POLLYANNA
Chapters 1 to 4 Chapters 5 to 8 Chapters 9 to 12
Chapters 13 to 16 Chapters 17 to 20 Chapters 21 to 24 Chapters 25 to 28 Chapters 29 to 32Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16CHAPTER XIII. IN PENDLETON WOODS
Pollyanna had not turned her steps toward home, when she left the chapel. She had turned them, instead, toward Pendleton Hill. It had been a hard day, for all it had been a "vacation one" (as she termed the infrequent days when there was no sewing or cooking lesson), and Pollyanna was sure that nothing would do her quite so much good as a walk through the green quiet of Pendleton Woods. Up Pendleton Hill, therefore, she climbed steadily, in spite of the warm sun on her back.
"I don't have to get home till half-past five, anyway," she was telling herself; "and it'll be so much nicer to go around by the way of the woods, even if I do have to climb to get there."
It was very beautiful in the Pendleton Woods, as Pollyanna knew by experience. But to-day it seemed even more delightful than ever, notwithstanding her disappointment over what she must tell Jimmy Bean to-morrow.
"I wish they were up here--all those ladies who talked so loud," sighed Pollyanna to herself, raising her eyes to the patches of vivid blue between the sunlit green of the tree-tops. "Anyhow, if they were up here, I just reckon they'd change and take Jimmy Bean for their little boy, all right," she finished, secure in her conviction, but unable to give a reason for it, even to herself.
Suddenly Pollyanna lifted her head and listened. A dog had barked some distance ahead. A moment later he came dashing toward her, still barking.
"Hullo, doggie--hullo!" Pollyanna snapped her fingers at the dog and looked expectantly down the path. She had seen the dog once before, she was sure. He had been then with the Man, Mr. John Pendleton. She was looking now, hoping to see him. For some minutes she watched eagerly, but he did not appear. Then she turned her attention toward the dog.
The dog, as even Pollyanna could see, was acting strangely. He was still barking--giving little short, sharp yelps, as if of alarm. He was running back and forth, too, in the path ahead. Soon they reached a side path, and down this the little dog fairly flew, only to come back at once, whining and barking.
"Ho! That isn't the way home," laughed Pollyanna, still keeping to the main path.
The little dog seemed frantic now. Back and forth, back and forth, between Pollyanna and the side path he vibrated, barking and whining pitifully. Every quiver of his little brown body, and every glance from his beseeching brown eyes were eloquent with appeal--so eloquent that at last Pollyanna understood, turned, and followed him.
Straight ahead, now, the little dog dashed madly; and it was not long before Pollyanna came upon the reason for it all: a man lying motionless at the foot of a steep, overhanging mass of rock a few yards from the side path.
A twig cracked sharply under Pollyanna's foot, and the man turned his head. With a cry of dismay Pollyanna ran to his side.
"Mr. Pendleton! Oh, are you hurt?"
"Hurt? Oh, no! I'm just taking a siesta in the sunshine," snapped the man irritably. "See here, how much do you know? What can you do? Have you got any sense?"
Pollyanna caught her breath with a little gasp, but--as was her habit--she answered the questions literally, one by one.
"Why, Mr. Pendleton, I--I don't know so very much, and I can't do a great many things; but most of the Ladies' Aiders, except Mrs. Rawson, said I had real good sense. I heard 'em say so one day--they didn't know I heard, though."
The man smiled grimly.
"There, there, child, I beg your pardon, I'm sure; it's only this confounded leg of mine. Now listen." He paused, and with some difficulty reached his hand into his trousers pocket and brought out a bunch of keys, singling out one between his thumb and forefinger. "Straight through the path there, about five minutes' walk, is my house. This key will admit you to the side door under the porte-cochere. Do you know what a porte-cochere is?"
"Oh, yes, sir. Auntie has one with a sun parlor over it. That's the roof I slept on--only I didn't sleep, you know. They found me."
"Eh? Oh! Well, when you get into the house, go straight through the vestibule and hall to the door at the end. On the big, flat-topped desk in the middle of the room you'll find a telephone. Do you know how to use a telephone?"
"Oh, yes, sir! Why, once when Aunt Polly--
"Never mind Aunt Polly now," cut in the man scowlingly, as he tried to move himself a little.
"Hunt up Dr. Thomas Chilton's number on the card you'll find somewhere around there--it ought to be on the hook down at the side, but it probably won't be. 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. "But I'm so glad I came! Can't _I_ do--"
"Yes, you can--but evidently you won't! WILL you go and do what I ask and stop talking," moaned the man, faintly. And, with a little sobbing cry, Pollyanna went.
Pollyanna did not stop now to look up at the patches of blue between the sunlit tops of the trees. She kept her eyes on the ground to make sure that no twig nor stone tripped her hurrying feet.
It was not long before she came in sight of the house. She had seen it before, though never so near as this. She was almost frightened now at the massiveness of the great pile of gray stone with its pillared verandas and its imposing entrance. Pausing only a moment, however, she sped across the big neglected lawn and around the house to the side door under the porte-cochere. Her fingers, stiff from their tight clutch upon the keys, were anything but skilful in their efforts to turn the bolt in the lock; but at last the heavy, carved door swung slowly back on its hinges.
Pollyanna caught her breath. In spite of her feeling of haste, she paused a moment and looked fearfully through the vestibule to the wide, sombre hall beyond, her thoughts in a whirl. This was John Pendleton's house; the house of mystery; the house into which no one but its master entered; the house which sheltered, somewhere--a skeleton. Yet she, Pollyanna, was expected to enter alone these fearsome rooms, and telephone the, doctor that the master of the house lay now--
With a little cry Pollyanna, looking neither to the right nor the left, fairly ran through the hall to the door at the end and opened it.
The room was large, and sombre with dark woods and hangings like the hall; but through the west window the sun threw a long shaft of gold across the floor, gleamed dully on the tarnished brass andirons in the fireplace, and touched the nickel of the telephone on the great desk in the middle of the room. It was toward this desk that Pollyanna hurriedly tiptoed.
The telephone card was not on its hook; it was on the floor. But Pollyanna found it, and ran her shaking forefinger down through the C's to "Chilton." In due time she had Dr. Chilton himself at the other end of the wires, and was tremblingly delivering her message and answering the doctor's terse, pertinent questions. This done, she hung up the receiver and drew a long breath of relief.
Only a brief glance did Pollyanna give about her; then, with a confused vision in her eyes of crimson draperies, book-lined walls, a littered floor, an untidy desk, innumerable closed doors (any one of which might conceal a skeleton), and everywhere dust, dust, dust, she fled back through the hall to the great carved door, still half open as she had left it.
In what seemed, even to the injured man, an incredibly short time, Pollyanna was back in the woods at the man's side.
"Well, what is the trouble? Couldn't you get in?" he demanded.
Pollyanna opened wide her eyes.
"Why, of course I could! I'm HERE," she answered. "As if I'd be here if I hadn't got in! And the doctor will be right up just as soon as possible with the men and things. He said he knew just where you were, so I didn't stay to show him. I wanted to be with you."
"Did you?" smiled the man, grimly. "Well, I can't say I admire your taste. I should think you might find pleasanter companions."
"Do you mean--because you're so--cross?
"Thanks for your frankness. Yes."
Pollyanna laughed softly.
"But you're only cross OUTSIDE--You arn't cross inside a bit!"
"Indeed! How do you know that?" asked the man, trying to change the position of his head without moving the rest of his body.
"Oh, lots of ways; there--like that--the way you act with the dog," she added, pointing to the long, slender hand that rested on the dog's sleek head near him. "It's funny how dogs and cats know the insides of folks better than other folks do, isn't it? Say, I'm going to hold your head," she finished abruptly.
The man winced several times and groaned once; softly while the change was being made; but in the end he found Pollyanna's lap a very welcome substitute for the rocky hollow in which his head had lain before.
"Well, that is--better," he murmured faintly.
He did not speak again for some time. Pollyanna, watching his face, wondered if he were asleep. She did not think he was. He looked as if his lips were tight shut to keep back moans of pain. Pollyanna herself almost cried aloud as she looked at his great, strong body lying there so helpless. One hand, with fingers tightly clenched, lay outflung, motionless. The other, limply open, lay on the dog's head. The dog, his wistful, eager eyes on his master's face, was motionless, too.
Minute by minute the time passed. The sun dropped lower in the west and the shadows grew deeper under the trees. Pollyanna sat so still she hardly seemed to breathe. A bird alighted fearlessly within reach of her hand, and a squirrel whisked his bushy tail on a tree-branch almost under her nose--yet with his bright little eyes all the while on the motionless dog.
At last the dog pricked up his cars and whined softly; then he gave a short, sharp bark. The next moment Pollyanna heard voices, and very soon their owners appeared three men carrying a stretcher and various other articles.
The tallest of the party--a smooth-shaven, kind-eyed man whom Pollyanna knew by sight as "Dr. Chilton"--advanced cheerily.
"Well, my little lady, playing nurse?"
"Oh, no, sir," smiled Pollyanna. "I've only held his head--I haven't given him a mite of medicine. But I'm glad I was here."
"So am I," nodded the doctor, as he turned his absorbed attention to the injured man.
CHAPTER XIV. JUST A MATTER OF JELLY
Pollyanna was a little late for supper on the night of the accident to John Pendleton; but, as it happened, she escaped without reproof.
Nancy met her at the door.
"Well, if I ain't glad ter be settin' my two eyes on you," she sighed in obvious relief. "It's half-past six!"
"I know it," admitted Pollyanna anxiously; "but I'm not to blame--truly I'm not. And I don't think even Aunt Polly will say I am, either."
"She won't have the chance," retorted Nancy, with huge satisfaction. "She's gone."
"Gone!" gasped Pollyanna. "You don't mean that I've driven her away?" Through Pollyanna's mind at the moment trooped remorseful memories of the morning with its unwanted boy, cat, and dog, and its unwelcome "glad" and forbidden "father that would spring to her forgetful little tongue. Oh, I DIDN'T drive her away?"
"Not much you did," scoff ed Nancy. "Her cousin died suddenly down to Boston, and she had ter go. She had one o' them yeller telegram letters after you went away this afternoon, and she won't be back for three days. Now I guess we're glad all right. We'll be keepin' house tergether, jest you and me, all that time. We will, we will!"
Pollyanna looked shocked.
"Glad! Oh, Nancy, when it's a funeral?"
"Oh, but 'twa'n't the funeral I was glad for, Miss Pollyanna. It was--" Nancy stopped abruptly. A shrewd twinkle came into her eyes. "Why, Miss Pollyanna, as if it wa'n't yerself that was teachin' me ter play the game," she reproached her gravely.
Pollyanna puckered her forehead into a troubled frown.
"I can't help it, Nancy," she argued with a shake of her head. "It must be that there are some things that 'tisn't right to play the game on--and I'm sure funerals is one of them. There's nothing in a funeral to be glad about."
Nancy chuckled.
"We can be glad 'tain't our'n," she observed demurely. But Pollyanna did not hear. She had begun to tell of the accident; and in a moment Nancy, open-mouthed, was listening.
At the appointed place the next afternoon, Pollyanna met Jimmy Bean according to agreement. As was to be expected, of course, Jimmy showed keen disappointment that the Ladies' Aid preferred a little India boy to himself.
"Well, maybe 'tis natural," he sighed. "Of course things you don't know about are always nicer'n things you do, same as the pertater on 'tother side of the plate is always the biggest. But I wish I looked that way ter somebody 'way off. Wouldn't it be jest great, now, if only somebody over in India wanted ME?"
Pollyanna clapped her hands.
"Why, of course! That's the very thing, Jimmy! I'll write to my Ladies' Aiders about you. They aren't over in India; they're only out West--but that's awful far away, just the same. I reckon you'd think so if you'd come all the way here as I did!"
Jimmy's face brightened.
"Do you think they would--truly--take me?" he asked.
"Of course they would! Don't they take little boys in India to bring up? Well, they can just play you are the little India boy this time. I reckon you're far enough away to make a report, all right. You wait. I'll write 'em. I'll write Mrs. White. No, I'll write Mrs. Jones. Mrs. White has got the most money, but Mrs. Jones gives the most--which is kind of funny, isn't it?--when you think of it. But I reckon some of the Aiders will take you."
"All right--but don't furgit ter say I'll work fur my board an' keep," put in Jimmy. "I ain't no beggar, an' biz'ness is biz'ness, even with Ladies' Aiders, I'm thinkin'." He hesitated, then added: "An' I s'pose I better stay where I be fur a spell yet--till you hear."
"Of course," nodded Pollyanna emphatically. "Then I'll know just where to find you. And they'll take you--I'm sure you're far enough away for that. Didn't Aunt Polly take--Say!" she broke off, suddenly, "DO you suppose I was Aunt Polly's little girl from India?"
"Well, if you ain't the queerest kid," grinned Jimmy, as he turned away.
It was about a week after the accident in Pendleton Woods that Pollyanna said to her aunt one morning:
"Aunt Polly, please would you mind very much if I took Mrs. Snow's calf's-foot jelly this week to some one else? I'm sure Mrs. Snow wouldn't--this once."
"Dear me, Pollyanna, what ARE you up to now? sighed her aunt. "You ARE the most extraordinary child!"
Pollyanna frowned a little anxiously.
"Aunt Polly, please, what is extraordinary? If you're EXtraordinary you can't be ORdinary, can you?"
"You certainly can not."
"Oh, that's all right, then. I'm glad I'm EXtraordinary," sighed Pollyanna, her face clearing. "You see, Mrs. White used to say Mrs. Rawson was a very ordinary woman--and she disliked Mrs. Rawson something awful. They were always fight--I mean, father had--that is, I mean, WE had more trouble keeping peace between them than we did between any of the rest of the Aiders," corrected Pollyanna, a little breathless from her efforts to steer between the Scylla of her father's past commands in regard to speaking of church quarrels, and the Charybdis of her aunt's present commands in regard to speaking of her father.
"Yes, yes; well, never mind," interposed Aunt Polly, a trifle impatiently. "You do run on so, Pollyanna, and no matter what we're talking about you always bring up at those Ladies' Aiders!"
"Yes'm," smiled Pollyanna, cheerfully, "I reckon I do, maybe. But you see they used to bring me up, and--"
"That will do, Pollyanna," interrupted a cold voice. "Now what is it about this jelly?"
"Nothing, Aunt Polly, truly, that you would mind, I'm sure. You let me take jelly to HER, so I thought you would to HIM--this once. You see, broken legs aren't like--like lifelong invalids, so his won't last forever as Mrs. Snow's does, and she can have all the rest of the things after just once or twice."
" 'Him'? 'He'? 'Broken leg'? What are you talking about, Pollyanna?"
Pollyanna stared; then her face relaxed.
"Oh, I forgot. I reckon you didn't know. You see, it happened while you were gone. It was the very day you went that I found him in the woods, you know; and I had to unlock his house and telephone for the men and the doctor, and hold his head, and everything. And of course then I came away and haven't seen him since. But when Nancy made the jelly for Mrs. Snow this week I thought how nice it would be if I could take it to him instead of her, just this once. Aunt Polly, may I?"
"Yes, yes, I suppose so," acquiesced Miss Polly, a little wearily. "Who did you say he was?"
"The Man. I mean, Mr. John Pendleton."
Miss Polly almost sprang from her chair.
"JOHN PENDLETON!"
"Yes. Nancy told me his name. Maybe you know him."
Miss Polly did not answer this. Instead she asked:
"Do YOU know him?
Pollyanna nodded.
"Oh, yes. He always speaks and smiles--now. He's only cross OUTSIDE, you know. I'll go and get the jelly. Nancy had it 'most fixed when I came in," finished Pollyanna, already halfway across the room.
"Pollyanna, wait! Miss Polly's voice was suddenly very stern. I've changed my mind. I would prefer that Mrs. Snow had that jelly to-day--as usual. That is all. You may go now."
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."
Miss Polly began to shake her head again. Then, suddenly, she stopped, and asked in a curiously quiet voice:
"Does he know who you--are, Pollyanna?"
The little girl sighed.
"I reckon not. I told him my name, once, but he never calls me it--never."
"Does he know where you--live?"
"Oh, no. I never told him that."
"Then he doesn't know you're my--niece?"
"I don't think so."
For a moment there was silence. Miss Polly was looking at Pollyanna with eyes that did not seem to see her at all. The little girl, shifting impatiently from one small foot to the other, sighed audibly. Then Miss Polly roused herself with a start.
"Very well, Pollyanna," she said at last , still in that queer voice, so unlike her own; "you may you may take the jelly to Mr. 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.
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.
As before Pollyanna went to the side door. This time she rang the bell--her fingers were not stiff to-day from a tight clutch on a bunch of keys.
A familiar-looking small dog bounded up the steps to greet her, but there was a slight delay before the woman who had been hanging out the clothes opened the door.
"If you please, I've brought some calf's-foot jelly for Mr. Pendleton," smiled Pollyanna.
"Thank you," said the woman, reaching for the bowl in the little girl's hand. "Who shall I say sent it? And it's calf's-foot jelly?"
The doctor, coming into the hall at that moment, heard the woman's words and saw the disappointed look on Pollyanna's face. He stepped quickly forward.
"Ah! Some calf's-foot jelly?" he asked genially. "That will be fine! Maybe you'd like to see our patient, eh?"
"Oh, yes, sir," beamed Pollyanna; and the woman, in obedience to a nod from the doctor, led the way down the hall at once, though plainly with vast surprise on her face.
Behind the doctor, a young man (a trained nurse from the nearest city) gave a disturbed exclamation.
"But, Doctor, didn't Mr. Pendleton give orders not to admit--any one?"
"Oh, yes," nodded the doctor, imperturbably. "But I'm giving orders now. I'll take the risk." Then he added whimsically: "You don't know, of course; but that little girl is better than a six-quart bottle of tonic any day. If anything or anybody can take the grouch out of Pendleton this afternoon, she can. That's why I sent her in."
"Who is she?"
For one brief moment the doctor hesitated.
"She's the niece of one of our best known residents. Her name is Pollyanna Whittier. I--I don't happen to enjoy a very extensive personal acquaintance with the little lady as yet; but lots of my patients do--I'm thankful to say!
The nurse smiled.
"Indeed! And what are the special ingredients of this wonder-working--tonic of hers?"
The doctor shook his head.
"I don't know. As near as I can find out it is an overwhelming, unquenchable gladness for everything that has happened or is going to happen. At any rate, her quaint speeches are constantly being repeated to me, and, as near as I can make out, 'just being glad' is the tenor of most of them. All is," he added, with another whimsical smile, as he stepped out on to the porch, "I wish I could prescribe her--and buy her--as I would a box of pills;--though if there gets to be many of her in the world, you and I might as well go to ribbon-selling and ditch-digging for all the money we'd get out of nursing and doctoring," he laughed, picking up the reins and stepping into the gig.
Pollyanna, meanwhile, in accordance with the doctor's orders, was being escorted to John Pendleton's rooms.
Her way led through the great library at the end of the hall, and, rapid as was her progress through it, Pollyanna saw at once that great changes had taken place. The book-lined walls and the crimson curtains were the same; but there was no litter on the floor, no untidiness on the desk, and not so much as a grain of dust in sight. The telephone card hung in its proper place, and the brass andirons had been polished. One of the mysterious doors was open, and it was toward this that the maid led the way. A moment later Pollyanna found herself in a sumptuously furnished bedroom while the maid was saying in a frightened voice:
"If you please, sir, here--here's a little girl with some jelly. The doctor said I was to--to bring her in."
The next moment Pollyanna found herself alone with a very cross-looking man lying flat on his back in bed.
"See here, didn't I say--" began an angry voice. "Oh, it's you!" it broke off not very graciously, as Pollyanna advanced toward the bed.
"Yes, sir," smiled Pollyanna. "Oh, I'm so glad they let me in! You see, at first the lady 'most took my jelly, and I was so afraid I wasn't going to see you at all. Then the doctor came, and he said I might. Wasn't he lovely to let me see you?"
In spite of himself the man's lips twitched into a smile; but all he said was "Humph!"
"And I've brought you some jelly," resumed Pollyanna; "--calf's-foot. I hope you like it?" There was a rising inflection in her voice.
"Never ate it." The fleeting smile had gone, and the scowl had come back to the man's face.
For a brief instant Pollyanna's countenance showed disappointment; but it cleared as she set the bowl of jelly down.
"Didn't you? Well, if you didn't, then you can't know you DON'T like it, anyhow, can you? So I reckon I'm glad you haven't, after all. Now, if you knew--"
"Yes, yes; well, there's one thing I know all right, and that is that I'm flat on my back right here this minute, and that I'm liable to stay here--till doomsday, I guess."
Pollyanna looked shocked.
"Oh, no! It couldn't be till doomsday, you know, when the angel Gabriel blows his trumpet, unless it should come quicker than we think it will--oh, of course, I know the Bible says it may come quicker than we think, but I don't think it will--that is, of course I believe the Bible; but I mean I don't think it will come as much quicker as it would if it should come now, and--"
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. I should think you could be glad of that."
"Oh, I am," retorted the man grimly.
"And you didn't break but one. You can be glad 'twasn't two." Pollyanna was warming to her task.
"Of course! So fortunate," sniffed the man, with uplifted eyebrows; "looking at it from that standpoint, I suppose I might be glad I wasn't a centipede and didn't break fifty!"
Pollyanna chuckled.
"Oh, that's the best yet," she crowed. "I know what a centipede is; they've got lots of legs. And you can be glad--"
"Oh, of course," interrupted the man, sharply, all the old bitterness coming back to his voice; "I can be glad, too, for all the rest, I suppose--the nurse, and the doctor, and that confounded woman in the kitchen!"
"Why, yes, sir--only think how bad 'twould be if you DIDN'T have them!"
"Well, I--eh?" he demanded sharply.
"Why, I say, only think how bad it would be if you didn't have 'em--and you lying here like this!"
"As if that wasn't the very thing that was at the bottom of the whole matter," retorted the man, testily, "because I am lying here like this! And yet you expect me to say I'm glad because of a fool woman who disarranges the whole house and calls it 'regulating,' and a man who aids and abets her in it, and calls it 'nursing,' to say nothing of the doctor who eggs 'em both on--and the whole bunch of them, meanwhile, expecting me to pay them for it, and pay them well, too!"
Pollyanna frowned sympathetically.
"Yes, I know. THAT part is too bad--about the money--when you've been saving it, too, all this time."
"When--eh?"
"Saving it--buying beans and fish balls, you know. Say, DO you like beans?--or do you like turkey better, only on account of the sixty cents?"
"Look a-here, child, what are you talking about?"
Pollyanna smiled radiantly.
"About your money, you know--denying yourself, and saving it for the heathen. You see, I found out about it. Why, Mr. Pendleton, that's one of the ways I knew you weren't cross inside. Nancy told me."
The man's jaw dropped.
"Nancy told you I was saving money for the--Well, may I inquire who Nancy is?"
"Our Nancy. She works for Aunt Polly."
"Aunt Polly! Well, who is Aunt Polly?"
"She's Miss Polly Harrington. I live with her."
The man made a sudden movement.
"Miss--Polly--Harrington!" he breathed. "You live with--HER!"
"Yes; I'm her niece. She's taken me to bring up--on account of my mother, you know," faltered Pollyanna, in a low voice. "She was her sister. And after father--went to be with her and the rest of us in Heaven, there wasn't any one left for me down here but the Ladies' Aid; so she took me."
The man did not answer. His face, as he lay back on the pillow now, was very white--so white that Pollyanna was frightened. She rose uncertainly to her feet.
"I reckon maybe I'd better go now," she proposed. "I--I hope you'll like--the jelly."
The man turned his head suddenly, and opened his eyes. There was a curious longing in their dark depths which even Pollyanna saw, and at which she marvelled.
"And so you are--Miss Polly Harrington's niece," he said gently.
"Yes, sir."
Still the man's dark eyes lingered on her face, until Pollyanna, feeling vaguely restless, murmured:
"I--I suppose you know--her."
John Pendleton's lips curved in an odd smile.
"Oh, yes; I know her." He hesitated, then went on, still with that curious smile. "But--you don't mean--you can't mean that it was Miss Polly Harrington who sent that jelly--to me?" he said slowly,
Pollyanna looked distressed.
"N-no, sir: she didn't. She said I must be very sure not to let you think she did send it. But I--"
"I thought as much," vouchsafed the man, shortly, turning away his head. And Pollyanna, still more distressed, tiptoed from the room.
Under the porte-cochere she found the doctor waiting in his gig. The nurse stood on the steps.
"Well, Miss Pollyanna, may I have the pleasure of seeing you home?" asked the doctor smilingly. "I started to drive on a few minutes ago; then it occurred to me that I'd wait for you."
"Thank you, sir. I'm glad you did. I just love to ride," beamed Pollyanna, as he reached out his hand to help her in.
"Do you?" smiled the doctor, nodding his head in farewell to the young man on the steps. "Well, as near as I can judge, there are a good many things you 'love' to do--eh?" he added, as they drove briskly away.
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.
"Does she? Well, I should think she might say--just that."
"Yes," responded Pollyanna. "But I don't see it that way at all. I don't think you have to LEARN how to live. I didn't, anyhow."
The doctor drew a long sigh.
"After all, I'm afraid some of us--do have to, little girl," he said. Then, for a time he was silent. Pollyanna, stealing a glance at his face, felt vaguely sorry for him. He looked so sad. She wished, uneasily, that she could "do something." It was this, perhaps, that caused her to say in a timid voice:
"Dr. Chilton, I should think being a doctor would, be the very gladdest kind of a business there was."
The doctor turned in surprise.
" 'Gladdest'!--when I see so much suffering always, everywhere I go?" he cried.
She nodded.
"I know; but you're HELPING it--don't you see?--and of course you're glad to help it! And so that makes you the gladdest of any of us, all the time."
The doctor's eyes filled with sudden hot tears. The doctor's life was a singularly lonely one. He had no wife and no home save his two-room office in a boarding house. His profession was very dear to him. Looking now into Pollyanna's shining eyes, he felt as if a loving hand had been suddenly laid on his head in blessing. He knew, too, that never again would a long day's work or a long night's weariness be quite without that new-found exaltation that had come to him through Pollyanna's eyes.
"God bless you, little girl," he said unsteadily. Then, with the bright smile his patients knew and loved so well, he added: "And I'm thinking, after all, that it was the doctor, quite as much as his patients, that needed a draft of that tonic!" All of which puzzled Pollyanna very much--until a chipmunk, running across the road, drove the whole matter from her mind.
The doctor left Pollyanna at her own door, smiled at Nancy, who was sweeping off the front porch, then drove rapidly away.
"I've had a perfectly beautiful ride with the doctor," announced Pollyanna, bounding up the steps. "He's lovely, Nancy!"
"Is he?"
"Yes. And I told him I should think his business would be the very gladdest one there was."
"What!--goin' ter see sick folks--an' folks what ain't sick but thinks they is, which is worse? Nancy's face showed open skepticism.
Pollyanna laughed gleefully.
"Yes. That's 'most what he said, too; but there is a way to be glad, even then. Guess!"
Nancy frowned in meditation. Nancy was getting so she could play this game of "being glad" quite successfully, she thought. She rather enjoyed studying out Pollyanna's "posers," too, as she called some of the little girl's questions.
"Oh, I know," she chuckled. "It's just the opposite from what you told Mis' Snow."
"Opposite?" repeated Pollyanna, obviously puzzled.
"Yes. You told her she could be glad because other folks wasn't like her--all sick, you know."
"Yes," nodded Pollyanna.
"Well, the doctor can be glad because he isn't like other folks--the sick ones, I mean, what he doctors," finished Nancy in triumph.
It was Pollyanna's turn to frown.
"Why, y-yes," she admitted. "Of course that IS one way, but it isn't the way I said; and--someway, I don't seem to quite like the sound of it. It isn't exactly as if he said he was glad they WERE sick, but--You do play the game so funny, sometimes Nancy," she sighed, as she went into the house.
Pollyanna found her aunt in the sitting room.
"Who was that man--the one who drove into the yard, Pollyanna?" questioned the lady a little sharply.
"Why, Aunt Polly, that was Dr. Chilton! Don't you know him?"
"Dr. Chilton! What was he doing--here?
"He drove me home. Oh, and I gave the jelly to Mr. Pendleton, and--"
Miss Polly lifted her head quickly.
"Pollyanna, he did not think I sent it?"
"Oh, no, Aunt Polly. I told him you didn't."
Miss Polly grew a sudden vivid pink.
"You TOLD him I didn't!"
Pollyanna opened wide her eyes at the remonstrative dismay in her aunt's voice.
"Why, Aunt Polly, you SAID to!"
Aunt Polly sighed.
"I SAID, Pollyanna, that I did not send it, and for you to be very sure that he did not think I DID!--which is a very different matter from TELLING him outright that I did not send it." And she turned vexedly away.
"Dear me! Well, I don't see where the difference is," sighed Pollyanna, as she went to hang her hat on the one particular hook in the house upon which Aunt Polly had said that it must be hung.
CHAPTER XVI. A RED ROSE AND A LACE SHAWL
It was on a rainy day about a week after Pollyanna's visit to Mr. John Pendleton, that Miss Polly was driven by Timothy to an early afternoon committee meeting of the Ladies' Aid Society. When she returned at three o'clock, her cheeks were a bright, pretty pink, and her hair, blown by the damp wind, had fluffed into kinks and curls wherever the loosened pins had given leave.
Pollyanna had never before seen her aunt look like this.
"Oh--oh--oh! Why, Aunt Polly, you've got 'em, too," she cried rapturously, dancing round and round her aunt, as that lady entered the sitting room.
"Got what, you impossible child?"
Pollyanna was still revolving round and round her aunt.
"And I never knew you had 'em! Can folks have 'em when you don't know they've got 'em? DO you suppose I could?--'fore I get to Heaven, I mean," she cried, pulling out with eager fingers the straight locks above her ears. "But then, they wouldn't be black, if they did come. You can't hide the black part."
"Pollyanna, what does all this mean?" demanded Aunt Polly, hurriedly removing her hat, and trying to smooth back her disordered hair.
"No, no--please, Aunt Polly!" Pollyanna's jubilant voice turned to one of distressed appeal. "Don't smooth 'em out! It's those that I'm talking about--those darling little black curls. Oh, Aunt Polly, they're so pretty!"
"Nonsense! What do you mean, Pollyanna, by going to the Ladies' Aid the other day in that absurd fashion about that beggar boy?"
"But it isn't nonsense," urged Pollyanna, answering only the first of her aunt's remarks. "You don't know how pretty you look with your hair like that! Oh, Aunt Polly, please, mayn't I do your hair like I did Mrs. Snow's, and put in a flower? I'd so love to see you that way! Why, you'd be ever so much prettier than she was!"
"Pollyanna!" (Miss Polly spoke very sharply--all the more sharply because Pollyanna's words had given her an odd throb of joy: when before had anybody cared how she, or her hair looked? When before had anybody "loved" to see her "pretty"?) "Pollyanna, you did not answer my question. Why did you go to the Ladies' Aid in that absurd fashion?"
"Yes'm, I know; but, please, I didn't know it was absurd until I went and found out they'd rather see their report grow than Jimmy. So then I wrote to MY Ladies' Aiders--'cause Jimmy is far away from them, you know; and I thought maybe he could be their little India boy same as--Aunt Polly, WAS I your little India girl? And, Aunt Polly, you WILL let me do your hair, won't you?"
Aunt Polly put her hand to her throat--the old, helpless feeling was upon her, she knew.
"But, Pollyanna, when the ladies Old me this afternoon how you came to them, I was so ashamed! I--"
Pollyanna began to dance up and down lightly on her toes.
"You didn't!--You didn't say I COULDN'T do your hair," she crowed triumphantly; "and so I'm sure it means just the other way 'round, sort of--like it did the other day about Mr. Pendleton's jelly that you didn't send, but didn't want me to say you didn't send, you know. Now wait just where you are. I'll get a comb."
"But Pollyanna, Pollyanna," remonstrated Aunt Polly, following the little girl from the room and panting up-stairs after her.
"Oh, did you come up here?" Pollyanna greeted her at the door of Miss Polly's own room. "That'll be nicer yet! I've got the comb. Now sit down, please, right here. Oh, I'm so glad you let me do it!"
"But, Pollyanna, I--I "
Miss Polly did not finish her sentence. 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. My! I reckon folks'll be glad when they do see it--and surprised, too, 'cause you've hid it so long. Why, Aunt Polly, I'll make you so pretty everybody'll just love to look at you!"
"Pollyanna!" gasped a stifled but shocked voice from a veil of hair. I--I'm sure I don't know why I'm letting you do this silly thing."
"Why, Aunt Polly, I should think you'd be glad to have folks like to look at you! Don't you like to look at pretty things? I'm ever so much happier when I look at pretty folks, 'cause when I look at the other kind I'm so sorry for them."
"But--but--"
"And I just love to do folks' hair," purred Pollyanna, contentedly. "I did quite a lot of the Ladies' Aiders'--but there wasn't any of them so nice as yours. Mrs. White's was pretty nice, though, and she looked just lovely one day when I dressed her up in--Oh, Aunt Polly, I've just happened to think of something! But it's a secret, and I sha'n't tell. Now your hair is almost done, and pretty quick I'm going to leave you just a minute; and you must promise--promise--PROMISE not to stir nor peek, even, till I come back. Now remember! she finished, as she ran from the room.
Aloud Miss Polly said nothing. To herself she said that of course she should at once undo the absurd work of her niece's fingers, and put her hair up properly again. As for "peeking" just as if she cared how--
At that moment--unaccountably--Miss Polly caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror of the dressing table. And what she saw sent such a flush of rosy color to her cheeks that--she only flushed the more at the sight.
She saw a face--not young, it is true--but just now alight with excitement and surprise. The cheeks were a pretty pink. The eyes sparkled. The hair, dark, and still damp from the outdoor air, lay in loose waves about the forehead and curved back over the ears in wonderfully becoming lines, with softening little curls here and there.
So amazed and so absorbed was Miss Polly with what she saw in the glass that she quite forgot her determination to do over her hair, until she heard Pollyanna enter the room again. Before she could move, then, she felt a folded something slipped across her eyes and tied in the back.
"Pollyanna, Pollyanna! What are you doing?" she cried.
Pollyanna chuckled.
"That's just what I don't want you to know, Aunt Polly, and I was afraid you WOULD peek, so I tied on the handkerchief. Now sit still. It won't take but just a minute, then I'll let you see."
"But, Pollyanna," began Miss Polly, struggling blindly to her feet, "you must take this off! You--child, child! what ARE you doing?" she gasped, as she felt a soft something slipped about her shoulders.
Pollyanna only chuckled the more gleefully. With trembling fingers she was draping about her aunt's shoulders the fleecy folds of a beautiful lace shawl, yellowed from long years of packing away, and fragrant with lavender. Pollyanna had found the shawl the week before when Nancy had been regulating the attic; and it had occurred to her to-day that there was no reason why her aunt, as well as Mrs. White of her Western home, should not be "dressed up."
Her task completed, Pollyanna surveyed her work with eyes that approved, but that saw yet one touch wanting. Promptly, therefore, she pulled her aunt toward the sun parlor where she could see a belated red rose blooming on the trellis within reach of her hand.
"Pollyanna, what are you doing? Where are you taking me to?" recoiled Aunt Polly, vainly trying to hold herself back. "Pollyanna, I shall not--"
"It's just to the sun parlor--only a minute! I'll have you ready now quicker'n no time," panted Pollyanna, reaching for the rose and thrusting it into the soft hair above Miss Polly's left ear. "There!" she exulted, untying the knot of the handkerchief and flinging the bit of linen far from her. "Oh, Aunt Polly, now I reckon you'll be glad I dressed you up!"
For one dazed moment Miss Polly looked at her bedecked self, and at her surroundings; then she gave a low cry and fled to her room. Pollyanna, following the direction of her aunt's last dismayed gaze, saw, through the open windows of the sun parlor, the horse and gig turning into the driveway. She recognized at once the man who held the reins. Delightedly she leaned forward.
"Dr. Chilton, Dr. Chilton! Did you want to see me? I'm up here."
"Yes," smiled the doctor, a little gravely. "Will you come down, please?"
In the bedroom Pollyanna found a flushed-faced, angry-eyed woman plucking at the pins that held a lace shawl in place.
"Pollyanna, how could you?" moaned the woman. "To think of your rigging me up like this, and then letting me--BE SEEN!"
Pollyanna stopped in dismay.
"But you looked lovely--perfectly lovely, Aunt Polly; and--"
" 'Lovely'!" scorned the woman, flinging the shawl to one side and attacking her hair with shaking fingers.
"Oh, Aunt Polly, please, please let the hair stay!"
"Stay? Like this? As if I would!" And Miss Polly pulled the locks so tightly back that the last curl lay stretched dead at the ends of her fingers.
"O dear! And you did look so pretty," almost sobbed Pollyanna, as she stumbled through the door.
Down-stairs Pollyanna found the doctor waiting in his gig.
"I've prescribed you for a patient, and he's sent me to get the prescription filled," announced the doctor. "Will you go?"
"You mean--an errand--to the drug store?" asked Pollyanna, a little uncertainly. "I used to go some--for the Ladies' Aiders."
The doctor shook his head with a smile.
"Not exactly. It's Mr. John Pendleton. He would like to see you to-day, if you'll be so good as to come. It's stopped raining, so I drove down after you. Will you come? I'll call for you and bring you back before six o'clock."
"I'd love to!" exclaimed Pollyanna. "Let me ask Aunt Polly."
In a few moments she returned, hat in hand, but with rather a sober face.
"Didn't--your aunt want you to go?" asked the doctor, a little diffidently, as they drove away.
"Y-yes," sighed Pollyanna. "She--she wanted me to go TOO much, I'm afraid."
"Wanted you to go TOO MUCH!"
Pollyanna sighed again.
"Yes. I reckon she meant she didn't want me there. You see, she said: 'Yes, yes, run along, run along--do! I wish you'd gone before.' "
The doctor smiled--but with his lips only. His eyes were very grave. For some time he said nothing; then, a little hesitatingly, he asked:
"Wasn't it--your aunt I saw with you a few minutes ago--in the window of the sun parlor?
Pollyanna drew a long breath.
"Yes; that's what's the whole trouble, I suppose. You see I'd dressed her up in a perfectly lovely lace shawl I found up-stairs, and I'd fixed her hair and put on a rose, and she looked so pretty. Didn't YOU think she looked just lovely?"
For a moment the doctor did not answer. When he did speak his voice was so low Pollyanna could but just hear the words.
"Yes, Pollyanna, I--I thought she did look--just lovely."
"Did you? I'm so glad! I'll tell her," nodded the little girl, contentedly.
To her surprise the doctor gave a sudden exclamation.
"Never! Pollyanna, I--I'm afraid I shall have to ask you not to tell her--that."
"Why, Dr. Chilton! Why not? I should think you'd be glad--"
"But she might not be," cut in the doctor.
Pollyanna considered this for a moment.
"That's so--maybe she wouldn't," she sighed. "I remember now; 'twas 'cause she saw you that she ran. And she--she spoke afterwards about her being seen in that rig."
"I thought as much," declared the doctor, under his breath.
"Still, I don't see why," maintained Pollyanna, "--when she looked so pretty!"
The doctor said nothing. He did not speak again, indeed, until they were almost to the great stone house in which John Pendleton lay with a broken leg.