Books: Pollyanna Grows Up

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Jamie, turning his wondering eyes from Mrs. Carew's face, suddenly
awoke to his duties as host.

"Wasn't you good to come!" he said to Pollyanna, gratefully. "How's
Sir Lancelot? Do you ever go to feed him now?" Then, as Pollyanna did
not answer at once, he hurried on, his eyes going from her face to the
somewhat battered pink in a broken-necked bottle in the window. "Did
you see my posy? Jerry found it. Somebody dropped it and he picked it
up. Ain't it pretty? And it SMELLS a little."

But Pollyanna did not seem even to have heard him. She was still
gazing, wide-eyed about the room, clasping and unclasping her hands
nervously.

"But I don't see how you can ever play the game here at all, Jamie,"
she faltered. "I didn't suppose there could be anywhere such a
perfectly awful place to live," she shuddered.

"Ho!" scoffed Jamie, valiantly. "You'd oughter see the Pikes'
down-stairs. Theirs is a whole lot worse'n this. You don't know what a
lot of nice things there is about this room. Why, we get the sun in
that winder there for 'most two hours every day, when it shines. And
if you get real near it you can see a whole lot of sky from it. If we
could only KEEP the room!--but you see we've got to leave, we're
afraid. And that's what's worrin' us."

"Leave!"

"Yes. We got behind on the rent--mumsey bein' sick so, and not earnin'
anythin'." In spite of a courageously cheerful smile, Jamie's voice
shook. "Mis' Dolan down-stairs--the woman what keeps my wheel chair
for me, you know--is helpin' us out this week. But of course she can't
do it always, and then we'll have to go--if Jerry don't strike it
rich, or somethin'."

"Oh, but can't we--" began Pollyanna.

She stopped short. Mrs. Carew had risen to her feet abruptly with a
hurried:

"Come, Pollyanna, we must go." Then to the woman she turned wearily.
"You won't have to leave. I'll send you money and food at once, and
I'll mention your case to one of the charity organizations in which I
am interested, and they will--"

In surprise she ceased speaking. The bent little figure of the woman
opposite had drawn itself almost erect. Mrs. Murphy's cheeks were
flushed. Her eyes showed a smouldering fire.

"Thank you, no, Mrs. Carew," she said tremulously, but proudly. "We're
poor--God knows; but we ain't charity folks."

"Nonsense!" cried Mrs. Carew, sharply. "You're letting the woman
down-stairs help you. This boy said so."

"I know; but that ain't charity," persisted the woman, still
tremulously. "Mrs. Dolan is my FRIEND. She knows I'D do HER a good
turn just as quick--I have done 'em for her in times past. Help from
FRIENDS ain't charity. They CARE; and that--that makes a difference.
We wa'n't always as we are now, you see; and that makes it hurt all
the more--all this. Thank you; but we couldn't take--your money."

Mrs. Carew frowned angrily. It had been a most disappointing,
heart-breaking, exhausting hour for her. Never a patient woman, she
was exasperated now, besides being utterly tired out.

"Very well, just as you please," she said coldly. Then, with vague
irritation she added: "But why don't you go to your landlord and
insist that he make you even decently comfortable while you do stay?
Surely you're entitled to something besides broken windows stuffed
with rags and papers! And those stairs that I came up are positively
dangerous."

Mrs. Murphy sighed in a discouraged way. Her twisted little figure had
fallen back into its old hopelessness.

"We have tried to have something done, but it's never amounted to
anything. We never see anybody but the agent, of course; and he says
the rents are too low for the owner to put out any more money on
repairs."

"Nonsense!" snapped Mrs. Carew, with all the sharpness of a nervous,
distraught woman who has at last found an outlet for her exasperation.
"It's shameful! What's more, I think it's a clear case of violation of
the law;--those stairs are, certainly. I shall make it my business to
see that he's brought to terms. What is the name of that agent, and
who is the owner of this delectable establishment?"

"I don't know the name of the owner, madam; but the agent is Mr.
Dodge."

"Dodge!" Mrs. Carew turned sharply, an odd look on her face. "You
don't mean--Henry Dodge?"

"Yes, madam. His name is Henry, I think."

A flood of color swept into Mrs. Carew's face, then receded, leaving
it whiter than before.

"Very well, I--I'll attend to it," she murmured, in a half-stifled
voice, turning away. "Come, Pollyanna, we must go now."

Over at the bed Pollyanna was bidding Jamie a tearful good-by.

"But I'll come again. I'll come real soon," she promised brightly, as
she hurried through the door after Mrs. Carew.

Not until they had picked their precarious way down the three long
nights of stairs and through the jabbering, gesticulating crowd of
men, women, and children that surrounded the scowling Perkins and the
limousine, did Pollyanna speak again. But then she scarcely waited for
the irate chauffeur to slam the door upon them before she pleaded:

"Dear Mrs. Carew, please, please say that it was Jamie! Oh, it would
be so nice for him to be Jamie."

"But he isn't Jamie!"

"O dear! Are you sure?"

There was a moment's pause, then Mrs. Carew covered her face with her
hands.

"No, I'm not sure--and that's the tragedy of it," she moaned. "I don't
think he is; I'm almost positive he isn't. But, of course, there IS a
chance--and that's what's killing me."

"Then can't you just THINK he's Jamie," begged Pollyanna, "and play he
was? Then you could take him home, and--" But Mrs. Carew turned
fiercely.

"Take that boy into my home when he WASN'T Jamie? Never, Pollyanna! I
couldn't."

"But if you CAN'T help Jamie, I should think you'd be so glad there
was some one like him you COULD help," urged Pollyanna, tremulously.
"What if your Jamie was like this Jamie, all poor and sick, wouldn't
you want some one to take him in and comfort him, and--"
"Don't--don't, Pollyanna," moaned Mrs. Carew, turning her head from
side to side, in a frenzy of grief. "When I think that maybe,
somewhere, our Jamie is like that--" Only a choking sob finished the
sentence.

"That's just what I mean--that's just what I mean!" triumphed
Pollyanna, excitedly. "Don't you see? If this IS your Jamie, of course
you'll want him; and if it isn't, you couldn't be doing any harm to
the other Jamie by taking this one, and you'd do a whole lot of good,
for you'd make this one so happy--so happy! And then, by and by, if
you should find the real Jamie, you wouldn't have lost anything, but
you'd have made two little boys happy instead of one; and--" But again
Mrs. Carew interrupted her.

"Don't, Pollyanna, don't! I want to think--I want to think."

Tearfully Pollyanna sat back in her seat. By a very visible effort she
kept still for one whole minute. Then, as if the words fairly bubbled
forth of themselves, there came this:

"Oh, but what an awful, awful place that was! I just wish the man that
owned it had to live in it himself--and then see what he'd have to be
glad for!"

Mrs. Carew sat suddenly erect. Her face showed a curious change.
Almost as if in appeal she flung out her hand toward Pollyanna.

"Don't!" she cried. "Perhaps--she didn't know, Pollyanna. Perhaps she
didn't know. I'm sure she didn't know--she owned a place like that.
But it will be fixed now--it will be fixed."

"SHE! Is it a woman that owns it, and do you know her? And do you know
the agent, too?"

"Yes." Mrs. Carew bit her lips. "I know her, and I know the agent."

"Oh, I'm so glad," sighed Pollyanna. "Then it'll be all right now."

"Well, it certainly will be--better," avowed Mrs. Carew with emphasis,
as the car stopped before her own door.

Mrs. Carew spoke as if she knew what she was talking about. And
perhaps, indeed, she did--better than she cared to tell Pollyanna.
Certainly, before she slept that night, a letter left her hands
addressed to one Henry Dodge, summoning him to an immediate conference
as to certain changes and repairs to be made at once in tenements she
owned. There were, moreover, several scathing sentences concerning
"rag-stuffed windows," and "rickety stairways," that caused this same
Henry Dodge to scowl angrily, and to say a sharp word behind his
teeth--though at the same time he paled with something very like fear.

CHAPTER XI

A SURPRISE FOR MRS. CAREW

The matter of repairs and improvements having been properly and
efficiently attended to, Mrs. Carew told herself that she had done her
duty, and that the matter was closed. She would forget it. The boy was
not Jamie--he could not be Jamie. That ignorant, sickly, crippled boy
her dead sister's son? Impossible! She would cast the whole thing from
her thoughts.

It was just here, however, that Mrs. Carew found herself against an
immovable, impassable barrier: the whole thing refused to be cast from
her thoughts. Always before her eyes was the picture of that bare
little room and the wistful-faced boy. Always in her ears was that
heartbreaking "What if it WERE Jamie?" And always, too, there was
Pollyanna; for even though Mrs. Carew might (as she did) silence the
pleadings and questionings of the little girl's tongue, there was no
getting away from the prayers and reproaches of the little girl's
eyes.

Twice again in desperation Mrs. Carew went to see the boy, telling
herself each time that only another visit was needed to convince her
that the boy was not the one she sought. But, even though while there
in the boy's presence, she told herself that she WAS convinced, once
away from it, the old, old questioning returned. At last, in still
greater desperation, she wrote to her sister, and told her the whole
story.

"I had not meant to tell you," she wrote, after she had stated the
bare facts of the case. "I thought it a pity to harrow you up, or to
raise false hopes. I am so sure it is not he--and yet, even as I write
these words, I know I am NOT sure. That is why I want you to come--why
you must come. I must have you see him.

"I wonder--oh, I wonder what you'll say! Of course we haven't seen our
Jamie since he was four years old. He would be twelve now. This boy is
twelve, I should judge. (He doesn't know his age.) He has hair and
eyes not unlike our Jamie's. He is crippled, but that condition came
upon him through a fall, six years ago, and was made worse through
another one four years later. Anything like a complete description of
his father's appearance seems impossible to obtain; but what I have
learned contains nothing conclusive either for or against his being
poor Doris's husband. He was called 'the Professor,' was very queer,
and seemed to own nothing save a few books. This might, or might not
signify. John Kent was certainly always queer, and a good deal of a
Bohemian in his tastes. Whether he cared for books or not I don't
remember. Do you? And of course the title 'Professor' might easily
have been assumed, if he wished, or it might have been merely given
him by others. As for this boy--I don't know, I don't know--but I do
hope YOU will!

"Your distracted sister,

"RUTH."

Della came at once, and she went immediately to see the boy; but she
did not "know." Like her sister, she said she did not think it was
their Jamie, but at the same time there was that chance--it might be
he, after all. Like Pollyanna, however, she had what she thought was a
very satisfactory way out of the dilemma.

"But why don't you take him, dear?" she proposed to her sister. "Why
don't you take him and adopt him? It would be lovely for him--poor
little fellow--and--" But Mrs. Carew shuddered and would not even let
her finish.

"No, no, I can't, I can't!" she moaned. "I want my Jamie, my own
Jamie--or no one." And with a sigh Della gave it up and went back to
her nursing.

If Mrs. Carew thought that this closed the matter, however, she was
again mistaken; for her days were still restless, and her nights were
still either sleepless or filled with dreams of a "may be" or a "might
be" masquerading as an "it is so." She was, moreover, having a
difficult time with Pollyanna.

Pollyanna was puzzled. She was filled with questionings and unrest.
For the first time in her life Pollyanna had come face to face with
real poverty. She knew people who did not have enough to eat, who wore
ragged clothing, and who lived in dark, dirty, and very tiny rooms.
Her first impulse, of course, had been "to help." With Mrs. Carew she
made two visits to Jamie, and greatly did she rejoice at the changed
conditions she found there after "that man Dodge" had "tended to
things." But this, to Pollyanna, was a mere drop in the bucket. There
were yet all those other sick-looking men, unhappy-looking women, and
ragged children out in the street--Jamie's neighbors. Confidently she
looked to Mrs. Carew for help for them, also.

"Indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Carew, when she learned what was expected of
her, "so you want the whole street to be supplied with fresh paper,
paint, and new stairways, do you? Pray, is there anything else you'd
like?"

"Oh, yes, lots of things," sighed Pollyanna, happily. "You see, there
are so many things they need--all of them! And what fun it will be to
get them! How I wish I was rich so I could help, too; but I'm 'most as
glad to be with you when you get them."

Mrs. Carew quite gasped aloud in her amazement. She lost no
time--though she did lose not a little patience--in explaining that
she had no intention of doing anything further in "Murphy's Alley,"
and that there was no reason why she should. No one would expect her
to. She had canceled all possible obligations, and had even been
really very generous, any one would say, in what she had done for the
tenement where lived Jamie and the Murphys. (That she owned the
tenement building she did not think it necessary to state.) At some
length she explained to Pollyanna that there were charitable
institutions, both numerous and efficient, whose business it was to
aid all the worthy poor, and that to these institutions she gave
frequently and liberally.

Even then, however, Pollyanna was not convinced.

"But I don't see," she argued, "why it's any better, or even so nice,
for a whole lot of folks to club together and do what everybody would
like to do for themselves. I'm sure I'd much rather give Jamie a--a
nice book, now, than to have some old Society do it; and I KNOW he'd
like better to have me do it, too."

"Very likely," returned Mrs. Carew, with some weariness and a little
exasperation. "But it is just possible that it would not be so well
for Jamie as--as if that book were given by a body of people who knew
what sort of one to select."

This led her to say much, also (none of which Pollyanna in the least
understood), about "pauperizing the poor," the "evils of
indiscriminate giving," and the "pernicious effect of unorganized
charity."

"Besides," she added, in answer to the still perplexed expression on
Pollyanna's worried little face, "very likely if I offered help to
these people they would not take it. You remember Mrs. Murphy
declined, at the first, to let me send food and clothing--though they
accepted it readily enough from their neighbors on the first floor, it
seems."

"Yes, I know," sighed Pollyanna, turning away. "There's something
there somehow that I don't understand. But it doesn't seem right that
WE should have such a lot of nice things, and that THEY shouldn't have
anything, hardly."

As the days passed, this feeling on the part of Pollyanna increased
rather than diminished; and the questions she asked and the comments
she made were anything but a relief to the state of mind in which Mrs.
Carew herself was. Even the test of the glad game, in this case,
Pollyanna was finding to be very near a failure; for, as she expressed
it:

"I don't see how you can find anything about this poor-people business
to be glad for. Of course we can be glad for ourselves that we aren't
poor like them; but whenever I'm thinking how glad I am for that, I
get so sorry for them that I CAN'T be glad any longer. Of course we
COULD be glad there were poor folks, because we could help them. But
if we DON'T help them, where's the glad part of that coming in?" And
to this Pollyanna could find no one who could give her a satisfactory
answer.

Especially she asked this question of Mrs. Carew; and Mrs. Carew,
still haunted by the visions of the Jamie that was, and the Jamie that
might be, grew only more restless, more wretched, and more utterly
despairing. Nor was she helped any by the approach of Christmas.
Nowhere was there glow of holly or flash of tinsel that did not carry
its pang to her; for always to Mrs. Carew it but symbolized a child's
empty stocking--a stocking that might be--Jamie's.

Finally, a week before Christmas, she fought what she thought was the
last battle with herself. Resolutely, but with no real joy in her
face, she gave terse orders to Mary, and summoned Pollyanna.

"Pollyanna," she began, almost harshly, "I have decided to--to take
Jamie. The car will be here at once. I'm going after him now, and
bring him home. You may come with me if you like."

A great light transfigured Pollyanna's face.

"Oh, oh, oh, how glad I am!" she breathed. "Why, I'm so glad I--I want
to cry! Mrs. Carew, why is it, when you're the very gladdest of
anything, you always want to cry?"

"I don't know, I'm sure, Pollyanna," rejoined Mrs. Carew,
abstractedly. On Mrs. Carew's face there was still no look of joy.

Once in the Murphys' little one-room tenement, it did not take Mrs.
Carew long to tell her errand. In a few short sentences she told the
story of the lost Jamie, and of her first hopes that this Jamie might
be he. She made no secret of her doubts that he was the one; at the
same time, she said she had decided to take him home with her and give
him every possible advantage. Then, a little wearily, she told what
were the plans she had made for him.

At the foot of the bed Mrs. Murphy listened, crying softly. Across the
room Jerry Murphy, his eyes dilating, emitted an occasional low "Gee!
Can ye beat that, now?" As to Jamie--Jamie, on the bed, had listened
at first with the air of one to whom suddenly a door has opened into a
longed-for paradise; but gradually, as Mrs. Carew talked, a new look
came to his eyes. Very slowly he closed them, and turned away his
face.

When Mrs. Carew ceased speaking there was a long silence before Jamie
turned his head and answered. They saw then that his face was very
white, and that his eyes were full of tears.

"Thank you, Mrs. Carew, but--I can't go," he said simply.

"You can't--what?" cried Mrs. Carew, as if she doubted the evidence of
her own ears.

"Jamie!" gasped Pollyanna.

"Oh, come, kid, what's eatin' ye?" scowled Jerry, hurriedly coming
forward. "Don't ye know a good thing when ye see it?"

"Yes; but I can't--go," said the crippled boy, again.

"But, Jamie, Jamie, think, THINK what it would mean to you!" quavered
Mrs. Murphy, at the foot of the bed.

"I am a-thinkin'," choked Jamie. "Don't you suppose I know what I'm
doin'--what I'm givin' up?" Then to Mrs. Carew he turned tear-wet
eyes. "I can't," he faltered. "I can't let you do all that for me. If
you--CARED it would be different. But you don't care--not really. You
don't WANT me--not ME. You want the real Jamie, and I ain't the real
Jamie. You don't think I am. I can see it in your face."

"I know. But--but--" began Mrs. Carew, helplessly.

"And it isn't as if--as if I was like other boys, and could walk,
either," interrupted the cripple, feverishly. "You'd get tired of me
in no time. And I'd see it comin'. I couldn't stand it--to be a burden
like that. Of course, if you CARED--like mumsey here--" He threw out
his hand, choked back a sob, then turned his head away again. "I'm not
the Jamie you want. I--can't--go," he said. With the words his thin,
boyish hand fell clenched till the knuckles showed white against the
tattered old shawl that covered the bed.

There was a moment's breathless hush, then, very quietly, Mrs. Carew
got to her feet. Her face was colorless; but there was that in it that
silenced the sob that rose to Pollyanna's lips.

"Come, Pollyanna," was all she said.

"Well, if you ain't the fool limit!" babbled Jerry Murphy to the boy
on the bed, as the door closed a moment later.

But the boy on the bed was crying very much as if the closing door had
been the one that had led to paradise--and that had closed now
forever.

CHAPTER XII

FROM BEHIND A COUNTER

Mrs. Carew was very angry. To have brought herself to the point where
she was willing to take this lame boy into her home, and then to have
the lad calmly refuse to come, was unbearable. Mrs. Carew was not in
the habit of having her invitations ignored, or her wishes scorned.
Furthermore, now that she could not have the boy, she was conscious of
an almost frantic terror lest he were, after all, the real Jamie. She
knew then that her true reason for wanting him had been--not because
she cared for him, not even because she wished to help him and make
him happy--but because she hoped, by taking him, that she would ease
her own mind, and forever silence that awful eternal questioning on
her part: "What if he WERE her own Jamie?"

It certainly had not helped matters any that the boy had divined her
state of mind, and had given as the reason for his refusal that she
"did not care." To be sure, Mrs. Carew now very proudly told herself
that she did not indeed "care," that he was NOT her sister's boy, and
that she would "forget all about it."

But she did not forget all about it. However insistently she might
disclaim responsibility and relationship, just as insistently
responsibility and relationship thrust themselves upon her in the
shape of panicky doubts; and however resolutely she turned her
thoughts to other matters, just so resolutely visions of a
wistful-eyed boy in a poverty-stricken room loomed always before her.

Then, too, there was Pollyanna. Clearly Pollyanna was not herself at
all. In a most unPollyanna-like spirit she moped about the house,
finding apparently no interest anywhere.

"Oh, no, I'm not sick," she would answer, when remonstrated with, and
questioned.

"But what IS the trouble?"

"Why, nothing. It--it's only that I was thinking of Jamie, you
know,--how HE hasn't got all these beautiful things--carpets, and
pictures, and curtains."

It was the same with her food. Pollyanna was actually losing her
appetite; but here again she disclaimed sickness.

"Oh, no," she would sigh mournfully. "It's just that I don't seem
hungry. Some way, just as soon as I begin to eat, I think of Jamie,
and how HE doesn't have only old doughnuts and dry rolls; and then
I--I don't want anything."

Mrs. Carew, spurred by a feeling that she herself only dimly
understood, and recklessly determined to bring about some change in
Pollyanna at all costs, ordered a huge tree, two dozen wreaths, and
quantities of holly and Christmas baubles. For the first time in many
years the house was aflame and aglitter with scarlet and tinsel. There
was even to be a Christmas party, for Mrs. Carew had told Pollyanna to
invite half a dozen of her schoolgirl friends for the tree on
Christmas Eve.

But even here Mrs. Carew met with disappointment; for, though
Pollyanna was always grateful, and at times interested and even
excited, she still carried frequently a sober little face. And in the
end the Christmas party was more of a sorrow than a joy; for the first
glimpse of the glittering tree sent her into a storm of sobs.

"Why, Pollyanna!" ejaculated Mrs. Carew. "What in the world is the
matter now?"

"N-n-nothing," wept Pollyanna. "It's only that it's so perfectly,
perfectly beautiful that I just had to cry. I was thinking how Jamie
would love to see it."

It was then that Mrs. Carew's patience snapped.

"'Jamie, Jamie, Jamie'!" she exclaimed. "Pollyanna, CAN'T you stop
talking about that boy? You know perfectly well that it is not my
fault that he is not here. I asked him to come here to live. Besides,
where is that glad game of yours? I think it would be an excellent
idea if you would play it on this."

"I AM playing it," quavered Pollyanna. "And that's what I don't
understand. I never knew it to act so funny. Why, before, when I've
been glad about things, I've been happy. But now, about Jamie--I'm so
glad I've got carpets and pictures and nice things to eat, and that I
can walk and run, and go to school, and all that; but the harder I'm
glad for myself, the sorrier I am for him. I never knew the game to
act so funny, and I don't know what ails it. Do you?"

But Mrs. Carew, with a despairing gesture, merely turned away without
a word.

It was the day after Christmas that something so wonderful happened
that Pollyanna, for a time, almost forgot Jamie. Mrs. Carew had taken
her shopping, and it was while Mrs. Carew was trying to decide between
a duchesse-lace and a point-lace collar, that Pollyanna chanced to spy
farther down the counter a face that looked vaguely familiar. For a
moment she regarded it frowningly; then, with a little cry, she ran
down the aisle.

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