Books: Pollyanna Grows Up
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Eleanor H. Porter >> Pollyanna Grows Up
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All of Pollyanna's life these days revolved around Aunt Polly, and it
is doubtful if even Aunt Polly herself realized how exacting she had
become, and how entirely her niece was giving up her life to her.
It was on a particularly gloomy day in March that matters came, in a
way, to a climax. Pollyanna, upon arising, had looked at the sky with
a sigh--Aunt Polly was always more difficult on cloudy days. With a
gay little song, however, that still sounded a bit forced--Pollyanna
descended to the kitchen and began to prepare breakfast.
"I reckon I'll make corn muffins," she told the stove confidentially;
"then maybe Aunt Polly won't mind--other things so much."
Half an hour later she tapped at her aunt's door.
"Up so soon? Oh, that's fine! And you've done your hair yourself!"
"I couldn't sleep. I had to get up," sighed Aunt Polly, wearily. "I
had to do my hair, too. YOU weren't here."
"But I didn't suppose you were ready for me, auntie," explained
Pollyanna, hurriedly. "Never mind, though. You'll be glad I wasn't
when you find what I've been doing."
"Well, I sha'n't--not this morning," frowned Aunt Polly, perversely.
"Nobody could be glad this morning. Look at it rain! That makes the
third rainy day this week."
"That's so--but you know the sun never seems quite so perfectly lovely
as it does after a lot of rain like this," smiled Pollyanna, deftly
arranging a bit of lace and ribbon at her aunt's throat. "Now come.
Breakfast's all ready. Just you wait till you see what I've got for
you."
Aunt Polly, however, was not to be diverted, even by corn muffins,
this morning. Nothing was right, nothing was even endurable, as she
felt; and Pollyanna's patience was sorely taxed before the meal was
over. To make matters worse, the roof over the east attic window was
found to be leaking, and an unpleasant letter came in the mail.
Pollyanna, true to her creed, laughingly declared that, for her part,
she was glad they had a roof--to leak; and that, as for the letter,
she'd been expecting it for a week, anyway, and she was actually glad
she wouldn't have to worry any more for fear it would come. It
COULDN'T come now, because it HAD come; and 'twas over with.
All this, together with sundry other hindrances and annoyances,
delayed the usual morning work until far into the afternoon--something
that was always particularly displeasing to methodical Aunt Polly, who
ordered her own life, preferably, by the tick of the clock.
"But it's half-past three, Pollyanna, already! Did you know it?" she
fretted at last. "And you haven't made the beds yet."
"No, dearie, but I will. Don't worry."
"But, did you hear what I said? Look at the clock, child. It's after
three o'clock!"
"So 'tis, but never mind, Aunt Polly. We can be glad 'tisn't after
four."
Aunt Polly sniffed her disdain.
"I suppose YOU can," she observed tartly.
Pollyanna laughed.
"Well, you see, auntie, clocks ARE accommodating things, when you stop
to think about it. I found that out long ago at the Sanatorium. When I
was doing something that I liked, and I didn't WANT the time to go
fast, I'd just look at the hour hand, and I'd feel as if I had lots of
time--it went so slow. Then, other days, when I had to keep something
that hurt on for an hour, maybe, I'd watch the little second hand; and
you see then I felt as if Old Time was just humping himself to help me
out by going as fast as ever he could. Now I'm watching the hour hand
to-day, 'cause I don't want Time to go fast. See?" she twinkled
mischievously, as she hurried from the room, before Aunt Polly had
time to answer.
It was certainly a hard day, and by night Pollyanna looked pale and
worn out. This, too, was a source of worriment to Aunt Polly.
"Dear me, child, you look tired to death!" she fumed. "WHAT we're
going to do I don't know. I suppose YOU'LL be sick next!"
"Nonsense, auntie! I'm not sick a bit," declared Pollyanna, dropping
herself with a sigh on to the couch. "But I AM tired. My! how good
this couch feels! I'm glad I'm tired, after all--it's so nice to
rest."
Aunt Polly turned with an impatient gesture.
"Glad--glad--glad! Of course you're glad, Pollyanna. You're always
glad for everything. I never saw such a girl. Oh, yes, I know it's the
game," she went on, in answer to the look that came to Pollyanna's
face. "And it's a very good game, too; but I think you carry it
altogether too far. This eternal doctrine of 'it might be worse' has
got on my nerves, Pollyanna. Honestly, it would be a real relief if
you WOULDN'T be glad for something, sometime!"
"Why, auntie!" Pollyanna pulled herself half erect.
"Well, it would. You just try it sometime, and see."
"But, auntie, I--" Pollyanna stopped and eyed her aunt reflectively.
An odd look came to her eyes; a slow smile curved her lips. Mrs.
Chilton, who had turned back to her work, paid no heed; and, after a
minute, Pollyanna lay back on the couch without finishing her
sentence, the curious smile still on her lips.
It was raining again when Pollyanna got up the next morning, and a
northeast wind was still whistling down the chimney. Pollyanna at the
window drew an involuntary sigh; but almost at once her face changed.
"Oh, well, I'm glad--" She clapped her hands to her lips. "Dear me,"
she chuckled softly, her eyes dancing, "I shall forget--I know I
shall; and that'll spoil it all! I must just remember not to be glad
for anything--not ANYTHING to-day."
Pollyanna did not make corn muffins that morning. She started the
breakfast, then went to her aunt's room.
Mrs. Chilton was still in bed.
"I see it rains, as usual," she observed, by way of greeting.
"Yes, it's horrid--perfectly horrid," scolded Pollyanna. "It's rained
'most every day this week, too. I hate such weather."
Aunt Polly turned with a faint surprise in her eyes; but Pollyanna was
looking the other way.
"Are you going to get up now?" she asked a little wearily.
"Why, y-yes," murmured Aunt Polly, still with that faint surprise in
her eyes. "What's the matter, Pollyanna? Are you especially tired?"
"Yes, I am tired this morning. I didn't sleep well, either. I hate not
to sleep. Things always plague so in the night, when you wake up."
"I guess I know that," fretted Aunt Polly. "I didn't sleep a wink
after two o'clock myself. And there's that roof! How are we going to
have it fixed, pray, if it never stops raining? Have you been up to
empty the pans?"
"Oh, yes--and took up some more. There's a new leak now, further
over."
"A new one! Why, it'll all be leaking yet!"
Pollyanna opened her lips. She had almost said, "Well, we can be glad
to have it fixed all at once, then," when she suddenly remembered, and
substituted, in a tired voice:
"Very likely it will, auntie. It looks like it now, fast enough.
Anyway, it's made fuss enough for a whole roof already, and I'm sick
of it!" With which statement, Pollyanna, her face carefully averted,
turned and trailed listlessly out of the room.
"It's so funny and so--so hard, I'm afraid I'm making a mess of it,"
she whispered to herself anxiously, as she hurried down-stairs to the
kitchen.
Behind her, Aunt Polly, in the bedroom, gazed after her with eyes that
were again faintly puzzled.
Aunt Polly had occasion a good many times before six o'clock that
night to gaze at Pollyanna with surprised and questioning eyes.
Nothing was right with Pollyanna. The fire would not burn, the wind
blew one particular blind loose three times, and still a third leak
was discovered in the roof. The mail brought to Pollyanna a letter
that made her cry (though no amount of questioning on Aunt Polly's
part would persuade her to tell why). Even the dinner went wrong, and
innumerable things happened in the afternoon to call out fretful,
discouraged remarks.
Not until the day was more than half gone did a look of shrewd
suspicion suddenly fight for supremacy with the puzzled questioning in
Aunt Polly's eyes. If Pollyanna saw this she made no sign. Certainly
there was no abatement in her fretfulness and discontent. Long before
six o'clock, however, the suspicion in Aunt Polly's eyes became
conviction, and drove to ignominious defeat the puzzled questioning.
But, curiously enough then, a new look came to take its place, a look
that was actually a twinkle of amusement.
At last, after a particularly doleful complaint on Pollyanna's part,
Aunt Polly threw up her hands with a gesture of half-laughing despair.
"That'll do, that'll do, child! I'll give up. I'll confess myself
beaten at my own game. You can be--GLAD for that, if you like," she
finished with a grim smile.
"I know, auntie, but you said--" began Pollyanna demurely.
"Yes, yes, but I never will again," interrupted Aunt Polly, with
emphasis. "Mercy, what a day this has been! I never want to live
through another like it." She hesitated, flushed a little, then went
on with evident difficulty: "Furthermore, I--I want you to know
that--that I understand I haven't played the game myself--very well,
lately; but, after this, I'm going to--to try--WHERE'S my
handkerchief?" she finished sharply, fumbling in the folds of her
dress.
Pollyanna sprang to her feet and crossed instantly to her aunt's side.
"Oh, but Aunt Polly, I didn't mean--It was just a--a joke," she
quavered in quick distress. "I never thought of your taking it THAT
way."
"Of course you didn't," snapped Aunt Polly, with all the asperity of a
stern, repressed woman who abhors scenes and sentiment, and who is
mortally afraid she will show that her heart has been touched. "Don't
you suppose I know you didn't mean it that way? Do you think, if I
thought you HAD been trying to teach me a lesson that I'd--I'd--" But
Pollyanna's strong young arms had her in a close embrace, and she
could not finish the sentence.
CHAPTER XXVIII
JIMMY AND JAMIE
Pollyanna was not the only one that was finding that winter a hard
one. In Boston Jimmy Pendleton, in spite of his strenuous efforts to
occupy his time and thoughts, was discovering that nothing quite
erased from his vision a certain pair of laughing blue eyes, and
nothing quite obliterated from his memory a certain well-loved, merry
voice.
Jimmy told himself that if it were not for Mrs. Carew, and the fact
that he could be of some use to her, life would not be worth the
living. Even at Mrs. Carew's it was not all joy, for always there was
Jamie; and Jamie brought thoughts of Pollyanna--unhappy thoughts.
Being thoroughly convinced that Jamie and Pollyanna cared for each
other, and also being equally convinced that he himself was in honor
bound to step one side and give the handicapped Jamie full right of
way, it never occurred to him to question further. Of Pollyanna he did
not like to talk or to hear. He knew that both Jamie and Mrs. Carew
heard from her; and when they spoke of her, he forced himself to
listen, in spite of his heartache. But he always changed the subject
as soon as possible, and he limited his own letters to her to the
briefest and most infrequent epistles possible. For, to Jimmy, a
Pollyanna that was not his was nothing but a source of pain and
wretchedness; and he had been so glad when the time came for him to
leave Beldingsville and take up his studies again in Boston: to be so
near Pollyanna, and yet so far from her, he had found to be nothing
but torture.
In Boston, with all the feverishness of a restless mind that seeks
distraction from itself, he had thrown himself into the carrying out
of Mrs. Carew's plans for her beloved working girls, and such time as
could be spared from his own duties he had devoted to this work, much
to Mrs. Carew's delight and gratitude.
And so for Jimmy the winter had passed and spring had come--a joyous,
blossoming spring full of soft breezes, gentle showers, and tender
green buds expanding into riotous bloom and fragrance. To Jimmy,
however, it was anything but a joyous spring, for in his heart was
still nothing but a gloomy winter of discontent.
"If only they'd settle things and announce the engagement, once for
all," murmured Jimmy to himself, more and more frequently these days.
"If only I could know SOMETHING for sure, I think I could stand it
better!"
Then one day late in April, he had his wish--a part of it: he learned
"something for sure."
It was ten o'clock on a Saturday morning, and Mary, at Mrs. Carew's,
had ushered him into the music-room with a well-trained: "I'll tell
Mrs. Carew you're here, sir. She's expecting you, I think."
In the music-room Jimmy had found himself brought to a dismayed halt
by the sight of Jamie at the piano, his arms outflung upon the rack,
and his head bowed upon them. Pendleton had half turned to beat a soft
retreat when the man at the piano lifted his head, bringing into view
two flushed cheeks and a pair of fever-bright eyes.
"Why, Carew," stammered Pendleton, aghast, "has
anything--er--happened?"
"Happened! Happened!" ejaculated the lame youth, flinging out both his
hands, in each of which, as Pendleton now saw, was an open letter.
"Everything has happened! Wouldn't you think it had if all your life
you'd been in prison, and suddenly you saw the gates flung wide open?
Wouldn't you think it had if all in a minute you could ask the girl
you loved to be your wife? Wouldn't you think it had if--But, listen!
You think I'm crazy, but I'm not. Though maybe I am, after all, crazy
with joy. I'd like to tell you. May I? I've got to tell somebody!"
Pendleton lifted his head. It was as if, unconsciously, he was bracing
himself for a blow. He had grown a little white; but his voice was
quite steady when he answered.
"Sure you may, old fellow. I'd be--glad to hear it."
Carew, however, had scarcely waited for assent. He was rushing on,
still a bit incoherently.
"It's not much to you, of course. You have two feet and your freedom.
You have your ambitions and your bridges. But I--to me it's
everything. It's a chance to live a man's life and do a man's work,
perhaps--even if it isn't dams and bridges. It's something!--and it's
something I've proved now I CAN DO! Listen. In that letter there is
the announcement that a little story of mine has won the first
prize--$3,000, in a contest. In that other letter there, a big
publishing house accepts with flattering enthusiasm my first book
manuscript for publication. And they both came to-day--this morning.
Do you wonder I am crazy glad?"
"No! No, indeed! I congratulate you, Carew, with all my heart," cried
Jimmy, warmly.
"Thank you--and you may congratulate me. Think what it means to me.
Think what it means if, by and by, I can be independent, like a man.
Think what it means if I can, some day, make Mrs. Carew proud and glad
that she gave the crippled lad a place in her home and heart. Think
what it means for me to be able to tell the girl I love that I DO love
her."
"Yes--yes, indeed, old boy!" Jimmy spoke firmly, though he had grown
very white now.
"Of course, maybe I ought not to do that last, even now," resumed
Jamie, a swift cloud shadowing the shining brightness of his
countenance. "I'm still tied to--these." He tapped the crutches by his
side. "I can't forget, of course, that day in the woods last summer,
when I saw Pollyanna--I realize that always I'll have to run the
chance of seeing the girl I love in danger, and not being able to
rescue her."
"Oh, but Carew--" began the other huskily.
Carew lifted a peremptory hand.
"I know what you'd say. But don't say it. You can't understand. YOU
aren't tied to two sticks. You did the rescuing, not I. It came to me
then how it would be, always, with me and--Sadie. I'd have to stand
aside and see others--"
"SADIE!" cut in Jimmy, sharply.
"Yes; Sadie Dean. You act surprised. Didn't you know? Haven't you
suspected--how I felt toward Sadie?" cried Jamie. "Have I kept it so
well to myself, then? I tried to, but--" He finished with a faint
smile and a half-despairing gesture.
"Well, you certainly kept it all right, old fellow--from me, anyhow,"
cried Jimmy, gayly. The color had come back to Jimmy's face in a rich
flood, and his eyes had grown suddenly very bright indeed. "So it's
Sadie Dean. Good! I congratulate you again, I do, I do, as Nancy
says." Jimmy was quite babbling with joy and excitement now, so great
and wonderful had been the reaction within him at the discovery that
it was Sadie, not Pollyanna, whom Jamie loved. Jamie flushed and shook
his head a bit sadly.
"No congratulations--yet. You see, I haven't spoken to--her. But I
think she must know. I supposed everybody knew. Pray, whom did you
think it was, if not--Sadie?"
Jimmy hesitated. Then, a little precipitately, he let it out.
"Why, I'd thought of--Pollyanna."
Jamie smiled and pursed his lips.
"Pollyanna's a charming girl, and I love her--but not that way, any
more than she does me. Besides, I fancy somebody else would have
something to say about that; eh?"
Jimmy colored like a happy, conscious boy.
"Do you?" he challenged, trying to make his voice properly impersonal.
"Of course! John Pendleton."
"JOHN PENDLETON!" Jimmy wheeled sharply.
"What about John Pendleton?" queried a new voice; and Mrs. Carew came
forward with a smile.
Jimmy, around whose ears for the second time within five minutes the
world had crashed into fragments, barely collected himself enough for
a low word of greeting. But Jamie, unabashed, turned with a triumphant
air of assurance.
"Nothing; only I just said that I believed John Pendleton would have
something to say about Pollyanna's loving anybody--but him."
"POLLYANNA! JOHN PENDLETON!" Mrs. Carew sat down suddenly in the chair
nearest her. If the two men before her had not been so deeply absorbed
in their own affairs they might have noticed that the smile had
vanished from Mrs. Carew's lips, and that an odd look as of almost
fear had come to her eyes.
"Certainly," maintained Jamie. "Were you both blind last summer?
Wasn't he with her a lot?"
"Why, I thought he was with--all of us," murmured Mrs. Carew, a little
faintly.
"Not as he was with Pollyanna," insisted Jamie. "Besides, have you
forgotten that day when we were talking about John Pendleton's
marrying, and Pollyanna blushed and stammered and said finally that he
HAD thought of marrying--once. Well, I wondered then if there wasn't
SOMETHING between them. Don't you remember?"
"Y-yes, I think I do--now that you speak of it," murmured Mrs. Carew
again. "But I had--forgotten it."
"Oh, but I can explain that," cut in Jimmy, wetting his dry lips.
"John Pendleton DID have a love affair once, but it was with
Pollyanna's mother."
"Pollyanna's mother!" exclaimed two voices in surprise.
"Yes. He loved her years ago, but she did not care for him at all, I
understand. She had another lover--a minister, and she married him
instead--Pollyanna's father."
"Oh-h!" breathed Mrs. Carew, leaning forward suddenly in her chair.
"And is that why he's--never married?"
"Yes," avouched Jimmy. "So you see there's really nothing to that idea
at all--that he cares for Pollyanna. It was her mother."
"On the contrary I think it makes a whole lot to that idea," declared
Jamie, wagging his head wisely. "I think it makes my case all the
stronger. Listen. He once loved the mother. He couldn't have her. What
more absolutely natural than that he should love the daughter now--and
win her?"
"Oh, Jamie, you incorrigible spinner of tales!" reproached Mrs. Carew,
with a nervous laugh. "This is no ten-penny novel. It's real life.
She's too young for him. He ought to marry a woman, not a girl--that
is, if he marries any one, I mean," she stammeringly corrected, a
sudden flood of color in her face.
"Perhaps; but what if it happens to be a GIRL that he loves?" argued
Jamie, stubbornly. "And, really, just stop to think. Have we had a
single letter from her that hasn't told of his being there? And you
KNOW how HE'S always talking of Pollyanna in his letters."
Mrs. Carew got suddenly to her feet.
"Yes, I know," she murmured, with an odd little gesture, as if
throwing something distasteful aside. "But--" She did not finish her
sentence, and a moment later she had left the room.
When she came back in five minutes she found, much to her surprise,
that Jimmy had gone.
"Why, I thought he was going with us on the girls' picnic!" she
exclaimed.
"So did I," frowned Jamie. "But the first thing I knew he was
explaining or apologizing or something about unexpectedly having to
leave town, and he'd come to tell you he couldn't go with us. Anyhow,
the next thing I knew he'd gone. You see,"--Jamie's eyes were glowing
again--"I don't think I knew quite what he did say, anyway. I had
something else to think of." And he jubilantly spread before her the
two letters which all the time he had still kept in his hands.
"Oh, Jamie!" breathed Mrs. Carew, when she had read the letters
through. "How proud I am of you!" Then suddenly her eyes filled with
tears at the look of ineffable joy that illumined Jamie's face.
CHAPTER XXIX
JIMMY AND JOHN
It was a very determined, square-jawed young man that alighted at the
Beldingsville station late that Saturday night. And it was an even
more determined, square-jawed young man that, before ten o'clock the
next morning, stalked through the Sunday-quiet village streets and
climbed the hill to the Harrington homestead. Catching sight of a
loved and familiar flaxen coil of hair on a well-poised little head
just disappearing into the summerhouse, the young man ignored the
conventional front steps and doorbell, crossed the lawn, and strode
through the garden paths until he came face to face with the owner of
the flaxen coil of hair.
"Jimmy!" gasped Pollyanna, falling back with startled eyes. "Why,
where did you--come from?"
"Boston. Last night. I had to see you, Pollyanna."
"To--see--m-me?" Pollyanna was plainly fencing for time to regain her
composure. Jimmy looked so big and strong and DEAR there in the door
of the summerhouse that she feared her eyes had been surprised into a
telltale admiration, if not more.
"Yes, Pollyanna; I wanted--that is, I thought--I mean, I feared--Oh,
hang it all, Pollyanna, I can't beat about the bush like this. I'll
have to come straight to the point. It's just this. I stood aside
before, but I won't now. It isn't a case any longer of fairness. He
isn't crippled like Jamie. He's got feet and hands and a head like
mine, and if he wins he'll have to win in a fair fight. I'VE got some
rights!"
Pollyanna stared frankly.
"Jimmy Bean Pendleton, whatever in the world are you talking about?"
she demanded.
The young man laughed shamefacedly.
"No wonder you don't know. It wasn't very lucid, was it? But I don't
think I've been really lucid myself since yesterday--when I found out
from Jamie himself."
"Found out--from Jamie!"
"Yes. It was the prize that started it. You see, he'd just got one,
and--"
"Oh, I know about that," interrupted Pollyanna, eagerly. "And wasn't
it splendid? Just think--the first one--three thousand dollars! I
wrote him a letter last night. Why, when I saw his name, and realized
it was Jamie--OUR JAMIE--I was so excited I forgot all about looking
for MY name, and even when I couldn't find mine at all, and knew that
I hadn't got any--I mean, I was so excited and pleased for Jamie that
I--I forgot--er--everything else," corrected Pollyanna, throwing a
dismayed glance into Jimmy's face, and feverishly trying to cover up
the partial admission she had made.
Jimmy, however, was too intent on his own problem to notice hers.
"Yes, yes, 'twas fine, of course. I'm glad he got it. But Pollyanna,
it was what he said AFTERWARD that I mean. You see, until then I'd
thought that--that he cared--that you cared--for each other, I mean;
and--"
"You thought that Jamie and I cared for each other!" exclaimed
Pollyanna, into whose face now was stealing a soft, shy color. "Why,
Jimmy, it's Sadie Dean. 'Twas always Sadie Dean. He used to talk of
her to me by the hour. I think she likes him, too."
"Good! I hope she does; but, you see, I didn't know. I thought 'twas
Jamie--and you. And I thought that because he was--was a cripple, you
know, that it wouldn't be fair if I--if I stayed around and tried to
win you myself."
Pollyanna stooped suddenly, and picked up a leaf at her feet. When she
rose, her face was turned quite away.
"A fellow can't--can't feel square, you know, running a race with a
chap that--that's handicapped from the start. So I--I just stayed away
and gave him his chance; though it 'most broke my heart to do it,
little girl. It just did! Then yesterday morning I found out. But I
found out something else, too. Jamie says there is--is somebody else
in the case. But I can't stand aside for him, Pollyanna. I can't--even
in spite of all he's done for me. John Pendleton is a man, and he's
got two whole feet for the race. He's got to take his chances. If you
care for him--if you really care for him--"
But Pollyanna had turned, wild-eyed.
"JOHN PENDLETON! Jimmy, what do you mean? What are you saying--about
John Pendleton?"
A great joy transfigured Jimmy's face. He held out both his hands.
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