Pollyanna
first place, wa'n't it? Well, one day I thinks I finds two and two, and
I puts 'em tergether an' makes four. But it turns out ter be five--an'
no four at all, at all!”
With a gesture of indifference Old Tom turned and fell to work.
“If you're goin' ter talk ter me, you've got ter talk plain horse
sense,” he declared testily. “I never was no hand for figgers.”
Nancy laughed.
“Well, it's this,” she explained. “I heard somethin' that made me think
him an' Miss Polly was lovers.”
“MR. PENDLETON!” Old Tom straightened up.
“Yes. Oh, I know now; he wasn't. It was that blessed child's mother he
was in love with, and that's why he wanted--but never mind that part,”
she added hastily, remembering just in time her promise to Pollyanna
not to tell that Mr. Pendleton had wished her to come and live with him.
“Well, I've been askin' folks about him some, since, and I've found out
that him an' Miss Polly hain't been friends for years, an' that she's
been hatin' him like pizen owin' ter the silly gossip that coupled their
names tergether when she was eighteen or twenty.”
“Yes, I remember,” nodded Old Tom. “It was three or four years after
Miss Jennie give him the mitten and went off with the other chap. Miss
Polly knew about it, of course, and was sorry for him. So she tried ter
be nice to him. Maybe she overdid it a little--she hated that minister
chap so who had took off her sister. At any rate, somebody begun ter
make trouble. They said she was runnin' after him.”
“Runnin' after any man--her!” interjected Nancy.
“I know it; but they did,” declared Old Tom, “and of course no gal of
any spunk'll stand that. Then about that time come her own lover an'
the trouble with HIM. After that she shut up like an oyster an' wouldn't
have nothin' ter do with nobody fur a spell. Her heart jest seemed to
turn bitter at the core.”
“Yes, I know. I've heard about that now,” rejoined Nancy; “an' that's
why you could 'a' knocked me down with a feather when I see HIM at the
door--him, what she hain't spoke to for years! But I let him in an' went
an' told her.”
“What did she say?” Old Tom held his breath suspended.
“Nothin'--at first. She was so still I thought she hadn't heard; and I
was jest goin' ter say it over when she speaks up quiet like: 'Tell Mr.
Pendleton I will be down at once.' An' I come an' told him. Then I come
out here an' told you,” finished Nancy, casting another backward glance
toward the house.
“Humph!” grunted Old Tom; and fell to work again.
In the ceremonious “parlor” of the Harrington homestead, Mr. John
Pendleton did not have to wait long before a swift step warned him of
Miss Polly's coming. As he attempted to rise, she made a gesture of
remonstrance. She did not offer her hand, however, and her face was
coldly reserved.
“I called to ask for--Pollyanna,” he began at once, a little brusquely.
“Thank you. She is about the same,” said Miss Polly.
“And that is--won't you tell me HOW she is?” His voice was not quite
steady this time.
A quick spasm of pain crossed the woman's face.
“I can't, I wish I could!”
“You mean--you don't know?”
“Yes.”
“But--the doctor?”
“Dr. Warren himself seems--at sea. He is in correspondence now with a
New York specialist. They have arranged for a consultation at once.”
“But--but what WERE her injuries that you do know?”
“A slight cut on the head, one or two bruises, and--and an injury to the
spine which has seemed to cause--paralysis from the hips down.”
A low cry came from the man. There was a brief silence; then, huskily,
he asked:
“And Pollyanna--how does she--take it?”
“She doesn't understand--at all--how things really are. And I CAN'T tell
her.”
“But she must know--something!”
Miss Polly lifted her hand to the collar at her throat in the gesture
that had become so common to her of late.
“Oh, yes. She knows she can't--move; but she thinks her legs
are--broken. She says she's glad it's broken legs like yours rather than
'lifelong-invalids' like Mrs. Snow's; because broken legs get well, and
the other--doesn't. She talks like that all the time, until it--it seems
as if I should--die!”
Through the blur of tears in his own eyes, the man saw the drawn face
opposite, twisted with emotion. Involuntarily his thoughts went back
to what Pollyanna had said when he had made his final plea for her
presence: “Oh, I couldn't leave Aunt Polly--now!”
It was this thought that made him ask very gently, as soon as he could
control his voice:
“I wonder if you know, Miss Harrington, how hard I tried to get
Pollyanna to come and live with me.”
“With YOU!--Pollyanna!”
The man winced a little at the tone of her voice; but his own voice was
still impersonally cool when he spoke again.
“Yes. I wanted to adopt her--legally, you understand; making her my
heir, of course.”
The woman in the opposite chair relaxed a little. It came to
her, suddenly, what a brilliant future it would have meant for
Pollyanna--this adoption; and she wondered if Pollyanna were old enough
and mercenary enough--to be tempted by this man's money and position.
“I am very fond of Pollyanna,” the man was continuing. “I am fond of
her both for her own sake, and for--her mother's. I stood ready to give
Pollyanna the love that had been twenty-five years in storage.”
“LOVE.” Miss Polly remembered suddenly why SHE had taken this child
in the first place--and with the recollection came the remembrance of
Pollyanna's own words uttered that very morning: “I love to be called
'dear' by folks that belong to you!” And it was this love-hungry little
girl that had been offered the stored-up affection of twenty-five
years:--and she was old enough to be tempted by love! With a sinking
heart Miss Polly realized that. With a sinking heart, too, she realized
something else: the dreariness of her own future now without Pollyanna.
“Well?” she said. And the man, recognizing the self-control that
vibrated through the harshness of the tone, smiled sadly.
“She would not come,” he answered.
“Why?”
“She would not leave you. She said you had been so good to her. She
wanted to stay with you--and she said she THOUGHT you wanted her to
stay,” he finished, as he pulled himself to his feet.
He did not look toward Miss Polly. He turned his face resolutely toward
the door. But instantly he heard a swift step at his side, and found a
shaking hand thrust toward him.
“When the specialist comes, and I know anything--definite about
Pollyanna, I will let you hear from me,” said a trembling voice.
“Good-by--and thank you for coming. Pollyanna will be pleased.”
CHAPTER XXV. A WAITING GAME
On the day after John Pendleton's call at the Harrington homestead, Miss
Polly set herself to the task of preparing Pollyanna for the visit of
the specialist.
“Pollyanna, my dear,” she began gently, “we have decided that we want
another doctor besides Dr. Warren to see you. Another one might tell us
something new to do--to help you get well faster, you know.”
A joyous light came to Pollyanna's face.
“Dr. Chilton! Oh, Aunt Polly, I'd so love to have Dr. Chilton! I've
wanted him all the time, but I was afraid you didn't, on account of his
seeing you in the sun parlor that day, you know; so I didn't like to say
anything. But I'm so glad you do want him!”
Aunt Polly's face had turned white, then red, then back to white again.
But when she answered, she showed very plainly that she was trying to
speak lightly and cheerfully.
“Oh, no, dear! It wasn't Dr. Chilton at all that I meant. It is a new
doctor--a very famous doctor from New York, who--who knows a great deal
about--about hurts like yours.”
Pollyanna's face fell.
“I don't believe he knows half so much as Dr. Chilton.”
“Oh, yes, he does, I'm sure, dear.”
“But it was Dr. Chilton who doctored Mr. Pendleton's broken leg,
Aunt Polly. If--if you don't mind VERY much, I WOULD LIKE to have Dr.
Chilton--truly I would!”
A distressed color suffused Miss Polly's face. For a moment she did not
speak at all; then she said gently--though yet with a touch of her old
stern decisiveness:
“But I do mind, Pollyanna. I mind very much. I would do anything--almost
anything for you, my dear; but I--for reasons which I do not care to
speak of now, I don't wish Dr. Chilton called in on--on this case. And
believe me, he can NOT know so much about--about your trouble, as this
great doctor does, who will come from New York to-morrow.”
Pollyanna still looked unconvinced.
“But, Aunt Polly, if you LOVED Dr. Chilton--”
“WHAT, Pollyanna?” Aunt Polly's voice was very sharp now. Her cheeks
were very red, too.
“I say, if you loved Dr. Chilton, and didn't love the other one,” sighed
Pollyanna, “seems to me that would make some difference in the good he
would do; and I love Dr. Chilton.”
The nurse entered the room at that moment, and Aunt Polly rose to her
feet abruptly, a look of relief on her face.
“I am very sorry, Pollyanna,” she said, a little stiffly; “but I'm
afraid you'll have to let me be the judge, this time. Besides, it's
already arranged. The New York doctor is coming to-morrow.”
As it happened, however, the New York doctor did not come “to-morrow.”
At the last moment a telegram told of an unavoidable delay owing to
the sudden illness of the specialist himself. This led Pollyanna into a
renewed pleading for the substitution of Dr. Chilton--“which would be so
easy now, you know.”
But as before, Aunt Polly shook her head and said “no, dear,” very
decisively, yet with a still more anxious assurance that she would do
anything--anything but that--to please her dear Pollyanna.
As the days of waiting passed, one by one, it did indeed, seem that Aunt
Polly was doing everything (but that) that she could do to please her
niece.
“I wouldn't 'a' believed it--you couldn't 'a' made me believe it,” Nancy
said to Old Tom one morning. “There don't seem ter be a minute in the
day that Miss Polly ain't jest hangin' 'round waitin' ter do somethin'
for that blessed lamb if 'tain't more than ter let in the cat--an' her
what wouldn't let Fluff nor Buff up-stairs for love nor money a week
ago; an' now she lets 'em tumble all over the bed jest 'cause it pleases
Miss Pollyanna!
“An' when she ain't doin' nothin' else, she's movin' them little glass
danglers 'round ter diff'rent winders in the room so the sun'll make
the 'rainbows dance,' as that blessed child calls it. She's sent Timothy
down ter Cobb's greenhouse three times for fresh flowers--an' that
besides all the posies fetched in ter her, too. An' the other day, if I
didn't find her sittin' 'fore the bed with the nurse actually doin' her
hair, an' Miss Pollyanna lookin' on an' bossin' from the bed, her eyes
all shinin' an' happy. An' I declare ter goodness, if Miss Polly hain't
wore her hair like that every day now--jest ter please that blessed
child!”
Old Tom chuckled.
“Well, it strikes me Miss Polly herself ain't lookin' none the
worse--for wearin' them 'ere curls 'round her forehead,” he observed
dryly.
“'Course she ain't,” retorted Nancy, indignantly. “She looks like
FOLKS, now. She's actually almost--”
“Keerful, now, Nancy!” interrupted the old man, with a slow grin. “You
know what you said when I told ye she was handsome once.”
Nancy shrugged her shoulders.
“Oh, she ain't handsome, of course; but I will own up she don't look
like the same woman, what with the ribbons an' lace jiggers Miss
Pollyanna makes her wear 'round her neck.”
“I told ye so,” nodded the man. “I told ye she wa'n't--old.”
Nancy laughed.
“Well, I'll own up she HAIN'T got quite so good an imitation of it--as
she did have, 'fore Miss Pollyanna come. Say, Mr. Tom, who WAS her A
lover? I hain't found that out, yet; I hain't, I hain't!”