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Pollyanna

by Eleanor H. Porter · English · Gutenberg #1450 · 333,792 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Pollyanna

Author: Eleanor H. Porter


        
Release date: September 1, 1998 [eBook #1450]
                Most recently updated: October 29, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1450

Credits: Produced by Charles Keller (for Tina), and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POLLYANNA ***





Produced by Charles Keller for Tina





POLLYANNA

By Eleanor H. Porter

Author of “Miss Billy,” “Miss Billy's Decision,” “Cross Currents,” “The
Turn of the Tides,” etc.




               TO
               My Cousin Belle




CONTENTS

     CHAPTER
     I.     MISS POLLY
     II.    OLD TOM AND NANCY
     III.   THE COMING OF POLLYANNA
     IV.    THE LITTLE ATTIC ROOM
     V.     THE GAME
     VI.    A QUESTION OF DUTY
     VII.   POLLYANNA AND PUNISHMENTS
     VIII.  POLLYANNA PAYS A VISIT
     IX.    WHICH TELLS OF THE MAN
     X.     A SURPRISE FOR MRS. SNOW
     XI.    INTRODUCING JIMMY
     XII.   BEFORE THE LADIES' AID
     XIII.  IN PENDLETON WOODS
     XIV.   JUST A MATTER OF JELLY
     XV.    DR. CHILTON
     XVI.   A RED ROSE AND A LACE: SHAWL
     XVII. “JUST LIKE A BOOK”
      XVIII. PRISMS
     XIX.   WHICH IS SOMEWHAT SURPRISING
     XX.    WHICH IS MORE SURPRISING
     XXI.   A QUESTION ANSWERED
     XXII.  SERMONS AND WOODBOXES
     XXIII. AN ACCIDENT
     XXIV.  JOHN PENDLETON
     XXV.   A WAITING GAME
     XXVI.  A DOOR AJAR
     XXVII. TWO VISITS
     XXVIII. THE GAME AND ITS PLAYERS
     XXIX.  THROUGH AN OPEN WINDOW
     XXX.   JIMMY TAKES THE HELM
     XXXI.  A NEW UNCLE
     XXXII. WHICH IS A LETTER FROM 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 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 explanations. 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 Harrington only as
the mistress of the old Harrington homestead, 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.

“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. “However, 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.”

“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, Beldingsville, Vermont; and it read as follows:

“Dear Madam:--I regret to inform you that the Rev. John Whittier died
two weeks ago, leaving one child, a girl eleven years old. He left
practically nothing else save a few books; for, as 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 remain,

“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.

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 Jennie, as a girl of twenty, had insisted upon marrying the young
minister, in spite of her family's remonstrances. 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 remembered it well, though she had
been but a girl of fifteen, 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.

Meanwhile, time had not stood still for the occupants 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 companion 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--POLLYANNA!--what a ridiculous name!



CHAPTER II. OLD TOM AND NANCY

In the little attic room Nancy swept and scrubbed vigorously, paying
particular attention to the corners. 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 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, doggedly: “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 unobserved; “did you know a little girl was comin'
here ter live with Miss Polly?”

“A--what?” demanded the old man, straightening 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,” maintained Nancy. “It's her
niece; and she's eleven years old.”

The man's jaw fell.

“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.

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 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, indignantly. “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 hurried toward the house.



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 kitchen door, “I found a
fly up-stairs in Miss Pollyanna'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 windows remain closed. My niece will arrive
to-morrow 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
'light hair, red-checked gingham dress, and straw hat.' That is all I
know, but I think it is sufficient for your purpose.”

“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 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 almost 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 become of the rest of us,”
 grinned Timothy. “Imagine Miss Polly and a NOISY kid! Gorry! there goes
the whistle now!”

“Oh, Timothy, I--I 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
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 Pollyanna, 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 confusing.

“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 questions, until the somewhat dazed
Nancy found herself quite out of breath trying to keep up with her.

“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.”

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 interruption.

“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 because I've got you, Aunt Polly. I'm
so glad I've got you!”

Nancy's aching sympathy for the poor little forlornness 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 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 moment'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,” faltered 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 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.”

“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 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
tergether; 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.



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 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 beautiful 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.

“We will go up-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 followed 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 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 Pollyanna, 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,”
 declared 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, beautiful room full of curtains,
rugs, and pictures, that was to be her very own? Then, abruptly, her
aunt opened a door and ascended another stairway.

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--it 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.

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-h!--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 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 uncertainly.

Nancy's capable hands made short work of unpacking 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 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!” 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
before--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 “picture,” 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.

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
thinking 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 hallway 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.

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

The old man straightened up.

“Gone? Heaven?” he repeated stupidly, unconsciously 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.



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, hurrying 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, cheerfully.

“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.”

“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 everythin',”
 retorted Nancy, choking a little over her remembrance of Pollyanna's
brave attempts 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.”

“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 irritably.

“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 _I_ 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.

“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 almost 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 happened 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 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, anyhow,” she finished, as they entered the kitchen
together.

Pollyanna ate her bread and milk with good appetite; 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 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 affectionate 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 'glad' I punished her,
and I 'mustn't feel bad one bit,' and she's going to 'love to live' with
me! Well, upon my soul!” 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 playing 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 windows 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 twittering 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 rosebushes. 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.

“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 dragging weight of ninety pounds hanging about her
neck. “Is this the usual way you say good morning?”

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 success.

“Pollyanna, you--I 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 irresistible force, he reached out a shaking hand and 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 moment 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 Pollyanna 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 following 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 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
upstairs.”

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 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
unclean 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, indeed, 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 desire you to go to your
room at once and read it. I will be up in half an hour to look over your
things.”

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

“Oh, thank you, Aunt Polly!” The next moment 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 Pollyanna was already out of sight, clattering up
the attic stairs.

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

“Oh, Aunt Polly, I never saw anything so perfectly 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--”

“That will do,” observed Aunt Polly, with dignity. “Pollyanna, you may
bring out your clothes now, and I will look them over. What are not
suitable 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 shameful,” she sighed. “But there were mostly things
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
sometimes 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.”

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 Pollyanna, 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 Pollyanna somewhat abruptly.

“You have been to school, of course, Pollyanna?”

“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 doubtless 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--I 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 me 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), 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 myself, 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 arguing 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!” 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. 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 living!”

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.”

Pollyanna looked shocked.

“Oh, Aunt Polly, as if I ever could be ungrateful--to YOU! Why, I LOVE
YOU--and you aren't even a Ladies' Aider; you're an aunt!”

“Very well; then see that you don't act ungrateful,” 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 afternoon. 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 surprise; then, suddenly, with
very red cheeks, she turned and swept angrily down the stairs. “Don't be
impertinent, 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.



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 feeling of limp relaxation that one might have at finding 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 content; 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 perfectly
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!”

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,” declared Pollyanna.

“Humph! Well, I guess you could love 'Clarissa Mabelle' just as well,”
 retorted Nancy, “and it would be a heap happier for me. I think THAT
name's just grand!”

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?--I sha'n't never
hear '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 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.


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
Pollyanna 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 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 before her, out on the sun-parlor
roof, were the moonlight 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 almost empty) for a covering. Thus equipped, Pollyanna
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, closing the window carefully behind her--Pollyanna had not
forgotten those flies with the marvellous 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 settled 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 dressing gown and slippers, her face white and
frightened. 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 parlor. He must have climbed up the rose-trellis
or somewhere, and of course he can get right into the 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 peering 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 stammered. “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.

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 rapturously. “Oh, Aunt Polly, Aunt
Polly, how perfectly lovely of you! And when I've so wanted to sleep
with some one sometime--some one that belonged 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
Pollyanna'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 wonder 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--provided she did not “like” to do certain things already
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 certainly the reading and sewing lessons found her at their
conclusion each day somewhat dazed and wholly exhausted.

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

There were no children in the immediate neighborhood of the Harrington
homestead for Pollyanna 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, however, 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 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 before; 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.”

“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?”

“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 hankerin' for
lamb broth!”

“Why, what a funny woman,” laughed Pollyanna. “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 cottage. 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.

“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 '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
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 '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 morning, 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 _I_ didn't,” sighed Pollyanna, placing the jelly on the
little stand and seating herself 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 Pollyanna.

“Well, no, I didn't,” retorted Mrs. Snow, dryly. Mrs. Snow had lived
forty years, and for fifteen 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,” permitted 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-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, frowning 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?”

“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 irritably.

“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, Pollyanna 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 visitor. 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--thought 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 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 picking 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!”

“Why--mother!”

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



CHAPTER IX. WHICH TELLS OF THE MAN

It rained the next time Pollyanna saw the Man. She greeted him, however,
with a bright smile.

“It isn't so nice to-day, is it?” she called blithesomely. “I'm glad it
doesn't rain always, anyhow!”

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 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.

“Oh, no, sir. You don't look a mite like a Ladies' Aider--not but that
you're just as good, of course--maybe better,” she added in hurried
politeness. “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 directness 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 Pollyanna, 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.

“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 Pendleton 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
somethin' 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 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 yourself 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, resting 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 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
correcting 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.

Nancy laughed oddly.

“Well, I didn't say that, Miss Pollyanna. 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.



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. ANYbody'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 yesterday 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 window 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.

“Just as if how it looks would make any difference 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 something, 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 Pollyanna. “I was just bound you
should have what 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 Pollyanna, 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 morning--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
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
rheumatic fever--though you want to something awful, Mrs. White says.
She told me afterwards she reckoned 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 was deaf and couldn't hear anything, like her husband'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 remember? 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 remember that; but I didn't
suppose you were in earnest any more than I was.”

“Oh, yes, I was,” nodded Pollyanna, triumphantly; “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.

“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 barrel, 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.” Suddenly 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!”


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.
Whereupon her aunt would usually reply, wearily:

“Very well, Pollyanna. I am gratified, of course, that they are happy;
but I trust that they are profitable, as well--otherwise I should have
failed signally 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?” she asked wistfully.

“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?” questioned 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?”

“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 up
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 unexpected, 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 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 Pollyanna stopped short. She was plunging into an entirely
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 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--I
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 down-stairs this morning to
the room directly beneath. I have decided to have my niece sleep there
for the present.”

“Yes, ma'am,” said Nancy aloud.

“O glory!” 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,” prophesied Nancy,
exultingly, nodding her head to Pollyanna 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 Pollyanna at last reached her
goal--Aunt Polly.

“Oh, Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, did you mean it, really? Why, that room's
got EVERYTHING--the carpet and curtains and three pictures, besides
the one 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!” Pollyanna'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
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!”

“PollyANna!” gasped the lady; but Pollyanna 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 disturbed;--but then, of
course she HAD been glad--over some things!



CHAPTER XI. INTRODUCING JIMMY

August came. August brought several surprises 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 questioning 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 confidence; “'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 shivered: Miss Polly did not care for cats--not
even pretty, healthy, clean ones.

“Ugh! Pollyanna! What a dirty little beast! 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 everybody we should keep it, if I didn't find
where it belonged. 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 lonesome 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, I had the Ladies' Aid, you know, and kitty didn't have
anybody. 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:

“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 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 suddenly 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 surprised look, and began to
whittle again at his stick, with the dull, broken-bladed knife in his
hand.

Pollyanna hesitated, then dropped herself comfortably 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 indifference.

“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--everybody 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. “Where did you live--before?” she queried.

“Well, if you ain't the beat'em for askin' questions!” 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
somewheres 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 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 dawning 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
anxiously, 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
their feet. Did you know about that? It's perfectly 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!” 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 unhesitatingly 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 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 understood 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 merrily.

“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!” Pollyanna'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, because 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 was threatening once more to overcome her.
With a visible struggle, however, Miss Polly pulled herself 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
fearlessly.

“I ain't a beggar, marm, an' I don't want nothin' o' you. I was
cal'latin' 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 helplessness was
almost upon her, she knew. Yet she rallied 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 hurrying
blindly from the room.

Before the boy had reached the end of the driveway, 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 probably 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.

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

Pollyanna was frowning thoughtfully. Of a sudden 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. Besides--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 indifferently.

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.

“Not much you will! 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 Pollyanna, 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,” cautioned 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 before 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 FOLKS, ye know.
They don't CARE!”

“I know,” nodded Pollyanna, with understanding eyes. “But I'm sure, when
I see you to-morrow, 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
listlesly 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 desolation--as of something lost.



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.

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,
therefore, so that she should get there a little before three.

“I want them all to be there,” she said to herself; “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 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. Pollyanna 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--I 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 anything to say, just
then.

“I--I've come to--to lay the case before you,” stammered Pollyanna,
after a moment, unconsciously falling into her father's familiar
phraseology.

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.”

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

“Yes, dear. What is it?”

“Well, it--it's Jimmy Bean,” sighed Pollyanna. “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, breaking 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 supplemented 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 themselves, 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 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 perhaps 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 missions, and several
said they should die of mortification 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 almost 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 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!”



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
Pollyanna 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, anyway,” 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,
notwithstanding 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, 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 attention 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 Pollyanna, still keeping to the
main path.

The little dog seemed frantic now. Back and forth, back and forth,
between Pollyanna and the side path he vibrated, barking and whining
pitifully. Every quiver of his little brown body, and every glance from
his beseeching brown eyes were eloquent with appeal--so eloquent that at
last Pollyanna 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 dismay Pollyanna ran to his side.

“Mr. Pendleton! Oh, are you hurt?”

“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 questions 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 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 between 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 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 perfectly awful!” shuddered
Pollyanna. “But I'm so glad I came! Can't _I_ 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 anything 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.

Pollyanna 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 andirons 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 “Chilton.” 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 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 untidy 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 incredibly 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 answered. “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.”

Pollyanna laughed softly.

“But you're only cross OUTSIDE--You arn't cross inside a bit!”

“Indeed! How do you know that?” asked the man, trying to change the
position of his head without 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
substitute 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. Pollyanna, 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. Pollyanna 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 the 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 fearlessly 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 medicine. But I'm glad I was here.”

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



CHAPTER XIV. JUST A MATTER OF JELLY

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 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!”

Pollyanna 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 funeral
to be glad about.”

Nancy chuckled.

“We can be glad 'tain't our'n,” she observed demurely. 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, Pollyanna met Jimmy Bean
according to agreement. As 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 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 Pendleton Woods that Pollyanna
said to her aunt one morning:

“Aunt Polly, please would you mind very much 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.

“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 EXtraordinary,” 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,” corrected 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 at 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 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, Pollyanna?”

Pollyanna 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 telephone 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
instead 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?”

Pollyanna 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.”

Pollyanna'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 Pollyanna, 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?”

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
impatiently 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,” exulted Pollyanna, as she flew
through the door.



CHAPTER XV. DR. CHILTON

The great gray pile of masonry looked very different 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 before 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 look on Pollyanna's face. He stepped quickly
forward.

“Ah! Some calf's-foot jelly?” he asked genially. “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 of our best known residents. Her name is
Pollyanna Whittier. I--I don't happen to enjoy a very extensive personal
acquaintance with the little lady as yet; but lots of my patients
do--I'm thankful to say!”

The nurse smiled.

“Indeed! 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 everything 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, '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, picking up the reins and stepping into the gig.

Pollyanna, meanwhile, in accordance with the doctor's orders, was being
escorted to John Pendleton'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 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.

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.

The little girl laughed.

“Maybe. But what I mean is, that legs don't last--broken ones, you
know--like lifelong invalids, 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!”

“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!”

“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 '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 yourself, 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.

“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,” faltered 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 uncertainly
to her feet.

“I reckon maybe I'd better go now,” she proposed. “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.”

Still the man's dark eyes lingered on her face, until Pollyanna, feeling
vaguely restless, murmured:

“I--I suppose you know--her.”

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
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 '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.

“'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 exaltation 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, smiled at Nancy, who was
sweeping off the front porch, then drove rapidly away.

“I've had a perfectly beautiful ride with the doctor,” announced
Pollyanna, bounding up the steps. “He's lovely, Nancy!”

“Is he?”

“Yes. And I told him I should think his business 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 getting so she could play this
game of “being glad” quite successfully, she thought. She rather enjoyed
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 opposite from what you told
Mis' Snow.”

“Opposite?” repeated Pollyanna, obviously puzzled.

“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 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 remonstrative dismay in her aunt's
voice.

“Why, Aunt Polly, you SAID to!”

Aunt Polly sighed.

“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 difference 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.



CHAPTER XVI. A RED ROSE AND A LACE SHAWL

It was on a rainy day about a week after Pollyanna's visit to Mr. John
Pendleton, that Miss Polly was driven by Timothy to an early afternoon
committee 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 wherever 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, 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?” demanded 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 absurd fashion about that beggar boy?”

“But it isn't nonsense,” urged Pollyanna, answering 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 “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 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 already 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 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 Pollyanna, 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 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 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 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.

“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 eyes were very grave. For
some time he said nothing; 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 suppose. 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 exclamation.

“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 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.



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 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
fretfulness.

“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
telephone 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 '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 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 seeing 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!”

“Thank you,” said John Pendleton, gently.


After supper that evening, Pollyanna, sitting on the back porch, told
Nancy all about Mr. John Pendleton'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 him of
something he wanted to forget. But afterwards--”

“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 something.”

“THE MYSTERY!” breathed Nancy, in an awestruck 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 _I_ 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.

“Oh, Miss Pollyanna, I know, I know--I KNOW I know!” she exulted
rapturously. The next minute 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.

Nancy gave her a scornful glance.

“Of course she don't! THAT'S the quarrel!”

Pollyanna still looked incredulous, and with another 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 remind 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!”

“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 lovers, Miss Pollyanna. You
ain't big enough yet, anyhow. But if there IS a set o' folks in the
world that wouldn't have no use for that 'ere '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 thoughtful.



CHAPTER XVIII. PRISMS

As the warm August days passed, Pollyanna went very frequently to the
great house on Pendleton 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, frequently; but that when she was
there, he seemed scarcely any the 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, pictures, 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 Pollyanna
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
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 Pendleton 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,
sometimes 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 particularly bitter against Dr. Chilton, as
Pollyanna found 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:

“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 exclaimed, 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 Pendleton 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, 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 fascinated 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 Pollyanna'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-fashioned 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,” he
said, when she had carried out his directions.

As she left the room he turned smiling eyes toward the wondering
Pollyanna.

“Bring me the candlestick now, please, Pollyanna.”

With both hands she brought it; and in a moment 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 finished, and she stepped back with a
low cry of delight.

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 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 talking 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 something 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 finished. “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.



CHAPTER XIX. WHICH IS SOMEWHAT SURPRISING

Pollyanna entered school in September. Preliminary 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 Pollyanna; 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 living, after all--though she had had
her doubts before.

In spite of her delight in her new work, Pollyanna 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 come and live with me?” he
asked, a little impatiently. “I don't see anything of you, nowadays.”

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 playfully 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?”

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, Pollyanna; 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 

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