Books: Pollyanna Grows Up
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Eleanor H. Porter >> Pollyanna Grows Up
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To Pollyanna's great relief that first dreaded meeting between Aunt
Polly and the Carew party passed off much better than she had feared.
The newcomers were so frankly delighted with the old house and
everything in it, that it was an utter impossibility for the mistress
and owner of it all to continue her stiff attitude of disapproving
resignation to their presence. Besides, as was plainly evident before
an hour had passed, the personal charm and magnetism of Jamie had
pierced even Aunt Polly's armor of distrust; and Pollyanna knew that
at least one of her own most dreaded problems was a problem no longer,
for already Aunt Polly was beginning to play the stately, yet gracious
hostess to these, her guests.
Notwithstanding her relief at Aunt Polly's change of attitude,
however, Pollyanna did not find that all was smooth sailing, by any
means. There was work, and plenty of it, that must be done. Nancy's
sister, Betty, was pleasant and willing, but she was not Nancy, as
Pollyanna soon found. She needed training, and training took time.
Pollyanna worried, too, for fear everything should not be quite right.
To Pollyanna, those days, a dusty chair was a crime and a fallen cake
a tragedy.
Gradually, however, after incessant arguments and pleadings on the
part of Mrs. Carew and Jamie, Pollyanna came to take her tasks more
easily, and to realize that the real crime and tragedy in her friends'
eyes was, not the dusty chair nor the fallen cake, but the frown of
worry and anxiety on her own face.
"Just as if it wasn't enough for you to LET us come," Jamie declared,
"without just killing yourself with work to get us something to eat."
"Besides, we ought not to eat so much, anyway," Mrs. Carew laughed,
"or else we shall get 'digestion,' as one of my girls calls it when
her food disagrees with her."
It was wonderful, after all, how easily the three new members of the
family fitted into the daily life. Before twenty-four hours had
passed, Mrs. Carew had gotten Mrs. Chilton to asking really interested
questions about the new Home for Working Girls, and Sadie Dean and
Jamie were quarreling over the chance to help with the pea-shelling or
the flower-picking.
The Carews had been at the Harrington homestead nearly a week when one
evening John Pendleton and Jimmy called. Pollyanna had been hoping
they would come soon. She had, indeed, urged it very strongly before
the Carews came. She made the introductions now with visible pride.
"You are such good friends of mine, I want you to know each other, and
be good friends together," she explained.
That Jimmy and Mr. Pendleton should be clearly impressed with the
charm and beauty of Mrs. Carew did not surprise Pollyanna in the
least; but the look that came into Mrs. Carew's face at sight of Jimmy
did surprise her very much. It was almost a look of recognition.
"Why, Mr. Pendleton, haven't I met you before?" Mrs. Carew cried.
Jimmy's frank eyes met Mrs. Carew's gaze squarely, admiringly.
"I think not," he smiled back at her. "I'm sure I never have met you.
I should have remembered it--if _I_ had met YOU," he bowed.
So unmistakable was his significant emphasis that everybody laughed,
and John Pendleton chuckled:
"Well done, son--for a youth of your tender years. I couldn't have
done half so well myself."
Mrs. Carew flushed slightly and joined in the laugh.
"No, but really," she urged; "joking aside, there certainly is a
strangely familiar something in your face. I think I must have SEEN
you somewhere, if I haven't actually met you."
"And maybe you have," cried Pollyanna, "in Boston. Jimmy goes to Tech
there winters, you know. Jimmy's going to build bridges and dams, you
see--when he grows up, I mean," she finished with a merry glance at
the big six-foot fellow still standing before Mrs. Carew.
Everybody laughed again--that is, everybody but Jamie; and only Sadie
Dean noticed that Jamie, instead of laughing, closed his eyes as if at
the sight of something that hurt. And only Sadie Dean knew how--and
why--the subject was so quickly changed, for it was Sadie herself who
changed it. It was Sadie, too, who, when the opportunity came, saw to
it that books and flowers and beasts and birds--things that Jamie knew
and understood--were talked about as well as dams and bridges which
(as Sadie knew), Jamie could never build. That Sadie did all this,
however, was not realized by anybody, least of all by Jamie, the one
who most of all was concerned.
When the call was over and the Pendletons had gone, Mrs. Carew
referred again to the curiously haunting feeling that somewhere she
had seen young Pendleton before.
"I have, I know I have--somewhere," she declared musingly. "Of course
it may have been in Boston; but--" She let the sentence remain
unfinished; then, after a minute she added: "He's a fine young fellow,
anyway. I like him."
"I'm so glad! I do, too," nodded Pollyanna. "I've always liked Jimmy."
"You've known him some time, then?" queried Jamie, a little wistfully.
"Oh, yes. I knew him years ago when I was a little girl, you know. He
was Jimmy Bean then."
"Jimmy BEAN! Why, isn't he Mr. Pendleton's son?" asked Mrs. Carew, in
surprise.
"No, only by adoption."
"Adoption!" exclaimed Jamie. "Then HE isn't a real son any more than I
am." There was a curious note of almost joy in the lad's voice.
"No. Mr. Pendleton hasn't any children. He never married. He--he was
going to, once, but he--he didn't." Pollyanna blushed and spoke with
sudden diffidence. Pollyanna had never forgotten that it was her
mother who, in the long ago, had said no to this same John Pendleton,
and who had thus been responsible for the man's long, lonely years of
bachelorhood.
Mrs. Carew and Jamie, however, being unaware of this, and seeing now
only the blush on Pollyanna's cheek and the diffidence in her manner,
drew suddenly the same conclusion.
"Is it possible," they asked themselves, "that this man, John
Pendleton, ever had a love affair with Pollyanna, child that she is?"
Naturally they did not say this aloud; so, naturally, there was no
answer possible. Naturally, too, perhaps, the thought, though
unspoken, was still not forgotten, but was tucked away in a corner of
their minds for future reference--if need arose.
CHAPTER XXI
SUMMER DAYS
Before the Carews came, Pollyanna had told Jimmy that she was
depending on him to help her entertain them. Jimmy had not expressed
himself then as being overwhelmingly desirous to serve her in this
way; but before the Carews had been in town a fortnight, he had shown
himself as not only willing but anxious,--judging by the frequency and
length of his calls, and the lavishness of his offers of the Pendleton
horses and motor cars.
Between him and Mrs. Carew there sprang up at once a warm friendship
based on what seemed to be a peculiarly strong attraction for each
other. They walked and talked together, and even made sundry plans for
the Home for Working Girls, to be carried out the following winter
when Jimmy should be in Boston. Jamie, too, came in for a good measure
of attention, nor was Sadie Dean forgotten. Sadie, as Mrs. Carew
plainly showed, was to be regarded as if she were quite one of the
family; and Mrs. Carew was careful to see that she had full share in
any plans for merrymaking.
Nor did Jimmy always come alone with his offers for entertainment.
More and more frequently John Pendleton appeared with him. Rides and
drives and picnics were planned and carried out, and long delightful
afternoons were spent over books and fancy-work on the Harrington
veranda.
Pollyanna was delighted. Not only were her paying guests being kept
from any possibilities of ennui and homesickness, but her good
friends, the Carews, were becoming delightfully acquainted with her
other good friends, the Pendletons. So, like a mother hen with a brood
of chickens, she hovered over the veranda meetings, and did everything
in her power to keep the group together and happy.
Neither the Carews nor the Pendletons, however, were at all satisfied
to have Pollyanna merely an onlooker in their pastimes, and very
strenuously they urged her to join them. They would not take no for an
answer, indeed, and Pollyanna very frequently found the way opened for
her.
"Just as if we were going to have you poked up in this hot kitchen
frosting cake!" Jamie scolded one day, after he had penetrated the
fastnesses of her domain. "It is a perfectly glorious morning, and
we're all going over to the Gorge and take our luncheon. And YOU are
going with us."
"But, Jamie, I can't--indeed I can't," refused Pollyanna.
"Why not? You won't have dinner to get for us, for we sha'n't be here
to eat it."
"But there's the--the luncheon."
"Wrong again. We'll have the luncheon with us, so you CAN'T stay home
to get that. Now what's to hinder your going along WITH the luncheon,
eh?"
"Why, Jamie, I--I can't. There's the cake to frost--"
"Don't want it frosted."
"And the dusting--"
"Don't want it dusted."
"And the ordering to do for to-morrow."
"Give us crackers and milk. We'd lots rather have you and crackers and
milk than a turkey dinner and not you."
"But I can't begin to tell you the things I've got to do to-day."
"Don't want you to begin to tell me," retorted Jamie, cheerfully. "I
want you to stop telling me. Come, put on your bonnet. I saw Betty in
the dining room, and she says she'll put our luncheon up. Now hurry."
"Why, Jamie, you ridiculous boy, I can't go," laughed Pollyanna,
holding feebly back, as he tugged at her dress-sleeve. "I can't go to
that picnic with you!"
But she went. She went not only then, but again and again. She could
not help going, indeed, for she found arrayed against her not only
Jamie, but Jimmy and Mr. Pendleton, to say nothing of Mrs. Carew and
Sadie Dean, and even Aunt Polly herself.
"And of course I AM glad to go," she would sigh happily, when some
dreary bit of work was taken out of her hands in spite of all
protesting. "But, surely, never before were there any boarders like
mine--teasing for crackers-and-milk and cold things; and never before
was there a boarding mistress like me--running around the country
after this fashion!"
The climax came when one day John Pendleton (and Aunt Polly never
ceased to exclaim because it WAS John Pendleton)--suggested that they
all go on a two weeks' camping trip to a little lake up among the
mountains forty miles from Beldingsville.
The idea was received with enthusiastic approbation by everybody
except Aunt Polly. Aunt Polly said, privately, to Pollyanna, that it
was all very good and well and desirable that John Pendleton should
have gotten out of the sour, morose aloofness that had been his state
for so many years, but that it did not necessarily follow that it was
equally desirable that he should be trying to turn himself into a
twenty-year-old boy again; and that was what, in her opinion, he
seemed to be doing now! Publicly she contented herself with saying
coldly that SHE certainly should not go on any insane camping trip to
sleep on damp ground and eat bugs and spiders, under the guise of
"fun," nor did she think it a sensible thing for anybody over forty to
do.
If John Pendleton felt any wound from this shaft, he made no sign.
Certainly there was no diminution of apparent interest and enthusiasm
on his part, and the plans for the camping expedition came on apace,
for it was unanimously decided that, even if Aunt Polly would not go,
that was no reason why the rest should not.
"And Mrs. Carew will be all the chaperon we need, anyhow," Jimmy had
declared airily.
For a week, therefore, little was talked of but tents, food supplies,
cameras, and fishing tackle, and little was done that was not a
preparation in some way for the trip.
"And let's make it the real thing," proposed Jimmy, eagerly, "--yes,
even to Mrs. Chilton's bugs and spiders," he added, with a merry smile
straight into that lady's severely disapproving eyes. "None of your
log-cabin-central-dining-room idea for us! We want real camp-fires
with potatoes baked in the ashes, and we want to sit around and tell
stories and roast corn on a stick."
"And we want to swim and row and fish," chimed in Pollyanna. "And--"
She stopped suddenly, her eyes on Jamie's face. "That is, of course,"
she corrected quickly, "we wouldn't want to--to do those things all
the time. There'd be a lot of QUIET things we'd want to do, too--read
and talk, you know."
Jamie's eyes darkened. His face grew a little white. His lips parted,
but before any words came, Sadie Dean was speaking.
"Oh, but on camping trips and picnics, you know, we EXPECT to do
outdoor stunts," she interposed feverishly; "and I'm sure we WANT to.
Last summer we were down in Maine, and you should have seen the fish
Mr. Carew caught. It was--You tell it," she begged, turning to Jamie.
Jamie laughed and shook his head.
"They'd never believe it," he objected; "--a fish story like that!"
"Try us," challenged Pollyanna.
Jamie still shook his head--but the color had come back to his face,
and his eyes were no longer somber as if with pain. Pollyanna,
glancing at Sadie Dean, vaguely wondered why she suddenly settled back
in her seat with so very evident an air of relief.
At last the appointed day came, and the start was made in John
Pendleton's big new touring car with Jimmy at the wheel. A whir, a
throbbing rumble, a chorus of good-bys, and they were off, with one
long shriek of the siren under Jimmy's mischievous fingers.
In after days Pollyanna often went back in her thoughts to that first
night in camp. The experience was so new and so wonderful in so many
ways.
It was four o'clock when their forty-mile automobile journey came to
an end. Since half-past three their big car had been ponderously
picking its way over an old logging-road not designed for six-cylinder
automobiles. For the car itself, and for the hand at the wheel, this
part of the trip was a most wearing one; but for the merry passengers,
who had no responsibility concerning hidden holes and muddy curves, it
was nothing but a delight growing more poignant with every new vista
through the green arches, and with every echoing laugh that dodged the
low-hanging branches.
The site for the camp was one known to John Pendleton years before,
and he greeted it now with a satisfied delight that was not unmingled
with relief.
"Oh, how perfectly lovely!" chorused the others.
"Glad you like it! I thought it would be about right," nodded John
Pendleton. "Still, I was a little anxious, after all, for these places
do change, you know, most remarkably sometimes. And of course this has
grown up to bushes a little--but not so but what we can easily clear
it."
Everybody fell to work then, clearing the ground, putting up the two
little tents, unloading the automobile, building the camp fire, and
arranging the "kitchen and pantry."
It was then that Pollyanna began especially to notice Jamie, and to
fear for him. She realized suddenly that the hummocks and hollows and
pine-littered knolls were not like a carpeted floor for a pair of
crutches, and she saw that Jamie was realizing it, too. She saw, also,
that in spite of his infirmity, he was trying to take his share in the
work; and the sight troubled her. Twice she hurried forward and
intercepted him, taking from his arms the box he was trying to carry.
"Here, let me take that," she begged. "You've done enough." And the
second time she added: "Do go and sit down somewhere to rest, Jamie.
You look so tired!"
If she had been watching closely she would have seen the quick color
sweep to his forehead. But she was not watching, so she did not see
it. She did see, however, to her intense surprise, Sadie Dean hurry
forward a moment later, her arms full of boxes, and heard her cry:
"Oh, Mr. Carew, please, if you WOULD give me a lift with these!"
The next moment, Jamie, once more struggling with the problem of
managing a bundle of boxes and two crutches, was hastening toward the
tents.
With a quick word of protest on her tongue, Pollyanna turned to Sadie
Dean. But the protest died unspoken, for Sadie, her finger to her
lips, was hurrying straight toward her.
"I know you didn't think," she stammered in a low voice, as she
reached Pollyanna's side. "But, don't you see?--it HURTS him--to have
you think he can't do things like other folks. There, look! See how
happy he is now."
Pollyanna looked, and she saw. She saw Jamie, his whole self alert,
deftly balance his weight on one crutch and swing his burden to the
ground. She saw the happy light on his face, and she heard him say
nonchalantly:
"Here's another contribution from Miss Dean. She asked me to bring
this over."
"Why, yes, I see," breathed Pollyanna, turning to Sadie Dean. But
Sadie Dean had gone.
Pollyanna watched Jamie a good deal after that, though she was careful
not to let him, or any one else, see that she was watching him. And as
she watched, her heart ached. Twice she saw him essay a task and fail:
once with a box too heavy for him to lift; once with a folding-table
too unwieldy for him to carry with his crutches. And each time she saw
his quick glance about him to see if others noticed. She saw, too,
that unmistakably he was getting very tired, and that his face, in
spite of its gay smile, was looking white and drawn, as if he were in
pain.
"I should think we might have known more," stormed Pollyanna hotly to
herself, her eyes blinded with tears. "I should think we might have
known more than to have let him come to a place like this. Camping,
indeed!--and with a pair of crutches! Why couldn't we have remembered
before we started?"
An hour later, around the camp fire after supper, Pollyanna had her
answer to this question; for, with the glowing fire before her, and
the soft, fragrant dark all about her, she once more fell under the
spell of the witchery that fell from Jamie's lips; and she once more
forgot--Jamie's crutches.
CHAPTER XXII
COMRADES
They were a merry party--the six of them--and a congenial one. There
seemed to be no end to the new delights that came with every new day,
not the least of which was the new charm of companionship that seemed
to be a part of this new life they were living.
As Jamie said one night, when they were all sitting about the fire:
"You see, we seem to know each other so much better up here in the
woods--better in a week than we would in a year in town."
"I know it. I wonder why," murmured Mrs. Carew, her eyes dreamily
following the leaping blaze.
"I think it's something in the air," sighed Pollyanna, happily.
"There's something about the sky and the woods and the lake
so--so--well, there just is; that's all."
"I think you mean, because the world is shut out," cried Sadie Dean,
with a curious little break in her voice. (Sadie had not joined in the
laugh that followed Pollyanna's limping conclusion.) "Up here
everything is so real and true that we, too, can be our real true
selves--not what the world SAYS we are because we are rich, or poor,
or great, or humble; but what we really are, OURSELVES."
"Ho!" scoffed Jimmy, airily. "All that sounds very fine; but the real
common-sense reason is because we don't have any Mrs. Tom and Dick and
Harry sitting on their side porches and commenting on every time we
stir, and wondering among themselves where we are going, why we are
going there, and how long we're intending to stay!"
"Oh, Jimmy, how you do take the poetry out of things," reproached
Pollyanna, laughingly.
"But that's my business," flashed Jimmy. "How do you suppose I'm going
to build dams and bridges if I don't see something besides poetry in
the waterfall?"
"You can't, Pendleton! And it's the bridge--that counts--every time,"
declared Jamie in a voice that brought a sudden hush to the group
about the fire. It was for only a moment, however, for almost at once
Sadie Dean broke the silence with a gay:
"Pooh! I'd rather have the waterfall every time, without ANY bridge
around--to spoil the view!"
Everybody laughed--and it was as if a tension somewhere snapped. Then
Mrs. Carew rose to her feet.
"Come, come, children, your stern chaperon says it's bedtime!" And
with a merry chorus of good-nights the party broke up.
And so the days passed. To Pollyanna they were wonderful days, and
still the most wonderful part was the charm of close companionship--a
companionship that, while differing as to details with each one, was
yet delightful with all.
With Sadie Dean she talked of the new Home, and of what a marvelous
work Mrs. Carew was doing. They talked, too, of the old days when
Sadie was selling bows behind the counter, and of what Mrs. Carew had
done for her. Pollyanna heard, also, something of the old father and
mother "back home," and of the joy that Sadie, in her new position,
had been able to bring into their lives.
"And after all it's really YOU that began it, you know," she said one
day to Pollyanna. But Pollyanna only shook her head at this with an
emphatic:
"Nonsense! It was all Mrs. Carew."
With Mrs. Carew herself Pollyanna talked also of the Home, and of her
plans for the girls. And once, in the hush of a twilight walk, Mrs.
Carew spoke of herself and of her changed outlook on life. And she,
like Sadie Dean, said brokenly: "After all, it's really you that began
it, Pollyanna." But Pollyanna, as in Sadie Dean's case, would have
none of this; and she began to talk of Jamie, and of what HE had done.
"Jamie's a dear," Mrs. Carew answered affectionately. "And I love him
like an own son. He couldn't be dearer to me if he were really my
sister's boy."
"Then you don't think he is?"
"I don't know. We've never learned anything conclusive. Sometimes I'm
sure he is. Then again I doubt it. I think HE really believes he
is--bless his heart! At all events, one thing is sure: he has good
blood in him from somewhere. Jamie's no ordinary waif of the streets,
you know, with his talents; and the wonderful way he has responded to
teaching and training proves it."
"Of course," nodded Pollyanna. "And as long as you love him so well,
it doesn't really matter, anyway, does it, whether he's the real Jamie
or not?"
Mrs. Carew hesitated. Into her eyes crept the old somberness of
heartache.
"Not so far as he is concerned," she sighed, at last. "It's only that
sometimes I get to thinking: if he isn't our Jamie, where is--Jamie
Kent? Is he well? Is he happy? Has he any one to love him? When I get
to thinking like that, Pollyanna, I'm nearly wild. I'd give--everything
I have in the world, it seems to me, to really KNOW that this boy is
Jamie Kent."
Pollyanna used to think of this conversation sometimes, in her after
talks with Jamie. Jamie was so sure of himself.
"It's just somehow that I FEEL it's so," he said once to Pollyanna. "I
believe I am Jamie Kent. I've believed it quite a while. I'm afraid
I've believed it so long now, that--that I just couldn't bear it, to
find out I wasn't he. Mrs. Carew has done so much for me; just think
if, after all, I were only a stranger!"
"But she--loves you, Jamie."
"I know she does--and that would only hurt all the more--don't you
see?--because it would be hurting her. SHE wants me to be the real
Jamie. I know she does. Now if I could only DO something for her--make
her proud of me in some way! If I could only do something to support
myself, even, like a man! But what can I do, with--these?" He spoke
bitterly, and laid his hand on the crutches at his side.
Pollyanna was shocked and distressed. It was the first time she had
heard Jamie speak of his infirmity since the old boyhood days.
Frantically she cast about in her mind for just the right thing to
say; but before she had even thought of anything, Jamie's face had
undergone a complete change.
"But, there, forget it! I didn't mean to say it," he cried gaily. "And
'twas rank heresy to the game, wasn't it? I'm sure I'm GLAD I've got
the crutches. They're a whole lot nicer than the wheel chair!"
"And the Jolly Book--do you keep it now?" asked Pollyanna, in a voice
that trembled a little.
"Sure! I've got a whole library of jolly books now," he retorted.
"They're all in leather, dark red, except the first one. That is the
same little old notebook that Jerry gave me."
"Jerry! And I've been meaning all the time to ask for him," cried
Pollyanna. "Where is he?"
"In Boston; and his vocabulary is just as picturesque as ever, only he
has to tone it down at times. Jerry's still in the newspaper
business--but he's GETTING the news, not selling it. Reporting, you
know. I HAVE been able to help him and mumsey. And don't you suppose I
was glad? Mumsey's in a sanatorium for her rheumatism."
"And is she better?"
"Very much. She's coming out pretty soon, and going to housekeeping
with Jerry. Jerry's been making up some of his lost schooling during
these past few years. He's let me help him--but only as a loan. He's
been very particular to stipulate that."
"Of course," nodded Pollyanna, in approval. "He'd want it that way,
I'm sure. I should. It isn't nice to be under obligations that you
can't pay. I know how it is. That's why I so wish I could help Aunt
Polly out--after all she's done for me!"
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