White's did — that is, I ate hers, you know,
lots of it. Maybe Aunt Polly has got the carpets,
though."

21

POLLYANNA

" Yes, she's got the carpets."

" In every room? "

" Well, in almost every room," answered Nancy,
frowning suddenly at the thought of that bare little
attic room where there was no carpet.

" Oh, I'm so glad," exulted Pollyanna. " I love
carpets. We didn't have any, only two little rugs
that came in a missionary barrel, and one of those
had ink spots on it. Mrs. White had pictures, too,
perfectly beautiful ones of roses and little girls
kneeling and a kitty and some lambs and a lion —
not together, you know — the lambs and the lion.
Oh, of course the Bible says they will sometime, but
they haven't yet — that is, I mean Mrs. White's
haven't. Don't you just love pictures? '

"I — I don't know," answered Nancy in a half-
stifled voice.

" I do. We didn't have any pictures. They don't
come in the barrels much, you know. There did
two come once, though. But one was so good
father sold it to get money to buy me some shoes
with; and the other was so bad it fell to pieces just
as soon as we hung it up. Glass — it broke, you
know. And I cried. But I'm glad now we didn't
have any of those nice things, 'cause I shall like
Aunt Polly's all the better — not being used to 'em,
you see. Just as it is when the pretty hair-ribbons
come in the barrels after a lot of faded-out -brown

22

THE COMING OF POLLYANNA

ones. My! but isn't this a perfectly beautiful
house? " she broke off fervently, as they turned into
the wide driveway.

It was when Timothy was unloading the trunk
that Nancy found an opportunity to mutter low in
his ear:

" Don't you never say nothin' ter me again about
leavin', Timothy Durgin. You couldn't hire me
ter leave! :

"Leave! I should say not," grinned the youth.
" You couldn't drag me away. It'll be more fun
here now, with that kid 'round, than movin'-picture
shows, every day! :

"Fun!- — fun! : repeated Nancy, indignantly.
" I guess it'll be somethin' more than fun for that
blessed child — when them two tries ter live ter-
gether; and I guess she'll be a-needin' some rock ter
fly to for refuge. Well, I'm a-goin' ter be that
rock, Timothy; I am, I am! : she vowed, as she
turned and led Pollyanna up the broad steps.

23

CHAPTER IV

THE LITTLE ATTIC ROOM

Miss POLLY HARRINGTON did not rise to meet
her niece. She looked up from her book, it is true,
as Nancy and the little girl appeared in the sitting-
room doorway, and she held out a hand with
" duty ' written large on every coldly extended
finger.

"How do you do, Pollyanna? I — ' She had
no chance to say more. Pollyanna had fairly
flown across the room and flung herself into her
aunt's scandalized, unyielding lap.

" Oh, Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, I don't know how
to be glad enough that you let me come to live
with you," she was sobbing. " You don't know
how perfectly lovely it is to have you and Nancy
and all this after you've had just the Ladies' Aid! :

" Very likely — though I've not had the pleasure
of the Ladies' Aid's acquaintance," rejoined Miss
Polly, stiffly, trying to unclasp the small, clinging
fingers, and turning frowning eyes on Nancy in the
doorway. " Nancy, that will do. You may go.
Pollyanna, be good enough, please, to stand erect

24

THE LITTLE ATTIC ROOM

in a proper manner. I don't know yet what you
look like."

Pollyanna drew back at once, laughing a little
hysterically.

" No, I suppose you don't; but you see I'm not
very much to look at, anyway, on account of the
freckles. Oh, and I ought to explain about the red
gingham and the black velvet basque with white
spots on the elbows. I told Nancy how father
said — "

"Yes; well, never mind now what your father
said," interrupted Miss Polly, crisply. " You had
a trunk, I presume? '

" Oh, yes, indeed, Aunt Polly. I've got a beau-
tiful trunk that the Ladies' Aid gave me. I haven't
got so very much in it- -of my own, I mean. The
barrels haven't had many clothes for little girls in
them lately; but there were all father's books, and
Mrs. White said she thought I ought to have those.
You see, Father -

" Pollyanna," interrupted her aunt again,
sharply, " there is one thing that might just as
well be understood right away at once; and that
is, I do not care to have you keep talking of your
father to me."

The little girl drew in her breath tremulously.

"Why, Aunt Polly, you --you mean — ' She
hesitated, and her aunt filled the pause.

25

POLLYANNA

"We will go tip-stairs to your room. Your
trunk is already there, I presume. I told Timothy
to take it up — if you had one. You may follow
me, Pollyanna."

Without speaking, Pollyanna turned and fol-
lowed her aunt from the room. Her eyes were
brimming with tears, but her chin was bravely
high.

" After all, I — I reckon I'm glad she doesn't
want me to talk about father," Pollyanna was
thinking. " It'll be easier, maybe — if I don't talk
about him. Probably, anyhow, that is why she
told me not to talk about him." And Pollyanna,
convinced anew of her aunt's " kindness," blinked
off the tears and looked eagerly about her.

She was on the stairway now. Just ahead, her
aunt's black silk skirt rustled luxuriously. Behind
her an open door allowed a glimpse of soft-tinted
rugs and satin-covered chairs. Beneath her feet a
marvellous carpet was like green moss to the tread.
On every side the gilt of picture frames or the
glint of sunlight through the filmy mesh of lace
curtains flashed in her eyes.

"Oh, Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly," breathed the
little girl, rapturously; "what a perfectly lovely,
lovely house! How awfully glad you must be
you're so rich! "

" Pollyanna! " ejaculated her aunt, turning

26

THE LITTLE ATTIC ROOM

sharply about as she reached the head of the
stairs. " I'm surprised at you — making a speech
like that to me! "

"Why, Aunt Polly, aren't you? " queried Polly-
anna, in frank wonder.

" Certainly not, Pollyanna. I hope I could not
so far forget myself as to be sinfully proud of any
gift the Lord has seen fit to bestow upon me," de-
clared the lady; " certainly not, of riches! '

Miss Polly turned and walked down the hall
toward the attic stairway door. She was glad,
now, that she had put the child in the attic room.
Her idea at first had been to get her niece as far
away as possible from herself, and at the same
time place her where her childish heedlessness
would not destroy valuable furnishings. Now —
with this evident strain of vanity showing thus
early — it was all the more fortunate that the
room planned for her was plain and sensible,
thought Miss Polly.

Eagerly Pollyanna's small feet pattered behind
her aunt. Still more eagerly her big blue eyes tried
to look in all directions at once, that no thing of
beauty or interest in this wonderful house might
be passed unseen. Most eagerly of all her mind
turned to the wondrously exciting problem about to
be solved: behind which of all these fascinating
doors was waiting now her room — the dear, beau-

27

POLLYANNA

tiful room full of curtains, rugs, and pictures, that
was to be her very own? Then, abruptly, her
aunt opened a door and ascended another stair-
way.

There was little to be seen here. A bare wall
rose on either side. At the top of the stairs, wide
reaches of shadowy space led to far corners where
the roof came almost down to the floor, and where
were stacked innumerable trunks and boxes. It was
hot and stifling, too. Unconsciously Pollyanna
lifted her head higher — at seemed so hard to
breathe. Then she saw that her aunt had thrown
open a door at the right.

" There, Pollyanna, here is your room, and your
trunk is here, I see. Have you your key? '

Pollyanna nodded dumbly. Her eyes were a
little wide and frightened.

Her aunt frowned.

" When I ask a question, Pollyanna, I prefer that
you should answer aloud — not merely with your
head."

" Yes, Aunt Polly."

" Thank you; that is better. I believe you have
everything that you need here," she added, glancing
at the well-filled towel rack and water pitcher. " I
will send Nancy up to help you unpack. Supper is
at six o'clock," she finished, as she left the room
and swept down-stairs.

28

THE LITTLE ATTIC ROOM

For a moment after she had gone Pollyanna
stood quite still, looking after her. Then she
turned her wide eyes to the bare wall, the bare
floor, the bare windows. She turned them last to
the little trunk that had stood not so long before
in her own little room in the far-away Western
home. The next moment she stumbled blindly
toward it and fell on her knees at its side, covering
her face with her hands.

Nancy found her there when she came up a few
minutes later.

" There, there, you poor lamb," she crooned,
dropping to the floor and drawing the little girl
into her arms. " I was just a-fearin' I'd find you
like this, like this.''

Pollyanna shook her head.

" But I'm bad and wicked, Nancy - - awful
wicked," she sobbed. " I just can't make myself
understand that God and the angels needed my
father more than I did."

"No more they did, neither," declared Nancy,
stoutly.

"Oh-hl — Nancy >/' The burning horror in
Pollyanna's eyes dried the tears.

Nancy gave a shamefaced smile and rubbed her
own eyes vigorously.

" There, there, child, I didn't mean it, of course,"
she cried briskly. " Come, let's have your key and

29

POLLYANNA

we'll get inside this trunk and take out your dresses
in no time, no time."

Somewhat tearfully Pollyanna produced the key.

" There aren't very many there, anyway," she
faltered.

" Then they're all the sooner unpacked," declared
Nancy.

Pollyanna gave a sudden radiant smile.

" That's so! I can be glad of that, can't I? " she
cried.

Nancy stared.

"Why, of — course," she answered a little un-
certainly.

Nancy's capable hands made short work of un-
packing the books, the patched undergarments, and
the few pitifully unattractive dresses. Pollyanna,
smiling bravely now, flew about, hanging the
dresses in the closet, stacking the books on the table,
and putting away the undergarments in the bureau
drawers.

" I'm sure it — it's going to be a very nice room.
Don't you think so? " she stammered, after a while.

There was no answer. Nancy was very busy,
apparently, with her head in the trunk. Pollyanna,
standing at the bureau, gazed a little wistfully at
the bare wall above.

" And I can be glad there isn't any looking-glass

30

THE LITTLE ATTIC ROOM

here, too, 'cause where there isn't any glass I can't
see my freckles."

Nancy made a sudden queer little sound with her
mouth — but when Pollyanna turned, her head was
in the trunk again. At one of the windows, a few
minutes later, Pollyanna gave a glad cry and clapped
her hands joyously.

" Oh, Nancy, I hadn't seen this before," she
breathed. " Look — 'way off there, with those
trees and the houses and that lovely church spire,
and the river shining just like silver. Why, Nancy,
there doesn't anybody need any pictures with that
to look at. Oh, I'm so glad now she let me have
this room! :

To Pollyanna's surprise and dismay, Nancy burst
into tears. Pollyanna hurriedly crossed to her side.

" Why, Nancy, Nancy — what is it? " she cried;
then, fearfully: "This wasn't — your room, was
it?"

"My room!1 stormed Nancy, hotly, choking
back the tears. " If you ain't a little angel straight
from Heaven, and if some folks don't eat dirt be-
fore— Oh, land! there's her bell! " After which
amazing speech, Nancy sprang to her feet, dashed
out of the room, and went clattering down the
stairs.

Left alone, Pollyanna went back to her " pic-

31

POLLYANNA

ture," as she mentally designated the beautiful view
from the window. After a time she touched the
sash tentatively. It seemed as if no longer could
she endure the stifling heat. To her joy the sash
moved under her fingers. The next moment the
window was wide open, and Pollyanna was leaning
far out, drinking in the fresh, sweet air.

She ran then to the other window. That, too,
soon flew up under her eager hands. A big fly
swept past her nose, and buzzed noisily about the
room. Then another came, and another; but
Pollyanna paid no heed. Pollyanna had made a
wonderful discovery — against this window a huge
tree flung great branches. To Pollyanna they
looked like arms outstretched, inviting her.

Suddenly she laughed aloud.

" I believe I can do it," she chuckled. The next
moment she had climbed nimbly to the window
ledge. From there it was an easy matter to step
to the nearest tree-branch. Then, clinging like a
monkey, she swung herself from limb to limb until
the lowest branch was reached. The drop to the
ground was — even for Pollyanna, who was used
to climbing trees — a little fearsome. She took it,
however, with bated breath, swinging from her
strong little arms, and landing on all fours in the
soft grass. Then she picked herself up and looked
eagerly about her.

32

THE LITTLE ATTIC ROOM

She was at the back of the house. Before her
lay a garden in which a bent old man was working.
Beyond the garden a little path through an open
field led up a steep hill, at the top of which a lone
pine tree stood on guard beside the huge rock. To
Pollyanna, at the moment, there seemed to be just
one place in the world worth being in - - the top
of that big rock.

With a run and a skilful turn, Pollyanna skipped
by the bent old man, threaded her way between the
orderly rows of green growing things, and - - a
little out of breath - - reached the path that ran
through the open field. Then, determinedly, she
began to climb. Already, however, she was think-
ing what a long, long way off that rock must
be, when back at the window it had looked so
near!

Fifteen minutes later the great clock in the hall-
way of the Harrington homestead struck six. At
precisely the last stroke Nancy sounded the bell for
supper.

One, two, three minutes passed. Miss Polly
frowned and tapped the floor with her slipper. A
little jerkily she rose to her feet, went into the hall,
and looked up-stairs, plainly impatient. For a
minute she listened intently; then she turned and
swept into the dining room.

33

POLLYANNA

"Nancy," she said with decision, as soon as the
little serving-maid appeared; " my niece is late. No,
you need not call her," she added severely, as Nancy
made a move toward the hall door. " I told her
what time supper was, and now she will have to
suffer the consequences. She may as well begin at
once to learn to be punctual. When she comes
down she may have bread and milk in the kitchen."

" Yes, ma'am." It was well, perhaps, that Miss
Polly did not happen to be looking at Nancy's face
just then.

At the earliest possible moment after supper,
Nancy crept up the back stairs and thence to the
attic room.

" Bread and milk, indeed! — and when the poor
lamb hain't only just cried herself to sleep," she
was muttering fiercely, as she softly pushed open
the door. The next moment she gave a frightened
cry. " Where are you? Where've you gone?
Where have you gone? " she panted, looking in the
closet, under the bed, and even in the trunk and
down the water pitcher. Then she flew down-stairs
and out to Old Tom in the garden.

" Mr. Tom, Mr. Tom, that blessed child's gone,"
she wailed. " She's vanished right up into Heaven
where she come from, poor lamb — and me told
ter give her bread and milk in the kitchen — her

34

THE LITTLE ATTIC ROOM

what's eatin' angel food this minute, I'll warrant,
I'll warrant! "

The old man straightened up.

" Gone? Heaven? ' he repeated stupidly, un-
consciously sweeping the brilliant sunset sky with
his gaze. He stopped, stared a moment intently,
then turned with a slow grin. " Well, Nancy, it
do look like as if she'd tried ter get as nigh Heaven
as she could, and that's a fact," he agreed, pointing
with a crooked finger to where, sharply outlined
against the reddening sky, a slender, wind-blown
figure was poised on top of a huge rock.

"Well, she ain't goin' ter Heaven that way ter-
night — not if I has my say," declared Nancy,
doggedly. " If the mistress asks, tell her I ain't
furgettin' the dishes, but I gone on a stroll," she
flung back over her shoulder, as she sped toward
the path that led through the open field.

35

CHAPTER V

THE GAME

" FOR the land's sake, Miss Pollyanna, what a
scare you did give me," panted Nancy, hurrying
up to the big rock, down which Pollyanna had just
regretfully slid.

" Scare? Oh, I'm so sorry; but you mustn't,
really, ever get scared about me, Nancy. Father
and the Ladies' Aid used to do it, too, till they
found I always came back all right."

" But I didn't even know you'd went," cried
Nancy, tucking the little girl's hand under her arm
and hurrying her down the hill. " I didn't see you
go, and nobody didn't. I guess you flew right up
through the roof; I do, I do."

Pollyanna skipped gleefully.

" I did, 'most- -only I flew down instead of up.
I came down the tree."

Nancy stopped short.

"You did — what?"

" Came down the tree, outside my window."

" My stars and stockings! :' gasped Nancy, hurry-

36

THE GAME

ing on again. " I'd like ter know what yer aunt
would say ter that! :

"Would you? Well, I'll tell her, then, so
you can find out," promised the little girl, cheer-
fully.

"Mercy! : gasped Nancy. "No- -no! "

" Why, you don't mean she'd care! ' cried
Pollyanna, plainly disturbed.

" No - - er - - yes - - well, never mind. I — I
ain't so very particular about knowin' what she'd
say, truly," stammered Nancy, determined to keep
one scolding from Pollyanna, if nothing more.
" But, say, we better hurry. I've got ter get them
dishes done, ye know."

" I'll help," promised Pollyanna, promptly.

"Oh, Miss Pollyanna! : demurred Nancy.

For a moment there was silence. The sky was
darkening fast. Pollyanna took a firmer hold of her
friend's arm.

" I reckon I'm glad, after all, that you did get
scared- -a little, 'cause then you came after me,"
she shivered.

"Poor little lamb! And you must be hungry,
too. I - - I'm afraid you'll have ter have bread and
milk in the kitchen with me. Yer aunt didn't like
it - - because you didn't come down ter supper, ye
know."

" But I couldn't. I was up here."

37

POLLYANNA

"Yes; but — she didn't know that, you see,"
observed Nancy, dryly, stifling a chuckle. " I'm
sorry about the bread and milk; I am, I am."

" Oh, I'm not. I'm glad."

"Glad! Why?"

" Why, I like bread and milk, and I'd like to eat
with you. I don't see any trouble about being glad
about that."

" You don't seem ter see any trouble bein' glad
about everything" retorted Nancy, choking a little
over her remembrance of Pollyanna's brave at-
tempts to like the bare little attic room.

Pollyanna laughed softly.

"Well, that's the game, you know, anyway."

"The— game?"

" Yes; the * just being glad ' game."

" Whatever in the world are you talkin' about? '

"Why, it's a game. Father told it to me, and
it's lovely," rejoined Pollyanna. " We've played
it always, ever since I was a little, little girl. I told
the Ladies' Aid, and they played it — some of
them."

"What is it? I ain't much on games, though."

Pollyanna laughed again, but she sighed, too;
and in the gathering twilight her face looked thin
and wistful.

" Why, we began it on some crutches that came
in a missionary barrel."

3$

THE GAME

"Crutches!"

" Yes. You see I'd wanted a doll, and father had
written them so; but when the barrel came the lady
wrote that there hadn't any dolls come in, but the
little crutches had. So she sent 'em along as they
might come in handy for some child, sometime.
And that's when we began it."

" Well, I must say I can't see any game about
that, about that," declared Nancy, almost irri-
tably.

"Oh, yes; the game was to just find something
about everything to be glad about — no matter what
'twas," rejoined Pollyanna, earnestly. " And we
began right then — on the crutches."

"Well, goodness me! I can't see anythin' ter
be glad about — gettin' a pair of crutches when
you wanted a doll! :

Pollyanna clapped her hands.

" There is — there is," she crowed. " But /
couldn't see it, either, Nancy, at first," she added,
with quick honesty. " Father had to tell it to me."

" Well, then, suppose you tell me," almost
snapped Nancy.

" Goosey! Why, just be glad because you don't
— need — 'em! ' exulted Pollyanna, triumphantly.
" You see it's just as easy — when you know how! '

" Well, of all the queer doin's! " breathed Nancy,
regarding Pollyanna with almost fearful eyes.

39

POLLYANNA

" Oh, but it isn't queer — it's lovely," maintained
Pollyanna enthusiastically. "And we've played it
ever since. And the harder 'tis, the more fun 'tis
to get 'em out; only — only — sometimes it's al-
most too hard — like when your father goes to
Heaven, and there isn't anybody but a Ladies' Aid
left."

" Yes, or when you're put in a snippy little room
'way at the top of the house with nothin' in it,"
growled Nancy.

Pollyanna sighed.

" That was a hard one, at first," she admitted,
" specially when I was so kind of lonesome. I just
didn't feel like playing the game, anyway, and I
had been wanting pretty things, so! Then I hap-
pened to think how I hated to see my freckles in
the looking-glass, and I saw that lovely picture out
the window, too; so then I knew I'd found the
things to be glad about. You see, when you're
hunting for the glad things, you sort of forget
the other kind — like the doll you wanted, you
know."

" Humph! :' choked Nancy, trying to swallow the
lump in her throat.

" Most generally it doesn't take so long," sighed
Pollyanna; " and lots of times now I just think of
them without thinking, you know. I've got so used
to playing it. It's a lovely game. F-father and I

40

THE GAME

used to like it so much," she faltered. " I suppose,
though, it- -it'll be a little harder now, as long as
I haven't anybody to play it with. Maybe Aunt
Polly will play it, though," she added, as an after-
thought.

"My stars and stockings!- -her!' breathed
Nancy, behind her teeth. Then, aloud, she said
doggedly: " See here, Miss Pollyanna, I ain't
sayin' that I'll play it very well, and I ain't sayin'
that I know how, anyway; but I'll play it with ye,
after a fashion- -I just will, I will! :

"Oh, Nancy! : exulted Pollyanna, giving her a
rapturous hug. "That'll be splendid! Won't we
have fun? '

" Er - - maybe," conceded Nancy, in open doubt.
' But you mustn't count too much on me, ye know.
I never was no case fur games, but I'm a-goin' ter
make a most awful old try on this one. You're
goin' ter have some one ter play it with, any-
how," she finished, as they entered the kitchen
together.

Pollyanna ate her bread and milk with good ap-
petite; then, at Nancy's suggestion, she went into
the sitting room, where her aunt sat reading.

Miss Polly looked up coldly.

" Have you had your supper, Pollyanna? '

" Yes, Aunt Polly."

" I'm very sorry, Pollyanna, to have been obliged

41

POLLYANNA

so soon to send you into the kitchen to eat bread
and milk."

"But I was real glad you did it, Aunt Polly. I
like bread and milk, and Nancy, too. You mustn't
feel bad about that one bit."

Aunt Polly sat suddenly a little more erect in her
chair.

" Pollyanna, it's quite time you were in bed. You
have had a hard day, and to-morrow we must plan
your hours and go over your clothing to see what
it is necessary to get for you. Nancy will give you
a candle. Be careful how you handle it. Breakfast
will be at half-past seven. See that you are down
to that. Good-night."

Quite as a matter of course, Pollyanna came
straight to her aunt's side and gave her an affec-
tionate hug.

" I've had such a beautiful time, so far," she
sighed happily. " I know I'm going to just love
living with you — but then, I knew I should before
I came. Good-night," she called cheerfully, as she
ran from the room.

"Well, upon my soul! " ejaculated Miss Polly,
half aloud. "What a most extraordinary child! :
Then she frowned. " She's i glad ' I punished her,
and I ' mustn't feel bad one bit,' and she's going to
Move to live' with me! Well, upon my soul! :

42

THE GAME

ejaculated Miss Polly again, as she took up her
book.

Fifteen minutes later, in the attic room, a lonely
little girl sobbed into the tightly-clutched sheet:

" I know, father-among-the-angels, I'm not play-
ing the game one bit now- -not one bit; but I
don't believe even you could find anything to be
glad about sleeping all alone 'way off up here in
the dark — like this. If only I was near Nancy
or Aunt Polly, or even a Ladies' Aider, it would
be easier!

Down-stairs in the kitchen, Nancy, hurrying with
her belated work, jabbed her dish-mop into the
milk pitcher, and muttered jerkily:

" If playin' a silly-fool game — about bein' glad
you've got crutches when you want dolls — is got
ter be - - my way — o' bein' that rock o' refuge — •
why, I'm a-goin' ter play it — I am, I am! "

CHAPTER VI

A QUESTION OF DUTY

IT was nearly seven o'clock when Pollyanna
awoke that first day after her arrival. Her win-
dows faced the south and the west, so she could
not see the sun yet; but she could see the hazy blue
of the morning sky, and she knew that the day
promised to be a fair one.

The little room was cooler now, and the air blew
in fresh and sweet. Outside, the birds were twit-
tering joyously, and Pollyanna flew to the window
to talk to them. She saw then that down in the
garden her aunt was already out among the rose-
bushes. With rapid fingers, therefore, she made
herself ready to join her.

Down the attic stairs sped Pollyanna, leaving
both doors wide open. Through the hall, down the
next flight, then bang through the front screened-
door and around to the garden, she ran.

Aunt Polly, with the bent old man, was leaning
over a rose-bush when Pollyanna, gurgling with
delight, flung herself upon her.

44

A QUESTION OF DUTY

" Oh, Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, I reckon I am
glad this morning just to be alive! :

" Pollyanna! : remonstrated the lady, sternly,
pulling herself as erect as she could with a drag-
ging weight of ninety pounds hanging about her
neck. " Is this the usual way you say good morn-
ing? "

The little girl dropped to her toes, and danced
lightly up and down.

" No, only when I love folks so I just can't help
it! I saw you from my window, Aunt Polly, and
I got to thinking how you weren't a Ladies' Aider,
and you were my really truly aunt; and you looked
so good I just had to come down and hug you! :

The bent old man turned his back suddenly. Miss
Polly attempted a frown- -with not her usual suc-
cess.

" Pollyanna, you - - 1 — Thomas, that will do for
this morning. I think you understand — about
those rose-bushes," she said stiffly. Then she turned
and walked rapidly away.

" Do you always work in the garden, Mr. —
Man?' asked Pollyanna, interestedly.

The man turned. His lips were twitching, but
his eyes looked blurred as if with tears.

"Yes, Miss. I'm Old Tom, the gardener," he
answered. Timidly, but as if impelled by an irre-
sistible force, he reached out a shaking hand and

45

POLLYANNA

let it rest for a moment on her bright hair. " You
are so like your mother, little Miss! I used ter
know her when she was even littler than you be.
You see, I used ter work in the garden — then."

Pollyanna caught her breath audibly.

" You did? And you knew my mother, really —
when she was just a little earth angel, and not a
Heaven one? Oh, please tell me about her! : And
down plumped Pollyanna in the middle of the dirt
path by the old man's side.

A bell sounded from the house. The next mo-
ment Nancy was seen flying out the back door.

" Miss Pollyanna, that bell means breakfast —
mornin's," she panted, pulling the little girl to her
feet and hurrying her back to the house; " and other
times it means other meals. But it always means
that you're ter run like time when ye hear it, no
matter where ye be. If ye don't — well, it'll take
somethin' smarter'n we be ter find anythin' ter be
glad about in that! " she finished, shooing Polly-
anna into the house as she would shoo an unruly
chicken into a coop.

Breakfast, for the first five minutes, was a silent
meal; then Miss Polly, her disapproving eyes fol-
lowing the airy wings of two flies darting here and
there over the table, said sternly:

" Nancy, where did those flies come from? '

" I don't know, ma'am. There wasn't one in the

46

A QUESTION OF DUTY

kitchen." Nancy had been too excited to notice
Pollyanna's up-flung windows the afternoon before.

" I reckon maybe they're my flies, Aunt Polly,"
observed Pollyanna, amiably. " There were lots of
them this morning having a beautiful time up-
stairs."

Nancy left the room precipitately, though to do
so she had to carry out the hot muffins she had just
brought in.

"Yours! " gasped Miss Polly. " What do you
mean? Where did they come from? '

" Why, Aunt Polly, they came from out of doors,
of course, through the windows. I saw some of
them come in."

" You saw them! You mean you raised those
windows without any screens? '

" Why, yes. There weren't any screens there,
Aunt Polly."

Nancy, at this moment, came in again with the
muffins. Her face was grave, but very red.

" Nancy," directed her mistress, sharply, " you
may set the muffins down and go at once to Miss
Pollyanna's room and shut the windows. Shut the
doors, also. Later, when your morning work is
done, go through every room with the spatter. See
that you make a thorough search."

To her niece she said:

" Pollyanna, I have ordered screens for those

47

POLLYANNA

windows. I knew, of course, that it was my duty
to do that. But it seems to me that you have quite
forgotten your duty."

"My — duty?' Pollyanna's eyes were wide
with wonder.

" Certainly. I know it is warm, but I consider
it your duty to keep your windows closed till those
screens come. Flies, Pollyanna, are not only un-
clean and annoying, but very dangerous to health.
After breakfast I will give you a little pamphlet on
this matter to read."

" To read? Oh, thank you, Aunt Polly. I love
to read! "

Miss Polly drew in her breath audibly, then she
shut her lips together hard. Pollyanna, seeing her
stern face, frowned a little thoughtfully.

" Of course I'm sorry about the duty I forgot,
Aunt Polly," she apologized timidly. " I won't
raise the windows again."

Her aunt made no reply. She did not speak, in-
deed, until the meal was over. Then she rose, went
to the bookcase in the sitting room, took out a small
paper booklet, and crossed the room to her niece's
side.

" This is the article I spoke of, Pollyanna. I de-
sire you to go to your room at once and read it. I
will be up in half an hour to look over your things."

48

A QUESTION OF DUTY

Pollyanna, her eyes on the illustration of a fly's
head, many times magnified, cried joyously:

"Oh, thank you, Aunt Polly! " The next mo-
ment she skipped merrily from the room, banging
the door behind her.

Miss Polly frowned, hesitated, then crossed the
room majestically and opened the door; but Polly-
anna was already out of sight, clattering up the
attic stairs.

Half an hour later when Miss Polly, her face ex-
pressing stern duty in every line, climbed those
stairs and entered Pollyanna's room, she was greeted
with a burst of eager enthusiasm.

c Oh, Aunt Polly, I never saw anything so per-
fectly lovely and interesting in my life. I'm so glad
you gave me that book to read! Why, I didn't
suppose flies could carry such a lot of things on
their feet, and

i iccL, aiiu -
tt

That will do," observed Aunt Polly, with dig-
nity. " Pollyanna, you may bring out your clothes
now, and I will look them over. What are not suit-
able for you I shall give to the Sullivans, of course."

With visible reluctance Pollyanna laid down the
pamphlet and turned toward the closet.

" I'm afraid you'll think they're worse than the
Ladies' Aid did — and they said they were shame-
ful," she sighed. " But there were mostly things

49

POLLYANNA

for boys and older folks in the last two or three
barrels; and — did you ever have a missionary
barrel, Aunt Polly? "

At her aunt's look of shocked anger, Pollyanna
corrected herself at once.

"Why, no, of course you didn't, Aunt Polly! '
she hurried on, with a hot blush. " I forgot; rich
folks never have to have them. But you see some-
times I kind of forget that you are rich — up here
in this room, you know.''

Miss Polly's lips parted indignantly, but no words
came. Pollyanna, plainly unaware that she had
said anything in the least unpleasant, was hurrying
on.

" Well, as I was going to say, you can't tell a
thing about missionary barrels — except that you
won't find in 'em what you think you're going to —
even when you think you won't. It was the barrels
every time, too, that were hardest to play the game
on, for father and — '

Just in time Pollyanna remembered that she was
not to talk of her father to her aunt. She dived
into her closet then, hurriedly, and brought out all
the poor little dresses in both her arms.

" They aren't nice, at all," she choked, " and
they'd been black if it hadn't been for the red carpet
for the church; but they're all I've got."

50

A QUESTION OF DUTY

With the tips of her fingers Miss Polly turned
over the conglomerate garments, so obviously made
for anybody but Pollyanna. Next she bestowed
frowning attention on the patched undergarments
in the bureau drawers.

" I've got the best ones on," confessed Polly-
anna, anxiously. " The Ladies' Aid bought me one
set straight through all whole. Mrs. Jones — she's
the president — told 'em I should have that if they
had to clatter down bare aisles themselves the rest
of their days. But they won't. Mr. White doesn't
like the noise. He's got nerves, his wife says; but
he's got money, too, and they expect he'll give a lot
toward the carpet — -on account of the nerves, you
know. I should think he'd be glad that if he did
have the nerves he'd got money, too; shouldn't
you? "

Miss Polly did not seem to hear. Her scrutiny
of the undergarments finished, she turned to Polly-
anna somewhat abruptly.

" You have been to school, of course, Polly-
anna? '

" Oh, yes, Aunt Polly. Besides, fath — I mean,
I was taught at home some, too."

Miss Polly frowned.

" Very good. In the fall you will enter school
here, of course. Mr. Hall, the principal, will doubt-

51

POLLYANNA

less settle in which grade you belong. Meanwhile,
I suppose I ought to hear you read aloud half an
hour each day."

"I love to read; but if you don't want to hear
me I'd be just glad to read to myself — truly,
Aunt Polly. And I wouldn't have to half try
to be glad, either, for I like best to read to
myself — on account of the big words, you
know."

" I don't doubt it," rejoined Miss Polly, grimly.
" Have you studied music? '

" Not much. I don't like my music - - 1 like
other people's, though. I learned to play on the
piano a little. Miss Gray — she plays for church —
she taught me. But I'd just as soon let that go as
not, Aunt Polly. I'd rather, truly."

" Very likely," observed Aunt Polly, with
slightly uplifted eyebrows. " Nevertheless I think
it is my duty to see that you are properly instructed
in at least the rudiments of music. You sew, of

course.'

Yes, ma'am." Pollyanna sighed. : The
Ladies' Aid taught rne that. But I had an awful
time. Mrs. Jones didn't believe in holding your
needle like the rest of 'em did on buttonholing,
and Mrs. White thought backstitching ought to be
taught you before hemming (or else the other way),

52

A QUESTION OF DUTY

and Mrs. Harriman didn't believe in putting you on
patchwork ever, at all."

" Well, there will be no difficulty of that kind any
longer, Pollyanna. I shall teach you sewing my-
self, of course. You do not know how to cook, I
presume."

Pollyanna laughed suddenly.

" They were just beginning to teach me that this
summer, but I hadn't got far. They were more
divided up on that than they were on the sewing.
They were going to begin on bread; but there
wasn't two of 'em that made it alike, so after ar-
guing it all one sewing-meeting, they decided to
take turns at me one forenoon a week --in their
own kitchens, you know. I'd only learned chocolate
fudge and fig cake, though, when — when I had to
stop." Her voice broke.

" Chocolate fudge and fig cake, indeed! 3I scorned
Miss Polly. " I think we can remedy that very
soon." She paused in thought for a minute, then
went on slowly: "At nine o'clock every morning
you will read aloud one half-hour to me. Before
that you will use the time to put this room in order.
Wednesday and Saturday forenoons, after half-past
nine, you will spend with Nancy in the kitchen,
learning to cook. Other mornings you will sew with
me. That will leave the afternoons for your music.

53

POLLYANNA

I shall, of course, procure a teacher at once for
you," she finished decisively, as she arose from her
chair.

Pollyanna cried out in dismay.

" Oh, but Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, you haven't
left me any time at all just to — to live."

" To live, child! What do you mean? As if
you weren't living all the time! :

" Oh, of course I'd be breathing all the time I
was doing those things, Aunt Polly, but I wouldn't
be living. You breathe all the time you're asleep,
but you aren't living. I mean living — doing the
things you want to do: playing outdoors, reading
(to myself, of course), climbing hills, talking to Mr.
Tom in the garden, and Nancy, and finding out all
about the houses and the people and everything
everywhere all through the perfectly lovely streets
I came through yesterday. That's what I call
living, Aunt Polly. Just breathing isn't liv-
ing! "

Miss Polly lifted her head irritably.

" Pollyanna, you are the most extraordinary
child! You will be allowed a proper amount of
playtime, of course. But, surely, it seems to me if
I am willing to do my duty in seeing that you have
proper care and instruction, you ought to be willing
to do yours by seeing that that care and instruction
are not ungratefully wasted."

54

A QUESTION OF DUTY

Pollyanna looked shocked.

" Oh, Aunt Polly, as if I could be ungrateful — to
you! Why, I love you — you aren't even a Ladies'
Aider; you're an aunt! :

" Very well ; then see that you don't act ungrate-
ful," vouchsafed Miss Polly, as she turned toward
the door.

She had gone halfway down the stairs when a
small, unsteady voice called after her:

"Please, Aunt Polly, you didn't tell me which
of my things you wanted to — to give away."

Aunt Polly emitted a tired sigh- -a sigh that
ascended straight to Pollyanna's ears.

" Oh, I forgot to tell you, Pollyanna. Timothy
will drive us into town at half-past one this after-
noon. Not one of your garments is fit for my niece
to wear. Certainly I should be very far from doing
my duty by you if I should let you appear out in
any one of them."

Pollyanna sighed now — she believed she was
going to hate that word — duty.

" Aunt Polly, please," she called wistfully, " isn't
there any way you can be glad about all that — duty
business? '

" What? " Miss Polly looked up in dazed sur-
prise; then, suddenly, with very red cheeks, she
turned and swept angrily down the stairs. " Don't
be impertinent, Pollyanna! "

55

POLLYANNA

In the hot little attic room Pollyanna dropped
herself on to one of the straight-backed chairs. To
her, existence loomed ahead one endless round of
duty.

" I don't see, really, what there was impertinent
about that," she sighed. " I was only asking her if
she couldn't tell me something to be glad about in
all that duty business."

For several minutes Pollyanna sat in silence, her
rueful eyes fixed on the forlorn heap of garments
on the bed. Then, slowly, she rose and began to
put away the dresses.

" There just isn't anything to be glad about, that
I can see," she said aloud; " unless - -it's to be glad
when the duty's done! : Whereupon she laughed
suddenly.

56

CHAPTER VII

POLLYANNA AND PUNISHMENTS

AT half-past one o'clock Timothy drove Miss
Polly and her niece to the four or five principal dry
goods stores, which were about half a mile from
the homestead.

Fitting Pollyanna with a new wardrobe proved
to be more or less of an exciting experience for all
concerned. Miss Polly came out of it with the feel-
ing of limp relaxation that one might have at find-
ing oneself at last on solid earth after a perilous
walk across the very thin crust of a volcano. The
various clerks who had waited upon the pair came
out of it with very red faces, and enough amusing
stories of Pollyanna to keep their friends in gales
of laughter the rest of the week. Pollyanna herself
came out of it with radiant smiles and a heart con-
tent; for, as she expressed it to one of the clerks:
" When you haven't had anybody but missionary
barrels and Ladies' Aiders to dress you, it is per-
fectly lovely to just walk right in and buy clothes
that are brand-new, and that don't have to be tucked
up or let down because they don't fit! ;

57

POLLYANNA

The shopping expedition consumed the entire
afternoon; then came supper and a delightful talk
with Old Tom in the garden, and another with
Nancy on the back porch, after the dishes were done,
and while Aunt Polly paid a visit to a neighbor.

Old Tom told Pollyanna wonderful things of her
mother, that made her very happy indeed; and
Nancy told her all about the little farm six miles
away at " The Corners," where lived her own dear
mother, and her equally dear brother and sisters.
She promised, too, that sometime, if Miss Polly
were willing, Pollyanna should be taken to see them.

" And they've got lovely names, too. You'll like
their names," sighed Nancy. " They're ' Algernon,'
and ' Florabelle ' and ' Estelle.' I — I just hate
' Nancy ' ! "

"Oh, Nancy, what a dreadful thing to say!
Why? "

" Because it isn't pretty like the others. You see,
I was the first baby, and mother hadn't begun ter
read so many stories with the pretty names in 'em,
then."

" But I love ' Nancy,' just because it's you," de-
clared Pollyanna.

"Humph! Well, I guess you could love ' Cla-
rissa Mabelle ' just as well," retorted Nancy, " and
it would be a heap happier for me. I think that
name's just grand ! :

58

POLLYANNA AND PUNISHMENTS

Pollyanna laughed.

" Well, anyhow," she chuckled, " you can be glad
it isn't ' Hephzibah.' "

"Hephzibah! "

" Yes. Mrs. White's name is that. Her husband
calls her ' Hep,' and she doesn't like it. She says
when he calls out 'Hep — Hep! : she feels just as
if the next minute he was going to yell ' Hurrah ! :
And she doesn't like to be hurrahed at."

Nancy's gloomy face relaxed into a broad smile.

" Well, if you don't beat the Dutch! Say, do you
know? - - 1 sha'n't never hear l Nancy ' now that I
don't think o' that ' Hep - - Hep ! ' and giggle. My,
I guess I am glad- She stopped short and

turned amazed eyes on the little girl. " Say, Miss
Pollyanna, do you mean - - was you playin' that 'ere
game then — about my bein' glad I wa'n't named
1 Hephzibah ' ? "

Pollyanna frowned; then she laughed.

" Why, Nancy, that's so ! I was playing the game
— but that's one of the times I just did it without
thinking, I reckon. You see, you do, lots of times;
you get so used to it — looking for something to
be glad about, you know. And most generally there
is something about everything that you can be glad
about, if you keep hunting long enough to find it."

" Well, m-maybe," granted Nancy, with open
doubt.

59

POLLYANNA

•

At half-past eight Pollyanna went up to bed.
The screens had not yet come, and the close little
room was like an oven. With longing eyes Polly-
anna looked at the two fast-closed windows — but
she did not raise them. She undressed, folded her
clothes neatly, said her prayers, blew out her candle
and climbed into bed.

Just how long she lay in sleepless misery, tossing
from side to side of the hot little cot, she did not
know; but it seemed to her that it must have been
hours before she finally slipped out of bed, felt her
way across the room and opened her door.

Out in the main attic all was velvet blackness save
where the moon flung a path of silver half-way
across the floor from the east dormer window.
With a resolute ignoring of that fearsome darkness
to the right and to the left, Pollyanna drew a quick
breath and pattered straight into that silvery path,
and on to the window.

She had hoped, vaguely, that this window might
have a screen, but it did not. Outside, however,
there was a wide world of fairy-like beauty, and
there was, too, she knew, fresh, sweet air that would
feel so good to hot cheeks and hands!

As she stepped nearer and peered longingly out,
she saw something else: she saw, only a little way
below the window, the wide, flat tin roof of Miss

60

POLLYANNA AND PUNISHMENTS

Polly's sun parlor built over the porte-cochere. The
sight filled her with longing. If only, now, she
were out there!

Fearfully she looked behind her. Back there,
somewhere, were her hot little room and her still
hotter bed; but between her and them lay a horrid
desert of blackness across which one must feel one's
way with outstretched, shrinking arms; while be-
fore her, out on the sun-parlor roof, were the moon-
light and the cool, sweet night air.

If only her bed were out there! And folks did
sleep out of doors. Joel Hartley at home, who was
so sick with the consumption, had to sleep out of
doors.

Suddenly Pollyanna remembered that she had
seen near this attic window a row of long white,
bags hanging from nails. Nancy had said that
they contained the winter clothing, put away for
the summer. A little fearfully now, Pollyanna felt
her way to these bags, selected a nice fat soft one
(it contained Miss Polly's sealskin coat) for a bed;
and a thinner one to be doubled up for a pillow,
and still another (which was so thin it seemed al-
most empty) for a covering. Thus equipped, Polly-
anna in high glee pattered to the moonlit window
again, raised the sash, stuffed her burden through
to the roof below, then let herself down after it,

61

POLLYANNA

closing the window carefully behind her — Polly-
anna had not forgotten those flies with the marvel-
lous feet that carried things.

How deliciously cool it was! Pollyanna quite
danced up and down with delight, drawing in long,
full breaths of the refreshing air. The tin roof
under her feet crackled with little resounding snaps
that Pollyanna rather liked. She walked, indeed,
two or three times back and forth from end to end
— it gave her such a pleasant sensation of airy
space after her hot little room; and the roof was
so broad and flat that she had no fear of falling off.
Finally, with a sigh of content, she curled herself
up on the sealskin-coat mattress, arranged one bag
for a pillow and the other for a covering, and set-
tled herself to sleep.

" I'm so glad now that the screens didn't come,"
she murmured, blinking up at the stars; " else I
couldn't have had this! :

Down-stairs in Miss Polly's room next the sun
parlor, Miss Polly herself was hurrying into dress-
ing gown and slippers, her face white and fright-
ened. A minute before she had been telephoning
in a shaking voice to Timothy :

" Come up quick! — you and your father. Bring
lanterns. Somebody is on the roof of the sun par-
lor. He must have climbed up the rose-trellis or
somewhere, and of course he can get right into the

62

POLLYANNA AND PUNISHMENTS

house through the east window in the attic. I have
locked the attic door down here — but hurry,
quick! "

Some time later, Pollyanna, just dropping off to
sleep, was startled by a lantern flash, and a trio of
amazed ejaculations. She opened her eyes to find
Timothy at the top of a ladder near her, Old Tom
just getting through the window, and her aunt peer-
ing out at her from behind him.

" Pollyanna, what does this mean? ' cried Aunt
Polly then.

Pollyanna blinked sleepy eyes and sat up.

"Why, Mr. Tom — Aunt Polly!" she stam-
mered. "Don't look so scared! It isn't that I've
got the consumption, you know, like Joel Hartley.
It's only that I was so hot — in there. But I shut
the window, Aunt Polly, so the flies couldn't carry
those germ-things in."

Timothy disappeared suddenly down the ladder.
Old Tom, with almost equal precipitation, handed
his lantern to Miss Polly, and followed his son.
Miss Polly bit her lip hard — until the men were
gone; then she said sternly:

" Pollyanna, hand those things to me at once and
come in here. Of all the extraordinary children! :
she ejaculated a little later, as, with Pollyanna by
her side, and the lantern in her hand, she turned
back into the attic.

63

POLLYANNA

To Pollyanna the air was all the more stifling
after that cool breath of the out of doors; but she
did not complain. She only drew a long quivering
sigh.

At the top of the stairs Miss Polly jerked out
crisply :

" For the rest of the night, Pollyanna, you are
to sleep in my bed with me. The screens will be
here to-morrow, but until then I consider it my duty
to keep you where I know where you are."

Pollyanna drew in her breath.

"With you?- -in your bed?' she cried raptur-
ously. " Oh, Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, how per-
fectly lovely of you! And when I've so wanted to
sleep with some one sometime — some one that be-
longed to me, you know; not a Ladies' Aider. I've
had them. My! I reckon I am glad now those
screens didn't come! Wouldn't you be? '

There was no reply. Miss Polly was stalking on
ahead. Miss Polly, to tell the truth, was feeling
curiously helpless. For the third time since Polly-
anna's arrival, Miss Polly was punishing Pollyanna
— and for the third time she was being confronted
with the amazing fact that her punishment was
being taken as a special reward of merit. No won-
der Miss Polly was feeling curiously helpless.

CHAPTER VIII

POLLYANNA PAYS A VISIT

IT was not long before life at the Harrington
homestead settled into something like order —
though not exactly the order that Miss Polly had
at first prescribed. Pollyanna sewed, practised, read
aloud, and studied cooking in the kitchen, it is true;
but she did not give to any of these things quite
so much time as had first been planned. She had
more time, also, to " just live," as she expressed
it, for almost all of every afternoon from two until
six o'clock was hers to do with as she liked- — pro-
vided she did not " like ' to do certain things al-
ready prohibited by Aunt Polly.

It is a question, perhaps, whether all this leisure
time was given to the child as a relief to Pollyanna
from work - - or as a relief to Aunt Polly from
Pollyanna. Certainly, as those first July days
passed, Miss Polly found occasion many times to
ejaculate, " What an extraordinary child! " and cer-
tainly the reading and sewing lessons found her at
their conclusion each day somewhat dazed and
wholly exhausted.

65

POLLYANNA

Nancy, in the kitchen, fared better. She was
not dazed nor exhausted. Wednesdays and Satur-
days came to be, indeed, red-letter days to her.

There were no children in the immediate neigh-
borhood of the Harrington homestead for Polly-
anna to play with. The house itself was on the
outskirts of the village, and though there were other
houses not far away, they did not chance to contain
any boys or girls near Pollyanna's age. This, how-
ever, did not seem to disturb Pollyanna in the least.

" Oh, no, I don't mind it at all," she explained
to Nancy. "I'm happy just to walk around and
see the streets and the houses and watch the people.
I just love people. Don't you, Nancy? '

" Well, I can't say I do — all of 'em," retorted
Nancy, tersely.

Almost every pleasant afternoon found Pollyanna
begging for " an errand to run," so that she might
be off for a walk in one direction or another; and
it was on these walks that frequently she met the
Man. To herself Pollyanna always called him " the
Man," no matter if she met a dozen other men the
same day.

The Man often wore a long black coat and a high
silk hat — two things that the "just men' never
wore. His face was clean shaven and rather pale,
and his hair, showing below his hat, was somewhat
gray. He walked erect, and rather rapidly, and he

66

POLLYANNA PAYS A VISIT

was always alone, which made Pollyanna vaguely
sorry for him. Perhaps it was because of this that
she one day spoke to him.

" How do you do, sir? Isn't this a nice day? "
she called cheerily, as she approached him.

The man threw a hurried glance about him, then
stopped uncertainly.

" Did you speak — to me? " he asked in a sharp
voice.

" Yes, sir," beamed Pollyanna. " I say, it's a nice
day, isn't it? "

" Eh? Oh! Humph! : he grunted; and strode
on again.

Pollyanna laughed. He was such a funny man,
she thought.

The next day she saw him again.

" 'Tisn't quite so nice as yesterday, but it's pretty
nice," she called out cheerfully.

"Eh? Oh! Humph !': grunted the man as be-
fore; and once again Pollyanna laughed happily.

When for the third time Pollyanna accosted him
in much the same manner, the man stopped abruptly.

"See here, child, who are you, and why are you
speaking to me every day? '

" I'm Pollyanna Whittier, and I thought you
looked lonesome. I'm so glad you stopped. Now
we're introduced — only I don't know your name
yet."

67

POLLYANNA

" Well, of all the — " The man did not finish
his sentence, but strode on faster than ever.

Pollyanna looked after him with a disappointed
droop to her usually smiling lips.

" Maybe he didn't understand — but that was
only half an introduction. I don't know his name,
yet," she murmured, as she proceeded on her way.

Pollyanna was carrying calf's-foot jelly to Mrs.
Snow to-day. Miss Polly Harrington always sent
something to Mrs. Snow once a week. She said
she thought that it was her duty, inasmuch as Mrs.
Snow was poor, sick, and a member of her church
-it was the duty of all the church members to
look out for her, of course. Miss Polly did her
duty by Mrs. Snow usually on Thursday afternoons
— not personally, but through Nancy. To-day
Pollyanna had begged the privilege, and Nancy had
promptly given it to her in accordance with Miss
Polly's orders.

" And it's glad that I am ter get rid of it," Nancy
had declared in private afterwards to Pollyanna;
" though it's a shame ter be tuckin' the job off on
ter you, poor lamb, so it is, it is! :

" But I'd love to do it, Nancy."

" Well, you won't — after you've done it once,"
predicted Nancy, sourly.

"Why not?"

68

POLLYANNA PAYS A VISIT

" Because nobody does. If folks wa'n't sorry for
her there wouldn't a soul go near her from mornin'
till night, she's that cantankerous. All is, I pity
her daughter what has ter take care of her."

" But, why, Nancy? "

Nancy shrugged her shoulders.

" Well, in plain words, it's just that nothin' what
ever has happened, has happened right in Mis'
Snow's eyes. Even the days of the week ain't run
ter her mind. If it's Monday she's bound ter say
she wished 'twas Sunday; and if you take her jelly
you're pretty sure ter hear she wanted chicken -
but if you did bring her chicken, she'd be jest hank-
erin' for lamb broth! :

" Why, what a funny woman," laughed Polly-
anna. " I think I shall like to go to see her. She
must be so surprising and - - and different. I love
different folks."

"Humph! Well, Mis' Snow's 'different,' all
right- -I hope, for the sake of the rest of us! :
Nancy had finished grimly.

Pollyanna was thinking of these remarks to-day
as she turned in at the gate of the shabby little cot-
tage. Her eyes were quite sparkling, indeed, at the
prospect of meeting this "different' Mrs. Snow.

A pale-faced, tired-looking young girl answered
her knock at the door.

69

POLLYANNA

" How do you do? " began Pollyanna politely.
"I'm from Miss Polly Harrington, and I'd like to
see Mrs. Snow, please.''

" Well, if you would, you're the first one that
ever l liked ' to see her," muttered the girl under
her breath; but Pollyanna did not hear this. The
girl had turned and was leading the way through
the hall to a door at the end of it.

In the sick-room, after the girl had ushered her
in and closed the door, Pollyanna blinked a little
before she could accustom her eyes to the gloom.
Then she saw, dimly outlined, a woman half-sitting
up in the bed across the room. Pollyanna advanced
at once.

" How do you do, Mrs. Snow? Aunt Polly says
she hopes you are comfortable to-day, and she's
sent you some calf's-foot jelly."

"Dear me! Jelly?' murmured a fretful voice.
" Of course I'm very much obliged, but I was
hoping 'twould be lamb broth to-day."

Pollyanna frowned a little.

" Why, I thought it was chicken you wanted when
folks brought you jelly," she said.

" What? " The sick woman turned sharply.

" Why, nothing, much," apologized Pollyanna,
hurriedly; "and of course it doesn't really make
any difference. It's only that Nancy said it was

70

POLLYANNA PAYS A VISIT

chicken you wanted when we brought jelly, and
lamb broth when we brought chicken — but maybe
'twas the other way, and Nancy forgot."

The sick woman pulled herself up till she sat
erect in the bed - - a most unusual thing for her to
do, though Pollyanna did not know this.

" Well, Miss Impertinence, who are you? ' she
demanded.

Pollyanna laughed gleefully.

" Oh, that isn't my name, Mrs. Snow — and I'm
so glad 'tisn't, too! That would be worse than
1 Hephzibah,' wouldn't it? I'm Pollyanna Whittier,
Miss Polly Harrington's niece, and I've come to
live with her. That's why I'm here with the jelly
this morning."

All through the first part of this sentence, the
sick woman had sat interestedly erect; but at the
reference to the jelly she fell back on her pillow
listlessly.

"Very well; thank you. Your aunt is very kind,
of course, but my appetite isn't very good this morn-
ing, and I was wanting lamb — ' She stopped
suddenly, then went on with an abrupt change of
subject. " I never slept a wink last night — not a
wink! "

" O dear, I wish / didn't," sighed Pollyanna,
placing the jelly on the little stand and seating her-

71

POLLYANNA

self comfortably in the nearest chair. " You lose
such a lot of time just sleeping! Don't you think
so?"

"Lose time- -sleeping! : exclaimed the sick
woman.

" Yes, when you might be just living, you know.
It seems such a pity we can't live nights, too."

Once again the woman pulled herself erect in her
bed.

"Well, if you ain't the amazing young one!'
she cried. " Here! do you go to that window and
pull up the curtain," she directed. " I should like
to know what you look like! :

Pollyanna rose to her feet, but she laughed a
little ruefully.

"O dear! then you'll see my freckles, won't
you? ' she sighed, as she went to the window;

— and just when I was being so glad it was dark
and you couldn't see 'em. There! Now you can

-oh! :' she broke off excitedly, as she turned back
to the bed; " I'm so glad you wanted to see me,
because now I can see you! They didn't tell me
you were so pretty ! :

Me!- - pretty !: scoffed the woman, bitterly.
Why, yes. Didn't you know it? " cried Polly-
anna.

" Well, no, I didn't," retorted Mrs. Snow, dryly.
Mrs. Snow had lived forty years, and for fifteen

72

u
ti

POLLYANNA PAYS A VISIT

of those years she had been too busy wishing things
were different to find much time to enjoy things as
they were.

" Oh, but your eyes are so big and dark, and your
hair's all dark, too, and curly," cooed Pollyanna.
" I love black curls. (That's one of the things I'm
going to have when I get to Heaven.) And you've
got two little red spots in your cheeks. Why, Mrs.
Snow, you are pretty! I should think you'd know
it when you looked at yourself in the glass."

"The glass! : snapped the sick woman, falling
back on her pillow. " Yes, well, I hain't done much
prinkin' before the mirror these days --and you
wouldn't, if you was flat on your back as I am! :

" Why, no, of course not," agreed Pollyanna,
sympathetically. " But wait - - just let me show
you," she exclaimed, skipping over to the bureau
and picking up a small hand-glass.

On the way back to the bed she stopped, eyeing
the sick woman with a critical gaze.

" I reckon maybe, if you don't mind, I'd like to
fix your hair just a little before I let you see it,"
she proposed. " May I fix your hair, please? '

" Why, I - - suppose so, if you want to," per-
mitted Mrs. Snow, grudgingly; " but 'twon't stay,
you know."

" Oh, thank you. I love to fix people's hair,"
exulted Pollyanna, carefully laying down the hand-

73

POLLYANNA

glass and reaching for a comb. " I sha'n't do much
to-day, of course — I'm in such a hurry for you to
see how pretty you are; but some day I'm going
to take it all down and have a perfectly lovely time
with it," she cried, touching with soft fingers the
waving hair above the sick woman's forehead.

For five minutes Pollyanna worked swiftly,
deftly, combing a refractory curl into fluffiness,
perking up a drooping ruffle at the neck, or shaking
a pillow into plumpness so that the head might have
a better pose. Meanwhile the sick woman, frown-
ing prodigiously, and openly scoffing at the whole
procedure, was, in spite of herself, beginning to
tingle with a feeling perilously near to excitement.

"There! : panted Pollyanna, hastily plucking a
pink from a vase near by and tucking it into the
dark hair where it would give the best effect.
" Now I reckon we're ready to be looked at! : And
she held out the mirror in triumph.

"Humph! :> grunted the sick woman, eyeing her
reflection severely. " I like red pinks better than
pink ones; but then, it'll fade, anyhow, before
night, so what's the difference ! '

" But I should think you'd be glad they did fade,"
laughed Pollyanna, " 'cause then you can have the
fun of getting some more. I just love your hair
fluffed out like that," she finished with a satisfied
gaze. " Don't you? "

74

POLLYANNA PAYS A VISIT

"Hm-m; maybe. Still — 'twon't last, with me
tossing back and forth on the pillow as I do."

" Of course not — and I'm glad, too," nodded
Pollyanna cheerfully, " because then I can fix it
again. Anyhow, I should think you'd be glad it's
black — black shows up so much nicer on a pillow
than yellow hair like mine does."

" Maybe; but I never did set much store by black
hair — shows gray too soon," retorted Mrs. Snow.
She spoke fretfully, but she still held the mirror
before her face.

" Oh, I love black hair! I should be so glad if
I only had it," sighed Pollyanna.

Mrs. Snow dropped the mirror and turned irri-
tably.

"Well, you wouldn't! — not if you were me.
You wouldn't be glad for black hair nor anything
else — if you had to lie here all day as I do! '

Pollyanna bent her brows in a thoughtful frown.

"Why, 'twould be kind of hard — to do it then,
wouldn't it? " she mused aloud.

" Do what? "

" Be glad about things."

" Be glad about things — when you're sick in
bed all your days? Well, I should say it would,"
retorted .Mrs. Snow. " If you don't think so, just
tell me something to be glad about; that's all! "

To Mrs. Snow's unbounded amazement, Polly-

75

POLLYANNA

anna sprang to her feet and clapped her hands.

"Oh, goody! That'll be a hard one — won't it?
I've got to go, now, but I'll think and think all the
way home; and maybe the next time I come I can
tell it to you. Good-by. I've had a lovely time!
Good-by," she called again, as she tripped through
the doorway.

"Well, I never! Now, what does she mean by
that? " ejaculated Mrs. Snow, staring after her vis-
itor. By and by she turned her head and picked
up the mirror, eyeing her reflection critically.

" That little thing has got a knack with hair —
and no mistake," she muttered under her breath.
" I declare, I didn't know it could look so pretty.
But then, what's the use? ' she sighed, dropping
the little glass into the bedclothes, and rolling her
head on the pillow fretfully.

A little later, when Milly, Mrs. Snow's daughter,
came in, the mirror still lay among the bedclothes
-•though it had been carefully hidden from
sight.

" Why, mother — the curtain is up! " cried Milly,
dividing her amazed stare between the window and
the pink in her mother's hair.

"Well, what if it is? " snapped the sick woman.
" I needn't stay in the dark all my life, if I am sick,
need I? "

" Why, n-no, of course not," rejoined Milly, in

76

POLLYANNA PAYS A VISIT

hasty conciliation, as she reached for the medicine
bottle. " It's only - - well, you know very well that
I've tried to get you to have a lighter room for ages

-and you wouldn't."

There was no reply to this. Mrs. Snow was pick-
ing at the lace on her nightgown. At last she spoke
fretfully.

" I should think somebody might give me a new
nightdress- -instead of lamb broth, for a change! :

«\yhy — mother! "

No wonder Milly quite gasped aloud with bewil-
derment. In the drawer behind her at that moment
lay two new nightdresses that Milly for months had
been vainly urging her mother to wear.

77

CHAPTER IX

WHICH TELLS OF THE MAN

IT rained the next time Polly anna saw the Man.
She greeted him, however, with a bright smile.

" It isn't so nice to-day, is it? " she called blithe-
somely. " I'm glad it doesn't rain always, any-
how! "

The man did not even grunt this time, nor turn
his head. Pollyanna decided that of course he did
not hear her. The next time, therefore (which
happened to be the following day), she spoke up
louder. She thought it particularly necessary to
do this, anyway, for the Man was striding along,
his hands behind his back, and his eyes on the
ground — which seemed, to Pollyanna, preposterous
in the face of the glorious sunshine and the freshly-
washed morning air: Pollyanna, as a special treat,
was on a morning errand to-day.

" How do you do? " she chirped. " I'm so glad
it isn't yesterday, aren't you? "

The man stopped abruptly. There was an angry
scowl on his face.

" See here, little girl, we might just as well settle

78

WHICH TELLS OF THE MAN

this thing right now, once for all," he began testily.
" I've got something besides the weather to think
of. I don't know whether the sun shines or not."

Pollyanna beamed joyously.

" No, sir; I thought you didn't. That's why I
told you."

"Yes; well— Eh? What?" he broke off
sharply, in sudden understanding of her words.

" I say, that's why I told you — so you would
notice it, you know — that the sun shines, and all
that. I knew you'd be glad it did if you only
stopped to think of it — and you didn't look a bit
as if you were thinking of it! :

" Well, of all the — ' ejaculated the man, with
an oddly impotent gesture. He started forward
again, but after the second step he turned back, still
frowning.

" See here, why don't you find some one your
own age to talk to? '

" I'd like to, sir, but there aren't any 'round here,
Nancy says. Still, I don't mind so very much. I
like old folks just as well, maybe better, sometimes
— being used to the Ladies' Aid, so."

"Humph! The Ladies' Aid, indeed! Is that
what you took me for? ' The man's lips were
threatening to smile, but the scowl above them was
still trying to hold them grimly stern.

Pollyanna laughed gleefully.

79

POLLYANNA

" Oh, no, sir. You don't look a mite like a La-
dies' Aider — not but that you're just as good, of
course — maybe better," she added in hurried po-
liteness. " You see, I'm sure you're much nicer
than you look! :

The man made a queer noise in his throat.

"Well, of all the — " he ejaculated again, as he
turned and strode on as before.

The next time Pollyanna met the Man, his eyes
were gazing straight into hers, with a quizzical di-
rectness that made his face look really pleasant,
Pollyanna thought.

" Good afternoon," he greeted her a little stiffly.
" Perhaps I'd better say right away that I know the
sun is shining to-day."

" But you don't have to tell me," nodded Polly-
anna, brightly. " I knew you knew it just as soon
as I saw you."

" Oh, you did, did you? "

" Yes, sir; I saw it in your eyes, you know, and
in your smile."

" Humph! :' grunted the man, as he passed on.

The man always spoke to Pollyanna after this,
and frequently he spoke first, though usually he said
little but " good afternoon." Even that, however,
was a great surprise to Nancy, who chanced to be
with Pollyanna one day when the greeting was
given.

80

WHICH TELLS OF THE MAN

" Sakes alive, Miss Pollyanna," she gasped, " did
that man speak to you? '

" Why, yes, he always does - - now," smiled
Pollyanna.

" ' He always does ' ! Goodness! Do you know
who- -he- -is? " demanded Nancy.

Pollyanna frowned and shook her head.

" I reckon he forgot to tell me one day. You
see, I did my part of the introducing, but he
didn't."

Nancy's eyes widened.

"But he never speaks ter anybody, child- -he
hain't for years, I guess, except when he just has
to, for business, and all that. He's John Pendleton.
He lives all by himself in the big house on Pendle-
ton Hill. He won't even have any one 'round ter
cook for him - - comes down ter the hotel for his
meals three times a day. I know Sally Miner, who
waits on him, and she says he hardly opens his head
enough ter tell what he wants ter eat. She has ter
guess it more'n half the time — only it'll be some-
thin' cheap! She knows that without no tellin'."

Pollyanna nodded sympathetically.

" I know. You have to look for cheap things

when you're poor. Father and I took meals out a

lot. We had beans and fish balls most generally.

We used to say how glad we were we liked beans

— that is, we said it specially when we were looking

81

POLLYANNA

at the roast turkey place, you know, that was sixty
cents. Does Mr. Pendleton like beans? "

" Like 'em! What if he does — or don't? Why,
Miss Pollyanna, he ain't poor. He's got loads of
money, John Pendleton has — from his father.
There ain't nobody in town as rich as he is. He
could eat dollar bills, if he wanted to — and not
know it."

Pollyanna giggled.

"As if anybody could eat dollar bills and not
know it, Nancy, when they come to try to chew
'em! "

"Ho! I mean he's rich enough ter do it,"
shrugged Nancy. " He ain't spendin' his money,
that's all. He's a-savin' of it."

" Oh, for the heathen," surmised Pollyanna.
"How perfectly splendid! That's* denying your-
self and taking up your cross. I know; father told

me.'

Nancy's lips parted abruptly, as if there were
angry words all ready to come; but her eyes, rest-
ing on Pollyanna's jubilantly trustful face, saw
something that prevented the words being spoken.

"Humph! : she vouchsafed. Then, showing her
old-time interest, she went on: "But, say, it is
queer, his speakin' to you, honestly, Miss Pollyanna.
He don't speak ter no one; and he lives all alone
in a great big lovely house all full of jest grand

82

WHICH TELLS OF THE MAN

things, they say. Some says he's crazy, and some
jest cross; and some says he's got a skeleton in his
closet."

" Oh, Nancy! : shuddered Pollyanna. " How
can he keep such a dreadful thing? I should think
he'd throw it away! :

Nancy chuckled. That Pollyanna had taken the
skeleton literally instead of figuratively, she knew
very well; but, perversely, she refrained from cor-
recting the mistake.

" And everybody says he's mysterious," she went
on. " Some years he jest travels, week in and week
out, and it's always in heathen countries — Egypt
and Asia and the Desert of Sarah, you know."

" Oh, a missionary," nodded Pollyanna.

" Well, I didn't say that, Miss Pollyanna," Nancy
laughed oddly. " When he comes back he writes
books - - queer, odd books, they say, about some
gimcrack he's found in them heathen countries. But
he don't never seem ter want ter spend no money
here - - leastways, not for jest livin'."

"Of course not — if he's saving it for the
heathen," declared Pollyanna. " But he is a funny
man, and he's different, too, just like Mrs. Snow,
only he's a different different."

" Well, I guess he is -—rather," chuckled Nancy.

" I'm gladder'n ever now, anyhow, that he speaks
to me," sighed Pollyanna contentedly.

83

CHAPTER X

A SURPRISE FOR MRS. SNOW

THE next time Pollyanna went to see Mrs. Snow,
she found that lady, as at first, in a darkened room.

"It's the little girl from Miss Polly's, mother,"
announced Milly, in a tired manner; then Pollyanna
found herself alone with the invalid.

" Oh, it's you, is it? " asked a fretful voice from
the bed. " I remember you. ^Iw^body'd remember
you, I guess, if they saw you once. I wish you had
come yesterday. I wanted you yesterday."

" Did you? Well, I'm glad 'tisn't any farther
away from yc sterday than to-day is, then," laughed
Pollyanna, advancing cheerily into the room, and
setting her basket carefully down on a chair. " My!
but aren't you dark here, though? I can't see you
a bit," she cried, unhesitatingly crossing to the win-
dow and pulling up the shade. " I want to see if
you've fixed your hair like I did — oh, you haven't!
But, never mind; I'm glad you haven't, after all,
'cause maybe you'll let me do it — later. But now
I want you to see what I've brought you."

The woman stirred restlessly.

84

A SURPRISE FOR MRS. SNOW

" Just as if how it looks would make any differ-
ence in how it tastes," she scoffed - - but she turned
her eyes toward the basket. " Well, what is it? '

" Guess! What do you want? ' Pollyanna had
skipped back to the basket. Her face was alight.

The sick woman frowned.

" Why, I don't want anything, as I know of,"
she sighed. "After all, they all taste alike! :

Pollyanna chuckled.

"This won't. Guess! If you did want some-
thing, what would it be? '

The woman hesitated. She did not realize it
herself, but she had so long been accustomed to
wanting what she did not have, that to state off-
hand what she did want seemed impossible- -until
she knew what she had. Obviously, however, she
must say something. This extraordinary child was
waiting.

" Well, of course, there's lamb broth -

" I've got it! ' crowed Pollyanna.

" But that's what I didn't want," sighed the sick
woman, sure now of what her stomach craved. " It
was chicken I wanted."

" Oh, I've got that, too," chuckled Pollyanna.

The woman turned in amazement.

" Both of them? " she demanded.

" Yes — and calf's-foot jelly," triumphed Polly-
anna. " I was just bound you should have what

85

POLLYANNA

you wanted for once; so Nancy and I fixed it. Oh,
of course, there's only a little of each — but there's
some of all of 'em! I'm so glad you did want
chicken," she went on contentedly, as she lifted the
three little bowls from her basket. " You see, I got
to thinking on the way here — what if you should
say tripe, or onions, or something like that, that I
didn't have! Wouldn't it have been a shame —
when I'd tried so hard? " she laughed merrily.

There was no reply. The sick woman seemed to
be trying — mentally — to find something she had
lost.

" There! I'm to leave them all," announced Polly-
anna, as she arranged the three bowls in a row on
the table. " Like enough it'll be lamb broth you
want to-morrow. How do you do to-day? " she
finished in polite inquiry.

" Very poorly, thank you," murmured Mrs.
Snow, falling back into her usual listless attitude.
" I lost my nap this morning. Nellie Higgins next
door has begun music lessons, and her practising
drives me nearly wild. She was at it all the morn-
ing— every minute! I'm sure, I don't know what
I shall do! "

Polly nodded sympathetically.

" I know. It is awful! Mrs. White had it once
— one of my Ladies' Aiders, you know. She had
rheumatic fever, too, at the same time, so she

86

A SURPRISE FOR MRS. SNOW

couldn't thrash 'round. She said 'twould have been
easier if she could have. Can you? '

"Can I — what?"

" Thrash 'round — move, you know, so as to
change your position when the music gets too hard
to stand."

Mrs. Snow stared a little.

" Why, of course I can move -- anywhere — in
bed," she rejoined a little irritably.

" Well, you can be glad of that, then, anyhow,
can't you?" nodded Pollyanna. " Mrs. White
couldn't. You can't thrash when you have rheu-
matic fever — though you want to something awful,
Mrs. White says. She told me afterwards she reck-
oned she'd have gone raving crazy if it hadn't been
for Mr. White's sister's ears- -being deaf, so."

" Sister's - - ears! What do you mean? '

Pollyanna laughed.

" Well, I reckon I didn't tell it all, and I forgot
you didn't know Mrs. White. You see, Miss White
was deaf- -awfully deaf; and she came to visit
'em and to help take care of Mrs. White and the
house. Well, they had such an awful time making
her understand anything, that after that, every time
the piano commenced to play across the street, Mrs.
White felt so glad she could hear it, that she didn't
mind so much that she did hear it, 'cause she
couldn't help thinking how awful 'twould be if she

87

POLLYANNA

was deaf and couldn't hear anything, like her hus-
band's sister. You see, she was playing the game,
too. I'd told her about it."

"The — game?"

Pollyanna clapped her hands.

"There! I 'most forgot; but I've thought it up,
Mrs. Snow — what you can be glad about."

" Glad about! What do you mean? "

" Why, I told you I would. Don't you remem-
ber? You asked me to tell you something to be
glad about — glad, you know, even though you did
have to lie here abed all day."

" Oh! " scoffed the woman. " That? Yes, I re-
member that; but I didn't suppose you were in
earnest any more than I was."

" Oh, yes, I was," nodded Pollyanna, trium-
phantly; "and I found it, too. But 'twas hard.
It's all the more fun, though, always, when 'tis hard.
And I will own up, honest to true, that I couldn't
think of anything for a while. Then I got it."

"Did you, really? Well, what is it?" Mrs.
Snow's voice was sarcastically polite.

Pollyanna drew a long breath.

" I thought — how glad you could be — that
other folks weren't like you — all sick in bed like
this, you know," she announced impressively.

Mrs. Snow stared. Her eyes were angry and she
compressed her lips.

88

A SURPRISE FOR MRS. SNOW

"Well, really! :> she ejaculated then, in not quite
an agreeable tone of voice.

" And now I'll tell you the game," proposed
Pollyanna, blithely confident. " It'll be just lovely
for you to play — it'll be so hard. And there's so
much more fun when it is hard! You see, it's like
this." And she began to tell of the missionary bar-
rel, the* crutches, and the doll that did not come.

The story was just finished when Milly appeared
at the door.

" Your aunt is wanting you, Miss Pollyanna,"
she said with dreary listlessness. " She telephoned
down to the Harlows' across the way. She says
you're to hurry — that you've got some practising
to make up before dark."

Pollyanna rose reluctantly.

"All right," she sighed. "I'll hurry." Sud-
denly she laughed. " I suppose I ought to be
glad I've got legs to hurry with, hadn't I, Mrs.
Snow?"

There was no answer. Mrs. Snow's eyes were
closed. But Milly, whose eyes were wide open with
surprise, saw that there were tears on the wasted
cheeks.

" Good-by," flung Pollyanna over her shoulder,
as she reached the door. " I'm awfully sorry about
the hair — I wanted to do it. But maybe I can next
time! "

89

POLLYANNA

One by one the July days passed. To Pollyanna,
they were happy days, indeed. She often told her
aunt, joyously, how very happy they were. Where-
upon her aunt would usually reply, wearily:

" Very well, Pollyanna. I am gratified, of course,
that they are happy; but I trust that they are prof-
itable, as well — otherwise I should have failed sig-
nally in my duty."

Generally Pollyanna would answer this with a
hug and a kiss — a proceeding that was still always
most disconcerting to Miss Polly; but one day she
spoke. It was during the sewing hour.

" Do you mean that it wouldn't be enough then,
Aunt Polly, that they should be just happy days? '

" That is what I mean, Pollyanna."

" They must be pro-fi-ta-ble as well? '

" Certainly."

"What is being pro-fi-ta-ble?'

" Why, it — it's just being profitable — having
profit, something to show for it, Pollyanna. What
an extraordinary child you are! :

" Then just being glad isn't pro-fi-ta-ble? " ques-
tioned Pollyanna, a little anxiously.

" Certainly not."

"O dear! Then you wouldn't like it, of course.
I'm afraid, now, you won't ever play the game,
Aunt Polly."

" Game? What game? "

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A SURPRISE FOR MRS. SNOW

" Why, that father - Pollyanna clapped her

hand to her lips. " N-nothing," she stammered.

Miss Polly frowned.

" That will do for this morning, Pollyanna," she
said tersely. And the sewing lesson was over.

It was that afternoon that Pollyanna, coming
down from her attic room, met her aunt on the
stairway.

" Why, Aunt Polly, how perfectly lovely! : she
cried. "You were coming up to see me! Come
right in. I love company," she finished, scampering
ap the stairs and throwing her door wide open.

Now Miss Polly had not been intending to call
on her niece. She had been planning to look for
a certain white wool shawl in the cedar chest near
the east window. But to her unbounded surprise
now, she found herself, not in the main attic before
the cedar chest, but in Pollyanna's little room sitting
in one of the straight-backed chairs- -so many,
many times since Pollyanna came, Miss Polly had
found herself like this, doing some utterly unex-
pected, surprising thing, quite unlike the thing she
had set out to do!

" I love company," said Pollyanna, again, flitting
about as if she were dispensing the hospitality of a
palace; "specially since I've had this room, all
mine, you know. Oh, of course, I had a room,
always, but 'twas a hired room, and hired rooms

91

POLLYANNA

aren't half as nice as owned ones, are they? And
of course I do own this one, don't I? '

" Why, y-yes, Pollyanna," murmured Miss Polly,
vaguely wondering why she did not get up at once
and go to look for that shawl.

" And of course now I just love this room, even
if it hasn't got the carpets and curtains and pictures
that I'd been want — ' With a painful blush Polly-
anna stopped short. She was plunging into an en-
tirely different sentence when her aunt interrupted
her sharply.

" What's that, Pollyanna? "

" N-nothing, Aunt Polly, truly. I didn't mean
to say it."

" Probably not," returned Miss Polly, coldly;
" but you did say it, so suppose we have the rest
of it."

" But it wasn't anything only that I'd been kind
of planning on pretty carpets and lace curtains and
things, you know. But, of course — '

"Planning on them! " interrupted Miss Polly
sharply.

Pollyanna blushed still more painfully.

" I ought not to have, of course, Aunt Polly,"
she apologized. " It was only because I'd always
wanted them and hadn't had them, I suppose. Oh,
we'd had two rugs in the barrels, but they were

92

A SURPRISE FOR MRS. SNOW

little, you know, and one had ink spots, and the
other holes; and there never were only those two
pictures; the one fath — I mean the good one we
sold, and the bad one that broke. Of course if it
hadn't been for all that I shouldn't have wanted
them, so — pretty things, I mean; and I shouldn't
have got to planning all through the hall that first
day how pretty mine would be here, and — and —
But, truly, Aunt Polly, it wasn't but just a minute

- 1 mean, a few minutes — before I was being
glad that the bureau didn't have a looking-glass,
because it didn't show my freckles; and there
couldn't be a nicer picture than the one out my
window there; and you've been so good to me,
that — "

Miss Polly rose suddenly to her feet. Her face
was very red.

"That will do, Pollyanna," she said stiffly.
" You have said quite enough, I'm sure." The next
minute she had swept down the stairs — and not
until she reached the first floor did it suddenly occur
to her that she had gone up into the attic to find a
white wool shawl in the cedar chest near the east
window.

Less than twenty-four hours later, Miss Polly
said to Nancy, crisply:

" Nancy, you may move Miss Pollyanna's things

93

POLLYANNA

down-stairs this morning to the room directly be-
neath. I have decided to have my niece sleep there
for the present."

" Yes, ma'am," said Nancy aloud.

" O glory! :i said Nancy to herself.

To Pollyanna, a minute later, she cried joyously:

" And won't ye jest be listenin' ter this, Miss
Pollyanna. You're ter sleep down-stairs in the
room straight under this. You are — you are! :

Pollyanna actually grew white.

" You mean — why, Nancy, not really — really
and truly? '

" I guess you'll think it's really and truly," proph-
esied Nancy, exultingly, nodding her head to Polly-
anna over the armful of dresses she had taken from
the closet. " I'm told ter take down yer things,
and I'm goin' ter take 'em, too, 'fore she gets a
chance ter change her mind."

Pollyanna did not stop to hear the end of this
sentence. At the imminent risk of being dashed
headlong, she was flying down-stairs, two steps at
a time.

Bang went two doors and a chair before Polly-
anna at last reached her goal — Aunt Polly.

" Oh, Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, did you mean it,
really? Why, that room's got everything — the car-
pet and curtains and three pictures, besides the one

94

A SURPRISE FOR MRS. SNOW

outdoors, too, 'cause the windows look the same
way. Oh, Aunt Polly! "

" Very well, Pollyanna. I am gratified that you
like the change, of course; but if you think so
much of all those things, I trust you will take proper
care of them; that's all. Pollyanna, please pick up
that chair; and you have banged two doors in the
last half-minute." Miss Polly spoke sternly, all the
more sternly because, for some inexplicable reason,
she felt inclined to cry - - and Miss Polly was not
used to feeling inclined to cry.

Pollyanna picked up the chair.

" Yes'm; I know I banged 'em- -those doors,"
she admitted cheerfully. " You see I'd just found
out about the room, and I reckon you'd have banged
doors if - Pollyanna stopped short and eyed her
aunt with new interest. " Aunt Polly, did you ever
bang doors? '

" I hope — not, Pollyanna! : Miss Polly's voice
was properly shocked.

"Why, Aunt Polly, what a shame!" Polly-
anna's face expressed only concerned sympathy.

"A shame! : repeated Aunt Polly, too dazed to
say more.

" Why, yes. You see, if you'd felt like banging
doors you'd have banged 'em, of course; and if
you didn't, that must have meant that you weren't

95

POLLYANNA

ever glad over anything — or you would have
banged 'em. You couldn't have helped it. And
I'm so sorry you weren't ever glad over anything! "

"Pollytfwna!" gasped the lady; but Polly anna
was gone, and only the distant bang of the attic-
stairway door answered for her. Pollyanna had
gone to help Nancy bring down " her things."

Miss Polly, in the sitting room, felt vaguely dis-
turbed; — but then, of course, she had been glad —
over some things I

96

CHAPTER XI

INTRODUCING JIMMY

AUGUST came. August brought several
prises and some changes — none of which, however,
were really a surprise to Nancy. Nancy, since
Pollyanna's arrival, had come to look for surprises
and changes.

First there was the kitten.

Pollyanna found the kitten mewing pitifully some
distance down the road. When systematic ques-
tioning of the neighbors failed to find any one who
claimed it, Pollyanna brought it home at once, as
a matter of course.

" And I was glad I didn't find any one who
owned it, too," she told her aunt in happy confi-
dence; " 'cause I wanted to bring it home all the
time. I love kitties. I knew you'd be glad to let it
live here."

Miss Polly looked at the forlorn little gray bunch
of neglected misery in Pollyanna's arms, and shiv-
ered : Miss Polly did not care for cats — not even
pretty, healthy, clean ones.

"Ugh! Pollyanna! What a dirty little beast!

97

POLLYANNA

And it's sick, I'm sure, and all mangy and fleay."

" I know it, poor little thing," crooned Pollyanna,
tenderly, looking into the little creature's frightened
eyes. " And it's all trembly, too, it's so scared.
You see it doesn't know, yet, that we're going to
keep it, of course."

" No — nor anybody else," retorted Miss Polly,
with meaning emphasis.

" Oh, yes, they do," nodded Pollyanna, entirely
misunderstanding her aunt's words. " I told every-
body we should keep it, if I didn't find where it be-
longed. I knew you'd be glad to have it — poor
little lonesome thing! '

Miss Polly opened her lips and tried to speak;
but in vain. The curious helpless feeling that had
been hers so often since Pollyanna's arrival, had
her now fast in its grip.

" Of course I knew," hurried on Pollyanna,
gratefully, " that you wouldn't let a dear little lone-
some kitty go hunting for a home when you'd just
taken me in; and I said so to Mrs. Ford when she
asked if you'd let me keep it. Why 7 had the
Ladies' Aid, you know, and kitty didn't have any-
body. I knew you'd feel that way," she nodded
happily, as she ran from the room.

" But, Pollyanna, Pollyanna," remonstrated Miss
Polly. " I don't - But Pollyanna was already
halfway to the kitchen, calling:

98

INTRODUCING JIMMY

" Nancy, Nancy, just see this dear little kitty
that Aunt Polly is going to bring up along with
me! " And Aunt Polly, in the sitting room- -who
abhorred cats - - fell back in her chair with a gasp
of dismay, powerless to remonstrate.

The next day it was a dog, even dirtier and more
forlorn, perhaps, than was the kitten; and again
Miss Polly, to her dumfounded amazement, found
herself figuring as a kind protector and an angel of
mercy - - a role that Pollyanna so unhesitatingly
thrust upon her as a matter of course, that the
woman - - who abhorred dogs even more than she
did cats, if possible - - found herself as before,
powerless to remonstrate.

When, in less than a week, however, Pollyanna
brought home a small, ragged boy, and confidently
claimed the same protection for him, Miss Polly
did have something to say. It happened after this
wise.

On a pleasant Thursday morning Pollyanna had
been taking calf's-foot jelly again to Mrs. Snow.
Mrs. Snow and Pollyanna were the best of friends
now. Their friendship had started from the third
visit Pollyanna had made, the one after she had
told Mrs. Snow of the game. Mrs. Snow herself
was playing the game now, with Pollyanna. To be
sure, she was not playing it very well — she had
been sorry for everything for so long, that it was

99

POLLYANNA

not easy to be glad for anything now. But under
Pollyanna's cheery instructions and merry laughter
at her mistakes, she was learning fast. To-day,
even, to Pollyanna's huge delight, she had said that
she was glad Pollyanna brought calf's-foot jelly,
because that was just what she had been wanting —
she did not know that Milly, at the front door, had
told Pollyanna that the minister's wife had already
that day sent over a great bowlful of that same
kind of jelly.

Pollyanna was thinking of this now when sud-
denly she saw the boy.

The boy was sitting in a disconsolate little heap
by the roadside, whittling half-heartedly at a small
stick.

" Hullo," smiled Pollyanna, engagingly.

The boy glanced up, but he looked away again,
at once.

" Hullo yourself," he mumbled.

Pollyanna laughed.

" Now you don't look as if you'd be glad even
for calf's-foot jelly," she chuckled, stopping before
him.

The boy stirred restlessly, gave her a sur-
prised look, and began to whittle again at his
stick, with the dull, broken-bladed knife in his
hand.

Pollyanna hesitated, then dropped herself com-

100

INTRODUCING JIMMY

fortably down on the grass near him. In spite of
Pollyanna's brave assertion that she was " used to
Ladies' Aiders," and " didn't mind," she had sighed
at times for some companion of her own age.
Hence her determination to make the most of this
one.

" My name's Pollyanna Whittier," she began
pleasantly. " What's yours? '

Again the boy stirred restlessly. He even almost
got to his feet. But he settled back.

" Jimmy Bean," he grunted with ungracious in-
difference.

"Good! Now we're introduced. I'm glad you
did your part- -some folks don't, you know. I
live at Miss Polly Harrington's house. Where do
you live? '

" Nowhere."

"Nowhere! Why, you can't do that — every-
body lives somewhere," asserted Pollyanna.

"Well, I don't- -just now. I'm huntin' up a
new place."

"Oh! Where is it?"

The boy regarded her with scornful eyes.

"Silly! As if I'd be a-huntin' for it — if I
knew! "

Pollyanna tossed her head a little. This was not
a nice boy, and she did not like to be called " silly."
Still, he was somebody besides — old folks.

101

POLLYANNA

"Where did you live — before?" she queried.

" Well, if you ain't the beat'em for askin' ques-
tions ! ; ' sighed the boy impatiently.

" I have to be," retorted Pollyanna calmly, " else
I couldn't find out a thing about you. If you'd
talk more I wouldn't talk so much."

The boy gave a short laugh. It was a sheepish
laugh, and not quite a willing one; but his face
looked a little pleasanter when he spoke this
time.

"All right then — here goes! I'm Jimmy Bean,
and I'm ten years old goin' on eleven. I come
last year ter live at the Orphans' Home; but
they've got so many kids there ain't much room for
me, an' I wa'n't never wanted, anyhow, I don't
believe. So I've quit. I'm goin' ter live some-
wheres else — but I hain't found the place, yet. I'd
like a home — jest a common one, ye know, with
a mother in it, instead of a Matron. If ye has a
home, ye has folks ; an' I hain't had folks since —
dad died. So I'm a-huntin' now. I've tried four
houses, but — they didn't want me — though I
said I expected ter work, 'course. There! Is that
all you want ter know? ' The boy's voice had
broken a little over the last two sentences.

"Why, what a shame! :> sympathized Pollyanna.
'' And didn't there anybody want you? O dear! I

102

INTRODUCING JIMMY

know just how you feel, because after - - after my
father died, too, there wasn't anybody but the
Ladies' Aid for me, until Aunt Polly said she'd
take — Pollyanna stopped abruptly. The dawn-
ing of a wonderful idea began to show in her
face.

" Oh, I know just the place for you," she cried.
" Aunt Polly'll take you — I know she will ! Didn't
she take me? And didn't she take Fluffy and
Buffy, when they didn't have any one to love them,
or any place to go?- -and they're only cats and
dogs. Oh, come, I know Aunt Polly'll take you!
You don't know how good and kind she is ! '

Jimmy Bean's thin little face brightened.

" Honest Injun? Would she, now? I'd work,
ye know, an' I'm real strong! : He bared a small,
bony arm.

" Of course she would! Why, my Aunt Polly is
the nicest lady in the world - - now that my mama
has gone to be a Heaven angel. And there's rooms

-heaps of 'em," she continued, springing to her
feet, and tugging at his arm. " It's an awful big
house. Maybe, though," she added a little anx-
iously, as they hurried on, " maybe you'll have to
sleep in the attic room. I did, at first. But there's
screens there now, so 'twon't be so hot, and the flies
can't get in, either, to bring in the germ-things on

103

POLLYANNA

their feet. Did you know about that? It's per-
fectly lovely! Maybe she'll let you read the book
if you're good — I mean, if you're bad. And you've
got freckles, too," — with a critical glance — " so
you'll be glad there isn't any looking-glass; and the
outdoor picture is nicer than any wall-one could be,
so you won't mind sleeping in that room at all, I'm
sure," panted Pollyanna, finding suddenly that she
needed the rest of her breath for purposes other
than talking.

"Gorry!3 exclaimed Jimmy Bean tersely and
uncomprehendingly, but admiringly. Then he
added: " I shouldn't think anybody who could talk
like that, runnin', would need ter ask no questions
ter fill up time with! :

Pollyanna laughed.

" Well, anyhow, you can be glad of that," she
retorted; " for when I'm talking, you don't have
to! "

When the house was reached, Pollyanna unhesi-
tatingly piloted her companion straight into the
presence of her amazed aunt.

" Oh, Aunt Polly," she triumphed. " Just look
a-here! I've got something ever so much nicer,
even, than Fluffy and Buffy for you to bring up.
It's a real live boy. He won't mind a bit sleeping
in the attic, at first, you know, and he says he'll

104

INTRODUCING JIMMY

work; but I shall need him the most of the time to
play with, I reckon."

Miss Polly grew white, then very red. She did
not quite understand; but she thought she under-
stood enough.

" Pollyanna, what does this mean? Who is this
dirty little boy? Where did you find him? ' she
demanded sharply.

The "dirty little boy" fell back a step and
looked toward the door. Pollyanna laughed mer-
rily.

"There, if I didn't forget to tell you his name!
I'm as bad as the Man. And he is dirty, too, isn't
he?-— I mean, the boy is — just like Fluffy and
Buffy were when you took them in. But I reckon
he'll improve all right by washing, just as they did,
and — Oh, I 'most forgot again," she broke off
with a laugh. " This is Jimmy Bean, Aunt Polly."

"Well, what is he doing here? '

"Why, Aunt Polly, I just told you! " Polly-
anna's eyes were wide with surprise. " He's for
you. I brought him home — so he could live here,
you know. He wants a home and folks. I told
him how good you were to me, and to Fluffy and
Buffy, and that I knew you would be to him, be-
cause of course he's even nicer than cats and dogs."

Miss Polly dropped back in her chair and raised
a shaking hand to her throat. The old helplessness

105

POLLYANNA

was threatening once more to overcome her. With
a visible struggle, however, Miss Polly pulled her-
self suddenly erect.

"That will do, Pollyanna. This is a little the
most absurd thing you've done yet. As if tramp
cats and mangy dogs weren't bad enough but you
must needs bring home ragged little beggars from
the street, who-

There was a sudden stir from the boy. His eyes
flashed and his chin came up. With two strides of
his sturdy little legs he confronted Miss Polly fear-
lessly.

" I ain't a beggar, marm, an' I don't want nothin'
o' you. I was caPlatin' ter work, of course, fur my
board an' keep. I wouldn't have come ter your old
house, anyhow, if this 'ere girl hadn't 'a' made me,
a-tellin' me how you was so good an' kind that
you'd be jest dyin' ter take me in. So, there! :
And he wheeled about and stalked from the room
with a dignity that would have been absurd had it
not been so pitiful.

"Oh, Aunt Polly," choked Pollyanna. "Why,
I thought you'd be glad to have him here! I'm sure,
I should think you'd be glad-

Miss Polly raised her hand with a peremptory
gesture of silence. Miss Polly's nerves had snapped
at last. The " good and kind" of the boy's words
were still ringing in her ears, and the old helpless-

106

INTRODUCING JIMMY

ness was almost upon her, she knew. Yet she ral-
lied her forces with the last atom of her will power.

" Pollyanna," she cried sharply, ' will you stop
using that everlasting word ' glad ' ! It's * glad '
' glad ' - ' glad ' from morning till night until I
think I shall grow wild ! :

From sheer amazement Pollyanna's jaw dropped.

"Why, Aunt Polly," she breathed, "I should
think you'd be glad to have me gl- Oh! : she
broke off, clapping her hand to her lips and hurry-
ing blindly from the room.

Before the boy had reached the end of the drive-
way, Pollyanna overtook him.

" Boy! Boy! Jimmy Bean, I want you to know
how- -how sorry I am," she panted, catching him
with a detaining hand.

" Sorry nothin' ! I ain't blamin' you," retorted
the boy, sullenly. " But I ain't no beggar! ' he
added, with sudden spirit.

"Of course you aren't! But you mustn't blame
auntie," appealed Pollyanna. " Probably I didn't
do the introducing right, anyhow; and I reckon I
didn't tell her much who you were. She is good
and kind, really- -she's always been; but I prob-
ably didn't explain it right. I do wish I could find
some place for you, though! :

The boy shrugged his shoulders and half turned
away.

107

POLLYANNA

" Never mind. I guess I can find one myself. I
ain't no beggar, you know."

Pollyanna was frowning thoughtfully. Of a sud-
den she turned, her face illumined.

"Say, I'll tell you what I will do! The Ladies'
Aid meets this afternoon. I heard Aunt Polly say
so. I'll lay your case before them. That's what
father always did, when he wanted anything —
educating* the heathen and new carpets, you know."

The boy turned fiercely.

" Well, I ain't a heathen or a new carpet. Be-
sides— what is a Ladies' Aid? "

Pollyanna stared in shocked disapproval.

" Why, Jimmy Bean, wherever have you been
brought up? — not to know what a Ladies' Aid
is! "

"Oh, all right — if you ain't tellin'," grunted the
boy, turning and beginning to walk away indiffer-
ently.

Pollyanna sprang to his side at once.

" It's — it's — why, it's just a lot of ladies that
meet and sew and give suppers and raise money
and — and talk; that's what a Ladies' Aid is.
They're awfully kind — that is, most of mine was,
back home. I haven't seen this one here, but they're
always good, I reckon. I'm going to tell them about
you this afternoon."

Again the boy turned fiercely.

108

INTRODUCING JIMMY

" Not much you will 1 Maybe you think I'm
goin' ter stand 'round an' hear a whole lot o' women
call me a beggar, instead of jest one! Not much! "

" Oh, but you wouldn't be there," argued Polly-
anna, quickly. " I'd go alone, of course, and tell
them."

" You would? "

"Yes; and I'd tell it better this time," hurried
on Pollyanna, quick to see the signs of relenting in
the boy's face. " And there'd be some of 'em, I
know, that would be glad to give you a home."

" I'd work — don't forget ter say that," cau-
tioned the boy.

" Of course not," promised Pollyanna, happily,
sure now that her point was gained. " Then I'll let
you know to-morrow."

"Where?"

" By the road- -where I found you to-day; near
Mrs. Snow's house."

" All right. I'll be there." The boy paused be-
fore he went on slowly: " Maybe I'd better go back,
then, for ter-night, ter the Home. You see I hain't
no other place ter stay; and — and I didn't leave
till this mornin'. I slipped out. I didn't tell 'em I
wasn't comin' back, else they'd pretend I couldn't
come — though I'm thinkin' they won't do no
worryin' when I don't show up sometime. They
ain't like jolks, ye know. They don't care! "

109

POLLYANNA

" I know," nodded Pollyanna, with understand-
ing eyes. " But I'm sure, when I see you to-mor-
row, I'll have just a common home and folks that
do care all ready for you. Good-by! : she called
brightly, as she turned back toward the house.

In the sitting-room window at that moment, Miss
Polly, who had been watching the two children,
followed with sombre eyes the boy until a bend of
the road hid him from sight. Then she sighed,
turned, and walked listlessly up-stairs — and Miss
Polly did not usually move listlessly. In her ears
still was the boy's scornful " you was so good and
kind." In her heart was a curious sense of desola-
tion — as of something lost.

110

CHAPTER XII

BEFORE THE LADIES' AID

DINNER, which came at noon in the Harrington
homestead, was a silent meal on the day of the
Ladies' Aid meeting. Pollyanna, it is true, tried
to talk; but she did not make a success of it, chiefly
because four times she was obliged to break off a
" glad ' in the middle of it, much to her blushing
discomfort. The fifth time it happened, Miss Polly
moved her head wearily.

" There, there, child, say it, if you want to," she
sighed. " I'm sure I'd rather you did than not —
if it's going to make all this fuss."

Pollyanna's puckered little face cleared.

" Oh, thank you. I'm afraid it would be pretty
hard- -not to say it. You see I've played it so
long."

" You've - - what? ' demanded Aunt Polly.

"Played it --the game, you know, that
father — ' Pollyanna stopped with a painful
blush at finding herself so soon again on forbidden
ground.

Ill

POLLYANNA

Aunt Polly frowned and said nothing. The rest
of the meal was a silent one.

Pollyanna was not sorry to hear Aunt Polly tell
the minister's wife over the telephone, a little later,
that she would not be at the Ladies' Aid meeting
that afternoon, owing to a headache. When Aunt
Polly went up-stairs to her room and closed the
door, Pollyanna tried to be sorry for the headache;
but she could not help feeling glad that her aunt
was not to be present that afternoon when she laid
the case of Jimmy Bean before the Ladies' Aid.
She could not forget that Aunt Polly had called
Jimmy Bean a little beggar; and she did not want
Aunt Polly to call him that — before the Ladies'
Aid.

Pollyanna knew that the Ladies' Aid met at two
o'clock in the chapel next the church, not quite half
a mile from home. She planned her going, there-
fore, so that she should get there a little before
three.

" I want them all to be there," she said to her-
self; " else the very one that wasn't there might be
the one who would be wanting to give Jimmy Bean
a home; and, of course, two o'clock always means
three, really — to Ladies' Aiders."

Quietly, but with confident courage, Pollyanna
ascended the chapel steps, pushed open the door and
entered the vestibule. A soft babel of feminine

112

BEFORE THE LADIES' AID

chatter and laughter came from the main room.
Hesitating only a brief moment Pollyanna pushed
open one of the inner doors.

The chatter dropped to a surprised hush. Polly-
anna advanced a little timidly. Now that the time
had come, she felt unwontedly shy. After all, these
half-strange, half-familiar faces about her were not
her own dear Ladies' Aid.

" How do you do, Ladies' Aiders? " she faltered
politely. " I'm Pollyanna Whittier. I - - 1 reckon
some of you know me, maybe; anyway, I do you
— only I don't know you all together this way."

The silence could almost be felt now. Some of
the ladies did know this rather extraordinary niece
of their fellow-member, and nearly all had heard
of her; but not one of them could think of any-
thing to say, just then.

" I - - I've come to - - to lay the case before you,"
stammered Pollyanna, after a moment, uncon-
sciously falling into her father's familiar phrase-
ology.

There was a slight rustle.

"Did — did your aunt send you, my dear?'
asked Mrs. Ford, the minister's wife.

Pollyanna colored a little.

" Oh, no. I came all by myself. You see, I'm
used to Ladies' Aiders. It was Ladies' Aiders that
brought me up — with father."

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POLLYANNA

Somebody tittered hysterically, and the minister's
wife frowned.

" Yes, dear. What is it? "

"Well, it — it's Jimmy Bean," sighed Polly-
anna. " He hasn't any home except the Orphan
one, and they're full, and don't want him, anyhow,
he thinks; so he wants another. He wants one of
the common kind, that has a mother instead of a
Matron in it — folks, you know, that'll care. He's
ten years old going on eleven. I thought some of
you might like him - - to live with you, you know."

" Well, did you ever! :' murmured a voice, break-
ing the dazed pause that followed Pollyanna's
words.

With anxious eyes Pollyanna swept the circle of
faces about her.

" Oh, I forgot to say; he will work," she sup-
plemented eagerly.

Still there was silence; then, coldly, one or two
women began to question her. After a time they
all had the story and began to talk among them-
selves, animatedly, not quite pleasantly.

Pollyanna listened with growing anxiety. Some
of what was said she could not understand. She
did gather, after a time, however, that there was
no woman there who had a home to give him,
though every woman seemed to think that some of
the others might take him, as there were several

BEFORE THE LADIES' AID

who had no little boys of their own already in their
homes. But there was no one who agreed herself
to take him. Then she heard the minister's wife
suggest timidly that they, as a society, might per-
haps assume his support and education instead of
sending quite so much money this year to the little
boys in far-away India.

A great many ladies talked then, and several of
them talked all at once, and even more loudly and
more unpleasantly than before. It seemed that their
society was famous for its offering to Hindu mis-
sions, and several said they should die of mortifi-
cation if it should be less this year. Some of what
was said at this time Pollyanna again thought she
could not have understood, too, for it sounded al-
most as if they did not care at all what the money
did, so long as the sum opposite the name of their
society in a certain " report " " headed the list " —
and of course that could not be what they meant at
all! But it was all very confusing, and not quite
pleasant, so that Pollyanna was glad, indeed, when
at last she found herself outside in the hushed, sweet
air - - only she was very sorry, too : for she knew
it was not going to be easy, or anything but sad,
to tell Jimmy Bean to-morrow that the Ladies' Aid
had decided that they would rather send all their
money to bring up the little India boys than to
save out enough to bring up one little boy in their

115

POLLYANNA

own town, for which they would not get " a bit
of credit in the report," according to the tall lady
who wore spectacles.

" Not but that it's good, of course, to send money
to the heathen, and I shouldn't want 'em not to
send some there," sighed Pollyanna to herself, as
she trudged sorrowfully along. " But they acted as
if little boys here weren't any account — only little
boys 'way off. I should think, though, they'd rather
see Jimmy Bean grow — than just a report! "

116

CHAPTER XIII

IN PENDLETON WOODS

POLLYANNA had not turned her steps toward
home, when she left the chapel. She had turned
them, instead, toward Pendleton Hill. It had been
a hard day, for all it had been a " vacation one" (as
she termed the infrequent days when there was no
sewing or cooking lesson), and Polly anna was sure
that nothing would do her quite so much good as
a walk through the green quiet of Pendleton Woods.
Up Pendleton Hill, therefore, she climbed steadily,
in spite of the warm sun on her back.

" I don't have to get home till half-past five, any-
way," she was telling herself; " and it'll be so much
nicer to go around by the way of the woods, even
if I do have to climb to get there."

It was very beautiful in the Pendleton Woods, as
Pollyanna knew by experience. But to-day it
seemed even more delightful than ever, notwith-
standing her disappointment over what she must
tell Jimmy Bean to-morrow.

" I wish they were up here — all those ladies
who talked so loud," sighed Pollyanna to herself,

117

POLLYANNA

raising her eyes to the patches of vivid blue between
the sunlit green of the tree-tops. " Anyhow, if
they were up here, I just reckon they'd change and
take Jimmy Bean for their little boy, all right," she
finished, secure in her conviction, but unable to give
a reason for it, even to herself.

Suddenly Pollyanna lifted her head and listened.
A dog had barked some distance ahead. A moment
later he came dashing toward her, still barking.

"Hullo, doggie — hullo!" Pollyanna snapped
her fingers at the dog and looked expectantly down
the path. She had seen the dog once before, she
was sure. He had been then with the Man, Mr.
John Pendleton. She was looking now, hoping to
see him. For some minutes she watched eagerly,
but he did not appear. Then she turned her atten-
tion toward the dog.

The dog, as even Pollyanna could see, was acting
strangely. He was still barking — giving little
short, sharp yelps, as if of alarm. He was running
back and forth, too, in the path ahead. Soon they
reached a side path, and down this the little dog
fairly flew, only to come back at once, whining and
barking.

" Ho! That isn't the way home," laughed Polly-
anna, still keeping to the main path.

The little dog seemed frantic now. Back and
forth, back and forth, between Pollyanna and the

118

IN PENDLETON WOODS

side path he vibrated, barking and whining pitifully.
Every quiver of his little brown body, and every
glance from his beseeching brown eyes were elo-
quent with appeal - - so eloquent that at last Polly-
anna understood, turned, and followed him.

Straight ahead, now, the little dog dashed madly;
and it was not long before Pollyanna came upon
the reason for it all: a man lying motionless at the
foot of a steep, overhanging mass of rock a few
yards from the side path.

A twig cracked sharply under Pollyanna's foot,
and the man turned his head. With a cry of dis-
may Pollyanna ran to his side.

" Mr. Pendleton! Oh, are you hurt? "

11 Hurt? Oh, no! I'm just taking a siesta in
the sunshine," snapped the man irritably. " See
here, how much do you know? What can you do?
Have you got any sense? '

Pollyanna caught her breath with a little gasp,
but — as was her habit — she answered the ques-
tions literally, one by one.

" Why, Mr. Pendleton, I — I don't know so very
much, and I can't do a great many things; but
most of the Ladies' Aiders, except Mrs. Rawson,
said I had real good sense. I heard 'em say so one
day — they didn't know I heard, though."

The man smiled grimly.

" There, there, child, I beg your pardon, I'm

119

POLLYANNA

sure; it's only this confounded leg of mine. Now
listen." He paused, and with some difficulty
reached his hand into his trousers pocket and
brought out a bunch of keys, singling out one be-
tween his thumb and forefinger. " Straight
through the path there, about five minutes' walk, is
my house. This key will admit you to the side door
under the porte-cochere. Do you know what a
porte-cochere is? '

" Oh, yes, sir. Auntie has one with a sun parlor
over it. That's the roof I slept on — only I didn't
sleep, you know. They found me."

" Eh? Oh! Well, when you get into the house,
go straight through the vestibule and hall to the
door at the end. On the big, flat-topped desk in
the middle of the room you'll find a telephone. Do
you know how to use a telephone? '

" Oh, yes, sir! Why, once when Aunt Polly — "

" Never mind Aunt Polly now," cut in the man
scowlingly, as he tried to move himself a little.
" Hunt up Dr. Thomas Chilton's number on the
card you'll find somewhere around there — it ought
to be on the hook down at the side, but it probably
won't be. You know a telephone card, I suppose,
when you see one! :

" Oh, yes, sir! I just love Aunt Polly's. There's
such a lot of queer names, and — '

" Tell Dr. Chilton that John Pendleton is at the

120

IN PENDLETON WOODS

foot of Little Eagle Ledge in Pendleton Woods
with a broken leg, and to come at once with a
stretcher and two men. He'll know what to do
besides that. Tell him to come by the path from
the house."

"A broken leg? Oh, Mr. Pendleton, how per-
fectly awful! :' shuddered Pollyanna. " But I'm so
glad I came ! Can't 7 do — "

" Yes, you can — but evidently you won't! Will
you go and do what I ask and stop talking," moaned
the man, faintly. And, with a little sobbing cry,
Pollyanna went.

Pollyanna did not stop now to look up at the
patches of blue between the sunlit tops of the trees.
She kept her eyes on the ground to make sure that
no twig nor stone tripped her hurrying feet.

It was not long before she came in sight of the
house. She had seen it before, though never so
near as this. She was almost frightened now at
the massiveness of the great pile of gray stone with
its pillared verandas and its imposing entrance.
Pausing only a moment, however, she sped across
the big neglected lawn and around the house to the
side door under the porte-cochere. Her fingers,
stiff from their tight clutch upon the keys, were any-
thing but skilful in their efforts to turn the bolt in
the lock; but at last the heavy, carved door swung
slowly back on its hinges.

121

POLLYANNA

Polly anna caught her breath. In spite of her
feeling of haste, she paused a moment and looked
fearfully through the vestibule to the wide, sombre
hall beyond, her thoughts in a whirl. This was
John Pendleton's house; the house of mystery; the
house into which no one but its master entered; the
house which sheltered, somewhere --a skeleton.
Yet she, Pollyanna, was expected to enter alone
these fearsome rooms, and telephone the doctor that
the master of the house lay now —

With a little cry Pollyanna, looking neither to
the right nor the left, fairly ran through the hall
to the door at the end and opened it.

The room was large, and sombre with dark woods
and hangings like the hall; but through the west
window the sun threw a long shaft of gold across
the floor, gleamed dully on the tarnished brass and-
irons in the fireplace, and touched the nickel of the
telephone on the great desk in the middle of the
room. It was toward this desk that Pollyanna
hurriedly tiptoed.

The telephone card was not on its hook; it was
on the floor. But Pollyanna found it, and ran her
shaking forefinger down through the C's to " Chil-
ton." In due time she had Dr. Chilton himself at
the other end of the wires, and was tremblingly
delivering her message and answering the doctor's

122

IN PENDLETON WOODS

terse, pertinent questions. This done, she hung up
the receiver and drew a long breath of relief.

Only a brief glance did Pollyanna give about her;
then, with a confused vision in her eyes of crimson
draperies, book-lined walls, a littered floor, an un-
tidy desk, innumerable closed doors (any one of
which might conceal a skeleton), and everywhere
dust, dust, dust, she fled back through the hall to
the great carved door, still half open as she had
left it.

In what seemed, even to the injured man, an in-
credibly short time, Pollyanna was back in the
woods at the man's side.

"Well, what is the trouble? Couldn't you get
in? " he demanded.

Pollyanna opened wide her eyes.

"Why, of course I could! I'm here" she an-
swered. " As if I'd be here if I hadn't got in! And
the doctor will be right up just as soon as possible
with the men and things. He said he knew just
where you were, so I didn't stay to show him. I
wanted to be with you."

" Did you? '' smiled the man, grimly. " Well, I
can't say I admire your taste. I should think you
might find pleasanter companions."

"Do you mean — because you're so- -cross?'

" Thanks for your frankness. Yes."

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POLLYANNA

Pollyanna laughed softly.

" But you're only cross outside — you aren't cross
inside a bit! "

" Indeed! How do you know that? " asked the
man, trying to change the position of his head with-
out moving the rest of his body.

" Oh, lots of ways; there — like that — the way
you act with the dog," she added, pointing to the
long, slender hand that rested on the dog's sleek
head near him. " It's funny how dogs and cats
know* the insides of folks better than other folks
do, isn't it? Say, I'm going to hold your head,"
she finished abruptly.

The man winced several times and groaned once
softly while the change was being made; but in the
end he found Pollyanna's lap a very welcome sub-
stitute for the rocky hollow in which his head had
lain before.

" Well, that is — better," he murmured faintly.

He did not speak again for some time. Polly-
anna, watching his face, wondered if he were asleep.
She did not think he was. He looked as if his lips
were tight shut to keep back moans of pain. Polly-
anna herself almost cried aloud as she looked at
his great, strong body lying there so helpless. One
hand, with fingers tightly clenched, lay outflung,
motionless. The other, limply open, lay on thr

124

IN PENDLETON WOODS

dog's head. The dog, his wistful, eager eyes on his
master's face, was motionless, too.

Minute by minute the time passed. The sun
dropped lower in the west and the shadows grew
deeper under the trees. Pollyanna sat so still she
hardly seemed to breathe. A bird alighted fear-
lessly within reach of her hand, and a squirrel
whisked his bushy tail on a tree-branch almost
under her nose — yet with his bright little eyes all
the while on the motionless dog.

At last the dog pricked up his ears and whined
softly; then he gave a short, sharp bark. The
next moment Pollyanna heard voices, and very soon
their owners appeared — three men carrying a
stretcher and various other articles.

The tallest of the party — a smooth-shaven,
kind-eyed man whom Pollyanna knew by sight as
" Dr. Chilton " — advanced cheerily.

" Well, my little lady, playing nurse? '

" Oh, no, sir," smiled Pollyanna. " I've only
held his head — I haven't given him a mite of med-
icine. But I'm glad I was here."

"So am I," nodded the doctor, as he turned his
absorbed attention to the injured man.

125

CHAPTER XIV

JUST A MATTER OF JELLY

V

POLLYANNA was a little late for supper on the
night of the accident to John Pendleton; but, as it
happened, she escaped without reproof.

Nancy met her at the door.

" Well, if I ain't glad ter be settin' my two eyes
on you," she sighed in obvious relief. " It's half-
past six! :

" I know it," admitted Pollyanna anxiously; " but
I'm not to blame — truly I'm not. And I don't
think even Aunt Polly will say I am, either."

" She won't have the chance," retorted Nancy,
with huge satisfaction. " She's gone."

" Gone! : gasped Pollyanna. "You don't mean
that I've driven her away? ' Through Pollyanna's
mind at the moment trooped remorseful memories
of the morning with its unwanted boy, cat, and
dog, and its unwelcome " glad ' and forbidden
" father ' that would spring to her forgetful little
tongue. " Oh, I didn't drive her away? '

" Not much you did," scoffed Nancy. " Her

226

JUST A MATTER OF JELLY

cousin died suddenly down to Boston, and she had
ter go. She had one o' them yeller telegram letters
after you went away this afternoon, and she won't
be back for three days. Now I guess we're glad
all right. We'll be keepin' house tergether, jest you
and me, all that time. We will, we will! '

Polly anna looked shocked.

" Glad! Oh, Nancy, when it's a funeral? '

" Oh, but 'twa'n't the funeral I was glad for, Miss
Pollyanna. It was- Nancy stopped abruptly.
A shrewd twinkle came into her eyes. " Why, Miss
Pollyanna, as if it wa'n't yerself that was teachin'
me ter play the game," she reproached her gravely.

Pollyanna puckered her forehead into a troubled
frown.

" I can't help it, Nancy," she argued with a shake
of her head. " It must be that there are some things
that 'tisn't right to play the game on — and I'm sure
funerals is one of them. There's nothing in a fu-
neral to be glad about."

Nancy chuckled.

" We can be glad 'tain't our'n," she observed de-
murely. But Pollyanna did not hear. She had
begun to tell of the accident; and in a moment
Nancy, open-mouthed, was listening.

At the appointed place the next afternoon, Polly-
anna met Jimmy Bean according to agreement. As

127

POLLYANNA

was to be expected, of course, Jimmy showed keen
disappointment that the Ladies' Aid preferred a
little India boy to himself.

"Well, maybe 'tis natural," he sighed. "Of
course things you don't know about are always
nicer'n things you do, same as the pertater on 'tother
side of the plate is always the biggest. But I wish
I looked that way ter somebody 'way off. Wouldn't
it be jest great, now, if only somebody over in India
Wanted me? "

Pollyanna clapped her hands.

" Why, of course! That's the very thing, Jimmy!
I'll write to my Ladies' Aiders about you. They
aren't over in India; they're only out West — but
that's awful far away, just the same. I reckon
you'd think so if you'd come all the way here as I
did! "

Jimmy's face brightened.

" Do you think they would — truly — take me? "
he asked.

"Of course they would! Don't they take little
boys in India to bring up? Well, they can just
play you are the little India boy this time. I reckon
you're far enough away to make a report, all right.
You wait. I'll write 'em. I'll write Mrs. White.
No, I'll write Mrs. Jones. Mrs. White has got the
most money, but Mrs. Jones gives the most — which

128

JUST A MATTER OF JELLY

is kind of funny, isn't it? — when you think of it.
But I reckon some of the Aiders will take you."

"All right — but don't furgit ter say I'll work
fur my board an' keep," put in Jimmy. " I ain't
no beggar, an' biz'ness is biz'ness, even with Ladies'
Aiders, I'm thinkin'." He hesitated, then added:
" An' I s'pose I better stay where I be fur a spell
yet — till you hear."

" Of course," nodded Pollyanna emphatically.
" Then I'll know just where to find you. And
they'll take you - - I'm sure you're far enough away
for that. Didn't Aunt Polly take— Say! " she
broke off, suddenly, "do you suppose I was Aunt
Polly's little girl from India? "

" Well, if you ain't the queerest kid," grinned
Jimmy, as he turned away.

It was about a week after the accident in Pendle-
ton Woods that Pollyanna said to her aunt one
morning:

" Aunt Polly, please would you mind very mufch
if I took Mrs. Snow's calf's-foot jelly this week to
some one else? I'm sure Mrs. Snow wouldn't —
this once."

" Dear me, Pollyanna, what are you up to now? '
sighed her aunt. " You are the most extraordinary
child! "

Pollyanna frowned a little anxiously.

129

POLLYANNA

" Aunt Polly, please, what is extraordinary? If
you're extraordinary you can't be ordinary, can
you? "

" You certainly can not."

"Oh, that's all right, then. I'm glad I'm ex-
traordinary," sighed Pollyanna, her face clearing.

" You see, Mrs. White used to say Mrs. Rawson
was a very ordinary woman — and she disliked
Mrs. Rawson something awful. They were always
fight — I mean, father had — that is, I mean, we
had more trouble keeping peace between them than
we did between any of the rest of the Aiders," cor-
rected Pollyanna, a little breathless from her efforts
to steer between the Scylla of her father's past
commands in regard to speaking of church quarrels,
and the Charybdis of her aunt's present commands
in regard to speaking of her father.

"Yes, yes; well, never mind," interposed Aunt
Polly, a trifle impatiently. " You do run on so,
Pollyanna, and no matter what we're talking about
you always bring up those Ladies' Aiders! "

" Yes'm," smiled Pollyanna, cheerfully, " I
reckon I do, maybe. But you see they used to bring
me up, and — '

" That will do, Pollyanna," interrupted a cold
voice. " Now what is it about this jelly? '

" Nothing, Aunt Polly, truly, that you would
mind, I'm sure. You let me take jelly to her, so I

130

JUST A MATTER OF JELLY

thought you would to him — this once. You see,
broken legs aren't like — like lifelong invalids, so
his won't last forever as Mrs. Snow's does, and
she can have all the rest of the things after just
once or twice."

" 'Him ' ? < He ' ? ' Broken leg ' ? What are
you talking about, Polly anna? '

Polly anna stared; then her face relaxed.

" Oh, I forgot. I reckon you didn't know. You
see, it happened while you were gone. It was the
very day you went that I found him in the woods,
you know; and I had to unlock his house and tele-
phone for the men and the doctor, and hold his
head, and everything. And of course then I came
away and haven't seen him since. But when Nancy
made the jelly for Mrs. Snow this week I thought
how nice it would be if I could take it to him in-
stead of her, just this once. Aunt Polly, may I? '

" Yes, yes, I suppose so," acquiesced Miss Polly,
a little wearily. " Who did you say he was? '

" The Man. I mean, Mr. John Pendleton."

Miss Polly almost sprang from her chair.

"John Pendleton!"

" Yes. Nancy told me his name. Maybe you
know him."

Miss Polly did not answer this. Instead she
asked :

" Do you know him? '

131

POLLYANNA

Polly anna nodded.

" Oh, yes. He always speaks and smiles — now.
He's only cross outside, you know. I'll go and get
the jelly. Nancy had it 'most fixed when I came
in," finished Pollyanna, already halfway across the
room.

" Pollyanna, wait! : Miss Polly's voice was
suddenly very stern. " I've changed my mind. I
would prefer that Mrs. Snow had that jelly to-day
— as usual. That is all. You may go now."

Polly anna's face fell.

" Oh, but Aunt Polly, hers will last. She can
always be sick and have things, you know; but his
is just a broken leg, and legs don't last — I
mean, broken ones. He's had it a whole week

now."

" Yes, I remember. I heard Mr. John Pendleton
had met with an accident," said Miss Polly, a little
stiffly; " but — I do not care to be sending jelly to
John Pendleton, Pollyanna."

" I know, he is cross — outside," admitted Polly-
anna, sadly, " so I suppose you don't like him. But
I wouldn't say 'twas you sent it. I'd say 'twas me.
I like him. I'd be glad to send him jelly."

Miss Polly began to shake her head again. Then,
suddenly, she stopped, and asked in a curiously quiet
voice :

" Does he know who you — are, Pollyanna? "

132

JUST A MATTER OF JELLY

The little girl sighed.

" I reckon not. I told him my name, once, but
he never calls me it — never."

" Does he know where you — live? '

" Oh, no. I never told him that."

"Then he doesn't know you're my — niece?"

" I don't think so."

For a moment there was silence. Miss Polly was
looking at Pollyanna with eyes that did not seem
to see her at all. The little girl, shifting impa-
tiently from one small foot to the other, sighed
audibly. Then Miss Polly roused herself with a
start.

" Very well, Pollyanna," she said at last, still in
that queer voice, so unlike her own; "you may —
you may take the jelly to Mr. Pendleton as your
own gift. But understand: I do not send it. Be
very sure that he does not think I do ! :

" Yes'm — no'm — thank you, Aunt Polly," ex-
ulted Pollyanna, as she flew through the door.

133

CHAPTER XV

DR. CHILTON

THE great gray pile of masonry looked very dif-
ferent to Pollyanna when she made her second visit
to the house of Mr. John Pendleton. Windows
were open, an elderly woman was hanging out
clothes in the back yard, and the doctor's gig stood
under the porte-cochere.

As before Pollyanna went to the side door. This
time she rang the bell — -her fingers were not stiff
to-day from a tight clutch on a bunch of keys.

A familiar-looking small dog bounded up the
steps to greet her, but there was a slight delay be-
fore the woman who had been hanging out the
clothes opened the door.

" If you please, I've brought some calf's-foot
jelly for Mr. Pendleton," smiled Pollyanna.

" Thank you," said the woman, reaching for the
bowl in the little girl's hand. "Who shall I say
sent it? And it's calf's-foot jelly? "

The doctor, coming into the hall at that moment,
heard the woman's words and saw the disappointed

134

DR. CHILTON

look on Pollyanna's face. He stepped quickly for-
ward.

"Ah! Some calf's-foot jelly?' he asked geni-
ally. " That will be fine! Maybe you'd like to see
our patient, eh? '

"Oh, yes, sir," beamed Pollyanna; and the
woman, in obedience to a nod from the doctor, led
the way down the hall at once, though plainly with
vast surprise on her face.

Behind the doctor, a young man (a trained nurse
from the nearest city) gave a disturbed exclamation.

" But, Doctor, didn't Mr. Pendleton give orders
not to admit - - any one? '

"Oh, yes," nodded the doctor, imperturbably.
" But I'm giving orders now. I'll take the risk."
Then he added whimsically: "You don't know, of
course; but that little girl is better than a six-quart
bottle of tonic any day. If anything or anybody
can take the grouch out of Pendleton this afternoon,
she can. That's why I sent her in."

" Who is she? "

For one brief moment the doctor hesitated.

" She's the niece of one our best known resi-
dents. Her name is Pollyanna Whittier. I — I
don't happen to enjoy a very extensive personal ac-
quaintance with the little lady as yet; but lots of
my patients do — I'm thankful to say! "

The nurse smiled.

135

x Indeed 1 And what are the special ingredients
of this wonder-working — tonic of hers? "

The doctor shook his head.

" I don't know. As near as I can find out it is
an overwhelming, unquenchable gladness for every-
thing that has happened or is going to happen. At
any rate, her quaint speeches are constantly being
repeated to me, and, as near as I can make out,
1 just being glad ' is the tenor of most of them.
All is," he added, with another whimsical smile, as
he stepped out on to the porch, " I wish I could
prescribe her — and buy her — as I would a box
of pills; — though if there gets to be many of her
in the world, you and I might as well go to ribbon-
selling and ditch-digging for all the money we'd
get out of nursing and doctoring," he laughed, pick-
ing up the reins and stepping into the gig.

Pollyanna, meanwhile, in accordance with the
doctor's orders, was being escorted to John Pendle-
ton's rooms.

Her way led through the great library at the end
of the hall, and, rapid as was her progress through
it, Pollyanna saw at once that great changes had
taken place. The book-lined walls and the crimson
curtains were the same; but there was no litter on
the floor, no untidiness on the desk, and not so much
as a grain of dust in sight. The telephone card

136

DR. CHILTON

hung in its proper place, and the brass andirons had
been polished. One of the mysterious doors was
open, and it was toward this that the maid led the
way. A moment later Pollyanna found herself in
a sumptuously furnished bedroom while the maid
was saying in a frightened voice:

" If you "please, sir, here — here's a little girl with
some jelly. The doctor said I was to — to bring
her in."

The next moment Pollyanna found herself alone
with a very cross-looking man lying flat on his back
in bed.

" See here, didn't I say - ' began an angry voice.
"Oh, it's you! :' it broke off not very graciously, as
Pollyanna advanced toward the bed.

" Yes, sir," smiled Pollyanna. " Oh, I'm so glad
they let me in! You see, at first the lady 'most took
my jelly, and I was so afraid I wasn't going to see
you at all. Then the doctor came, and he said I
might. Wasn't he lovely to let me see you? '

In spite of himself the man's lips twitched into
a smile; but all he said was " Humph! :

"And I've brought you some jelly," resumed
Pollyanna; " -— calf's-foot. I hope you like it?'
There was a rising inflection in her voice.

" Never ate it." The fleeting smile had gone,
and the scowl had come back to the man's face.

137

POLLYANNA

For a brief instant Pollyanna's countenance
showed disappointment; but it cleared as she set
the bowl of jelly down.

" Didn't you? Well, if you didn't, then you can't
know you don't like it, anyhow, can you? So I
reckon I'm glad you haven't, after all. Now, if
you knew — '

"Yes, yes; well, there's one thing I know all
right, and that is that I'm flat on my back right
here this minute, and that I'm liable to stay here —
till doomsday, I guess."

Pollyanna looked shocked.

"Oh, no! It couldn't be till doomsday, you
know, when the angel Gabriel blows his trumpet,
unless it should come quicker than we think it will
— oh, of course, I know the Bible says it may come
quicker than we think, but I don't think it will —
that is, of course I believe the Bible; but I mean I
don't think it will come as much quicker as it would
if it should come now, and — '

John Pendleton laughed suddenly — and aloud.
The nurse, coming in at that moment, heard the
laugh, and beat a hurried — but a very silent —
retreat. He had the air of a frightened cook who,
seeing the danger of a breath of cold air striking
a half-done cake, hastily shuts the oven door.

" Aren't you getting a little mixed? " asked John
Pendleton of Pollyanna.

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DR. CHILTON

The little girl laughed.

" Maybe. But what I mean is, that legs don't
last — broken ones, you know — like lifelong inva-
lids, same as Mrs. Snow has got. So yours won't
last till doomsday at all. I should think you could
be glad of that."

" Oh, I am," retorted the man grimly.

" And you didn't break but one. You can be glad
'twasn't two." Pollyanna was warming to her task.

"Of course! So fortunate," sniffed the man,
with uplifted eyebrows; "looking at it from that
standpoint, I suppose I might be glad I wasn't a
centipede and didn't break fifty! :

Pollyanna chuckled.

" Oh, that's the best yet," she crowed. " I know
what a centipede is; they've got lots of legs. And
you can be glad — '

" Oh, of course," interrupted the man, sharply,
all the old bitterness coming back to his voice; " I
can be glad, too, for all the rest, I suppose — the
nurse, and the doctor, and that confounded woman
in the kitchen! 3

" Why, yes, sir — only think how bad 'twould be
if you didn't have them! :

"Well, I — eh? ' he demanded sharply.

"Why, I say, only think how bad it would be if
you didn't have 'em — and you lying here like
this! "

139

POLLYANNA

" As if that wasn't the very thing that was at the
bottom of the whole matter," retorted the man,
testily, " because I am lying here like this! And
yet you expect me to say I'm glad because of a fool
woman who disarranges the whole house and calls
it i regulating,' and a man who aids and abets her
in it, and calls it ' nursing,' to say nothing of the
doctor who eggs 'em both on — and the whole
bunch of them, meanwhile, expecting me to pay
them for it, and pay them well, too! :

Pollyanna frowned sympathetically.

" Yes, I know. That part is too bad — about
the money — when you've been saving it, too, all
this time."

"When— eh?"

" Saving it — buying beans and fish balls, you
know. Say, do you like beans? — or do you
like turkey better, only on account of the sixty
cents? "

" Look a-here, child, what are you talking
about? "

Pollyanna smiled radiantly.

" About your money, you know — denying your-
self, and saving it for the heathen. You see, I
found out about it. Why, Mr. Pendleton, that's
one of the ways I knew you weren't cross inside
Nancy told me."

The man's jaw dropped.

140

DR. CHILTON

" Nancy told you I was saving money for the —
Well, may I inquire who Nancy is? '

" Our Nancy. She works for Aunt Polly."

" Aunt Polly ! Well, who is Aunt Polly? "

" She's Miss Polly Harrington. I live with her."

The man made a sudden movement.

"Miss — Polly — Harrington! " he breathed.
" You live with — her! "

"Yes; I'm her niece. She's taken me to bring
up — on account of my mother, you know," fal-
tered Pollyanna, in a low voice. " She was her
sister. And after father — went to be with her and
the rest of us in Heaven, there wasn't any one left
for me down here but the Ladies' Aid; so she took

me.'

The man did not answer. His face, as he lay
back on the pillow now, was very white - - so white
that Pollyanna was frightened. She rose uncer-
tainly to her feet.

" I reckon maybe I'd better go now," she pro-
posed. "I — I hope you'll like — the jelly."

The man turned his head suddenly, and opened
his eyes. There was a curious longing in their dark
depths which even Pollyanna saw, and at which she
marvelled.

"And so you are — Miss Polly Harrington's
niece," he said gently.

"Yes, sir."

141

POLLYANNA

Still the man's dark eyes lingered on her face,
until Pollyanna, feeling vaguely restless, murmured :

"I — I suppose you know — her.57

John Pendleton's lips curved in an odd smile.

" Oh, yes; I know her." He hesitated, then went
on, still with that curious smile. " But — you don't
mean — you can't mean that it was Miss Polly
Harrington who sent that jelly — to me?" he said
slowly.

Pollyanna looked distressed.

" N-no, sir; she didn't. She said I must be very
sure not to let you think she did send it. But
I—"

" I thought as much," vouchsafed the man,
shortly, turning away his head. And Pollyanna,
still more distressed, tiptoed from the room.

Under the porte-cochere she found the doctor
waiting in his gig. The nurse stood on the steps.

" Well, Miss Pollyanna, may I have the pleasure
of seeing you home? ' asked the doctor smilingly.
" I started to drive on a few minutes ago; then it
occurred to me that I'd wait for you."

" Thank you, sir. I'm glad you did. I just
love to ride," beamed Pollyanna, as he reached out
his hand to help her in.

" Do you? " smiled the doctor, nodding his head
in farewell to the young man on the steps. " Well,
as near as I can judge, there are a good many

142

DR. CHILTON

things you 'love' to do — eh? " he added, as they
drove briskly away.

Pollyanna laughed.

" Why, I don't know. I reckon perhaps there
are," she admitted. " I like to do 'most everything
that's living. Of course I don't like the other
things very well — sewing, and reading out loud,
and all that. But they aren't living."

"No? What are they, then? "

" Aunt Polly says they're l learning to live,'
sighed Pollyanna, with a rueful smile.

The doctor smiled now — a little queerly.

"Does she? Well, I should think she might
say — just that."

" Yes," responded Pollyanna. " But I don't see
it that way at all. I don't think you have to learn
how to live. I didn't, anyhow."

The doctor drew a long sigh.

"After all, I'm afraid some of us — do have to,
little girl," he said. Then, for a time he was silent.
Pollyanna, stealing a glance at his face, felt vaguely
sorry for him. He looked so sad. She wished,
uneasily, that she could " do something." It was
this, perhaps, that caused her to say in a timid
voice :

" Dr. Chilton, I should think being a doctor would
be the very gladdest kind of a business there was."

The doctor turned in surprise.

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POLLYANNA

" ' Gladdest ' ! — when I see so much suffering
always, everywhere I go? " he cried.

She nodded.

" I know; but you're helping it — don't you see?
— and of course you're glad to help it! And so
that makes you the gladdest of any of us, all the
time."

The doctor's eyes filled with sudden hot tears.
The doctor's life was a singularly lonely one. He
had no wife and no home save his two-room office
in a boarding house. His profession was very dear
to him. Looking now into Pollyanna's shining eyes,
he felt as if a loving hand had been suddenly laid
on his head in blessing. He knew, too, that never
again would a long day's work or a long night's
weariness be quite without that new-found exalta-
tion that had come to him through Pollyanna's
eyes.

" God bless you, little girl,'; he said unsteadily.
Then, with the bright smile his patients knew and
loved so well, he added: "And I'm thinking, after
all, that it was the doctor, quite as much as his
patients, that needed a draft of that tonic! : All
of which puzzled Pollyanna very much — until a
chipmunk, running across the road, drove the whole
matter from her mind.

The doctor left Pollyanna at her own door,

144

DR. CHILTON

smiled at Nancy, who was sweeping off the front
porch, then drove rapidly away.

" I've had a perfectly beautiful ride with the doc-
tor," announced Pollyanna, bounding up the steps.
"He's lovely, Nancy! "

" Is he? "

" Yes. And I told him I should think his busi-
ness would be the very gladdest one there was."

"What! — goin' ter see sick folks — an' folks
what ain't sick but thinks they is, which is worse? '
Nancy's face showed open skepticism.

Pollyanna laughed gleefully.

" Yes. That's 'most what he said, too; but there
is a way to be glad, even then. Guess! :

Nancy frowned in meditation. Nancy was get-
ting so she could play this game of " being glad '
quite successfully, she thought. She rather en-
joyed studying out Pollyanna's " posers," too, as she
called some of the little girl's questions.

" Oh, I know," she chuckled. " It's just the op-
posite from what you told Mis' Snow."

"Opposite? " repeated Pollyanna, obviously puz-
zled.

" Yes. You told her she could be glad because
other folks wasn't like her — all sick, you know."

" Yes," nodded Pollyanna.

"Well, the doctor can be glad because he isn't

145

POLLYANNA

like other folks — the sick ones, I mean, what he
doctors," finished Nancy in triumph.

It was Pollyanna's turn to frown.

" Why, y-yes," she admitted. " Of course that
is one way, but it isn't the way I said; and —
someway, I don't seem to quite like the sound of
it. It isn't exactly as if he said he was glad they
were sick, but — You do play the game so funny,
sometimes, Nancy," she sighed, as she went into the
house.

Pollyanna found her aunt in the sitting room.

" Who was that man — the one who drove into
the yard, Pollyanna? " questioned the lady a little
sharply.

" Why, Aunt Polly, that was Dr. Chilton! Don't
you know him? '

"Dr. Chilton! What was he doing — here?"

" He drove me home. Oh, and I gave the jelly
to Mr. Pendleton, and — "

Miss Polly lifted her head quickly.

" Pollyanna, he did not think I sent it? '

" Oh, no, Aunt Polly. I told him you didn't."

Miss Polly grew a sudden vivid pink.

"You told him I didn't! "

Pollyanna opened wide her eyes at the remonstra-
tive dismay in her aunt's voice.

" Why, Aunt Polly, you said to! "

Aunt Polly sighed.

146

DR. CHILTON

" I said, Pollyanna, that I did not send it, and for
you to be very sure that he did not think I did! -
which is a very different matter from telling him
outright that I did not send it." And she turned
vexedly away.

" Dear me! Well, I don't see where the differ-
ence is," sighed Pollyanna, as she went to hang her
hat on the one particular hook in the house upon
which Aunt Polly had said that it must be hung.

147

CHAPTER XVI

A RED ROSE AND A LACE SHAWL

IT was on a rainy day about a week after Polly-
anna's visit to Mr. John Pendleton, that Miss Polly
was driven by Timothy to an early afternoon com-
mittee meeting of the Ladies' Aid Society. When
she returned at three o'clock, her cheeks were a
bright, pretty pink, and her hair, blown by the
damp wind, had fluffed into kinks and curls wher-
ever the loosened pins had given leave.

Pollyanna had never before seen her aunt look
like this.

" Oh — oh — oh! Why, Aunt Polly, you've got
'em, too," she cried rapturously, dancing round and
round her aunt, as that lady entered the sitting
room.

" Got what, you impossible child? "

Pollyanna was still revolving round and round
her aunt.

" And I never knew you had 'em! Can folks
have 'em when you don't know they've got 'em?
Do you suppose I could? — 'fore I get to Heaven,

148

A RED ROSE AND A LACE SHAWL

I mean," she cried, pulling out with eager fingers
the straight locks above her ears. " But then, they
wouldn't be black, if they did come. You can't
hide the black part."

" Pollyanna, what does all this mean? " de-
manded Aunt Polly, hurriedly removing her hat,
and trying to smooth back her disordered hair.

"No, no — please, Aunt Polly!" Pollyanna's
jubilant voice turned to one of distressed appeal.
" Don't smooth 'em out! It's those that I'm talking
about — those darling little black curls. Oh, Aunt
Polly, they're so pretty! "

" Nonsense! What do you mean, Pollyanna, by
going to the Ladies' Aid the other day in that ab-
surd fashion about that beggar boy? "

" But it isn't nonsense," urged Pollyanna, an-
swering only the first of her aunt's remarks. " You
don't know how pretty you look with your hair like
that! Oh, Aunt Polly, please, mayn't I do your
hair like I did Mrs. Snow's, and put in a flower?
I'd so love to see you that way! Why, you'd be
ever so much prettier than she was ! '

" Pollyanna! : (Miss Polly spoke very sharply
— all the more sharply because Pollyanna's words
had given her an odd throb of joy: when before
had anybody cared how she, or her hair looked?
When before had anybody " loved " to see her

149

POLLYANNA

"pretty"?) " Pollyanna, you did not answer my
question. Why did you go to the Ladies' Aid in
that absurd fashion? '

" Yes'm, I know; but, please, I didn't know it
was absurd until I went and found out they'd rather
see their report grow than Jimmy. So then I wrote
to my Ladies' Aiders — 'cause Jimmy is far away
from them, you know; and I thought maybe he
could be their little India boy same as — Aunt
Polly, was I your little India girl? And, Aunt
Polly, you will let me do your hair, won't
you? "

Aunt Polly put her hand to her throat — the old,
helpless feeling was upon her, she knew.

"But, Pollyanna, when the ladies told me this
afternoon how you came to them, I was so
ashamed ! I — '

Pollyanna began to dance up and down lightly on
her toes.

"You didn't! — you didn't say I couldn't do
your hair," she crowed triumphantly; " and so I'm
sure it means just the other way 'round, sort of —
like it did the other day about Mr. Pendleton's jelly
that you didn't send, but didn't want me to say you
didn't send, you know. Now wait just where you
are. I'll get a comb."

" But Pollyanna, Pollyanna," remonstrated Aunt

150

A RED ROSE AND A LACE SHAWL

Polly, following the little girl from the room and
panting up-stairs after her.

" Oh, did you come up here? ' Pollyanna
greeted her at the door of Miss Polly's own room.
" That'll be nicer yet! I've got the comb. Now
sit down, please, right here. Oh, I'm so glad you
let me do it! "

"But, Pollyanna, I — I — "

Miss Polly did not finish her sentence. To her
helpless amazement she found herself in the low
chair before the dressing table, with her hair al-
ready tumbling about her ears under ten eager, but
very gentle fingers.

" Oh, my! what pretty hair you've got," prattled
Pollyanna; " and there's so much more of it than
Mrs. Snow has, too! But, of course, you need
more, anyhow, because you're well and can go to
places where folks can see it. My! I reckon folks'll
be glad when they do see it - - and surprised, too,
'cause you've hid it so long. Why, Aunt Polly, I'll
make you so pretty everybody'll just love to look
at you! :

" Pollyanna! :' gasped a stifled but shocked voice
from a veil of hair. " I — I'm sure I don't know
why I'm letting you do this silly thing."

" Why, Aunt Polly, I should think you'd be glad
to have folks like to look at you! Don't you like

151

POLLYANNA

to look at pretty things? I'm ever so much happier
when I look at pretty folks, 'cause when I look at
the other kind I'm so sorry for them."

"But — but— "

" And I just love to do folks' hair," purred Polly-
anna, contentedly. " I did quite a lot of the Ladies*
Aiders' — but there wasn't any of them so nice as
yours. Mrs. White's was pretty nice, though, and
she looked just lovely one day when I dressed her
up in — Oh, Aunt Polly, I've just happened to
think of something! But it's a secret, and I sha'n't
tell. Now your hair is almost done, and pretty
quick I'm going to leave you just a minute; and
you must promise — promise — promise not to stir
nor peek, even, till I come back. Now remember! !
she finished, as she ran from the room.

Aloud Miss Polly said nothing. To herself she
said that of course she should at once undo the
absurd work of her niece's fingers, and put her hair
up properly again. As for " peeking " — just as if
she cared how —

At that moment — unaccountably — Miss Polly
caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror of the
dressing table. And what she saw sent such a flush
of rosy color to her cheeks that — she only flushed
the more at the sight.

She saw a face — not young, it is true — but just
now alight with excitement and surprise. The

152

A RED ROSE AND A LACE SHAWL

cheeks were a pretty pink. The eyes sparkled. The
hair, dark, and still damp from the outdoor air, lay
in loose waves about the forehead and curved back
over the ears in wonderfully becoming lines, with
softening little curls here and there.

So amazed and so absorbed was Miss Polly with
what she saw in the glass that she quite forgot her
determination to do over her hair, until she heard
Pollyanna enter the room again. Before she could
move, then, she felt a folded something slipped
across her eyes and tied in the back.

" Pollyanna, Pollyanna! What are you doing? '
she cried.

Pollyanna chuckled.

" That's just what I don't want you to know,
Aunt Polly, and I was afraid you would peek, so
I tied on the handkerchief. Now sit still. It won't
take but just a minute, then I'll let you see."

" But, Pollyanna," began Miss Polly, struggling
blindly to her feet, "you must take this off! You
— child, child! what are you doing? ' she gasped,
as she felt a soft something slipped about her
shoulders.

Pollyanna only chuckled the more gleefully.
With trembling fingers she was draping about her
aunt's shoulders the fleecy folds of a beautiful lace
shawl, yellowed from long years of packing away,
and fragrant with lavender. Pollyanna had found

153

POLLYANNA

the shawl the week before when Nancy had been
regulating the attic; and it had occurred to her
to-day that there was no reason why her aunt, as
well as Mrs. White of her Western home, should
not be " dressed up."

Her task completed, Pollyanna surveyed her work
with eyes that approved, but that saw yet one touch
wanting. Promptly, therefore, she pulled her aunt
toward the sun parlor where she could see a belated
red rose blooming on the trellis within reach of her
hand.

" Pollyanna, what are you doing? Where are
you taking me to? ' recoiled Aunt Polly, vainly
trying to hold herself back. " Pollyanna, I shall
not — "

" It's just to the sun parlor — only a minute!
I'll have you ready now quicker'n no time," panted
Pollyanna, reaching for the rose and thrusting it
into the soft hair above Miss Polly's left ear.
"There! " she exulted, untying the knot of the
handkerchief and flinging the bit of linen far from
her. " Oh, Aunt Polly, now I reckon you'll be glad
I dressed you up! :

For one dazed moment Miss Polly looked at her
bedecked self, and at her surroundings; then she
gave a low cry and fled to her room. Pollyanna,
following the direction of her aunt's last dismayed
gaze, saw, through the open windows of the sun

154

A RED ROSE AND A LACE SHAWL

parlor, the horse and gig turning into the driveway.
She recognized at once the man who held the reins.

Delightedly she leaned forward.

" Dr. Chilton, Dr. Chilton! Did you want to see
me? I'm up here."

" Yes," smiled the doctor, a little gravely. " Will
you come down, please? '

In the bedroom Pollyanna found a flushed-faced,
angry-eyed woman plucking at the pins that held
a lace shawl in place.

" Pollyanna, how could you? ' moaned the
woman. " To think of your rigging me up like this,
and then letting me — be seen! '

Pollyanna stopped in dismay.

" But you looked lovely- -perfectly lovely, Aunt
Polly; and — "

" '

Lovely ' ! : scorned the woman, flinging the
shawl to one side and attacking her hair with
shaking fingers.

"Oh, Aunt Polly, please, please let the hair —
stay! "

"Stay? Like this? As if I would! " And Miss
Polly pulled the locks so tightly back that the last
curl lay stretched dead at the ends of her fingers.

"O dear! And you did look so pretty," almost
sobbed Pollyanna, as she stumbled through the door.
Down-stairs Pollyanna found the doctor waiting
in his gig.

155

POLLYANNA

" I've prescribed you for a patient, and he's sent
me to get the prescription filled," announced the
doctor. " Will you go? "

"You mean — an errand — to the drug store?"
asked Pollyanna, a little uncertainly. " I used to go
some — for the Ladies' Aiders."

The doctor shook his head with a smile.

" Not exactly. It's Mr. John Pendleton. He
would like to see you to-day, if you'll be so good
as to come. It's stopped raining, so I drove down
after you. Will you come? I'll call for you and
bring you back before six o'clock."

"I'd love to! ' exclaimed Pollyanna. "Let me
ask Aunt Polly."

In a few moments she returned, hat in hand, but
with rather a sober face.

" Didn't — your aunt want you to go? ' asked
the doctor, a little diffidently, as they drove
away.

" Y-yes," sighed Pollyanna. " She — she wanted
me to go too much, I'm afraid."

" Wanted you to go too much! "

Pollyanna sighed again.

" Yes. I reckon she meant she didn't want me
there. You see, she said : ' Yes, yes, run along, run
along — do! I wish you'd gone before.'

The doctor smiled — but with his lips only. His

156

A RED ROSE AND A LACE SHAWL

eyes were very grave. For some time he said noth-
ing; then, a little hesitatingly, he asked:

"Wasn't it — your aunt I saw with you a few
minutes ago — in the window of the sun parlor? '

Pollyanna drew a long breath.

"Yes; that's what's the whole trouble, I sup-
pose. You see I'd dressed her up in a perfectly
lovely lace shawl I found up-stairs, and I'd fixed her
hair and put on a rose, and she looked so pretty.
Didn't you think she looked just lovely? '

For a moment the doctor did not answer. When
he did speak his voice was so low Pollyanna could
but just hear the words.

"Yes, Pollyanna, I — I thought she did look —
just lovely."

" Did you? I'm so glad! I'll tell her," nodded
the little girl, contentedly.

To her surprise the doctor gave a sudden excla-
mation.

" Never ! Pollyanna, I — I'm afraid I shall have
to ask you not to tell her — that."

" Why, Dr. Chilton! Why not? I should think
you'd be glad — '

" But she might not be," cut in the doctor.

Pollyanna considered this for a moment.

" That's so — maybe she wouldn't," she sighed.
" I remember now; 'twas 'cause she saw you that

157

POLLYANNA

she ran. And she — she spoke afterwards about
her being seen in that rig."

" I thought as much," declared the doctor, under
his breath.

" Still, I don't see why," maintained Pollyanna,
" — when she looked so pretty ! :

The doctor said nothing. He did not speak
again, indeed, until they were almost to the great
stone house in which John Pendleton lay with a
broken leg.

158

CHAPTER XVII

" JUST LIKE A BOOK "

JOHN PENDLETON greeted Pollyanna to-day with
a smile.

"Well, Miss Pollyanna, I'm thinking you must
be a very forgiving little person, else you wouldn't
have come to see me again to-day."

" Why, Mr. Pendleton, I was real glad to come,
and I'm sure I don't see why I shouldn't be, either."

" Oh, well, you know, I was pretty cross with
you, I'm afraid, both the other day when you so
kindly brought me the jelly, and that time when
you found me with the broken leg at first. By the
way, too, I don't think I've ever thanked you for
that. Now I'm sure that even you would admit that
you were very forgiving to come and see me, after
such ungrateful treatment as that! :

Pollyanna stirred uneasily.

" But I was glad to find you — that is, I don't
mean I was glad your leg was broken, of course,"
she corrected hurriedly.

John Pendleton smiled.

" I understand. Your tongue does get away with

159

POLLYANNA

you once in a while, doesn't it, Miss Pollyanna? I
do thank you, however; and I consider you a very
brave little girl to do what you did that day. I
thank you for the jelly, too," he added in a lighter
voice.

" Did you like it? " asked Pollyanna with interest.

" Very much. I suppose — there isn't any more
to-day that — that Aunt Polly didn't send, is
there? " he asked with an odd smile.

His visitor looked distressed.

" N-no, sir." She hesitated, then went on with
heightened color. " Please, Mr. Pendleton, I didn't
mean to be rude the other day when I said Aunt
Polly did not send the jelly."

There was no answer. John Pendleton was not
smiling now. He was looking straight ahead of
him with eyes that seemed to be gazing through and
beyond the object before them. After a time he
drew a long sigh and turned to Pollyanna. When
he spoke his voice carried the old nervous fretful-
ness.

"Well, well, this will never do at all! I didn't
send for you to see me moping this time. Listen!
Out in the library — the big room where the tele-
phone is, you know — you will find a carved box
on the lower shelf of the big case with glass doors
in the corner not far from the fireplace. That is,
it'll be there if that confounded woman hasn't

160

"JUST LIKE A BOOK"

' regulated ' it to somewhere else! You may bring
it to me. It is heavy, but not too heavy for you to
carry, I think."

" Oh, I'm awfully strong," declared Pollyanna,
cheerfully, as she sprang to her feet. In a minute
she had returned with the box.

It was a wonderful half-hour that Pollyanna
spent then. The box was full of treasures — curios
that John Pendleton had picked up in years of travel
— and concerning each there was some entertaining
story, whether it were a set of exquisitely carved
chessmen from China, or a little jade idol from
India.

It was after she had heard the story about the
idol that Pollyanna murmured wistfully :

" Well, I suppose it would be better to take a little
boy in India to bring up — one that didn't know
any more than to think that God was in that doll-
thing- -than it would be to take Jimmy Bean, a
little boy who knows God is up in the sky. Still,
I can't help wishing they had wanted Jimmy Bean,
too, besides the India boys."

John Pendleton did not seem to hear. Again his
eyes were staring straight before him, looking at
nothing. But soon he had roused himself, and had
picked up another curio to talk about.

The visit, certainly, was a delightful one, but
before it was over, Pollyanna was realizing that

161

POLLYANNA

they were talking about something besides the
wonderful things in the beautiful carved box. They
were talking of herself, of Nancy, of Aunt Polly,
and of her daily life. They were talking, too, even
of the life and home long ago in the far Western
town.

Not until it was nearly time for her to go, did
the man say, in a voice Pollyanna had never before
heard from stern John Pendleton:

" Little girl, I want you to come to see me often.
Will you? I'm lonesome, and I need you. There's
another reason — and I'm going to tell you that,
too. I thought, at first, after I found out who you
were, the other day, that I didn't want you to come
any more. You reminded me of — of something
I have tried for long years to forget. So I said to
myself that I never wanted to see you again; and
every day, when the doctor asked if I wouldn't let
him bring you to me, I said no.

" But after a time I found I was wanting to see
you so much that — that the fact that I wasn't see-
ing you was making me remember all the more
vividly the thing I was so wanting to forget. So
now I want you to come. Will you — little girl? '

" Why, yes, Mr. Pendleton," breathed Pollyanna,
her eyes luminous with sympathy for the sad-faced
man lying back on the pillow before her. " I'd love
to come! "

162

"JUST LIKE A BOOK"

" Thank you," said John Pendleton, gently.

After supper that evening, Pollyanna, sitting on
the back porch, told Nancy all about Mr. John Pen-
dleton's wonderful carved box, and the still more
wonderful things it contained.

" And ter think," sighed Nancy, " that he showed
ye all them things, and told ye about 'em like that
— him that's so cross he never talks ter no one —
no one ! '

" Oh, but he isn't cross, Nancy, only outside,"
demurred Pollyanna, with quick loyalty. " I don't
see why everybody thinks he's so bad, either. They
wouldn't, if they knew him. But even Aunt Polly
doesn't like him very well. She wouldn't send the
jelly to him, you know, and she was so afraid he'd
think she did send it! '

" Probably she didn't call him no duty," shrugged
Nancy. " But what beats me is how he happened
ter take ter you so, Miss Pollyanna — meanin' no
offence ter you, of course — but he ain't the sort o'
man what gen'rally takes ter kids; he ain't, he
ain't."

Pollyanna smiled happily.

" But he did, Nancy," she nodded, " only I reckon
even he didn't want to — all the time. Why, only
to-day he owned up that one time he just felt he
never wanted to see me again, because I reminded

163

POLLYANNA

him of something he wanted to forget. But after-
wards — '

" What's that? ' interrupted Nancy, excitedly.
" He said you reminded him of something he
wanted to forget? '

" Yes. But afterwards — "

" What was it? ' Nancy was eagerly insistent.

" He didn't tell me. He just said it was some-
thing."

" The mystery! ' breathed Nancy, in an awe-
struck voice. " That's why he took to you in the
first place. Oh, Miss Pollyanna! Why, that's just
like a book — I've read lots of 'em; 'Lady Maud's
Secret,' and ' The Lost Heir/ and ' Hidden for
Years ' — all of 'em had mysteries and things just
like this. My stars and stockings! Just think of
havin' a book lived right under yer nose like this — •
an' me not knowin' it all this time! Now tell me
everythin' — everythin' he said, Miss Pollyanna,
there's a dear! No wonder he took ter you; no
wonder — no wonder ! :

"But he didn't," cried Pollyanna, "not till 7
talked to him, first. And he didn't even know who
I was till I took the calf's-foot jelly, and had to
make him understand that Aunt Polly didn't send
it, and — "

Nancy sprang to her feet and clasped her hands
together suddenly.

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"JUST LIKE A BOOK"

" Oh, Miss Pollyanna, I know, I know — I know,
I know! :> she exulted rapturously. The next min-
ute she was down at Pollyanna's side again. " Tell
me — now think, and answer straight and true,"
she urged excitedly. " It was after he found out
you was Miss Polly's niece that he said he didn't
ever want ter see ye again, wa'n't it? '

" Oh, yes. I told him that the last time I saw
him, and he told me this to-day."

" I thought as much," triumphed Nancy. " And
Miss Polly wouldn't send the jelly herself, would
she? "

" No."

" And you told him she didn't send it? '

"Why, yes; I — "

" And he began ter act queer and cry out sudden
after he found out you was her niece. He did that,
didn't he? "

" Why, y-yes; he did act a little queer — over
that jelly," admitted Pollyanna, with a thoughtful
frown.

Nancy drew a long sigh.

" Then I've got it, sure! Now listen. Mr. John
Pendleton was Miss Polly Harrington's lover! }
she announced impressively, but with a furtive
glance over her shoulder.

" Why, Nancy, he couldn't be! She doesn't like
him," objected Pollyanna.

165

POLLYANNA

Nancy gave her a scornful glance.

" Of course she don't! That's the quarrel! "

Pollyanna still looked incredulous, and with an-
other long breath Nancy happily settled herself to
tell the story.

" It's like this. Just before you come, Mr. Tom
told me Miss Polly had had a lover once. I didn't
believe it. I couldn't — her and a lover! But Mr.
Tom said she had, and that he was livin' now right
in this town. And now I know, of course. It's
John Pendleton. Hain't he got a mystery in his
life? Don't he shut himself up in that grand house
alone, and never speak ter no one? Didn't he act
queer when he found out you was Miss Polly's
niece? And now hain't he owned up that you re-
mind him of somethin' he wants ter forget? Just
as if anybody couldn't see 'twas Miss Polly! — an'
her sayin' she wouldn't send him no jelly, too.
Why, Miss Pollyanna, it's as plain as the nose on
yer face; it is, it is! 3

"Oh-h!" breathed Pollyanna, in wide-eyed
amazement. " But, Nancy, I should think if they
loved each other they'd make up some time. Both
of 'em all alone, so, all these years. I should think
they'd be glad to make up! :

Nancy sniffed disdainfully.

" I guess maybe you don't know much about lov-
ers, Miss Pollyanna. You ain't big enough yet,

166

"JUST LIKE A BOOK'1

anyhow. But if there is a set o' folks in the world
that wouldn't have no use for that 'ere c glad game '
o' your'n, it'd be a pair o' quarrellin' lovers; and
that's what they be. Ain't he cross as sticks, most
gen'rally? — and ain't she — '

Nancy stopped abruptly, remembering just in
time to whom, and about whom, she was speaking.
Suddenly, however, she chuckled.

" I ain't sayin', though, Miss Pollyanna, but what
it would be a pretty slick piece of business if you
could get 'em ter playin' it — so they would be glad
ter make up. But, my land! wouldn't folks stare
some- -Miss Polly and him! I guess, though,
there ain't much chance, much chance! :

Pollyanna said nothing; but when she went into
the house a little later, her face was very thought-
ful.

167

CHAPTER XVIII

PRISMS

As the warm August days passed, Polly anna
went very frequently to the great house on Pendle-
ton Hill. She did not feel, however, that her visits
were really a success. Not but that the man seemed
to want her there — he sent for her, indeed, fre-
quently; but that when she was there, he seemed
scarcely any happier for her presence — at least,
so Pollyanna thought.

He talked to her, it was true, and he showed her
many strange and beautiful things — books, pic-
tures, and curios. But he still fretted audibly over
his own helplessness, and he chafed visibly under
the rules and " regulatings " of the unwelcome
members of his household. He did, indeed, seem
to like to hear Pollyanna talk, however, and Polly-
anna talked. Pollyanna liked to talk — but she was
never sure that she would not look up and find him
lying back on his pillow with that white, hurt look
that always pained her; and she was never sure
which — if any — of her words had brought it
there. As for telling him the " glad game," and

168

PRISMS

trying to get him to play it — - Pollyanna had never
seen the time yet when she thought he would care
to hear about it. She had twice tried to tell him;
but neither time had she got beyond the beginning
of what her father had said- -John Pendleton had
on each occasion turned the conversation abruptly
to another subject.

Pollyanna never doubted now that John Pendle-
ton was her Aunt Polly's one-time lover; and with
all the strength of her loving, loyal heart, she wished
she could in some way bring happiness into their —
to her mind- -miserably lonely lives.

Just how she was to do this, however, she could
not see. She talked to Mr. Pendleton about her
aunt; and he listened, sometimes politely, some-
times irritably, frequently with a quizzical smile on
his usually stern lips. She talked to her aunt about
Mr. Pendleton - - or rather, she tried to talk to her
about him. As a general thing, however, Miss
Polly would not listen- -long. She always found
something else to talk about. She frequently did
that, however, when Pollyanna was talking of
others- -of Dr. Chilton, for instance. Pollyanna
laid this, though, to the fact that it had been Dr.
Chilton who had seen her in the sun parlor with
the rose in her hair and the lace shawl draped about
her shoulders. Aunt Polly, indeed, seemed particu-
larly bitter against Dr. Chilton, as Pollyanna found

169

POLLYANNA

out one day when a hard cold shut her up in the
house.

" If you are not better by night I shall send for
the doctor," Aunt Polly said.

"Shall you? Then I'm going to be worse,"
gurgled Pollyanna. " I'd love to have Dr. Chilton
come to see me! "

She wondered, then, at the look that came to her
aunt's face.

" It will not be Dr. Chilton, Pollyanna," Miss
Polly said sternly. " Dr. Chilton is not our family
physician. I shall send for Dr. Warren — if you
are worse."

Pollyanna did not grow worse, however, and Dr.
Warren was not summoned.

" And I'm so glad, too," Pollyanna said to her
aunt that evening. " Of course I like Dr. Warren,
and all that; but I like Dr. Chilton better, and I'm
afraid he'd feel hurt if I didn't have him. You see,
he wasn't really to blame, after all, that he happened
to see you when I'd dressed you up so pretty that
day, Aunt Polly," she finished wistfully.

" That will do, Pollyanna. I really do not wish
to discuss Dr. Chilton — or his feelings," reproved
Miss Polly, decisively.

Pollyanna looked at her for a moment with
mournfully interested eyes; then she sighed:

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PRISMS

" I just love to see you when your cheeks are
pink like that, Aunt Polly; but I would so like to
fix your hair. If— Why, Aunt Polly!" But
her aunt was already out of sight down the
hall.

It was toward the end of August that Pollyanna,
making an early morning call on John Pendleton,
found the flaming band of blue and gold and green
edged with red and violet lying across his pillow.
She stopped short in awed delight.

" Why, Mr. Pendleton, it's a baby rainbow — a
real rainbow come in to pay you a visit! " she ex-
claimed, clapping her hands together softly. " Oh
— oh — oh, how pretty it is ! But how did it get
in? " she cried.

The man laughed a little grimly: John Pendle-
ton was particularly out of sorts with the world this
morning.

" Well, I suppose it ' got in ' through the bevelled
edge of that glass thermometer in the window," he
said wearily. " The sun shouldn't strike it at all —
but it does in the morning."

"Oh, but it's so pretty, Mr. Pendleton! And'
does just the sun do that? My! if it was mine I'd
have it hang in the sun all day long! "

" Lots of good you'd get out of the thermometer,

171

POLLYANNA

then," laughed the man. " How do you suppose
you could tell how hot it was, or how cold it was,
if the thermometer hung in the sun all day? '

"I shouldn't care," breathed Pollyanna, her fas-
cinated eyes on the brilliant band of colors across
the pillow. "Just as if anybody'd care — when
they were living all the time in a rainbow! ;

The man laughed. He was watching Polly-
anna's rapt face a little curiously. Suddenly a new
thought came to him. He touched the bell at his
side.

" Nora," he said, when the elderly maid appeared
at the door, " bring me one of the big brass candle-
sticks from the mantel in the front drawing-room."

" Yes, sir," murmured the woman, looking
slightly dazed. In a minute she had returned. A
musical tinkling entered the room with her as she
advanced wonderingly toward the bed. It came
from the prism pendants encircling the old-fash-
ioned candelabrum in her hand.

" Thank you. You may set it here on the stand,"
directed the man. " Now get a string and fasten
it to the sash-curtain fixtures of that window
there. Take down the sash-curtain, and let the
string reach straight across the window from
side to side. That will be all. Thank you,'3
he said, when she had carried out his direc-
tions.

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PRISMS

As she left the room he turned smiling eyes
toward the wondering Pollyanna.

" Bring me the candlestick now, please, Polly-
anna."

With both hands she brought it; and in a mo-
ment he was slipping off the pendants, one by one,
until they lay, a round dozen of them, side by side,
on the bed.

" Now, my dear, suppose you take them and
hook them to that little string Nora fixed across the
window. If you really want to live in a rainbow —
I don't see but we'll have to have a rainbow for you
to live in! :

Pollyanna had not hung up three of the pendants
in the sunlit window before she saw a little of what
was going to happen. She was so excited then she
could scarcely control her shaking fingers enough
to hang up the rest. But at last her task was fin-
ished, and she stepped back with a low cry of de-
light.

It had become a fairyland — that sumptuous, but
dreary bedroom. Everywhere were bits of dancing
red and green, violet and orange, gold and blue.
The wall, the floor, and the furniture, even to the
bed itself, were aflame with shimmering bits of
color.

" Oh, oh, oh, how lovely! : breathed Pollyanna;
then she laughed suddenly. " I just reckon the

173

POLLYANNA

sun himself is trying to play the game now, don't
you? ' she cried, forgetting for the moment that
Mr. Pendleton could not know what she was talk-
ing about. " Oh, how I wish I had a lot of those
things! How I would like to give them to Aunt
Polly and Mrs. Snow and — lots of folks. I reckon
then they'd be glad all right! Why, I think even
Aunt Polly'd get so glad she couldn't help banging
doors — if she lived in a rainbow like that. Don't
you? "

Mr. Pendleton laughed.

" Well, from my remembrance of your aunt, Miss
Pollyanna, I must say I think it would take some-
thing more than a few prisms in the sunlight to —
to make her bang many doors — for gladness. But
come, now, really, what do you mean? '

Pollyanna stared slightly; then she drew a long
breath.

" Oh, I forgot. You don't know about the game.
I remember now."

" Suppose you tell me, then."

And this time Pollyanna told him. She told him
the whole thing from the very first — from the
crutches that should have been a doll. As she
talked, she did not look at his face. Her rapt eyes
were still on the dancing flecks of color from the
prism pendants swaying in the sunlit window.

And that's all," she sighed, when she had fin-

174

u

PRISMS

ished. " And now you know why I said the sun
was trying to play it — that game."

For a moment there was silence. Then a low
voice from the bed said unsteadily:

"Perhaps; but I'm thinking that the very finest
prism of them all is yourself, Pollyanna."

" Oh, but I don't show beautiful red and green
and purple when the sun shines through me, Mr.
Pendleton! "

" Don't you? " smiled the man. And Pollyanna,
looking into his face, wondered why there were
tears in his eyes.

" No," she said. Then, after a minute she added
mournfully: "I'm afraid, Mr. Pendleton, the sun
doesn't make anything but freckles — out of me.
Aunt Polly says it does make them ! '

The man laughed a little; and again Pollyanna
looked at him: the laugh had sounded almost like
a sob.

175

CHAPTER XIX

WHICH IS SOMEWHAT SURPRISING

POLLY ANNA entered school in September. Pre-
liminary examinations showed that she was well
advanced for a girl of her years, and she was soon
a happy member of a class of girls and boys her
own age.

School, in some ways, was a surprise to Polly-
anna; and Pollyanna, certainly, in many ways, was
very much of a surprise to school. They were soon
on the best of terms, however, and to her aunt
Pollyanna confessed that going to school was liv-
ing, after all — though she had had her doubts
before.

In spite of her delight in her new work, Polly-
anna did not forget her old friends. True, she
could not give them quite so much time now, of
course; but she gave them what time she could.
Perhaps John Pendleton, of them all, however, was
the most dissatisfied.

One Saturday afternoon he spoke to her about it.

" See here, Pollyanna, how would you like to

176

WHICH IS SOMEWHAT SURPRISING

come and live with me? ' he asked, a little impa-
tiently. " I don't see anything of you, nowa-
days."

Pollyanna laughed — Mr. Pendleton was such a
funny man!

" I thought you didn't like to have folks 'round,"
she said.

He made a wry face.

" Oh, but that was before you taught me to play
that wonderful game of yours. Now I'm glad to
be waited on, hand and foot! Never mind, I'll be
on my own two feet yet, one of these days; then
I'll see who steps around," he finished, picking up
one of the crutches at his side and shaking it play-
fully at the little girl. They were sitting in the
great library to-day.

" Oh, but you aren't really glad at all for things;
you just say you are," pouted Pollyanna, her eyes
on the dog, dozing before the fire. " You know
you don't play the game right ever, Mr. Pendleton
— you know you don't! :

The man's face grew suddenly very grave.

" That's why I want you, little girl — to help me
play it. Will you come? '

Pollyanna turned in surprise.

" Mr. Pendleton, you don't really mean — that? "

" But I do. I want you. Will you come? '

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POLLYANNA

Pollyanna looked distressed.

" Why, Mr. Pendleton, I can't — you know I
can't. Why, I'm — Aunt Polly's! "

A quick something crossed the man's face that
Pollyanna could not quite understand. His head
came up almost fiercely.

"You're no more hers than — Perhaps she
would let you come to me," he finished more gently.
" Would you come — if she did? "

Pollyanna frowned in deep thought.

" But Aunt Polly has been so — good to me,"
she began slowly; " and she took me when I
didn't have anybody left but the Ladies' Aid,
and— "

Again that spasm of something crossed the man's
face; but this time, when he spoke, his voice was
low and very sad.

" Pollyanna, long years ago I loved somebody
very much. I hoped to bring her, some day, to this
house. I pictured how happy we'd be together in
our home all the long years to come."

" Yes," pitied Pollyanna, her eyes shining with
sympathy.

"But — well, I didn't bring her here. Never
mind why. I just didn't — that's all. And ever
since then this great gray pile of stone has been a
house — never a home. It takes a woman's hand
and heart, or a child's presence, to make a home,

178

WHICH IS SOMEWHAT SURPRISING

Polly anna; and I have not had either. Now will
you come, my dear? '

Pollyanna sprang to her feet. Her face was
fairly illumined.

" Mr. Pendleton, you — you mean that you wish
you — you had had that woman's hand and heart
all this time? "

" Why, y-yes, Pollyanna."

"Oh, I'm so glad! Then it's all right," sighed
the little girl. " Now you can take us both, and
everything will be lovely."

" Take- -you- -both? ' repeated the man,
dazedly.

A faint doubt crossed Pollyanna's countenance.

" Well, of course, Aunt Polly isn't won over,
yet; but I'm sure she will be if you tell it to her
just as you did to me, and then we'd both come,
of course."

A look of actual terror leaped to the man's eyes.

" Aunt Polly come — here! '

Pollyanna's eyes widened a little.

" Would you rather go there? " she asked. " Of
course the house isn't quite so pretty, but it's

nearer — '

" Pollyanna, what are you talking about? '
asked the man, very gently now.

" Why, about where we're going to live, of
course," rejoined Pollyanna, in obvious surprise.

179

POLLYANNA

" I thought you meant here, at first. You said it
was here that you had wanted Aunt Polly's hand
and heart all these years to make a home, and — "

An inarticulate cry came from the man's throat.
He raised his hand and began to speak; but the
next moment he dropped his hand nervelessly at his
side.

" The doctor, sir," said the maid in the doorway.

Pollyanna rose at once.

John Pendleton turned to her feverishly.

" Pollyanna, for Heaven's sake, say nothing of
what I asked you - - yet," he begged, in a low voice.

Pollyanna dimpled into a sunny smile.

" Of course not! Just as if I didn't know you'd
rather tell her yourself! " she called back merrily
over her shoulder.

John Pendleton fell limply back in his chair.

" Why, what's up? " demanded the doctor, a
minute later, his fingers on his patient's galloping
pulse.

A whimsical smile trembled on John Pendleton's
lips.

" Overdose of your — tonic, I guess," he laughed,
as he noted the doctor's eyes following Pollyanna's
little figure down the driveway.

180

CHAPTER XX

WHICH IS MORE SURPRISING

SUNDAY mornings Pollyanna usually attended
church and Sunday school. Sunday afternoons she
frequently went for a walk with Nancy. She had
planned one for the day after her Saturday after-
noon visit to Mr. John Pendleton; but on the way
home from Sunday school Dr. Chilton overtook her
in his gig, and brought his horse to a stop.

" Suppose you let me drive you home, Polly-
anna," he suggested. " I want to speak to you a
minute. I was just driving out to your place to
tell you," he went on, as Pollyanna settled herself
at his side. " Mr. Pendleton sent a special request
for you to go to see him this afternoon, sure. He
says it's very important."

Pollyanna nodded happily.

" Yes, it is, I know. I'll go."

The doctor eyed her with some surprise.

" I'm not sure I shall let you, after all," he de-
clared, his eyes twinkling. " You seemed more
upsetting than soothing yesterday, young lady."

Pollyanna laughed.

181

POLLYANNA

" Oh, it wasn't me, truly — not really, you know;
not so much as it was Aunt Polly."

The doctor turned with a quick start.

"Your — aunt! " he ejaculated.

Pollyanna gave a happy little bounce in her seat.

"Yes. And it's so exciting and lovely, just like
a story, you know. I — I'm going to tell you,"
she burst out, with sudden decision. " He said not
to mention it; but he wouldn't mind your knowing,
of course. He meant not to mention it to her"

" Her? "

" Yes; Aunt Polly. And, of course he would
want to tell her himself instead of having me do
it — lovers, so! :

"Lovers! " As the doctor said the word, the
horse started violently, as if the hand that held the
reins had given them a sharp jerk.

" Yes," nodded Pollyanna, happily. " That's the
story-part, you see. I didn't know it till Nancy told
me. She said Aunt Polly had a lover years ago,
and they quarrelled. She didn't know who it was
at first. But we've found out now. It's Mr. Pen-
dleton, you know."

The doctor relaxed suddenly. The hand holding
the reins fell limply to his lap.

"Oh! No; I — didn't know," he said quietly.

Pollyanna hurried on — they were nearing the
Harrington homestead.

182

WHICH IS MORE SURPRISING

"Yes; and I'm so glad now. It's come out
lovely. Mr. Pendleton asked me to come and live
with him, but of course I wouldn't leave Aunt Polly
like that - - after she'd been so good to me. Then
he told me all about the woman's hand and heart
that he used to want, and I found out that he
wanted it now; and I was so glad! For of course
if he wants to make up the quarrel, everything will
be all right now, and Aunt Polly and I will both
go to live there, or else he'll come to live with us.
Of course Aunt Polly doesn't know yet, and we
haven't got everything settled; so I suppose that
is why he wanted to see me this afternoon, sure."

The doctor sat suddenly erect. There was an
odd smile on his lips.

" Yes; I can well imagine that Mr. John Pendle-
ton does — want to see you, Pollyanna," he nodded,
as he pulled his horse to a stop before the door.

" There's Aunt Polly now in the window," cried
Pollyanna; then, a second later: "Why, no, she
isn't — but I thought I saw her! "

"No; she isn't there — now," said the doctor.
His lips had suddenly lost their smile.

Pollyanna found a very nervous John Pendleton
waiting for her that afternoon.

" Pollyanna," he began at once. " I've been try-
ing all night to puzzle out what you meant by all
that, yesterday — about my wanting your Aunt

183

POLLYANNA

Polly's hand and heart here all those years. What
did you mean? "

" Why, because you were lovers, you know —
once; and I was so glad you still felt that way

now."

'Lovers! — your Aunt Polly and I?'

At the obvious surprise in the man's voice, Polly-
anna opened wide her eyes.

" Why, Mr. Pendleton, Nancy said you were! '

The man gave a short little laugh.

" Indeed! Well, I'm afraid I shall have to say
that Nancy — didn't know."

"Then you — weren't lovers?' Pollyanna's
voice was tragic with dismay.

"Never! "

" And it isn't all coming out like a book? '

There was no answer. The man's eyes were
moodily fixed out the window.

" O dear! And it was all going so splendidly,"
almost sobbed Pollyanna. " I'd have been so glad
to come — with Aunt Polly."

" And you won't — now? ' The man asked the
question without turning his head.

" Of course not! I'm Aunt Polly's."

The man turned now, almost fiercely.

" Before you were hers, Pollyanna, you were —
your mother's. And — it was your mother's hand
and heart that I wanted long years ago."

184

WHICH IS MORE SURPRISING

"My mother's! "

" Yes. I had not meant to tell you, but perhaps
it's better, after all, that I do- -now." John Pen-
dleton's face had grown very white. He was speak-
ing with evident difficulty. Pollyanna, her eyes
wide and frightened, and her lips parted, was ga-
zing at him fixedly. " I loved your mother; but
she — didn't love me. And after a time she went
away with — your father. I did not know until
then how much I did — care. The whole world
suddenly seemed to turn black under my fingers,
and — But, never mind. For long years I have
been a cross, crabbed, unlovable, unloved old man
— though I'm not nearly sixty, yet, Pollyanna.
Then, one day, like one of the prisms that you love
so well, little girl, you danced into my life, and
flecked my dreary old world with dashes of the
purple and gold and scarlet of your own bright
cheeriness. I found out, after a time, who you
were, and — and I thought then I never wanted
to see you again. I didn't want to be reminded
of — your mother. But — you know how that
came out. I just had to have you come. And now
I want you always. Pollyanna, won't you come —
now? '

" But, Mr. Pendleton, I — There's Aunt
Polly! : Pollyanna's eyes were blurred with tears.

The man made an impatient gesture.

185

POLLYANNA

" What about me? How do you suppose I'm
going to be 'glad' about anything — without you?
Why, Pollyanna, it's only since you came that I've
been even half glad to live! But if I had you for
my own little girl, I'd be glad for — -anything;
and I'd try to make you glad, too, my dear. You
shouldn't have a wish ungratified. All my money,
to the last cent, should go to make you happy."

Pollyanna looked shocked.

" Why, Mr. Pendleton, as if I'd let you spend
it on me — all that money you've saved for the
heathen! :

A dull red came to the man's face. He started
to speak, but Pollyanna was still talking.

" Besides, anybody with such a lot of money as
you have doesn't need me to make you glad about
things. You're making other folks so glad giving
them things that you just can't help being glad
yourself ! Why, look at those prisms you gave Mrs.
Snow and me, and the gold piece you gave Nancy
on her birthday, and — "

" Yes, yes — never mind about all that," inter-
rupted the man. His face was very, very red now
— and no wonder, perhaps: it was not for "giv-
ing things ' that John Pendleton had been best
known in the past. " That's all nonsense. 'Twasn't
much, anyhow — but what there was, was because
of you. You gave those things; not I! Yes, you

186

WHICH IS MORE SURPRISING

did/' he repeated, in answer to the shocked denial
in her face. " And that only goes to prove all the
more how I need you, little girl," he added, his
voice softening into tender pleading once more.
" If ever, ever I am to play the ' glad game,' Polly-
anna, you'll have to come and play it with me."

The little girl's forehead puckered into a wistful
frown.

" Aunt Polly has been so good to me," she began;
but the man interrupted her sharply. The old irri-
tability had come back to his face. Impatience
which would brook no opposition had been a part
of John Pendleton's nature too long to yield very
easily now to restraint.

" Of course she's been good to you! But she
doesn't want you, I'll warrant, half so much as I
do," he contested.

" Why, Mr. Pendleton, she's glad, I know, to
have — '

" Glad ! : ' interrupted the man, thoroughly losing
his patience now. " I'll wager Miss Polly doesn't
know how to be glad — -for anything! Oh, she
does her duty, I know. She's a very dutiful woman.
I've had experience with her ' duty,' before. I'll
acknowledge we haven't been the best of friends
for the last fifteen or twenty years. But I know
her. Every one knows her — and she isn't the
c glad ' kind, Pollyanna. She doesn't know how to

187

POLLYANNA

be. As for your coming to me — you just ask her
and see if she won't let you come. And, oh, little
girl, little girl, I want you so! : he finished bro-
kenly.

Polly anna rose to her feet with a long sigh.

"All right. I'll ask her," she said wistfully.
" Of course I don't mean that I wouldn't like to
live here with you, Mr. Pendleton, but — ' She
did not complete her sentence. There was a mo-
ment's silence, then she added: "Well, anyhow,
I'm glad I didn't tell her yesterday; — 'cause then
I supposed she was wanted, too."

John Pendleton smiled grimly.

"Well, yes, Pollyanna; I guess it is just as well
you didn't mention it — yesterday."

"I didn't — only to the doctor; and of course
he doesn't count.''

"The doctor! " cried John Pendleton, turning
quickly. " Not — Dr. — Chilton? "

"Yes; when he came to tell me you wanted to
see me to-day, you know."

"Well, of all the- -" muttered the man, falling
back in his chair. Then he sat up with sudden in-
terest. " And what did Dr. Chilton say? " he
asked.

Pollyanna frowned thoughtfully.

" Why, I don't remember. Not much, I reckon.

188

WHICH IS MORE SURPRISING

Oh, he did say he could well imagine you did want
to see me."

" Oh, did he, indeed! " answered John Pendleton.
And Pollyanna wondered why he gave that sudden
queer little laugh.

189

CHAPTER XXI

A QUESTION ANSWERED

THE sky was darkening fast with what appeared
to be an approaching thunder shower when Polly-
anna hurried down the hill from John Pendleton's
house. Half-way home she met Nancy with an
umbrella. By that time, however, the clouds had
shifted their position and the shower was not so
imminent.

" Guess it's goin' 'round ter the north," an-
nounced Nancy, eyeing the sky critically. " I
thought 'twas, all the time, but Miss Polly wanted
me ter come with this. She was worried about
ye! "

" Was she? " murmured Pollyanna abstractedly,
eyeing the clouds in her turn.

Nancy sniffed a little.

" You don't seem ter notice what I said," she
observed aggrievedly. " I said yer aunt was wor-
ried about ye! "

" Oh," sighed Pollyanna, remembering suddenly
the question she was so soon to ask her aunt. " I'm
sorry. I didn't mean to scare her."

190

A QUESTION ANSWERED

«

Well, I'm glad," retorted Nancy, unexpectedly.
" I am, I am."

Pollyanna stared.

" Glad that Aunt Polly was scared about me !
Why, Nancy, that isn't the way to play the game
— to be glad for things like that! :' she objected in a
worried tone of voice.

" There wa'n't no game in it," retorted Nancy.
" Never thought of it. You don't seem ter sense
what it means ter have Miss Polly worried about
ye, child! "

" Why, it means worried - - and worried is hor-
rid - - to feel," maintained Pollyanna. " What else
can it mean? '

Nancy tossed her head.

" Well, I'll tell ye what it means. It means she's
at last gettin' down somewheres near human —
like folks; an' that she ain't jest doin' her duty by
ye all the time."

" Why, Nancy," demurred the scandalized Pol-
lyanna, " Aunt Polly always does her duty. She —
she's a very dutiful woman! : Unconsciously Pol-
lyanna repeated John Pendleton's words of half an
hour before.

Nancy chuckled.

" You're right she is - - and she always was, I
guess! But she's somethin' more, now, since you

came.'

191

POLLYANNA

Polly anna's face changed. Her brows drew into
a troubled frown.

"There, that's what I was going to ask you,
Nancy," she sighed. " Do you think Aunt Polly
likes to have me here? Would she mind — if —
if I wasn't here any more? '

Nancy threw a quick look into the little girl's
absorbed face. She had expected to be asked this
question long before, and she had dreaded it. She
had wondered how she should answer it — how
she could answer it honestly without cruelly hurting
the questioner. But now, now, in the face of the
new suspicions that had become convictions by the
afternoon's umbrella-sending — Nancy only wel-
comed the question with open arms. She was sure
that, with a clean conscience to-day, she could set
the love-hungry little girl's heart at rest.

" Likes ter have ye here? Would she miss ye
if ye wa'n't here? " cried Nancy, indignantly. " As
if that wa'n't jest what I was tellin' of ye! Didn't
she send me posthaste with an umbrella 'cause she
see a little cloud in the sky? Didn't she make me
tote yer things all down-stairs, so you could have
the pretty room you wanted? Why, Miss Polly-
anna, when ye remember how at first she hated ter
have — "

With a choking cough Nancy pulled herself up
just in time.

192

A QUESTION ANSWERED

" And it ain't jest things I can put my fingers
on, neither," rushed on Nancy, breathlessly. " It's,
little ways she has, that shows how you've been
sof tenin' her up an' mellerin' her down — the cat,
and the dog, and the way she speaks ter me, and —
oh, lots o' things. Why, Miss Pollyanna, there
ain't no tellin' how she'd miss ye — if ye wa'n't
here," finished Nancy, speaking with an enthusiastic
certainty that was meant to hide the perilous admis-
sion she had almost made before. Even then she
was not quite prepared for the sudden joy that
illumined Pollyanna's face.

"Oh, Nancy, I'm so glad- -glad- -glad! You
don't know how glad I am that Aunt Polly — wants
me! "

" As if I'd leave her now! : thought Pollyanna,
as she climbed the stairs to her room a little later.
" I always knew I wanted to live with Aunt Polly
— but I reckon maybe I didn't know quite how
much I wanted Aunt Polly — to want to live with
me! "

The task of telling John Pendleton of her de-
cision would not be an easy one, Pollyanna knew,
and she dreaded it. She was very fond of John
Pendleton, and she was very sorry for him — be-
cause he seemed to be so sorry for himself. She
was sorry, too, for the long, lonely life that had
made him so unhappy; and she was grieved that

193

POLLYANNA

it had been because of her mother that he had spent
those dreary years. She pictured the great gray
house as it would be after its master was well again,
with its silent rooms, its littered floors, it disor-
dered desk; and her heart ached for his loneliness.
She wished that somewhere, some one might be
found who — And it was at this point that she
sprang to her feet with a little cry of joy at the
thought that had come to her.

As soon as she could, after that, she hurried up
the hill to John Pendleton's house; and in due
time she found herself in the great dim library, with
John Pendleton himself sitting near her, his long,
thin hands lying idle on the arms of his chair, and
his faithful little dog at his feet.

" Well, Pollyanna, is it to be the i glad game '
with me, all the rest of my life? ' asked the man
gently.

" Oh, yes," cried Pollyanna. " I've thought of
the very gladdest kind of a thing for you to do,
and — "

" With — you? ' asked John Pendleton, his
mouth growing a little stern at the corners.

"N-no; but—"

" Pollyanna, you aren't going to say no! :i inter-
rupted a voice deep with emotion.

"I — I've got to, Mr. Pendleton; truly I have.
Aunt Polly — "

194

A QUESTION ANSWERED

" Did she refuse — to let you — come? '

a

I — I didn't ask her," stammered the little girl,
miserably.

"Pollyanna! "

Pollyanna turned away her eyes. She could not
meet the hurt, grieved gaze of her friend.

" So you didn't even ask her! :

"I couldn't, sir- -truly," faltered Pollyanna.
" You see, I found out - - without asking. Aunt
Polly wants me with her, and — and I want to stay,
too," she confessed bravely. " You don't know
how good she's been to me; and- -and I think,
really, sometimes she's beginning to be glad about
things - - lots of things. And you know she never
used to be. You said it yourself. Oh, Mr. Pendle-
ton, I couldn't leave Aunt Polly - - now ! :

There was a long pause. Only the snapping of
the wood fire in the grate broke the silence. At
last, however, the man spoke.

"No, Pollyanna; I see. You couldn't leave her
— now," he said. "I won't ask you — again."
The last word was so low it was almost inaudible;
but Pollyanna heard.

" Oh, but you don't know about the rest of it,"
she reminded him eagerly. " There's the very
gladdest thing you can do — truly there is ! :

" Not for me, Pollyanna."

" Yes, sir, for you. You said it. You said only

195

POLLYANNA

a — a woman's hand and heart or a child's presence
could make a home. And I can get it for you — a
child's presence; — not me, you know, but another

one."

" As if I would have any but you! " resented an
indignant voice.

"But you will — when you know; you're so
kind and good! Why, think of the prisms and the
gold pieces, and all that money you save for the
heathen, and — ':

" Pollyanna! : interupted the man, savagely.
"Once for all let us end that nonsense! I've tried
to tell you half a dozen times before. There is
no money for the heathen. I never sent a penny to
them in my life. There! :

He lifted his chin and braced himself to meet
what he expected — the grieved disappointment of
Pollyanna's eyes. To his amazement, however,
there was neither grief nor disappointment in Polly-
anna's eyes. There was only surprised joy.

" Oh, oh! :> she cried, clapping her hands. " I'm
so glad! That is," she corrected, coloring distress-
fully, " I don't mean that I'm not sorry for the
heathen, only just now I can't help being glad that
you don't want the little India boys, because all the
rest have wanted them. And so I'm glad you'd
rather have Jimmy Bean. Now I know you'll take
him! "

196

A QUESTION ANSWERED

"Take — who?"

" Jimmy Bean. He's the ' child's presence,' you
know; and he'll be so glad to be it. I had to tell
him last week that even my Ladies' Aid out West
wouldn't take him, and he was so disappointed.
But now — when he hears of this- -he'll be so
glad!"

"Will he? Well, I won't," ejaculated the
man, decisively. " Pollyanna, this is sheer non-
sense! :

"You don't mean — you won't take him? "

" I certainly do mean just that."

" But he'd be a lovely child's presence," faltered
Pollyanna. She was almost crying now. "And
you couldn't be lonesome — with Jimmy 'round."

"I don't doubt it," rejoined the man; "but —
I think I prefer the lonesomeness."

It was then that Pollyanna, for the first time in
weeks, suddenly remembered something Nancy had
once told her. She raised her chin aggrievedly.

" Maybe you think a nice live little boy wouldn't
be better than that old dead skeleton you keep some-
where; but I think it would! "

" Skeleton? "

" Yes. Nancy said you had one in your closet,
somewhere."

" Why, what - Suddenly the man threw back
his head and laughed. He laughed very heartily

197

POLLYANNA

indeed — so heartily that Pollyanna began to cry
from pure nervousness. When he saw that, John
Pendleton sat erect very promptly. His face grew
grave at once.

" Pollyanna, I suspect you are right — more
right than you know," he said gently. " In fact,
I know that a ' nice live little boy ' would be far
better than- -my skeleton in the closet; only —
we aren't always willing to make the exchange.
We are apt to still cling to- -our skeletons, Polly-
anna. However, suppose you tell me a little more
about this nice little boy." And Pollyanna told
him.

Perhaps the laugh cleared the air; or perhaps
the pathos of Jimmy Bean's story as told by Polly-
anna's eager little lips touched a heart already
strangely softened. At all events, when Pollyanna
went home that night she carried with her an invi-
tation for Jimmy Bean himself to call at the great
house with Pollyanna the next Saturday afternoon.

" And I'm so glad, and I'm sure you'll like him,"
sighed Pollyanna, as she said good-by. "I do so
want Jimmy Bean to have a home — and folks that
care, you know."

198

CHAPTER XXII

SERMONS AND WOODBOXES

ON the afternoon that Pollyanna told John Pen-
dleton of Jimmy Bean, the Rev. Paul Ford climbed
the hill and entered the Pendleton Woods, hoping
that the hushed beauty of God's out-of-doors would
still the tumult that His children of men had
wrought.

The Rev. Paul Ford was sick at heart. Month
by month, for a year past, conditions in the parish
under him had been growing worse and worse;
until it seemed that now, turn which way he would,
he encountered only wrangling, backbiting, scandal,
and jealousy. He had argued, pleaded, rebuked,
and ignored by turns; and always and through all
he had prayed - - earnestly, hopefully. But to-day
miserably he was forced to own that matters were
no better, but rather worse.

Two of his deacons were at swords' points over
a silly something that only endless brooding had
made of any account. Three of his most energetic
women workers had withdrawn from the Ladies'
Aid Society because a tiny spark of gossip had been

199

POLLYANNA

fanned by wagging tongues into a devouring flame
of scandal. The choir had split over the amount of
solo work given to a fanciedly preferred singer.
Even the Christian Endeavor Society was in a
ferment of unrest owing to open criticism of two
of its officers. As to the Sunday school — it had
been the resignation of its superintendent and two
of its teachers that had been the last straw, and
that had sent the harassed minister to the quiet
woods for prayer and meditation.

Under the green arch of the trees the Rev. Paul
Ford faced the thing squarely. To his mind, the
crisis had come. Something must be done — and
done at once. The entire work of the church was
at a standstill. The Sunday services, the week-day
prayer meeting, the missionary teas, even the sup-
pers and socials were becoming less and less well
attended. True, a few conscientious workers were
still left. But they pulled at cross purposes, usually;
and always they showed themselves to be acutely
aware of the critical eyes all about them, and of
the tongues that had nothing to do but to talk about
what the eyes saw.

And because of all this, the Rev. Paul Ford
understood very well that he (God's minister), the
church, the town, and even Christianity itself was
suffering; and must suffer still more unless —

200

SERMONS AND WOODBOXES

Clearly something must be done, and done at
once. But what?

Slowly the minister took from his pocket the
notes he had made for his next Sunday's sermon
Frowningly he looked at them. His mouth settled
into stern lines, as aloud, very impressively, he read
the verses on which he had determined to speak:

" ' But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hyp-
ocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven
against men : for ye neither go in yourselves, neither
suffer ye them that are entering to go in.'

" ' Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypo-
crites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a
pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall re-
ceive the greater damnation.'

" ' Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypo-
crites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and
cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters
of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these
ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other
undone.'

It was a bitter denunciation. In the green aisles
of the woods, the minister's deep voice rang out
with scathing effect. Even the birds and squirrels
seemed hushed into awed silence. It brought to
the minister a vivid realization of how those words
would sound the next Sunday when he should utter

201

POLLYANNA

them before his people in the sacred hush of the
church.

His people! — they were his people. Could he
do it? Dare he do it? Dare he not do it? It was
a fearful denunciation, even without the words that
would follow — his own words. He had prayed
and prayed. He had pleaded earnestly for help,
for guidance. He longed — oh, how earnestly he
longed ! - — to take now, in this crisis, the right step.
But was this — the right step?

Slowly the minister folded the papers and thrust
them back into his pocket. Then, with a sigh that
was almost a moan, he flung himself down at the
foot of a tree, and covered his face with his hands.

It was there that Pollyanna, on her way home
from the Pendleton house, found him. With a
little cry she ran forward.

" Oh, oh, Mr. Ford! You — you haven't broken
your leg or — or anything, have you? " she gasped.

The minister dropped his hands, and looked up
quickly. He tried to smile.

"No, dear — no, indeed! I'm just — resting."

" Oh," sighed Pollyanna, falling back a little.
" That's all right, then. You see, Mr. Pendleton
had broken his leg when I found him — but he was
lying down, though. And you are sitting up."

" Yes, I am sitting up; and I haven't broken any-
thing— that doctors can mend."

202

SERMONS AND WOODBOXES

The last words were very low, but Pollyanna
heard them. A swift change crossed her face. Her
eyes glowed with tender sympathy.

"I know what you mean -- something plagues
you. Father used to feel like that, lots of times.
I reckon ministers do - - most generally. You see
there's such a lot depends on 'em, somehow."

The Rev. Paul Ford turned a little wonder-
ingly.

" Was your father a minister, Pollyanna? '

" Yes, sir. Didn't you know? I supposed every-
body knew that. He married Aunt Polly's sister,
and she was my mother."

" Oh, I understand. But, you see, I haven't been
here many years, so I don't know all the family
histories."

" Yes, sir — I mean, no, sir," Pollyanna smiled,
looking into his face.

There was a long pause. The minister, still sit-
ting at the foot of the tree, appeared to have for-
gotten Pollyanna's presence. He had pulled some
papers from his pocket and unfolded them; but he
was not looking at them. He was gazing, instead,
at a leaf on the ground a little distance away —
and it was not even a pretty leaf. It was brown
and dead. Pollyanna, looking at him, felt vaguely
sorry for him.

" It — it's a nice day," she began hopefully.

203

POLLYANNA

For a moment there was no answer; then the
minister looked up with a start.

"What? Oh! — yes, it is a very nice day."

" And 'tisn't cold at all, either, even if 'tis Octo-
ber," observed Pollyanna, still more hopefully.
" Mr. Pendleton had a fire, but he said he didn't
need it. It was just to look at. I like to look at
fires, don't you? '

There was no reply this time, though Polly-
anna waited patiently, before she tried again — by
a new route.

" Do you like being a minister? "

The Rev. Paul Ford looked up now, very quickly.

" Do I like — Why, what an odd question!
Why do you ask that, my dear? "

"Nothing — only the way you looked. It made
me think of my father. He used to look like that
— sometimes."

" Did he? ' The minister's voice was polite, but
his eyes had gone back to the dried leaf on the
ground.

" Yes, and I used to ask him just as I did you
if he was glad he was a minister."

The man under the tree smiled a little sadly.

"Well — what did he say? "

" Oh, he always said he was, of course, but 'most
always he said, too, that he wouldn't stay a minister
a minute if 'twasn't for the rejoicing texts."

204

SERMONS AND WOODBOXES

" The — what? " The Rev. Paul Ford's eyes
left the leaf and gazed wonderingly into Pollyanna's
merry little face.

" Well, that's what father used to call 'em," she
laughed. " Of course the Bible didn't name 'em
that. But it's all those that begin ' Be glad in the
Lord,' or ' Rejoice greatly,' or ' Shout for joy,'
and all that, you know - - such a lot of 'em. Once,
when father felt specially bad, he counted 'em.
There were eight hundred of 'em."

"Eight hundred! "

" Yes - - that told you to rejoice and be glad,
you know; that's why father named 'em the ' re-
joicing texts.'

"Oh! " There was an odd look on the min-
ister's face. His eyes had fallen to the words on
the top paper in his hands - - " But woe unto you,
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! : " And so your
father - - liked those ' rejoicing texts,' he mur-
mured.

" Oh, yes," nodded Pollyanna, emphatically.
" He said he felt better right away, that first day
he thought to count 'em. He said if God took the
trouble to tell us eight hundred times to be glad
and rejoice, He must want us to do it — some.
And father felt ashamed that he hadn't done it
more. After that, they got to be such a comfort
to him, you know, when things went wrong; when

205

POLLYANNA

the Ladies' Aiders got to fight — I mean, when
they didn't agree about something," corrected Pol-
ly anna, hastily. " Why, it was those texts, too,
father said, that made him think of the game — he
began with me on the crutches — but he said 'twas
the rejoicing text that started him on it."

" And what game might that be? ' asked the
minister.

" About finding something in everything to be
glad about, you know. As I said, he began with
me on the crutches." And once more Pollyanna
told her story — this time to a man who listened
with tender eyes and understanding ears.

A little later Pollyanna and the minister de-
scended the hill, hand in hand. Pollyanna's face
was radiant. Pollyanna loved to talk, and she had
been talking now for some time: there seemed to
be so many, many things about the game, her father,
and the old home life that the minister wanted to
know.

At the foot of the hill their ways parted, and
Pollyanna down one road, and the minister down
another, walked on alone.

In the Rev. Paul Ford's study that evening the
minister sat thinking. Near him on the desk lay
a few loose sheets of paper — his sermon notes.
Under the suspended pencil in his fingers lay other
sheets of paper, blank — his sermon to be. But the

206

SERMONS AND WOODBOXES

minister was not thinking either of what he had
written, or of what he intended to write. In his
imagination he was far away in a little Western
town with a missionary minister who was poor,
sick, worried, and almost alone in the world- -but
who was poring over the Bible to find how many
times his Lord and Master had told him to " re-
joice and be glad."

After a time, with a long sigh, the Rev. Paul
Ford roused himself, came back from the far West-
ern town, and adjusted the sheets of paper under
his hand.

"Matthew twenty-third; 13- -14 and 23," he
wrote; then, with a gesture of impatience, he
dropped his pencil and pulled toward him a maga-
zine left on the desk by his wife a few minutes
before. Listlessly his tired eyes turned from para-
graph to paragraph until these words arrested
them:

" A father one day said to his son, Tom, who,
he knew, had refused to fill his mother's woodbox
that morning: 'Tom, I'm sure you'll be glad to
go and bring in some wood for your mother.' And
without a word Tom went. Why? Just because
his father showed so plainly that he expected him
to do the right thing. Suppose he had said: l Tom,
I overheard what you said to your mother this
morning, and I'm ashamed of you. Go at once

207

POLLYANNA

and fill that woodbox! ' I'll warrant that woodbox
would be empty yet, so far as Tom was concerned! "

On and on read the minister — a word here, a
line there, a paragraph somewhere else:

" What men and women need is encouragement.
Their natural resisting powers should be strength-
ened, not weakened. . . . Instead of always harp-
ing on a man's faults, tell him of his virtues. Try
to pull him out of his rut of bad habits. Hold up
to him his better self, his real self that can dare
and do and win out! . . . The influence of a beau-
tiful, helpful, hopeful character is contagious, and
may revolutionize a whole town. . . . People radi-
ate what is in their minds and in their hearts. If
a man feels kindly and obliging, his neighbors will
feel that way, too, before long. But if he scolds
and scowls and criticizes — his neighbors will re-
turn scowl for scowl, and add interest! . . . When
you look for the bad, expecting it, you will get it.
When you know you will find the good — you will
get that. . . . Tell your son Tom you know he'll
be glad to fill that woodbox — then watch him start,
alert and interested! :

The minister dropped the paper and lifted his
chin. In a moment he was on his feet, tramping
the narrow room back and forth, back and forth.
Later, some time later, he drew a long breath, and
dropped himself in the chair at his desk.

208

SERMONS AND WOODBOXES

"God helping me, I'll do it! " he cried softly.
" I'll tell all my Toms I know they'll be glad to fill
that woodbox! I'll give them work to do, and I'll
make them so full of the very joy of doing it that
they won't have time to look at their neighbors'
woodboxes! : And he picked up his sermon notes,
tore straight through the sheets, and cast them
from him, so that on one side of his chair lay
" But woe unto you," and on the other, " scribes
and Pharisees, hypocrites! : while across the
smooth white paper before him his pencil fairly
flew — after first drawing one black line through
" Matthew twenty-third; 13- - 14 and 23."

Thus it happened that the Rev. Paul Ford's ser-
mon the next Sunday was a veritable bugle-call
to the best that was in every man and woman and
child that heard it; and its text was one of Polly-
anna's shining eight hundred :

" Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, ye righteous,
and shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart."

209

CHAPTER XXIII

AN ACCIDENT

AT Mrs. Snow's request, Pollyanna went one
day to Dr. Chilton's office to get the name of a
medicine which Mrs. Snow had forgotten. As it
chanced, Pollyanna had never before seen the in-
side of Dr. Chilton's office.

" I've never been to your home before! This is
your home, isn't it? " she said, looking interestedly
about her.

The doctor smiled a little sadly.

" Yes — such as 'tis," he answered, as he wrote
something on the pad of paper in his hand; " but
it's a pretty poor apology for a home, Pollyanna.
They're just rooms, that's all — not a home."

Pollyanna nodded her head wisely. Her eyes
glowed with sympathetic understanding.

" I know. It takes a woman's hand and heart,
or a child's presence to make a home," she said.
Eh? " The doctor wheeled about abruptly.
Mr. Pendleton told me," nodded Pollyanna,
again; " about the woman's hand and heart, or the

210

u

it

AN ACCIDENT

child's presence, you know. Why don't you get a
woman's hand and heart, Dr. Chilton? Or maybe
you'd take Jimmy Bean - - if Mr. Pendleton doesn't
want him."

Dr. Chilton laughed a little constrainedly.

" So Mr. Pendleton says it takes a woman's hand
and heart to make a home, does he? ' he asked
evasively.

" Yes. He says his is just a house, too. Why
don't you, Dr. Chilton? "

"Why don't I — what?" The doctor had
turned back to his desk.

" Get a woman's hand and heart. Oh- -and I
forgot." Pollyanna's face showed suddenly a pain-
ful color. " I suppose I ought to tell you. It wasn't
Aunt Polly that Mr. Pendleton loved long ago;
and so we — we aren't going there to live. You
see, I told you it was - - but I made a mistake. I
hope you didn't tell any one," she finished anxiously.

"No — I didn't tell any one, Pollyanna," replied
the doctor, a little queerly.

" Oh, that's all right, then," sighed Pollyanna in
relief. " You see you're the only one I told, and
I thought Mr. Pendleton looked sort of funny when
I said I'd told you"

11 Did he? " The doctor's lips twitched.

" Yes. And of course he wouldn't want many

211

POLLYANNA

people to know it — when 'twasn't true. But why
don't you get a woman's hand and heart, Dr. Chil-
ton? "

There was a moment's silence; then very gravely
the doctor said:

" They're not always to be had — for the asking,
little girl."

Pollyanna frowned thoughtfully.

" But I should think you could get 'em," she
argued. The flattering emphasis was unmistakable.

" Thank you," laughed the doctor, with uplifted
eyebrows. Then, gravely again: " I'm afraid some
of your older sisters would not be quite so — con-
fident. At least, they — they haven't shown them-
selves to be so — obliging," he observed.

Pollyanna frowned again. Then her eyes widened
in surprise.

" Why, Dr. Chilton, you don't mean — you
didn't try to get somebody's hand and heart once,
like Mr. Pendleton, and — couldn't, did you?'

The doctor got to his feet a little abruptly.

" There, there, Pollyanna, never mind about that
now. Don't let other people's troubles worry your
little head. Suppose you run back now to Mrs.
Snow. I've written down the name of the medicine,
and the directions how she is to take it. Was there
anything else? '

Pollyanna shook her head.

212

AN ACCIDENT

"No, sir; thank you, sir," she murmured so-
berly, as she turned toward the door. From the
little hallway she called back, her face suddenly
alight: "Anyhow, I'm glad 'twasn't my mother's
hand and heart that you wanted and couldn't get,
Dr. Chilton. Good-by! "

It was on the last day of October that the acci-
dent occurred. Pollyanna, hurrying home from
school, crossed the road at an apparently safe dis-
tance in front of a swiftly approaching motor car.

Just what happened, no one could seem to tell
afterward. Neither was there any one found who
could tell why it happened or who was to blame that
it did happen. Pollyanna, however, at five o'clock,
was borne, limp and unconscious, into the little room
that was so dear to her. There, by a white-faced
Aunt Polly and a weeping Nancy she was un-
dressed tenderly and put to bed, while from the
village, hastily summoned by telephone, Dr. War-
ren was hurrying as fast as another motor car could
bring him.

" And ye didn't need ter more'n look at her
aunt's face," Nancy was sobbing to Old Tom in the
garden, after the doctor had arrived and was clos-
eted in the hushed room; "ye didn't need ter
more'n look at her aunt's face ter see that 'twa'n't
no duty that was eatin' her. Yer hands don't shake,

213

POLLYANNA

and yer eyes don't look as if ye was tryin' ter hold
back the Angel o' Death himself, when you're jest
doin' yer duty, Mr. Tom — they don't, they don't! :

"Is she hurt — bad?' The old man's voice
shook.

" There ain't no tellin'," sobbed Nancy. " She
lay back that white an' still she might easy be dead;
but Miss Polly said she wa'n't dead — an' Miss
Polly had oughter know, if any one would — she
kept up such a listenin' an' a feelin' for her heart-
beats an' her breath! :

" Couldn't ye tell anythin' what it done to her?
— that — that - Old Tom's face worked con-
vulsively.

Nancy's lips relaxed a little.

" I wish ye would call it something Mr. Tom —
an' somethin' good an' strong, too. Drat it! Ter
think of its runnin' down our little girl! I always
hated the evil-smellin' things, anyhow — I did, I
did! "

" But where is she hurt? '

" I don't know, I don't know," moaned Nancy.
" There's a little cut on her blessed head, but 'tain't
bad — that ain't — Miss Polly says. She says she's
afraid it's infernally she's hurt."

A faint flicker came into Old Tom's eyes.

" I guess you mean internally, Nancy," he said
dryly. " She's hurt infernally, all right — plague

214

AN ACCIDENT

take that autymobile! - -but I don't guess Miss
Polly'd be usin' that word, all the same."

"Eh? Well, I don't know, I don't know,"
moaned Nancy, with a shake of her head as she
turned away. " Seems as if I jest couldn't stand it
till that doctor gits out o' there. I wish I had a
washin' ter do- -the biggest washin' I ever see, I
do, I do! : she wailed, wringing her hands help-
lessly.

Even after the doctor was gone, however, there
seemed to be little that Nancy could tell Mr. Tom.
There appeared to be no bones broken, and the cut
was of slight consequence; but the doctor had
looked very grave, had shaken his head slowly, and
had said that time alone could tell. After he had
gone, Miss Polly had shown a face even whiter and
more drawn looking than before. The patient had
not fully recovered consciousness, but at present she
seemed to be resting as comfortably as could be
expected. A trained nurse had been sent for, and
would come that night. That was all. And Nancy
turned sobbingly, and went back to her kitchen.

It was sometime during the next forenoon that
Pollyanna opened conscious eyes and realized where
she was.

"Why, Aunt Polly, what's the matter? Isn't it
daytime? Why don't I get up? ' she cried.
"Why, Aunt Polly, I can't get up," she moaned,

215

POLLYANNA

falling back on the pillow, after an ineffectual at-
tempt to lift herself.

" No, dear, I wouldn't try — just yet," soothed
her aunt quickly, but very quietly.

"But what is the matter? Why can't I get up? "

Miss Polly's eyes asked an agonized question of
the white-capped young woman standing in the
window, out of the range of Pollyanna's eyes.

The young woman nodded.

" Tell her," the lips said.

Miss Polly cleared her throat and tried to swal-
low the lump that would scarcely let her speak.

" You were hurt, dear, by the automobile last
night. But never mind that now. Auntie wants
you to rest and go to sleep again."

"Hurt? Oh, yes; I — Iran." Pollyanna's eyes
were dazed. She lifted her hand to her forehead.
" Why, it's — done up, and it — hurts! :

"Yes, dear; but never mind. Just — just rest."

"But, Aunt Polly, I feel so funny, and so bad!
My legs feel so — so queer — only they don't feel
— at all! "

With an imploring look into the nurse's face,
Miss Polly struggled to her feet, and turned away.
The nurse came forward quickly.

" Suppose you let me talk to you now," she be-
gan cheerily. " I'm sure I think it's high time we
were getting acquainted, and I'm going to introduce

216

AN ACCIDENT

myself. I am Miss Hunt, and I've come to help
your aunt take care of you. And the very first thing
I'm going to do is to ask you to swallow these little
white pills for me."

Pollyanna's eyes grew a bit wild.

" But I don't want to be taken care of — that is,
not for long! I want to get up. You know I go to
school. Can't I go to school to-morrow? '

From the window where Aunt Polly stood now
there came a half-stifled cry.

" To-morrow? ' smiled the nurse, brightly.
" Well, I may not let you out quite so soon as that,
Miss Pollyanna. But just swallow these little pills
for me, please, and we'll see what they'll do."

" All right," agreed Pollyanna, somewhat doubt-
fully; " but I must go to school day after to-morrow
— there are examinations then, you know."

She spoke again, a minute later. She spoke ot
school, and of the automobile, and of how her head
ached; but very soon her voice trailed into silence
under the blessed influence of the little white pills
she had swallowed.

217

CHAPTER XXIV

JOHN PENDLETON

POLLYANNA did not go to school " to-morrow,"
nor the " day after to-morrow." Pollyanna, how-
ever, did not realize this, except momentarily when
a brief period of full consciousness sent insistent
questions to her lips. Pollyanna did not realize
anything, in fact, very clearly until a week had
passed; then the fever subsided, the pain lessened
somewhat, and her mind awoke to full conscious-
ness. She had then to be told all over again what
had occurred.

" And so it's hurt that I am, and not sick," she
sighed at last. " Well, I'm glad of that."

" G-glad, Pollyanna? " asked her aunt, who was
sitting by the bed.

" Yes. I'd so much rather have broken legs like
Mr. Pendleton's than life-long-invalids like Mrs.
Snow, you know. Broken legs get well, and life-
long-invalids don't."

Miss Polly- -who had said nothing whatever
about broken legs — got suddenly to her feet and
walked to the little dressing table across the room.

218

JOHN PENDLETON

She was picking up one object after another now,
and putting each down, in an aimless fashion quite
unlike her usual decisiveness. Her face was not
aimless-looking at all, however; it was white and
drawn.

On the bed Pollyanna lay blinking at the dancing
band of colors on the ceiling, which came from one
of the prisms in the window.

" I'm glad it isn't smallpox that ails me, too,"
she murmured contentedly. " That would be worse
than freckles. And I'm glad 'tisn't whooping cough
— I've had that, and it's horrid- -and I'm glad
'tisn't appendicitis nor measles, 'cause they're catch-
ing - - measles are, I mean - - and they wouldn't let
you stay here."

" You seem to - - to be glad for a good many
things, my dear," faltered Aunt Polly, putting her
hand to her throat as if her collar bound.

Pollyanna laughed softly.

" I am. I've been thinking of 'em - - lots of 'em

-all the time I've been looking up at that rain-
bow. I love rainbows. I'm so glad Mr. Pendleton
gave me those prisms! I'm glad of some things I
haven't said yet. I don't know but I'm 'most glad
I was hurt."

"Pollyanna! "

Pollyanna laughed softly again. She turned
luminous eyes on her aunt. " Well, you see, since

219

POLLYANNA

I have been hurt, you've called me ' dear ' lots of
times — and you didn't before. I love to be called
1 dear ' — by folks that belong to you, I mean.
Some of the Ladies' Aiders did call me that; and
of course that was pretty nice, but not so nice as
if they had belonged to me, like you do. Oh, Aunt
Polly, I'm so glad you belong to me ! ;

Aunt Polly did not answer. Her hand was at
her throat again. Her eyes were full of tears. She
had turned away and was hurrying from the room
through the door by which the nurse had just en-
tered.

It was that afternoon that Nancy ran out to Old
Tom, who was cleaning harnesses in the barn. Her
eyes were wild.

" Mr. Tom, Mr. Tom, guess what's happened,"
she panted. "You couldn't guess in a thousand
years — you couldn't, you couldn't! "

" Then I cal'late I won't try," retorted the man,
grimly, " specially as I hain't got more'n ten ter
live, anyhow, probably. You'd better tell me first
off, Nancy."

" Well, listen, then. Who do you s'pose is in the
parlor now with the mistress? Who, I say? "

Old Tom shook his head.

" There's no tellin'," he declared.

220

JOHN PENDLETON

"Yes, there is. I'm tellin'. It's — John Pen-
dleton! "

" Sho, now! You're jokin', girl."

" Not much I am — an' me a-lettin' him in my-
self— crutches an' all! An' the team he come in
a-waitin' this minute at the door for him, jest as if
he wa'n't the cranky old crosspatch he is, what
never talks ter no one! Jest think, Mr. Tom — him
a-callin' on her! "

" Well, why not? " demanded the old man, a little
aggressively.

Nancy gave him a scornful glance.

"As if you didn't know better'n me! : she de-
rided.

" Eh? "

" Oh, you needn't be so innercent," she retorted
with mock indignation; "- -you what led me wild-
goose chasin' in the first place! :

"What do ye mean? "

Nancy glanced through the open barn door
toward the house, and came a step nearer to the
old man.

"Listen! 'Twas you that was tellin' me Miss
Polly had a lover in the first place, wa'n't it? Well,
one day I thinks I finds two and two, and I puts 'em
tergether an' makes four. But it turns out ter be
five — an' no four at all, at all I "

221

POLLYANNA

With a gesture of indifference Old Tom turned
and fell to work.

" If you're goin' ter talk ter me, you've got ter
talk plain horse sense," he declared testily. " I
never was no hand for figgers."

Nancy laughed.

" Well, it's this," she explained. " I heard some-
thin' that made me think him an' Miss Polly was
lovers."

" Mr. Pendleton! ' Old Tom straightened up.

" Yes. Oh, I know now; he wasn't. It was that
blessed child's mother he was in love with, and that's
why he wanted — but never mind that part," she
added hastily, remembering just in time her prom-
ise to Pollyanna not to tell that Mr. Pendleton had
wished her to come and live with him. " Well,
I've been askin' folks about him some, since, and
I've found out that him an' Miss Polly hain't been
friends for years, an' that she's been hatin' him
like pizen owin' ter the silly gossip that coupled
their names tergether when she was eighteen or
twenty."

" Yes, I remember," nodded Old Tom. " It was
three or four years after Miss Jennie give him the
mitten and went off with the other chap. Miss
Polly knew about it, of course, and was sorry for
him. So she tried ter be nice to him. Maybe she

222

JOHN PENDLETON

overdid it a little — she hated that minister chap
so who had took off her sister. At any rate, some-
body begun ter make trouble. They said she was
runnin' after him."

" Runnin' after any man — her I : interjected
Nancy.

" I know it; but they did," declared Old Tom,
" and of course no gal of any spunk'll stand that.
Then about that time come her own lover an' the
trouble with him. After that she shut up like an
oyster an' wouldn't have nothin' ter do with nobody
fur a spell. Her heart jest seemed to turn bitter at
the core."

" Yes, I know. I've heard about that now," re-
joined Nancy; " an' that's why you could 'a'
knocked me down with a feather when I see him
at the door — him, what she hain't spoke to for
years! But I let him in an' went an' told her."

"'What did she say? " Old Tom held his breath
suspended.

" Nothin' — at first. She was so still I thought
she hadn't heard; and I was jest goin' ter say it
over when she speaks up quiet like: l Tell Mr. Pen-
dleton I will be down at once.' An' I come an' told
him. Then I come out here an' told you," finished
Nancy, casting another backward glance toward
the house.

223

POLLYANNA

"Humph! " grunted Old Tom; and fell to work
again.

In the ceremonious " parlor ' of the Harrington
homestead, Mr. John Pendleton did not have to
wait long before a swift step warned him of Miss
Polly's coming. As he attempted to rise, she made
a gesture of remonstrance. She did not offer her
hand, however, and her face was coldly reserved.

" I called to ask for — Pollyanna," he began at
once, a little brusquely.

" Thank you. She is about the same," said Miss
Polly.

" And that is — won't you tell me how she is? '
His voice was not quite steady this time.

A quick spasm of pain crossed the woman's face.

" I can't. I wish I could! "

" You mean — you don't know? '

" Yes."

"But — the doctor? "

" Dr. Warren himself seems — at sea. He is
in correspondence now with a New York spe-
cialist. They have arranged for a consultation —
at once."

" But — but what were her injuries that you do
know? '

" A slight cut on the head, one or two bruises,
and — and an injury to the spine which has seemed
to cause — paralysis from the hips down."

224

JOHN PENDLETON

A low cry came from the man. There was a
brief silence; then, huskily, he asked:

"And Pollyanna- -how does she- -take it? '

"She doesn't understand- -at all --how things
really are. And I can't tell her."

"But she must know - - something! :

Miss Polly lifted her hand to the collar at her
throat in the gesture that had become so common
to her of late.

"Oh, yes. She knows she can't- -move; but
she thinks her legs are- -broken. She says she's
glad it's broken legs like yours rather than l life-
long-invalids' like Mrs. Snow's; because broken
legs get well, and the other - - doesn't. She talks
like that all the time, until it- -it seems as if I
should— die! "

Through the blur of tears in his own eyes, the
man saw the drawn face opposite, twisted with
emotion. Involuntarily his thoughts went back to
what Pollyanna had said when he had made his
final plea for her presence: " Oh, I couldn't leave
Aunt Polly- -now! :

It was this thought that made him ask very
gently, as soon as he could control his voice:

" I wonder if you know, Miss Harrington, how
hard I tried to get Pollyanna to come and live with

me.'

" With you! — Pollyanna!

225

POLLYANNA

The man winced a little at the tone of her voice;
but his own voice was still impersonally cool when
he spoke again.

" Yes. I wanted to adopt her — legally, you
understand; making her my heir, of course."

The woman in the opposite chair relaxed a little.
It came to her, suddenly, what a brilliant future it
would have meant for Pollyanna — this adoption;
and she wondered if Pollyanna were old enough —
and mercenary enough — to be tempted by this
man's money and position.

" I am very fond of Pollyanna," the man was
continuing. " I am fond of her both for her own
sake, and for — her mother's. I stood ready to
give Pollyanna the love that had been twenty-five
years in storage."

"Love" Miss Polly remembered suddenly why
she had taken this child in the first place — and with
the recollection came the remembrance of Polly-
anna's own words uttered that very morning: "I
love to be called c dear ' by folks that belong to
you! : And it was this love-hungry little girl that
had been offered the stored-up affection of twenty-
five years : — and she was old enough to be tempted
by love! With a sinking heart Miss Polly realized
that. With a sinking heart, too, she realized some-
thing else : the dreariness of her own future now —
without Pollyanna.

226

JOHN PENDLETON

"Well?' she said. And the man, recognizing
the self-control that vibrated through the harshness
of the tone, smiled sadly.

" She would not come," he answered.

"Why?"

" She would not leave you. She said you had
been so good to her. She wanted to stay with you

— and she said she thought you wanted her to
stay," he finished, as he pulled himself to his feet.

He did not look toward Miss Polly. He turned
his face resolutely toward the door. But instantly
he heard a swift step at his side, and found a
shaking hand thrust toward him.

" When the specialist comes, and I know any-
thing— definite about Pollyanna, I will let you
hear from me," said a trembling voice. " Good-by

— and thank you for coming. Pollyanna will be —
pleased."

227

CHAPTER XXV

A WAITING GAME

ON the day after John Pendleton's call at the
Harrington homestead, Miss Polly set herself to
the task of preparing Pollyanna for the visit of the
specialist.

" Pollyanna, my dear," she began gently, " we
have decided that we want another doctor besides
Dr. Warren to see you. Another one might tell us
something new to do — to help you get well faster,
you know."

A joyous light came to Pollyanna's face.

"Dr. Chilton! Oh, Aunt Polly, I'd so love to
have Dr. Chilton! I've wanted him all the time,
but I was afraid you didn't, on account of his see-
ing you in the sun parlor that day, you know; so
I didn't like to say anything. But I'm so glad you
do want him ! :

Aunt Polly's face had turned white, then red,
then back to white again. But when she answered,
she showed very plainly that she was trying to
speak lightly and cheerfully.

" Oh, no, dear! It wasn't Dr. Chilton at all that

228

A WAITING GAME

I meant. It is a new doctor — a very famous doc-
tor from New York, who — who knows a great
deal about — about hurts like yours."

Pollyanna's face fell.

" I don't believe he knows half so much as Dr.
Chilton."

" Oh, yes, he does, I'm sure, dear."

" But it was Dr. Chilton who doctored Mr. Pen-
dleton's broken leg, Aunt Polly. If — if you don't
mind very much, I would like to have Dr. Chilton
— truly I would! :

A distressed color suffused Miss Polly's face.
For a moment she did not speak at all; then she
said gently - - though yet with a touch of her old
stern decisiveness:

" But I do mind, Pollyanna. I mind very much.
I would do anything — almost anything for you,
my dear; but I — for reasons which I do not care
to speak of now, I don't wish Dr. Chilton called
in on - - on this case. And believe me, he can not
know so much about — about your trouble, as this
great doctor does, who will come from New York
to-morrow."

Pollyanna still looked unconvinced.

" But, Aunt Polly, if you loved Dr. Chilton — "

" What, Pollyanna? ' Aunt Polly's voice was
very sharp now. Her cheeks were very red, too.

" I say, if you loved Dr. Chilton, and didn't love

229

POLLYANNA

the other one," sighed Pollyanna, " seems to me
that would make some difference in the good he
would do; and I love Dr. Chilton."

The nurse entered the room at that moment, and
Aunt Polly rose to her feet abruptly, a look of relief
on her face.

" I am very sorry, Pollyanna," she said, a little
stiffly; "but I'm afraid you'll have to let me be
the judge, this time. Besides, it's already ar-
ranged. The New York doctor is coming to-
morrow."

As it happened, however, the New York doctor
did not come " to-morrow." At the last moment
a telegram told of an unavoidable delay owing to
the sudden illness of the specialist himself. This
led Pollyanna into a renewed pleading for the sub-
stitution of Dr. Chilton — " which would be so easy
now, you know."

But as before, Aunt Polly shook her head and
said " no, dear," very decisively, yet with a still
more anxious assurance that she would do anything
— anything but that — to please her dear Polly-
anna.

As the days of waiting passed, one by one, it did
indeed, seem that Aunt Polly was doing everything
(but that) that she could do to please her niece.

" I wouldn't 'a' believed it — you couldn't V
made me believe it," Nancy said to Old Tom one

230

A WAITING GAME

morning. " There don't seem ter be a minute in
the day that Miss Polly ain't jest hangin' 'round
waitin' ter do somethin' for that blessed lamb, if
'tain't more than ter let in the cat — an' her what
wouldn't let Fluff nor Buff up-stairs for love nor
money a week ago; an' now she lets 'em tumble
all over the bed jest 'cause it pleases Miss Polly-
anna!

" An' when she ain't doin' nothin' else, she's
movin' them little glass danglers 'round ter diff'-
rent winders in the room so the sun'll make the
' rainbows dance,' as that blessed child calls it.
She's sent Timothy down ter Cobb's greenhouse
three times for fresh flowers — an' that besides all
the posies fetched in ter her, too. An' the other
day, if I didn't find her sittin' 'fore the bed with
the nurse actually doin' her hair, an' Miss Polly-
anna lookin' on an' bossin' from the bed, her eyes
all shinin' an' happy. An' I declare ter goodness, if
Miss Polly hain't wore her hair like that every day
now — jest ter please that blessed child ! :

Old Tom chuckled.

" Well, it strikes me Miss Polly herself ain't
lookin' none the worse — for wearin' them 'ere
curls 'round her forehead," he observed dryly.

" 'Course she ain't," retorted Nancy, indignantly.
" She looks like folks, now. She's actually al-
most — "

231

POLLYANNA

"Keerful, now, Nancy! " interrupted the old
man, with a slow grin. " You know what you said
when I told ye she was handsome once."

Nancy shrugged her shoulders.

" Oh, she ain't handsome, of course; but I will
own up she don't look like the same woman, what
with the ribbons an' lace jiggers Miss Pollyanna
makes her wear 'round her neck."

" I told ye so," nodded the man. " I told ye she
wa'n't — old."

Nancy laughed.

"Well, I'll own up she hain't got quite so good
an imitation of it — as she did have, 'fore Miss
Pollyanna come. Say, Mr. Tom, who was her
lover? I hain't found that out, yet; I hain't, I
hain't! "

" Hain't ye? ' asked the old man, with an odd
look on his face. " Well, I guess ye won't then —
from me."

" Oh, Mr. Tom, come on, now," wheedled the
girl. " Ye see, there ain't many folks here that I
can ask."

" Maybe not. But there's one, anyhow, that
ain't answerin'," grinned Old Tom. Then, ab-
ruptly, the light died from his eyes. " How is she,
ter-day — the little gal? "

Nancy shook her head. Her face, too, had so-
bered.

232

A WAITING GAME

" Just the same, Mr. Tom. There ain't no special
difference, as I can see- -or anybody, I guess. She
jest lays there an' sleeps an' talks some, an' tries
ter smile an' be l glad ' 'cause the sun sets or the
moon rises, or some other such thing, till it's enough
ter make yer heart break with achin'."

"I know; it's the 'game' -bless her sweet
heart! : nodded Old Tom, blinking a little.

"She told you, then, too, about that 'ere-
game? '

" Oh, yes. She told me long ago." The old man
hesitated, then went on, his lips twitching a little.
" I was growlin' one day 'cause I was so bent up
and crooked; an' what do ye s'pose the little thing
said? "

" I couldn't guess. I wouldn't think she could
find any thin' about that ter be glad about! :

" She did. She said I could be glad, anyhow,
that I didn't have ter stoop so jar ter do my weedin'
— 'cause I was already bent part way over."

Nancy gave a wistful laugh.

"Well, I ain't surprised, after all. You might

know she'd find somethin'. We've been playin' it

— that game - - since almost the first, 'cause there

wa'n't no one else she could play it with — though

she did speak of- — her aunt."

"Miss Polly!"

Nancy chuckled.

233

POLLYANNA

"I guess you hain't got such an awful diff'rent
opinion o' the mistress than I have," she bridled.

Old Tom stiffened.

" I was only thinkin' 'twould be — some of a sur-
prise — to her," he explained with dignity.

" Well, yes, I guess 'twould be — then" retorted
Nancy. " I ain't sayin' what 'twould be now. I'd
believe anythin' o' the mistress now — even that
she'd take ter playin' it herself 1 :

" But hain't the little gal told her — ever? She's
told ev'ry one else, I guess. I'm hearin' of it ev'ry-
where, now, since she was hurted," said Tom.

"Well, she didn't tell Miss Polly," rejoined
Nancy. " Miss Pollyanna told me long ago that
she couldn't tell her, 'cause her aunt didn't like ter
have her talk about her father; an' 'twas her
father's game, an' she'd have ter talk about him if
she did tell it. So she never told her."

" Oh, I see, I see." The old man nodded his
head slowly. " They was always bitter against the
minister chap — all of 'em, 'cause he took Miss
Jenny away from 'em. An' Miss Polly — young
as she was — couldn't never forgive him; she was
that fond of Miss Jennie — in them days. I see, I
see. 'Twas a bad mess," he sighed as he turned
away.

" Yes, 'twas — all 'round, all 'round," sighed
Nancy in her turn, as she went back to her kitchen.

234

A WAITING GAME

For no one were those days of waiting easy, The
nurse tried to look cheerful, but her eyes were
troubled. The doctor was openly nervous and impa-
tient. Miss Polly said little; but even the softening
waves of hair about her face, and the becoming laces
at her throat, could not hide the fact that she was
growing thin and pale. As to Pollyanna — Polly-
anna petted the dog, smoothed the cat's sleek head,
admired the flowers and ate the fruits and jellies
that were sent in to her; and returned innumerable
cheery answers to the many messages of love and
inquiry that were brought to her bedside. But she,
too, grew pale and thin; and the nervous activity
of the poor little hands and arms only emphasized
the pitiful motionlessness of the once active little
feet and legs now lying so woefully quiet under the
blankets.

As to the game — Pollyanna told Nancy these
days how glad she was going to be when she could
go to school again, go to see Mrs. Snow, go to call
on Mr. Pendleton, and go to ride with Dr. Chilton:
nor did she seem to realize that all this " gladness '
was in the future, not the present. Nancy, however,
did realize it — and cry about it, when she was
alone.

235

CHAPTER XXVI

A DOOR AJAR

JUST a week from the time Dr. Mead, the special-
ist, was first expected, he came. He was a tall,
broad-shouldered man with kind gray eyes, and a
cheerful smile. Pollyanna liked him at once, and
told him so.

" You look quite a lot like my doctor, you see,"
she added engagingly.

" Your doctor? " Dr. Mead glanced in evident
surprise at Dr. Warren, talking with the nurse a
few feet away. Dr. Warren was a small, brown-
eyed man with a pointed brown beard.

" Oh, that isn't my doctor," smiled Pollyanna,
divining his thought. " Dr. Warren is Aunt Polly's
doctor. My doctor is Dr. Chilton."

" Oh-h! " said Dr. Mead, a little oddly, his eyes
resting on Miss Polly, who, with a vivid blush, had
turned hastily away.

" Yes." Pollyanna hesitated, then continued
with her usual truthfulness. " You see, / wanted
Dr. Chilton all the time, but Aunt Polly wanted
you. She said you knew more than Dr. Chilton,

236

A DOOR AJAR

anyway about — about broken legs like mine. And
of course if you do, I can be glad for that. Do
you? "

A swift something crossed the doctor's face that
Pollyanna could not quite translate.

" Only time can tell that, little girl," he said
gently; then he turned a grave face toward Dr.
Warren, who had just come to the bedside.

Every one said afterward that it was the cat that
did it. Certainly, if Fluffy had not poked an in-
sistent paw and nose against Pollyanna's unlatched
door, the door would not have swung noiselessly
open on its hinges until it stood perhaps a foot ajar;
and if the door had not been open, Pollyanna would
not have heard her aunt's words.

In the hall the two doctors, the nurse, and Miss
Polly stood talking. In Pollyanna's room Fluffy
had just jumped to the bed with a little purring
" meow " of joy when through the open door sounded
clearly and sharply Aunt Polly's agonized exclama-
tion.

" Not that! Doctor, not that! You don't mean
— the child - -will never walk again! :

It was all confusion then. First, from the bed-
room came Pollyanna's terrified " Aunt Polly —
Aunt Polly! ' Then Miss Polly, seeing the open
door and realizing that her words had been heard,

237

POLLYANNA

gave a low little moan and — for the first time in
her life — fainted dead away.

The nurse, with a choking " She heard ! : ' stum-
bled toward the open door. The two doctors stayed
with Miss Polly. Dr. Mead had to stay — he had
caught Miss Polly as she fell. Dr. Warren stood
by, helplessly. It was not until Pollyanna cried out
again sharply and the nurse closed the door, that
the two men, with a despairing glance into each
other's eyes, awoke to the immediate duty of bring-
ing the woman in Dr. Mead's arms back to unhappy
consciousness.

In Pollyanna's room, the nurse had found a purr-
ing gray cat on the bed vainly trying to attract the
attention of a white-faced, wild-eyed little girl.

" Miss Hunt, please, I want Aunt Polly. I want
her right away, quick, please ! :

The nurse closed the door and came forward hur-
riedly. Her face was very pale.

" She — she can't come just this minute, dear.
She will — a little later. What is it? Can't I —
get it? "

Pollyanna shook her head.

" But I want to know what she said — just now.
Did you hear her? I want Aunt Polly — she said
something. I want her to tell me 'tisn't true —
'tisn't true! "

The nurse tried to speak, but no words came.

238

A DOOR AJAR

Something in her face sent an added terror to Polly-
anna's eyes.

" Miss Hunt, you did hear her! It is true! Oh,
it isn't true ! You don't mean I can't ever — walk
again? '

"There, there, dear — don't, don't! : choked
the nurse. " Perhaps he didn't know. Perhaps he
was mistaken. There's lots of things that could
happen, you know."

" But Aunt Polly said he did know! She said
he knew more than anybody else about — about
broken legs like mine ! '

"Yes, yes, I know, dear; but all doctors make
mistakes sometimes. Just — just don't think any
more about it now — please don't, dear."

Pollyanna flung out her arms wildly.

" But I can't help thinking about it," she sobbed.
" It's all there is now to think about. Why, Miss
Hunt, how am I going to school, or to see Mr.
Pendleton, or Mrs. Snow, or — or anybody?'
She caught her breath and sobbed wildly for a
moment. Suddenly she stopped and looked up, a
new terror in her eyes. " Why, Miss Hunt, if I
can't walk, how am I ever going to be glad for —
anything? '

Miss Hunt did not know "the game;'; but she
did know that her patient must be quieted, and that
at once. In spite of her own perturbation and

239

POLLYANNA

heartache, her hands had not been idle, and she
stood now at the bedside with the quieting powder
ready.

" There, there, dear, just take this," she soothed;
" and by and by we'll be more rested, and we'll see
what can be done then. Things aren't half as bad
as they seem, dear, lots of times, you know."

Obediently Pollyanna took the medicine, and
sipped the water from the glass in Miss Hunt's
hand.

" I know; that sounds like things father used
to say," faltered Pollyanna, blinking off the tears.
" He said there was always something about every-
thing that might be worse; but I reckon he'd never
just heard he couldn't ever walk again. I don't
see how there can be anything about that, that could
be worse- - do you? '

Miss Hunt did not reply. She could not trust her-
self to speak just then.

240

CHAPTER XXVII

TWO VISITS

IT was Nancy who was sent to tell Mr. John
Pendleton of Dr. Mead's verdict. Miss Polly had
remembered her promise to let him have direct
information from the house. To go herself, or to
write a letter, she felt to be almost equally out of
the question. It occurred to her then to send
Nancy.

There had been a time when Nancy would have
rejoiced greatly at this extraordinary opportunity
to see something of the House of Mystery and its
master. But to-day her heart was too heavy to
rejoice at anything. She scarcely even looked about
her at all, indeed, during the few minutes she waited
for Mr. John Pendleton to appear.

" I'm Nancy, sir," she said respectfully, in re-
sponse to the surprised questioning of his eyes,
when he came into the room. " Miss Harrington
sent me to tell you about — Miss Pollyanna."

"Well?"

In spite of the curt terseness of the word, Nancy

241

POLLYANNA

quite understood the anxiety that lay behind that
short " well? "

" It ain't well, Mr. Pendleton," she choked.

"You don't mean — " He paused, and she
bowed her head miserably.

"Yes, sir. He says — she can't walk again —

never."

For a moment there was absolute silence in the
room; then the man spoke, in a voice shaken with
emotion.

" Poor — little — girl ! Poor — little — girl 1 "

Nancy glanced at him, but dropped her eyes at
once. She had not supposed that sour, cross, stern
John Pendleton could look like that. In a moment
he spoke again, still in the low, unsteady voice.

"It seems cruel — never to dance in the sunshine
again ! My little prism girl ! "

There was another silence; then, abruptly, the
man asked:

"She herself doesn't know yet — of course —
does she? '

" But she does, sir," sobbed Nancy; " an' that's
what makes it all the harder. She found out —
drat that cat! I begs yer pardon," apologized the
girl, hurriedly. " It's only that the cat pushed open
the door an' Miss Pollyanna overheard 'em talkin'.
She found out — that way."

" Poor — little — girl! :' sighed the man again.

242

TWO VISITS

" Yes, sir. You'd say so, sir if you could see
her," choked Nancy. " I hain't seen her but twice
since she knew about it, an' it done me up both
times. Ye see it's all so fresh an' new to her, an'
she keeps thinkin' all the time of new things she
can't do - - now. It worries her, too, 'cause she
can't seem ter be glad — maybe you don't know
about her game, though," broke off Nancy, apolo-
getically.

" The ' glad game' ? " asked the man. " Oh,
yes; she told me of that."

"Oh, she did! Well, I guess she has told it
generally ter most folks. But ye see, now she —
she can't play it herself, an' it worries her. She
says she can't think of a thing — not a thing about
this not walkin' again, ter be glad about."

"Well, why should she? " retorted the man, al-
most savagely.

Nancy shifted her feet uneasily.

"That's the way I felt, too — till I happened
ter think — it would be easier if she could find
something ye know. So I tried to — to remind
her."

" To remind her! Of what? " John Pendleton's
voice was still angrily impatient.

" Of — of how she told others ter play it —
Mis' Snow, and the rest, ye know — and what she
said for them ter do. But the poor little lamb just

243

POLLYANNA

cries, an' says it don't seem the same, somehow.
She says it's easy ter tell lifelong invalids how ter
be glad, but 'tain't the same thing when you're the
lifelong invalid yerself, an' have ter try ter do it.
She says she's told herself over an3 over again how
glad she is that other folks ain't like her; but that
all the time she's sayin' it, she ain't really thinkin'
of anythin' only how she can't ever walk again."

Nancy paused, but the man did not speak. He
sat with his hands over his eyes.

" Then I tried ter remind her how she used ter
say the game was all the nicer ter play when —
when it was hard," resumed Nancy, in a dull voice.
" But she says that, too, is diff'rent — when it really
is hard. An' I must be goin', now, sir," she broke
off abruptly.

At the door she hesitated, turned, and asked tim-
idly:

" I couldn't be tellin' Miss Pollyanna that- - that
you'd seen Jimmy Bean again, I s'pose, sir, could
I?"

" I don't see how you could — as I haven't seen
him," observed the man a little shortly. " Why? '

" Nothin', sir, only — well, ye see, that's one of
the things that she was feelin' bad about, that she
couldn't take him ter see you, now. She said she'd
taken him once, but she didn't think he showed
off very well that day, and that she was afraid you

244

TWO VISITS

didn't think he would make a very nice child's pres-
ence, after all. Maybe you know what she means
by that; but I didn't, sir."

" Yes, I know — what she means."

" All right, sir. It was only that she was wantin'
ter take him again, she said, so's ter show ye he
really was a lovely child's presence. And now she

- can't ! - — drat that autymobile ! I begs yer par-
don, sir. Good-by! ' And Nancy fled precipi-
tately.

It did not take long for the entire town of Bel-
dingsville to learn that the great New York doctor
had said Pollyanna Whittier would never walk
again; and certainly never before had the town
been so stirred. Everybody knew by sight now the
piquant little freckled face that had always a smile
of greeting; and almost everybody knew of the
" game ' that Pollyanna was playing. To think
that now never again would that smiling face be
seen on their streets — never again would that
cheery little voice proclaim the gladness of some
everyday experience! It seemed unbelievable, im-
possible, cruel.

In kitchens and sitting rooms, and over back-yard
fences women talked of it, and wept openly. On
street corners and in store lounging-places the men
talked, too, and wept — though not so openly. And

245

POLLYANNA

neither the talking nor the weeping grew less when
fast on the heels of the news itself, came Nancy's
pitiful story that Pollyanna, face to face with what
had come to her, was bemoaning most of all the fact
that she could not play the game; that she could
not now be glad over — anything.

It was then that the same thought must have,
in some way, come to Pollyanna's friends. At all
events, almost at once, the mistress of the Harring-
ton homestead, greatly to her surprise, began to
receive calls: calls from people she knew, and peo-
ple she did not know; calls from men, women, and
children — many of whom Miss Polly had not sup-
posed that her niece knew at all.

Some came in and sat down for a stiff five or ten
minutes. Some stood awkwardly on the porch
steps, fumbling with hats or hand-bags, according
to their sex. Some brought a book, a bunch of
flowers, or a dainty to tempt the palate. Some
cried frankly. Some turned their backs and blew
their noses furiously. But all inquired very anx-
iously for the little injured girl; and all sent to
her some message — and it was these messages
which, after a time, stirred Miss Polly to action.

First came Mr. John Pendleton. He came with-
out his crutches to-day.

" I don't need to tell you how shocked I am," he

246

TWO VISITS

began almost harshly. " But can — nothing be
done? "

Miss Polly gave a gesture of despair.

" Oh, we're l doing/ of course, all the time. Dr.
Mead prescribed certain treatments and medicines
that might help, and Dr. Warren is carrying them
out to the letter, of course. But — Dr. Mead held
out almost no hope."

John Pendleton rose abruptly — though he had
but just come. His face was white, and his mouth
was set into stern lines. Miss Polly, looking at
him, knew very well why he felt that he could not
stay longer in her presence. At the door he turned.

" I have a message for Pollyanna," he said.
" Will you tell her, please, that I have seen Jimmy
Bean and — that he's going to be my boy hereafter.
Tell her I thought she would be — glad to know.
I shall adopt him, probably."

For a brief moment Miss Polly lost her usual
well-bred self-control.

" You will adopt Jimmy Bean! :' she gasped.

The man lifted his chin a little.

" Yes. I think Pollyanna will understand. You
will tell her I thought she would be — glad? '

" Why, of — of course," faltered Miss Polly.

" Thank you," bowed John Pendleton, as he
turned to go.

247

POLLYANNA

In the middle of the floor Miss Polly stood, si-
lent and amazed, still looking after the man who
had just left her. Even yet she could scarcely be-
lieve what her ears had heard. John Pendleton
adopt Jimmy Bean? John Pendleton, wealthy, in-
dependent, morose, reputed to be miserly and su-
premely selfish, to adopt a little boy — and such a
little boy?

With a somewhat dazed face Miss Polly went
up-stairs to Pollyanna's room.

" Pollyanna, I have a message for you from Mr.
John Pendleton. He has just been here. He says
to tell you he has taken Jimmy Bean for his little
'boy. He said he thought you'd be glad to know
it."

Pollyanna's wistful little face flamed into sudden

joy.

" Glad? Glad? Well, I reckon I am glad! Oh,

Aunt Polly, I've so wanted to find a place for Jimmy

— and that's such a lovely place! Besides, I'm so

glad for Mr. Pendleton, too. You see, now he'll

have the child's presence."

" The— what?"

Pollyanna colored painfully. She had forgotten
that she had never told her aunt of Mr. Pendleton's
desire to adopt her — and certainly she would not
wish to tell her now that she had ever thought for
a minute of leaving her — this dear Aunt Polly!

248

TWO VISITS

" The child's presence," stammered Pollyanna,
hastily. " Mr. Pendleton told me once, you see,
that only a woman's hand and heart or a child's
presence could make a- -a home. And now he's
got it- -the child's presence."

" Oh, I- -see," said Miss Polly very gently; and
she did see - - more than Pollyanna realized. She
saw something of the pressure that was probably
brought to bear on Pollyanna herself at the time
John Pendleton was asking her to be the " child's
presence," which was to transform his great pile
of gray stone into a home. " I see," she finished,
her eyes stinging with sudden tears.

Pollyanna, fearful that her aunt might ask fur-
ther embarrassing questions, hastened to lead the
conversation away from the Pendleton house and
its master.

" Dr. Chilton says so, too — that it takes a
woman's hand and heart, or a child's presence, to
make a home, you know," she remarked.

Miss Polly turned with a start.

"Dr. Chilton! How do you know — that? "

" He told me so. 'Twas when he said he lived
in just rooms, you know — not a home."

Miss Polly did not answer. Her eyes were out
the window.

" So I asked him why he didn't get 'em — a
woman's hand and heart, and have a home."

249

POLLYANNA

"Pollyanna! " Miss Polly had turned sharply.
Her cheeks showed a sudden color.

" Well, I did. He looked so — so sorrow-
ful."

"What did he— say?" Miss Polly asked the
question as if in spite of some force within her
that was urging her not to ask it.

" He didn't say anything for a minute; then he
said very low that you couldn't always get 'em for
the asking."

There was a brief silence. Miss Polly's eyes had
turned again to the window. Her cheeks were still
unnaturally pink.

Pollyanna sighed.

" He wants one, anyhow, I know, and I wish
he could have one."

" Why, Pollyanna, how do you know? '

" Because, afterwards, on another day, he said
something else. He said that low, too, but I heard
him. He said that he'd give all the world if he
did have one woman's hand and heart. Why, Aunt
Polly, what's the matter? " Aunt Polly had risen
hurriedly and gone to the window.

" Nothing, dear. I was changing the position of
this prism," said Aunt Polly, whose whole face now
was aflame.

250

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE GAME AND ITS PLAYERS

IT was not long after John Pendleton's second
visit that Milly Snow called one afternoon. Milly
Snow had never before been to the Harrington
homestead. She blushed and looked very embar-
rassed when Miss Polly entered the room.

"I - - 1 came to inquire for the little girl," she
stammered.

" You are very kind. She is about the same.
How is your mother? ' rejoined Miss Polly,
wearily.

" That is what I came to tell you — that is, to
ask you to tell Miss Pollyanna," hurried on the
girl, breathlessly and incoherently. " We think it's
— so awful — so perfectly awful that the little
thing can't ever walk again; and after all she's
done for us, too — for mother, you know, teaching
her to play the game, and all that. And when we
heard how now she couldn't play it herself — poor
little dear ! I'm sure I don't see how she can, either,
in her condition! — but when we remembered all
the things she'd said to us, we thought if she could

251

POLLYANNA

only know what she had done for us, that it would
help, you know, in her own case, about the game,
because she could be glad — that is, a little glad — '
Milly stopped helplessly, and seemed to be waiting
for Miss Polly to speak.

Miss Polly had sat politely listening, but with a
puzzled questioning in her eyes. Only about half
of what had been said, had she understood. She
was thinking now that she always had known that
Milly Snow was " queer," but she had not supposed
she was crazy. In no other way, however, could
she account for this incoherent, illogical, unmean-
ing rush of words. When the pause came she filled
it with a quiet :

"I don't think I quite understand, Milly. Just
what it is that you want me to tell my niece? '

" Yes, that's it; I want you to tell her," answered
the girl, feverishly. " Make her see what she's done
for us. Of course she's seen some things, because
she's been there, and she's known mother is differ-
ent; but I want her to know how different she is —
and me, too. I'm different. I've been trying to play
it — the game — a little."

Miss Polly frowned. She would have asked what
Milly meant by this " game," but there was no
opportunity. Milly was rushing on again with nerv-
ous volubility.

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" You know nothing was ever right before —
for mother. She was always wanting 'em different.
And, really, I don't know as one could blame her
much — under the circumstances. But now she lets
me keep the shades up, and she takes interest in
things- -how she looks, and her nightdress, and
all that. And she's actually begun to knit little
things — reins and baby blankets for fairs and
hospitals. And she's so interested, and so glad to
think she can do it! -—and that was all Miss Polly-
anna's doings, you know, 'cause she told mother
she could be glad she'd got her hands and arms,
anyway; and that made mother wonder right away
why she didn't do something with her hands and
arms. And so she began to do something- -to
knit, you know. And you can't think what a dif-
ferent room it is now, what with the red and blue
and yellow worsteds, and the prisms in the win-
dow that she gave her-— why, it actually makes
you feel better just to go in there now; and before
I used to dread it awfully, it was so dark and
gloomy, and mother was so — so unhappy, you
know.

" And so we want you to please tell Miss Polly-
anna that we understand it's all because of her.
And please say we're so glad we know her, that we
thought, maybe if she knew it, it would make her

253

POLLYANNA

a little glad that she knew us. And — and that's
all," sighed Milly, rising hurriedly to her feet.
"You'll tell her?"

" Why, of course," murmured Miss Polly, won-
dering just how much of this remarkable discourse
she could remember to tell.

These visits of John Pendleton and Milly Snow
were only the first of many; and always there were
the messages — the messages which were in some
ways so curious that they caused Miss Polly more
and more to puzzle over them.

One day there was the little Widow Benton.
Miss Polly knew her well, though they had never
called upon each other. By reputation she knew
her as the saddest little woman in town — one who
was always in black. To-day, however, Mrs. Ben-
ton wore a knot of pale blue at the throat, though
there were tears in her eyes. She spoke of her
grief and horror at the accident; then she asked
diffidently if she might see Pollyanna.

Miss Polly shook her head.

" I am sorry, but she sees no one yet. A little
later — perhaps."

Mrs. Benton wiped her eyes, rose, and turned
to go. But after she had almost reached the hall
door she came back hurriedly.

"Miss Harrington, perhaps you'd give her — a
message," she stammered.

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THE GAME AND ITS PLAYERS

" Certainly, Mrs. Benton; I shall be very glad
to."

Still the little woman hesitated; then she spoke.

" Will you tell her, please, that — that I've put
on this," she said, just touching the blue bow at
her throat. Then, at Miss Polly's ill-concealed look
of surprise, she added: "The little girl has been
trying for so long to make me wear — some color,
that I thought she'd be — glad to know I'd begun.
She said that Freddy would be so glad to see it,
if I would. You know Freddy's all I have now.
The others have all- Mrs. Benton shook her
head and turned away. " If you'll just tell Polly-
anna — she'll understand." And the door closed
after her.

A little later, that same day, there was the other
widow — at least, she wore widow's garments.
Miss Polly did not know her at all. She wondered
vaguely how Pollyanna could have known her. The
lady gave her name as " Mrs. Tarbell."

" I'm a stranger to you, of course," she began
at once. " But I'm not a stranger to your little
niece, Pollyanna. I've been at the hotel all summer,
and every day I've had to take long walks for my
health. It was on these walks that I've met your
niece — she's such a dear little girl ! I wish I could
make you understand what she's been to me. I was
very sad when I came up here; and her bright face

255

POLLYANNA

and cheery ways reminded me of — my own little
girl that I lost years ago. I was so shocked to hear
of the accident; and then when I learned that the
poor child would never walk again, and that she
was so unhappy because she couldn't be glad any
longer — the dear child ! — I just had to come to
you."

" You are very kind," murmured Miss Polly look-
ing down at her hands.

" But it is you who are to be kind," demurred the
other. " I - - 1 want you to give her a message
from me. Will you? '

" Certainly."

" Will you just tell her, then, that Mrs. Tarbell
is glad now. Yes, I know it sounds odd, and you
don't understand. But — if you'll pardon me I'd
rather not explain." Sad lines came to the lady's
mouth, and the smile left her eyes. " Your niece
will know just what I mean; and I felt that I must
tell — her. Thank you; and pardon me, please,
for any seeming rudeness in my call," she begged
as she took her leave.

Thoroughly mystified now, Miss Polly hurried
up-stairs to Pollyanna's room.

" Pollyanna, do you know a Mrs. Tarbell? '

" Oh, yes. I love Mrs. Tarbell. She's sick, and
awfully sad; and she's at the hotel, and takes long
walks. We go together. I mean — we used to."

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THE GAME AND ITS PLAYERS

Pollyanna's voice broke, and two big tears rolled
down her cheeks.

Miss Polly cleared her throat hurriedly.

" Well, she's just been here, dear. She left a
message for you - - but she wouldn't tell me what
it meant. She said to tell you that Mrs. Tarbell
is glad now."

Pollyanna clapped her hands softly.

" Did she say that- -really? Oh, I'm so glad! "

" But, Pollyanna, what did she mean? '

" Why, its the game, and - Pollyanna

stopped short, her fingers to her lips.

" What game? "

" N-nothing much, Aunt Polly; that is- -I can't
tell it unless I tell other things that - - that I'm not
to speak of."

It was on Miss Polly's tongue to question her
niece further; but the obvious distress on the little
girl's face stayed the words before they were ut-
tered.

Not long after Mrs. TarbelPs visit, the climax
came. It came in the shape of a call from a certain
young woman with unnaturally pink cheeks and
abnormally yellow hair; a young woman who wore
high heels and cheap jewelry; a young woman
whom Miss Polly knew very well by reputation —
but whom she was angrily amazed to meet beneath
the roof of the Harrington homestead.

257

POLLYANNA

Miss Polly did not offer her hand. She drew
back, indeed, as she entered the room.

The woman rose at once. Her eyes were very
red, as if she had been crying. Half defiantly she
asked if she might, for a moment, see the little
girl, Pollyanna.

Miss Polly said no. She began to say it very
sternly; but something in the woman's pleading
eyes made her add the civil explanation that no one
was allowed yet to see Pollyanna.

The woman hesitated; then a little brusquely she
spoke. Her chin was still at a slightly defiant
tilt.

" My name is Mrs. Payson — Mrs. Tom Payson.
I presume you've heard of me — most of the good
people in the town have — and maybe some of the
things you've heard ain't true. But never mind
that. It's about the little girl I came. I heard about
the accident, and — and it broke me all up. Last
week I heard how she couldn't ever walk again,
and — and I wished I could give up my two use-
lessly well legs for hers. She'd do more good
trotting around on 'em one hour than I could in
a hundred years. But never mind that. Legs ain't
always given to the one who can make the best use
of 'em, I notice."

She paused, and cleared her throat; but when she
resumed her voice was still husky.

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THE GAME AND ITS PLAYERS

" Maybe you don't know it, but I've seen a good
deal of that little girl of yours. We live on the Pen-
dleton Hill road, and she used to go by often —
only she didn't always go by. She came in and
played with the kids and talked to me — and my
man, when he was home. She seemed to like it,
and to like us. She didn't know, I suspect, that
her kind of folks don't generally call on my kind.
Maybe if they did call more, Miss Harrington, there
wouldn't be so many — of my kind," she added,
with sudden bitterness.

"Be that as it may, she came; and she didn't
do herself no harm, and she did do us good — a
lot o' good. How much she won't know — nor
can't know, I hope; 'cause if she did, she'd know
other things — that I don't want her to know.

" But it's just this. It's been hard times with
us this year, in more ways than one. We've been
blue and discouraged — my man and me, and ready
for — 'most anything. We was reckoning on get-
ting a divorce about now, and letting the kids —
well, we didn't know what we would do with the
kids. Then came the accident, and what we heard
about the little girl's never walking again. And
we got to thinking how she used to come and sit
on our doorstep and train with the kids, and laugh,
and — and just be glad. She was always being
glad about something; and then, one day, she told

259

POLLYANNA

us why, and about the game, you know; and tried
to coax us to play it.

" Well, we've heard now that she's fretting her
poor little life out of her, because she can't play
it no more — that there's nothing to be glad about.
And that's what I came to tell her to-day — that
maybe she can be a little glad for us, 'cause we've
decided to stick to each other, and play the game
ourselves. I knew she would be glad, because she
used to feel kind of bad — at things we said, some-
times. Just how the game is going to help us, I
can't say that I exactly see, yet; but maybe 'twill.
Anyhow, we're going to try — 'cause she wanted us
to. Will you tell her? "

"Yes, I will tell her," promised Miss Polly, a
little faintly. Then, with sudden impulse, she
stepped forward and held out her hand. " And
thank you for coming, Mrs. Payson," she said
simply.

The defiant chin fell. The lips above it trembled
visibly. With an incoherently mumbled something,
Mrs. Payson blindly clutched at the outstretched
hand, turned, and fled.

The door had scarcely closed behind her before
Miss Polly was confronting Nancy in the kitchen.

"Nancy!"

Miss Polly spoke sharply. The series of puzzling,

260

THE GAME AND ITS PLAYERS

disconcerting visits of the last few days, culmina-
ting as they had in the extraordinary experience of
the afternoon, had strained her nerves to the snap-
ping point. Not since Miss Pollyanna's accident
had Nancy heard her mistress speak so sternly.

" Nancy, will you tell me what this absurd
1 game ' is that the whole town seems to be babbling
about? And what, please, has my niece to do with
it? Why does everybody, from Milly Snow to Mrs.
Tom Payson, send word to her that they're 'playing
it ' ? As near as I can judge, half the town are
putting on blue ribbons, or stopping family quarrels,
or learning to like something they never liked be-
fore, and all because of Pollyanna. I tried to ask
the child herself about it, but I can't seem to make
much headway, and of course I don't like to worry
her- -now. But from something I heard her say
to you last night, I should judge you were one of
them, too. Now will you tell me what it all
means? '

To Miss Polly's surprise and dismay, Nancy burst
into tears.

" It means that ever since last June that blessed
child has jest been makin' the whole town glad,
an' now they're turnin' 'round an' tryin' ter make
her a little glad, too."

" Glad of what? "

261

POLLYANNA

" Just glad ! That's the game."

Miss Polly actually stamped her foot.

" There you go like all the rest, Nancy. What
game? "

Nancy lifted her chin. She faced her mistress
and looked her squarely in the eye.

"I'll tell ye, ma'am. It's a game Miss Polly-
anna's father learned her ter play. She got a pair
of crutches once in a missionary barrel when she
was wantin' a doll; an' she cried, of course, like
any child would. It seems 'twas then her father
told her that there wasn't ever anythin' but what
there was somethin' about it that you could be glad
about; an' that she could be glad about them
crutches."

"Glad for — crutches!" Miss Polly choked
back a sob — she was thinking of the helpless little
legs on the bed up-stairs.

" Yes'm. That's what I said, an' Miss Pollyanna
said that's what she said, too. But he told her she
could be glad — 'cause she didn't need 'em"

"Oh-h! " cried Miss Polly.

" And after that she said he made a regular game
of it — findin' somethin' in everythin' ter be glad
about. An' she said ye could do it, too, and that
ye didn't seem ter mind not havin' the doll so much,
'cause ye was so glad ye didn't need the crutches.
An' they called it the ' jest bein' glad ' game.

262

THE GAME AND ITS PLAYERS

That's the game, ma'am. She's played it ever

since.'

" But, how — how — " Miss Polly came to a help-
less pause.

" An' you'd be surprised ter find how cute it
works, ma'am, too," maintained Nancy, with al-
most the eagerness of Pollyanna herself. " I wish
I could tell ye what a lot she's done for mother an'
the folks out home. She's been ter see 'em, ye
know, twice, with me. She's made me glad, too,
on such a lot o' things — little things, an' big
things; an' it's made 'em so much easier. For
instance, I don't mind c Nancy ' for a name half as
much since she told me I could be glad 'twa'n't
' Hephzibah.' An' there's Monday mornin's, too,
that I used ter hate so. She's actually made me glad
for Monday mornin's."

" Glad — for Monday mornings I 3

Nancy laughed.

" I know it does sound nutty, ma'am. But let
me tell ye. That blessed lamb found out I hated
Monday mornin's somethin' awful; an' what does
she up an' tell me one day but this : ' Well, anyhow,
Nancy, I should think you could be gladder on
Monday mornin' than on any other day in the
week, because 'twould be a whole week before
you'd have another one! ' An' I'm blest if I hain't
thought of it ev'ry Monday mornin' since — an' it

263

POLLYANNA

has helped, ma'am. It made me laugh, anyhow,
ev'ry time I thought of it; an' laughin' helps, ye
know — it does, it does! "

"But why hasn't — she told me — the game?"
faltered Miss Polly. " Why has she made such a
mystery of it, when I asked her? '

Nancy hesitated.

" Beggin' yer pardon, ma'am, you told her not
ter speak of — her father; so she couldn't tell ye.
'Twas her father's game, ye see."

Miss Polly bit her lip.

"She wanted ter tell ye, first off," continued
Nancy, a little unsteadily. " She wanted somebody
ter play it with, ye know. That's why I begun it,
— so she could have some one."

" And — and — these others? " Miss Polly's
voice shook now.

" Oh, ev'rybody, 'most, knows it now, I guess.
Anyhow, I should think they did from the way
I'm hearin' of it ev'rywhere I go. Of course she
told a lot, and they told the rest. Them things go,
ye know, when they get started. An' she was
always so smilin' an' pleasant ter ev'ry one, an'
so — so jest glad herself all the time, that they
couldn't help knowin' it, anyhow. Now, since she's
hurt, ev'rybody feels so bad — specially when they
heard how bad she feels 'cause she can't find any-
thin' ter be glad about. An' so they've been comin'

264

THE GAME AND ITS PLAYERS

ev'ry day ter tell her how glad she's made them,
hopin' that'll help some. Ye see, she's always
wanted ev'rybody ter play the game with her."

"Well, I know somebody who'll play it — now,"
choked Miss Polly, as she turned and sped through
the kitchen doorway.

Behind her, Nancy stood staring amazedly.

" Well, I'll believe anythin' - anythin' now," she
muttered to herself. " Ye can't stump me with any-
thin' I wouldn't believe now- -o' Miss Polly! "

A little later, in Pollyanna's room, the nurse left
Miss Polly and Pollyanna alone together.

"And you've had still another caller, to-day, my
dear," announced Miss Polly, in a voice she vainly
tried to steady. " Do you remember Mrs. Pay-
son? "

" Mrs. Payson? Why, I reckon I do! She lives
on the way to Mr. Pendleton's, and she's got the
prettiest little girl baby three years old, and a boy
'most five. She's awfully nice, and so's her hus-
band - - only they don't seem to know how nice
each other is. Sometimes they fight- - 1 mean, they
don't quite agree. They're poor, too, they say, and
of course they don't ever have barrels, 'cause he
isn't a missionary minister, you know, like — well,
he isn't."

A faint color stole into Pollyanna's cheeks which
was duplicated suddenly in those of her aunt.

265

POLLYANNA

" But she wears real pretty clothes, sometimes, in
spite of their being so poor," resumed Pollyanna, in
some haste. " And she's got perfectly beautiful
rings with diamonds and rubies and emeralds in
them; but she says she's got one ring too many,
and that she's going to throw it away and get a
divorce instead. What is a divorce, Aunt Polly?
I'm afraid it isn't very nice, because she didn't look
happy when she talked about it. And she said if
she did get it, they wouldn't live there any more, and
that Mr. Payson would go 'way off, and maybe the
children, too. But I should think they'd rather
keep the ring, even if they did have so many more.
Shouldn't you? Aunt Polly, what is a divorce? '

" But they aren't going 'way off, dear," evaded
Aunt Polly, hurriedly. " They're going to stay right
there together."

"Oh, I'm so glad! Then they'll be there when
I go up to see — O dear! " broke off the little girl,
miserably. " Aunt Polly, why can't I remember
that my legs don't go any more, and that I won't
ever, ever go up to see Mr. Pendleton again? '

" There, there, don't," choked her aunt. " Per-
haps you'll drive up sometime. But listen! I
haven't told you, yet, all that Mrs. Payson said.
She wanted me to tell you that they — they were
going to stay together and to play the game, just
as you wanted them to."

266

THE GAME AND ITS PLAYERS

Pollyanna smiled through tear-wet eyes.

" Did they? Did they, really? Oh, I'm glad of
that! "

" Yes, she said she hoped you'd be. That's why
she told you, to make you — glad, Pollyanna."

Pollyanna looked up quickly.

" Why, Aunt Polly, you — you spoke just as if
you knew — Do you know about the game, Aunt
Polly? "

" Yes, dear." Miss Polly sternly forced her voice
to be cheerfully matter-of-fact. " Nancy told me.
I think it's a beautiful game. I'm going to play it
now — with you."

"Oh, Aunt Polly — you? I'm so glad! You
see, I've really wanted you most of anybody, all the
time."

Aunt Polly caught her breath a little sharply. It
was even harder this time to keep her voice steady;
but she did it.

" Yes, dear; and there are all those others, too.
Why, Pollyanna, I think all the town is playing that
game now with you — even to the minister! I
haven't had a chance to tell you, yet, but this morn-
ing I met Mr. Ford when I was down to the village,
and he told me to say to you that just as soon as
you could see him, he was coming to tell you that
he hadn't stopped being glad over those eight hun-
dred rejoicing texts that you told him about. So

267

POLLYANNA

you see, dear, it's just you that have done it. The
whole town is playing the game, and the whole town
is wonderfully happier — and all because of one
little girl who taught the people a new game, and
how to play it."

Pollyanna clapped her hands.

" Oh, I'm so glad," she cried. Then, suddenly, a
wonderful light illumined her face. " Why, Aunt
Polly, there is something I can be glad about, after
all. I can be glad I've had my legs, anyway — else
I couldn't have done — thatl "

268

CHAPTER XXIX

THROUGH AN OPEN WINDOW

ONE by one the short winter days came and went
— but they were not short to Pollyanna. They
were long, and sometimes full of pain. Very reso-
lutely, these days, however, Pollyanna was turning
a cheerful face toward whatever came. Was she
not specially bound to play the game, now that Aunt
Polly was playing it, too? And Aunt Polly found
so many things to be glad about! It was Aunt
Polly, too, who discovered the story one day about
the two poor little waifs in a snow-storm who found
a blown-down door to crawl under, and who won-
dered what poor folks did that didn't have any
door! And it was Aunt Polly who brought home
the other story that she had heard about the poor
old lady who had only two teeth, but who was so
glad that those two teeth " hit! "

Pollyanna now, like Mrs. Snow, was knitting
wonderful things out of bright colored worsteds
that trailed their cheery lengths across the white
spread, and made Pollyanna — again like Mrs. Snow

269

POLLYANNA

— so glad she had her hands and arms, any-
way.

Pollyanna saw people now, occasionally, and al-
ways there were the loving messages from those she
could not see; and always they brought her some-
thing new to think about — and Pollyanna needed
new things to think about.

Once she had seen John Pendleton, and twice she
had seen Jimmy Bean. John Pendleton had told her
what a fine boy Jimmy was getting to be, and how
well he was doing. Jimmy had told her what a
first-rate home he had, and what bang-up " folks '
Mr. Pendleton made; and both had said that it was
all owing to her.

" Which makes me all the gladder, you know,
that I have had my legs," Pollyanna confided to her
aunt afterwards.

The winter passed, and spring came. The anx-
ious watchers over Pollyanna's condition could see
little change wrought by the prescribed treatment.
There seemed every reason to believe, indeed, that
Dr. Mead's worst fears would be realized — that
Pollyanna would never walk again.

Beldingsville, of course, kept itself informed con-
cerning Pollyanna; and of Beldingsville, one man
in particular fumed and fretted himself into a fever
of anxiety over the daily bulletins which he man-

270

THROUGH AN OPEN WINDOW

aged in some way to procure from the bed of suf-
fering. As the days passed, however, and the news
came to be no better, but rather worse, something
besides anxiety began to show in the man's face:
despair, and a very dogged determination, each
fighting for the mastery. In the end, the dogged
determination won; and it was then that Mr. John
Pendleton, somewhat to his surprise, received one
Saturday morning a call from Dr. Thomas Chil-
ton.

" Pendleton," began the doctor, abruptly, " I've
come to you because you, better than any one else
in town, know something of my relations with Miss
Polly Harrington."

John Pendleton was conscious that he must have
started visibly — he did know something of the
affair between Polly Harrington and Thomas Chil-
ton, but the matter had not been mentioned between
them for fifteen years, or more.

" Yes," he said, trying to make his voice sound
concerned enough for sympathy, and not eager
enough for curiosity. In a moment he saw that he
need not have worried, however: the doctor was
quite too intent on his errand to notice how that
errand was received.

" Pendleton, I want to see that child. I want to
make an examination. I must make an examina-
tion."

271

POLLYANNA

" Well — can't you?"

" Can't I ! Pendleton, you know very well I
haven't been inside that door for more than fifteen
years. You don't know — but I will tell you —
that the mistress of that house told me that the next
time she asked me to enter it, I might take it that
she was begging my pardon, and that all would be
as before — which meant that she'd marry me.
Perhaps you see her summoning me now — but I
don't! "

" But couldn't you go — without a sum-
mons? '

The doctor frowned.

" Well, hardly. / have some pride, you
know."

" But if you're so anxious — couldn't you swal-
low your pride and forget the quarrel -

" Forget the quarrel ! : interrupted the doctor,
savagely. " I'm not talking of that kind of pride.
So far as that is concerned, I'd go from here there
on my knees — or on my head — if that would do
any good. It's professional pride I'm talking
about. It's a case of sickness, and I'm a doctor.
I can't butt in and say, * Here, take me ! ' — can
I?"

" Chilton, what was the quarrel? " demanded Pen-
dleton.

272

THROUGH AN OPEN WINDOW

The doctor made an impatient gesture, and got to
his feet.

"What was it? What's any lovers' quarrel —
after it's over? ' he snarled, pacing the room an-
grily. " A silly wrangle over the size of the moon
or the depth of a river, maybe- -it might as well
be, so far as its having any real significance com-
pared to the years of misery that follow them!
Never mind the quarrel! So far as I am concerned,
I am willing to say there was no quarrel. Pendle-
ton, I must see that child. It may mean life or
death. It will mean- -I honestly believe -- nine
chances out of ten that Pollyanna Whittier will walk
again! :

The words were spoken clearly, impressively;
and they were spoken just as the one who uttered
them had almost reached the open window near
John Pendleton's chair. Thus it happened that
very distinctly they reached the ears of a small boy
kneeling beneath the window on the ground out-
side.

Jimmy Bean, at his Saturday morning task of
pulling up the first little green weeds of the flower-
beds, sat up with ears and eyes wide open.

"Walk! Pollyanna! : John Pendleton was say-
ing. " What do you mean? '

" I mean that from what I can hear and learn —

273

POLLYANNA

a mile from her bedside — that her case is very much
like one that a college friend of mine has just helped.
For years he's been making this sort of thing a spe-
cial study. I've kept in touch with him, and studied,
too, in a way. And from what I hear — but I want
to see the girl! "

John Pendleton came erect in his chair.

"You must see her, man! Couldn't you — say,
through Dr. Warren? "

The other shook his head.

" I'm afraid not. Warren has been very decent,
though. He told me himself that he suggested con-
sultation with me at the first, but — Miss Harring-
ton said no so decisively that he didn't dare venture
it again, even though he knew of my desire to see
the child. Lately, some of his best patients have
come over to me — so of course that ties my hands
still more effectually. But, Pendleton, I've got to
see that child! Think of what it may mean to her
— if I do! "

" Yes, and think of what it will mean — if you
don't! " retorted Pendleton.

" But how can I — without a direct request from
her aunt? — which I'll never get! "

" She must be made to ask you! "

" How? "

" I don't know."

" No, I guess you don't — nor anybody else.

274

THROUGH AN OPEN WINDOW

She's too proud and too angry to ask me — after
what she said years ago it would mean if she did
ask me. But when I think of that child, doomed
to lifelong misery, and when I think that maybe in
my hands lies a chance of escape, but for that con-
founded nonsense we call pride and professional eti-
quette, I- He did not finish his sentence, but
with his hands thrust deep into his pockets, he
turned and began to tramp up and down the room
again, angrily.

"But if she could be made to see — to under-
stand," urged John Pendleton.

" Yes; and who's going to do it? " demanded the
doctor, with a savage turn.

" I don't know, I don't know," groaned the other,
miserably.

Outside the window Jimmy Bean stirred suddenly.
Up to now he had scarcely breathed, so intently had
he listened to every word.

"Well, by Jinks, I know! :' he whispered, exult-
ingly. "I'm a-goin' ter do it! ; And forthwith he
rose to his feet, crept stealthily around the corner
of the house, and ran with all his might down Pen-
dleton Hill.

275

CHAPTER XXX

JIMMY TAKES THE HELM

"IT'S Jimmy Bean. He wants ter see ye, ma'am,"
announced Nancy in the doorway.

"Me?' rejoined Miss Polly, plainly surprised.
" Are you sure he did not mean Miss Pollyanna?
He may see her a few minutes to-day, if he likes."

" Yes'm. I told him. But he said it was you he
wanted."

" Very well, I'll come down." And Miss Polly
arose from her chair a little wearily.

In the sitting room she found waiting for her a
round-eyed, flushed-faced boy, who began to speak
at once.

" Ma'am, I s'pose it's dreadful — -what I'm doin',
an' what I'm sayin'; but I can't help it. It's for
Pollyanna, and I'd walk over hot coals for her, or
face you, or — or any thin' like that, any time. An'
I think you would, too, if you thought there was a
chance for her ter walk again. An' so that's why
I come ter tell ye that as long as it's only pride
an' et — et-somethin' that's keepin' Pollyanna from

276

JIMMY TAKES THE HELM

walkin', why I knew you would ask Dr. Chilton here
if you understood — '

"Wh-at?" interrupted Miss Polly, the look of
stupefaction on her face changing to one of angry
indignation.

Jimmy sighed despairingly.

" There, I didn't mean ter make ye mad. That's
why I begun by tellin' ye about her walkin' again.
I thought you'd listen ter that."

" Jimmy, what are you talking about? '

Jimmy sighed again.

" That's what I'm tryin' ter tell ye."

" Well, then tell me. But begin at the beginning,
and be sure I understand each thing as you go.
Don't plunge into the middle of it as you did before

- and mix everything all up ! '

Jimmy wet his lips determinedly.

" Well, ter begin with, Dr. Chilton come ter see
Mr. Pendleton, an' they talked in die library. Do
you understand that? '

" Yes, Jimmy." Miss Polly's voice was rather
faint.

" Well, the window was open, and I was weedin'
the flower-bed under it; an' I heard 'em talk."

" Oh, Jimmy! Listening? '

" 'Twa'n't about me, an' 'twa'n't sneak listenin',"
bridled Jimmy. " And I'm glad I listened. You

277

POLLYANNA

will be when I tell ye. Why, it may make Polly-
' anna — walk ! :

" Jimmy, what do you mean? " Miss Polly was
leaning forward eagerly.

" There, I told ye so," nodded Jimmy, con-
tentedly. " Well, Dr. Chilton knows some doctor
somewhere that can cure Pollyanna, he thinks —
make her walk, ye know; but he can't tell sure till
he sees her. And he wants ter see her somethin' aw-
ful, but he told Mr. Pendleton that you wouldn't
let him."

Miss Polly's face turned very red.

"But, Jimmy, I — I can't — I couldn't! That
is, I didn't know! " Miss Polly was twisting her
fingers together helplessly.

" Yes, an' that's what I come ter tell ye, so you
would know," asserted Jimmy, eagerly. " They
said that for some reason — I didn't rightly catch
what — you wouldn't let Dr. Chilton come, an' you
told Dr. Warren so; an' Dr. Chilton couldn't come
himself, without you asked him, on account of pride
an' professional et — et — well, et-somethin', any-
way. An' they was wishin' somebody could make
you understand, only they didn't know who could;
an' I was outside the winder, an' I says ter myself
right away, ' By Jinks, I'll do it! ' An' I come —
an' have I made ye understand? '

278

JIMMY TAKES THE HELM

«

Yes; but Jimmy, about that doctor," implored
Miss Polly, feverishly. " Who was he? What did
he do? Are they sure he could make Pollyanna
walk? "

" I don't know who he was. They didn't say.
Dr. Chilton knows him, an' he's just cured some-
body just like her, Dr. Chilton thinks. Anyhow,
they didn't seem ter be doin' no worryin' about him.
'Twas you they was worryin' about, 'cause you
wouldn't let Dr. Chilton see her. An' say — you
will let him come, won't you? — now you under-
stand? "

Miss Polly turned her head from side to side.
Her breath was coming in little uneven, rapid gasps.
Jimmy, watching her with anxious eyes, thought she
was going to cry. But she did not cry. After a min-
ute she said brokenly:

" Yes — I'll let — Dr. Chilton — see her. Now
run home, Jimmy — quick! I've got to speak to
Dr. Warren. He's up-stairs now. I saw him drive
in a few minutes ago."

A little later Dr. Warren was surprised to meet
an agitated, flushed-faced Miss Polly in the hall.
He was still more surprised to hear the lady say, a
little breathlessly:

" Dr. Warren, you asked me once to allow Dr.
Chilton to be called in consultation, and — I re-

279

POLLYANNA

fused. Since then I have reconsidered. I very
much desire that you should call in Dr. Chilton.
Will you not ask him at once — please? Thank
you."

280

CHAPTER XXXI

A NEW UNCLE

THE next time Dr. Warren entered the chamber
where Pollyanna lay watching the dancing shimmer
of color on the ceiling, a tall, broad-shouldered man
followed close behind him.

" Dr. Chilton! —oh, Dr. Chilton, how glad I am
to see you!'' cried Pollyanna. And at the joyous
rapture of the voice, more than one pair of eyes in
the room brimmed hot with sudden tears. " But
of course, if Aunt Polly doesn't want-

" It is all right, my dear; don't worry," soothed
Miss Polly, agitatedly, hurrying forward. " I have
told Dr. Chilton that- -that I want him to look you
over - - with Dr. Warren, this morning."

"Oh, then you asked him to come," murmured
Pollyanna, contentedly.

" Yes, dear, I asked him. That is — " But it
was too late. The adoring happiness that had leaped
to Dr. Chilton's eyes was unmistakable, and Miss
Polly had seen it. With very pink cheeks she turned
and left the room hurriedly.

Over in the window the nurse and Dr. Warren

281

POLLYANNA

were talking earnestly. Dr. Chilton held out both
his hands to Pollyanna.

"Little girl, I'm thinking that one of the very
gladdest jobs you ever did has been done to-day,"
he said in a voice shaken with emotion.

At twilight a wonderfully tremulous, wonder-
fully different Aunt Polly crept to Pollyanna's bed-
side. The nurse was at supper. They had the room
to themselves.

"Pollyanna, dear, I'm going to tell you — the
very first one of all. Some day I'm going to give
Dr. Chilton to you for your — uncle. And it's you
that have done it all. Oh, Pollyanna, I'm so —
happy ! And so — glad ! — darling ! '

Pollyanna began to clap her hands; but even as
she brought her small palms together the first time,
she stopped, and held them suspended.

" Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, were you the woman's
hand and heart he wanted so long ago? You were
— I know you were ! And that's what he meant by
saying I'd done the gladdest job of all — to-day.
I'm so gladl Why, Aunt Polly, I don't know but
I'm so glad that I don't mind — even my legs,
nowl"

Aunt Polly swallowed a sob.

" Perhaps, some day, dear — ' But Aunt Polly
did not finish. Aunt Polly did not dare to tell, yet,
the great hope that Dr. Chilton had put into her

282

A NEW UNCLE

heart. But she did say this — and surely this was
quite wonderful enough — to Pollyanna's mind :

" Pollyanna, next week you're going to take a
journey. On a nice comfortable little bed you're
going to be carried in cars and carriages to a great
doctor who has a big house many miles from here
made on purpose for just such people as you are.
He's a dear friend of Dr. Chilton's, and we're going
to see what he can do for you 1 !

283

CHAPTER XXXII

WHICH IS A LETTER FROM POLLYANNA

" DEAR AUNT POLLY AND UNCLE TOM : — Oh, I
can — I can - - 1 can walk ! I did to-day all the way
from my bed to the window. It was six steps. My,
how good it was to be on legs again !

" All the doctors stood around and smiled, and all
the nurses stood beside of them and cried. A lady
in the next ward who walked last week first, peeked
into the door, and another one who hopes she can
walk next month, was invited in to the party, and
she laid on my nurse's bed and clapped her hands.
Even Black Tilly who washes the floor, looked
through the piazza window, and called me ' Honey,
child ' when she wasn't crying too much to call me
anything.

" I don't see why they cried. / wanted to sing
and shout and yell! Oh — oh — oh! Just think,
I can walk — -walk — walk! Now I don't mind
being here almost ten months, and I didn't miss the
wedding, anyhow. Wasn't that just like you, Aunt
Polly, to come on here and get married right beside

284

A LETTER FROM POLLYANNA

my bed, so I could see you. You always do think
of the gladdest things!

" Pretty soon, they say, I shall go home. I wish
I could walk all the way there. I do. I don't think
I shall ever want to ride anywhere any more. It
will be so good just to walk. Oh, I'm so glad! I'm
glad for everything. Why, I'm glad now I lost my
legs for a \vhile, for you never, never know how
perfectly lovely legs are till you haven't got them -
that go, I mean. I'm going to walk eight steps to-
morrow.

" With heaps of love to everybody,

" POLLYANNA."

THE END.

285

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