Pollyanna Grows Up - Eleanor H. Porter (read an ebook week .TXT) 📗

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’ downstairs. 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 downstairs⁠—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 downstairs 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, heartbreaking, 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 goodbye.

“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