Pollyanna
good to me, that--”
Miss Polly rose suddenly to her feet. Her face was very red.
“That will do, Pollyanna,” she said stiffly.
“You have said quite enough, I'm sure.” The next minute she had swept
down the stairs--and 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:
“Nancy, you may move Miss Pollyanna's things down-stairs this morning to
the room directly beneath. I have decided to have my niece sleep there
for the present.”
“Yes, ma'am,” said Nancy aloud.
“O glory!” said Nancy to herself.
To Pollyanna, a minute later, she cried joyously:
“And won't ye jest be listenin' ter this, Miss Pollyanna. You're ter
sleep down-stairs in the room straight under this. You are--you are!”
Pollyanna actually grew white.
“You mean--why, Nancy, not really--really and truly?”
“I guess you'll think it's really and truly,” prophesied Nancy,
exultingly, nodding her head to Pollyanna over the armful of dresses she
had taken from the closet. “I'm told ter take down yer things, and I'm
goin' ter take 'em, too, 'fore she gets a chance ter change her mind.”
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
goal--Aunt Polly.
“Oh, Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, did you mean it, really? Why, that room's
got EVERYTHING--the carpet and curtains and three pictures, besides
the one outdoors, too, 'cause the windows look the same way. Oh, Aunt
Polly!”
“Very 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; that's all. Pollyanna, please pick up that
chair; and you have banged two doors in the last half-minute.” Miss
Polly spoke sternly, all the more sternly because, for some inexplicable
reason, she felt inclined to cry--and Miss Polly was not used to feeling
inclined to cry.
Pollyanna picked up the chair.
“Yes'm; I know I banged 'em--those doors,” she admitted cheerfully. “You
see I'd just found out about the room, and I reckon you'd have banged
doors if--” Pollyanna stopped short and eyed her aunt with new interest.
“Aunt Polly, DID you ever bang doors?”
“I hope--not, Pollyanna!” Miss Polly's voice was properly shocked.
“Why, Aunt Polly, what a shame!” Pollyanna's face expressed only
concerned sympathy.
“A shame!” repeated Aunt Polly, too dazed to say more.
“Why, yes. You see, if you'd felt like banging doors you'd have banged
'em, of course; and if you didn't, that must have meant that you weren't
ever glad over anything--or you would have banged 'em. You couldn't have
helped it. And I'm so sorry you weren't ever glad over anything!”
“PollyANna!” 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 “her things.”
Miss Polly, in the sitting room, felt vaguely disturbed;--but then, of
course she HAD been glad--over some things!
CHAPTER XI. INTRODUCING JIMMY
August came. August brought several surprises and some changes--none
of which, however, were really a surprise to Nancy. Nancy, since
Pollyanna's 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.
“And I was glad I didn't find any one who owned it, too,” she told her
aunt in happy confidence; “'cause I wanted to bring it home all the
time. I love kitties. I knew you'd be glad to let it live here.”
Miss Polly looked at the forlorn little gray bunch of neglected misery
in Pollyanna's arms, and shivered: Miss Polly did not care for cats--not
even pretty, healthy, clean ones.
“Ugh! Pollyanna! What a dirty little beast! And it's sick, I'm sure, and
all mangy and fleay.”
“I know it, poor little thing,” crooned Pollyanna, tenderly, looking
into the little creature's frightened eyes. “And it's all trembly, too,
it's so scared. You see it doesn't know, yet, that we're going to keep
it, of course.”
“No--nor anybody else,” retorted Miss Polly, with meaning emphasis.
“Oh, yes, they do,” nodded Pollyanna, entirely misunderstanding her
aunt's words. “I told everybody we should keep it, if I didn't find
where it belonged. I knew you'd be glad to have it--poor little lonesome
thing!”
Miss Polly opened her lips and tried to speak; but in vain. The curious
helpless feeling that had been hers so often since Pollyanna's arrival,
had her now fast in its grip.
“Of course I knew,” hurried on Pollyanna, gratefully, “that you wouldn't
let a dear little lonesome kitty go hunting for a home when you'd just
taken ME in; and I said so to Mrs. Ford when she asked if you'd let me
keep it. Why, I had the Ladies' Aid, you know, and kitty didn't have
anybody. I knew you'd feel that way,” she nodded happily, as she ran
from the room.
“But, Pollyanna, Pollyanna,” remonstrated Miss Polly. “I don't--” But
Pollyanna was already halfway to the kitchen, calling:
“Nancy, Nancy, just see this dear little kitty that Aunt Polly is going
to bring up along with me!” And Aunt Polly, in the sitting room--who
abhorred cats--fell 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 mercy--a role that
Pollyanna so unhesitatingly thrust upon her as a matter of course,
that the woman--who abhorred dogs even more than she did cats, if
possible--found herself as before, powerless to remonstrate.
When, in less than a week, however, Pollyanna brought home a small,
ragged boy, and confidently claimed the same protection for him, Miss
Polly did have something to say. It happened after this wise.
On a pleasant Thursday morning Pollyanna had been taking calf's-foot
jelly again to Mrs. Snow. Mrs. Snow and Pollyanna were the best of
friends now. Their friendship had started from the third visit Pollyanna
had made, the one after she had told Mrs. Snow of the game. Mrs. Snow
herself was playing the game now, with Pollyanna. To be sure, she was
not playing it very well--she had been sorry for everything for so long,
that it was not easy to be glad for anything now. But under Pollyanna's
cheery instructions and merry laughter at her mistakes, she was learning
fast. To-day, even, to Pollyanna's huge delight, she had said that she
was glad Pollyanna brought calf's-foot jelly, because that was just what
she had been wanting--she did not know that Milly, at the front door,
had told Pollyanna that the minister's wife had already that day sent
over a great bowlful of that same kind of jelly.
Pollyanna was thinking of this now when suddenly she saw the boy.
The boy was sitting in a disconsolate little heap by the roadside,
whittling half-heartedly at a small stick.
“Hullo,” smiled Pollyanna, engagingly.
The boy glanced up, but he looked away again, at once.
“Hullo yourself,” he mumbled.
Pollyanna laughed.
“Now you don't look as if you'd be glad even for calf's-foot jelly,” she
chuckled, stopping before him.
The boy stirred restlessly, gave her a surprised look, and began to
whittle again at his stick, with the dull, broken-bladed knife in his
hand.
Pollyanna hesitated, then dropped herself comfortably down on the grass
near him. In spite of Pollyanna's brave assertion that she was “used
to Ladies' Aiders,” and “didn't mind,” she had sighed at times for some
companion of her own age. 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.
“Well, I don't--just now. I'm huntin' up a new place.”
“Oh! Where is it?”
The boy regarded her with scornful eyes.
“Silly! As if I'd be a-huntin' for it--if I knew!”
Pollyanna tossed her head a little. This was not a nice boy, and she
did not like to be called “silly.” Still, he was somebody besides--old
folks. “Where did you live--before?” she queried.
“Well, if you ain't the beat'em for askin' questions!” sighed the boy
impatiently.
“I have to be,” retorted Pollyanna calmly, “else I couldn't find out a
thing about you. If you'd talk more I wouldn't talk so much.”
The boy gave a short laugh. It was a sheepish laugh, and not quite a
willing one; but his face looked a little pleasanter when he spoke this
time.
“All right then--here goes! I'm Jimmy Bean, and I'm ten years old goin'
on eleven. I come last year ter live at the Orphans' Home; but they've
got so many kids there ain't much room for me, an' I wa'n't never
wanted, anyhow, I don't believe. So I've quit. I'm goin' ter live
somewheres else--but I hain't found the place, yet. I'd LIKE a
home--jest a common one, ye know, with a mother in it, instead of
a Matron. If ye has a home, ye has folks; an' I hain't had folks
since--dad died. So I'm a-huntin' now. I've tried four houses, but--they
didn't want me--though I said I expected ter work, 'course. There! Is
that all you want ter know?” The boy's voice had broken a little over
the last two sentences.
“Why, what a shame!” sympathized Pollyanna. “And didn't there anybody
want you? O dear! I know just how you feel, because after--after my
father died, too, there wasn't anybody but the Ladies' Aid for me, until
Aunt Polly said she'd take--” Pollyanna stopped abruptly. The dawning of
a wonderful idea began to show in her face.
“Oh, I know just the place for you,” she cried. “Aunt Polly'll take
you--I know she will! Didn't she take me? And didn't she take Fluffy
and Buffy, when they didn't have any one to love them, or any place to
go?--and they're only cats and dogs. Oh, come, I know Aunt Polly'll take
you! You don't know how good and kind she is!”
Jimmy Bean's thin little face brightened.
“Honest Injun? Would she, now? I'd work, ye know, an' I'm real strong!”
He bared a small, bony arm.
“Of course she would! Why, my Aunt Polly is the nicest lady in the
world--now that my mama has gone to be a Heaven angel. And there's
rooms--heaps of 'em,” she continued, springing to her feet, and tugging
at his arm. “It's an awful big house. Maybe, though,” she added a little
anxiously, as they hurried on, “maybe you'll have to sleep in the attic
room. I did, at first. But there's screens there now, so 'twon't be so
hot, and the flies can't get in, either, to bring in the germ-things on
their feet. Did you know about that? It's perfectly lovely! Maybe she'll
let you read the book if you're good--I mean, if you're bad. And you've
got freckles, too,”--with a critical glance--“so you'll be glad there
isn't any looking-glass; and the outdoor picture is nicer than any
wall-one could be, so you won't mind sleeping in that room at all, I'm
sure,” panted Pollyanna, finding suddenly that she needed the rest of
her breath for purposes other than talking.
“Gorry!” exclaimed Jimmy Bean tersely and uncomprehendingly, but