Pollyanna
“Oh, Nancy, I hadn't seen this before,” she breathed. “Look--'way off
there, with those trees and the houses and that lovely church spire, and
the river shining just like silver. Why, Nancy, there doesn't anybody
need any pictures with that to look at. Oh, I'm so glad now she let me
have this room!”
To Pollyanna's surprise and dismay, Nancy burst into tears. Pollyanna
hurriedly crossed to her side.
“Why, Nancy, Nancy--what is it?” she cried; then, fearfully: “This
wasn't--YOUR room, was it?”
“My room!” stormed Nancy, hotly, choking back the tears. “If you ain't
a little angel straight from Heaven, and if some folks don't eat dirt
before--Oh, land! there's her bell!” After which amazing speech, Nancy
sprang to her feet, dashed out of the room, and went clattering down the
stairs.
Left alone, Pollyanna went back to her “picture,” as she mentally
designated the beautiful view from the window. After a time she touched
the sash tentatively. It seemed as if no longer could she endure the
stifling heat. To her joy the sash moved under her fingers. The next
moment the window was wide open, and Pollyanna was leaning far out,
drinking in the fresh, sweet air.
She ran then to the other window. That, too, soon flew up under her
eager hands. A big fly swept past her nose, and buzzed noisily about
the room. Then another came, and another; but Pollyanna paid no heed.
Pollyanna had made a wonderful discovery--against this window a
huge tree flung great branches. To Pollyanna they looked like arms
outstretched, inviting her. Suddenly she laughed aloud.
“I believe I can do it,” she chuckled. The next moment she had climbed
nimbly to the window ledge. From there it was an easy matter to step to
the nearest tree-branch. Then, clinging like a monkey, she swung herself
from limb to limb until the lowest branch was reached. The drop to the
ground was--even for Pollyanna, who was used to climbing trees--a little
fearsome. She took it, however, with bated breath, swinging from her
strong little arms, and landing on all fours in the soft grass. Then she
picked herself up and looked eagerly about her.
She was at the back of the house. Before her lay a garden in which a
bent old man was working. Beyond the garden a little path through an
open field led up a steep hill, at the top of which a lone pine tree
stood on guard beside the huge rock. To Pollyanna, at the moment, there
seemed to be just one place in the world worth being in--the top of that
big rock.
With a run and a skilful turn, Pollyanna skipped by the bent old man,
threaded her way between the orderly rows of green growing things,
and--a little out of breath--reached the path that ran through the open
field. Then, determinedly, she began to climb. Already, however, she was
thinking what a long, long way off that rock must be, when back at the
window it had looked so near!
Fifteen minutes later the great clock in the hallway of the Harrington
homestead struck six. At precisely the last stroke Nancy sounded the
bell for supper.
One, two, three minutes passed. Miss Polly frowned and tapped the floor
with her slipper. A little jerkily she rose to her feet, went into the
hall, and looked up-stairs, plainly impatient. For a minute she listened
intently; then she turned and swept into the dining room.
“Nancy,” she said with decision, as soon as the little serving-maid
appeared; “my niece is late. No, you need not call her,” she added
severely, as Nancy made a move toward the hall door. “I told her what
time supper was, and now she will have to suffer the consequences. She
may as well begin at once to learn to be punctual. When she comes down
she may have bread and milk in the kitchen.”
“Yes, ma'am.” It was well, perhaps, that Miss Polly did not happen to be
looking at Nancy's face just then.
At the earliest possible moment after supper, Nancy crept up the back
stairs and thence to the attic room.
“Bread and milk, indeed!--and when the poor lamb hain't only just cried
herself to sleep,” she was muttering fiercely, as she softly pushed open
the door. The next moment she gave a frightened cry. “Where are you?
Where've you gone? Where HAVE you gone?” she panted, looking in the
closet, under the bed, and even in the trunk and down the water pitcher.
Then she flew down-stairs and out to Old Tom in the garden.
“Mr. Tom, Mr. Tom, that blessed child's gone,” she wailed. “She's
vanished right up into Heaven where she come from, poor lamb--and me
told ter give her bread and milk in the kitchen--her what's eatin' angel
food this minute, I'll warrant, I'll warrant!”
The old man straightened up.
“Gone? Heaven?” he repeated stupidly, unconsciously sweeping the
brilliant sunset sky with his gaze. He stopped, stared a moment
intently, then turned with a slow grin. “Well, Nancy, it do look like as
if she'd tried ter get as nigh Heaven as she could, and that's a fact,”
he agreed, pointing with a crooked finger to where, sharply outlined
against the reddening sky, a slender, wind-blown figure was poised on
top of a huge rock.
“Well, she ain't goin' ter Heaven that way ter-night--not if I has my
say,” declared Nancy, doggedly. “If the mistress asks, tell her I ain't
furgettin' the dishes, but I gone on a stroll,” she flung back over her
shoulder, as she sped toward the path that led through the open field.
CHAPTER V. THE GAME
“For the land's sake, Miss Pollyanna, what a scare you did give me,”
panted Nancy, hurrying up to the big rock, down which Pollyanna had just
regretfully slid.
“Scare? Oh, I'm so sorry; but you mustn't, really, ever get scared about
me, Nancy. Father and the Ladies' Aid used to do it, too, till they
found I always came back all right.”
“But I didn't even know you'd went,” cried Nancy, tucking the little
girl's hand under her arm and hurrying her down the hill. “I didn't see
you go, and nobody didn't. I guess you flew right up through the roof; I
do, I do.”
Pollyanna skipped gleefully.
“I did, 'most--only I flew down instead of up. I came down the tree.”
Nancy stopped short.
“You did--what?”
“Came down the tree, outside my window.”
“My stars and stockings!” gasped Nancy, hurrying on again. “I'd like ter
know what yer aunt would say ter that!”
“Would you? Well, I'll tell her, then, so you can find out,” promised
the little girl, cheerfully.
“Mercy!” gasped Nancy. “No--no!”
“Why, you don't mean she'd CARE!” cried Pollyanna, plainly disturbed.
“No--er--yes--well, never mind. I--I ain't so very particular about
knowin' what she'd say, truly,” stammered Nancy, determined to keep one
scolding from Pollyanna, if nothing more. “But, say, we better hurry.
I've got ter get them dishes done, ye know.”
“I'll help,” promised Pollyanna, promptly.
“Oh, Miss Pollyanna!” demurred Nancy.
For a moment there was silence. The sky was darkening fast. Pollyanna
took a firmer hold of her friend's arm.
“I reckon I'm glad, after all, that you DID get scared--a little, 'cause
then you came after me,” she shivered.
“Poor little lamb! And you must be hungry, too. I--I'm afraid you'll
have ter have bread and milk in the kitchen with me. Yer aunt didn't
like it--because you didn't come down ter supper, ye know.”
“But I couldn't. I was up here.”
“Yes; but--she didn't know that, you see!” observed Nancy, dryly,
stifling a chuckle. “I'm sorry about the bread and milk; I am, I am.”
“Oh, I'm not. I'm glad.”
“Glad! Why?”
“Why, I like bread and milk, and I'd like to eat with you. I don't see
any trouble about being glad about that.”
“You don't seem ter see any trouble bein' glad about everythin',”
retorted Nancy, choking a little over her remembrance of Pollyanna's
brave attempts to like the bare little attic room.
Pollyanna laughed softly.
“Well, that's the game, you know, anyway.”
“The--GAME?”
“Yes; the 'just being glad' game.”
“Whatever in the world are you talkin' about?”
“Why, it's a game. Father told it to me, and it's lovely,” rejoined
Pollyanna. “We've played it always, ever since I was a little, little
girl. I told the Ladies' Aid, and they played it--some of them.”
“What is it? I ain't much on games, though.”
Pollyanna laughed again, but she sighed, too; and in the gathering
twilight her face looked thin and wistful.
“Why, we began it on some crutches that came in a missionary barrel.”
“CRUTCHES!”
“Yes. You see I'd wanted a doll, and father had written them so; but
when the barrel came the lady wrote that there hadn't any dolls come in,
but the little crutches had. So she sent 'em along as they might come in
handy for some child, sometime. And that's when we began it.”
“Well, I must say I can't see any game about that, about that,” declared
Nancy, almost irritably.
“Oh, yes; the game was to just find something about everything to be
glad about--no matter what 'twas,” rejoined Pollyanna, earnestly. “And
we began right then--on the crutches.”
“Well, goodness me! I can't see anythin' ter be glad about--gettin' a
pair of crutches when you wanted a doll!”
Pollyanna clapped her hands.
“There is--there is,” she crowed. “But _I_ couldn't see it, either,
Nancy, at first,” she added, with quick honesty. “Father had to tell it
to me.”
“Well, then, suppose YOU tell ME,” almost snapped Nancy.
“Goosey! Why, just be glad because you don't--NEED--'EM!” exulted
Pollyanna, triumphantly. “You see it's just as easy--when you know how!”
“Well, of all the queer doin's!” breathed Nancy, regarding Pollyanna
with almost fearful eyes.
“Oh, but it isn't queer--it's lovely,” maintained Pollyanna
enthusiastically. “And we've played it ever since. And the harder 'tis,
the more fun 'tis to get 'em out; only--only sometimes it's almost too
hard--like when your father goes to Heaven, and there isn't anybody but
a Ladies' Aid left.”
“Yes, or when you're put in a snippy little room 'way at the top of the
house with nothin' in it,” growled Nancy.
Pollyanna sighed.
“That was a hard one, at first,” she admitted, “specially when I was so
kind of lonesome. I just didn't feel like playing the game, anyway, and
I HAD been wanting pretty things, so! Then I happened to think how I
hated to see my freckles in the looking-glass, and I saw that lovely
picture out the window, too; so then I knew I'd found the things to be
glad about. You see, when you're hunting for the glad things, you sort
of forget the other kind--like the doll you wanted, you know.”
“Humph!” choked Nancy, trying to swallow the lump in her throat.
“Most generally it doesn't take so long,” sighed Pollyanna; “and lots of
times now I just think of them WITHOUT thinking, you know. I've got so
used to playing it. It's a lovely game. F-father and I used to like it
so much,” she faltered. “I suppose, though, it--it'll be a little harder
now, as long as I haven't anybody to play it with. Maybe Aunt Polly will
play it, though,” she added, as an after-thought.
“My stars and stockings!--HER!” breathed Nancy, behind her teeth. Then,
aloud, she said doggedly: “See here, Miss Pollyanna, I ain't sayin' that
I'll play it very well, and I ain't sayin' that I know how, anyway; but
I'll play it with ye, after a fashion--I just will, I will!”
“Oh, Nancy!” exulted Pollyanna, giving her a rapturous hug. “That'll be
splendid! Won't we have fun?”
“Er--maybe,” conceded Nancy, in open doubt. “But you mustn't count too
much on me, ye know. I never was no case fur games, but I'm a-goin' ter
make a most awful old try on this one. You're goin' ter have some one
ter play it with, anyhow,” she finished, as they entered the kitchen
together.
Pollyanna ate her bread and milk with good appetite; then, at Nancy's
suggestion, she went into the sitting room, where her aunt sat reading.
Miss Polly looked up coldly.