Books: Pollyanna Grows Up
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Eleanor H. Porter >> Pollyanna Grows Up
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The letter finished, there was a long silence, so long a silence that
the doctor uttered a quiet, "Well, Polly?"
Still there was silence. The doctor, watching his wife's face closely,
saw that the usually firm lips and chin were trembling. He waited then
quietly until his wife spoke.
"How soon--do you think--they'll expect her?" she asked at last.
In spite of himself Dr. Chilton gave a slight start.
"You--mean--that you WILL let her go?" he cried.
His wife turned indignantly.
"Why, Thomas Chilton, what a question! Do you suppose, after a letter
like that, I could do anything BUT let her go? Besides, didn't Dr.
Ames HIMSELF ask us to? Do you think, after what that man has done for
Pollyanna, that I'd refuse him ANYTHING--no matter what it was?"
"Dear, dear! I hope, now, that the doctor won't take it into his head
to ask for--for YOU, my love," murmured the husband-of-a-year, with a
whimsical smile. But his wife only gave him a deservedly scornful
glance, and said:
"You may write Dr. Ames that we'll send Pollyanna; and ask him to tell
Miss Wetherby to give us full instructions. It must be sometime before
the tenth of next month, of course, for you sail then; and I want to
see the child properly established myself before I leave, naturally."
"When will you tell Pollyanna?"
"To-morrow, probably."
"What will you tell her?"
"I don't know--exactly; but not any more than I can't help, certainly.
Whatever happens, Thomas, we don't want to spoil Pollyanna; and no
child could help being spoiled if she once got it into her head that
she was a sort of--of--"
"Of medicine bottle with a label of full instructions for taking?"
interpolated the doctor, with a smile.
"Yes," sighed Mrs. Chilton. "It's her unconsciousness that saves the
whole thing. YOU know that, dear."
"Yes, I know," nodded the man.
"She knows, of course, that you and I, and half the town are playing
the game with her, and that we--we are wonderfully happier because we
ARE playing it." Mrs. Chilton's voice shook a little, then went on
more steadily." But if, consciously, she should begin to be anything
but her own natural, sunny, happy little self, playing the game that
her father taught her, she would be--just what that nurse said she
sounded like--'impossible.' So, whatever I tell her, I sha'n't tell
her that she's going down to Mrs. Carew's to cheer her up," concluded
Mrs. Chilton, rising to her feet with decision, and putting away her
work.
"Which is where I think you're wise," approved the doctor.
Pollyanna was told the next day; and this was the manner of it.
"My dear," began her aunt, when the two were alone together that
morning, "how would you like to spend next winter in Boston?"
"With you?"
"No; I have decided to go with your uncle to Germany. But Mrs. Carew,
a dear friend of Dr. Ames, has asked you to come and stay with her for
the winter, and I think I shall let you go."
Pollyanna's face fell.
"But in Boston I won't have Jimmy, or Mr. Pendleton, or Mrs. Snow, or
anybody that I know, Aunt Polly."
"No, dear; but you didn't have them when you came here--till you found
them."
Pollyanna gave a sudden smile.
"Why, Aunt Polly, so I didn't! And that means that down to Boston
there are some Jimmys and Mr. Pendletons and Mrs. Snows waiting for me
that I don't know, doesn't it?"
"Yes, dear."
"Then I can be glad of that. I believe now, Aunt Polly, you know how
to play the game better than I do. I never thought of the folks down
there waiting for me to know them. And there's such a lot of 'em, too!
I saw some of them when I was there two years ago with Mrs. Gray. We
were there two whole hours, you know, on my way here from out West.
"There was a man in the station--a perfectly lovely man who told me
where to get a drink of water. Do you suppose he's there now? I'd like
to know him. And there was a nice lady with a little girl. They live
in Boston. They said they did. The little girl's name was Susie Smith.
Perhaps I could get to know them. Do you suppose I could? And there
was a boy, and another lady with a baby--only they lived in Honolulu,
so probably I couldn't find them there now. But there'd be Mrs. Carew,
anyway. Who is Mrs. Carew, Aunt Polly? Is she a relation?"
"Dear me, Pollyanna!" exclaimed Mrs. Chilton, half-laughingly,
half-despairingly. "How do you expect anybody to keep up with your
tongue, much less your thoughts, when they skip to Honolulu and back
again in two seconds! No, Mrs. Carew isn't any relation to us. She's
Miss Della Wetherby's sister. Do you remember Miss Wetherby at the
Sanatorium?"
Pollyanna clapped her hands.
"HER sister? Miss Wetherby's sister? Oh, then she'll be lovely, I
know. Miss Wetherby was. I loved Miss Wetherby. She had little
smile-wrinkles all around her eyes and mouth, and she knew the NICEST
stories. I only had her two months, though, because she only got there
a little while before I came away. At first I was sorry that I hadn't
had her ALL the time, but afterwards I was glad; for you see if I HAD
had her all the time, it would have been harder to say good-by than
'twas when I'd only had her a little while. And now it'll seem as if I
had her again, 'cause I'm going to have her sister."
Mrs. Chilton drew in her breath and bit her lip.
"But, Pollyanna, dear, you must not expect that they'll be quite
alike," she ventured.
"Why, they're SISTERS, Aunt Polly," argued the little girl, her eyes
widening; "and I thought sisters were always alike. We had two sets of
'em in the Ladies' Aiders. One set was twins, and THEY were so alike
you couldn't tell which was Mrs. Peck and which was Mrs. Jones, until
a wart grew on Mrs. Jones's nose, then of course we could, because we
looked for the wart the first thing. And that's what I told her one
day when she was complaining that people called her Mrs. Peck, and I
said if they'd only look for the wart as I did, they'd know right off.
But she acted real cross--I mean displeased, and I'm afraid she didn't
like it--though I don't see why; for I should have thought she'd been
glad there was something they could be told apart by, 'specially as
she was the president, and didn't like it when folks didn't ACT as if
she was the president--best seats and introductions and special
attentions at church suppers, you know. But she didn't, and afterwards
I heard Mrs. White tell Mrs. Rawson that Mrs. Jones had done
everything she could think of to get rid of that wart, even to trying
to put salt on a bird's tail. But I don't see how THAT could do any
good. Aunt Polly, DOES putting salt on a bird's tail help the warts on
people's noses?"
"Of course not, child! How you do run on, Pollyanna, especially if you
get started on those Ladies' Aiders!"
"Do I, Aunt Polly?" asked the little girl, ruefully. "And does it
plague you? I don't mean to plague you, honestly, Aunt Polly. And,
anyway, if I do plague you about those Ladies' Aiders, you can be kind
o' glad, for if I'm thinking of the Aiders, I'm sure to be thinking
how glad I am that I don't belong to them any longer, but have got an
aunt all my own. You can be glad of that, can't you, Aunt Polly?"
"Yes, yes, dear, of course I can, of course I can," laughed Mrs.
Chilton, rising to leave the room, and feeling suddenly very guilty
that she was conscious sometimes of a little of her old irritation
against Pollyanna's perpetual gladness.
During the next few days, while letters concerning Pollyanna's winter
stay in Boston were flying back and forth, Pollyanna herself was
preparing for that stay by a series of farewell visits to her
Beldingsville friends.
Everybody in the little Vermont village knew Pollyanna now, and almost
everybody was playing the game with her. The few who were not, were
not refraining because of ignorance of what the glad game was. So to
one house after another Pollyanna carried the news now that she was
going down to Boston to spend the winter; and loudly rose the clamor
of regret and remonstrance, all the way from Nancy in Aunt Polly's own
kitchen to the great house on the hill where lived John Pendleton.
Nancy did not hesitate to say--to every one except her mistress--that
SHE considered this Boston trip all foolishness, and that for her part
she would have been glad to take Miss Pollyanna home with her to the
Corners, she would, she would; and then Mrs. Polly could have gone to
Germany all she wanted to.
On the hill John Pendleton said practically the same thing, only he
did not hesitate to say it to Mrs. Chilton herself. As for Jimmy, the
twelve-year-old boy whom John Pendleton had taken into his home
because Pollyanna wanted him to, and whom he had now adopted--because
he wanted to himself--as for Jimmy, Jimmy was indignant, and he was
not slow to show it.
"But you've just come," he reproached Pollyanna, in the tone of voice
a small boy is apt to use when he wants to hide the fact that he has a
heart.
"Why, I've been here ever since the last of March. Besides, it isn't
as if I was going to stay. It's only for this winter."
"I don't care. You've just been away for a whole year, 'most, and if
I'd s'posed you was going away again right off, the first thing, I
wouldn't have helped one mite to meet you with flags and bands and
things, that day you come from the Sanatorium."
"Why, Jimmy Bean!" ejaculated Pollyanna, in amazed disapproval. Then,
with a touch of superiority born of hurt pride, she observed: "I'm
sure I didn't ASK you to meet me with bands and things--and you made
two mistakes in that sentence. You shouldn't say 'you was'; and I
think 'you come' is wrong. It doesn't sound right, anyway."
"Well, who cares if I did?"
Pollyanna's eyes grew still more disapproving.
"You SAID you did--when you asked me this summer to tell you when you
said things wrong, because Mr. Pendleton was trying to make you talk
right."
"Well, if you'd been brought up in a 'sylum without any folks that
cared, instead of by a whole lot of old women who didn't have anything
to do but tell you how to talk right, maybe you'd say 'you was,' and a
whole lot more worse things, Pollyanna Whittier!"
"Why, Jimmy Bean!" flared Pollyanna. "My Ladies' Aiders weren't old
women--that is, not many of them, so very old," she corrected hastily,
her usual proclivity for truth and literalness superseding her anger;
"and--"
"Well, I'm not Jimmy Bean, either," interrupted the boy, uptilting his
chin.
"You're--not-- Why, Jimmy Be-- --What do you mean?" demanded the little
girl.
"I've been adopted, LEGALLY. He's been intending to do it, all along,
he says, only he didn't get to it. Now he's done it. I'm to be called
'Jimmy Pendleton' and I'm to call him Uncle John, only I ain't--are
not--I mean, I AM not used to it yet, so I hain't--haven't begun to
call him that, much."
The boy still spoke crossly, aggrievedly, but every trace of
displeasure had fled from the little girl's face at his words. She
clapped her hands joyfully.
"Oh, how splendid! Now you've really got FOLKS--folks that care, you
know. And you won't ever have to explain that he wasn't BORN your
folks, 'cause your name's the same now. I'm so glad, GLAD, GLAD!"
The boy got up suddenly from the stone wall where they had been
sitting, and walked off. His cheeks felt hot, and his eyes smarted
with tears. It was to Pollyanna that he owed it all--this great good
that had come to him; and he knew it. And it was to Pollyanna that he
had just now been saying--
He kicked a small stone fiercely, then another, and another. He
thought those hot tears in his eyes were going to spill over and roll
down his cheeks in spite of himself. He kicked another stone, then
another; then he picked up a third stone and threw it with all his
might. A minute later he strolled back to Pollyanna still sitting on
the stone wall.
"I bet you I can hit that pine tree down there before you can," he
challenged airily.
"Bet you can't," cried Pollyanna, scrambling down from her perch.
The race was not run after all, for Pollyanna remembered just in time
that running fast was yet one of the forbidden luxuries for her. But
so far as Jimmy was concerned, it did not matter. His cheeks were no
longer hot, his eyes were not threatening to overflow with tears.
Jimmy was himself again.
CHAPTER III
A DOSE OF POLLYANNA
As the eighth of September approached--the day Pollyanna was to
arrive--Mrs. Ruth Carew became more and more nervously exasperated
with herself. She declared that she had regretted just ONCE her
promise to take the child--and that was ever since she had given it.
Before twenty-four hours had passed she had, indeed, written to her
sister demanding that she be released from the agreement; but Della
had answered that it was quite too late, as already both she and Dr.
Ames had written the Chiltons.
Soon after that had come Della's letter saying that Mrs. Chilton had
given her consent, and would in a few days come to Boston to make
arrangements as to school, and the like. So there was nothing to be
done, naturally, but to let matters take their course. Mrs. Carew
realized that, and submitted to the inevitable, but with poor grace.
True, she tried to be decently civil when Della and Mrs. Chilton made
their expected appearance; but she was very glad that limited time
made Mrs. Chilton's stay of very short duration, and full to the brim
of business.
It was well, indeed, perhaps, that Pollyanna's arrival was to be at a
date no later than the eighth; for time, instead of reconciling Mrs.
Carew to the prospective new member of her household, was filling her
with angry impatience at what she was pleased to call her "absurd
yielding to Della's crazy scheme."
Nor was Della herself in the least unaware of her sister's state of
mind. If outwardly she maintained a bold front, inwardly she was very
fearful as to results; but on Pollyanna she was pinning her faith, and
because she did pin her faith on Pollyanna, she determined on the bold
stroke of leaving the little girl to begin her fight entirely unaided
and alone. She contrived, therefore, that Mrs. Carew should meet them
at the station upon their arrival; then, as soon as greetings and
introductions were over, she hurriedly pleaded a previous engagement
and took herself off. Mrs. Carew, therefore, had scarcely time to look
at her new charge before she found herself alone with the child.
"Oh, but Della, Della, you mustn't--I can't--" she called agitatedly,
after the retreating figure of the nurse.
But Della, if she heard, did not heed; and, plainly annoyed and vexed,
Mrs. Carew turned back to the child at her side.
"What a shame! She didn't hear, did she?" Pollyanna was saying, her
eyes, also, wistfully following the nurse. "And I didn't WANT her to
go now a bit. But then, I've got you, haven't I? I can be glad for
that."
"Oh, yes, you've got me--and I've got you," returned the lady, not
very graciously. "Come, we go this way," she directed, with a motion
toward the right.
Obediently Pollyanna turned and trotted at Mrs. Carew's side, through
the huge station; but she looked up once or twice rather anxiously
into the lady's unsmiling face. At last she spoke hesitatingly.
"I expect maybe you thought--I'd be pretty," she hazarded, in a
troubled voice.
"P--pretty?" repeated Mrs. Carew.
"Yes--with curls, you know, and all that. And of course you did wonder
how I DID look, just as I did you. Only I KNEW you'd be pretty and
nice, on account of your sister. I had her to go by, and you didn't
have anybody. And of course I'm not pretty, on account of the
freckles, and it ISN'T nice when you've been expecting a PRETTY little
girl, to have one come like me; and--"
"Nonsense, child!" interrupted Mrs. Carew, a trifle sharply. "Come,
we'll see to your trunk now, then we'll go home. I had hoped that my
sister would come with us; but it seems she didn't see fit--even for
this one night."
Pollyanna smiled and nodded.
"I know; but she couldn't, probably. Somebody wanted her, I expect.
Somebody was always wanting her at the Sanatorium. It's a bother, of
course, when folks do want you all the time, isn't it?--'cause you
can't have yourself when you want yourself, lots of times. Still, you
can be kind of glad for that, for it IS nice to be wanted, isn't it?"
There was no reply--perhaps because for the first time in her life
Mrs. Carew was wondering if anywhere in the world there was any one
who really wanted her--not that she WISHED to be wanted, of course,
she told herself angrily, pulling herself up with a jerk, and frowning
down at the child by her side.
Pollyanna did not see the frown. Pollyanna's eyes were on the hurrying
throngs about them.
"My! what a lot of people," she was saying happily. "There's even more
of them than there was the other time I was here; but I haven't seen
anybody, yet, that I saw then, though I've looked for them everywhere.
Of course the lady and the little baby lived in Honolulu, so probably
THEY WOULDN'T be here; but there was a little girl, Susie Smith--she
lived right here in Boston. Maybe you know her though. Do you know
Susie Smith?"
"No, I don't know Susie Smith," replied Mrs. Carew, dryly.
"Don't you? She's awfully nice, and SHE'S pretty--black curls, you
know; the kind I'm going to have when I go to Heaven. But never mind;
maybe I can find her for you so you WILL know her. Oh, my! what a
perfectly lovely automobile! And are we going to ride in it?" broke
off Pollyanna, as they came to a pause before a handsome limousine,
the door of which a liveried chauffeur was holding open.
[Illustration: "'Oh, my! What a perfectly lovely automobile!'"]
The chauffeur tried to hide a smile--and failed. Mrs. Carew, however,
answered with the weariness of one to whom "rides" are never anything
but a means of locomotion from one tiresome place to another probably
quite as tiresome.
"Yes, we're going to ride in it." Then "Home, Perkins," she added to
the deferential chauffeur.
"Oh, my, is it yours?" asked Pollyanna, detecting the unmistakable air
of ownership in her hostess's manner. "How perfectly lovely! Then you
must be rich--awfully--I mean EXCEEDINGLY rich, more than the kind
that just has carpets in every room and ice cream Sundays, like the
Whites--one of my Ladies' Aiders, you know. (That is, SHE was a
Ladies' Aider.) I used to think THEY were rich, but I know now that
being really rich means you've got diamond rings and hired girls and
sealskin coats, and dresses made of silk and velvet for every day, and
an automobile. Have you got all those?"
"Why, y-yes, I suppose I have," admitted Mrs. Carew, with a faint
smile.
"Then you are rich, of course," nodded Pollyanna, wisely. "My Aunt
Polly has them, too, only her automobile is a horse. My! but don't I
just love to ride in these things," exulted Pollyanna, with a happy
little bounce. "You see I never did before, except the one that ran
over me. They put me IN that one after they'd got me out from under
it; but of course I didn't know about it, so I couldn't enjoy it.
Since then I haven't been in one at all. Aunt Polly doesn't like them.
Uncle Tom does, though, and he wants one. He says he's got to have
one, in his business. He's a doctor, you know, and all the other
doctors in town have got them now. I don't know how it will come out.
Aunt Polly is all stirred up over it. You see, she wants Uncle Tom to
have what he wants, only she wants him to want what she wants him to
want. See?"
Mrs. Carew laughed suddenly.
"Yes, my dear, I think I see," she answered demurely, though her eyes
still carried--for them--a most unusual twinkle.
"All right," sighed Pollyanna contentedly. "I thought you would;
still, it did sound sort of mixed when I said it. Oh, Aunt Polly says
she wouldn't mind having an automobile, so much, if she could have the
only one there was in the world, so there wouldn't be any one else to
run into her; but--My! what a lot of houses!" broke off Pollyanna,
looking about her with round eyes of wonder. "Don't they ever stop?
Still, there'd have to be a lot of them for all those folks to live
in, of course, that I saw at the station, besides all these here on
the streets. And of course where there ARE more folks, there are more
to know. I love folks. Don't you?"
"LOVE FOLKS!"
"Yes, just folks, I mean. Anybody--everybody."
"Well, no, Pollyanna, I can't say that I do," replied Mrs. Carew,
coldly, her brows contracted.
Mrs. Carew's eyes had lost their twinkle. They were turned rather
mistrustfully, indeed, on Pollyanna. To herself Mrs. Carew was saying:
"Now for preachment number one, I suppose, on my duty to mix with my
fellow-men, a la Sister Della!"
"Don't you? Oh, I do," sighed Pollyanna. "They're all so nice and so
different, you know. And down here there must be such a lot of them to
be nice and different. Oh, you don't know how glad I am so soon that I
came! I knew I would be, anyway, just as soon as I found out you were
YOU--that is, Miss Wetherby's sister, I mean. I love Miss Wetherby, so
I knew I should you, too; for of course you'd be alike--sisters,
so--even if you weren't twins like Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Peck--and they
weren't quite alike, anyway, on account of the wart. But I reckon you
don't know what I mean, so I'll tell you."
And thus it happened that Mrs. Carew, who had been steeling herself
for a preachment on social ethics, found herself, much to her surprise
and a little to her discomfiture, listening to the story of a wart on
the nose of one Mrs. Peck, Ladies' Aider.
By the time the story was finished the limousine had turned into
Commonwealth Avenue, and Pollyanna immediately began to exclaim at the
beauty of a street which had such a "lovely big long yard all the way
up and down through the middle of it," and which was all the nicer,
she said, "after all those little narrow streets."
"Only I should think every one would want to live on it," she
commented enthusiastically.
"Very likely; but that would hardly be possible," retorted Mrs. Carew,
with uplifted eyebrows.
Pollyanna, mistaking the expression on her face for one of
dissatisfaction that her own home was not on the beautiful Avenue,
hastened to make amends.
"Why, no, of course not," she agreed. "And I didn't mean that the
narrower streets weren't just as nice," she hurried on; "and even
better, maybe, because you could be glad you didn't have to go so far
when you wanted to run across the way to borrow eggs or soda, and--Oh,
but DO you live here?" she interrupted herself, as the car came to a
stop before the imposing Carew doorway. "Do you live here, Mrs.
Carew?"
"Why, yes, of course I live here," returned the lady, with just a
touch of irritation.
"Oh, how glad, GLAD you must be to live in such a perfectly lovely
place!" exulted the little girl, springing to the sidewalk and looking
eagerly about her. "Aren't you glad?"
Mrs. Carew did not reply. With unsmiling lips and frowning brow she
was stepping from the limousine.
For the second time in five minutes, Pollyanna hastened to make
amends.
"Of course I don't mean the kind of glad that's sinfully proud," she
explained, searching Mrs. Carew's face with anxious eyes. "Maybe you
thought I did, same as Aunt Polly used to, sometimes. I don't mean the
kind that's glad because you've got something somebody else can't
have; but the kind that just--just makes you want to shout and yell
and bang doors, you know, even if it isn't proper," she finished,
dancing up and down on her toes.
The chauffeur turned his back precipitately, and busied himself with
the car. Mrs. Carew, still with unsmiling lips and frowning brow led
the way up the broad stone steps.
"Come, Pollyanna," was all she said, crisply.
It was five days later that Della Wetherby received the letter from
her sister, and very eagerly she tore it open. It was the first that
had come since Pollyanna's arrival in Boston.
"My dear Sister," Mrs. Carew had written. "For pity's sake, Della, why
didn't you give me some sort of an idea what to expect from this child
you have insisted upon my taking? I'm nearly wild--and I simply can't
send her away. I've tried to three times, but every time, before I get
the words out of my mouth, she stops them by telling me what a
perfectly lovely time she is having, and how glad she is to be here,
and how good I am to let her live with me while her Aunt Polly has
gone to Germany. Now how, pray, in the face of that, can I turn around
and say 'Well, won't you please go home; I don't want you'? And the
absurd part of it is, I don't believe it has ever entered her head
that I don't WANT her here; and I can't seem to make it enter her
head, either.
"Of course if she begins to preach, and to tell me to count my
blessings, I SHALL send her away. You know I told you, to begin with,
that I wouldn't permit that. And I won't. Two or three times I have
thought she was going to (preach, I mean), but so far she has always
ended up with some ridiculous story about those Ladies' Aiders of
hers; so the sermon gets sidetracked--luckily for her, if she wants to
stay.
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