Books: Pollyanna Grows Up
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Eleanor H. Porter >> Pollyanna Grows Up
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"Goats nothin'!" scoffed the boy. "You bet yer sweet life I know where
'tis! Don't I tote Sir James up there to the Garden 'most ev'ry day?
An' I'll take YOU, too. Jest ye hang out here till I get on ter my job
again, an' sell out my stock. Then we'll make tracks for that 'ere
Avenue 'fore ye can say Jack Robinson."
"You mean you'll take me--home?" appealed Pollyanna, still plainly not
quite understanding.
"Sure! It's a cinch--if you know the house."
"Oh, yes, I know the house," replied the literal Pollyanna, anxiously,
"but I don't know whether it's a--a cinch, or not. If it isn't, can't
you--"
But the boy only threw her another disdainful glance and darted off
into the thick of the crowd. A moment later Pollyanna heard his
strident call of "paper, paper! Herald, Globe,--paper, sir?"
With a sigh of relief Pollyanna stepped back into a doorway and
waited. She was tired, but she was happy. In spite of sundry puzzling
aspects of the case, she yet trusted the boy, and she had perfect
confidence that he could take her home.
"He's nice, and I like him," she said to herself, following with her
eyes the boy's alert, darting figure. "But he does talk funny. His
words SOUND English, but some of them don't seem to make any sense
with the rest of what he says. But then, I'm glad he found me,
anyway," she finished with a contented little sigh.
It was not long before the boy returned, his hands empty.
"Come on, kid. All aboard," he called cheerily. "Now we'll hit the
trail for the Avenue. If I was the real thing, now, I'd tote ye home
in style in a buzzwagon; but seein' as how I hain't got the dough,
we'll have ter hoof it."
It was, for the most part, a silent walk. Pollyanna, for once in her
life, was too tired to talk, even of the Ladies' Aiders; and the boy
was intent on picking out the shortest way to his goal. When the
Public Garden was reached, Pollyanna did exclaim joyfully:
"Oh, now I'm 'most there! I remember this place. I had a perfectly
lovely time here this afternoon. It's only a little bit of a ways home
now."
"That's the stuff! Now we're gettin' there," crowed the boy. "What'd I
tell ye? We'll just cut through here to the Avenue, an' then it'll be
up ter you ter find the house."
"Oh, I can find the house," exulted Pollyanna, with all the confidence
of one who has reached familiar ground.
It was quite dark when Pollyanna led the way up the broad Carew steps.
The boy's ring at the bell was very quickly answered, and Pollyanna
found herself confronted by not only Mary, but by Mrs. Carew, Bridget,
and Jennie as well. All four of the women were white-faced and
anxious-eyed.
"Child, child, where HAVE you been?" demanded Mrs. Carew, hurrying
forward.
"Why, I--I just went to walk," began Pollyanna, "and I got lost, and
this boy--"
"Where did you find her?" cut in Mrs. Carew, turning imperiously to
Pollyanna's escort, who was, at the moment, gazing in frank admiration
at the wonders about him in the brilliantly-lighted hall.
"Where did you find her, boy?" she repeated sharply.
For a brief moment the boy met her gaze unflinchingly; then something
very like a twinkle came into his eyes, though his voice, when he
spoke, was gravity itself.
"Well, I found her 'round Bowdoin Square, but I reckon she'd been
doin' the North End, only she couldn't catch on ter the lingo of the
Dagos, so I don't think she give 'em the glad hand, ma'am."
"The North End--that child--alone! Pollyanna!" shuddered Mrs. Carew.
"Oh, I wasn't alone, Mrs. Carew," fended Pollyanna. "There were ever
and ever so many people there, weren't there, boy?"
But the boy, with an impish grin, was disappearing through the door.
Pollyanna learned many things during the next half-hour. She learned
that nice little girls do not take long walks alone in unfamiliar
cities, nor sit on park benches and talk to strangers. She learned,
also, that it was only by a "perfectly marvelous miracle" that she had
reached home at all that night, and that she had escaped many, many
very disagreeable consequences of her foolishness. She learned that
Boston was not Beldingsville, and that she must not think it was.
"But, Mrs. Carew," she finally argued despairingly, "I AM here, and I
didn't get lost for keeps. Seems as if I ought to be glad for that
instead of thinking all the time of the sorry things that might have
happened."
"Yes, yes, child, I suppose so, I suppose so," sighed Mrs. Carew; "but
you have given me such a fright, and I want you to be sure, SURE, SURE
never to do it again. Now come, dear, you must be hungry."
It was just as she was dropping off to sleep that night that Pollyanna
murmured drowsily to herself:
"The thing I'm the very sorriest for of anything is that I didn't ask
that boy his name nor where he lived. Now I can't ever say thank you
to him!"
CHAPTER VII
A NEW ACQUAINTANCE
Pollyanna's movements were most carefully watched over after her
adventurous walk; and, except to go to school, she was not allowed out
of the house unless Mary or Mrs. Carew herself accompanied her. This,
to Pollyanna, however, was no cross, for she loved both Mrs. Carew and
Mary, and delighted to be with them. They were, too, for a while, very
generous with their time. Even Mrs. Carew, in her terror of what might
have happened, and her relief that it had not happened, exerted
herself to entertain the child.
Thus it came about that, with Mrs. Carew, Pollyanna attended concerts
and matinees, and visited the Public Library and the Art Museum; and
with Mary she took the wonderful "seeing Boston" trips, and visited
the State House and the Old South Church.
Greatly as Pollyanna enjoyed the automobile, she enjoyed the trolley
cars more, as Mrs. Carew, much to her surprise, found out one day.
"Do we go in the trolley car?" Pollyanna asked eagerly.
"No. Perkins will take us," answered Mrs. Carew. Then, at the
unmistakable disappointment in Pollyanna's face, she added in
surprise: "Why, I thought you liked the auto, child!"
"Oh, I do," acceded Pollyanna, hurriedly; "and I wouldn't say
anything, anyway, because of course I know it's cheaper than the
trolley car, and--"
"'Cheaper than the trolley car'!" exclaimed Mrs. Carew, amazed into an
interruption.
"Why, yes," explained Pollyanna, with widening eyes; "the trolley car
costs five cents a person, you know, and the auto doesn't cost
anything, 'cause it's yours. And of course I LOVE the auto, anyway,"
she hurried on, before Mrs. Carew could speak. "It's only that there
are so many more people in the trolley car, and it's such fun to watch
them! Don't you think so?"
"Well, no, Pollyanna, I can't say that I do," responded Mrs. Carew,
dryly, as she turned away.
As it chanced, not two days later, Mrs. Carew heard something more of
Pollyanna and trolley cars--this time from Mary.
"I mean, it's queer, ma'am," explained Mary earnestly, in answer to a
question her mistress had asked, "it's queer how Miss Pollyanna just
gets 'round EVERYBODY--and without half trying. It isn't that she DOES
anything. She doesn't. She just--just looks glad, I guess, that's all.
But I've seen her get into a trolley car that was full of
cross-looking men and women, and whimpering children, and in five
minutes you wouldn't know the place. The men and women have stopped
scowling, and the children have forgot what they're cryin' for.
"Sometimes it's just somethin' that Miss Pollyanna has said to me, and
they've heard it. Sometimes it's just the 'Thank you,' she gives when
somebody insists on givin' us their seat--and they're always doin'
that--givin' us seats, I mean. And sometimes it's the way she smiles
at a baby or a dog. All dogs everywhere wag their tails at her,
anyway, and all babies, big and little, smile and reach out to her. If
we get held up it's a joke, and if we take the wrong car, it's the
funniest thing that ever happened. And that's the way 'tis about
everythin'. One just can't stay grumpy, with Miss Pollyanna, even if
you're only one of a trolley car full of folks that don't know her."
"Hm-m; very likely," murmured Mrs. Carew, turning away.
October proved to be, that year, a particularly warm, delightful
month, and as the golden days came and went, it was soon very evident
that to keep up with Pollyanna's eager little feet was a task which
would consume altogether too much of somebody's time and patience;
and, while Mrs. Carew had the one, she had not the other, neither had
she the willingness to allow Mary to spend quite so much of HER time
(whatever her patience might be) in dancing attendance to Pollyanna's
whims and fancies.
To keep the child indoors all through those glorious October
afternoons was, of course, out of the question. Thus it came about
that, before long, Pollyanna found herself once more in the "lovely
big yard"--the Boston Public Garden--and alone. Apparently she was as
free as before, but in reality she was surrounded by a high stone wall
of regulations.
She must not talk to strange men or women; she must not play with
strange children; and under no circumstances must she step foot
outside the Garden except to come home. Furthermore, Mary, who had
taken her to the Garden and left her, made very sure that she knew the
way home--that she knew just where Commonwealth Avenue came down to
Arlington Street across from the Garden. And always she must go home
when the clock in the church tower said it was half-past four.
Pollyanna went often to the Garden after this. Occasionally she went
with some of the girls from school. More often she went alone. In
spite of the somewhat irksome restrictions she enjoyed herself very
much. She could WATCH the people even if she could not talk to them;
and she could talk to the squirrels and pigeons and sparrows that so
eagerly came for the nuts and grain which she soon learned to carry to
them every time she went.
Pollyanna often looked for her old friends of that first day--the man
who was so glad he had his eyes and legs and arms, and the pretty
young lady who would not go with the handsome man; but she never saw
them. She did frequently see the boy in the wheel chair, and she
wished she could talk to him. The boy fed the birds and squirrels,
too, and they were so tame that the doves would perch on his head and
shoulders, and the squirrels would burrow in his pockets for nuts. But
Pollyanna, watching from a distance, always noticed one strange
circumstance: in spite of the boy's very evident delight in serving
his banquet, his supply of food always ran short almost at once; and
though he invariably looked fully as disappointed as did the squirrel
after a nutless burrowing, yet he never remedied the matter by
bringing more food the next day--which seemed most short-sighted to
Pollyanna.
When the boy was not playing with the birds and squirrels he was
reading--always reading. In his chair were usually two or three worn
books, and sometimes a magazine or two. He was nearly always to be
found in one especial place, and Pollyanna used to wonder how he got
there. Then, one unforgettable day, she found out. It was a school
holiday, and she had come to the Garden in the forenoon; and it was
soon after she reached the place that she saw him being wheeled along
one of the paths by a snub-nosed, sandy-haired boy. She gave a keen
glance into the sandy-haired boy's face, then ran toward him with a
glad little cry.
"Oh, you--you! I know you--even if I don't know your name. You found
me! Don't you remember? Oh, I'm so glad to see you! I've so wanted to
say thank you!"
"Gee, if it ain't the swell little lost kid of the AveNOO!" grinned
the boy. "Well, what do you know about that! Lost again?"
"Oh, no!" exclaimed Pollyanna, dancing up and down on her toes in
irrepressible joy. "I can't get lost any more--I have to stay right
here. And I mustn't talk, you know. But I can to you, for I KNOW you;
and I can to him--after you introduce me," she finished, with a
beaming glance at the lame boy, and a hopeful pause.
The sandy-haired youth chuckled softly, and tapped the shoulder of the
boy in the chair.
"Listen ter that, will ye? Ain't that the real thing, now? Just you
wait while I introDOOCE ye!" And he struck a pompous attitude. "Madam,
this is me friend, Sir James, Lord of Murphy's Alley, and--" But the
boy in the chair interrupted him.
"Jerry, quit your nonsense!" he cried vexedly. Then to Pollyanna he
turned a, glowing face. "I've seen you here lots of times before. I've
watched you feed the birds and squirrels--you always have such a lot
for them! And I think YOU like Sir Lancelot the best, too. Of course,
there's the Lady Rowena--but wasn't she rude to Guinevere
yesterday--snatching her dinner right away from her like that?"
Pollyanna blinked and frowned, looking from one to the other of the
boys in plain doubt. Jerry chuckled again. Then, with a final push he
wheeled the chair into its usual position, and turned to go. Over his
shoulder he called to Pollyanna:
"Say, kid, jest let me put ye wise ter somethin'. This chap ain't
drunk nor crazy. See? Them's jest names he's give his young friends
here,"--with a flourish of his arms toward the furred and feathered
creatures that were gathering from all directions. "An' they ain't
even names of FOLKS. They're just guys out of books. Are ye on? Yet
he'd ruther feed them than feed hisself. Ain't he the limit? Ta-ta,
Sir James," he added, with a grimace, to the boy in the chair." Buck
up, now--nix on the no grub racket for you! See you later." And he was
gone.
Pollyanna was still blinking and frowning when the lame boy turned
with a smile.
"You mustn't mind Jerry. That's just his way. He'd cut off his right
hand for me--Jerry would; but he loves to tease. Where'd you see him?
Does he know you? He didn't tell me your name."
"I'm Pollyanna Whittier. I was lost and he found me and took me home,"
answered Pollyanna, still a little dazedly.
"I see. Just like him," nodded the boy. "Don't he tote me up here
every day?"
A quick sympathy came to Pollyanna's eyes.
"Can't you walk--at all--er--Sir J-James?"
The boy laughed gleefully.
"'Sir James,' indeed! That's only more of Jerry's nonsense. I ain't a
'Sir.'"
Pollyanna looked clearly disappointed.
"You aren't? Nor a--a lord, like he said?"
"I sure ain't."
"Oh, I hoped you were--like Little Lord Fauntleroy, you know,"
rejoined Pollyanna. "And--"
But the boy interrupted her with an eager:
"Do YOU know Little Lord Fauntleroy? And do you know about Sir
Lancelot, and the Holy Grail, and King Arthur and his Round Table, and
the Lady Rowena, and Ivanhoe, and all those? DO you?"
Pollyanna gave her head a dubious shake.
"Well, I'm afraid maybe I don't know ALL of 'em," she admitted. "Are
they all--in books?"
The boy nodded.
"I've got 'em here--some of 'em," he said. "I like to read 'em over
and over. There's always SOMETHING new in 'em. Besides, I hain't got
no others, anyway. These were father's. Here, you little rascal--quit
that!" he broke off in laughing reproof as a bushy-tailed squirrel
leaped to his lap and began to nose in his pockets. "Gorry, guess we'd
better give them their dinner or they'll be tryin' to eat us,"
chuckled the boy. "That's Sir Lancelot. He's always first, you know."
From somewhere the boy produced a small pasteboard box which he opened
guardedly, mindful of the numberless bright little eyes that were
watching every move. All about him now sounded the whir and flutter of
wings, the cooing of doves, the saucy twitter of the sparrows. Sir
Lancelot, alert and eager, occupied one arm of the wheel chair.
Another bushy-tailed little fellow, less venturesome, sat back on his
haunches five feet away. A third squirrel chattered noisily on a
neighboring tree-branch.
From the box the boy took a few nuts, a small roll, and a doughnut. At
the latter he looked longingly, hesitatingly.
"Did you--bring anything?" he asked then.
"Lots--in here," nodded Pollyanna, tapping the paper bag she carried.
"Oh, then perhaps I WILL eat it to-day," sighed the boy, dropping the
doughnut back into the box with an air of relief.
Pollyanna, on whom the significance of this action was quite lost,
thrust her fingers into her own bag, and the banquet was on.
It was a wonderful hour. To Pollyanna it was, in a way, the most
wonderful hour she had ever spent, for she had found some one who
could talk faster and longer than she could. This strange youth seemed
to have an inexhaustible fund of marvelous stories of brave knights
and fair ladies, of tournaments and battles. Moreover, so vividly did
he draw his pictures that Pollyanna saw with her own eyes the deeds of
valor, the knights in armor, and the fair ladies with their jeweled
gowns and tresses, even though she was really looking at a flock of
fluttering doves and sparrows and a group of frisking squirrels on a
wide sweep of sunlit grass.
[Illustration: "It was a wonderful hour"]
The Ladies' Aiders were forgotten. Even the glad game was not thought
of. Pollyanna, with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes was trailing
down the golden ages led by a romance-fed boy who--though she did not
know it--was trying to crowd into this one short hour of congenial
companionship countless dreary days of loneliness and longing.
Not until the noon bells sent Pollyanna hurrying homeward did she
remember that she did not even yet know the boy's name.
"I only know it isn't 'Sir James,'" she sighed to herself, frowning
with vexation. "But never mind. I can ask him to-morrow."
CHAPTER VIII
JAMIE
Pollyanna did not see the boy "to-morrow." It rained, and she could
not go to the Garden at all. It rained the next day, too. Even on the
third day she did not see him, for, though the sun came out bright and
warm, and though she went very early in the afternoon to the Garden
and waited long, he did not come at all. But on the fourth day he was
there in his old place, and Pollyanna hastened forward with a joyous
greeting.
"Oh, I'm so glad, GLAD to see you! But where've you been? You weren't
here yesterday at all."
"I couldn't. The pain wouldn't let me come yesterday," explained the
lad, who was looking very white.
"The PAIN! Oh, does it--ache?" stammered Pollyanna, all sympathy at
once.
"Oh, yes, always," nodded the boy, with a cheerfully matter-of-fact
air. "Most generally I can stand it and come here just the same,
except when it gets TOO bad, same as 'twas yesterday. Then I can't."
"But how can you stand it--to have it ache--always?" gasped Pollyanna.
"Why, I have to," answered the boy, opening his eyes a little wider.
"Things that are so are SO, and they can't be any other way. So what's
the use thinking how they might be? Besides, the harder it aches one
day, the nicer 'tis to have it let-up the next."
"I know! That's like the ga--" began Pollyanna; but the boy
interrupted her.
"Did you bring a lot this time?" he asked anxiously. "Oh, I hope you
did! You see I couldn't bring them any to-day. Jerry couldn't spare
even a penny for peanuts this morning and there wasn't really enough
stuff in the box for me this noon."
Pollyanna looked shocked.
"You mean--that you didn't have enough to eat--yourself?--for YOUR
luncheon?"
"Sure!" smiled the boy. "But don't worry. Tisn't the first time--and
'twon't be the last. I'm used to it. Hi, there! here comes Sir
Lancelot."
Pollyanna, however, was not thinking of squirrels.
"And wasn't there any more at home?"
"Oh, no, there's NEVER any left at home," laughed the boy. "You see,
mumsey works out--stairs and washings--so she gets some of her feed in
them places, and Jerry picks his up where he can, except nights and
mornings; he gets it with us then--if we've got any."
Pollyanna looked still more shocked.
"But what do you do when you don't have anything to eat?"
"Go hungry, of course."
"But I never HEARD of anybody who didn't have ANYTHING to eat," gasped
Pollyanna. "Of course father and I were poor, and we had to eat beans
and fish balls when we wanted turkey. But we had SOMETHING. Why don't
you tell folks--all these folks everywhere, that live in these houses?
"
"What's the use?"
"Why, they'd give you something, of course!"
The boy laughed once more, this time a little queerly.
"Guess again, kid. You've got another one coming. Nobody I know is
dishin' out roast beef and frosted cakes for the askin'. Besides, if
you didn't go hungry once in a while, you wouldn't know how good
'taters and milk can taste; and you wouldn't have so much to put in
your Jolly Book."
"Your WHAT?"
The boy gave an embarrassed laugh and grew suddenly red.
"Forget it! I didn't think, for a minute, but you was mumsey or
Jerry."
"But what IS your Jolly Book?" pleaded Pollyanna. "Please tell me. Are
there knights and lords and ladies in that?"
The boy shook his head. His eyes lost their laughter and grew dark and
fathomless.
"No; I wish't there was," he sighed wistfully. "But when you--you
can't even WALK, you can't fight battles and win trophies, and have
fair ladies hand you your sword, and bestow upon you the golden
guerdon." A sudden fire came to the boy's eyes. His chin lifted itself
as if in response to a bugle call. Then, as suddenly, the fire died,
and the boy fell back into his old listlessness.
"You just can't do nothin'," he resumed wearily, after a moment's
silence. "You just have to sit and think; and times like that your
THINK gets to be something awful. Mine did, anyhow. I wanted to go to
school and learn things--more things than just mumsey can teach me;
and I thought of that. I wanted to run and play ball with the other
boys; and I thought of that. I wanted to go out and sell papers with
Jerry; and I thought of that. I didn't want to be taken care of all my
life; and I thought of that."
"I know, oh, I know," breathed Pollyanna, with shining eyes. "Didn't I
lose MY legs for a while?"
"Did you? Then you do know, some. But you've got yours again. I
hain't, you know," sighed the boy, the shadow in his eyes deepening.
"But you haven't told me yet about--the Jolly Book," prompted
Pollyanna, after a minute.
The boy stirred and laughed shamefacedly.
"Well, you see, it ain't much, after all, except to me. YOU wouldn't
see much in it. I started it a year ago. I was feelin' 'specially bad
that day. Nothin' was right. For a while I grumped it out, just
thinkin'; and then I picked up one of father's books and tried to
read. And the first thing I see was this: I learned it afterwards, so
I can say it now.
"'Pleasures lie thickest where no pleasures seem;
There's not a leaf that falls upon the ground
But holds some joy, of silence or of sound.'
[Footnote: Blanchard. Lyric Offerings. Hidden Joys.]
"Well, I was mad. I wished I could put the guy that wrote that in my
place, and see what kind of joy he'd find in my 'leaves.' I was so mad
I made up my mind I'd prove he didn't know what he was talkin' about,
so I begun to hunt for 'em--the joys in my 'leaves,' you know. I took
a little old empty notebook that Jerry had given me, and I said to
myself that I'd write 'em down. Everythin' that had anythin' about it
that I liked I'd put down in the book. Then I'd just show how many
'joys' I had."
"Yes, yes!" cried Pollyanna, absorbedly, as the boy paused for breath.
"Well, I didn't expect to get many, but--do you know?--I got a lot.
There was somethin' about 'most everythin' that I liked a LITTLE, so
in it had to go. The very first one was the book itself--that I'd got
it, you know, to write in. Then somebody give me a flower in a pot,
and Jerry found a dandy book in the subway. After that it was really
fun to hunt 'em out--I'd find 'em in such queer places, sometimes.
Then one day Jerry got hold of the little notebook, and found out what
'twas. Then he give it its name--the Jolly Book. And--and that's all."
"All--ALL!" cried Pollyanna, delight and amazement struggling for the
mastery on her glowing little face. "Why, that's the game! You're
playing the glad game, and don't know it--only you're playing it ever
and ever so much better than I ever could! Why, I--I couldn't play it
at all, I'm afraid, if I--I didn't have enough to eat, and couldn't
ever walk, or anything," she choked.
"The game? What game? I don't know anything about any game," frowned
the boy.
Pollyanna clapped her hands.
"I know you don't--I know you don't, and that's why it's so perfectly
lovely, and so--so wonderful! But listen. I'll tell you what the game
is."
And she told him.
"Gee!" breathed the boy appreciatively, when she had finished. "Now
what do you think of that!"
"And here you are, playing MY game better than anybody I ever saw, and
I don't even know your name yet, nor anything!" exclaimed Pollyanna,
in almost awestruck tones. "But I want to;--I want to know
everything."
"Pooh! there's nothing to know," rejoined the boy, with a shrug.
"Besides, see, here's poor Sir Lancelot and all the rest, waiting for
their dinner," he finished.
"Dear me, so they are," sighed Pollyanna, glancing impatiently at the
fluttering and chattering creatures all about them. Recklessly she
turned her bag upside down and scattered her supplies to the four
winds. "There, now, that's done, and we can talk again," she rejoiced.
"And there's such a lot I want to know. First, please, what IS your
name? I only know it isn't 'Sir James.'"
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