Eleanor H. Porter

“ It was late Thursday afternoon that John Pendleton called to see Pollyanna. As it happened, he, like Jimmy, saw Pollyanna in the garden and came straight toward her.
Pollyanna, looking into his face, felt a sudden sinking of the heart.
"It's come—it's come!" she shivered; and involuntarily she turned as if to flee.
"INVOLUNTARILY SHE TURNED AS IF TO FLEE."
"Oh, Pollyanna, wait a minute, please," called the man hastening his steps. "You're just the one I wanted to see. Come, can't we go in here?" he suggested, turning toward the summerhouse. "I want to speak to you about—something." ”

“ Carew. I do, truly. He reads books—lovely books, all full of knights and lords and ladies, and he feeds the birds and squirrels and gives 'em names, and everything. And he can't walk, and he doesn't have enough to eat, lots of days," panted Pollyanna; "and he's been playing my glad game for a year, and didn't know it. And he plays it ever and ever so much better than I do. And I've hunted and hunted for him, ever and ever so many days. Honest and truly, Mrs. Carew, I've just GOT to see him," almost sobbed Pollyanna. "I can't lose him again!" ”

“ Jimmy knew very well now that he was in love with Pollyanna. He suspected that he had been in love with her for some time. He stood aghast, indeed, to find himself so shaken and powerless before this thing that had come to him. He knew that even his beloved bridges were as nothing when weighed against the smile in a girl's eyes and the word on a girl's lips. He realized that the most wonderful span in the world to him would be the thing that could help him to cross the chasm of fear and doubt that he felt lay between him and Pollyanna—doubt because of Pollyanna; fear because of Jamie. ”

“ Would it be a "fair" fight? Could any fight between him and Jamie be a "fair" fight? Jimmy felt suddenly as he had felt years before when, as a lad, he had challenged a new boy to a fight for an apple they both claimed, then, at the first blow, had discovered that the new boy had a crippled arm. He had purposely lost then, of course, and had let the crippled boy win. But he told himself fiercely now that this case was different. It was no apple that was at stake. It was his life's happiness. It might even be Pollyanna's life's happiness, too. ”

“ Oh, does it—ache?" stammered Pollyanna, all sympathy at once.
"Oh, yes, always," nodded the boy, with a cheerfully matter-of-fact air. "Most generally I can stand it and come here just the same, except when it gets TOO bad, same as 'twas yesterday. Then I can't."
"But how can you stand it—to have it ache—always?" gasped Pollyanna.
"Why, I have to," answered the boy, opening his eyes a little wider. "Things that are so are SO, and they can't be any other way. So what's the use thinking how they might be? Besides, the harder it aches one day, the nicer 'tis to have it let-up the next." ”

“ Across the street, in all its autumn glory, lay what to Pollyanna was the most beautiful "yard" she had ever seen—the Boston Public Garden.
For a moment Pollyanna hesitated, her eyes longingly fixed on the wealth of beauty before her. That it was the private grounds of some rich man or woman, she did not for a moment doubt. Once, with Dr. Ames at the Sanatorium, she had been taken to call on a lady who lived in a beautiful house surrounded by just such walks and trees and flower-beds as these. ”

“ CHAPTER XVII WHEN POLLYANNA CAME 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. ”

“ It was on the end of my tongue to tell Pollyanna that there couldn't have been a better father than mine was; then, suddenly, I remembered—the packet, and what it said. And I was afraid. I didn't dare say a word till I knew what was inside that packet. There's something dad didn't want me to know till I was thirty years old—when I would be a man grown, and could stand anything. See? There's a secret somewhere in our lives. I've got to know that secret, and I've got to know it now."
"But, Jimmy, lad, don't look so tragic. It may be a good secret. ”

“ She wants me to be the real Jamie. I know she does. Now if I could only do something for her—make her proud of me in some way! If I could only do something to support myself, even, like a man! But what can I do, with—these?" He spoke bitterly, and laid his hand on the crutches at his side.
Pollyanna was shocked and distressed. It was the first time she had heard Jamie speak of his infirmity since the old boyhood days. Frantically she cast about in her mind for just the right thing to say; but before she had even thought of anything, Jamie's face had undergone a complete change. ”

“ To be with Pollyanna at all now was torture. Even to be with Sadie Dean was unpleasant, for he could not forget that it was Sadie Dean who had finally opened his eyes. Jamie, certainly, was no haven of refuge, under the circumstances; and that left only Mrs. Carew. Mrs. Carew, however, was a host in herself, and Jimmy found his only comfort these days in her society. Gay or grave, she always seemed to know how to fit his mood exactly; and it was wonderful how much she knew about bridges—the kind of bridges he was going to build. ”

“ Long before six o'clock, however, the suspicion in Aunt Polly's eyes became conviction, and drove to ignominious defeat the puzzled questioning. But, curiously enough then, a new look came to take its place, a look that was actually a twinkle of amusement.
At last, after a particularly doleful complaint on Pollyanna's part, Aunt Polly threw up her hands with a gesture of half-laughing despair.
"That'll do, that'll do, child! I'll give up. I'll confess myself beaten at my own game. You can be—glad for that, if you like," she finished with a grim smile. ”

“ Carew, however, did not like new experiences, and she was having a good many of them these days. For one who is tired of everything to be in so intimate a companionship with one to whom everything is a fresh and fascinating joy must needs result in annoyance, to say the least. And Mrs. Carew was more than annoyed. She was exasperated. Yet to herself she was forced to admit that if any one asked her why she was exasperated, the only reason she could give would be "Because Pollyanna is so glad"—and even Mrs. Carew would hardly like to give an answer like that. ”

“ 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!" ”

“ Pollyanna was sure now that she had never before known John Pendleton. The old taciturn moroseness seemed entirely gone since they came to camp. He rowed and swam and fished and tramped with fully as much enthusiasm as did Jimmy himself, and with almost as much vigor. Around the camp fire at night he quite rivaled Jamie with his story-telling of adventures, both laughable and thrilling, that had befallen him in his foreign travels. ”

“ I SAID one couldn't tell about Pollyanna. And of course you won't be apt to see her. But—Miss Prim, indeed!" And off she went into another gale of laughter. Almost at once, however, she sobered and gazed at her sister with the old troubled look in her eyes.
"Seriously, dear, can't anything be done?" she pleaded. "You ought not to waste your life like this. Won't you try to get out a little more, and—meet people?"
"Why should I, when I don't want to? I'm tired of—people. You know society always bored me." ”

“ Carew hesitated. Into her eyes crept the old somberness of heartache.
"Not so far as he is concerned," she sighed, at last. "It's only that sometimes I get to thinking: if he isn't our Jamie, where is—Jamie Kent? Is he well? Is he happy? Has he any one to love him? When I get to thinking like that, Pollyanna, I'm nearly wild. I'd give—everything I have in the world, it seems to me, to really know that this boy is Jamie Kent."
Pollyanna used to think of this conversation sometimes, in her after talks with Jamie. Jamie was so sure of himself. ”

“ She could WATCH the people even if she could not talk to them; and she could talk to the squirrels and pigeons and sparrows that so eagerly came for the nuts and grain which she soon learned to carry to them every time she went.
Pollyanna often looked for her old friends of that first day—the man who was so glad he had his eyes and legs and arms, and the pretty young lady who would not go with the handsome man; but she never saw them. She did frequently see the boy in the wheel chair, and she wished she could talk to him. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Are you hurt?" demanded Jimmy.
Still there was no answer. Then, suddenly, Jamie pulled himself half upright and turned. They saw his face then, and fell back, shocked and amazed.
"Hurt? Am I hurt?" he choked huskily, flinging out both his hands. "Don't you suppose it hurts to see a thing like that and not be able to do anything? To be tied, helpless, to a pair of sticks? I tell you there's no hurt in all the world to equal it!"
"But—but—Jamie," faltered Pollyanna. ”

“ 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." ”

“ She knew she dropped her goldenrod and ran—ran as she never ran before, ran as she thought she never could run—back toward the wall and Jamie. She knew that behind her the hoof-beats were gaining, gaining, always gaining. Dimly, hopelessly, far ahead of her, she saw Jamie's agonized face, and heard his hoarse cries. Then, from somewhere, came a new voice—Jimmy's—shouting a cheery call of courage.
Still on and on she ran blindly, hearing nearer and nearer the thud of those pounding hoofs. Once she stumbled and almost fell. Then, dizzily she righted herself and plunged forward. ”

“ Mrs. Carew was in no mood for preaching. She had just been obliged to endure it from the pulpit, she told herself angrily, and she would NOT listen to it from this chit of a child. Moreover, this "living one day at a time" theory was a particularly pet doctrine of Della's. Was not Della always saying: "But you only have to live one minute at a time, Ruth, and any one can endure anything for one minute at a time!"
"Well?" said Mrs. Carew now, tersely.
"Yes. Only think what I'd do if I had to live yesterday and to-day and to-morrow all at once," sighed Pollyanna. ”

“ Pollyanna shrank back. She was white and trembling.
"Jimmy, what do you mean? What do you mean?" she begged piteously.
"I mean—you don't care for Uncle John, that way. Don't you understand? Jamie thinks you do care, and that anyway he cares for you. And then I began to see it—that maybe he did. He's always talking about you; and, of course, there was your mother—"
Pollyanna gave a low moan and covered her face with her hands. Jimmy came close and laid a caressing arm about her shoulders; but again Pollyanna shrank from him.
"Pollyanna, little girl, don't! You'll break my heart," he begged. ”

“ 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." ”

“ And there was a boy, and another lady with a baby—only they lived in Honolulu, so probably I couldn't find them there now. But there'd be Mrs. Carew, anyway. Who is Mrs. Carew, Aunt Polly? Is she a relation?"
"Dear me, Pollyanna!" exclaimed Mrs. Chilton, half-laughingly, half-despairingly. "How do you expect anybody to keep up with your tongue, much less your thoughts, when they skip to Honolulu and back again in two seconds! No, Mrs. Carew isn't any relation to us. She's Miss Della Wetherby's sister. Do you remember Miss Wetherby at the Sanatorium?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ Oh!" exclaimed Pollyanna, the dawning happiness in her eyes leaping forth in a flash of ineffable joy and relief. "Then you love somebody—" By an almost superhuman effort Pollyanna choked off the "else" before it left her delighted lips.
"Love somebody! Haven't I just been telling you I did?" laughed John Pendleton, half vexedly. "What I want to know is—can she be made to love me? That's where I was sort of—of counting on your help, Pollyanna. You see, she's a dear friend of yours."
"Is she?" gurgled Pollyanna. "Then she'll just have to love you. We'll make her! ”

“ 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!" ”

“ Jimmy looked so big and strong and dear there in the door of the summerhouse that she feared her eyes had been surprised into a telltale admiration, if not more.
"Yes, Pollyanna; I wanted—that is, I thought— I mean, I feared— Oh, hang it all, Pollyanna, I can't beat about the bush like this. I'll have to come straight to the point. It's just this. I stood aside before, but I won't now. It isn't a case any longer of fairness. He isn't crippled like Jamie. He's got feet and hands and a head like mine, and if he wins he'll have to win in a fair fight. ”