Pollyanna
church--she taught me. But I'd just as soon let that go as not, Aunt
Polly. I'd rather, truly.”
“Very likely,” observed Aunt Polly, with slightly uplifted eyebrows.
“Nevertheless I think it is my duty to see that you are properly
instructed in at least the rudiments of music. You sew, of course.”
“Yes, ma'am.” Pollyanna sighed. “The Ladies' Aid taught me that. But I
had an awful time. Mrs. Jones didn't believe in holding your needle
like the rest of 'em did on buttonholing, and Mrs. White thought
backstitching ought to be taught you before hemming (or else the other
way), and Mrs. Harriman didn't believe in putting you on patchwork ever,
at all.”
“Well, there will be no difficulty of that kind any longer, Pollyanna. I
shall teach you sewing myself, of course. You do not know how to cook, I
presume.”
Pollyanna laughed suddenly.
“They were just beginning to teach me that this summer, but I hadn't
got far. They were more divided up on that than they were on the sewing.
They were GOING to begin on bread; but there wasn't two of 'em that made
it alike, so after arguing it all one sewing-meeting, they decided to
take turns at me one forenoon a week--in their own kitchens, you know.
I'd only learned chocolate fudge and fig cake, though, when--when I had
to stop.” Her voice broke.
“Chocolate fudge and fig cake, indeed!” scorned Miss Polly. “I think
we can remedy that very soon.” She paused in thought for a minute, then
went on slowly: “At nine o'clock every morning you will read aloud one
half-hour to me. Before that you will use the time to put this room in
order. Wednesday and Saturday forenoons, after half-past nine, you will
spend with Nancy in the kitchen, learning to cook. Other mornings you
will sew with me. That will leave the afternoons for your music. I
shall, of course, procure a teacher at once for you,” she finished
decisively, as she arose from her chair.
Pollyanna cried out in dismay.
“Oh, but Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, you haven't left me any time at all
just to--to live.”
“To live, child! What do you mean? As if you weren't living all the
time!”
“Oh, of course I'd be BREATHING all the time I was doing those things,
Aunt Polly, but I wouldn't be living. You breathe all the time you're
asleep, but you aren't living. I mean living--doing the things you want
to do: playing outdoors, reading (to myself, of course), climbing hills,
talking to Mr. Tom in the garden, and Nancy, and finding out all about
the houses and the people and everything everywhere all through the
perfectly lovely streets I came through yesterday. That's what I call
living, Aunt Polly. Just breathing isn't living!”
Miss Polly lifted her head irritably.
“Pollyanna, you ARE the most extraordinary child! You will be allowed a
proper amount of playtime, of course. But, surely, it seems to me if
I am willing to do my duty in seeing that you have proper care and
instruction, YOU ought to be willing to do yours by seeing that that
care and instruction are not ungratefully wasted.”
Pollyanna looked shocked.
“Oh, Aunt Polly, as if I ever could be ungrateful--to YOU! Why, I LOVE
YOU--and you aren't even a Ladies' Aider; you're an aunt!”
“Very well; then see that you don't act ungrateful,” vouchsafed Miss
Polly, as she turned toward the door.
She had gone halfway down the stairs when a small, unsteady voice called
after her:
“Please, Aunt Polly, you didn't tell me which of my things you wanted
to--to give away.”
Aunt Polly emitted a tired sigh--a sigh that ascended straight to
Pollyanna's ears.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you, Pollyanna. Timothy will drive us into town
at half-past one this afternoon. Not one of your garments is fit for my
niece to wear. Certainly I should be very far from doing my duty by you
if I should let you appear out in any one of them.”
Pollyanna sighed now--she believed she was going to hate that
word--duty.
“Aunt Polly, please,” she called wistfully, “isn't there ANY way you can
be glad about all that--duty business?”
“What?” Miss Polly looked up in dazed surprise; then, suddenly, with
very red cheeks, she turned and swept angrily down the stairs. “Don't be
impertinent, Pollyanna!”
In the hot little attic room Pollyanna dropped herself on to one of the
straight-backed chairs. To her, existence loomed ahead one endless round
of duty.
“I don't see, really, what there was impertinent about that,” she
sighed. “I was only asking her if she couldn't tell me something to be
glad about in all that duty business.”
For several minutes Pollyanna sat in silence, her rueful eyes fixed
on the forlorn heap of garments on the bed. Then, slowly, she rose and
began to put away the dresses.
“There just isn't anything to be glad about, that I can see,” she said
aloud; “unless--it's to be glad when the duty's done!” Whereupon she
laughed suddenly.
CHAPTER VII. POLLYANNA AND PUNISHMENTS
At half-past one o'clock Timothy drove Miss Polly and her niece to the
four or five principal dry goods stores, which were about half a mile
from the homestead.
Fitting Pollyanna with a new wardrobe proved to be more or less of an
exciting experience for all concerned. Miss Polly came out of it with
the feeling of limp relaxation that one might have at finding oneself at
last on solid earth after a perilous walk across the very thin crust of
a volcano. The various clerks who had waited upon the pair came out of
it with very red faces, and enough amusing stories of Pollyanna to
keep their friends in gales of laughter the rest of the week. Pollyanna
herself came out of it with radiant smiles and a heart content; for, as
she expressed it to one of the clerks: “When you haven't had anybody
but missionary barrels and Ladies' Aiders to dress you, it IS perfectly
lovely to just walk right in and buy clothes that are brand-new, and
that don't have to be tucked up or let down because they don't fit!”
The shopping expedition consumed the entire afternoon; then came supper
and a delightful talk with Old Tom in the garden, and another with Nancy
on the back porch, after the dishes were done, and while Aunt Polly paid
a visit to a neighbor.
Old Tom told Pollyanna wonderful things of her mother, that made her
very happy indeed; and Nancy told her all about the little farm six
miles away at “The Corners,” where lived her own dear mother, and her
equally dear brother and sisters. She promised, too, that sometime, if
Miss Polly were willing, Pollyanna should be taken to see them.
“And THEY'VE got lovely names, too. You'll like THEIR names,” sighed
Nancy. “They're 'Algernon,' and 'Florabelle' and 'Estelle.' I--I just
hate 'Nancy'!”
“Oh, Nancy, what a dreadful thing to say! Why?”
“Because it isn't pretty like the others. You see, I was the first baby,
and mother hadn't begun ter read so many stories with the pretty names
in 'em, then.”
“But I love 'Nancy,' just because it's you,” declared Pollyanna.
“Humph! Well, I guess you could love 'Clarissa Mabelle' just as well,”
retorted Nancy, “and it would be a heap happier for me. I think THAT
name's just grand!”
Pollyanna laughed.
“Well, anyhow,” she chuckled, “you can be glad it isn't 'Hephzibah.'”
“Hephzibah!”
“Yes. Mrs. White's name is that. Her husband calls her 'Hep,' and she
doesn't like it. She says when he calls out 'Hep--Hep!' she feels just
as if the next minute he was going to yell 'Hurrah!' And she doesn't
like to be hurrahed at.”
Nancy's gloomy face relaxed into a broad smile.
“Well, if you don't beat the Dutch! Say, do you know?--I sha'n't never
hear 'Nancy' now that I don't think o' that 'Hep--Hep!' and giggle. My,
I guess I AM glad--” She stopped short and turned amazed eyes on the
little girl. “Say, Miss Pollyanna, do you mean--was you playin' that
'ere game THEN--about my bein' glad I wa'n't named Hephzibah'?”
Pollyanna frowned; then she laughed.
“Why, Nancy, that's so! I WAS playing the game--but that's one of the
times I just did it without thinking, I reckon. You see, you DO, lots
of times; you get so used to it--looking for something to be glad about,
you know. And most generally there is something about everything that
you can be glad about, if you keep hunting long enough to find it.”
“Well, m-maybe,” granted Nancy, with open doubt.
At half-past eight Pollyanna went up to bed. The screens had not yet
come, and the close little room was like an oven. With longing eyes
Pollyanna looked at the two fast-closed windows--but she did not raise
them. She undressed, folded her clothes neatly, said her prayers, blew
out her candle and climbed into bed.
Just how long she lay in sleepless misery, tossing from side to side of
the hot little cot, she did not know; but it seemed to her that it must
have been hours before she finally slipped out of bed, felt her way
across the room and opened her door.
Out in the main attic all was velvet blackness save where the moon flung
a path of silver half-way across the floor from the east dormer window.
With a resolute ignoring of that fearsome darkness to the right and to
the left, Pollyanna drew a quick breath and pattered straight into that
silvery path, and on to the window.
She had hoped, vaguely, that this window might have a screen, but it did
not. Outside, however, there was a wide world of fairy-like beauty, and
there was, too, she knew, fresh, sweet air that would feel so good to
hot cheeks and hands!
As she stepped nearer and peered longingly out, she saw something else:
she saw, only a little way below the window, the wide, flat tin roof of
Miss Polly's sun parlor built over the porte-cochere. The sight filled
her with longing. If only, now, she were out there!
Fearfully she looked behind her. Back there, somewhere, were her hot
little room and her still hotter bed; but between her and them lay a
horrid desert of blackness across which one must feel one's way with
outstretched, shrinking arms; while before her, out on the sun-parlor
roof, were the moonlight and the cool, sweet night air.
If only her bed were out there! And folks did sleep out of doors. Joel
Hartley at home, who was so sick with the consumption, HAD to sleep out
of doors.
Suddenly Pollyanna remembered that she had seen near this attic window
a row of long white bags hanging from nails. Nancy had said that
they contained the winter clothing, put away for the summer. A little
fearfully now, Pollyanna felt her way to these bags, selected a nice
fat soft one (it contained Miss Polly's sealskin coat) for a bed; and a
thinner one to be doubled up for a pillow, and still another (which was
so thin it seemed almost empty) for a covering. Thus equipped, Pollyanna
in high glee pattered to the moonlit window again, raised the sash,
stuffed her burden through to the roof below, then let herself down
after it, closing the window carefully behind her--Pollyanna had not
forgotten those flies with the marvellous feet that carried things.
How deliciously cool it was! Pollyanna quite danced up and down with
delight, drawing in long, full breaths of the refreshing air. The tin
roof under her feet crackled with little resounding snaps that Pollyanna
rather liked. She walked, indeed, two or three times back and forth from
end to end--it gave her such a pleasant sensation of airy space after
her hot little room; and the roof was so broad and flat that she had no
fear of falling off. Finally, with a sigh of content, she curled herself
up on the sealskin-coat mattress, arranged one bag for a pillow and the
other for a covering, and settled herself to sleep.
“I'm so glad now that the screens didn't come,” she murmured, blinking
up at the stars; “else I couldn't have had this!”
Down-stairs in Miss Polly's room next the sun parlor, Miss Polly