Books: Pollyanna Grows Up
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Eleanor H. Porter >> Pollyanna Grows Up
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The boy smiled.
"No, it isn't; but that's what Jerry 'most always calls me. Mumsey and
the rest call me 'Jamie.'"
"'JAMIE!'" Pollyanna caught her breath and held it suspended. A wild
hope had come to her eyes. It was followed almost instantly, however,
by fearful doubt.
"Does 'mumsey' mean--mother?"
"Sure!"
Pollyanna relaxed visibly. Her face fell. If this Jamie had a mother,
he could not, of course, be Mrs. Carew's Jamie, whose mother had died
long ago. Still, even as he was, he was wonderfully interesting.
"But where do you live?" she catechized eagerly. "Is there anybody
else in your family but your mother and--and Jerry? Do you always come
here every day? Where is your Jolly Book? Mayn't I see it? Don't the
doctors say you can ever walk again? And where was it you said you got
it?--this wheel chair, I mean."
The boy chuckled.
"Say, how many of them questions do you expect me to answer all at
once? I'll begin at the last one, anyhow, and work backwards, maybe,
if I don't forget what they be. I got this chair a year ago. Jerry
knew one of them fellers what writes for papers, you know, and he put
it in about me--how I couldn't ever walk, and all that, and--and the
Jolly Book, you see. The first thing I knew, a whole lot of men and
women come one day toting this chair, and said 'twas for me. That
they'd read all about me, and they wanted me to have it to remember
them by."
"My! how glad you must have been!"
"I was. It took a whole page of my Jolly Book to tell about that
chair."
"But can't you EVER walk again?" Pollyanna's eyes were blurred with
tears.
"It don't look like it. They said I couldn't."
"Oh, but that's what they said about me, and then they sent me to Dr.
Ames, and I stayed 'most a year; and HE made me walk. Maybe he could
YOU!"
The boy shook his head.
"He couldn't--you see; I couldn't go to him, anyway. 'Twould cost too
much. We'll just have to call it that I can't ever--walk again. But
never mind." The boy threw back his head impatiently. "I'm trying not
to THINK of that. You know what it is when--when your THINK gets to
going."
"Yes, yes, of course--and here I am talking about it!" cried
Pollyanna, penitently. "I SAID you knew how to play the game better
than I did, now. But go on. You haven't told me half, yet. Where do
you live? And is Jerry all the brothers and sisters you've got?"
A swift change came to the boy's face. His eyes glowed.
"Yes--and he ain't mine, really. He ain't any relation, nor mumsey
ain't, neither. And only think how good they've been to me!"
"What's that?" questioned Pollyanna, instantly on the alert. "Isn't
that--that 'mumsey' your mother at all?"
"No; and that's what makes--"
"And haven't you got any mother?" interrupted Pollyanna, in growing
excitement.
"No; I never remember any mother, and father died six years ago."
"How old were you?"
"I don't know. I was little. Mumsey says she guesses maybe I was about
six. That's when they took me, you see."
"And your name is Jamie?" Pollyanna was holding her breath.
"Why, yes, I told you that."
"And what's the other name?" Longingly, but fearfully, Pollyanna asked
this question.
"I don't know."
"YOU DON'T KNOW!"
"I don't remember. I was too little, I suppose. Even the Murphys don't
know. They never knew me as anything but Jamie."
A great disappointment came to Pollyanna's face, but almost
immediately a flash of thought drove the shadow away.
"Well, anyhow, if you don't know what your name is, you can't know it
isn't 'Kent'!" she exclaimed.
"'Kent'?" puzzled the boy.
"Yes," began Pollyanna, all excitement. "You see, there was a little
boy named Jamie Kent that--" She stopped abruptly and bit her lip. It
had occurred to Pollyanna that it would be kinder not to let this boy
know yet of her hope that he might be the lost Jamie. It would be
better that she make sure of it before raising any expectations,
otherwise she might be bringing him sorrow rather than joy. She had
not forgotten how disappointed Jimmy Bean had been when she had been
obliged to tell him that the Ladies' Aid did not want him, and again
when at first Mr. Pendleton had not wanted him, either. She was
determined that she would not make the same mistake a third time; so
very promptly now she assumed an air of elaborate indifference on this
most dangerous subject, as she said:
"But never mind about Jamie Kent. Tell me about yourself. I'm SO
interested!"
"There isn't anything to tell. I don't know anything nice," hesitated
the boy. "They said father was--was queer, and never talked. They
didn't even know his name. Everybody called him 'The Professor.'
Mumsey says he and I lived in a little back room on the top floor of
the house in Lowell where they used to live. They were poor then, but
they wasn't near so poor as they are now. Jerry's father was alive
them days, and had a job."
"Yes, yes, go on," prompted Pollyanna.
"Well, mumsey says my father was sick a lot, and he got queerer and
queerer, so that they had me downstairs with them a good deal. I could
walk then, a little, but my legs wasn't right. I played with Jerry,
and the little girl that died. Well, when father died there wasn't
anybody to take me, and some men were goin' to put me in an orphan
asylum; but mumsey says I took on so, and Jerry took on so, that they
said they'd keep me. And they did. The little girl had just died, and
they said I might take her place. And they've had me ever since. And I
fell and got worse, and they're awful poor now, too, besides Jerry's
father dyin'. But they've kept me. Now ain't that what you call bein'
pretty good to a feller?"
"Yes, oh, yes," cried Pollyanna. "But they'll get their reward--I know
they'll get their reward!" Pollyanna was quivering with delight now.
The last doubt had fled. She had found the lost Jamie. She was sure of
it. But not yet must she speak. First Mrs. Carew must see him.
Then--THEN--! Even Pollyanna's imagination failed when it came to
picturing the bliss in store for Mrs. Carew and Jamie at that glad
reunion.
She sprang lightly to her feet in utter disregard of Sir Lancelot who
had come back and was nosing in her lap for more nuts.
"I've got to go now, but I'll come again to-morrow. Maybe I'll have a
lady with me that you'll like to know. You'll be here to-morrow, won't
you?" she finished anxiously.
"Sure, if it's pleasant. Jerry totes me up here 'most every mornin'.
They fixed it so he could, you know; and I bring my dinner and stay
till four o'clock. Jerry's good to me--he is!"
"I know, I know," nodded Pollyanna. "And maybe you'll find somebody
else to be good to you, too," she caroled. With which cryptic
statement and a beaming smile, she was gone.
CHAPTER IX
PLANS AND PLOTTINGS
On the way home Pollyanna made joyous plans. To-morrow, in some way or
other, Mrs. Carew must be persuaded to go with her for a walk in the
Public Garden. Just how this was to be brought about Pollyanna did not
know; but brought about it must be.
To tell Mrs. Carew plainly that she had found Jamie, and wanted her to
go to see him, was out of the question. There was, of course, a bare
chance that this might not be her Jamie; and if it were not, and if
she had thus raised in Mrs. Carew false hopes, the result might be
disastrous. Pollyanna knew, from what Mary had told her, that twice
already Mrs. Carew had been made very ill by the great disappointment
of following alluring clues that had led to some boy very different
from her dead sister's son. So Pollyanna knew that she could not tell
Mrs. Carew why she wanted her to go to walk to-morrow in the Public
Garden. But there would be a way, declared Pollyanna to herself as she
happily hurried homeward.
Fate, however, as it happened, once more intervened in the shape of a
heavy rainstorm; and Pollyanna did not have to more than look out of
doors the next morning to realize that there would be no Public Garden
stroll that day. Worse yet, neither the next day nor the next saw the
clouds dispelled; and Pollyanna spent all three afternoons wandering
from window to window, peering up into the sky, and anxiously
demanding of every one: "DON'T you think it looks a LITTLE like
clearing up?"
So unusual was this behavior on the part of the cheery little girl,
and so irritating was the constant questioning, that at last Mrs.
Carew lost her patience.
"For pity's sake, child, what is the trouble?" she cried. "I never
knew you to fret so about the weather. Where's that wonderful glad
game of yours to-day?"
Pollyanna reddened and looked abashed.
"Dear me, I reckon maybe I did forget the game this time," she
admitted. "And of course there IS something about it I can be glad
for, if I'll only hunt for it. I can be glad that--that it will HAVE
to stop raining sometime 'cause God said he WOULDN'T send another
flood. But you see, I did so want it to be pleasant to-day."
"Why, especially?"
"Oh, I--I just wanted to go to walk in the Public Garden." Pollyanna
was trying hard to speak unconcernedly. "I--I thought maybe you'd like
to go with me, too." Outwardly Pollyanna was nonchalance itself.
Inwardly, however, she was aquiver with excitement and suspense.
"_I_ go to walk in the Public Garden?" queried Mrs. Carew, with brows
slightly uplifted. "Thank you, no, I'm afraid not," she smiled.
"Oh, but you--you wouldn't REFUSE!" faltered Pollyanna, in quick
panic.
"I have refused."
Pollyanna swallowed convulsively. She had grown really pale.
"But, Mrs. Carew, please, PLEASE don't say you WON'T go, when it gets
pleasant," she begged. "You see, for a--a special reason I wanted you
to go--with me--just this once."
Mrs. Carew frowned. She opened her lips to make the "no" more
decisive; but something in Pollyanna's pleading eyes must have changed
the words, for when they came they were a reluctant acquiescence.
"Well, well, child, have your own way. But if I promise to go, YOU
must promise not to go near the window for an hour, and not to ask
again to-day if I think it's going to clear up."
"Yes'm, I will--I mean, I won't," palpitated Pollyanna. Then, as a
pale shaft of light that was almost a sunbeam, came aslant through the
window, she cried joyously: "But you DO think it IS going to--Oh!" she
broke off in dismay, and ran from the room.
Unmistakably it "cleared up" the next morning. But, though the sun
shone brightly, there was a sharp chill in the air, and by afternoon,
when Pollyanna came home from school, there was a brisk wind. In spite
of protests, however, she insisted that it was a beautiful day out,
and that she should be perfectly miserable if Mrs. Carew would not
come for a walk in the Public Garden. And Mrs. Carew went, though
still protesting.
As might have been expected, it was a fruitless journey. Together the
impatient woman and the anxious-eyed little girl hurried shiveringly
up one path and down another. (Pollyanna, not finding the boy in his
accustomed place, was making frantic search in every nook and corner
of the Garden. To Pollyanna it seemed that she could not have it so.
Here she was in the Garden, and here with her was Mrs. Carew; but not
anywhere to be found was Jamie--and yet not one word could she say to
Mrs. Carew.) At last, thoroughly chilled and exasperated, Mrs. Carew
insisted on going home; and despairingly Pollyanna went.
Sorry days came to Pollyanna then. What to her was perilously near a
second deluge--but according to Mrs. Carew was merely "the usual fall
rains"--brought a series of damp, foggy, cold, cheerless days, filled
with either a dreary drizzle of rain, or, worse yet, a steady
downpour. If perchance occasionally there came a day of sunshine,
Pollyanna always flew to the Garden; but in vain. Jamie was never
there. It was the middle of November now, and even the Garden itself
was full of dreariness. The trees were bare, the benches almost empty,
and not one boat was on the little pond. True, the squirrels and
pigeons were there, and the sparrows were as pert as ever, but to feed
them was almost more of a sorrow than a joy, for every saucy switch of
Sir Lancelot's feathery tail but brought bitter memories of the lad
who had given him his name--and who was not there.
"And to think I didn't find out where he lived!" mourned Pollyanna to
herself over and over again, as the days passed. "And he was Jamie--I
just know he was Jamie. And now I'll have to wait and wait till spring
comes, and it's warm enough for him to come here again. And then,
maybe, _I_ sha'n't be coming here by that time. O dear, O dear--and he
WAS Jamie, I know he was Jamie!"
Then, one dreary afternoon, the unexpected happened. Pollyanna,
passing through the upper hallway heard angry voices in the hall
below, one of which she recognized as being Mary's, while the
other--the other--
The other voice was saying:
"Not on yer life! It's nix on the beggin' business. Do yer get me? I
wants ter see the kid, Pollyanna. I got a message for her from--from
Sir James. Now beat it, will ye, and trot out the kid, if ye don't
mind."
With a glad little cry Pollyanna turned and fairly flew down the
stairway.
"Oh, I'm here, I'm here, I'm right here!" she panted, stumbling
forward. "What is it? Did Jamie send you?"
In her excitement she had almost flung herself with outstretched arms
upon the boy when Mary intercepted a shocked, restraining hand.
"Miss Pollyanna, Miss Pollyanna, do you mean to say you know
this--this beggar boy?"
The boy flushed angrily; but before he could speak Pollyanna
interposed valiant championship.
"He isn't a beggar boy. He belongs to one of my very best friends.
Besides, he's the one that found me and brought me home that time I
was lost." Then to the boy she turned with impetuous questioning.
"What is it? Did Jamie send you?"
"Sure he did. He hit the hay a month ago, and he hain't been up
since."
"He hit--what?" puzzled Pollyanna.
"Hit the hay--went ter bed. He's sick, I mean, and he wants ter see
ye. Will ye come?"
"Sick? Oh, I'm so sorry!" grieved Pollyanna. "Of course I'll come.
I'll go get my hat and coat right away."
"Miss Pollyanna!" gasped Mary in stern disapproval. "As if Mrs. Carew
would let you go--ANYWHERE with a strange boy like this!"
"But he isn't a strange boy," objected Pollyanna. "I've known him ever
so long, and I MUST go. I--"
"What in the world is the meaning of this?" demanded Mrs. Carew icily
from the drawing-room doorway. "Pollyanna, who is this boy, and what
is he doing here?"
Pollyanna turned with a quick cry.
"Oh, Mrs. Carew, you'll let me go, won't you?"
"Go where?"
"To see my brother, ma'am," cut in the boy hurriedly, and with an
obvious effort to be very polite. "He's sort of off his feed, ye know,
and he wouldn't give me no peace till I come up--after her," with an
awkward gesture toward Pollyanna. "He thinks a sight an' all of her."
"I may go, mayn't I?" pleaded Pollyanna.
Mrs. Carew frowned.
"Go with this boy--YOU? Certainly not, Pollyanna! I wonder you are
wild enough to think of it for a moment."
"Oh, but I want you to come, too," began Pollyanna.
"I? Absurd, child! That is impossible. You may give this boy here a
little money, if you like, but--"
"Thank ye, ma'am, but I didn't come for money," resented the boy, his
eyes flashing. "I come for--her."
"Yes, and Mrs. Carew, it's Jerry--Jerry Murphy, the boy that found me
when I was lost, and brought me home," appealed Pollyanna. "NOW won't
you let me go?"
Mrs. Carew shook her head.
"It is out of the question, Pollyanna."
"But he says Ja-- --the other boy is sick, and wants me!"
"I can't help that."
"And I know him real well, Mrs. Carew. I do, truly. He reads
books--lovely books, all full of knights and lords and ladies, and he
feeds the birds and squirrels and gives 'em names, and everything. And
he can't walk, and he doesn't have enough to eat, lots of days,"
panted Pollyanna; "and he's been playing my glad game for a year, and
didn't know it. And he plays it ever and ever so much better than I
do. And I've hunted and hunted for him, ever and ever so many days.
Honest and truly, Mrs. Carew, I've just GOT to see him," almost sobbed
Pollyanna. "I can't lose him again!"
An angry color flamed into Mrs. Carew's cheeks.
"Pollyanna, this is sheer nonsense. I am surprised. I am amazed at you
for insisting upon doing something you know I disapprove of. I CAN NOT
allow you to go with this boy. Now please let me hear no more about
it."
A new expression came to Pollyanna's face. With a look half-terrified,
half-exalted, she lifted her chin and squarely faced Mrs. Carew.
Tremulously, but determinedly, she spoke.
"Then I'll have to tell you. I didn't mean to--till I was sure. I
wanted you to see him first. But now I've got to tell. I can't lose
him again. I think, Mrs. Carew, he's--Jamie."
"Jamie! Not--my--Jamie!" Mrs. Carew's face had grown very white.
"Yes."
"Impossible!"
"I know; but, please, his name IS Jamie, and he doesn't know the other
one. His father died when he was six years old, and he can't remember
his mother. He's twelve years old, he thinks. These folks took him in
when his father died, and his father was queer, and didn't tell folks
his name, and--"
But Mrs. Carew had stopped her with a gesture. Mrs. Carew was even
whiter than before, but her eyes burned with a sudden fire.
"We'll go at once," she said. "Mary, tell Perkins to have the car here
as soon as possible. Pollyanna, get your hat and coat. Boy, wait here,
please. We'll be ready to go with you immediately." The next minute
she had hurried up-stairs.
In the hall the boy drew a long breath.
"Gee whiz!" he muttered softly. "If we ain't goin' ter go in a
buzz-wagon! Some class ter that! Gorry! what'll Sir James say?"
CHAPTER X
IN MURPHY'S ALLEY
With the opulent purr that seems to be peculiar to luxurious
limousines, Mrs. Carew's car rolled down Commonwealth Avenue and out
upon Arlington Street to Charles. Inside sat a shining-eyed little
girl and a white-faced, tense woman. Outside, to give directions to
the plainly disapproving chauffeur, sat Jerry Murphy, inordinately
proud and insufferably important.
When the limousine came to a stop before a shabby doorway in a narrow,
dirty alley, the boy leaped to the ground, and, with a ridiculous
imitation of the liveried pomposities he had so often watched, threw
open the door of the car and stood waiting for the ladies to alight.
Pollyanna sprang out at once, her eyes widening with amazement and
distress as she looked about her. Behind her came Mrs. Carew, visibly
shuddering as her gaze swept the filth, the sordidness, and the ragged
children that swarmed shrieking and chattering out of the dismal
tenements, and surrounded the car in a second.
Jerry waved his arms angrily.
"Here, you, beat it!" he yelled to the motley throng. "This ain't no
free movies! CAN that racket and get a move on ye. Lively, now! We
gotta get by. Jamie's got comp'ny."
Mrs. Carew shuddered again, and laid a trembling hand on Jerry's
shoulder.
"Not--HERE!" she recoiled.
But the boy did not hear. With shoves and pushes from sturdy fists and
elbows, he was making a path for his charges; and before Mrs. Carew
knew quite how it was done, she found herself with the boy and
Pollyanna at the foot of a rickety flight of stairs in a dim,
evil-smelling hallway.
Once more she put out a shaking hand.
"Wait," she commanded huskily. "Remember! Don't either of you say a
word about--about his being possibly the boy I'm looking for. I must
see for myself first, and--question him."
"Of course!" agreed Pollyanna.
"Sure! I'm on," nodded the boy. "I gotta go right off anyhow, so I
won't bother ye none. Now toddle easy up these 'ere stairs. There's
always holes, and most generally there's a kid or two asleep
somewheres. An' the elevator ain't runnin' ter-day," he gibed
cheerfully. "We gotta go ter the top, too!"
Mrs. Carew found the "holes"--broken boards that creaked and bent
fearsomely under her shrinking feet; and she found one "kid"--a
two-year-old baby playing with an empty tin can on a string which he
was banging up and down the second flight of stairs. On all sides
doors were opened, now boldly, now stealthily, but always disclosing
women with tousled heads or peering children with dirty faces.
Somewhere a baby was wailing piteously. Somewhere else a man was
cursing. Everywhere was the smell of bad whiskey, stale cabbage, and
unwashed humanity.
At the top of the third and last stairway the boy came to a pause
before a closed door.
"I'm just a-thinkin' what Sir James'll say when he's wise ter the
prize package I'm bringin' him," he whispered in a throaty voice. "I
know what mumsey'll do--she'll turn on the weeps in no time ter see
Jamie so tickled." The next moment he threw wide the door with a gay:
"Here we be--an' we come in a buzz-wagon! Ain't that goin' some, Sir
James?"
It was a tiny room, cold and cheerless and pitifully bare, but
scrupulously neat. There were here no tousled heads, no peering
children, no odors of whiskey, cabbage, and unclean humanity. There
were two beds, three broken chairs, a dry-goods-box table, and a stove
with a faint glow of light that told of a fire not nearly brisk enough
to heat even that tiny room. On one of the beds lay a lad with flushed
cheeks and fever-bright eyes. Near him sat a thin, white-faced woman,
bent and twisted with rheumatism.
Mrs. Carew stepped into the room and, as if to steady herself, paused
a minute with her back to the wall. Pollyanna hurried forward with a
low cry just as Jerry, with an apologetic "I gotta go now; good-by!"
dashed through the door.
"Oh, Jamie, I'm so glad I've found you," cried Pollyanna. "You don't
know how I've looked and looked for you every day. But I'm so sorry
you're sick!"
Jamie smiled radiantly and held out a thin white hand.
"I ain't sorry--I'm GLAD," he emphasized meaningly; "'cause it's
brought you to see me. Besides, I'm better now, anyway. Mumsey, this
is the little girl, you know, that told me the glad game--and mumsey's
playing it, too," he triumphed, turning back to Pollyanna. "First she
cried 'cause her back hurts too bad to let her work; then when I was
took worse she was GLAD she couldn't work, 'cause she could be here to
take care of me, you know."
At that moment Mrs. Carew hurried forward, her eyes half-fearfully,
half-longingly on the face of the lame boy in the bed.
"It's Mrs. Carew. I've brought her to see you, Jamie," introduced
Pollyanna, in a tremulous voice.
The little twisted woman by the bed had struggled to her feet by this
time, and was nervously offering her chair. Mrs. Carew accepted it
without so much as a glance. Her eyes were still on the boy in the
bed.
"Your name is--Jamie?" she asked, with visible difficulty.
"Yes, ma'am." The boy's bright eyes looked straight into hers.
"What is your other name?"
"I don't know."
"He is not your son?" For the first time Mrs. Carew turned to the
twisted little woman who was still standing by the bed.
"No, madam."
"And you don't know his name?"
"No, madam. I never knew it."
With a despairing gesture Mrs. Carew turned back to the boy.
"But think, think--don't you remember ANYTHING of your name
but--Jamie?"
The boy shook his head. Into his eyes was coming a puzzled wonder.
"No, nothing."
"Haven't you anything that belonged to your father, with possibly his
name in it?"
"There wasn't anythin' worth savin' but them books," interposed Mrs.
Murphy. "Them's his. Maybe you'd like to look at 'em," she suggested,
pointing to a row of worn volumes on a shelf across the room. Then, in
plainly uncontrollable curiosity, she asked: "Was you thinkin' you
knew him, ma'am?"
"I don't know," murmured Mrs. Carew, in a half-stifled voice, as she
rose to her feet and crossed the room to the shelf of books.
There were not many--perhaps ten or a dozen. There was a volume of
Shakespeare's plays, an "Ivanhoe," a much-thumbed "Lady of the Lake,"
a book of miscellaneous poems, a coverless "Tennyson," a dilapidated
"Little Lord Fauntleroy," and two or three books of ancient and
medieval history. But, though Mrs. Carew looked carefully through
every one, she found nowhere any written word. With a despairing sigh
she turned back to the boy and to the woman, both of whom now were
watching her with startled, questioning eyes.
"I wish you'd tell me--both of you--all you know about yourselves,"
she said brokenly, dropping herself once more into the chair by the
bed.
And they told her. It was much the same story that Jamie had told
Pollyanna in the Public Garden. There was little that was new, nothing
that was significant, in spite of the probing questions that Mrs.
Carew asked. At its conclusion Jamie turned eager eyes on Mrs. Carew's
face.
"Do you think you knew--my father?" he begged.
Mrs. Carew closed her eyes and pressed her hand to her head.
"I don't--know," she answered. "But I think--not."
Pollyanna gave a quick cry of keen disappointment, but as quickly she
suppressed it in obedience to Mrs. Carew's warning glance. With new
horror, however, she surveyed the tiny room.
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