Pollyanna

“ Never mind why. I just didn't—that's all. And ever since then this great gray pile of stone has been a house—never a home. It takes a woman's hand and heart, or a child's presence, to make a home, Pollyanna; and I have not had either. Now will you come, my dear?"
Pollyanna sprang to her feet. Her face was fairly illumined.
"Mr. Pendleton, you—you mean that you wish you—you had had that woman's hand and heart all this time?"
"Why, y-yes, Pollyanna."
"Oh, I'm so glad! Then it's all right," sighed the little girl. "Now you can take us both, and everything will be lovely." ”

“ 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." ”

“ Pollyanna drew a long breath.
“I thought—how glad you could be—that other folks weren't like you—all sick in bed like this, you know,” she announced impressively. Mrs. Snow stared. Her eyes were angry.
“Well, really!” she ejaculated then, in not quite an agreeable tone of voice.
“And now I'll tell you the game,” proposed Pollyanna, blithely confident. “It'll be just lovely for you to play—it'll be so hard. And there's so much more fun when it is hard! You see, it's like this.” And she began to tell of the missionary barrel, the crutches, and the doll that did not come. ”

“ CHAPTER VI JERRY TO THE RESCUE It was not long before Pollyanna reached the edge of the Garden at a corner where two streets crossed. It was a wonderfully interesting corner, with its hurrying cars, automobiles, carriages and pedestrians. A huge red bottle in a drug-store window caught her eye, and from down the street came the sound of a hurdy-gurdy. Hesitating only a moment Pollyanna darted across the corner and skipped lightly down the street toward the entrancing music. ”

“ Undeniably Pollyanna was lonesome. Brought up by her father and the Ladies' Aid Society in a small Western town, she had counted every house in the village her home, and every man, woman, and child her friend. Coming to her aunt in Vermont at eleven years of age, she had promptly assumed that conditions would differ only in that the homes and the friends would be new, and therefore even more delightful, possibly, for they would be "different"—and Pollyanna did so love "different" things and people! ”

“ 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." ”

“ CHAPTER XXV THE GAME AND POLLYANNA Before the middle of September the Carews and Sadie Dean said good-by and went back to Boston. Much as she knew she would miss them, Pollyanna drew an actual sigh of relief as the train bearing them away rolled out of the Beldingsville station. Pollyanna would not have admitted having this feeling of relief to any one else, and even to herself she apologized in her thoughts.
"It isn't that I don't love them dearly, every one of them," she sighed, watching the train disappear around the curve far down the track. ”

“ 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. The boy fed the birds and squirrels, too, and they were so tame that the doves would perch on his head and shoulders, and the squirrels would burrow in his pockets for nuts. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ The various clerks who had waited upon the pair came out of it with very red faces, and enough amusing stories of Pollyanna to keep their friends in gales of laughter the rest of the week. Pollyanna herself came out of it with radiant smiles and a heart content; for, as she expressed it to one of the clerks: "When you haven't had anybody but missionary barrels and Ladies' Aiders to dress you, it is perfectly lovely to just walk right in and buy clothes that are brand-new, and that don't have to be tucked up or let down because they don't fit!" ”

“ I just love people. Don't you, Nancy?"
"Well, I can't say I do—all of 'em," retorted Nancy, tersely.
Almost every pleasant afternoon found Pollyanna begging for "an errand to run," so that she might be off for a walk in one direction or another; and it was on these walks that frequently she met the Man. To herself Pollyanna always called him "the Man," no matter if she met a dozen other men the same day.
The Man often wore a long black coat and a high silk hat—two things that the "just men" never wore. ”

“ Pollyanna laughed.
“Why, I don't know. I reckon perhaps there are,” she admitted. “I like to do 'most everything that's LIVING. Of course I don't like the other things very well—sewing, and reading out loud, and all that. But THEY aren't LIVING.”
“No? What are they, then?”
“Aunt Polly says they're 'learning to live,'” sighed Pollyanna, with a rueful smile.
The doctor smiled now—a little queerly. ”

“ To her helpless amazement she found herself in the low chair before the dressing table, with her hair already tumbling about her ears under ten eager, but very gentle fingers.
"Oh, my! what pretty hair you've got," prattled Pollyanna; "and there's so much more of it than Mrs. Snow has, too! But, of course, you need more, anyhow, because you're well and can go to places where folks can see it. ”

“ But to her unbounded surprise now, she found herself, not in the main attic before the cedar chest, but in Pollyanna's little room sitting in one of the straight-backed chairs—so many, many times since Pollyanna came, Miss Polly had found herself like this, doing some utterly unexpected, surprising thing, quite unlike the thing she had set out to do!
"I love company," said Pollyanna, again, flitting about as if she were dispensing the hospitality of a palace ”

“ Pollyanna's face fell.
“Oh, but Aunt Polly, HERS will last. She can always be sick and have things, you know; but his is just a broken leg, and legs don't last—I mean, broken ones. He's had it a whole week now.”
“Yes, I remember. I heard Mr. John Pendleton had met with an accident,” said Miss Polly, a little stiffly; “but—I do not care to be sending jelly to John Pendleton, Pollyanna.”
“I know, he is cross—outside,” admitted Pollyanna, sadly, “so I suppose you don't like him. But I wouldn't say 'twas you sent it. I'd say 'twas me. I like him. I'd be glad to send him jelly.” ”

“ Carew laughed suddenly.
"Yes, my dear, I think I see," she answered demurely, though her eyes still carried—for them—a most unusual twinkle.
"All right," sighed Pollyanna contentedly. "I thought you would; still, it did sound sort of mixed when I said it. Oh, Aunt Polly says she wouldn't mind having an automobile, so much, if she could have the only one there was in the world, so there wouldn't be any one else to run into her; but— My! what a lot of houses!" broke off Pollyanna, looking about her with round eyes of wonder. "Don't they ever stop? ”

“ I'm not sick a bit," declared Pollyanna, dropping herself with a sigh on to the couch. "But I AM tired. My! how good this couch feels! I'm glad I'm tired, after all—it's so nice to rest."
Aunt Polly turned with an impatient gesture.
"Glad—glad—glad! Of course you're glad, Pollyanna. You're always glad for everything. I never saw such a girl. Oh, yes, I know it's the game," she went on, in answer to the look that came to Pollyanna's face. "And it's a very good game, too; but I think you carry it altogether too far. This eternal doctrine of 'it might be worse' has got on my nerves, Pollyanna. ”

“ 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 lifelong-invalids don't.” ”

“ Pollyanna looked shocked.
"You mean—that you didn't have enough to eat—yourself?—for YOUR luncheon?"
"Sure!" smiled the boy. "But don't worry. Tisn't the first time—and 'twon't be the last. I'm used to it. Hi, there! here comes Sir Lancelot."
Pollyanna, however, was not thinking of squirrels.
"And wasn't there any more at home?"
"Oh, no, there's NEVER any left at home," laughed the boy. "You see, mumsey works out—stairs and washings—so she gets some of her feed in them places, and Jerry picks his up where he can, except nights and mornings; he gets it with us then—if we've got any." ”

“ Pollyanna learned many things during the next half-hour. She learned that nice little girls do not take long walks alone in unfamiliar cities, nor sit on park benches and talk to strangers. She learned, also, that it was only by a "perfectly marvelous miracle" that she had reached home at all that night, and that she had escaped many, many very disagreeable consequences of her foolishness. She learned that Boston was not Beldingsville, and that she must not think it was.
"But, Mrs. Carew," she finally argued despairingly, "I AM here, and I didn't get lost for keeps. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Pollyanna looked shocked.
"Why, Mr. Pendleton, as if I'd let you spend it on me—all that money you've saved for the heathen!"
A dull red came to the man's face. He started to speak, but Pollyanna was still talking.
"Besides, anybody with such a lot of money as you have doesn't need me to make you glad about things. You're making other folks so glad giving them things that you just can't help being glad yourself! Why, look at those prisms you gave Mrs. Snow and me, and the gold piece you gave Nancy on her birthday, and—"
"Yes, yes—never mind about all that," interrupted the man. ”

“ Hence her determination to make the most of this one.
“My name's Pollyanna Whittier,” she began pleasantly. “What's yours?”
Again the boy stirred restlessly. He even almost got to his feet. But he settled back.
“Jimmy Bean,” he grunted with ungracious indifference.
“Good! Now we're introduced. I'm glad you did your part—some folks don't, you know. I live at Miss Polly Harrington's house. Where do you live?”
“Nowhere.”
“Nowhere! Why, you can't do that—everybody lives somewhere,” asserted Pollyanna. ”

“ 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
"‘I DON'T KNOW HER NAME YET, BUT I KNOW HER, SO IT'S ALL RIGHT.’"
have any Christmas tree only blistered feet and chicken pie ”

“ CHAPTER V POLLYANNA TAKES A WALK It was on the second Saturday afternoon that Pollyanna took her memorable walk. Heretofore Pollyanna had not walked out alone, except to go to and from school. That she would ever attempt to explore Boston streets by herself, never occurred to Mrs. Carew, hence she naturally had never forbidden it. In Beldingsville, however, Pollyanna had found—especially at the first—her chief diversion in strolling about the rambling old village streets in search of new friends and new adventures. ”