Pollyanna
home. She's been ter see 'em, ye know, twice, with me. She's made me
glad, too, on such a lot o' things--little things, an' big things; an'
it's made 'em so much easier. For instance, I don't mind 'Nancy' for
a name half as much since she told me I could be glad 'twa'n't
'Hephzibah.' An' there's Monday mornin's, too, that I used ter hate so.
She's actually made me glad for Monday mornin's.”
“Glad--for Monday mornings!”
Nancy laughed.
“I know it does sound nutty, ma'am. But let me tell ye. That blessed
lamb found out I hated Monday mornin's somethin' awful; an' what does
she up an' tell me one day but this: 'Well, anyhow, Nancy, I should
think you could be gladder on Monday mornin' than on any other day in
the week, because 'twould be a whole WEEK before you'd have another
one!' An' I'm blest if I hain't thought of it ev'ry Monday mornin'
since--an' it HAS helped, ma'am. It made me laugh, anyhow, ev'ry time I
thought of it; an' laughin' helps, ye know--it does, it does!”
“But why hasn't--she told me--the game?” faltered Miss Polly. “Why has
she made such a mystery of it, when I asked her?”
Nancy hesitated.
“Beggin' yer pardon, ma'am, you told her not ter speak of--her father;
so she couldn't tell ye. 'Twas her father's game, ye see.”
Miss Polly bit her lip.
“She wanted ter tell ye, first off,” continued Nancy, a little
unsteadily. “She wanted somebody ter play it with, ye know. That's why I
begun it, so she could have some one.”
“And--and--these others?” Miss Polly's voice shook now.
“Oh, ev'rybody, 'most, knows it now, I guess. Anyhow, I should think
they did from the way I'm hearin' of it ev'rywhere I go. Of course she
told a lot, and they told the rest. Them things go, ye know, when they
gets started. An' she was always so smilin' an' pleasant ter ev'ry
one, an' so--so jest glad herself all the time, that they couldn't
help knowin' it, anyhow. Now, since she's hurt, ev'rybody feels so
bad--specially when they heard how bad SHE feels 'cause she can't find
anythin' ter be glad about. An' so they've been comin' ev'ry day ter
tell her how glad she's made THEM, hopin' that'll help some. Ye see,
she's always wanted ev'rybody ter play the game with her.”
“Well, I know somebody who'll play it--now,” choked Miss Polly, as she
turned and sped through the kitchen doorway.
Behind her, Nancy stood staring amazedly.
“Well, I'll believe anythin'--anythin' now,” she muttered to herself.
“Ye can't stump me with anythin' I wouldn't believe, now--o' Miss
Polly!”
A little later, in Pollyanna's room, the nurse left Miss Polly and
Pollyanna alone together.
“And you've had still another caller to-day, my dear,” announced Miss
Polly, in a voice she vainly tried to steady. “Do you remember Mrs.
Payson?”
“Mrs. Payson? Why, I reckon I do! She lives on the way to Mr.
Pendleton's, and she's got the prettiest little girl baby three
years old, and a boy 'most five. She's awfully nice, and so's her
husband--only they don't seem to know how nice each other is. Sometimes
they fight--I mean, they don't quite agree. They're poor, too, they say,
and of course they don't ever have barrels, 'cause he isn't a missionary
minister, you know, like--well, he isn't.”
A faint color stole into Pollyanna's cheeks which was duplicated
suddenly in those of her aunt.
“But she wears real pretty clothes, sometimes, in spite of their being
so poor,” resumed Pollyanna, in some haste. “And she's got perfectly
beautiful rings with diamonds and rubies and emeralds in them; but she
says she's got one ring too many, and that she's going to throw it away
and get a divorce instead. What is a divorce, Aunt Polly? I'm afraid it
isn't very nice, because she didn't look happy when she talked about it.
And she said if she did get it, they wouldn't live there any more, and
that Mr. Payson would go 'way off, and maybe the children, too. But I
should think they'd rather keep the ring, even if they did have so many
more. Shouldn't you? Aunt Polly, what is a divorce?”
“But they aren't going 'way off, dear,” evaded Aunt Polly, hurriedly.
“They're going to stay right there together.”
“Oh, I'm so glad! Then they'll be there when I go up to see--O dear!”
broke off the little girl, miserably. “Aunt Polly, why CAN'T I remember
that my legs don't go any more, and that I won't ever, ever go up to see
Mr. Pendleton again?”
“There, there, don't,” choked her aunt. “Perhaps you'll drive up
sometime. But listen! I haven't told you, yet, all that Mrs. Payson
said. She wanted me to tell you that they--they were going to stay
together and to play the game, just as you wanted them to.”
Pollyanna smiled through tear-wet eyes.
“Did they? Did they, really? Oh, I am glad of that!”
“Yes, she said she hoped you'd be. That's why she told you, to make
you--GLAD, Pollyanna.”
Pollyanna looked up quickly.
“Why, Aunt Polly, you--you spoke just as if you knew--DO you know about
the game, Aunt Polly?”
“Yes, dear.” Miss Polly sternly forced her voice to be cheerfully
matter-of-fact. “Nancy told me. I think it's a beautiful game. I'm going
to play it now--with you.”
“Oh, Aunt Polly--YOU? I'm so glad! You see, I've really wanted you most
of anybody, all the time.”
Aunt Polly caught her breath a little sharply. It was even harder this
time to keep her voice steady; but she did it.
“Yes, dear; and there are all those others, too. Why, Pollyanna, I think
all the town is playing that game now with you--even to the minister! I
haven't had a chance to tell you, yet, but this morning I met Mr. Ford
when I was down to the village, and he told me to say to you that just
as soon as you could see him, he was coming to tell you that he hadn't
stopped being glad over those eight hundred rejoicing texts that you
told him about. So you see, dear, it's just you that have done it.
The whole town is playing the game, and the whole town is wonderfully
happier--and all because of one little girl who taught the people a new
game, and how to play it.”
Pollyanna clapped her hands.
“Oh, I'm so glad,” she cried. Then, suddenly, a wonderful light
illumined her face. “Why, Aunt Polly, there IS something I can be
glad about, after all. I can be glad I've HAD my legs, anyway--else I
couldn't have done--that!”
CHAPTER XXIX. THROUGH AN OPEN WINDOW
One by one the short winter days came and went--but they were not
short to Pollyanna. They were long, and sometimes full of pain. Very
resolutely, these days, however, Pollyanna was turning a cheerful face
toward whatever came. Was she not specially bound to play the game, now
that Aunt Polly was playing it, too? And Aunt Polly found so many things
to be glad about! It was Aunt Polly, too, who discovered the story
one day about the two poor little waifs in a snow-storm who found a
blown-down door to crawl under, and who wondered what poor folks did
that didn't have any door! And it was Aunt Polly who brought home the
other story that she had heard about the poor old lady who had only two
teeth, but who was so glad that those two teeth “hit”!
Pollyanna now, like Mrs. Snow, was knitting wonderful things out of
bright colored worsteds that trailed their cheery lengths across the
white spread, and made Pollyanna--again like Mrs. Snow--so glad she had
her hands and arms, anyway.
Pollyanna saw people now, occasionally, and always there were the loving
messages from those she could not see; and always they brought her
something new to think about--and Pollyanna needed new things to think
about.
Once she had seen John Pendleton, and twice she had seen Jimmy Bean.
John Pendleton had told her what a fine boy Jimmy was getting to be, and
how well he was doing. Jimmy had told her what a first-rate home he had,
and what bang-up “folks” Mr. Pendleton made; and both had said that it
was all owing to her.
“Which makes me all the gladder, you know, that I HAVE had my legs,”
Pollyanna confided to her aunt afterwards.
The winter passed, and spring came. The anxious watchers over
Pollyanna's condition could see little change wrought by the prescribed
treatment. There seemed every reason to believe, indeed, that Dr. Mead's
worst fears would be realized--that Pollyanna would never walk again.
Beldingsville, of course, kept itself informed concerning Pollyanna; and
of Beldingsville, one man in particular fumed and fretted himself into
a fever of anxiety over the daily bulletins which he managed in some way
to procure from the bed of suffering. As the days passed, however,
and the news came to be no better, but rather worse, something besides
anxiety began to show in the man's face: despair, and a very dogged
determination, each fighting for the mastery. In the end, the dogged
determination won; and it was then that Mr. John Pendleton, somewhat
to his surprise, received one Saturday morning a call from Dr. Thomas
Chilton.
“Pendleton,” began the doctor, abruptly, “I've come to you because you,
better than any one else in town, know something of my relations with
Miss Polly Harrington.”
John Pendleton was conscious that he must have started visibly--he
did know something of the affair between Polly Harrington and Thomas
Chilton, but the matter had not been mentioned between them for fifteen
years, or more.
“Yes,” he said, trying to make his voice sound concerned enough for
sympathy, and not eager enough for curiosity. In a moment he saw that he
need not have worried, however: the doctor was quite too intent on his
errand to notice how that errand was received.
“Pendleton, I want to see that child. I want to make an examination. I
MUST make an examination.”
“Well--can't you?”
“CAN'T I! Pendleton, you know very well I haven't been inside that door
for more than fifteen years. You don't know--but I will tell you--that
the mistress of that house told me that the NEXT time she ASKED me to
enter it, I might take it that she was begging my pardon, and that all
would be as before--which meant that she'd marry me. Perhaps you see her
summoning me now--but I don't!”
“But couldn't you go--without a summons?”
The doctor frowned.
“Well, hardly. _I_ have some pride, you know.”
“But if you're so anxious--couldn't you swallow your pride and forget
the quarrel--”
“Forget the quarrel!” interrupted the doctor, savagely. “I'm not talking
of that kind of pride. So far as THAT is concerned, I'd go from here
there on my knees--or on my head--if that would do any good. It's
PROFESSIONAL pride I'm talking about. It's a case of sickness, and I'm a
doctor. I can't butt in and say, 'Here, take me! can I?”
“Chilton, what was the quarrel?” demanded Pendleton.
The doctor made an impatient gesture, and got to his feet.
“What was it? What's any lovers' quarrel after it's over?” he snarled,
pacing the room angrily. “A silly wrangle over the size of the moon or
the depth of a river, maybe--it might as well be, so far as its having
any real significance compared to the years of misery that follow them!
Never mind the quarrel! So far as I am concerned, I am willing to say
there was no quarrel. Pendleton, I must see that child. It may mean life
or death. It will mean--I honestly believe--nine chances out of ten that
Pollyanna Whittier will walk again!”
The words were spoken clearly, impressively; and they were spoken just
as the one who uttered them had almost reached the open window near John
Pendleton's chair. Thus it happened that very distinctly they reached
the ears of a small boy kneeling beneath the window on the ground
outside.
Jimmy Bean, at his Saturday morning task of pulling up the first little
green weeds of the flowerbeds, sat up with ears and eyes wide open.
“Walk! Pollyanna!” John Pendleton was saying. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that from what I can hear and learn--a mile from her