Pollyanna
something with her hands and arms. And so she began to do something--to
knit, you know. And you can't think what a different room it is now,
what with the red and blue and yellow worsteds, and the prisms in the
window that SHE gave her--why, it actually makes you feel BETTER just to
go in there now; and before I used to dread it awfully, it was so dark
and gloomy, and mother was so--so unhappy, you know.
“And so we want you to please tell Miss Pollyanna that we understand
it's all because of her. And please say we're so glad we know her, that
we thought, maybe if she knew it, it would make her a little glad that
she knew us. And--and that's all,” sighed Milly, rising hurriedly to her
feet. “You'll tell her?”
“Why, of course,” murmured Miss Polly, wondering just how much of this
remarkable discourse she could remember to tell.
These visits of John Pendleton and Milly Snow were only the first of
many; and always there were the messages--the messages which were in
some ways so curious that they caused Miss Polly more and more to puzzle
over them.
One day there was the little Widow Benton. Miss Polly knew her well,
though they had never called upon each other. By reputation she knew
her as the saddest little woman in town--one who was always in black.
To-day, however, Mrs. Benton wore a knot of pale blue at the throat,
though there were tears in her eyes. She spoke of her grief and horror
at the accident; then she asked diffidently if she might see Pollyanna.
Miss Polly shook her head.
“I am sorry, but she sees no one yet. A little later--perhaps.”
Mrs. Benton wiped her eyes, rose, and turned to go. But after she had
almost reached the hall door she came back hurriedly.
“Miss Harrington, perhaps, you'd give her--a message,” she stammered.
“Certainly, Mrs. Benton; I shall be very glad to.”
Still the little woman hesitated; then she spoke.
“Will you tell her, please, that--that I've put on THIS,” she said, just
touching the blue bow at her throat. Then, at Miss Polly's ill-concealed
look of surprise, she added: “The little girl has been trying for so
long to make me wear--some color, that I thought she'd be--glad to know
I'd begun. She said that Freddy would be so glad to see it, if I would.
You know Freddy's ALL I have now. The others have all--” Mrs. Benton
shook her head and turned away. “If you'll just tell Pollyanna--SHE'LL
understand.” And the door closed after her.
A little later, that same day, there was the other widow--at least, she
wore widow's garments. Miss Polly did not know her at all. She wondered
vaguely how Pollyanna could have known her. The lady gave her name as
“Mrs. Tarbell.”
“I'm a stranger to you, of course,” she began at once. “But I'm not a
stranger to your little niece, Pollyanna. I've been at the hotel all
summer, and every day I've had to take long walks for my health. It was
on these walks that I've met your niece--she's such a dear little girl!
I wish I could make you understand what she's been to me. I was very
sad when I came up here; and her bright face and cheery ways reminded me
of--my own little girl that I lost years ago. I was so shocked to hear
of the accident; and then when I learned that the poor child would never
walk again, and that she was so unhappy because she couldn't be glad any
longer--the dear child!--I just had to come to you.”
“You are very kind,” murmured Miss Polly.
“But it is you who are to be kind,” demurred the other. “I--I want you
to give her a message from me. Will you?”
“Certainly.”
“Will you just tell her, then, that Mrs. Tarbell is glad now. Yes, I
know it sounds odd, and you don't understand. But--if you'll pardon me
I'd rather not explain.” Sad lines came to the lady's mouth, and the
smile left her eyes. “Your niece will know just what I mean; and I felt
that I must tell--her. Thank you; and pardon me, please, for any seeming
rudeness in my call,” she begged, as she took her leave.
Thoroughly mystified now, Miss Polly hurried up-stairs to Pollyanna's
room.
“Pollyanna, do you know a Mrs. Tarbell?”
“Oh, yes. I love Mrs. Tarbell. She's sick, and awfully sad; and she's
at the hotel, and takes long walks. We go together. I mean--we used to.”
Pollyanna's voice broke, and two big tears rolled down her cheeks.
Miss Polly cleared her throat hurriedly.
“We'll, she's just been here, dear. She left a message for you--but she
wouldn't tell me what it meant. She said to tell you that Mrs. Tarbell
is glad now.”
Pollyanna clapped her hands softly.
“Did she say that--really? Oh, I'm so glad!”
“But, Pollyanna, what did she mean?”
“Why, it's the game, and--” Pollyanna stopped short, her fingers to her
lips.
“What game?”
“N-nothing much, Aunt Polly; that is--I can't tell it unless I tell
other things that--that I'm not to speak of.”
It was on Miss Polly's tongue to question her niece further; but the
obvious distress on the little girl's face stayed the words before they
were uttered.
Not long after Mrs. Tarbell's visit, the climax came. It came in the
shape of a call from a certain young woman with unnaturally pink cheeks
and abnormally yellow hair; a young woman who wore high heels and cheap
jewelry; a young woman whom Miss Polly knew very well by reputation--but
whom she was angrily amazed to meet beneath the roof of the Harrington
homestead.
Miss Polly did not offer her hand. She drew back, indeed, as she entered
the room.
The woman rose at once. Her eyes were very red, as if she had been
crying. Half defiantly she asked if she might, for a moment, see the
little girl, Pollyanna.
Miss Polly said no. She began to say it very sternly; but something in
the woman's pleading eyes made her add the civil explanation that no one
was allowed yet to see Pollyanna.
The woman hesitated; then a little brusquely she spoke. Her chin was
still at a slightly defiant tilt.
“My name is Mrs. Payson--Mrs. Tom Payson. I presume you've heard of
me--most of the good people in the town have--and maybe some of the
things you've heard ain't true. But never mind that. It's about the
little girl I came. I heard about the accident, and--and it broke me
all up. Last week I heard how she couldn't ever walk again, and--and
I wished I could give up my two uselessly well legs for hers. She'd
do more good trotting around on 'em one hour than I could in a hundred
years. But never mind that. Legs ain't always given to the one who can
make the best use of 'em, I notice.”
She paused, and cleared her throat; but when she resumed her voice was
still husky.
“Maybe you don't know it, but I've seen a good deal of that little girl
of yours. We live on the Pendleton Hill road, and she used to go by
often--only she didn't always GO BY. She came in and played with the
kids and talked to me--and my man, when he was home. She seemed to like
it, and to like us. She didn't know, I suspect, that her kind of folks
don't generally call on my kind. Maybe if they DID call more, Miss
Harrington, there wouldn't be so many--of my kind,” she added, with
sudden bitterness.
“Be that as it may, she came; and she didn't do herself no harm, and she
did do us good--a lot o' good. How much she won't know--nor can't know,
I hope; 'cause if she did, she'd know other things--that I don't want
her to know.
“But it's just this. It's been hard times with us this year, in more
ways than one. We've been blue and discouraged--my man and me, and ready
for--'most anything. We was reckoning on getting a divorce about now,
and letting the kids well, we didn't know what we would do with the
kids. Then came the accident, and what we heard about the little girl's
never walking again. And we got to thinking how she used to come and
sit on our doorstep and train with the kids, and laugh, and--and just be
glad. She was always being glad about something; and then, one day, she
told us why, and about the game, you know; and tried to coax us to play
it.
“Well, we've heard now that she's fretting her poor little life out of
her, because she can't play it no more--that there's nothing to be glad
about. And that's what I came to tell her to-day--that maybe she can be
a little glad for us, 'cause we've decided to stick to each other, and
play the game ourselves. I knew she would be glad, because she used to
feel kind of bad--at things we said, sometimes. Just how the game is
going to help us, I can't say that I exactly see, yet; but maybe 'twill.
Anyhow, we're going to try--'cause she wanted us to. Will you tell her?”
“Yes, I will tell her,” promised Miss Polly, a little faintly. Then,
with sudden impulse, she stepped forward and held out her hand. “And
thank you for coming, Mrs. Payson,” she said simply.
The defiant chin fell. The lips above it trembled visibly. With an
incoherently mumbled something, Mrs. Payson blindly clutched at the
outstretched hand, turned, and fled.
The door had scarcely closed behind her before Miss Polly was
confronting Nancy in the kitchen.
“Nancy!”
Miss Polly spoke sharply. The series of puzzling, disconcerting visits
of the last few days, culminating as they had in the extraordinary
experience of the afternoon, had strained her nerves to the snapping
point. Not since Miss Pollyanna's accident had Nancy heard her mistress
speak so sternly.
“Nancy, WILL you tell me what this absurd 'game' is that the whole town
seems to be babbling about? And what, please, has my niece to do with
it? WHY does everybody, from Milly Snow to Mrs. Tom Payson, send word to
her that they're 'playing it'? As near as I can judge, half the town
are putting on blue ribbons, or stopping family quarrels, or learning to
like something they never liked before, and all because of Pollyanna. I
tried to ask the child herself about it, but I can't seem to make
much headway, and of course I don't like to worry her--now. But from
something I heard her say to you last night, I should judge you were one
of them, too. Now WILL you tell me what it all means?”
To Miss Polly's surprise and dismay, Nancy burst into tears.
“It means that ever since last June that blessed child has jest been
makin' the whole town glad, an' now they're turnin' 'round an' tryin'
ter make her a little glad, too.”
“Glad of what?”
“Just glad! That's the game.”
Miss Polly actually stamped her foot.
“There you go like all the rest, Nancy. What game?”
Nancy lifted her chin. She faced her mistress and looked her squarely in
the eye.
“I'll tell ye, ma'am. It's a game Miss Pollyanna's father learned her
ter play. She got a pair of crutches once in a missionary barrel when
she was wantin' a doll; an' she cried, of course, like any child would.
It seems 'twas then her father told her that there wasn't ever anythin'
but what there was somethin' about it that you could be glad about; an'
that she could be glad about them crutches.”
“Glad for--CRUTCHES!” Miss Polly choked back a sob--she was thinking of
the helpless little legs on the bed up-stairs.
“Yes'm. That's what I said, an' Miss Pollyanna said that's what she
said, too. But he told her she COULD be glad--'cause she DIDN'T NEED
'EM.”
“Oh-h!” cried Miss Polly.
“And after that she said he made a regular game of it--findin' somethin'
in everythin' ter be glad about. An' she said ye could do it, too, and
that ye didn't seem ter mind not havin' the doll so much, 'cause ye was
so glad ye DIDN'T need the crutches. An' they called it the 'jest bein'
glad' game. That's the game, ma'am. She's played it ever since.”
“But, how--how--” Miss Polly came to a helpless pause.
“An' you'd be surprised ter find how cute it works, ma'am, too,”
maintained Nancy, with almost the eagerness of Pollyanna herself. “I
wish I could tell ye what a lot she's done for mother an' the folks out