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

undercurrent of sadness in it all. She was thinking of Aunt Polly⁠—Aunt Polly who played the game now so seldom; and she was wondering if she herself always played it, when she might.

“Maybe I haven’t been careful, always, to hunt up the glad side of the things Aunt Polly says,” she thought with undefined guiltiness; “and maybe if I played the game better myself, Aunt Polly would play it⁠—a little. Anyhow I’m going to try. If I don’t look out, all these other people will be playing my own game better than I am myself!”

XXVI John Pendleton

It was just a week before Christmas that Pollyanna sent her story (now neatly typewritten) in for the contest. The prize-winners would not be announced until April, the magazine notice said, so Pollyanna settled herself for the long wait with characteristic, philosophical patience.

“I don’t know, anyhow, but I’m glad ’tis so long,” she told herself, “for all winter I can have the fun of thinking it may be the first one instead of one of the others, that I’ll get. I might just as well think I’m going to get it, then if I do get it, I won’t have been unhappy any. While if I don’t get it⁠—I won’t have had all these weeks of unhappiness beforehand, anyway; and I can be glad for one of the smaller ones, then.” That she might not get any prize was not in Pollyanna’s calculations at all. The story, so beautifully typed by Milly Snow, looked almost as good as printed already⁠—to Pollyanna.

Christmas was not a happy time at the Harrington homestead that year, in spite of Pollyanna’s strenuous efforts to make it so. Aunt Polly refused absolutely to allow any sort of celebration of the day, and made her attitude so unmistakably plain that Pollyanna could not give even the simplest of presents.

Christmas evening John Pendleton called. Mrs. Chilton excused herself, but Pollyanna, utterly worn out from a long day with her aunt, welcomed him joyously. But even here she found a fly in the amber of her content; for John Pendleton had brought with him a letter from Jimmy, and the letter was full of nothing but the plans he and Mrs. Carew were making for a wonderful Christmas celebration at the Home for Working Girls: and Pollyanna, ashamed though she was to own it to herself, was not in a mood to hear about Christmas celebrations just then⁠—least of all, Jimmy’s.

John Pendleton, however, was not ready to let the subject drop, even when the letter had been read.

“Great doings⁠—those!” he exclaimed, as he folded the letter.

“Yes, indeed; fine!” murmured Pollyanna, trying to speak with due enthusiasm.

“And it’s tonight, too, isn’t it? I’d like to drop in on them about now.”

“Yes,” murmured Pollyanna again, with still more careful enthusiasm.

“Mrs. Carew knew what she was about when she got Jimmy to help her, I fancy,” chuckled the man. “But I’m wondering how Jimmy likes it⁠—playing Santa Claus to half a hundred young women at once!”

“Why, he finds it delightful, of course!” Pollyanna lifted her chin ever so slightly.

“Maybe. Still, it’s a little different from learning to build bridges, you must confess.”

“Oh, yes.”

“But I’ll risk Jimmy, and I’ll risk wagering that those girls never had a better time than he’ll give them tonight, too.”

“Y-yes, of course,” stammered Pollyanna, trying to keep the hated tremulousness out of her voice, and trying very hard not to compare her own dreary evening in Beldingsville with nobody but John Pendleton to that of those fifty girls in Boston⁠—with Jimmy.

There was a brief pause, during which John Pendleton gazed dreamily at the dancing fire on the hearth.

“She’s a wonderful woman⁠—Mrs. Carew is,” he said at last.

“She is, indeed!” This time the enthusiasm in Pollyanna’s voice was all pure gold.

“Jimmy’s written me before something of what she’s done for those girls,” went on the man, still gazing into the fire. “In just the last letter before this he wrote a lot about it, and about her. He said he always admired her, but never so much as now, when he can see what she really is.”

“She’s a dear⁠—that’s what Mrs. Carew is,” declared Pollyanna, warmly. “She’s a dear in every way, and I love her.”

John Pendleton stirred suddenly. He turned to Pollyanna with an oddly whimsical look in his eyes.

“I know you do, my dear. For that matter, there may be others, too⁠—that love her.”

Pollyanna’s heart skipped a beat. A sudden thought came to her with stunning, blinding force. Jimmy! Could John Pendleton be meaning that Jimmy cared that way⁠—for Mrs. Carew?

“You mean⁠—?” she faltered. She could not finish.

With a nervous twitch peculiar to him, John Pendleton got to his feet.

“I mean⁠—the girls, of course,” he answered lightly, still with that whimsical smile. “Don’t you suppose those fifty girls⁠—love her ’most to death?”

Pollyanna said “yes, of course,” and murmured something else appropriate, in answer to John Pendleton’s next remark. But her thoughts were in a tumult, and she let the man do most of the talking for the rest of the evening.

Nor did John Pendleton seem averse to this. Restlessly he took a turn or two about the room, then sat down in his old place. And when he spoke, it was on his old subject, Mrs. Carew.

“Queer⁠—about that Jamie of hers, isn’t it? I wonder if he is her nephew.”

As Pollyanna did not answer, the man went on, after a moment’s silence.

“He’s a fine fellow, anyway. I like him. There’s something fine and genuine about him. She’s bound up in him. That’s plain to be seen, whether he’s really her kin or not.”

There was⁠—another pause, then, in a slightly altered voice, John Pendleton said:

“Still it’s queer, too, when you come to think of it, that she never⁠—married again. She is certainly now⁠—a very beautiful woman. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes⁠—yes, indeed she is,” plunged in Pollyanna, with precipitate haste; “a⁠—a very beautiful woman.”

There was a little break at the last in Pollyanna’s voice. Pollyanna, just then, had caught sight of her own face