With the opulent purr that seems to be peculiar to luxurious limousines, Mrs. Carew's car rolled down Commonwealth Avenue and out upon Arlington Street to Charles. Inside sat a shining-eyed little girl and a white-faced, tense woman. Outside, to give directions to the plainly disapproving chauffeur, sat Jerry Murphy, inordinately proud and insufferably important.
When the limousine came to a stop before a shabby doorway in a narrow, dirty alley, the boy leaped to the ground, and, with a ridiculous imitation of the liveried pomposities he had so often watched, threw open the door of the car and stood waiting for the ladies to alight.
Pollyanna sprang out at once, her eyes widening with amazement and distress as she looked about her. Behind her came Mrs. Carew, visibly shuddering as her gaze swept the filth, the sordidness, and the ragged children that swarmed shrieking and chattering out of the dismal tenements, and surrounded the car in a second.
Jerry waved his arms angrily.
Here, you, beat it! he yelled to the motley throng. "This ain't no free movies! CAN that racket and get a move on ye. Lively, now! We gotta get by. Jamie's got comp'ny."
Mrs. Carew shuddered again, and laid a trembling hand on Jerry's shoulder.
Not—HERE! she recoiled.
But the boy did not hear. With shoves and pushes from sturdy fists and elbows, he was making a path for his charges; and before Mrs. Carew knew quite how it was done, she found herself with the boy and Pollyanna at the foot of a rickety flight of stairs in a dim, evil-smelling hallway.
Once more she put out a shaking hand.
Wait, she commanded huskily. "Remember! Don't either of you say a word about—about his being possibly the boy I'm looking for. I must see for myself first, and—question him."
Of course! agreed Pollyanna.
Sure! I'm on, nodded the boy. "I gotta go right off anyhow, so I won't bother ye none. Now toddle easy up these 'ere stairs. There's always holes, and most generally there's a kid or two asleep somewheres. An' the elevator ain't runnin' ter-day," he gibed cheerfully. "We gotta go ter the top, too!"
Mrs. Carew found the "holes"—broken boards that creaked and bent fearsomely under her shrinking feet; and she found one "kid"—a two-year-old baby playing with an empty tin can on a string which he was banging up and down the second flight of stairs. On all sides doors were opened, now boldly, now stealthily, but always disclosing women with tousled heads or peering children with dirty faces. Somewhere a baby was wailing piteously. Somewhere else a man was cursing. Everywhere was the smell of bad whiskey, stale cabbage, and unwashed humanity.
At the top of the third and last stairway the boy came to a pause before a closed door.
I'm just a-thinkin' what Sir James'll say when he's wise ter the prize package I'm bringin' him, he whispered in a throaty voice. "I know what mumsey'll do—she'll turn on the weeps in no time ter see Jamie so tickled." The next moment he threw wide the door with a gay: "Here we be—an' we come in a buzz-wagon! Ain't that goin' some, Sir James?"
It was a tiny room, cold and cheerless and pitifully bare, but scrupulously neat. There were here no tousled heads, no peering children, no odors of whiskey, cabbage, and unclean humanity. There were two beds, three broken chairs, a dry-goods-box table, and a stove with a faint glow of light that told of a fire not nearly brisk enough to heat even that tiny room. On one of the beds lay a lad with flushed cheeks and fever-bright eyes. Near him sat a thin, white-faced woman, bent and twisted with rheumatism.
Mrs. Carew stepped into the room and, as if to steady herself, paused a minute with her back to the wall. Pollyanna hurried forward with a low cry just as Jerry, with an apologetic "I gotta go now; good-by!" dashed through the door.
Oh, Jamie, I'm so glad I've found you, cried Pollyanna. "You don't know how I've looked and looked for you every day. But I'm so sorry you're sick!"
Jamie smiled radiantly and held out a thin white hand.
I ain't sorry—I'm GLAD, he emphasized meaningly; "'cause it's brought you to see me. Besides, I'm better now, anyway. Mumsey, this is the little girl, you know, that told me the glad game—and mumsey's playing it, too," he triumphed, turning back to Pollyanna. "First she cried 'cause her back hurts too bad to let her work; then when I was took worse she was GLAD she couldn't work, 'cause she could be here to take care of me, you know."
At that moment Mrs. Carew hurried forward, her eyes half-fearfully, half-longingly on the face of the lame boy in the bed.
It's Mrs. Carew. I've brought her to see you, Jamie, introduced
Pollyanna, in a tremulous voice.
The little twisted woman by the bed had struggled to her feet by this time, and was nervously offering her chair. Mrs. Carew accepted it without so much as a glance. Her eyes were still on the boy in the bed.
Your name is—Jamie? she asked, with visible difficulty.
Yes, ma'am. The boy's bright eyes looked straight into hers.
What is your other name?
I don't know.
He is not your son? For the first time Mrs. Carew turned to the twisted little woman who was still standing by the bed.
No, madam.
And you don't know his name?
No, madam. I never knew it.
With a despairing gesture Mrs. Carew turned back to the boy.
But think, think—don't you remember ANYTHING of your name but—Jamie?
The boy shook his head. Into his eyes was coming a puzzled wonder.
No, nothing.
Haven't you anything that belonged to your father, with possibly his name in it?
There wasn't anythin' worth savin' but them books, interposed Mrs. Murphy. "Them's his. Maybe you'd like to look at 'em," she suggested, pointing to a row of worn volumes on a shelf across the room. Then, in plainly uncontrollable curiosity, she asked: "Was you thinkin' you knew him, ma'am?"
I don't know, murmured Mrs. Carew, in a half-stifled voice, as she rose to her feet and crossed the room to the shelf of books.
There were not many—perhaps ten or a dozen. There was a volume of Shakespeare's plays, an "Ivanhoe," a much-thumbed "Lady of the Lake," a book of miscellaneous poems, a coverless "Tennyson," a dilapidated "Little Lord Fauntleroy," and two or three books of ancient and medieval history. But, though Mrs. Carew looked carefully through every one, she found nowhere any written word. With a despairing sigh she turned back to the boy and to the woman, both of whom now were watching her with startled, questioning eyes.
I wish you'd tell me—both of you—all you know about yourselves, she said brokenly, dropping herself once more into the chair by the bed.
And they told her. It was much the same story that Jamie had told Pollyanna in the Public Garden. There was little that was new, nothing that was significant, in spite of the probing questions that Mrs. Carew asked. At its conclusion Jamie turned eager eyes on Mrs. Carew's face.
Do you think you knew—my father? he begged.
Mrs. Carew closed her eyes and pressed her hand to her head.
I don't—know, she answered. "But I think—not."
Pollyanna gave a quick cry of keen disappointment, but as quickly she suppressed it in obedience to Mrs. Carew's warning glance. With new horror, however, she surveyed the tiny room.
Jamie, turning his wondering eyes from Mrs. Carew's face, suddenly awoke to his duties as host.
Wasn't you good to come! he said to Pollyanna, gratefully. "How's Sir Lancelot? Do you ever go to feed him now?" Then, as Pollyanna did not answer at once, he hurried on, his eyes going from her face to the somewhat battered pink in a broken-necked bottle in the window. "Did you see my posy? Jerry found it. Somebody dropped it and he picked it up. Ain't it pretty? And it SMELLS a little."
But Pollyanna did not seem even to have heard him. She was still gazing, wide-eyed about the room, clasping and unclasping her hands nervously.
But I don't see how you can ever play the game here at all, Jamie, she faltered. "I didn't suppose there could be anywhere such a perfectly awful place to live," she shuddered.
Ho! scoffed Jamie, valiantly. "You'd oughter see the Pikes' down-stairs. Theirs is a whole lot worse'n this. You don't know what a lot of nice things there is about this room. Why, we get the sun in that winder there for 'most two hours every day, when it shines. And if you get real near it you can see a whole lot of sky from it. If we could only KEEP the room!—but you see we've got to leave, we're afraid. And that's what's worrin' us."
Leave!
Yes. We got behind on the rent—mumsey bein' sick so, and not earnin' anythin'. In spite of a courageously cheerful smile, Jamie's voice shook. "Mis' Dolan down-stairs—the woman what keeps my wheel chair for me, you know—is helpin' us out this week. But of course she can't do it always, and then we'll have to go—if Jerry don't strike it rich, or somethin'."
Oh, but can't we— began Pollyanna.
She stopped short. Mrs. Carew had risen to her feet abruptly with a hurried:
Come, Pollyanna, we must go. Then to the woman she turned wearily.
"You won't have to leave. I'll send you money and food at once, and I'll mention your case to one of the charity organizations in which I am interested, and they will—
"In surprise she ceased speaking. The bent little figure of the woman opposite had drawn itself almost erect. Mrs. Murphy's cheeks were flushed. Her eyes showed a smouldering fire.
Thank you, no, Mrs. Carew, she said tremulously, but proudly. "We're poor—God knows; but we ain't charity folks."
Nonsense! cried Mrs. Carew, sharply. "You're letting the woman down-stairs help you. This boy said so."
I know; but that ain't charity, persisted the woman, still tremulously. "Mrs. Dolan is my FRIEND. She knows I'D do HER a good turn just as quick—I have done 'em for her in times past. Help from FRIENDS ain't charity. They CARE; and that—that makes a difference. We wa'n't always as we are now, you see; and that makes it hurt all the more—all this. Thank you; but we couldn't take—your money."
Mrs. Carew frowned angrily. It had been a most disappointing, heart-breaking, exhausting hour for her. Never a patient woman, she was exasperated now, besides being utterly tired out.
Very well, just as you please, she said coldly. Then, with vague irritation she added: "But why don't you go to your landlord and insist that he make you even decently comfortable while you do stay? Surely you're entitled to something besides broken windows stuffed with rags and papers! And those stairs that I came up are positively dangerous."
Mrs. Murphy sighed in a discouraged way. Her twisted little figure had fallen back into its old hopelessness.
We have tried to have something done, but it's never amounted to anything. We never see anybody but the agent, of course; and he says the rents are too low for the owner to put out any more money on repairs.
Nonsense! snapped Mrs. Carew, with all the sharpness of a nervous, distraught woman who has at last found an outlet for her exasperation. "It's shameful! What's more, I think it's a clear case of violation of the law;—those stairs are, certainly. I shall make it my business to see that he's brought to terms. What is the name of that agent, and who is the owner of this delectable establishment?"
"
I don't know the name of the owner, madam; but the agent is Mr. Dodge.
"Dodge! Mrs. Carew turned sharply, an odd look on her face. "You don't mean—Henry Dodge?"
Yes, madam. His name is Henry, I think.
A flood of color swept into Mrs. Carew's face, then receded, leaving it whiter than before.
Very well, I—I'll attend to it, she murmured, in a half-stifled voice, turning away. "Come, Pollyanna, we must go now."
Over at the bed Pollyanna was bidding Jamie a tearful good-by.
But I'll come again. I'll come real soon, she promised brightly, as she hurried through the door after Mrs. Carew.
Not until they had picked their precarious way down the three long flights of stairs and through the jabbering, gesticulating crowd of men, women, and children that surrounded the scowling Perkins and the limousine, did Pollyanna speak again. But then she scarcely waited for the irate chauffeur to slam the door upon them before she pleaded:
Dear Mrs. Carew, please, please say that it was Jamie! Oh, it would be so nice for him to be Jamie.
But he isn't Jamie!
O dear! Are you sure?
There was a moment's pause, then Mrs. Carew covered her face with her hands.
No, I'm not sure—and that's the tragedy of it, she moaned. "I don't think he is; I'm almost positive he isn't. But, of course, there IS a chance—and that's what's killing me."
Then can't you just THINK he's Jamie, begged Pollyanna, "and play he was? Then you could take him home, and—" But Mrs. Carew turned fiercely.
Take that boy into my home when he WASN'T Jamie? Never, Pollyanna! I couldn't.
But if you CAN'T help Jamie, I should think you'd be so glad there was some one like him you COULD help, urged Pollyanna, tremulously. "What if your Jamie was like this Jamie, all poor and sick, wouldn't you want some one to take him in and comfort him, and—" "Don't—don't, Pollyanna," moaned Mrs. Carew, turning her head from side to side, in a frenzy of grief. "When I think that maybe, somewhere, our Jamie is like that—" Only a choking sob finished the sentence.
That's just what I mean—that's just what I mean! triumphed Pollyanna, excitedly. "Don't you see? If this IS your Jamie, of course you'll want him; and if it isn't, you couldn't be doing any harm to the other Jamie by taking this one, and you'd do a whole lot of good, for you'd make this one so happy—so happy! And then, by and by, if you should find the real Jamie, you wouldn't have lost anything, but you'd have made two little boys happy instead of one; and—" But again Mrs. Carew interrupted her.
Don't, Pollyanna, don't! I want to think—I want to think.
Tearfully Pollyanna sat back in her seat. By a very visible effort she kept still for one whole minute. Then, as if the words fairly bubbled forth of themselves, there came this:
Oh, but what an awful, awful place that was! I just wish the man that owned it had to live in it himself—and then see what he'd have to be glad for!
Mrs. Carew sat suddenly erect. Her face showed a curious change.
Almost as if in appeal she flung out her hand toward Pollyanna.
Don't! she cried. "Perhaps—she didn't know, Pollyanna. Perhaps she didn't know. I'm sure she didn't know—she owned a place like that. But it will be fixed now—it will be fixed."
SHE! Is it a woman that owns it, and do you know her? And do you know the agent, too?
Yes. Mrs. Carew bit her lips. "I know her, and I know the agent."
Oh, I'm so glad, sighed Pollyanna. "Then it'll be all right now."
Well, it certainly will be—better, avowed Mrs. Carew with emphasis, as the car stopped before her own door.
Mrs. Carew spoke as if she knew what she was talking about. And perhaps, indeed, she did—better than she cared to tell Pollyanna. Certainly, before she slept that night, a letter left her hands addressed to one Henry Dodge, summoning him to an immediate conference as to certain changes and repairs to be made at once in tenements she owned. There were, moreover, several scathing sentences concerning "rag-stuffed windows," and "rickety stairways," that caused this same Henry Dodge to scowl angrily, and to say a sharp word behind his teeth—though at the same time he paled with something very like fear.
The matter of repairs and improvements having been properly and efficiently attended to, Mrs. Carew told herself that she had done her duty, and that the matter was closed. She would forget it. The boy was not Jamie—he could not be Jamie. That ignorant, sickly, crippled boy her dead sister's son? Impossible! She would cast the whole thing from her thoughts.
It was just here, however, that Mrs. Carew found herself against an immovable, impassable barrier: the whole thing refused to be cast from her thoughts. Always before her eyes was the picture of that bare little room and the wistful-faced boy. Always in her ears was that heartbreaking "What if it WERE Jamie?" And always, too, there was Pollyanna; for even though Mrs. Carew might (as she did) silence the pleadings and questionings of the little girl's tongue, there was no getting away from the prayers and reproaches of the little girl's eyes.
Twice again in desperation Mrs. Carew went to see the boy, telling herself each time that only another visit was needed to convince her that the boy was not the one she sought. But, even though while there in the boy's presence, she told herself that she WAS convinced, once away from it, the old, old questioning returned. At last, in still greater desperation, she wrote to her sister, and told her the whole story.
I had not meant to tell you, she wrote, after she had stated the bare facts of the case. "I thought it a pity to harrow you up, or to raise false hopes. I am so sure it is not he—and yet, even as I write these words, I know I am NOT sure. That is why I want you to come—why you must come. I must have you see him.
"
I wonder—oh, I wonder what you'll say! Of course we haven't seen our Jamie since he was four years old. He would be twelve now. This boy is twelve, I should judge. (He doesn't know his age.) He has hair and eyes not unlike our Jamie's. He is crippled, but that condition came upon him through a fall, six years ago, and was made worse through another one four years later. Anything like a complete description of his father's appearance seems impossible to obtain; but what I have learned contains nothing conclusive either for or against his being poor Doris's husband. He was called 'the Professor,' was very queer, and seemed to own nothing save a few books. This might, or might not signify. John Kent was certainly always queer, and a good deal of a Bohemian in his tastes. Whether he cared for books or not I don't remember. Do you? And of course the title 'Professor' might easily have been assumed, if he wished, or it might have been merely given him by others. As for this boy—I don't know, I don't know—but I do hope YOU will! Your distracted sister,
"
RUTH.
Della came at once, and she went immediately to see the boy; but she did not "know." Like her sister, she said she did not think it was their Jamie, but at the same time there was that chance—it might be he, after all. Like Pollyanna, however, she had what she thought was a very satisfactory way out of the dilemma.
But why don't you take him, dear? she proposed to her sister. "Why don't you take him and adopt him? It would be lovely for him—poor little fellow—and—" But Mrs. Carew shuddered and would not even let her finish.
No, no, I can't, I can't! she moaned. "I want my Jamie, my own Jamie—or no one." And with a sigh Della gave it up and went back to her nursing.
If Mrs. Carew thought that this closed the matter, however, she was again mistaken; for her days were still restless, and her nights were still either sleepless or filled with dreams of a "may be" or a "might be" masquerading as an "it is so." She was, moreover, having a difficult time with Pollyanna.
Pollyanna was puzzled. She was filled with questionings and unrest. For the first time in her life Pollyanna had come face to face with real poverty. She knew people who did not have enough to eat, who wore ragged clothing, and who lived in dark, dirty, and very tiny rooms. Her first impulse, of course, had been "to help." With Mrs. Carew she made two visits to Jamie, and greatly did she rejoice at the changed conditions she found there after "that man Dodge" had "tended to things." But this, to Pollyanna, was a mere drop in the bucket. There were yet all those other sick-looking men, unhappy-looking women, and ragged children out in the street—Jamie's neighbors. Confidently she looked to Mrs. Carew for help for them, also.
Indeed! exclaimed Mrs. Carew, when she learned what was expected of her, "so you want the whole street to be supplied with fresh paper, paint, and new stairways, do you? Pray, is there anything else you'd like?"
Oh, yes, lots of things, sighed Pollyanna, happily. "You see, there are so many things they need—all of them! And what fun it will be to get them! How I wish I was rich so I could help, too; but I'm 'most as glad to be with you when you get them."
Mrs. Carew quite gasped aloud in her amazement. She lost no time—though she did lose not a little patience—in explaining that she had no intention of doing anything further in "Murphy's Alley," and that there was no reason why she should. No one would expect her to. She had canceled all possible obligations, and had even been really very generous, any one would say, in what she had done for the tenement where lived Jamie and the Murphys. (That she owned the tenement building she did not think it necessary to state.) At some length she explained to Pollyanna that there were charitable institutions, both numerous and efficient, whose business it was to aid all the worthy poor, and that to these institutions she gave frequently and liberally.
Even then, however, Pollyanna was not convinced.
But I don't see, she argued, "why it's any better, or even so nice, for a whole lot of folks to club together and do what everybody would like to do for themselves. I'm sure I'd much rather give Jamie a—a nice book, now, than to have some old Society do it; and I KNOW he'd like better to have me do it, too."
Very likely, returned Mrs. Carew, with some weariness and a little exasperation. "But it is just possible that it would not be so well for Jamie as—as if that book were given by a body of people who knew what sort of one to select."
This led her to say much, also (none of which Pollyanna in the least understood), about "pauperizing the poor," the "evils of indiscriminate giving," and the "pernicious effect of unorganized charity."
Besides, she added, in answer to the still perplexed expression on Pollyanna's worried little face, "very likely if I offered help to these people they would not take it. You remember Mrs. Murphy declined, at the first, to let me send food and clothing—though they accepted it readily enough from their neighbors on the first floor, it seems."
Yes, I know, sighed Pollyanna, turning away. "There's something there somehow that I don't understand. But it doesn't seem right that WE should have such a lot of nice things, and that THEY shouldn't have anything, hardly."
As the days passed, this feeling on the part of Pollyanna increased rather than diminished; and the questions she asked and the comments she made were anything but a relief to the state of mind in which Mrs. Carew herself was. Even the test of the glad game, in this case, Pollyanna was finding to be very near a failure; for, as she expressed it:
I don't see how you can find anything about this poor-people business to be glad for. Of course we can be glad for ourselves that we aren't poor like them; but whenever I'm thinking how glad I am for that, I get so sorry for them that I CAN'T be glad any longer. Of course we COULD be glad there were poor folks, because we could help them. But if we DON'T help them, where's the glad part of that coming in? And to this Pollyanna could find no one who could give her a satisfactory answer.
Especially she asked this question of Mrs. Carew; and Mrs. Carew, still haunted by the visions of the Jamie that was, and the Jamie that might be, grew only more restless, more wretched, and more utterly despairing. Nor was she helped any by the approach of Christmas. Nowhere was there glow of holly or flash of tinsel that did not carry its pang to her; for always to Mrs. Carew it but symbolized a child's empty stocking—a stocking that might be—Jamie's.
Finally, a week before Christmas, she fought what she thought was the last battle with herself. Resolutely, but with no real joy in her face, she gave terse orders to Mary, and summoned Pollyanna.
Pollyanna, she began, almost harshly, "I have decided to—to take Jamie. The car will be here at once. I'm going after him now, and bring him home. You may come with me if you like."
A great light transfigured Pollyanna's face.
Oh, oh, oh, how glad I am! she breathed. "Why, I'm so glad I—I want to cry! Mrs. Carew, why is it, when you're the very gladdest of anything, you always want to cry?"
I don't know, I'm sure, Pollyanna, rejoined Mrs. Carew, abstractedly. On Mrs. Carew's face there was still no look of joy.
Once in the Murphys' little one-room tenement, it did not take Mrs. Carew long to tell her errand. In a few short sentences she told the story of the lost Jamie, and of her first hopes that this Jamie might be he. She made no secret of her doubts that he was the one; at the same time, she said she had decided to take him home with her and give him every possible advantage. Then, a little wearily, she told what were the plans she had made for him.
At the foot of the bed Mrs. Murphy listened, crying softly. Across the room Jerry Murphy, his eyes dilating, emitted an occasional low "Gee! Can ye beat that, now?" As to Jamie—Jamie, on the bed, had listened at first with the air of one to whom suddenly a door has opened into a longed-for paradise; but gradually, as Mrs. Carew talked, a new look came to his eyes. Very slowly he closed them, and turned away his face.
When Mrs. Carew ceased speaking there was a long silence before Jamie turned his head and answered. They saw then that his face was very white, and that his eyes were full of tears.
Thank you, Mrs. Carew, but—I can't go, he said simply.
You can't—what? cried Mrs. Carew, as if she doubted the evidence of her own ears.
Jamie! gasped Pollyanna.
Oh, come, kid, what's eatin' ye? scowled Jerry, hurriedly coming forward. "Don't ye know a good thing when ye see it?"
Yes; but I can't—go, said the crippled boy, again.
But, Jamie, Jamie, think, THINK what it would mean to you! quavered
Mrs. Murphy, at the foot of the bed.
I am a-thinkin', choked Jamie. "Don't you suppose I know what I'm doin'—what I'm givin' up?" Then to Mrs. Carew he turned tear-wet eyes. "I can't," he faltered. "I can't let you do all that for me. If you—CARED it would be different. But you don't care—not really. You don't WANT me—not ME. You want the real Jamie, and I ain't the real Jamie. You don't think I am. I can see it in your face."
I know. But—but— began Mrs. Carew, helplessly.
And it isn't as if—as if I was like other boys, and could walk, either, interrupted the cripple, feverishly. "You'd get tired of me in no time. And I'd see it comin'. I couldn't stand it—to be a burden like that. Of course, if you CARED—like mumsey here—" He threw out his hand, choked back a sob, then turned his head away again. "I'm not the Jamie you want. I—can't—go," he said. With the words his thin, boyish hand fell clenched till the knuckles showed white against the tattered old shawl that covered the bed.
There was a moment's breathless hush, then, very quietly, Mrs. Carew got to her feet. Her face was colorless; but there was that in it that silenced the sob that rose to Pollyanna's lips.
Come, Pollyanna, was all she said.
Well, if you ain't the fool limit! babbled Jerry Murphy to the boy on the bed, as the door closed a moment later.
But the boy on the bed was crying very much as if the closing door had been the one that had led to paradise—and that had closed now forever.
Mrs. Carew was very angry. To have brought herself to the point where she was willing to take this lame boy into her home, and then to have the lad calmly refuse to come, was unbearable. Mrs. Carew was not in the habit of having her invitations ignored, or her wishes scorned. Furthermore, now that she could not have the boy, she was conscious of an almost frantic terror lest he were, after all, the real Jamie. She knew then that her true reason for wanting him had been—not because she cared for him, not even because she wished to help him and make him happy—but because she hoped, by taking him, that she would ease her own mind, and forever silence that awful eternal questioning on her part: "What if he WERE her own Jamie?"
It certainly had not helped matters any that the boy had divined her state of mind, and had given as the reason for his refusal that she "did not care." To be sure, Mrs. Carew now very proudly told herself that she did not indeed "care," that he was NOT her sister's boy, and that she would "forget all about it."
But she did not forget all about it. However insistently she might disclaim responsibility and relationship, just as insistently responsibility and relationship thrust themselves upon her in the shape of panicky doubts; and however resolutely she turned her thoughts to other matters, just so resolutely visions of a wistful-eyed boy in a poverty-stricken room loomed always before her.
Then, too, there was Pollyanna. Clearly Pollyanna was not herself at all. In a most unPollyanna-like spirit she moped about the house, finding apparently no interest anywhere.
Oh, no, I'm not sick, she would answer, when remonstrated with, and questioned.
But what IS the trouble?
Why, nothing. It—it's only that I was thinking of Jamie, you know,—how HE hasn't got all these beautiful things—carpets, and pictures, and curtains.
It was the same with her food. Pollyanna was actually losing her appetite; but here again she disclaimed sickness.
Oh, no, she would sigh mournfully. "It's just that I don't seem hungry. Some way, just as soon as I begin to eat, I think of Jamie, and how HE doesn't have only old doughnuts and dry rolls; and then I—I don't want anything."
Mrs. Carew, spurred by a feeling that she herself only dimly understood, and recklessly determined to bring about some change in Pollyanna at all costs, ordered a huge tree, two dozen wreaths, and quantities of holly and Christmas baubles. For the first time in many years the house was aflame and aglitter with scarlet and tinsel. There was even to be a Christmas party, for Mrs. Carew had told Pollyanna to invite half a dozen of her schoolgirl friends for the tree on Christmas Eve.
But even here Mrs. Carew met with disappointment; for, though Pollyanna was always grateful, and at times interested and even excited, she still carried frequently a sober little face. And in the end the Christmas party was more of a sorrow than a joy; for the first glimpse of the glittering tree sent her into a storm of sobs.
Why, Pollyanna! ejaculated Mrs. Carew. "What in the world is the matter now?"
N-n-nothing, wept Pollyanna. "It's only that it's so perfectly, perfectly beautiful that I just had to cry. I was thinking how Jamie would love to see it."
It was then that Mrs. Carew's patience snapped.
'Jamie, Jamie, Jamie'! she exclaimed. "Pollyanna, CAN'T you stop talking about that boy? You know perfectly well that it is not my fault that he is not here. I asked him to come here to live. Besides, where is that glad game of yours? I think it would be an excellent idea if you would play it on this."
I AM playing it, quavered Pollyanna. "And that's what I don't understand. I never knew it to act so funny. Why, before, when I've been glad about things, I've been happy. But now, about Jamie—I'm so glad I've got carpets and pictures and nice things to eat, and that I can walk and run, and go to school, and all that; but the harder I'm glad for myself, the sorrier I am for him. I never knew the game to act so funny, and I don't know what ails it. Do you?"
But Mrs. Carew, with a despairing gesture, merely turned away without a word.
It was the day after Christmas that something so wonderful happened that Pollyanna, for a time, almost forgot Jamie. Mrs. Carew had taken her shopping, and it was while Mrs. Carew was trying to decide between a duchesse-lace and a point-lace collar, that Pollyanna chanced to spy farther down the counter a face that looked vaguely familiar. For a moment she regarded it frowningly; then, with a little cry, she ran down the aisle.
Oh, it's you—it IS you! she exclaimed joyously to a girl who was putting into the show case a tray of pink bows. "I'm so glad to see you!"
The girl behind the counter lifted her head and stared at Pollyanna in amazement. But almost immediately her dark, somber face lighted with a smile of glad recognition.
Well, well, if it isn't my little Public Garden kiddie! she ejaculated.
Yes. I'm so glad you remembered, beamed Pollyanna. "But you never came again. I looked for you lots of times."
I couldn't. I had to work. That was our last half-holiday, and—Fifty cents, madam, she broke off, in answer to a sweet-faced old lady's question as to the price of a black-and-white bow on the counter.
Fifty cents? Hm-m! The old lady fingered the bow, hesitated, then laid it down with a sigh. "Hm, yes; well, it's very pretty, I'm sure, my dear," she said, as she passed on.
Immediately behind her came two bright-faced girls who, with much giggling and bantering, picked out a jeweled creation of scarlet velvet, and a fairy-like structure of tulle and pink buds. As the girls turned chattering away Pollyanna drew an ecstatic sigh.
Is this what you do all day? My, how glad you must be you chose this!
GLAD!
Yes. It must be such fun—such lots of folks, you know, and all different! And you can talk to 'em. You HAVE to talk to 'em—it's your business. I should love that. I think I'll do this when I grow up. It must be such fun to see what they all buy!
Fun! Glad! bristled the girl behind the counter. "Well, child, I guess if you knew half—That's a dollar, madam," she interrupted herself hastily, in answer to a young woman's sharp question as to the price of a flaring yellow bow of beaded velvet in the show case.
Well, I should think 'twas time you told me, snapped the young woman. "I had to ask you twice."
The girl behind the counter bit her lip.
I didn't hear you, madam.
I can't help that. It is your business TO hear. You are paid for it, aren't you? How much is that black one?
Fifty cents.
And that blue one?
One dollar.
No impudence, miss! You needn't be so short about it, or I shall report you. Let me see that tray of pink ones.
The salesgirl's lips opened, then closed in a thin, straight line. Obediently she reached into the show case and took out the tray of pink bows; but her eyes flashed, and her hands shook visibly as she set the tray down on the counter. The young woman whom she was serving picked up five bows, asked the price of four of them, then turned away with a brief:
I see nothing I care for.
Well, said the girl behind the counter, in a shaking voice, to the wide-eyed Pollyanna, "what do you think of my business now? Anything to be glad about there?"
Pollyanna giggled a little hysterically.
My, wasn't she cross? But she was kind of funny, too—don't you think? Anyhow, you can be glad that—that they aren't ALL like HER, can't you?
I suppose so, said the girl, with a faint smile, "But I can tell you right now, kiddie, that glad game of yours you was tellin' me about that day in the Garden may be all very well for you; but—" Once more she stopped with a tired: "Fifty cents, madam," in answer to a question from the other side of the counter.
Are you as lonesome as ever? asked Pollyanna wistfully, when the salesgirl was at liberty again.
Well, I can't say I've given more'n five parties, nor been to more'n seven, since I saw you, replied the girl so bitterly that Pollyanna detected the sarcasm.
Oh, but you did something nice Christmas, didn't you?
Oh, yes. I stayed in bed all day with my feet done up in rags and read four newspapers and one magazine. Then at night I hobbled out to a restaurant where I had to blow in thirty-five cents for chicken pie instead of a quarter.
But what ailed your feet?
Blistered. Standin' on 'em—Christmas rush.
Oh! shuddered Pollyanna, sympathetically. "And you didn't have any tree, or party, or anything?" she cried, distressed and shocked.
Well, hardly!
O dear! How I wish you could have seen mine! sighed the little girl. "It was just lovely, and—But, oh, say!" she exclaimed joyously. "You can see it, after all. It isn't gone yet. Now, can't you come out to-night, or to-morrow night, and—"
PollyANNA! interrupted Mrs. Carew in her chilliest accents. "What in the world does this mean? Where have you been? I have looked everywhere for you. I even went 'way back to the suit department."
Pollyanna turned with a happy little cry.
Oh, Mrs. Carew, I'm so glad you've come, she rejoiced. "This is—well, I don't know her name yet, but I know HER, so it's all right. I met her in the Public Garden ever so long ago. And she's lonesome, and doesn't know anybody. And her father was a minister like mine, only he's alive. And she didn't have any Christmas tree only blistered feet and chicken pie; and I want her to see mine, you know—the tree, I mean," plunged on Pollyanna, breathlessly. "I've asked her to come out to-night, or to-morrow night. And you'll let me have it all lighted up again, won't you?"
[Illustration: "'I don't know her name yet, but I know HER, so it's all right'"]
Well, really, Pollyanna, began Mrs. Carew, in cold disapproval. But the girl behind the counter interrupted with a voice quite as cold, and even more disapproving.
Don't worry, madam. I've no notion of goin'.
Oh, but PLEASE, begged Pollyanna. "You don't know how I want you, and—"
I notice the lady ain't doin' any askin', interrupted the salesgirl, a little maliciously.
Mrs. Carew flushed an angry red, and turned as if to go; but Pollyanna caught her arm and held it, talking meanwhile almost frenziedly to the girl behind the counter, who happened, at the moment, to be free from customers.
Oh, but she will, she will, Pollyanna was saying. "She wants you to come—I know she does. Why, you don't know how good she is, and how much money she gives to—to charitable 'sociations and everything."
PollyANNA! remonstrated Mrs. Carew, sharply. Once more she would have gone, but this time she was held spellbound by the ringing scorn in the low, tense voice of the salesgirl.
Oh, yes, I know! There's lots of 'em that'll give to RESCUE work. There's always plenty of helpin' hands stretched out to them that has gone wrong. And that's all right. I ain't findin' no fault with that. Only sometimes I wonder there don't some of 'em think of helpin' the girls BEFORE they go wrong. Why don't they give GOOD girls pretty homes with books and pictures and soft carpets and music, and somebody 'round 'em to care? Maybe then there wouldn't be so many—Good heavens, what am I sayin'? she broke off, under her breath. Then, with the old weariness, she turned to a young woman who had stopped before her and picked up a blue bow.
That's fifty cents, madam, Mrs. Carew heard, as she hurried
Pollyanna away.
该作者的其它作品
《Pollyanna》
It was a delightful plan. Pollyanna had it entirely formulated in about five minutes; then she told Mrs. Carew. Mrs. Carew did not think it was a delightful plan, and she said so very distinctly.
Oh, but I'm sure THEY'LL think it is, argued Pollyanna, in reply to Mrs. Carew's objections. "And just think how easy we can do it! The tree is just as it was—except for the presents, and we can get more of those. It won't be so very long till just New Year's Eve; and only think how glad she'll be to come! Wouldn't YOU be, if you hadn't had anything for Christmas only blistered feet and chicken pie?"
Dear, dear, what an impossible child you are! frowned Mrs. Carew. "Even yet it doesn't seem to occur to you that we don't know this young person's name."
So we don't! And isn't it funny, when I feel that I know HER so well? smiled Pollyanna. "You see, we had such a good talk in the Garden that day, and she told me all about how lonesome she was, and that she thought the lonesomest place in the world was in a crowd in a big city, because folks didn't think nor notice. Oh, there was one that noticed; but he noticed too much, she said, and he hadn't ought to notice her any—which is kind of funny, isn't it, when you come to think of it. But anyhow, he came for her there in the Garden to go somewhere with him, and she wouldn't go, and he was a real handsome gentleman, too—until he began to look so cross, just at the last. Folks aren't so pretty when they're cross, are they? Now there was a lady to-day looking at bows, and she said—well, lots of things that weren't nice, you know. And SHE didn't look pretty, either, after—after she began to talk. But you will let me have the tree New Year's Eve, won't you, Mrs. Carew?—and invite this girl who sells bows, and Jamie? He's better, you know, now, and he COULD come. Of course Jerry would have to wheel him—but then, we'd want Jerry, anyway."
Oh, of course, JERRY! exclaimed Mrs. Carew in ironic scorn. "But why stop with Jerry? I'm sure Jerry has hosts of friends who would love to come. And—"
Oh, Mrs. Carew, MAY I? broke in Pollyanna, in uncontrollable delight. "Oh, how good, GOOD, GOOD you are! I've so wanted—" But Mrs. Carew fairly gasped aloud in surprise and dismay.
No, no, Pollyanna, I— she began, protestingly. But Pollyanna, entirely mistaking the meaning of her interruption, plunged in again in stout championship.
Indeed you ARE good—just the bestest ever; and I sha'n't let you say you aren't. Now I reckon I'll have a party all right! There's Tommy Dolan and his sister Jennie, and the two Macdonald children, and three girls whose names I don't know that live under the Murphys, and a whole lot more, if we have room for 'em. And only think how glad they'll be when I tell 'em! Why, Mrs. Carew, seems to me as if I never knew anything so perfectly lovely in all my life—and it's all your doings! Now mayn't I begin right away to invite 'em—so they'll KNOW what's coming to 'em?
And Mrs. Carew, who would not have believed such a thing possible, heard herself murmuring a faint "yes," which, she knew, bound her to the giving of a Christmas-tree party on New Year's Eve to a dozen children from Murphy's Alley and a young salesgirl whose name she did not know.
Perhaps in Mrs. Carew's memory was still lingering a young girl's "Sometimes I wonder there don't some of 'em think of helpin' the girls BEFORE they go wrong." Perhaps in her ears was still ringing Pollyanna's story of that same girl who had found a crowd in a big city the loneliest place in the world, yet who had refused to go with the handsome man that had "noticed too much." Perhaps in Mrs. Carew's heart was the undefined hope that somewhere in it all lay the peace she had so longed for. Perhaps it was a little of all three combined with utter helplessness in the face of Pollyanna's amazing twisting of her irritated sarcasm into the wide-sweeping hospitality of a willing hostess. Whatever it was, the thing was done; and at once Mrs. Carew found herself caught into a veritable whirl of plans and plottings, the center of which was always Pollyanna and the party.
To her sister, Mrs. Carew wrote distractedly of the whole affair, closing with:
What I'm going to do I don't know; but I suppose I shall have to keep right on doing as I am doing. There is no other way. Of course, if Pollyanna once begins to preach—but she hasn't yet; so I can't, with a clear conscience, send her back to you.
Della, reading this letter at the Sanatorium, laughed aloud at the conclusion.
'Hasn't preached yet,' indeed! she chuckled to herself. "Bless her dear heart! And yet you, Ruth Carew, own up to giving two Christmas-tree parties within a week, and, as I happen to know, your home, which used to be shrouded in death-like gloom, is aflame with scarlet and green from top to toe. But she hasn't preached yet—oh, no, she hasn't preached yet!"
The party was a great success. Even Mrs. Carew admitted that. Jamie, in his wheel chair, Jerry with his startling, but expressive vocabulary, and the girl (whose name proved to be Sadie Dean), vied with each other in amusing the more diffident guests. Sadie Dean, much to the others' surprise—and perhaps to her own—disclosed an intimate knowledge of the most fascinating games; and these games, with Jamie's stories and Jerry's good-natured banter, kept every one in gales of laughter until supper and the generous distribution of presents from the laden tree sent the happy guests home with tired sighs of content.
If Jamie (who with Jerry was the last to leave) looked about him a bit wistfully, no one apparently noticed it. Yet Mrs. Carew, when she bade him good-night, said low in his ear, half impatiently, half embarrassedly:
Well, Jamie, have you changed your mind—about coming?
The boy hesitated. A faint color stole into his cheeks. He turned and looked into her eyes wistfully, searchingly. Then very slowly he shook his head.
If it could always be—like to-night, I—could, he sighed. "But it wouldn't. There'd be to-morrow, and next week, and next month, and next year comin'; and I'd know before next week that I hadn't oughter come."
If Mrs. Carew had thought that the New Year's Eve party was to end the matter of Pollyanna's efforts in behalf of Sadie Dean, she was soon undeceived; for the very next morning Pollyanna began to talk of her.
And I'm so glad I found her again, she prattled contentedly. "Even if I haven't been able to find the real Jamie for you, I've found somebody else for you to love—and of course you'll love to love her, 'cause it's just another way of loving Jamie."
Mrs. Carew drew in her breath and gave a little gasp of exasperation. This unfailing faith in her goodness of heart, and unhesitating belief in her desire to "help everybody" was most disconcerting, and sometimes most annoying. At the same time it was a most difficult thing to disclaim—under the circumstances, especially with Pollyanna's happy, confident eyes full on her face.
But, Pollyanna, she objected impotently, at last, feeling very much as if she were struggling against invisible silken cords, "I—you—this girl really isn't Jamie, at all, you know."
I know she isn't, sympathized Pollyanna quickly. "And of course I'm just as sorry she ISN'T Jamie as can be. But she's somebody's Jamie—that is, I mean she hasn't got anybody down here to love her and—and notice, you know; and so whenever you remember Jamie I should think you couldn't be glad enough there was SOMEBODY you could help, just as you'd want folks to help Jamie, wherever HE is."
Mrs. Carew shivered and gave a little moan.
But I want MY Jamie, she grieved.
Pollyanna nodded with understanding eyes.
I know—the 'child's presence.' Mr. Pendleton told me about it—only you've GOT the 'woman's hand.'
'Woman's hand'?
Yes—to make a home, you know. He said that it took a woman's hand or a child's presence to make a home. That was when he wanted me, and I found him Jimmy, and he adopted him instead.
JIMMY? Mrs. Carew looked up with the startled something in her eyes that always came into them at the mention of any variant of that name.
Yes; Jimmy Bean.
Oh—BEAN, said Mrs. Carew, relaxing.
"
Yes. He was from an Orphan's Home, and he ran away. I found him. He said he wanted another kind of a home with a mother in it instead of a Matron. I couldn't find him the mother-part, but I found him Mr. Pendleton, and he adopted him. His name is Jimmy Pendleton now.
"But it was—Bean?
Yes, it was Bean.
Oh! said Mrs. Carew, this time with a long sigh.
Mrs. Carew saw a good deal of Sadie Dean during the days that followed the New Year's Eve party. She saw a good deal of Jamie, too. In one way and another Pollyanna contrived to have them frequently at the house; and this, Mrs. Carew, much to her surprise and vexation, could not seem to prevent. Her consent and even her delight were taken by Pollyanna as so much a matter of course that she found herself helpless to convince the child that neither approval nor satisfaction entered into the matter at all, as far as she was concerned.
But Mrs. Carew, whether she herself realized it or not, was learning many things—things she never could have learned in the old days, shut up in her rooms, with orders to Mary to admit no one. She was learning something of what it means to be a lonely young girl in a big city, with one's living to earn, and with no one to care—except one who cares too much, and too little.
But what did you mean? she nervously asked Sadie Dean one evening; "what did you mean that first day in the store—what you said—about helping the girls?"
Sadie Dean colored distressfully.
I'm afraid I was rude, she apologized.
Never mind that. Tell me what you meant. I've thought of it so many times since.
For a moment the girl was silent; then, a little bitterly she said:
'Twas because I knew a girl once, and I was thinkin' of her. She came from my town, and she was pretty and good, but she wa'n't over strong. For a year we pulled together, sharin' the same room, boiling our eggs over the same gas-jet, and eatin' our hash and fish balls for supper at the same cheap restaurant. There was never anything to do evenin's but to walk in the Common, or go to the movies, if we had the dime to blow in, or just stay in our room. Well, our room wasn't very pleasant. It was hot in summer, and cold in winter, and the gas-jet was so measly and so flickery that we couldn't sew or read, even if we hadn't been too fagged out to do either—which we 'most generally was. Besides, over our heads was a squeaky board that some one was always rockin' on, and under us was a feller that was learnin' to play the cornet. Did you ever hear any one learn to play the cornet?
N-no, I don't think so, murmured Mrs. Carew.
Well, you've missed a lot, said the girl, dryly. Then, after a moment, she resumed her story.
"
Sometimes, 'specially at Christmas and holidays, we used to walk up here on the Avenue, and other streets, huntin' for windows where the curtains were up, and we could look in. You see, we were pretty lonesome, them days 'specially, and we said it did us good to see homes with folks, and lamps on the center-tables, and children playin' games; but we both of us knew that really it only made us feel worse than ever, because we were so hopelessly out of it all. 'Twas even harder to see the automobiles, and the gay young folks in them, laughing and chatting. You see, we were young, and I suspect we wanted to laugh and chatter. We wanted a good time, too; and, by and by—my chum began to have it—this good time. Well, to make a long story short, we broke partnership one day, and she went her way, and I mine. I didn't like the company she was keepin', and I said so. She wouldn't give 'em up, so we quit. I didn't see her again for 'most two years, then I got a note from her, and I went. This was just last month. She was in one of them rescue homes. It was a lovely place; soft rugs, fine pictures, plants, flowers, and books, a piano, a beautiful room, and everything possible done for her. Rich women came in their automobiles and carriages to take her driving, and she was taken to concerts and matinees. She was learnin' stenography, and they were going to help her to a position just as soon as she could take it. Everybody was wonderfully good to her, she said, and showed they wanted to help her in every way. But she said something else, too. She said:
"
'Sadie, if they'd taken one half the pains to show me they cared and wanted to help long ago when I was an honest, self-respectin', hard-workin' homesick girl—I wouldn't have been here for them to help now.' And—well, I never forgot it. That's all. It ain't that I'm objectin' to the rescue work—it's a fine thing, and they ought to do it. Only I'm thinkin' there wouldn't be quite so much of it for them to do—if they'd just show a little of their interest earlier in the game.
But I thought—there were working-girls' homes, and—and settlement-houses that—that did that sort of thing, faltered Mrs. Carew in a voice that few of her friends would have recognized.
There are. Did you ever see the inside of one of them?
Why, n-no; though I—I have given money to them. This time Mrs.
Carew's voice was almost apologetically pleading in tone.
Sadie Dean smiled curiously.
Yes, I know. There are lots of good women that have given money to them—and have never seen the inside of one of them. Please don't understand that I'm sayin' anythin' against the homes. I'm not. They're good things. They're almost the only thing that's doing anything to help; but they're only a drop in the bucket to what is really needed. I tried one once; but there was an air about it—somehow I felt— But there, what's the use? Probably they aren't all like that one, and maybe the fault was with me. If I should try to tell you, you wouldn't understand. You'd have to live in it—and you haven't even seen the inside of one. But I can't help wonderin' sometimes why so many of those good women never seem to put the real HEART and INTEREST into the preventin' that they do into the rescuin'. But there! I didn't mean to talk such a lot. But—you asked me.
Yes, I asked you, said Mrs. Carew in a half-stifled voice, as she turned away.
Not only from Sadie Dean, however, was Mrs. Carew learning things never learned before, but from Jamie, also.
Jamie was there a great deal. Pollyanna liked to have him there, and he liked to be there. At first, to be sure, he had hesitated; but very soon he had quieted his doubts and yielded to his longings by telling himself (and Pollyanna) that, after all, visiting was not "staying for keeps."
Mrs. Carew often found the boy and Pollyanna contentedly settled on the library window-seat, with the empty wheel chair close by. Sometimes they were poring over a book. (She heard Jamie tell Pollyanna one day that he didn't think he'd mind so very much being lame if he had so many books as Mrs. Carew, and that he guessed he'd be so happy he'd fly clean away if he had both books and legs.) Sometimes the boy was telling stories, and Pollyanna was listening, wide-eyed and absorbed.
Mrs. Carew wondered at Pollyanna's interest—until one day she herself stopped and listened. After that she wondered no longer—but she listened a good deal longer. Crude and incorrect as was much of the boy's language, it was always wonderfully vivid and picturesque, so that Mrs. Carew found herself, hand in hand with Pollyanna, trailing down the Golden Ages at the beck of a glowing-eyed boy.
Dimly Mrs. Carew was beginning to realize, too, something of what it must mean, to be in spirit and ambition the center of brave deeds and wonderful adventures, while in reality one was only a crippled boy in a wheel chair. But what Mrs. Carew did not realize was the part this crippled boy was beginning to play in her own life. She did not realize how much a matter of course his presence was becoming, nor how interested she now was in finding something new "for Jamie to see." Neither did she realize how day by day he was coming to seem to her more and more the lost Jamie, her dead sister's child.
As February, March, and April passed, however, and May came, bringing with it the near approach of the date set for Pollyanna's home-going, Mrs. Carew did suddenly awake to the knowledge of what that home-going was to mean to her.
She was amazed and appalled. Up to now she had, in belief, looked forward with pleasure to the departure of Pollyanna. She had said that then once again the house would be quiet, with the glaring sun shut out. Once again she would be at peace, and able to hide herself away from the annoying, tiresome world. Once again she would be free to summon to her aching consciousness all those dear memories of the lost little lad who had so long ago stepped into that vast unknown and closed the door behind him. All this she had believed would be the case when Pollyanna should go home.
But now that Pollyanna was really going home, the picture was far different. The "quiet house with the sun shut out" had become one that promised to be "gloomy and unbearable." The longed-for "peace" would be "wretched loneliness"; and as for her being able to "hide herself away from the annoying, tiresome world," and "free to summon to her aching consciousness all those dear memories of that lost little lad"—just as if anything could blot out those other aching memories of the new Jamie (who yet might be the old Jamie) with his pitiful, pleading eyes!
Full well now Mrs. Carew knew that without Pollyanna the house would be empty; but that without the lad, Jamie, it would be worse than that. To her pride this knowledge was not pleasing. To her heart it was torture—since the boy had twice said that he would not come. For a time, during those last few days of Pollyanna's stay, the struggle was a bitter one, though pride always kept the ascendancy. Then, on what Mrs. Carew knew would be Jamie's last visit, her heart triumphed, and once more she asked Jamie to come and be to her the Jamie that was lost.
What she said she never could remember afterwards; but what the boy said, she never forgot. After all, it was compassed in six short words.
For what seemed a long, long minute his eyes had searched her face; then to his own had come a transfiguring light, as he breathed:
Oh, yes! Why, you—CARE, now!
This time Beldingsville did not literally welcome Pollyanna home with brass bands and bunting—perhaps because the hour of her expected arrival was known to but few of the townspeople. But there certainly was no lack of joyful greetings on the part of everybody from the moment she stepped from the railway train with her Aunt Polly and Dr. Chilton. Nor did Pollyanna lose any time in starting on a round of fly-away minute calls on all her old friends. Indeed, for the next few days, according to Nancy, "There wasn't no putting of your finger on her anywheres, for by the time you'd got your finger down she wa'n't there."
And always, everywhere she went, Pollyanna met the question: "Well, how did you like Boston?" Perhaps to no one did she answer this more fully than she did to Mr. Pendleton. As was usually the case when this question was put to her, she began her reply with a troubled frown.
Oh, I liked it—I just loved it—some of it.
But not all of it? smiled Mr. Pendleton.
No. There's parts of it—Oh, I was glad to be there, she explained hastily. "I had a perfectly lovely time, and lots of things were so queer and different, you know—like eating dinner at night instead of noons, when you ought to eat it. But everybody was so good to me, and I saw such a lot of wonderful things—Bunker Hill, and the Public Garden, and the Seeing Boston autos, and miles of pictures and statues and store-windows and streets that didn't have any end. And folks. I never saw such a lot of folks."
Well, I'm sure—I thought you liked folks, commented the man.
I do. Pollyanna frowned again and pondered. "But what's the use of such a lot of them if you don't know 'em? And Mrs. Carew wouldn't let me. She didn't know 'em herself. She said folks didn't, down there."
There was a slight pause, then, with a sigh, Pollyanna resumed.
I reckon maybe that's the part I don't like the most—that folks don't know each other. It would be such a lot nicer if they did! Why, just think, Mr. Pendleton, there are lots of folks that live on dirty, narrow streets, and don't even have beans and fish balls to eat, nor things even as good as missionary barrels to wear. Then there are other folks—Mrs. Carew, and a whole lot like her—that live in perfectly beautiful houses, and have more things to eat and wear than they know what to do with. Now if THOSE folks only knew the other folks— But Mr. Pendleton interrupted with a laugh.
My dear child, did it ever occur to you that these people don't CARE to know each other? he asked quizzically.
Oh, but some of them do, maintained Pollyanna, in eager defense. "Now there's Sadie Dean—she sells bows, lovely bows in a big store—she WANTS to know people; and I introduced her to Mrs. Carew, and we had her up to the house, and we had Jamie and lots of others there, too; and she was SO glad to know them! And that's what made me think that if only a lot of Mrs. Carew's kind could know the other kind—but of course I couldn't do the introducing. I didn't know many of them myself, anyway. But if they COULD know each other, so that the rich people could give the poor people part of their money—"
But again Mr. Pendleton interrupted with a laugh.
Oh, Pollyanna, Pollyanna, he chuckled; "I'm afraid you're getting into pretty deep water. You'll be a rabid little socialist before you know it."
A—what? questioned the little girl, dubiously. "I—I don't think I know what a socialist is. But I know what being SOCIABLE is—and I like folks that are that. If it's anything like that, I don't mind being one, a mite. I'd like to be one."
I don't doubt it, Pollyanna, smiled the man. "But when it comes to this scheme of yours for the wholesale distribution of wealth—you've got a problem on your hands that you might have difficulty with."
Pollyanna drew a long sigh.
I know, she nodded. "That's the way Mrs. Carew talked. She says I don't understand; that 'twould—er—pauperize her and be indiscriminate and pernicious, and—Well, it was SOMETHING like that, anyway," bridled the little girl, aggrievedly, as the man began to laugh. "And, anyway, I DON'T understand why some folks should have such a lot, and other folks shouldn't have anything; and I DON'T like it. And if I ever have a lot I shall just give some of it to folks who don't have any, even if it does make me pauperized and pernicious, and—" But Mr. Pendleton was laughing so hard now that Pollyanna, after a moment's struggle, surrendered and laughed with him.
Well, anyway, she reiterated, when she had caught her breath, "I don't understand it, all the same."
No, dear, I'm afraid you don't, agreed the man, growing suddenly very grave and tender-eyed; "nor any of the rest of us, for that matter. But, tell me," he added, after a minute, "who is this Jamie you've been talking so much about since you came?"
And Pollyanna told him.
In talking of Jamie, Pollyanna lost her worried, baffled look. Pollyanna loved to talk of Jamie. Here was something she understood. Here was no problem that had to deal with big, fearsome-sounding words. Besides, in this particular instance—would not Mr. Pendleton be especially interested in Mrs. Carew's taking the boy into her home, for who better than himself could understand the need of a child's presence?
For that matter, Pollyanna talked to everybody about Jamie. She assumed that everybody would be as interested as she herself was. On most occasions she was not disappointed in the interest shown; but one day she met with a surprise. It came through Jimmy Pendleton.
Say, look a-here, he demanded one afternoon, irritably. "Wasn't there ANYBODY else down to Boston but just that everlasting 'Jamie'?"
Why, Jimmy Bean, what do you mean? cried Pollyanna.
The boy lifted his chin a little.
I'm not Jimmy Bean. I'm Jimmy Pendleton. And I mean that I should think, from your talk, that there wasn't ANYBODY down to Boston but just that loony boy who calls them birds and squirrels 'Lady Lancelot,' and all that tommyrot.
Why, Jimmy Be—Pendleton! gasped Pollyanna. Then, with some spirit: "Jamie isn't loony! He is a very nice boy. And he knows a lot—books and stories! Why, he can MAKE stories right out of his own head! Besides, it isn't 'Lady Lancelot,'—it's 'Sir Lancelot.' If you knew half as much as he does you'd know that, too!" she finished, with flashing eyes.
Jimmy Pendleton flushed miserably and looked utterly wretched. Growing more and more jealous moment by moment, still doggedly he held his ground.
Well, anyhow, he scoffed, "I don't think much of his name. 'Jamie'!
Humph!—sounds sissy! And I know somebody else that said so, too."
Who was it?
There was no answer.
WHO WAS IT? demanded Pollyanna, more peremptorily.
Dad. The boy's voice was sullen.
Your—dad? repeated Pollyanna, in amazement. "Why, how could he know
Jamie?"
He didn't. 'Twasn't about that Jamie. 'Twas about me. The boy still spoke sullenly, with his eyes turned away. Yet there was a curious softness in his voice that was always noticeable whenever he spoke of his father.
YOU!
Yes. 'Twas just a little while before he died. We stopped 'most a week with a farmer. Dad helped about the hayin'—and I did, too, some. The farmer's wife was awful good to me, and pretty quick she was callin' me 'Jamie.' I don't know why, but she just did. And one day father heard her. He got awful mad—so mad that I remembered it always—what he said. He said 'Jamie' wasn't no sort of a name for a boy, and that no son of his should ever be called it. He said 'twas a sissy name, and he hated it. 'Seems so I never saw him so mad as he was that night. He wouldn't even stay to finish the work, but him and me took to the road again that night. I was kind of sorry, 'cause I liked her—the farmer's wife, I mean. She was good to me.
Pollyanna nodded, all sympathy and interest. It was not often that Jimmy said much of that mysterious past life of his, before she had known him.
And what happened next? she prompted. Pollyanna had, for the moment, forgotten all about the original subject of the controversy—the name "Jamie" that was dubbed "sissy."
The boy sighed.
We just went on till we found another place. And 'twas there dad—died. Then they put me in the 'sylum.
And then you ran away and I found you that day, down by Mrs. Snow's, exulted Pollyanna, softly. "And I've known you ever since."
Oh, yes—and you've known me ever since, repeated Jimmy—but in a far different voice: Jimmy had suddenly come back to the present, and to his grievance. "But, then, I ain't 'JAMIE,' you know," he finished with scornful emphasis, as he turned loftily away, leaving a distressed, bewildered Pollyanna behind him.
Well, anyway, I can be glad he doesn't always act like this, sighed the little girl, as she mournfully watched the sturdy, boyish figure with its disagreeable, amazing swagger.
Pollyanna had been at home about a week when the letter from Della
Wetherby came to Mrs. Chilton.
I wish I could make you see what your little niece has done for my sister, wrote Miss Wetherby; "but I'm afraid I can't. You would have to know what she was before. You did see her, to be sure, and perhaps you saw something of the hush and gloom in which she has shrouded herself for so many years. But you can have no conception of her bitterness of heart, her lack of aim and interest, her insistence upon eternal mourning.
"
Then came Pollyanna. Probably I didn't tell you, but my sister regretted her promise to take the child, almost the minute it was given; and she made the stern stipulation that the moment Pollyanna began to preach, back she should come to me. Well, she hasn't preached—at least, my sister says she hasn't; and my sister ought to know. And yet—well, just let me tell you what I found when I went to see her yesterday. Perhaps nothing else could give you a better idea of what that wonderful little Pollyanna of yours has accomplished. To begin with, as I approached the house, I saw that nearly all the shades were up: they used to be down—'way down to the sill. The minute I stepped into the hall I heard music—Parsifal. The drawing-rooms were open, and the air was sweet with roses.
""
'Mrs. Carew and Master Jamie are in the music-room,' said the maid. And there I found them—my sister, and the youth she has taken into her home, listening to one of those modern contrivances that can hold an entire opera company, including the orchestra. The boy was in a wheel chair. He was pale, but plainly beatifically happy. My sister looked ten years younger. Her usually colorless cheeks showed a faint pink, and her eyes glowed and sparkled. A little later, after I had talked a few minutes with the boy, my sister and I went up-stairs to her own rooms; and there she talked to me—of Jamie. Not of the old Jamie, as she used to, with tear-wet eyes and hopeless sighs, but of the new Jamie—and there were no sighs nor tears now. There was, instead, the eagerness of enthusiastic interest.
""
'Della, he's wonderful,' she began. 'Everything that is best in music, art, and literature seems to appeal to him in a perfectly marvelous fashion, only, of course, he needs development and training. That's what I'm going to see that he gets. A tutor is coming to-morrow. Of course his language is something awful; at the same time, he has read so many good books that his vocabulary is quite amazing—and you should hear the stories he can reel off! Of course in general education he is very deficient; but he's eager to learn, so that will soon be remedied. He loves music, and I shall give him what training in that he wishes. I have already put in a stock of carefully selected records. I wish you could have seen his face when he first heard that Holy Grail music. He knows all about King Arthur and his Round Table, and he prattles of knights and lords and ladies as you and I do of the members of our own family—only sometimes I don't know whether his Sir Lancelot means the ancient knight or a squirrel in the Public Garden. And, Della, I believe he can be made to walk. I'm going to have Dr. Ames see him, anyway, and—' And so on and on she talked, while I sat amazed and tongue-tied, but, oh, so happy! I tell you all this, dear Mrs. Chilton, so you can see for yourself how interested she is, how eagerly she is going to watch this boy's growth and development, and how, in spite of herself, it is all going to change her attitude toward life. She CAN'T do what she is doing for this boy, Jamie, and not do for herself at the same time. Never again, I believe, will she be the soured, morose woman she was before. And it's all because of Pollyanna.
""
Pollyanna! Dear child—and the best part of it is, she is so unconscious of the whole thing. I don't believe even my sister yet quite realizes what is taking place within her own heart and life, and certainly Pollyanna doesn't—least of all does she realize the part she played in the change. And now, dear Mrs. Chilton, how can I thank you? I know I can't; so I'm not even going to try. Yet in your heart I believe you know how grateful I am to both you and Pollyanna.
"
DELLA WETHERBY.
Well, it seems to have worked a cure, all right, smiled Dr. Chilton, when his wife had finished reading the letter to him.
To his surprise she lifted a quick, remonstrative hand.
Thomas, don't, please! she begged.
Why, Polly, what's the matter? Aren't you glad that—that the medicine worked?
Mrs. Chilton dropped despairingly back in her chair.
There you go again, Thomas, she sighed. "Of COURSE I'm glad that this misguided woman has forsaken the error of her ways and found that she can be of use to some one. And of course I'm glad that Pollyanna did it. But I am not glad to have that child continually spoken of as if she were a—a bottle of medicine, or a 'cure.' Don't you see?"
Nonsense! After all, where's the harm? I've called Pollyanna a tonic ever since I knew her.
Harm! Thomas Chilton, that child is growing older every day. Do you want to spoil her? Thus far she has been utterly unconscious of her extraordinary power. And therein lies the secret of her success. The minute she CONSCIOUSLY sets herself to reform somebody, you know as well as I do that she will be simply impossible. Consequently, Heaven forbid that she ever gets it into her head that she's anything like a cure-all for poor, sick, suffering humanity.
Nonsense! I wouldn't worry, laughed the doctor.
But I do worry, Thomas.
But, Polly, think of what she's done, argued the doctor. "Think of
Mrs. Snow and John Pendleton, and quantities of others—why, they're
not the same people at all that they used to be, any more than Mrs.
Carew is. And Pollyanna did do it—bless her heart!"
I know she did, nodded Mrs. Polly Chilton, emphatically. "But I don't want Pollyanna to know she did it! Oh, of course she knows it, in a way. She knows she taught them to play the glad game with her, and that they are lots happier in consequence. And that's all right. It's a game—HER game, and they're playing it together. To you I will admit that Pollyanna has preached to us one of the most powerful sermons I ever heard; but the minute SHE knows it—well, I don't want her to. That's all. And right now let me tell you that I've decided that I will go to Germany with you this fall. At first I thought I wouldn't. I didn't want to leave Pollyanna—and I'm not going to leave her now. I'm going to take her with me."
Take her with us? Good! Why not?
I've got to. That's all. Furthermore, I should be glad to plan to stay a few years, just as you said you'd like to. I want to get Pollyanna away, quite away from Beldingsville for a while. I'd like to keep her sweet and unspoiled, if I can. And she shall not get silly notions into her head if I can help myself. Why, Thomas Chilton, do we want that child made an insufferable little prig?
We certainly don't, laughed the doctor. "But, for that matter, I don't believe anything or anybody could make her so. However, this Germany idea suits me to a T. You know I didn't want to come away when I did—if it hadn't been for Pollyanna. So the sooner we get back there the better I'm satisfied. And I'd like to stay—for a little practice, as well as study."
Then that's settled. And Aunt Polly gave a satisfied sigh.
All Beldingsville was fairly aquiver with excitement. Not since Pollyanna Whittier came home from the Sanatorium, WALKING, had there been such a chatter of talk over back-yard fences and on every street corner. To-day, too, the center of interest was Pollyanna. Once again Pollyanna was coming home—but so different a Pollyanna, and so different a homecoming!
Pollyanna was twenty now. For six years she had spent her winters in Germany, her summers leisurely traveling with Dr. Chilton and his wife. Only once during that time had she been in Beldingsville, and then it was for but a short four weeks the summer she was sixteen. Now she was coming home—to stay, report said; she and her Aunt Polly.
The doctor would not be with them. Six months before, the town had been shocked and saddened by the news that the doctor had died suddenly. Beldingsville had expected then that Mrs. Chilton and Pollyanna would return at once to the old home. But they had not come. Instead had come word that the widow and her niece would remain abroad for a time. The report said that, in entirely new surroundings, Mrs. Chilton was trying to seek distraction and relief from her great sorrow.
Very soon, however, vague rumors, and rumors not so vague, began to float through the town that, financially, all was not well with Mrs. Polly Chilton. Certain railroad stocks, in which it was known that the Harrington estate had been heavily interested, wavered uncertainly, then tumbled into ruin and disaster. Other investments, according to report, were in a most precarious condition. From the doctor's estate, little could be expected. He had not been a rich man, and his expenses had been heavy for the past six years. Beldingsville was not surprised, therefore, when, not quite six months after the doctor's death, word came that Mrs. Chilton and Pollyanna were coming home.
Once more the old Harrington homestead, so long closed and silent, showed up-flung windows and wide-open doors. Once more Nancy—now Mrs. Timothy Durgin—swept and scrubbed and dusted until the old place shone in spotless order.
No, I hain't had no instructions ter do it; I hain't, I hain't, Nancy explained to curious friends and neighbors who halted at the gate, or came more boldly up to the doorways. "Mother Durgin's had the key, 'course, and has come in regerler to air up and see that things was all right; and Mis' Chilton just wrote and said she and Miss Pollyanna was comin' this week Friday, and ter please see that the rooms and sheets was aired, and ter leave the key under the side-door mat on that day.
Under the mat, indeed! Just as if I'd leave them two poor things ter come into this house alone, and all forlorn like that—and me only a mile away, a-sittin' in my own parlor like as if I was a fine lady an' hadn't no heart at all, at all! Just as if the poor things hadn't enough ter stand without that—a-comin' into this house an' the doctor gone—bless his kind heart!—an' never comin' back. An' no money, too. Did ye hear about that? An' ain't it a shame, a shame! Think of Miss Polly—I mean, Mis' Chilton—bein' poor! My stars and stockings, I can't sense it—I can't, I can't!
Perhaps to no one did Nancy speak so interestedly as she did to a tall, good-looking young fellow with peculiarly frank eyes and a particularly winning smile, who cantered up to the side door on a mettlesome thoroughbred at ten o'clock that Thursday morning. At the same time, to no one did she talk with so much evident embarrassment, so far as the manner of address was concerned; for her tongue stumbled and blundered out a "Master Jimmy—er—Mr. Bean—I mean, Mr. Pendleton, Master Jimmy!" with a nervous precipitation that sent the young man himself into a merry peal of laughter.
Never mind, Nancy! Let it go at whatever comes handiest, he chuckled. "I've found out what I wanted to know: Mrs. Chilton and her niece really are expected to-morrow."
Yes, sir, they be, sir, courtesied Nancy, "—more's the pity! Not but that I shall be glad enough ter see 'em, you understand, but it's the WAY they're a-comin'."
Yes, I know. I understand, nodded the youth, gravely, his eyes sweeping the fine old house before him. "Well, I suppose that part can't be helped. But I'm glad you're doing—just what you are doing. That WILL help a whole lot," he finished with a bright smile, as he wheeled about and rode rapidly down the driveway.
Back on the steps Nancy wagged her head wisely.
I ain't surprised, Master Jimmy, she declared aloud, her admiring eyes following the handsome figures of horse and man. "I ain't surprised that you ain't lettin' no grass grow under your feet 'bout inquirin' for Miss Pollyanna. I said long ago 'twould come sometime, an' it's bound to—what with your growin' so handsome and tall. An' I hope 'twill; I do, I do. It'll be just like a book, what with her a-findin' you an' gettin' you into that grand home with Mr. Pendleton. My, but who'd ever take you now for that little Jimmy Bean that used to be! I never did see such a change in anybody—I didn't, I didn't!" she answered, with one last look at the rapidly disappearing figures far down the road.
Something of the same thought must have been in the mind of John Pendleton some time later that same morning, for, from the veranda of his big gray house on Pendleton Hill, John Pendleton was watching the rapid approach of that same horse and rider; and in his eyes was an expression very like the one that had been in Mrs. Nancy Durgin's. On his lips, too, was an admiring "Jove! what a handsome pair!" as the two dashed by on the way to the stable.
Five minutes later the youth came around the corner of the house and slowly ascended the veranda steps.
Well, my boy, is it true? Are they coming? asked the man, with visible eagerness.
Yes.
When?
To-morrow. The young fellow dropped himself into a chair.
At the crisp terseness of the answer, John Pendleton frowned. He threw a quick look into the young man's face. For a moment he hesitated; then, a little abruptly, he asked:
Why, son, what's the matter?
Matter? Nothing, sir.
Nonsense! I know better. You left here an hour ago so eager to be off that wild horses could not have held you. Now you sit humped up in that chair and look as if wild horses couldn't drag you out of it. If I didn't know better I'd think you weren't glad that our friends are coming.
He paused, evidently for a reply. But he did not get it.
Why, Jim, AREN'T you glad they're coming?
The young fellow laughed and stirred restlessly.
Why, yes, of course.
Humph! You act like it.
The youth laughed again. A boyish red flamed into his face.
Well, it's only that I was thinking—of Pollyanna.
Pollyanna! Why, man alive, you've done nothing but prattle of Pollyanna ever since you came home from Boston and found she was expected. I thought you were dying to see Pollyanna.
The other leaned forward with curious intentness.
That's exactly it! See? You said it a minute ago. It's just as if yesterday wild horses couldn't keep me from seeing Pollyanna; and now, to-day, when I know she's coming—they couldn't drag me to see her.
Why, JIM!
At the shocked incredulity on John Pendleton's face, the younger man fell back in his chair with an embarrassed laugh.
Yes, I know. It sounds nutty, and I don't expect I can make you understand. But, somehow, I don't think—I ever wanted Pollyanna to grow up. She was such a dear, just as she was. I like to think of her as I saw her last, her earnest, freckled little face, her yellow pigtails, her tearful: 'Oh, yes, I'm glad I'm going; but I think I shall be a little gladder when I come back.' That's the last time I saw her. You know we were in Egypt that time she was here four years ago.
I know. I see exactly what you mean, too. I think I felt the same way—till I saw her last winter in Rome.
The other turned eagerly.
Sure enough, you have seen her! Tell me about her.
A shrewd twinkle came into John Pendleton's eyes.
Oh, but I thought you didn't want to know Pollyanna—grown up.
With a grimace the young fellow tossed this aside.
Is she pretty?
Oh, ye young men! shrugged John Pendleton, in mock despair. "Always the first question—'Is she pretty?'!"
Well, is she? insisted the youth.
I'll let you judge for yourself. If you—On second thoughts, though, I believe I won't. You might be too disappointed. Pollyanna isn't pretty, so far as regular features, curls, and dimples go. In fact, to my certain knowledge the great cross in Pollyanna's life thus far is that she is so sure she isn't pretty. Long ago she told me that black curls were one of the things she was going to have when she got to Heaven; and last year in Rome she said something else. It wasn't much, perhaps, so far as words went, but I detected the longing beneath. She said she did wish that sometime some one would write a novel with a heroine who had straight hair and a freckle on her nose; but that she supposed she ought to be glad girls in books didn't have to have them.
That sounds like the old Pollyanna.
Oh, you'll still find her—Pollyanna, smiled the man, quizzically. "Besides, I think she's pretty. Her eyes are lovely. She is the picture of health. She carries herself with all the joyous springiness of youth, and her whole face lights up so wonderfully when she talks that you quite forget whether her features are regular or not."
Does she still—play the game?
John Pendleton smiled fondly.
I imagine she plays it, but she doesn't say much about it now, I fancy. Anyhow, she didn't to me, the two or three times I saw her.
There was a short silence; then, a little slowly, young Pendleton said:
I think that was one of the things that was worrying me. That game has been so much to so many people. It has meant so much everywhere, all through the town! I couldn't bear to think of her giving it up and NOT playing it. At the same time I couldn't fancy a grown-up Pollyanna perpetually admonishing people to be glad for something. Someway, I—well, as I said, I—I just didn't want Pollyanna to grow up, anyhow.
Well, I wouldn't worry, shrugged the elder man, with a peculiar smile. "Always, with Pollyanna, you know, it was the 'clearing-up shower,' both literally and figuratively; and I think you'll find she lives up to the same principle now—though perhaps not quite in the same way. Poor child, I fear she'll need some kind of game to make existence endurable, for a while, at least."
Do you mean because Mrs. Chilton has lost her money? Are they so very poor, then?
I suspect they are. In fact, they are in rather bad shape, so far as money matters go, as I happen to know. Mrs. Chilton's own fortune has shrunk unbelievably, and poor Tom's estate is very small, and hopelessly full of bad debts—professional services never paid for, and that never will be paid for. Tom could never say no when his help was needed, and all the dead beats in town knew it and imposed on him accordingly. Expenses have been heavy with him lately. Besides, he expected great things when he should have completed this special work in Germany. Naturally he supposed his wife and Pollyanna were more than amply provided for through the Harrington estate; so he had no worry in that direction.
Hm-m; I see, I see. Too bad, too bad!
But that isn't all. It was about two months after Tom's death that I saw Mrs. Chilton and Pollyanna in Rome, and Mrs. Chilton then was in a terrible state. In addition to her sorrow, she had just begun to get an inkling of the trouble with her finances, and she was nearly frantic. She refused to come home. She declared she never wanted to see Beldingsville, or anybody in it, again. You see, she has always been a peculiarly proud woman, and it was all affecting her in a rather curious way. Pollyanna said that her aunt seemed possessed with the idea that Beldingsville had not approved of her marrying Dr. Chilton in the first place, at her age; and now that he was dead, she felt that they were utterly out of sympathy in any grief that she might show. She resented keenly, too, the fact that they must now know that she was poor as well as widowed. In short, she had worked herself Into an utterly morbid, wretched state, as unreasonable as it was terrible. Poor little Pollyanna! It was a marvel to me how she stood it. All is, if Mrs. Chilton kept it up, and continues to keep it up, that child will be a wreck. That's why I said Pollyanna would need some kind of a game if ever anybody did.
The pity of it!—to think of that happening to Pollyanna! exclaimed the young man, in a voice that was not quite steady.
Yes; and you can see all is not right by the way they are coming to-day—so quietly, with not a word to anybody. That was Polly Chilton's doings, I'll warrant. She didn't WANT to be met by anybody. I understand she wrote to no one but her Old Tom's wife, Mrs. Durgin, who had the keys.
Yes, so Nancy told me—good old soul! She'd got the whole house open, and had contrived somehow to make it look as if it wasn't a tomb of dead hopes and lost pleasures. Of course the grounds looked fairly well, for Old Tom has kept them up, after a fashion. But it made my heart ache—the whole thing.
There was a long silence, then, curtly, John Pendleton suggested:
They ought to be met.
They will be met.
Are YOU going to the station?
I am.
Then you know what train they're coming on.
Oh, no. Neither does Nancy.
Then how will you manage?
I'm going to begin in the morning and go to every train till they come, laughed the young man, a bit grimly. "Timothy's going, too, with the family carriage. After all, there aren't many trains, anyway, that they can come on, you know."
Hm-m, I know, said John Pendleton. "Jim, I admire your nerve, but not your judgment. I'm glad you're going to follow your nerve and not your judgment, however—and I wish you good luck."
Thank you, sir, smiled the young man dolefully. "I need 'em—your good wishes—all right, all right, as Nancy says."
该作者的其它作品
《Pollyanna》
As the train neared Beldingsville, Pollyanna watched her aunt anxiously. All day Mrs. Chilton had been growing more and more restless, more and more gloomy; and Pollyanna was fearful of the time when the familiar home station should be reached.
As Pollyanna looked at her aunt, her heart ached. She was thinking that she would not have believed it possible that any one could have changed and aged so greatly in six short months. Mrs. Chilton's eyes were lusterless, her cheeks pallid and shrunken, and her forehead crossed and recrossed by fretful lines. Her mouth drooped at the corners, and her hair was combed tightly back in the unbecoming fashion that had been hers when Pollyanna first had seen her, years before. All the softness and sweetness that seemed to have come to her with her marriage had dropped from her like a cloak, leaving uppermost the old hardness and sourness that had been hers when she was Miss Polly Harrington, unloved, and unloving.
Pollyanna! Mrs. Chilton's voice was incisive.
Pollyanna started guiltily. She had an uncomfortable feeling that her aunt might have read her thoughts.
Yes, auntie.
Where is that black bag—the little one?
Right here.
Well, I wish you'd get out my black veil. We're nearly there.
But it's so hot and thick, auntie!
Pollyanna, I asked for that black veil. If you'd please learn to do what I ask without arguing about it, it would be a great deal easier for me. I want that veil. Do you suppose I'm going to give all Beldingsville a chance to see how I 'take it'?
Oh, auntie, they'd never be there in THAT spirit, protested Pollyanna, hurriedly rummaging in the black bag for the much-wanted veil. "Besides, there won't be anybody there, anyway, to meet us. We didn't tell any one we were coming, you know."
Yes, I know. We didn't TELL any one to meet us. But we instructed Mrs. Durgin to have the rooms aired and the key under the mat for to-day. Do you suppose Mary Durgin has kept that information to herself? Not much! Half the town knows we're coming to-day, and a dozen or more will 'happen around' the station about train time. I know them! They want to see what Polly Harrington POOR looks like. They—
Oh, auntie, auntie, begged Pollyanna, with tears in her eyes.
If I wasn't so alone. If—the doctor were only here, and— She stopped speaking and turned away her head. Her mouth worked convulsively. "Where is—that veil?" she choked huskily.
Yes, dear. Here it is—right here, comforted Pollyanna, whose only aim now, plainly, was to get the veil into her aunt's hands with all haste. "And here we are now almost there. Oh, auntie, I do wish you'd had Old Tom or Timothy meet us!"
And ride home in state, as if we could AFFORD to keep such horses and carriages? And when we know we shall have to sell them to-morrow? No, I thank you, Pollyanna. I prefer to use the public carriage, under those circumstances.
I know, but— The train came to a jolting, jarring stop, and only a fluttering sigh finished Pollyanna's sentence.
As the two women stepped to the platform, Mrs. Chilton, in her black veil, looked neither to the right nor the left. Pollyanna, however, was nodding and smiling tearfully in half a dozen directions before she had taken twice as many steps. Then, suddenly, she found herself looking into a familiar, yet strangely unfamiliar face.
Why, it isn't—it IS—Jimmy! she beamed, reaching forth a cordial hand. "That is, I suppose I should say 'MR. PENDLETON,'" she corrected herself with a shy smile that said plainly: "Now that you've grown so tall and fine!"
I'd like to see you try it, challenged the youth, with a very Jimmy-like tilt to his chin. He turned then to speak to Mrs. Chilton; but that lady, with her head half averted, was hurrying on a little in advance.
He turned back to Pollyanna, his eyes troubled and sympathetic.
If you'd please come this way—both of you, he urged hurriedly.
Timothy is here with the carriage.
Oh, how good of him, cried Pollyanna, but with an anxious glance at the somber veiled figure ahead. Timidly she touched her aunt's arm. "Auntie, dear, Timothy's here. He's come with the carriage. He's over this side. And—this is Jimmy Bean, auntie. You remember Jimmy Bean!"
In her nervousness and embarrassment Pollyanna did not notice that she had given the young man the old name of his boyhood. Mrs. Chilton, however, evidently did notice it. With palpable reluctance she turned and inclined her head ever so slightly.
"
Mr.—Pendleton is very kind, I am sure; but—I am sorry that he or Timothy took quite so much trouble, she said frigidly.
"No trouble—no trouble at all, I assure you, laughed the young man, trying to hide his embarrassment. "Now if you'll just let me have your checks, so I can see to your baggage."
Thank you, began Mrs. Chilton, "but I am very sure we can—"
But Pollyanna, with a relieved little "thank you!" had already passed over the checks; and dignity demanded that Mrs. Chilton say no more.
The drive home was a silent one. Timothy, vaguely hurt at the reception he had met with at the hands of his former mistress, sat up in front stiff and straight, with tense lips. Mrs. Chilton, after a weary "Well, well, child, just as you please; I suppose we shall have to ride home in it now!" had subsided into stern gloom. Pollyanna, however, was neither stern, nor tense, nor gloomy. With eager, though tearful eyes she greeted each loved landmark as they came to it. Only once did she speak, and that was to say:
Isn't Jimmy fine? How he has improved! And hasn't he the nicest eyes and smile?
She waited hopefully, but as there was no reply to this, she contented herself with a cheerful: "Well, I think he has, anyhow."
Timothy had been both too aggrieved and too afraid to tell Mrs. Chilton what to expect at home; so the wide-flung doors and flower-adorned rooms with Nancy courtesying on the porch were a complete surprise to Mrs. Chilton and Pollyanna.
Why, Nancy, how perfectly lovely! cried Pollyanna, springing lightly to the ground. "Auntie, here's Nancy to welcome us. And only see how charming she's made everything look!"
Pollyanna's voice was determinedly cheerful, though it shook audibly. This home-coming without the dear doctor whom she had loved so well was not easy for her; and if hard for her, she knew something of what it must be for her aunt. She knew, too, that the one thing her aunt was dreading was a breakdown before Nancy, than which nothing could be worse in her eyes. Behind the heavy black veil the eyes were brimming and the lips were trembling, Pollyanna knew. She knew, too, that to hide these facts her aunt would probably seize the first opportunity for faultfinding, and make her anger a cloak to hide the fact that her heart was breaking. Pollyanna was not surprised, therefore, to hear her aunt's few cold words of greeting to Nancy followed by a sharp: "Of course all this was very kind, Nancy; but, really, I would have much preferred that you had not done it."
All the joy fled from, Nancy's face. She looked hurt and frightened.
Oh, but Miss Polly—I mean, Mis' Chilton, she entreated; "it seemed as if I couldn't let you—"
There, there, never mind, Nancy, interrupted Mrs. Chilton. "I—I don't want to talk about it." And, with her head proudly high, she swept out of the room. A minute later they heard the door of her bedroom shut up-stairs.
Nancy turned in dismay.
"
Oh, Miss Pollyanna, what is it? What have I done? I thought she'd LIKE it. I meant it all right!
"Of course you did, wept Pollyanna, fumbling in her bag for her handkerchief. "And 'twas lovely to have you do it, too,—just lovely."
But SHE didn't like it.
Yes, she did. But she didn't want to show she liked it. She was afraid if she did she'd show—other things, and—Oh, Nancy, Nancy, I'm so glad just to c-cry! And Pollyanna was sobbing on Nancy's shoulder.
There, there, dear; so she shall, so she shall, soothed Nancy, patting the heaving shoulders with one hand, and trying, with the other, to make the corner of her apron serve as a handkerchief to wipe her own tears away.
You see, I mustn't—cry—before—HER, faltered Pollyanna; "and it WAS hard—coming here—the first time, you know, and all. And I KNEW how she was feeling."
Of course, of course, poor lamb, crooned Nancy. "And to think the first thing I should have done was somethin' ter vex her, and—"
Oh, but she wasn't vexed at that, corrected Pollyanna, agitatedly. "It's just her way, Nancy. You see, she doesn't like to show how badly she feels about—about the doctor. And she's so afraid she WILL show it that she—she just takes anything for an excuse to—to talk about. She does it to me, too, just the same. So I know all about it. See?"
Oh, yes, I see, I do, I do. Nancy's lips snapped together a little severely, and her sympathetic pats, for the minute, were even more loving, if possible. "Poor lamb! I'm glad I come, anyhow, for your sake."
Yes, so am I, breathed Pollyanna, gently drawing herself away and wiping her eyes. "There, I feel better. And I do thank you ever so much, Nancy, and I appreciate it. Now don't let us keep you when it's time for you to go."
Ho! I'm thinkin' I'll stay for a spell, sniffed Nancy.
Stay! Why, Nancy, I thought you were married. Aren't you Timothy's wife?
Sure! But he won't mind—for you. He'd WANT me to stay—for you.
Oh, but, Nancy, we couldn't let you, demurred Pollyanna. "We can't have anybody—now, you know. I'm going to do the work. Until we know just how things are, we shall live very economically, Aunt Polly says."
Ho! as if I'd take money from— began Nancy, in bridling wrath; but at the expression on the other's face she stopped, and let her words dwindle off in a mumbling protest, as she hurried from the room to look after her creamed chicken on the stove.
Not until supper was over, and everything put in order, did Mrs. Timothy Durgin consent to drive away with her husband; then she went with evident reluctance, and with many pleadings to be allowed to come "just ter help out a bit" at any time.
After Nancy had gone, Pollyanna came into the living-room where Mrs.
Chilton was sitting alone, her hand over her eyes.
Well, dearie, shall I light up? suggested Pollyanna, brightly.
Oh, I suppose so.
Wasn't Nancy a dear to fix us all up so nice?
No answer.
Where in the world she found all these flowers I can't imagine. She has them in every room down here, and in both bedrooms, too.
Still no answer.
Pollyanna gave a half-stifled sigh and threw a wistful glance into her aunt's averted face. After a moment she began again hopefully.
I saw Old Tom in the garden. Poor man, his rheumatism is worse than ever. He was bent nearly double. He inquired very particularly for you, and—
Mrs. Chilton turned with a sharp interruption.
Pollyanna, what are we going to do?
Do? Why, the best we can, of course, dearie.
Mrs. Chilton gave an impatient gesture.
Come, come, Pollyanna, do be serious for once. You'll find it is serious, fast enough. WHAT are we going to DO? As you know, my income has almost entirely stopped. Of course, some of the things are worth something, I suppose; but Mr. Hart says very few of them will pay anything at present. We have something in the bank, and a little coming in, of course. And we have this house. But of what earthly use is the house? We can't eat it, or wear it. It's too big for us, the way we shall have to live; and we couldn't sell it for half what it's really worth, unless we HAPPENED to find just the person that wanted it.
Sell it! Oh, auntie, you wouldn't—this beautiful house full of lovely things!
I may have to, Pollyanna. We have to eat—unfortunately.
I know it; and I'm always SO hungry, mourned Pollyanna, with a rueful laugh. "Still, I suppose I ought to be glad my appetite is so good."
Very likely. You'd find something to be glad about, of course. But what shall we do, child? I do wish you'd be serious for a minute.
A quick change came to Pollyanna's face.
I am serious, Aunt Polly. I've been thinking. I—I wish I could earn some money.
Oh, child, child, to think of my ever living to hear you say that! moaned the woman; "—a daughter of the Harringtons having to earn her bread!"
Oh, but that isn't the way to look at it, laughed Pollyanna. "You ought to be glad if a daughter of the Harringtons is SMART enough to earn her bread! That isn't any disgrace, Aunt Polly."
Perhaps not; but it isn't very pleasant to one's pride, after the position we've always occupied in Beldingsville, Pollyanna.
Pollyanna did not seem to have heard. Her eyes were musingly fixed on space.
If only I had some talent! If only I could do something better than anybody else in the world, she sighed at last. "I can sing a little, play a little, embroider a little, and darn a little; but I can't do any of them well—not well enough to be paid for it.
I think I'd like best to cook, she resumed, after a minute's silence, "and keep house. You know I loved that in Germany winters, when Gretchen used to bother us so much by not coming when we wanted her. But I don't exactly want to go into other people's kitchens to do it."
As if I'd let you! Pollyanna! shuddered Mrs. Chilton again.
And of course, to just work in our own kitchen here doesn't bring in anything, bemoaned Pollyanna, "—not any money, I mean. And it's money we need."
It most emphatically is, sighed Aunt Polly.
There was a long silence, broken at last by Pollyanna.
To think that after all you've done for me, auntie—to think that now, if I only could, I'd have such a splendid chance to help! And yet—I can't do it. Oh, why wasn't I born with something that's worth money?
There, there, child, don't, don't! Of course, if the doctor— The words choked into silence.
Pollyanna looked up quickly, and sprang to her feet.
Dear, dear, this will never do! she exclaimed, with a complete change of manner. "Don't you fret, auntie. What'll you wager that I don't develop the most marvelous talent going, one of these days? Besides, I think it's real exciting—all this. There's so much uncertainty in it. There's a lot of fun in wanting things—and then watching for them to come. Just living along and KNOWING you're going to have everything you want is so—so humdrum, you know," she finished, with a gay little laugh.
Mrs. Chilton, however, did not laugh. She only sighed and said:
Dear me, Pollyanna, what a child you are!
The first few days at Beldingsville were not easy either for Mrs. Chilton or for Pollyanna. They were days of adjustment; and days of adjustment are seldom easy.
From travel and excitement it was not easy to put one's mind to the consideration of the price of butter and the delinquencies of the butcher. From having all one's time for one's own, it was not easy to find always the next task clamoring to be done. Friends and neighbors called, too, and although Pollyanna welcomed them with glad cordiality, Mrs. Chilton, when possible, excused herself; and always she said bitterly to Pollyanna:
Curiosity, I suppose, to see how Polly Harrington likes being poor.
Of the doctor Mrs. Chilton seldom spoke, yet Pollyanna knew very well that almost never was he absent from her thoughts; and that more than half her taciturnity was but her usual cloak for a deeper emotion which she did not care to show.
Jimmy Pendleton Pollyanna saw several times during that first month. He came first with John Pendleton for a somewhat stiff and ceremonious call—not that it was either stiff or ceremonious until after Aunt Polly came into the room; then it was both. For some reason Aunt Polly had not excused herself on this occasion. After that Jimmy had come by himself, once with flowers, once with a book for Aunt Polly, twice with no excuse at all. Pollyanna welcomed him with frank pleasure always. Aunt Polly, after that first time, did not see him at all.
To the most of their friends and acquaintances Pollyanna said little about the change in their circumstances. To Jimmy, however, she talked freely, and always her constant cry was: "If only I could do something to bring in some money!"
I'm getting to be the most mercenary little creature you ever saw, she laughed dolefully. "I've got so I measure everything with a dollar bill, and I actually think in quarters and dimes. You see, Aunt Polly does feel so poor!"
It's a shame! stormed Jimmy.
I know it. But, honestly, I think she feels a little poorer than she needs to—she's brooded over it so. But I do wish I could help!
Jimmy looked down at the wistful, eager face with its luminous eyes, and his own eyes softened.
[Illustration: See Frontispiece: "Jimmy looked down at the wistful, eager face"]
What do you WANT to do—if you could do it? he asked.
Oh, I want to cook and keep house, smiled Pollyanna, with a pensive sigh. "I just love to beat eggs and sugar, and hear the soda gurgle its little tune in the cup of sour milk. I'm happy if I've got a day's baking before me. But there isn't any money in that—except in somebody else's kitchen, of course. And I—I don't exactly love it well enough for that!"
I should say not! ejaculated the young fellow.
Once more he glanced down at the expressive face so near him. This time a queer look came to the corners of his mouth. He pursed his lips, then spoke, a slow red mounting to his forehead.
"
Well, of course you might—marry. Have you thought of that—Miss Pollyanna?
"Pollyanna gave a merry laugh. Voice and manner were unmistakably those of a girl quite untouched by even the most far-reaching of Cupid's darts.
Oh, no, I shall never marry, she said blithely. "In the first place I'm not pretty, you know; and in the second place, I'm going to live with Aunt Polly and take care of her."
Not pretty, eh? smiled Pendleton, quizzically. "Did it ever—er—occur to you that there might be a difference of opinion on that, Pollyanna?"
Pollyanna shook her head.
There couldn't be. I've got a mirror, you see, she objected, with a merry glance.
It sounded like coquetry. In any other girl it would have been coquetry, Pendleton decided. But, looking into the face before him now, Pendleton knew that it was not coquetry. He knew, too, suddenly, why Pollyanna had seemed so different from any girl he had ever known. Something of her old literal way of looking at things still clung to her.
Why aren't you pretty? he asked.
Even as he uttered the question, and sure as he was of his estimate of Pollyanna's character, Pendleton quite held his breath at his temerity. He could not help thinking of how quickly any other girl he knew would have resented that implied acceptance of her claim to no beauty. But Pollyanna's first words showed him that even this lurking fear of his was quite groundless.
Why, I just am not, she laughed, a little ruefully. "I wasn't made that way. Maybe you don't remember, but long ago, when I was a little girl, it always seemed to me that one of the nicest things Heaven was going to give me when I got there was black curls."
And is that your chief desire now?
N-no, maybe not, hesitated Pollyanna. "But I still think I'd like them. Besides, my eyelashes aren't long enough, and my nose isn't Grecian, or Roman, or any of those delightfully desirable ones that belong to a 'type.' It's just NOSE. And my face is too long, or too short, I've forgotten which; but I measured it once with one of those 'correct-for-beauty' tests, and it wasn't right, anyhow. And they said the width of the face should be equal to five eyes, and the width of the eyes equal to—to something else. I've forgotten that, too—only that mine wasn't."
What a lugubrious picture! laughed Pendleton. Then, with his gaze admiringly regarding the girl's animated face and expressive eyes, he asked:
Did you ever look in the mirror when you were talking, Pollyanna?
Why, no, of course not!
Well, you'd better try it sometime.
What a funny idea! Imagine my doing it, laughed the girl. "What shall I say? Like this? 'Now, you, Pollyanna, what if your eyelashes aren't long, and your nose is just a nose, be glad you've got SOME eyelashes and SOME nose!'"
Pendleton joined in her laugh, but an odd expression came to his face.
Then you still play—the game, he said, a little diffidently.
Pollyanna turned soft eyes of wonder full upon him.
Why, of course! Why, Jimmy, I don't believe I could have lived—the last six months—if it hadn't been for that blessed game. Her voice shook a little.
I haven't heard you say much about it, he commented.
She changed color.
I know. I think I'm afraid—of saying too much—to outsiders, who don't care, you know. It wouldn't sound quite the same from me now, at twenty, as it did when I was ten. I realize that, of course. Folks don't like to be preached at, you know, she finished with a whimsical smile.
I know, nodded the young fellow gravely. "But I wonder sometimes, Pollyanna, if you really understand yourself what that game is, and what it has done for those who are playing it."
I know—what it has done for myself. Her voice was low, and her eyes were turned away.
You see, it really WORKS, if you play it, he mused aloud, after a short silence. "Somebody said once that it would revolutionize the world if everybody would really play it. And I believe it would."
Yes; but some folks don't want to be revolutionized, smiled Pollyanna. "I ran across a man in Germany last year. He had lost his money, and was in hard luck generally. Dear, dear, but he was gloomy! Somebody in my presence tried to cheer him up one day by saying, 'Come, come, things might be worse, you know!' Dear, dear, but you should have heard that man then!
'If there is anything on earth that makes me mad clear through,' he snarled, 'it is to be told that things might be worse, and to be thankful for what I've got left. These people who go around with an everlasting grin on their faces caroling forth that they are thankful that they can breathe, or eat, or walk, or lie down, I have no use for. I don't WANT to breathe, or eat, or walk, or lie down—if things are as they are now with me. And when I'm told that I ought to be thankful for some such tommyrot as that, it makes me just want to go out and shoot somebody!'
Imagine what I'D have gotten if I'd have introduced the glad game to that man! laughed Pollyanna.
I don't care. He needed it, answered Jimmy.
Of course he did—but he wouldn't have thanked me for giving it to him.
I suppose not. But, listen! As he was, under his present philosophy and scheme of living, he made himself and everybody else wretched, didn't he? Well, just suppose he was playing the game. While he was trying to hunt up something to be glad about in everything that had happened to him, he COULDN'T be at the same time grumbling and growling about how bad things were; so that much would be gained. He'd be a whole lot easier to live with, both for himself and for his friends. Meanwhile, just thinking of the doughnut instead of the hole couldn't make things any worse for him, and it might make things better; for it wouldn't give him such a gone feeling in the pit of his stomach, and his digestion would be better. I tell you, troubles are poor things to hug. They've got too many prickers.
Pollyanna smiled appreciatively.
That makes me think of what I told a poor old lady once. She was one of my Ladies' Aiders out West, and was one of the kind of people that really ENJOYS being miserable and telling over her causes for unhappiness. I was perhaps ten years old, and was trying to teach her the game. I reckon I wasn't having very good success, and evidently I at last dimly realized the reason, for I said to her triumphantly: 'Well, anyhow, you can be glad you've got such a lot of things to make you miserable, for you love to be miserable so well!'
Well, if that wasn't a good one on her, chuckled Jimmy.
Pollyanna raised her eyebrows.
I'm afraid she didn't enjoy it any more than the man in Germany would have if I'd told him the same thing.
But they ought to be told, and you ought to tell— Pendleton stopped short with so queer an expression on his face that Pollyanna looked at him in surprise.
Why, Jimmy, what is it?
Oh, nothing. I was only thinking, he answered, puckering his lips. "Here I am urging you to do the very thing I was afraid you WOULD do before I saw you, you know. That is, I was afraid before I saw you, that—that—" He floundered into a helpless pause, looking very red indeed.
Well, Jimmy Pendleton, bridled the girl, "you needn't think you can stop there, sir. Now just what do you mean by all that, please?"
Oh, er—n-nothing, much.
I'm waiting, murmured Pollyanna. Voice and manner were calm and confident, though the eyes twinkled mischievously.
The young fellow hesitated, glanced at her smiling face, and capitulated.
Oh, well, have it your own way, he shrugged. "It's only that I was worrying—a little—about that game, for fear you WOULD talk it just as you used to, you know, and—" But a merry peal of laughter interrupted him.
There, what did I tell you? Even you were worried, it seems, lest I should be at twenty just what I was at ten!
N-no, I didn't mean—Pollyanna, honestly, I thought—of course I knew— But Pollyanna only put her hands to her ears and went off into another peal of laughter.
It was toward the latter part of June that the letter came to
Pollyanna from Della Wetherby.
I am writing to ask you a favor, Miss Wetherby wrote. "I am hoping you can tell me of some quiet private family in Beldingsville that will be willing to take my sister to board for the summer. There would be three of them, Mrs. Carew, her secretary, and her adopted son, Jamie. (You remember Jamie, don't you?) They do not like to go to an ordinary hotel or boarding house. My sister is very tired, and the doctor has advised her to go into the country for a complete rest and change. He suggested Vermont or New Hampshire. We immediately thought of Beldingsville and you; and we wondered if you couldn't recommend just the right place to us. I told Ruth I would write you. They would like to go right away, early in July, if possible. Would it be asking too much to request you to let us know as soon as you conveniently can if you do know of a place? Please address me here. My sister is with us here at the Sanatorium for a few weeks' treatment.
"
Hoping for a favorable reply, I am, Most cordially yours,
"
DELLA WETHERBY.
For the first few minutes after the letter was finished, Pollyanna sat with frowning brow, mentally searching the homes of Beldingsville for a possible boarding house for her old friends. Then a sudden something gave her thoughts a new turn, and with a joyous exclamation she hurried to her aunt in the living-room.
Auntie, auntie, she panted; "I've got just the loveliest idea. I told you something would happen, and that I'd develop that wonderful talent sometime. Well, I have. I have right now. Listen! I've had a letter from Miss Wetherby, Mrs. Carew's sister—where I stayed that winter in Boston, you know—and they want to come into the country to board for the summer, and Miss Wetherby's written to see if I didn't know a place for them. They don't want a hotel or an ordinary boarding house, you see. And at first I didn't know of one; but now I do. I do, Aunt Polly! Just guess where 'tis."
Dear me, child, ejaculated Mrs. Chilton, "how you do run on! I should think you were a dozen years old instead of a woman grown. Now what are you talking about?"
About a boarding place for Mrs. Carew and Jamie. I've found it, babbled Pollyanna.
Indeed! Well, what of it? Of what possible interest can that be to me, child? murmured Mrs. Chilton, drearily.
Because it's HERE. I'm going to have them here, auntie.
Pollyanna! Mrs. Chilton was sitting erect in horror.
Now, auntie, please don't say no—please don't, begged Pollyanna, eagerly. "Don't you see? This is my chance, the chance I've been waiting for; and it's just dropped right into my hands. We can do it lovely. We have plenty of room, and you know I CAN cook and keep house. And now there'd be money in it, for they'd pay well, I know; and they'd love to come, I'm sure. There'd be three of them—there's a secretary with them."
"
But, Pollyanna, I can't! Turn this house into a boarding house?—the Harrington homestead a common boarding house? Oh, Pollyanna, I can't, I can't!
"But it wouldn't be a common boarding house, dear. 'Twill be an uncommon one. Besides, they're our friends. It would be like having our friends come to see us; only they'd be PAYING guests, so meanwhile we'd be earning money—money that we NEED, auntie, money that we need, she emphasized significantly.
A spasm of hurt pride crossed Polly Chilton's face. With a low moan she fell back in her chair.
But how could you do it? she asked at last, faintly. "You couldn't do the work part alone, child!"
Oh, no, of course not, chirped Pollyanna. (Pollyanna was on sure ground now. She knew her point was won.) "But I could do the cooking and the overseeing, and I'm sure I could get one of Nancy's younger sisters to help about the rest. Mrs. Durgin would do the laundry part just as she does now."
But, Pollyanna, I'm not well at all—you know I'm not. I couldn't do much.
Of course not. There's no reason why you should, scorned Pollyanna, loftily. "Oh, auntie, won't it be splendid? Why, it seems too good to be true—money just dropped into my hands like that!"
Dropped into your hands, indeed! You still have some things to learn in this world, Pollyanna, and one is that summer boarders don't drop money into anybody's hands without looking very sharply to it that they get ample return. By the time you fetch and carry and bake and brew until you are ready to sink, and by the time you nearly kill yourself trying to serve everything to order from fresh-laid eggs to the weather, you will believe what I tell you.
All right, I'll remember, laughed Pollyanna. "But I'm not doing any worrying now; and I'm going to hurry and write Miss Wetherby at once so I can give it to Jimmy Bean to mail when he comes out this afternoon."
Mrs. Chilton stirred restlessly.
Pollyanna, I do wish you'd call that young man by his proper name. That 'Bean' gives me the shivers. His name is 'Pendleton' now, as I understand it.
So it is, agreed Pollyanna, "but I do forget it half the time. I even call him that to his face, sometimes, and of course that's dreadful, when he really is adopted, and all. But you see I'm so excited," she finished, as she danced from the room.
She had the letter all ready for Jimmy when he called at four o'clock. She was still quivering—with excitement, and she lost no time in telling her visitor what it was all about.
And I'm crazy to see them, besides, she cried, when she had told him of her plans. "I've never seen either of them since that winter. You know I told you—didn't I tell you?—about Jamie."
Oh, yes, you told me. There was a touch of constraint in the young man's voice.
Well, isn't it splendid, if they can come?
Why, I don't know as I should call it exactly splendid, he parried.
Not splendid that I've got such a chance to help Aunt Polly out, for even this little while? Why, Jimmy, of course it's splendid.
Well, it strikes me that it's going to be rather HARD—for you, bridled Jimmy, with more than a shade of irritation.
Yes, of course, in some ways. But I shall be so glad for the money coming in that I'll think of that all the time. You see, she sighed, "how mercenary I am, Jimmy."
For a long minute there was no reply; then, a little abruptly, the young man asked:
Let's see, how old is this Jamie now?
Pollyanna glanced up with a merry smile.
Oh, I remember—you never did like his name, 'Jamie,' she twinkled. "Never mind; he's adopted now, legally, I believe, and has taken the name of Carew. So you can call him that."
But that isn't telling me how old he is, reminded Jimmy, stiffly.
Nobody knows, exactly, I suppose. You know he couldn't tell; but I imagine he's about your age. I wonder how he is now. I've asked all about it in this letter, anyway.
Oh, you have! Pendleton looked down at the letter in his hand and flipped it a little spitefully. He was thinking that he would like to drop it, to tear it up, to give it to somebody, to throw it away, to do anything with it—but mail it.
Jimmy knew perfectly well that he was jealous, that he always had been jealous of this youth with the name so like and yet so unlike his own. Not that he was in love with Pollyanna, he assured himself wrathfully. He was not that, of course. It was just that he did not care to have this strange youth with the sissy name come to Beldingsville and be always around to spoil all their good times. He almost said as much to Pollyanna, but something stayed the words on his lips; and after a time he took his leave, carrying the letter with him.
That Jimmy did not drop the letter, tear it up, give it to anybody, or throw it away was evidenced a few days later, for Pollyanna received a prompt and delighted reply from Miss Wetherby; and when Jimmy came next time he heard it read—or rather he heard part of it, for Pollyanna prefaced the reading by saying:
Of course the first part is just where she says how glad they are to come, and all that. I won't read that. But the rest I thought you'd like to hear, because you've heard me talk so much about them. Besides, you'll know them yourself pretty soon, of course. I'm depending a whole lot on you, Jimmy, to help me make it pleasant for them.
Oh, are you!
Now don't be sarcastic, just because you don't like Jamie's name, reproved Pollyanna, with mock severity. "You'll like HIM, I'm sure, when you know him; and you'll LOVE Mrs. Carew."
Will I, indeed? retorted Jimmy huffily. "Well, that IS a serious prospect. Let us hope, if I do, the lady will be so gracious as to reciprocate."
Of course, dimpled Pollyanna. "Now listen, and I'll read to you about her. This letter is from her sister, Della—Miss Wetherby, you know, at the Sanatorium."
All right. Go ahead! directed Jimmy, with a somewhat too evident attempt at polite interest. And Pollyanna, still smiling mischievously, began to read.
"
You ask me to tell you everything about everybody. That is a large commission, but I'll do the best I can. To begin with, I think you'll find my sister quite changed. The new interests that have come into her life during the last six years have done wonders for her. Just now she is a bit thin and tired from overwork, but a good rest will soon remedy that, and you'll see how young and blooming and happy she looks. Please notice I said HAPPY. That won't mean so much to you as it does to me, of course, for you were too young to realize quite how unhappy she was when you first knew her that winter in Boston. Life was such a dreary, hopeless thing to her then; and now it is so full of interest and joy. First she has Jamie, and when you see them together you won't need to be told what he is to her. To be sure, we are no nearer knowing whether he is the REAL Jamie, or not, but my sister loves him like an own son now, and has legally adopted him, as I presume you know.
""
Then she has her girls. Do you remember Sadie Dean, the salesgirl? Well, from getting interested in her, and trying to help her to a happier living, my sister has broadened her efforts little by little, until she has scores of girls now who regard her as their own best and particular good angel. She has started a Home for Working Girls along new lines. Half a dozen wealthy and influential men and women are associated with her, of course, but she is head and shoulders of the whole thing, and never hesitates to give HERSELF to each and every one of the girls. You can imagine what that means in nerve strain. Her chief support and right-hand man is her secretary, this same Sadie Dean. You'll find HER changed, too, yet she is the same old Sadie. As for Jamie—poor Jamie! The great sorrow of his life is that he knows now he can never walk. For a time we all had hopes. He was here at the Sanatorium under Dr. Ames for a year, and he improved to such an extent that he can go now with crutches. But the poor boy will always be a cripple—so far as his feet are concerned, but never as regards anything else. Someway, after you know Jamie, you seldom think of him as a cripple, his SOUL is so free. I can't explain it, but you'll know what I mean when you see him; and he has retained, to a marvelous degree, his old boyish enthusiasm and joy of living. There is just one thing—and only one, I believe—that would utterly quench that bright spirit and cast him into utter despair; and that is to find that he is not Jamie Kent, our nephew. So long has he brooded over this, and so ardently has he wished it, that he has come actually to believe that he IS the real Jamie; but if he isn't, I hope he will never find it out.""
"
There, that's all she says about them, announced Pollyanna, folding up the closely-written sheets in her hands. "But isn't that interesting?"
Indeed it is! There was a ring of genuineness in Jimmy's voice now. Jimmy was thinking suddenly of what his own good legs meant to him. He even, for the moment, was willing that this poor crippled youth should have a PART of Pollyanna's thoughts and attentions, if he were not so presuming as to claim too much of them, of course! "By George! it is tough for the poor chap, and no mistake."
Tough! You don't know anything about it, Jimmy Bean, choked
Pollyanna; "but I do. I couldn't walk once. I KNOW!"
Yes, of course, of course, frowned the youth, moving restively in his seat. Jimmy, looking into Pollyanna's sympathetic face and brimming eyes was suddenly not so sure, after all, that he WAS willing to have this Jamie come to town—if just to THINK of him made Pollyanna look like that!