John Lothrop Motley - "History of the United Netherlands, 1594"

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Andrew Lang, Ed. - "The Pink Fairy Book"

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




"It IS a nice day, isn't it?"

The man turned his head with a start.

"Eh? Oh--er--what did you say?" he questioned, with a curiously
frightened look around to make sure the remark was addressed to him.

"I said 'twas a nice day," explained Pollyanna in hurried earnestness;
"but I don't care about that especially. That is, of course I'm glad
it's a nice day, but I said it just as a beginning to things, and I'd
just as soon talk about something else--anything else. It's only that
I wanted you to talk--about something, you see."

The man gave a low laugh. Even to Pollyanna the laugh sounded a little
queer, though she did not know (as did the man) that a laugh to his
lips had been a stranger for many months.

"So you want me to talk, do you?" he said a little sadly. "Well, I
don't see but what I shall have to do it, then. Still, I should think
a nice little lady like you might find lots nicer people to talk to
than an old duffer like me."

"Oh, but I like old duffers," exclaimed Pollyanna quickly; "that is, I
like the OLD part, and I don't know what a duffer is, so I can't
dislike that. Besides, if you are a duffer, I reckon I like duffers.
Anyhow, I like you," she finished, with a contented little settling of
herself in her seat that carried conviction.

"Humph! Well, I'm sure I'm flattered," smiled the man, ironically.
Though his face and words expressed polite doubt, it might have been
noticed that he sat a little straighter on the bench. "And, pray, what
shall we talk about?"

"It's--it's infinitesimal to me. That means I don't care, doesn't it?"
asked Pollyanna, with a beaming smile. "Aunt Polly says that, whatever
I talk about, anyhow, I always bring up at the Ladies' Aiders. But I
reckon that's because they brought me up first, don't you? We might
talk about the party. I think it's a perfectly beautiful party--now
that I know some one."

"P-party?"

"Yes--this, you know--all these people here to-day. It IS a party,
isn't it? The lady said it was for everybody, so I stayed--though I
haven't got to where the house is, yet, that's giving the party."

The man's lips twitched.

"Well, little lady, perhaps it is a party, in a way," he smiled; "but
the 'house' that's giving it is the city of Boston. This is the Public
Garden--a public park, you understand, for everybody."

"Is it? Always? And I may come here any time I want to? Oh, how
perfectly lovely! That's even nicer than I thought it could be. I'd
worried for fear I couldn't ever come again, after to-day, you see.
I'm glad now, though, that I didn't know it just at the first, for
it's all the nicer now. Nice things are nicer when you've been
worrying for fear they won't be nice, aren't they?"

"Perhaps they are--if they ever turn out to be nice at all," conceded
the man, a little gloomily.

"Yes, I think so," nodded Pollyanna, not noticing the gloom. "But
isn't it beautiful--here?" she gloried. "I wonder if Mrs. Carew knows
about it--that it's for anybody, so. Why, I should think everybody
would want to come here all the time, and just stay and look around."

The man's face hardened.

"Well, there are a few people in the world who have got a job--who've
got something to do besides just to come here and stay and look
around; but I don't happen to be one of them."

"Don't you? Then you can be glad for that, can't you?" sighed
Pollyanna, her eyes delightedly following a passing boat.

The man's lips parted indignantly, but no words came. Pollyanna was
still talking.

"I wish _I_ didn't have anything to do but that. I have to go to
school. Oh, I like school; but there's such a whole lot of things I
like better. Still I'm glad I CAN go to school. I'm 'specially glad
when I remember how last winter I didn't think I could ever go again.
You see, I lost my legs for a while--I mean, they didn't go; and you
know you never know how much you use things, till you don't have 'em.
And eyes, too. Did you ever think what a lot you do with eyes? I
didn't till I went to the Sanatorium. There was a lady there who had
just got blind the year before. I tried to get her to play the
game--finding something to be glad about, you know--but she said she
couldn't; and if I wanted to know why, I might tie up my eyes with my
handkerchief for just one hour. And I did. It was awful. Did you ever
try it?"

"Why, n-no, I didn't." A half-vexed, half-baffled expression was
coming to the man's face.

"Well, don't. It's awful. You can't do anything--not anything that you
want to do. But I kept it on the whole hour. Since then I've been so
glad, sometimes--when I see something perfectly lovely like this, you
know--I've been so glad I wanted to cry;--'cause I COULD see it, you
know. She's playing the game now, though--that blind lady is. Miss
Wetherby told me."

"The--GAME?"

"Yes; the glad game. Didn't I tell you? Finding something in
everything to be glad about. Well, she's found it now--about her eyes,
you know. Her husband is the kind of a man that goes to help make the
laws, and she had him ask for one that would help blind people,
'specially little babies. And she went herself and talked and told
those men how it felt to be blind. And they made it--that law. And
they said that she did more than anybody else, even her husband, to
help make it, and that they didn't believe there would have been any
law at all if it hadn't been for her. So now she says she's glad she
lost her eyes, 'cause she's kept so many little babies from growing up
to be blind like her. So you see she's playing it--the game. But I
reckon you don't know about the game yet, after all; so I'll tell you.
It started this way." And Pollyanna, with her eyes on the shimmering
beauty all about her, told of the little pair of crutches of long ago,
which should have been a doll.

When the story was finished there was a long silence; then, a little
abruptly the man got to his feet.

"Oh, are you going away NOW?" she asked in open disappointment.

"Yes, I'm going now." He smiled down at her a little queerly.

"But you're coming back sometime?"

He shook his head--but again he smiled.

"I hope not--and I believe not, little girl. You see, I've made a
great discovery to-day. I thought I was down and out. I thought there
was no place for me anywhere--now. But I've just discovered that I've
got two eyes, two arms, and two legs. Now I'm going to use them--and
I'm going to MAKE somebody understand that I know how to use them!"

The next moment he was gone.

"Why, what a funny man!" mused Pollyanna. "Still, he was nice--and he
was different, too," she finished, rising to her feet and resuming her
walk.

Pollyanna was now once more her usual cheerful self, and she stepped
with the confident assurance of one who has no doubt. Had not the man
said that this was a public park, and that she had as good a right as
anybody to be there? She walked nearer to the pond and crossed the
bridge to the starting-place of the little boats. For some time she
watched the children happily, keeping a particularly sharp lookout for
the possible black curls of Susie Smith. She would have liked to take
a ride in the pretty boats, herself, but the sign said "Five cents" a
trip, and she did not have any money with her. She smiled hopefully
into the faces of several women, and twice she spoke tentatively. But
no one spoke first to her, and those whom she addressed eyed her
coldly, and made scant response.

After a time she turned her steps into still another path. Here she
found a white-faced boy in a wheel chair. She would have spoken to
him, but he was so absorbed in his book that she turned away after a
moment's wistful gazing. Soon then she came upon a pretty, but
sad-looking young girl sitting alone, staring at nothing, very much as
the man had sat. With a contented little cry Pollyanna hurried
forward.

"Oh, how do you do?" she beamed. "I'm so glad I found you! I've been
hunting ever so long for you," she asserted, dropping herself down on
the unoccupied end of the bench.

The pretty girl turned with a start, an eager look of expectancy in
her eyes.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, falling back in plain disappointment. "I
thought-- Why, what do you mean?" she demanded aggrievedly. "I never
set eyes on you before in my life."

"No, I didn't you, either," smiled Pollyanna; "but I've been hunting
for you, just the same. That is, of course I didn't know you were
going to be YOU exactly. It's just that I wanted to find some one that
looked lonesome, and that didn't have anybody. Like me, you know. So
many here to-day have got folks. See?"

"Yes, I see," nodded the girl, falling back into her old listlessness.
"But, poor little kid, it's too bad YOU should find it out--so soon."

"Find what out?"

"That the lonesomest place in all the world is in a crowd in a big
city."

Pollyanna frowned and pondered.

"Is it? I don't see how it can be. I don't see how you can be lonesome
when you've got folks all around you. Still--" she hesitated, and the
frown deepened. "I WAS lonesome this afternoon, and there WERE folks
all around me; only they didn't seem to--to think--or notice."

The pretty girl smiled bitterly.

"That's just it. They don't ever think--or notice, crowds don't."

"But some folks do. We can be glad some do," urged Pollyanna. "Now
when I--"

"Oh, yes, some do," interrupted the other. As she spoke she shivered
and looked fearfully down the path beyond Pollyanna. "Some notice--too
much."

Pollyanna shrank back in dismay. Repeated rebuffs that afternoon had
given her a new sensitiveness.

"Do you mean--me?" she stammered. "That you wished I
hadn't--noticed--you?"

"No, no, kiddie! I meant--some one quite different from you. Some one
that hadn't ought to notice. I was glad to have you speak, only--I
thought at first it was some one from home."

"Oh, then you don't live here, either, any more than I do--I mean, for
keeps."

"Oh, yes, I live here now," sighed the girl; "that is, if you can call
it living--what I do."

"What do you do?" asked Pollyanna interestedly.

"Do? I'll tell you what I do," cried the other, with sudden
bitterness. "From morning till night I sell fluffy laces and perky
bows to girls that laugh and talk and KNOW each other. Then I go home
to a little back room up three flights just big enough to hold a lumpy
cot-bed, a washstand with a nicked pitcher, one rickety chair, and me.
It's like a furnace in the summer and an ice box in the winter; but
it's all the place I've got, and I'm supposed to stay in it--when I
ain't workin'. But I've come out to-day. I ain't goin' to stay in that
room, and I ain't goin' to go to any old library to read, neither.
It's our last half-holiday this year--and an extra one, at that; and
I'm going to have a good time--for once. I'm just as young, and I like
to laugh and joke just as well as them girls I sell bows to all day.
Well, to-day I'm going to laugh and joke."

Pollyanna smiled and nodded her approval.

"I'm glad you feel that way. I do, too. It's a lot more fun--to be
happy, isn't it? Besides, the Bible tells us to;--rejoice and be glad,
I mean. It tells us to eight hundred times. Probably you know about
'em, though--the rejoicing texts."

The pretty girl shook her head. A queer look came to her face.

"Well, no," she said dryly. "I can't say I WAS thinkin'--of the
Bible."

"Weren't you? Well, maybe not; but, you see, MY father was a minister,
and he--"

"A MINISTER?"

"Yes. Why, was yours, too?" cried Pollyanna, answering something she
saw in the other's face.

"Y-yes." A faint color crept up to the girl's forehead.

"Oh, and has he gone like mine to be with God and the angels?"

The girl turned away her head.

"No. He's still living--back home," she answered, half under her
breath.

"Oh, how glad you must be," sighed Pollyanna, enviously. "Sometimes I
get to thinking, if only I could just SEE father once--but you do see
your father, don't you?"

"Not often. You see, I'm down--here."

"But you CAN see him--and I can't, mine. He's gone to be with mother
and the rest of us up in Heaven, and-- Have you got a mother, too--an
earth mother?"

"Y-yes." The girl stirred restlessly, and half moved as if to go.

"Oh, then you can see both of them," breathed Pollyanna, unutterable
longing in her face. "Oh, how glad you must be! For there just isn't
anybody, is there, that really CARES and notices quite so much as
fathers and mothers. You see I know, for I had a father until I was
eleven years old; but, for a mother, I had Ladies' Aiders for ever so
long, till Aunt Polly took me. Ladies' Aiders are lovely, but of
course they aren't like mothers, or even Aunt Pollys; and--"

On and on Pollyanna talked. Pollyanna was in her element now.
Pollyanna loved to talk. That there was anything strange or unwise or
even unconventional in this intimate telling of her thoughts and her
history to a total stranger on a Boston park bench did not once occur
to Pollyanna. To Pollyanna all men, women, and children were friends,
either known or unknown; and thus far she had found the unknown quite
as delightful as the known, for with them there was always the
excitement of mystery and adventure--while they were changing from the
unknown to the known.

To this young girl at her side, therefore, Pollyanna talked
unreservedly of her father, her Aunt Polly, her Western home, and her
journey East to Vermont. She told of new friends and old friends, and
of course she told of the game. Pollyanna almost always told everybody
of the game, either sooner or later. It was, indeed, so much a part of
her very self that she could hardly have helped telling of it.

As for the girl--she said little. She was not now sitting in her old
listless attitude, however, and to her whole self had come a marked
change. The flushed cheeks, frowning brow, troubled eyes, and
nervously working fingers were plainly the signs of some inward
struggle. From time to time she glanced apprehensively down the path
beyond Pollyanna, and it was after such a glance that she clutched the
little girl's arm.

"See here, kiddie, for just a minute don't you leave me. Do you hear?
Stay right where you are? There's a man I know comin'; but no matter
what he says, don't you pay no attention, and DON'T YOU GO. I'm goin'
to stay with YOU. See?"

Before Pollyanna could more than gasp her wonderment and surprise, she
found herself looking up into the face of a very handsome young
gentleman, who had stopped before them.

"Oh, here you are," he smiled pleasantly, lifting his hat to
Pollyanna's companion. "I'm afraid I'll have to begin with an
apology--I'm a little late."

"It don't matter, sir," said the young girl, speaking hurriedly.
"I--I've decided not to go."

The young man gave a light laugh.

"Oh, come, my clear, don't be hard on a chap because he's a little
late!"

"It isn't that, really," defended the girl, a swift red flaming into
her cheeks. "I mean--I'm not going."

"Nonsense!" The man stopped smiling. He spoke sharply. "You said
yesterday you'd go."

"I know; but I've changed my mind. I told my little friend here--I'd
stay with her."

"Oh, but if you'd rather go with this nice young gentleman," began
Pollyanna, anxiously; but she fell back silenced at the look the girl
gave her.

"I tell you I had NOT rather go. I'm not going."

"And, pray, why this sudden right-about face?" demanded the young man
with an expression that made him suddenly look, to Pollyanna, not
quite so handsome. "Yesterday you said--"

"I know I did," interrupted the girl, feverishly. "But I knew then
that I hadn't ought to. Let's call it--that I know it even better now.
That's all." And she turned away resolutely.

It was not all. The man spoke again, twice. He coaxed, then he sneered
with a hateful look in his eyes. At last he said something very low
and angry, which Pollyanna did not understand. The next moment he
wheeled about and strode away.

The girl watched him tensely till he passed quite out of sight, then,
relaxing, she laid a shaking hand on Pollyanna's arm.

"Thanks, kiddie. I reckon I owe you--more than you know. Good-by."

"But you aren't going away NOW!" bemoaned Pollyanna.

The girl sighed wearily.

"I got to. He might come back, and next time I might not be able to--"
She clipped the words short and rose to her feet. For a moment she
hesitated, then she choked bitterly: "You see, he's the kind
that--notices too much, and that hadn't ought to notice--ME--at all!"
With that she was gone.

"Why, what a funny lady," murmured Pollyanna, looking wistfully after
the vanishing figure. "She was nice, but she was sort of different,
too," she commented, rising to her feet and moving idly down the path.




CHAPTER VI

JERRY TO THE RESCUE


It was not long before Pollyanna reached the edge of the Garden at a
corner where two streets crossed. It was a wonderfully interesting
corner, with its hurrying cars, automobiles, carriages and
pedestrians. A huge red bottle in a drug-store window caught her eye,
and from down the street came the sound of a hurdy-gurdy. Hesitating
only a moment Pollyanna darted across the corner and skipped lightly
down the street toward the entrancing music.

Pollyanna found much to interest her now. In the store windows were
marvelous objects, and around the hurdy-gurdy, when she had reached
it, she found a dozen dancing children, most fascinating to watch. So
altogether delightful, indeed, did this pastime prove to be that
Pollyanna followed the hurdy-gurdy for some distance, just to see
those children dance. Presently she found herself at a corner so busy
that a very big man in a belted blue coat helped the people across the
street. For an absorbed minute she watched him in silence; then, a
little timidly, she herself started to cross.

It was a wonderful experience. The big, blue-coated man saw her at
once and promptly beckoned to her. He even walked to meet her. Then,
through a wide lane with puffing motors and impatient horses on either
hand, she walked unscathed to the further curb. It gave her a
delightful sensation, so delightful that, after a minute, she walked
back. Twice again, after short intervals, she trod the fascinating way
so magically opened at the lifting of the big man's hand. But the last
time her conductor left her at the curb, he gave a puzzled frown.

[Illustration: "Twice again, after short intervals, she trod the
fascinating way"]

"See here, little girl, ain't you the same one what crossed a minute
ago?" he demanded. "And again before that?"

"Yes, sir," beamed Pollyanna. "I've been across four times!"

"Well!" the officer began to bluster; but Pollyanna was still talking.

"And it's been nicer every time!"

"Oh-h, it has--has it?" mumbled the big man, lamely. Then, with a
little more spirit he sputtered: "What do you think I'm here for--just
to tote you back and forth?"

"Oh, no, sir," dimpled Pollyanna. "Of course you aren't just for me!
There are all these others. I know what you are. You're a policeman.
We've got one of you out where I live at Mrs. Carew's, only he's the
kind that just walks on the sidewalk, you know. I used to think you
were soldiers, on account of your gold buttons and blue hats; but I
know better now. Only I think you ARE a kind of a soldier, 'cause
you're so brave--standing here like this, right in the middle of all
these teams and automobiles, helping folks across."

"Ho--ho! Brrrr!" spluttered the big man, coloring like a schoolboy and
throwing back his head with a hearty laugh. "Ho--ho! Just as if--" He
broke off with a quick lifting of his hand. The next moment he was
escorting a plainly very much frightened little old lady from curb to
curb. If his step were a bit more pompous, and his chest a bit more
full, it must have been only an unconscious tribute to the watching
eyes of the little girl back at the starting-point. A moment later,
with a haughtily permissive wave of his hand toward the chafing
drivers and chauffeurs, he strolled back to Pollyanna.

"Oh, that was splendid!" she greeted him, with shining eyes. "I love
to see you do it--and it's just like the Children of Israel crossing
the Red Sea, isn't it?--with you holding back the waves for the people
to cross. And how glad you must be all the time, that you can do it! I
used to think being a doctor was the very gladdest business there was,
but I reckon, after all, being a policeman is gladder yet--to help
frightened people like this, you know. And--" But with another
"Brrrr!" and an embarrassed laugh, the big blue-coated man was back in
the middle of the street, and Pollyanna was all alone on the
curbstone.

For only a minute longer did Pollyanna watch her fascinating "Red
Sea," then, with a regretful backward glance, she turned away.

"I reckon maybe I'd better be going home now," she meditated. "It must
be 'most dinner time." And briskly she started to walk back by the way
she had come.

Not until she had hesitated at several corners, and unwittingly made
two false turns, did Pollyanna grasp the fact that "going back home"
was not to be so easy as she had thought it to be. And not until she
came to a building which she knew she had never seen before, did she
fully realize that she had lost her way.

She was on a narrow street, dirty, and ill-paved. Dingy tenement
blocks and a few unattractive stores were on either side. All about
were jabbering men and chattering women--though not one word of what
they said could Pollyanna understand. Moreover, she could not help
seeing that the people looked at her very curiously, as if they knew
she did not belong there.

Several times, already, she had asked her way, but in vain. No one
seemed to know where Mrs. Carew lived; and, the last two times, those
addressed had answered with a gesture and a jumble of words which
Pollyanna, after some thought, decided must be "Dutch," the kind the
Haggermans--the only foreign family in Beldingsville--used.

On and on, down one street and up another, Pollyanna trudged. She was
thoroughly frightened now. She was hungry, too, and very tired. Her
feet ached, and her eyes smarted with the tears she was trying so hard
to hold back. Worse yet, it was unmistakably beginning to grow dark.

"Well, anyhow," she choked to herself, "I'm going to be glad I'm lost,
'cause it'll be so nice when I get found. I CAN be glad for that!"

It was at a noisy corner where two broader streets crossed that
Pollyanna finally came to a dismayed stop. This time the tears quite
overflowed, so that, lacking a handkerchief, she had to use the backs
of both hands to wipe them away.

"Hullo, kid, why the weeps?" queried a cheery voice. "What's up?"

With a relieved little cry Pollyanna turned to confront a small boy
carrying a bundle of newspapers under his arm.

"Oh, I'm so glad to see you!" she exclaimed. "I've so wanted to see
some one who didn't talk Dutch!"

The small boy grinned.

"Dutch nothin'!" he scoffed. "You mean Dago, I bet ye."

Pollyanna gave a slight frown.

"Well, anyway, it--it wasn't English," she said doubtfully; "and they
couldn't answer my questions. But maybe you can. Do you know where
Mrs. Carew lives?"

"Nix! You can search me."

"Wha-at?" queried Pollyanna, still more doubtfully.

The boy grinned again.

"I say not in mine. I guess I ain't acquainted with the lady."

"But isn't there anybody anywhere that is?" implored Pollyanna. "You
see, I just went out for a walk and I got lost. I've been ever and
ever so far, but I can't find the house at all; and it's supper--I
mean dinner time and getting dark. I want to get back. I MUST get
back."

"Gee! Well, I should worry!" sympathized the boy.

"Yes, and I'm afraid Mrs. Carew'll worry, too," sighed Pollyanna.

"Gorry! if you ain't the limit," chuckled the youth, unexpectedly.
"But, say, listen! Don't ye know the name of the street ye want?"

"No--only that it's some kind of an avenue," desponded Pollyanna.

"A avenOO, is it? Sure, now, some class to that! We're doin' fine.
What's the number of the house? Can ye tell me that? Just scratch your
head!"

"Scratch--my--head?" Pollyanna frowned questioningly, and raised a
tentative hand to her hair.

The boy eyed her with disdain.

"Aw, come off yer perch! Ye ain't so dippy as all that. I say, don't
ye know the number of the house ye want?"

"N-no, except there's a seven in it," returned Pollyanna, with a
faintly hopeful air.

"Won't ye listen ter that?" gibed the scornful youth. "There's a seven
in it--an' she expects me ter know it when I see it!"

"Oh, I should know the house, if I could only see it," declared
Pollyanna, eagerly; "and I think I'd know the street, too, on account
of the lovely long yard running right up and down through the middle
of it."

This time it was the boy who gave a puzzled frown.

"YARD?" he queried, "in the middle of a street?"

"Yes--trees and grass, you know, with a walk in the middle of it, and
seats, and--" But the boy interrupted her with a whoop of delight.

"Gee whiz! Commonwealth Avenue, sure as yer livin'! Wouldn't that get
yer goat, now?"

"Oh, do you know--do you, really?" besought Pollyanna. "That sounded
like it--only I don't know what you meant about the goat part. There
aren't any goats there. I don't think they'd allow--"