Constant - "Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, V6"

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Wilkie Collins - "Heart and Science"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: Pollyanna Grows Up

E >> Eleanor H. Porter >> Pollyanna Grows Up




"But you are helping her this summer."

Pollyanna lifted her eyebrows.

"Yes, I'm keeping summer boarders. I look it, don't I?" she
challenged, with a flourish of her hands toward her surroundings.
"Surely, never was a boarding-house mistress's task quite like mine!
And you should have heard Aunt Polly's dire predictions of what summer
boarders would be," she chuckled irrepressibly.

"What was that?"

Pollyanna shook her head decidedly.

"Couldn't possibly tell you. That's a dead secret. But--" She stopped
and sighed, her face growing wistful again. "This isn't going to last,
you know. It can't. Summer boarders don't. I've got to do something
winters. I've been thinking. I believe--I'll write stories."

Jamie turned with a start.

"You'll--what?" he demanded.

"Write stories--to sell, you know. You needn't look so surprised! Lots
of folks do that. I knew two girls in Germany who did."

"Did you ever try it?" Jamie still spoke a little queerly.

"N-no; not yet," admitted Pollyanna. Then, defensively, in answer to
the expression on his face, she bridled: "I TOLD you I was keeping
summer boarders now. I can't do both at once."

"Of course not!"

She threw him a reproachful glance.

"You don't think I can ever do it?"

"I didn't say so."

"No; but you look it. I don't see why I can't. It isn't like singing.
You don't have to have a voice for it. And it isn't like an instrument
that you have to learn how to play."

"I think it is--a little--like that." Jamie's voice was low. His eyes
were turned away.

"How? What do you mean? Why, Jamie, just a pencil and paper, so--that
isn't like learning to play the piano or violin!"

There was a moment's silence. Then came the answer, still in that low,
diffident voice; still with the eyes turned away.

"The instrument that you play on, Pollyanna, will be the great heart
of the world; and to me that seems the most wonderful instrument of
all--to learn. Under your touch, if you are skilful, it will respond
with smiles or tears, as you will."

[Illustration: "'The instrument that you play on, Pollyanna, will be
the great heart of the world'"]

Pollyanna drew a tremulous sigh. Her eyes grew wet.

"Oh, Jamie, how beautifully you do put things--always! I never thought
of it that way. But it's so, isn't it? How I would love to do it!
Maybe I couldn't do--all that. But I've read stories in the magazines,
lots of them. Seems as if I could write some like those, anyway. I
LOVE to tell stories. I'm always repeating those you tell, and I
always laugh and cry, too, just as I do when YOU tell them."

Jamie turned quickly.

"DO they make you laugh and cry, Pollyanna--really?" There was a
curious eagerness in his voice.

"Of course they do, and you know it, Jamie. And they used to long ago,
too, in the Public Garden. Nobody can tell stories like you, Jamie.
YOU ought to be the one writing stories; not I. And, say, Jamie, why
don't you? You could do it lovely, I know!"

There was no answer. Jamie, apparently, did not hear; perhaps because
he called, at that instant, to a chipmunk that was scurrying through
the bushes near by.

It was not always with Jamie, nor yet with Mrs. Carew and Sadie Dean
that Pollyanna had delightful walks and talks, however; very often it
was with Jimmy, or John Pendleton.

Pollyanna was sure now that she had never before known John Pendleton.
The old taciturn moroseness seemed entirely gone since they came to
camp. He rowed and swam and fished and tramped with fully as much
enthusiasm as did Jimmy himself, and with almost as much vigor. Around
the camp fire at night he quite rivaled Jamie with his story-telling
of adventures, both laughable and thrilling, that had befallen him in
his foreign travels.

"In the 'Desert of Sarah,' Nancy used to call it," laughed Pollyanna
one night, as she joined the rest in begging for a story.

Better than all this, however, in Pollyanna's opinion, were the times
when John Pendleton, with her alone, talked of her mother as he used
to know her and love her, in the days long gone. That he did so talk
with her was a joy to Pollyanna, but a great surprise, too; for, never
in the past, had John Pendleton talked so freely of the girl whom he
had so loved--hopelessly. Perhaps John Pendleton himself felt some of
the surprise, for once he said to Pollyanna, musingly:

"I wonder why I'm talking to you like this."

"Oh, but I love to have you," breathed Pollyanna.

"Yes, I know--but I wouldn't think I would do it. It must be, though,
that it's because you are so like her, as I knew her. You are very
like your mother, my dear."

"Why, I thought my mother was BEAUTIFUL!" cried Pollyanna, in
unconcealed amazement.

John Pendleton smiled quizzically.

"She was, my dear."

Pollyanna looked still more amazed.

"Then I don't see how I CAN be like her!"

The man laughed outright.

"Pollyanna, if some girls had said that, I--well, never mind what I'd
say. You little witch!--you poor, homely little Pollyanna!"

Pollyanna flashed a genuinely distressed reproof straight into the
man's merry eyes.

"Please, Mr. Pendleton, don't look like that, and don't tease
me--about THAT. I'd so LOVE to be beautiful--though of course it
sounds silly to say it. And I HAVE a mirror, you know."

"Then I advise you to look in it--when you're talking sometime,"
observed the man sententiously.

Pollyanna's eyes flew wide open.

"Why, that's just what Jimmy said," she cried.

"Did he, indeed--the young rascal!" retorted John Pendleton, dryly.
Then, with one of the curiously abrupt changes of manner peculiar to
him, he said, very low: "You have your mother's eyes and smile,
Pollyanna; and to me you are--beautiful."

And Pollyanna, her eyes blinded with sudden hot tears, was silenced.

Dear as were these talks, however, they still were not quite like the
talks with Jimmy, to Pollyanna. For that matter, she and Jimmy did not
need to TALK to be happy. Jimmy was always so comfortable, and
comforting; whether they talked or not did not matter. Jimmy always
understood. There was no pulling on her heart-strings for sympathy,
with Jimmy--Jimmy was delightfully big, and strong, and happy. Jimmy
was not sorrowing for a long-lost nephew, nor pining for the loss of a
boyhood sweetheart. Jimmy did not have to swing himself painfully
about on a pair of crutches--all of which was so hard to see, and
know, and think of. With Jimmy one could be just glad, and happy, and
free. Jimmy was such a dear! He always rested one so--did Jimmy!




CHAPTER XXIII

"TIED TO TWO STICKS"


It was on the last day at camp that it happened. To Pollyanna it
seemed such a pity that it should have happened at all, for it was the
first cloud to bring a shadow of regret and unhappiness to her heart
during the whole trip, and she found herself futilely sighing:

"I wish we'd gone home day before yesterday; then it wouldn't have
happened."

But they had not gone home "day before yesterday," and it had
happened; and this was the manner of it.

Early in the morning of that last day they had all started on a
two-mile tramp to "the Basin."

"We'll have one more bang-up fish dinner before we go," Jimmy had
said. And the rest had joyfully agreed.

With luncheon and fishing tackle, therefore, they had made an early
start. Laughing and calling gaily to each other they followed the
narrow path through the woods, led by Jimmy, who best knew the way.

At first, close behind Jimmy had walked Pollyanna; but gradually she
had fallen back with Jamie, who was last in the line: Pollyanna had
thought she detected on Jamie's face the expression which she had come
to know was there only when he was attempting something that taxed
almost to the breaking-point his skill and powers of endurance. She
knew that nothing would so offend him as to have her openly notice
this state of affairs. At the same time, she also knew that from her,
more willingly than from any one else, would he accept an occasional
steadying hand over a troublesome log or stone. Therefore, at the
first opportunity to make the change without apparent design, she had
dropped back step by step until she had reached her goal, Jamie. She
had been rewarded instantly in the way Jamie's face brightened, and in
the easy assurance with which he met and conquered a fallen tree-trunk
across their path, under the pleasant fiction (carefully fostered by
Pollyanna) of "helping her across."

Once out of the woods, their way led along an old stone wall for a
time, with wide reaches of sunny, sloping pastures on each side, and a
more distant picturesque farmhouse. It was in the adjoining pasture
that Pollyanna saw the goldenrod which she immediately coveted.

"Jamie, wait! I'm going to get it," she exclaimed eagerly. "It'll make
such a beautiful bouquet for our picnic table!" And nimbly she
scrambled over the high stone wall and dropped herself down on the
other side.

It was strange how tantalizing was that goldenrod. Always just ahead
she saw another bunch, and yet another, each a little finer than the
one within her reach. With joyous exclamations and gay little calls
back to the waiting Jamie, Pollyanna--looking particularly attractive
in her scarlet sweater--skipped from bunch to bunch, adding to her
store. She had both hands full when there came the hideous bellow of
an angry bull, the agonized shout from Jamie, and the sound of hoofs
thundering down the hillside.

What happened next was never clear to her. She knew she dropped her
goldenrod and ran--ran as she never ran before, ran as she thought she
never could run--back toward the wall and Jamie. She knew that behind
her the hoof-beats were gaining, gaining, always gaining. Dimly,
hopelessly, far ahead of her, she saw Jamie's agonized face, and heard his
hoarse cries. Then, from somewhere, came a new voice--Jimmy's--shouting
a cheery call of courage.

Still on and on she ran blindly, hearing nearer and nearer the thud of
those pounding hoofs. Once she stumbled and almost fell. Then, dizzily
she righted herself and plunged forward. She felt her strength quite
gone when suddenly, close to her, she heard Jimmy's cheery call again.
The next minute she felt herself snatched off her feet and held close
to a great throbbing something that dimly she realized was Jimmy's
heart. It was all a horrid blur then of cries, hot, panting breaths,
and pounding hoofs thundering nearer, ever nearer. Then, just as she
knew those hoofs to be almost upon her, she felt herself flung, still
in Jimmy's arms, sharply to one side, and yet not so far but that she
still could feel the hot breath of the maddened animal as he dashed
by. Almost at once then she found herself on the other side of the
wall, with Jimmy bending over her, imploring her to tell him she was
not dead.

With an hysterical laugh that was yet half a sob, she struggled out of
his arms and stood upon her feet.

"Dead? No, indeed--thanks to you, Jimmy. I'm all right. I'm all right.
Oh, how glad, glad, glad I was to hear your voice! Oh, that was
splendid! How did you do it?" she panted.

"Pooh! That was nothing. I just--" An inarticulate choking cry brought
his words to a sudden halt. He turned to find Jamie face down on the
ground, a little distance away. Pollyanna was already hurrying toward
him.

"Jamie, Jamie, what is the matter?" she cried. "Did you fall? Are you
hurt?"

There was no answer.

"What is it, old fellow? ARE you hurt?" demanded Jimmy.

Still there was no answer. Then, suddenly, Jamie pulled himself half
upright and turned. They saw his face then, and fell back, shocked and
amazed.

"Hurt? Am I hurt?" he choked huskily, flinging out both his hands.
"Don't you suppose it hurts to see a thing like that and not be able
to do anything? To be tied, helpless, to a pair of sticks? I tell you
there's no hurt in all the world to equal it!"

"But--but--Jamie," faltered Pollyanna.

"Don't!" interrupted the cripple, almost harshly. He had struggled to
his feet now. "Don't say--anything. I didn't mean to make a
scene--like this," he finished brokenly, as he turned and swung back
along the narrow path that led to the camp.

For a minute, as if transfixed, the two behind him watched him go.

"Well, by--Jove!" breathed Jimmy, then, in a voice that shook a
little, "That was--tough on him!"

"And I didn't think, and PRAISED you, right before him," half-sobbed
Pollyanna. "And his hands--did you see them? They were--BLEEDING where
the nails had cut right into the flesh," she finished, as she turned
and stumbled blindly up the path.

"But, Pollyanna, w-where are you going?" cried Jimmy.

"I'm going to Jamie, of course! Do you think I'd leave him like that?
Come, we must get him to come back."

And Jimmy, with a sigh that was not all for Jamie, went.




CHAPTER XXIV

JIMMY WAKES UP


Outwardly the camping trip was pronounced a great success; but
inwardly--

Pollyanna wondered sometimes if it were all herself, or if there
really were a peculiar, indefinable constraint in everybody with
everybody else. Certainly she felt it, and she thought she saw
evidences that the others felt it, too. As for the cause of it
all--unhesitatingly she attributed it to that last day at camp with
its unfortunate trip to the Basin.

To be sure, she and Jimmy had easily caught up with Jamie, and had,
after considerable coaxing, persuaded him to turn about and go on to
the Basin with them. But, in spite of everybody's very evident efforts
to act as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, nobody really
succeeded in doing so. Pollyanna, Jamie, and Jimmy overdid their
gayety a bit, perhaps; and the others, while not knowing exactly what
had happened, very evidently felt that something was not quite right,
though they plainly tried to hide the fact that they did feel so.
Naturally, in this state of affairs, restful happiness was out of the
question. Even the anticipated fish dinner was flavorless; and early
in the afternoon the start was made back to the camp.

Once home again, Pollyanna had hoped that the unhappy episode of the
angry bull would be forgotten. But she could not forget it, so in all
fairness she could not blame the others if they could not. Always she
thought of it now when she looked at Jamie. She saw again the agony on
his face, the crimson stain on the palms of his hands. Her heart ached
for him, and because it did so ache, his mere presence had come to be
a pain to her. Remorsefully she confessed to herself that she did not
like to be with Jamie now, nor to talk with him--but that did not mean
that she was not often with him. She was with him, indeed, much
oftener than before, for so remorseful was she, and so fearful was she
that he would detect her unhappy frame of mind, that she lost no
opportunity of responding to his overtures of comradeship; and
sometimes she deliberately sought him out. This last she did not often
have to do, however, for more and more frequently these days Jamie
seemed to be turning to her for companionship.

The reason for this, Pollyanna believed, was to be found in this same
incident of the bull and the rescue. Not that Jamie ever referred to
it directly. He never did that. He was, too, even gayer than usual;
but Pollyanna thought she detected sometimes a bitterness underneath
it all that was never there before. Certainly she could not help
seeing that at times he seemed almost to want to avoid the others, and
that he actually sighed, as if with relief, when he found himself
alone with her. She thought she knew why this was so, after he said to
her, as he did say one day, while they were watching the others play
tennis:

"You see, after all, Pollyanna, there isn't any one who can quite
understand as you can."

"'Understand'?" Pollyanna had not known what he meant at first. They
had been watching the players for five minutes without a word between
them.

"Yes; for you, once--couldn't walk--yourself."

"Oh-h, yes, I know," faltered Pollyanna; and she knew that her great
distress must have shown in her face, for so quickly and so blithely
did he change the subject, after a laughing:

"Come, come, Pollyanna, why don't you tell me to play the game? I
would if I were in your place. Forget it, please. I was a brute to
make you look like that!"

And Pollyanna smiled, and said: "No, no--no, indeed!" But she did not
"forget it." She could not. And it all made her only the more anxious
to be with Jamie and help him all she could.

"As if NOW I'd ever let him see that I was ever anything but glad when
he was with me!" she thought fervently, as she hurried forward a
minute later to take her turn in the game.

Pollyanna, however, was not the only one in the party who felt a new
awkwardness and constraint. Jimmy Pendleton felt it, though he, too,
tried not to show it.

Jimmy was not happy these days. From a care-free youth whose visions
were of wonderful spans across hitherto unbridgeable chasms, he has
come to be an anxious-eyed young man whose visions were of a feared
rival bearing away the girl he loved.

Jimmy knew very well now that he was in love with Pollyanna. He
suspected that he had been in love with her for some time. He stood
aghast, indeed, to find himself so shaken and powerless before this
thing that had come to him. He knew that even his beloved bridges were
as nothing when weighed against the smile in a girl's eyes and the
word on a girl's lips. He realized that the most wonderful span in the
world to him would be the thing that could help him to cross the chasm
of fear and doubt that he felt lay between him and Pollyanna--doubt
because of Pollyanna; fear because of Jamie.

Not until he had seen Pollyanna in jeopardy that day in the pasture
had he realized how empty would be the world--his world--without her.
Not until his wild dash for safety with Pollyanna in his arms had he
realized how precious she was to him. For a moment, indeed, with his
arms about her, and hers clinging about his neck, he had felt that she
was indeed his; and even in that supreme moment of danger he knew the
thrill of supreme bliss. Then, a little later, he had seen Jamie's
face, and Jamie's hands. To him they could mean but one thing: Jamie,
too, loved Pollyanna, and Jamie had to stand by, helpless--"tied to
two sticks." That was what he had said. Jimmy believed that, had he
himself been obliged to stand by helpless, "tied to two sticks," while
another rescued the girl that he loved, he would have looked like
that.

Jimmy had gone back to camp that day with his thoughts in a turmoil of
fear and rebellion. He wondered if Pollyanna cared for Jamie; that was
where the fear came in. But even if she did care, a little, must he
stand aside, weakly, and let Jamie, without a struggle, make her learn
to care more? That was where the rebellion came in. Indeed, no, he
would not do it, decided Jimmy. It should be a fair fight between
them.

Then, all by himself as he was, Jimmy flushed hot to the roots of his
hair. Would it be a "fair" fight? Could any fight between him and
Jamie be a "fair" fight? Jimmy felt suddenly as he had felt years
before when, as a lad, he had challenged a new boy to a fight for an
apple they both claimed, then, at the first blow, had discovered that
the new boy had a crippled arm. He had purposely lost then, of course,
and had let the crippled boy win. But he told himself fiercely now
that this case was different. It was no apple that was at stake. It
was his life's happiness. It might even be Pollyanna's life's
happiness, too. Perhaps she did not care for Jamie at all, but would
care for her old friend, Jimmy, if he but once showed her he wanted
her to care. And he would show her. He would--

Once again Jimmy blushed hotly. But he frowned, too, angrily: if only
he COULD forget how Jamie had looked when he had uttered that moaning
"tied to two sticks!" If only--But what was the use? It was NOT a fair
fight, and he knew it. He knew, too, right there and then, that his
decision would be just what it afterwards proved to be: he would watch
and wait. He would give Jamie his chance; and if Pollyanna showed that
she cared, he would take himself off and away quite out of their
lives; and they should never know, either of them, how bitterly he was
suffering. He would go back to his bridges--as if any bridge, though
it led to the moon itself, could compare for a moment with Pollyanna!
But he would do it. He must do it.

It was all very fine and heroic, and Jimmy felt so exalted he was
atingle with something that was almost happiness when he finally
dropped off to sleep that night. But martyrdom in theory and practice
differs woefully, as would-be martyrs have found out from time
immemorial. It was all very well to decide alone and in the dark that
he would give Jamie his chance; but it was quite another matter really
to do it when it involved nothing less than the leaving of Pollyanna
and Jamie together almost every time he saw them. Then, too, he was
very much worried at Pollyanna's apparent attitude toward the lame
youth. It looked very much to Jimmy as if she did indeed care for him,
so watchful was she of his comfort, so apparently eager to be with
him. Then, as if to settle any possible doubt in Jimmy's mind, there
came the day when Sadie Dean had something to say on the subject.

They were all out in the tennis court. Sadie was sitting alone when
Jimmy strolled up to her.

"You next with Pollyanna, isn't it?" he queried.

She shook her head.

"Pollyanna isn't playing any more this morning."

"Isn't playing!" frowned Jimmy, who had been counting on his own game
with Pollyanna. "Why not?"

For a brief minute Sadie Dean did not answer; then with very evident
difficulty she said:

"Pollyanna told me last night that she thought we were playing tennis
too much; that it wasn't kind to--Mr. Carew, as long as he can't
play."

"I know; but--" Jimmy stopped helplessly, the frown plowing a deeper
furrow into his forehead. The next instant he fairly started with
surprise at the tense something in Sadie Dean's voice, as she said:

"But he doesn't want her to stop. He doesn't want any one of us to
make any difference--for him. It's that that hurts him so. She doesn't
understand. She doesn't understand! But I do. She thinks she does,
though!"

Something in words or manner sent a sudden pang to Jimmy's heart. He
threw a sharp look into her face. A question flew to his lips. For a
moment he held it back; then, trying to hide his earnestness with a
bantering smile, he let it come.

"Why, Miss Dean, you don't mean to convey the idea that--that there's
any SPECIAL interest in each other--between those two, do you?"

She gave him a scornful glance.

"Where have your eyes been? She worships him! I mean--they worship
each other," she corrected hastily.

Jimmy, with an inarticulate ejaculation, turned and walked away
abruptly. He could not trust himself to remain longer. He did not wish
to talk any more, just then, to Sadie Dean. So abruptly, indeed, did
he turn, that he did not notice that Sadie Dean, too, turned
hurriedly, and busied herself looking in the grass at her feet, as if
she had lost something. Very evidently, Sadie Dean, also, did not wish
to talk any more just then.

Jimmy Pendleton told himself that it was not true at all; that it was
all falderal, what Sadie Dean had said. Yet nevertheless, true or not
true, he could not forget it. It colored all his thoughts thereafter,
and loomed before his eyes like a shadow whenever he saw Pollyanna and
Jamie together. He watched their faces covertly. He listened to the
tones of their voices. He came then, in time, to think it was, after
all, true: that they did worship each other; and his heart, in
consequence, grew like lead within him. True to his promise to
himself, however, he turned resolutely away. The die was cast, he told
himself. Pollyanna was not to be for him.

Restless days for Jimmy followed. To stay away from the Harrington
homestead entirely he did not dare, lest his secret be suspected. To
be with Pollyanna at all now was torture. Even to be with Sadie Dean
was unpleasant, for he could not forget that it was Sadie Dean who had
finally opened his eyes. Jamie, certainly, was no haven of refuge,
under the circumstances; and that left only Mrs. Carew. Mrs. Carew,
however, was a host in herself, and Jimmy found his only comfort these
days in her society. Gay or grave, she always seemed to know how to
fit his mood exactly; and it was wonderful how much she knew about
bridges--the kind of bridges he was going to build. She was so wise,
too, and so sympathetic, knowing always just the right word to say. He
even one day almost told her about The Packet; but John Pendleton
interrupted them at just the wrong moment, so the story was not told.
John Pendleton was always interrupting them at just the wrong moment,
Jimmy thought vexedly, sometimes. Then, when he remembered what John
Pendleton had done for him, he was ashamed.

"The Packet" was a thing that dated back to Jimmy's boyhood, and had
never been mentioned to any one save to John Pendleton, and that only
once, at the time of his adoption. The Packet was nothing but rather a
large white envelope, worn with time, and plump with mystery behind a
huge red seal. It had been given him by his father, and it bore the
following instructions in his father's hand: