Pollyanna - Eleanor Hodgman Porter (e ink ebook reader txt) đ
- Author: Eleanor Hodgman Porter
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âWell, really!â she ejaculated then, in not quite an agreeable tone of voice.
âAnd now Iâll tell you the game,â proposed Pollyanna, blithely confident. âItâll be just lovely for you to playâitâll be so hard. And thereâs so much more fun when it is hard! You see, itâs like this.â And she began to tell of the missionary barrel, the crutches, and the doll that did not come.
The story was just finished when Milly appeared at the door.
âYour aunt is wanting you, Miss Pollyanna,â she said with dreary listlessness. âShe telephoned down to the Harlowsâ across the way. She says youâre to hurryâthat youâve got some practising to make up before dark.â
Pollyanna rose reluctantly.
âAll right,â she sighed. âIâll hurry.â Suddenly she laughed. âI suppose I ought to be glad Iâve got legs to hurry with, hadnât I, Mrs., Snow?â
There was no answer. Mrs. Snowâs eyes were closed. But Milly, whose eyes were wide open with surprise, saw that there were tears on the wasted cheeks.
âGood-by,â flung Pollyanna over her shoulder, as she reached the door. âIâm awfully sorry about the hairâI wanted to do it. But maybe I can next time!â
One by one the July days passed. To Pollyanna, they were happy days, indeed. She often told her aunt, joyously, how very happy they were. Whereupon her aunt would usually reply, wearily:
âVery well, Pollyanna. I am gratified, of course, that they are happy; but I trust that they are profitable, as wellâotherwise I should have failed signally in my duty.â
Generally Pollyanna would answer this with a hug and a kissâa proceeding that was still always most disconcerting to Miss Polly; but one day she spoke. It was during the sewing hour.
âDo you mean that it wouldnât be enough then, Aunt Polly, that they should be just happy days?â she asked wistfully.
âThat is what I mean, Pollyanna.â
âThey must be pro-fi-ta-ble as well?
âCertainly.â
âWhat is being pro-fi-ta-ble?
âWhy, itâitâs just being profitableâhaving profit, something to show for it, Pollyanna. What an extraordinary child you are!â
âThen just being glad isnât pro-fi-ta-ble?â questioned Pollyanna, a little anxiously.
âCertainly not.â
âO dear! Then you wouldnât like it, of course. Iâm afraid, now, you wonât ever play the game, Aunt Polly.â
âGame? What game?â
âWhy, that fatherââ Pollyanna clapped her hand to her lips. âN-nothing,â she stammered. Miss Polly frowned.
âThat will do for this morning, Pollyanna,â she said tersely. And the sewing lesson was over.
It was that afternoon that Pollyanna, coming down from her attic room, met her aunt on the stairway.
âWhy, Aunt Polly, how perfectly lovely!â she cried. âYou were coming up to see me! Come right in. I love company,â she finished, scampering up the stairs and throwing her door wide open.
Now Miss Polly had not been intending to call on her niece. She had been planning to look for a certain white wool shawl in the cedar chest near the east window. But to her unbounded surprise now, she found herself, not in the main attic before the cedar chest, but in Pollyannaâs little room sitting in one of the straight-backed chairsâso 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!
âI love company,â said Pollyanna, again, flitting about as if she were dispensing the hospitality of a palace; âspecially since Iâve had this room, all mine, you know. Oh, of course, I had a room, always, but âtwas a hired room, and hired rooms arenât half as nice as owned ones, are they? And of course I do own this one, donât I?â
âWhy, y-yes, Pollyanna,â murmured Miss Polly, vaguely wondering why she did not get up at once and go to look for that shawl.
âAnd of course NOW I just love this room, even if it hasnât got the carpets and curtains and pictures that Iâd been wantââ With a painful blush Pollyanna stopped short. She was plunging into an entirely different sentence when her aunt interrupted her sharply.
âWhatâs that, Pollyanna?â
âN-nothing, Aunt Polly, truly. I didnât mean to say it.â
âProbably not,â returned Miss Polly, coldly; âbut you did say it, so suppose we have the rest of it.â
âBut it wasnât anything only that Iâd been kind of planning on pretty carpets and lace curtains and things, you know,. But, of courseââ
âPLANNING on them!â interrupted Miss Polly, sharply.
Pollyanna blushed still more painfully.
âI ought not to have, of course, Aunt Polly,â she apologized. âIt was only because Iâd always wanted them and hadnât had them, I suppose. Oh, weâd had two rugs in the barrels, but they were little, you know, and one had ink spots, and the other holes; and there never were only those two pictures; the one fathâI mean the good one we sold, and the bad one that broke. Of course if it hadnât been for all that I shouldnât have wanted them, soâpretty things, I mean; and I shouldnât have got to planning all through the hall that first day how pretty mine would be here, andâand But, truly, Aunt Polly, it wasnât but just a minuteâI mean, a few minutesâbefore I was being glad that the bureau DIDNâT have a looking-glass, because it didnât show my freckles; and there couldnât be a nicer picture than the one out my window there; and youâve been so good to me, thatââ
Miss Polly rose suddenly to her feet. Her face was very red.
âThat will do, Pollyanna,â she said stiffly.
âYou have said quite enough, Iâm sure.â The next minute she had swept down the stairsâand not until she reached the first floor did it suddenly occur to her that she had gone up into the attic to find a white wool shawl in the cedar chest near the east window.
Less than twenty-four hours later, Miss Polly said to Nancy, crisply:
âNancy, you may move Miss Pollyannaâs things down-stairs this morning to the room directly beneath. I have decided to have my niece sleep there for the present.â
âYes, maâam,â said Nancy aloud.
âO glory!â said Nancy to herself.
To Pollyanna, a minute later, she cried joyously:
âAnd wonât ye jest be listeninâ ter this, Miss Pollyanna. Youâre ter sleep down-stairs in the room straight under this. You areâyou are!â
Pollyanna actually grew white.
âYou meanâwhy, Nancy, not reallyâreally and truly?â
âI guess youâll think itâs really and truly,â prophesied Nancy, exultingly, nodding her head to Pollyanna over the armful of dresses she had taken from the closet. âIâm told ter take down yer things, and Iâm goinâ ter take âem, too, âfore she gets a chance ter change her mind.â
Pollyanna did not stop to hear the end of this sentence. At the imminent risk of being dashed headlong, she was flying down-stairs, two steps at a time.
Bang went two doors and a chair before Pollyanna at last reached her goalâAunt Polly.
âOh, Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, did you mean it, really? Why, that roomâs got EVERYTHINGâthe carpet and curtains and three pictures, besides the one outdoors, too, âcause the windows look the same way. Oh, Aunt Polly!â
âVery well, Pollyanna. I am gratified that you like the change, of course; but if you think so much of all those things, I trust you will take proper care of them; thatâs all. Pollyanna, please pick up that chair; and you have banged two doors in the last half-minute.â Miss Polly spoke sternly, all the more sternly because, for some inexplicable reason, she felt inclined to cryâand Miss Polly was not used to feeling inclined to cry.
Pollyanna picked up the chair.
âYesâm; I know I banged âemâthose doors,â she admitted cheerfully. âYou see Iâd just found out about the room, and I reckon youâd have banged doors ifââ Pollyanna stopped short and eyed her aunt with new interest. âAunt Polly, DID you ever bang doors?â
âI hopeânot, Pollyanna!â Miss Pollyâs voice was properly shocked.
âWhy, Aunt Polly, what a shame!â Pollyannaâs face expressed only concerned sympathy.
âA shame!â repeated Aunt Polly, too dazed to say more.
âWhy, yes. You see, if youâd felt like banging doors youâd have banged âem, of course; and if you didnât, that must have meant that you werenât ever glad over anythingâor you would have banged âem. You couldnât have helped it. And Iâm so sorry you werenât ever glad over anything!â
âPollyANna!â gasped the lady; but Pollyanna was gone, and only the distant bang of the attic-stairway door answered for her. Pollyanna had gone to help Nancy bring down âher things.â
Miss Polly, in the sitting room, felt vaguely disturbed;âbut then, of course she HAD been gladâover some things!
CHAPTER XI. INTRODUCING JIMMY
August came. August brought several surprises and some changesânone of which, however, were really a surprise to Nancy. Nancy, since Pollyannaâs arrival, had come to look for surprises and changes.
First there was the kitten.
Pollyanna found the kitten mewing pitifully some distance down the road. When systematic questioning of the neighbors failed to find any one who claimed it, Pollyanna brought it home at once, as a matter of course.
âAnd I was glad I didnât find any one who owned it, too,â she told her aunt in happy confidence; â âcause I wanted to bring it home all the time. I love kitties. I knew youâd be glad to let it live here.â
Miss Polly looked at the forlorn little gray bunch of neglected misery in Pollyannaâs arms, and shivered: Miss Polly did not care for catsânot even pretty, healthy, clean ones.
âUgh! Pollyanna! What a dirty little beast! And itâs sick, Iâm sure, and all mangy and fleay.â
âI know it, poor little thing,â crooned Pollyanna, tenderly, looking into the little creatureâs frightened eyes. âAnd itâs all trembly, too, itâs so scared. You see it doesnât know, yet, that weâre going to keep it, of course.â
âNoânor anybody else,â retorted Miss Polly, with meaning emphasis.
âOh, yes, they do,â nodded Pollyanna, entirely misunderstanding her auntâs words. âI told everybody we should keep it, if I didnât find where it belonged. I knew youâd be glad to have itâpoor little lonesome thing!â
Miss Polly opened her lips and tried to speak; but in vain. The curious helpless feeling that had been hers so often since Pollyannaâs arrival, had her now fast in its grip.
âOf course I knew,â hurried on Pollyanna, gratefully, âthat you wouldnât let a dear little lonesome kitty go hunting for a home when youâd just taken ME in; and I said so to Mrs. Ford when she asked if youâd let me keep it. Why, I had the Ladiesâ Aid, you know, and kitty didnât have anybody. I knew youâd feel that way,â she nodded happily, as she ran from the room.
âBut, Pollyanna, Pollyanna,â remonstrated Miss Polly. âI donâtââ But Pollyanna was already halfway to the kitchen, calling:
âNancy, Nancy, just see this dear little kitty that Aunt Polly is going to bring up along with me!â And Aunt Polly, in the sitting roomâwho abhorred catsâfell back in her chair with a gasp of dismay, powerless to remonstrate.
The next day it was a dog, even dirtier and more forlorn, perhaps, than was the kitten; and again Miss Polly, to her dumfounded amazement, found herself figuring as a kind protector and an angel of mercyâa role that Pollyanna so unhesitatingly thrust upon her as a matter of course, that the womanâwho abhorred dogs even more than she did cats, if possibleâfound herself as before, powerless to remonstrate.
When, in less than a week, however, Pollyanna brought home a small,
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