John Pendleton

“ From the Harrington homestead Jimmy went straight home and sought out John Pendleton. He found him in the great crimson-hung library where, some years before, Pollyanna had looked fearfully about for the "skeleton in John Pendleton's closet."
"Uncle John, do you remember that packet father gave me?" demanded Jimmy.
"Why, yes. What's the matter, son?" John Pendleton had given a start of surprise at sight of Jimmy's face.
"That packet has got to be opened, sir."
"But—the conditions!"
"I can't help it. It's got to be. That's all. Will you do it?" ”

“ John Pendleton's eyes flashed angrily.
"Yes. I found out why when—when Pollyanna begged if I couldn't tell her aunt something about—about my father and my people."
"Shucks! I thought Polly Chilton had more sense—still, it's just like her, after all. The Harringtons have always been inordinately proud of race and family," snapped John Pendleton. "Well, could you?" ”

“ John Pendleton laughed suddenly—and aloud. The nurse, coming in at that moment, heard the laugh, and beat a hurried—but a very silent—retreat. He had the air of a frightened cook who, seeing the danger of a breath of cold air striking a half-done cake, hastily shuts the oven door.
“Aren't you getting a little mixed?” asked John Pendleton of Pollyanna.
The little girl laughed.
“Maybe. But what I mean is, that legs don't last—broken ones, you know—like lifelong invalids, same as Mrs. Snow has got. So yours won't last till doomsday at all. ”

“ Pendleton, it's a baby rainbow—a real rainbow come in to pay you a visit!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands together softly. "Oh—oh—oh, how pretty it is! But how did it get in?" she cried.
The man laughed a little grimly: John Pendleton was particularly out of sorts with the world this morning.
"Well, I suppose it 'got in' through the bevelled edge of that glass thermometer in the window," he said wearily. "The sun shouldn't strike it at all—but it does in the morning."
"Oh, but it's so pretty, Mr. Pendleton! And does just the sun do that? My! ”

“ There were times when Jimmy speculated a good deal as to the contents of that envelope. There were other times when he forgot its existence. In the old days, at the Orphans' Home, his chief terror had been that it should be discovered and taken away from him. In those days he wore it always hidden in the lining of his coat. Of late years, at John Pendleton's suggestion, it had been tucked away in the Pendleton safe.
"For there's no knowing how valuable it may be," John Pendleton had said, with a smile. ”

“ John Pendleton smiled.
"I understand. Your tongue does get away with you once in a while, doesn't it, Miss Pollyanna? I do thank you, however; and I consider you a very brave little girl to do what you did that day. I thank you for the jelly, too," he added in a lighter voice. ”

“ In the middle of the floor Miss Polly stood, silent and amazed, still looking after the man who had just left her. Even yet she could scarcely believe what her ears had heard. John Pendleton adopt Jimmy Bean? John Pendleton, wealthy, independent, morose, reputed to be miserly and supremely selfish, to adopt a little boy—and such a little boy? ”

“ 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." ”

“ Pendleton as your own gift. But understand: I do not send it. Be very sure that he does not think I do!”
“Yes'm—no'm—thank you, Aunt Polly,” exulted Pollyanna, as she flew through the door.
CHAPTER XV. DR. CHILTON
The great gray pile of masonry looked very different to Pollyanna when she made her second visit to the house of Mr. John Pendleton. Windows were open, an elderly woman was hanging out clothes in the back yard, and the doctor's gig stood under the porte-cochere. ”

“ You know a telephone card, I suppose, when you see one!"
"Oh, yes, sir! I just love Aunt Polly's. There's such a lot of queer names, and—"
"Tell Dr. Chilton that John Pendleton is at the foot of Little Eagle Ledge in Pendleton Woods with a broken leg, and to come at once with a stretcher and two men. He'll know what to do besides that. Tell him to come by the path from the house."
"A broken leg? Oh, Mr. Pendleton, how perfectly awful!" shuddered Pollyanna. ”

“ John Pendleton's voice was still angrily impatient.
"Of—of how she told others ter play it—Mis' Snow, and the rest, ye know—and what she said for them ter do. But the poor little lamb just cries, an' says it don't seem the same, somehow. She says it's easy ter tell lifelong invalids how ter be glad, but 'tain't the same thing when you're the lifelong invalid yerself, an' have ter try ter do it. She says she's told herself over an' over again how glad she is that other folks ain't like her ”

“ Pollyanna did not realize anything, in fact, very clearly until a week had passed; then the fever subsided, the pain lessened somewhat, and her mind awoke to full consciousness. She had then to be told all over again what had occurred.
"And so it's hurt that I am, and not sick," she sighed at last. "Well, I'm glad of that."
"G-glad, Pollyanna?" asked her aunt, who was sitting by the bed.
"Yes. I'd so much rather have broken legs like Mr. Pendleton's than life-long-invalids like Mrs. Snow, you know. Broken legs get well, and life-long-invalids don't." ”

“ They were almost too excited for speech when, early in the morning of a fine day, their train rolled into the Georgia city widely famed for the great war cantonment in its neighborhood, and they looked forth to see groups of young men in khaki tramping its streets. They were met at the station by Lieut. John Markham, a cousin of both boys who was with the Pennsylvanians at Camp Hancock because his mother, another sister of the Ridgway brothers, had married a Philadelphian and lived many years in the city by the Delaware.
Never will Ted forget that day. ”

“ Over these ruins a storm-shaken and magnificent mulberry, aboriginal, and cotemporary with the settlement of the province, yet rears its shattered and topless trunk, and daily distils upon the sacred relics at its foot, the dews of heaven,—an august and brave old mourner to the departed companions of its prime. ”

“ With a gesture of indifference Old Tom turned and fell to work.
"If you're goin' ter talk ter me, you've got ter talk plain horse sense," he declared testily. "I never was no hand for figgers."
Nancy laughed.
"Well, it's this," she explained. "I heard somethin' that made me think him an' Miss Polly was lovers."
"Mr. Pendleton!" Old Tom straightened up.
"Yes. Oh, I know now; he wasn't. It was that blessed child's mother he was in love with, and that's why he wanted—but never mind that part," she added hastily, remembering just in time her promise to Pollyanna not to tell that Mr. ”

“ It was after midnight, and the inmates of the woodman's cabin had been some hours at rest, when Mary Musgrove's sleep was disturbed by strange and unwonted alarms. She was dreaming of Arthur Butler, and a crowd of pleasant visions flitted about her pillow, when, suddenly, clouds darkened the world of her dream, and images of bloodshed caused her to shudder. Horrid shapes appeared to her, marching with stealthy pace through her apartment, and a low and smothered footfall seemed to strike her ear like the ticking of a death-watch. ”

“ Still the whistling continued, with no symptom of retreat, and Mary impatiently walked towards the further end of the house. "John Ramsay makes a fool of himself," she muttered peevishly. "Hasn't he the sense to see I cannot get out? What keeps the simple man dallying shilly-shally at the fence, as if he actually wanted them to take him? I don't believe in the mighty sense and wisdom of these men! If John had half an eye he would see that I couldn't get away to-night."
As the maiden grew fretful, her fears had less mastery over her; and now, taking heart of grace, she returned to the porch. ”

“ He first met Mildred, under the safe-conduct of her parents, at Annapolis in Maryland, at that time the seat of opulence and fashion. There the wise and the gay, the beautiful and the rarely-gifted united in a splendid little constellation, in which wealth threw its sun-beam glitter over the wings of love, and learning and eloquence were warmed by the smiles of fair women: there gallant men gave the fascinations of wit to a festive circle unsurpassed in the new world, or the old, for its proportion of the graces that embellish, and the endowments that enrich life. ”

“ Such ill omens are about us! My father's inexorable will, so headstrong, so unconscious of the pain it gives me; his rooted, yes, his fatal aversion to you; my thraldom here, where, like a poor bird checked by a cord, I chafe myself by fluttering on the verge of my prison bounds; and then, the awful perils that continually impend over your head—all these are more than weak imaginings; they are the realities of my daily life, and give me, what I am almost ashamed to confess, a sad and boding spirit."
"Nay, nay, dearest Mildred! ”

“ As the battle waxed hot in the neighborhood of his retreat, he had crept forth from his den and was making the best of his way to an adjoining cornfield. He was bare-headed, and his bald crown, as the slanting rays of the evening sun fell upon it, glistened like a gilded globe. The well known figure no sooner occurred to the sergeant's view than he rode off in pursuit. The cornfield was bounded by a fence, and the burly braggart had just succeeded in reaching it when his enemy overtook him.
"Have mercy, good Mr. Horse Shoe, have mercy on a defenceless man!" ”

“ Fairly, my gossip,—I will be mistress in my own house, I promise you!"
"There is room for all thy friends, young and old," said Alice; "and you should not stint to ask them for the difference of a span or so in height. You are not quite a woman yourself, Blanche,—no, nor Grace neither—although you perk yourselves up so daintily." ”

“ John! John! John! my dear boy, my brave son! How good and kind he was to us all! And how glad he was to get home to see us; and how much we made of him!"
"Silence, wife," said David Ramsay, "this is no time to hold back from our duty. Andrew, listen to me: remember your brother has met his death fighting against these monsters, who hate the very earth that nurses liberty. You are young, boy, but you can handle a musket; we will not forget your brother's death."
"Nor the burning of a good house over your head, and a full barn, father; nor the frights they have given my poor mother." ”

“ To hear your faith, which though I never dwelt upon it but with a confidence that I have held it most profane to doubt, still, to hear it avowed from your own lips, now again and again, repeating what you have often breathed before, and in letter after letter, written down, it falls upon my heart, Mildred, like some good gift from heaven, specially sent to revive and quicken my resolution in all the toils and labors that yet await me. There must be good in store for such a heart as thine; and, trusting to this faith, I will look to the future with a buoyant temper. ”

“ What is that mysterious thing which men call attraction, that steadies these spheres in their tangled pathways through the great void?—that urges their swift and fearful career into the track of their voyage, without the deviation of the breadth of a single hair—rolling on the same from eternity to eternity? ”

“ CHAPTER XXXIX. MILDRED BEGINS HER JOURNEY.
The man who writes the history of woman's love will find himself employed in drawing out a tangled skein. It is a history of secret emotions and vivid contrasts, which may well go nigh to baffle his penetration and to puzzle his philosophy. There is in it a surface of timid and gentle bashfulness concealing an underflow of strong and heady passion: a seeming caprice that a breath may shake or a word alarm; yet, all the while, an earnest devotion of soul which, in its excited action, holds all danger cheap that crosses the path of its career. ”

“ Several fires, whose ruddy glare had been discerned for the last half mile of the journey, were blazing forth from different quarters of the wood, and threw a bold and sharp light upon the figures of men and horses, imparting a feature of lively, picturesque beauty to the scene. ”

“ Have I not reason, dear brother, to be miserable?"
"I love you, Mildred," said Henry, kissing his sister, "and what's more, I love Arthur Butler, and will stand up for him against the world. And I have a good mind to go to my father and tell him I am man enough to think for myself—and more than that—that I, for one, believe these rebels, as he calls them, have the right of it. Why shouldn't I? Can't I shoot a rifle as well as the best of them, and stand by a friend in a quarrel, and make good my words as well as many a man who writes twenty years to his age? ”

“ He was now at that time of life when the imagination is prone to dally with illusions; when youth, not yet yoked to the harness of the world's business, turns its spirit forth to seek adventure in the domain of fancy. ”

“ His is the strife of the theatre where the world are spectators; and multitudes shall glorify his success, or lament his fall, or cheer him in the pangs of death. But woman, gentle, silent, sequestered—thy triumphs are only for the heart that loves thee—thy deepest griefs have no comforter but the secret communion of thine own pillow! ”