Pollyanna
forty years, and for fifteen of those years she had been too busy
wishing things were different to find much time to enjoy things as they
were.
“Oh, but your eyes are so big and dark, and your hair's all dark, too,
and curly,” cooed Pollyanna. “I love black curls. (That's one of the
things I'm going to have when I get to Heaven.) And you've got two
little red spots in your cheeks. Why, Mrs. Snow, you ARE pretty! I
should think you'd know it when you looked at yourself in the glass.”
“The glass!” snapped the sick woman, falling back on her pillow. “Yes,
well, I hain't done much prinkin' before the mirror these days--and you
wouldn't, if you was flat on your back as I am!”
“Why, no, of course not,” agreed Pollyanna, sympathetically. “But
wait--just let me show you,” she exclaimed, skipping over to the bureau
and picking up a small hand-glass.
On the way back to the bed she stopped, eyeing the sick woman with a
critical gaze.
“I reckon maybe, if you don't mind, I'd like to fix your hair just a
little before I let you see it,” she proposed. “May I fix your hair,
please?”
“Why, I--suppose so, if you want to,” permitted Mrs. Snow, grudgingly;
“but 'twon't stay, you know.”
“Oh, thank you. I love to fix people's hair,” exulted Pollyanna,
carefully laying down the hand-glass and reaching for a comb. “I sha'n't
do much to-day, of course--I'm in such a hurry for you to see how pretty
you are; but some day I'm going to take it all down and have a perfectly
lovely time with it,” she cried, touching with soft fingers the waving
hair above the sick woman's forehead.
For five minutes Pollyanna worked swiftly, deftly, combing a refractory
curl into fluffiness, perking up a drooping ruffle at the neck, or
shaking a pillow into plumpness so that the head might have a better
pose. Meanwhile the sick woman, frowning prodigiously, and openly
scoffing at the whole procedure, was, in spite of herself, beginning to
tingle with a feeling perilously near to excitement.
“There!” panted Pollyanna, hastily plucking a pink from a vase near by
and tucking it into the dark hair where it would give the best effect.
“Now I reckon we're ready to be looked at!” And she held out the mirror
in triumph.
“Humph!” grunted the sick woman, eyeing her reflection severely. “I like
red pinks better than pink ones; but then, it'll fade, anyhow, before
night, so what's the difference!”
“But I should think you'd be glad they did fade,” laughed Pollyanna,
“'cause then you can have the fun of getting some more. I just love your
hair fluffed out like that,” she finished with a satisfied gaze. “Don't
you?”
“Hm-m; maybe. Still--'twon't last, with me tossing back and forth on the
pillow as I do.”
“Of course not--and I'm glad, too,” nodded Pollyanna, cheerfully,
“because then I can fix it again. Anyhow, I should think you'd be glad
it's black--black shows up so much nicer on a pillow than yellow hair
like mine does.”
“Maybe; but I never did set much store by black hair--shows gray too
soon,” retorted Mrs. Snow. She spoke fretfully, but she still held the
mirror before her face.
“Oh, I love black hair! I should be so glad if I only had it,” sighed
Pollyanna.
Mrs. Snow dropped the mirror and turned irritably.
“Well, you wouldn't!--not if you were me. You wouldn't be glad for black
hair nor anything else--if you had to lie here all day as I do!”
Pollyanna bent her brows in a thoughtful frown.
“Why, 'twould be kind of hard--to do it then, wouldn't it?” she mused
aloud.
“Do what?”
“Be glad about things.”
“Be glad about things--when you're sick in bed all your days? Well, I
should say it would,” retorted Mrs. Snow. “If you don't think so, just
tell me something to be glad about; that's all!”
To Mrs. Snow's unbounded amazement, Pollyanna sprang to her feet and
clapped her hands.
“Oh, goody! That'll be a hard one--won't it? I've got to go, now, but
I'll think and think all the way home; and maybe the next time I come
I can tell it to you. Good-by. I've had a lovely time! Good-by,” she
called again, as she tripped through the doorway.
“Well, I never! Now, what does she mean by that?” ejaculated Mrs. Snow,
staring after her visitor. By and by she turned her head and picked up
the mirror, eyeing her reflection critically.
“That little thing HAS got a knack with hair and no mistake,” she
muttered under her breath. “I declare, I didn't know it could look so
pretty. But then, what's the use?” she sighed, dropping the little glass
into the bedclothes, and rolling her head on the pillow fretfully.
A little later, when Milly, Mrs. Snow's daughter, came in, the mirror
still lay among the bedclothes--thought it had been carefully hidden from sight.
“Why, mother--the curtain is up!” cried Milly, dividing her amazed stare
between the window and the pink in her mother's hair.
“Well, what if it is?” snapped the sick woman. “I needn't stay in the
dark all my life, if I am sick, need I?”
“Why, n-no, of course not,” rejoined Milly, in hasty conciliation, as
she reached for the medicine bottle. “It's only--well, you know very
well that I've tried to get you to have a lighter room for ages and you
wouldn't.”
There was no reply to this. Mrs. Snow was picking at the lace on her
nightgown. At last she spoke fretfully.
“I should think SOMEBODY might give me a new nightdress--instead of lamb
broth, for a change!”
“Why--mother!”
No wonder Milly quite gasped aloud with bewilderment. In the drawer
behind her at that moment lay two new nightdresses that Milly for months
had been vainly urging her mother to wear.
CHAPTER IX. WHICH TELLS OF THE MAN
It rained the next time Pollyanna saw the Man. She greeted him, however,
with a bright smile.
“It isn't so nice to-day, is it?” she called blithesomely. “I'm glad it
doesn't rain always, anyhow!”
The man did not even grunt this time, nor turn his head. Pollyanna
decided that of course he did not hear her. The next time, therefore
(which happened to be the following day), she spoke up louder. She
thought it particularly necessary to do this, anyway, for the Man
was striding along, his hands behind his back, and his eyes on the
ground--which seemed, to Pollyanna, preposterous in the face of the
glorious sunshine and the freshly-washed morning air: Pollyanna, as a
special treat, was on a morning errand to-day.
“How do you do?” she chirped. “I'm so glad it isn't yesterday, aren't
you?”
The man stopped abruptly. There was an angry scowl on his face.
“See here, little girl, we might just as well settle this thing right
now, once for all,” he began testily. “I've got something besides
the weather to think of. I don't know whether the sun shines or not.”
Pollyanna beamed joyously.
“No, sir; I thought you didn't. That's why I told you.”
“Yes; well--Eh? What?” he broke off sharply, in sudden understanding of
her words.
“I say, that's why I told you--so you would notice it, you know--that
the sun shines, and all that. I knew you'd be glad it did if you
only stopped to think of it--and you didn't look a bit as if you WERE
thinking of it!”
“Well, of all the--” ejaculated the man, with an oddly impotent gesture.
He started forward again, but after the second step he turned back,
still frowning.
“See here, why don't you find some one your own age to talk to?”
“I'd like to, sir, but there aren't any 'round here, Nancy says. Still,
I don't mind so very much. I like old folks just as well, maybe better,
sometimes--being used to the Ladies' Aid, so.”
“Humph! The Ladies' Aid, indeed! Is that what you took me for?” The
man's lips were threatening to smile, but the scowl above them was still
trying to hold them grimly stern.
Pollyanna laughed gleefully.
“Oh, no, sir. You don't look a mite like a Ladies' Aider--not but that
you're just as good, of course--maybe better,” she added in hurried
politeness. “You see, I'm sure you're much nicer than you look!”
The man made a queer noise in his throat.
“Well, of all the--” he ejaculated again, as he turned and strode on as
before.
The next time Pollyanna met the Man, his eyes were gazing straight
into hers, with a quizzical directness that made his face look really
pleasant, Pollyanna thought.
“Good afternoon,” he greeted her a little stiffly. “Perhaps I'd better
say right away that I KNOW the sun is shining to-day.”
“But you don't have to tell me,” nodded Pollyanna, brightly. “I KNEW you
knew it just as soon as I saw you.”
“Oh, you did, did you?”
“Yes, sir; I saw it in your eyes, you know, and in your smile.”
“Humph!” grunted the man, as he passed on.
The Man always spoke to Pollyanna after this, and frequently he spoke
first, though usually he said little but “good afternoon.” Even that,
however, was a great surprise to Nancy, who chanced to be with Pollyanna
one day when the greeting was given.
“Sakes alive, Miss Pollyanna,” she gasped, “did that man SPEAK TO YOU?”
“Why, yes, he always does--now,” smiled Pollyanna.
“'He always does'! Goodness! Do you know who--he--is?” demanded Nancy.
Pollyanna frowned and shook her head.
“I reckon he forgot to tell me one day. You see, I did my part of the
introducing, but he didn't.”
Nancy's eyes widened.
“But he never speaks ter anybody, child--he hain't for years, I guess,
except when he just has to, for business, and all that. He's John
Pendleton. He lives all by himself in the big house on Pendleton Hill.
He won't even have any one 'round ter cook for him--comes down ter the
hotel for his meals three times a day. I know Sally Miner, who waits on
him, and she says he hardly opens his head enough ter tell what he
wants ter eat. She has ter guess it more'n half the time--only it'll be
somethin' CHEAP! She knows that without no tellin'.”
Pollyanna nodded sympathetically.
“I know. You have to look for cheap things when you're poor. Father and
I took meals out a lot. We had beans and fish balls most generally.
We used to say how glad we were we liked beans--that is, we said it
specially when we were looking at the roast turkey place, you know, that
was sixty cents. Does Mr. Pendleton like beans?”
“Like 'em! What if he does--or don't? Why, Miss Pollyanna, he ain't
poor. He's got loads of money, John Pendleton has--from his father.
There ain't nobody in town as rich as he is. He could eat dollar bills,
if he wanted to--and not know it.”
Pollyanna giggled.
“As if anybody COULD eat dollar bills and not know it, Nancy, when they
come to try to chew 'em!”
“Ho! I mean he's rich enough ter do it,” shrugged Nancy. “He ain't
spendin' his money, that's all. He's a-savin' of it.”
“Oh, for the heathen,” surmised Pollyanna. “How perfectly splendid!
That's denying yourself and taking up your cross. I know; father told
me.”
Nancy's lips parted abruptly, as if there were angry words all ready to
come; but her eyes, resting on Pollyanna's jubilantly trustful face, saw
something that prevented the words being spoken.
“Humph!” she vouchsafed. Then, showing her old-time interest, she
went on: “But, say, it is queer, his speakin' to you, honestly, Miss
Pollyanna. He don't speak ter no one; and he lives all alone in a great
big lovely house all full of jest grand things, they say. Some says he's
crazy, and some jest cross; and some says he's got a skeleton in his
closet.”
“Oh, Nancy!” shuddered Pollyanna. “How can he keep such a dreadful
thing? I should think he'd throw it away!”
Nancy chuckled. That Pollyanna had taken the skeleton literally instead
of figuratively, she knew very well; but, perversely, she refrained from
correcting the mistake.
“And EVERYBODY says he's mysterious,” she went on. “Some years he
jest travels, week in and week out, and it's always in heathen