Pollyanna
A faint doubt crossed Pollyanna's countenance.
“Well, of course, Aunt Polly isn't won over, yet; but I'm sure she will
be if you tell it to her just as you did to me, and then we'd both come,
of course.”
A look of actual terror leaped to the man's eyes.
“Aunt Polly come--HERE!”
Pollyanna's eyes widened a little.
“Would you rather go THERE?” she asked. “Of course the house isn't quite
so pretty, but it's nearer--”
“Pollyanna, what ARE you talking about?” asked the man, very gently now.
“Why, about where we're going to live, of course,” rejoined Pollyanna,
in obvious surprise. “I THOUGHT you meant here, at first. You said it
was here that you had wanted Aunt Polly's hand and heart all these years
to make a home, and--”
An inarticulate cry came from the man's throat. He raised his hand and
began to speak; but the next moment he dropped his hand nervelessly at
his side.
“The doctor, sir,” said the maid in the doorway.
Pollyanna rose at once.
John Pendleton turned to her feverishly.
“Pollyanna, for Heaven's sake, say nothing of what I asked you--yet,” he
begged, in a low voice. Pollyanna dimpled into a sunny smile.
“Of course not! Just as if I didn't know you'd rather tell her
yourself!” she called back merrily over her shoulder.
John Pendleton fell limply back in his chair.
“Why, what's up?” demanded the doctor, a minute later, his fingers on
his patient's galloping pulse.
A whimsical smile trembled on John Pendleton's lips.
“Overdose of your--tonic, I guess,” he laughed, as he noted the doctor's
eyes following Pollyanna's little figure down the driveway.
CHAPTER XX. WHICH IS MORE SURPRISING
Sunday mornings Pollyanna usually attended church and Sunday school.
Sunday afternoons she frequently went for a walk with Nancy. She had
planned one for the day after her Saturday afternoon visit to Mr. John
Pendleton; but on the way home from Sunday school Dr. Chilton overtook
her in his gig, and brought his horse to a stop.
“Suppose you let me drive you home, Pollyanna,” he suggested. “I want
to speak to you a minute. I, was just driving out to your place to
tell you,” he went on, as Pollyanna settled herself at his side.
“Mr. Pendleton sent a special request for you to go to see him this
afternoon, SURE. He says it's very important.”
Pollyanna nodded happily.
“Yes, it is, I know. I'll go.”
The doctor eyed her with some surprise.
“I'm not sure I shall let you, after all,” he declared, his eyes
twinkling. “You seemed more upsetting than soothing yesterday, young
lady.”
Pollyanna laughed.
“Oh, it wasn't me, truly--not really, you know; not so much as it was
Aunt Polly.”
The doctor turned with a quick start.
“Your--aunt!” he ejaculated.
Pollyanna gave a happy little bounce in her seat.
“Yes. And it's so exciting and lovely, just like a story, you know.
I--I'm going to tell you,” she burst out, with sudden decision. “He
said not to mention it; but he wouldn't mind your knowing, of course. He
meant not to mention it to HER.”
“HER?”
“Yes; Aunt Polly. And, of course he WOULD want to tell her himself
instead of having me do it--lovers, so!”
“Lovers!” As the doctor said the word, the horse started violently, as
if the hand that held the reins had given them a sharp jerk.
“Yes,” nodded Pollyanna, happily. “That's the story-part, you see. I
didn't know it till Nancy told me. She said Aunt Polly had a lover years
ago, and they quarrelled. She didn't know who it was at first. But we've
found out now. It's Mr. Pendleton, you know.”
The doctor relaxed suddenly, The hand holding the reins fell limply to
his lap.
“Oh! No; I--didn't know,” he said quietly.
Pollyanna hurried on--they were nearing the Harrington homestead.
“Yes; and I'm so glad now. It's come out lovely. Mr. Pendleton asked
me to come and live with him, but of course I wouldn't leave Aunt Polly
like that--after she'd been so good to me. Then he told me all about
the woman's hand and heart that he used to want, and I found out that he
wanted it now; and I was so glad! For of course if he wants to make up
the quarrel, everything will be all right now, and Aunt Polly and I will
both go to live there, or else he'll come to live with us. Of course
Aunt Polly doesn't know yet, and we haven't got everything settled; so I
suppose that is why he wanted to see me this afternoon, sure.”
The doctor sat suddenly erect. There was an odd smile on his lips.
“Yes; I can well imagine that Mr. John Pendleton does--want to see you,
Pollyanna,” he nodded, as he pulled his horse to a stop before the door.
“There's Aunt Polly now in the window,” cried Pollyanna; then, a second
later: “Why, no, she isn't--but I thought I saw her!”
“No; she isn't there--now,” said the doctor, His lips had suddenly lost
their smile.
Pollyanna found a very nervous John Pendleton waiting for her that
afternoon.
“Pollyanna,” he began at once. “I've been trying all night to puzzle
out what you meant by all that, yesterday--about my wanting your Aunt
Polly's hand and heart here all those years. What did you mean?”
“Why, because you were lovers, you know once; and I was so glad you
still felt that way now.”
“Lovers!--your Aunt Polly and I?”
At the obvious surprise in the man's voice, Pollyanna opened wide her
eyes.
“Why, Mr. Pendleton, Nancy said you were!”
The man gave a short little laugh.
“Indeed! Well, I'm afraid I shall have to say that Nancy--didn't know.”
“Then you--weren't lovers?” Pollyanna's voice was tragic with dismay.
“Never!”
“And it ISN'T all coming out like a book?”
There was no answer. The man's eyes were moodily fixed out the window.
“O dear! And it was all going so splendidly,” almost sobbed Pollyanna.
“I'd have been so glad to come--with Aunt Polly.”
“And you won't--now?” The man asked the question without turning his
head.
“Of course not! I'm Aunt Polly's.”
The man turned now, almost fiercely.
“Before you were hers, Pollyanna, you were--your mother's. And--it was
your mother's hand and heart that I wanted long years ago.”
“My mother's!”
“Yes. I had not meant to tell you, but perhaps it's better, after all,
that I do--now.” John Pendleton's face had grown very white. He
was speaking with evident difficulty. Pollyanna, her eyes wide and
frightened, and her lips parted, was gazing at him fixedly. “I loved
your mother; but she--didn't love me. And after a time she went away
with--your father. I did not know until then how much I did--care. The
whole world suddenly seemed to turn black under my fingers, and--But,
never mind. For long years I have been a cross, crabbed, unlovable,
unloved old man--though I'm not nearly sixty, yet, Pollyanna. Then,
One day, like one of the prisms that you love so well, little girl, you
danced into my life, and flecked my dreary old world with dashes of the
purple and gold and scarlet of your own bright cheeriness. I found out,
after a time, who you were, and--and I thought then I never wanted to
see you again. I didn't want to be reminded of--your mother. But--you
know how that came out. I just had to have you come. And now I want you
always. Pollyanna, won't you come NOW?”
“But, Mr. Pendleton, I--There's Aunt Polly!” Pollyanna's eyes were
blurred with tears.
The man made an impatient gesture.
“What about me? How do you suppose I'm going to be 'glad' about
anything--without you? Why, Pollyanna, it's only since you came that
I've been even half glad to live! But if I had you for my own little
girl, I'd be glad for--anything; and I'd try to make you glad, too, my
dear. You shouldn't have a wish ungratified. All my money, to the last
cent, should go to make you happy.”
Pollyanna looked shocked.
“Why, Mr. Pendleton, as if I'd let you spend it on me--all that money
you've saved for the heathen!”
A dull red came to the man's face. He started to speak, but Pollyanna
was still talking.
“Besides, anybody with such a lot of money as you have doesn't need me
to make you glad about things. You're making other folks so glad giving
them things that you just can't help being glad yourself! Why, look
at those prisms you gave Mrs. Snow and me, and the gold piece you gave
Nancy on her birthday, and--”
“Yes, yes--never mind about all that,” interrupted the man. His face
was very, very red now--and no wonder, perhaps: it was not for “giving
things” that John Pendleton had been best known in the past. “That's all
nonsense. 'Twasn't much, anyhow--but what there was, was because of you.
YOU gave those things; not I! Yes, you did,” he repeated, in answer to
the shocked denial in her face. “And that only goes to prove all the
more how I need you, little girl,” he added, his voice softening into
tender pleading once more. “If ever, ever I am to play the 'glad game,'
Pollyanna, you'll have to come and play it with me.”
The little girl's forehead puckered into a wistful frown.
“Aunt Polly has been so good to me,” she began; but the man interrupted
her sharply. The old irritability had come back to his face. Impatience
which would brook no opposition had been a part of John Pendleton's
nature too long to yield very easily now to restraint.
“Of course she's been good to you! But she doesn't want you, I'll
warrant, half so much as I do,” he contested.
“Why, Mr. Pendleton, she's glad, I know, to have--”
“Glad!” interrupted the man, thoroughly losing his patience now. “I'll
wager Miss Polly doesn't know how to be glad--for anything! Oh, she does
her duty, I know. She's a very DUTIFUL woman. I've had experience with
her 'duty,' before. I'll acknowledge we haven't been the best of friends
for the last fifteen or twenty years. But I know her. Every one knows
her--and she isn't the 'glad' kind, Pollyanna. She doesn't know how to
be. As for your coming to me--you just ask her and see if she won't let
you come. And, oh, little girl, little girl, I want you so!” he finished
brokenly.
Pollyanna rose to her feet with a long sigh.
“All right. I'll ask her,” she said wistfully. “Of course I don't mean
that I wouldn't like to live here with you, Mr. Pendleton, but--” She
did not complete her sentence. There was a moment's silence, then she
added: “Well, anyhow, I'm glad I didn't tell her yesterday;--'cause then
I supposed SHE was wanted, too.”
John Pendleton smiled grimly.
“Well, yes, Pollyanna; I guess it is just as well you didn't mention
it--yesterday.”
“I didn't--only to the doctor; and of course he doesn't count.”
“The doctor!” cried John Pendleton, turning quickly.
“Not--Dr.--Chilton?”
“Yes; when he came to tell me you wanted to see me to-day, you know.”
“Well, of all the--” muttered the man, falling back in his chair. Then
he sat up with sudden interest. “And what did Dr. Chilton say?” he
asked.
Pollyanna frowned thoughtfully.
“Why, I don't remember. Not much, I reckon. Oh, he did say he could well
imagine you did want to see me.”
“Oh, did he, indeed!” answered John Pendleton. And Pollyanna wondered
why he gave that sudden queer little laugh.
CHAPTER XXI. A QUESTION ANSWERED
The sky was darkening fast with what appeared to be an approaching
thunder shower when Pollyanna hurried down the hill from John
Pendleton's house. Half-way home she met Nancy with an umbrella. By that
time, however, the clouds had shifted their position and the shower was
not so imminent.
“Guess it's goin' 'round ter the north,” announced Nancy, eyeing the sky
critically. “I thought 'twas, all the time, but Miss Polly wanted me ter
come with this. She was WORRIED about ye!”
“Was she?” murmured Pollyanna abstractedly, eyeing the clouds in her
turn.
Nancy sniffed a little.
“You don't seem ter notice what I said,” she observed aggrievedly. “I
said yer aunt was WORRIED about ye!”