Поллианна / Pollyanna

A low cry came from the man. There was a brief silence; then he asked:

“And Pollyanna – how does she – take it?”

“She doesn’t understand – at all – how things really are. And I CAN’T tell her.”

“But she must know – something!”

“Oh, yes. She knows she can’t – move; but she thinks her legs are – broken. She says she’s glad it’s broken legs like yours rather than ‘lifelong-invalids’ like Mrs. Snow’s; because broken legs get well, and the other – doesn’t. She talks like that all the time, until it – it seems as if I should – die!”

Through the blur of tears in his own eyes, the man saw the drawn face opposite.

“Do you know, Miss Harrington, how hard I tried to get Pollyanna to come and live with me.”

“With YOU! – Pollyanna!”

“Yes. I wanted to adopt her – legally, you understand; making her my heir, of course.”

“I am very fond of Pollyanna,” the man was continuing. “I am fond of her both for her own sake, and for – her mother’s. I’m ready to give Pollyanna the love that had been twenty-five years in storage.[131]”

“LOVE.” Miss Polly remembered suddenly why SHE had taken this child in the first place – and with the recollection came the remembrance of Pollyanna’s own words: “I love to be called ‘dear’!” With a sinking heart, too, she realized something else: the dreariness of her own future now without Pollyanna.

“Well?” she said. The man smiled sadly.

“She would not come,[132]” he answered.

“Why?”

“She doesn’t want to leave you. She wanted to stay with you – and she said she THOUGHT you wanted her to stay,” he finished.

He did not look toward Miss Polly. He turned his face resolutely toward the door. But instantly he heard a swift step at his side, and found a shaking hand thrust toward him.

“When the specialist comes, and I know anything – definite about Pollyanna, I will let you hear from me,[133]” said a trembling voice. “Goodbye – and thank you for coming. Pollyanna will be pleased.”

Chapter XXIV. A Waiting Game

On the day after John Pendleton’s call at the Harrington homestead, Miss Polly set herself to the task of preparing Pollyanna for the visit of the specialist.

“Pollyanna, my dear,” she began gently, “we want another doctor besides Dr. Warren to see you. Another one might tell us something new to do – to help you get well faster, you know.”

A joyous light came to Pollyanna’s face.

“Dr. Chilton! Oh, Aunt Polly, I’m so glad! I’ve wanted him all the time, but I was afraid you didn’t.”

Aunt Polly’s face turned white, then red, then white again. But when she answered, she showed very plainly that she was trying to speak cheerfully.

“Oh, no, dear! It wasn’t Dr. Chilton at all that I meant. It is a new doctor – a very good doctor from New York.”

“But it was Dr. Chilton who doctored Mr. Pendleton’s broken leg, Aunt Polly. If – if you don’t mind VERY much, I WOULD LIKE to have Dr. Chilton – truly I would![134]”

For a moment Aunt Polly did not speak at all; then she said gently:

“But I mind very much. I can do anything – almost anything for you, my dear; but there is some reason why I don’t wish Dr. Chilton called in on this case. And believe me, he can NOT know so much about your trouble, as this great doctor, who will come from New York tomorrow.”

Pollyanna still looked unconvinced.

The nurse entered the room at that moment, and Aunt Polly rose to her feet abruptly.

“I am very sorry, Pollyanna,” she said, “but it’s already arranged. The New York doctor will come tomorrow.”

As it happened, however, the New York doctor did not come “tomorrow.” At the last moment a telegram told of an unavoidable delay owing to the sudden illness of the specialist himself.

As the days of waiting passed, one by one, it seemed that Aunt Polly was doing everything that she could do to please her niece.

“I still can’t believe it,” Nancy said to Old Tom one morning. “but Miss Polly does everything that pleases Miss Pollyanna! She’s sent Timothy three times for fresh flowers. She lets the nurse do her hair. And Miss Polly wears her hair like that every day now – just to please that blessed child!”

Old Tom chuckled.

“Well, I think Miss Polly herself looks better now wearing these curls round her forehead,” Old Tom observed.

“Yes, she looks like FOLKS, now.[135] She actually looks better with the ribbons and lace Miss Pollyanna makes her wear around her neck.”

“I told you so,” nodded the man. “She was a beauty some time ago.”

Nancy laughed.

“Well, say, Mr. Tom, who WAS her lover?”

“Well, I guess you won’t know it from me,” grinned Old Tom. Then, abruptly, the light died from his eyes. “How is she, today – the little gal?”

Nancy shook her head.

“Just the same, Mr. Tom. There is no special difference, as I can see. She just lays there and sleeps and talks and tries to smile and be ‘glad’ because the sun sets or the moon rises, or some other such thing.”

“I know; it’s the ‘game’!” nodded Old Tom.

“She told YOU, too, about that game?”

“Oh, yes. She told me long ago.”

For no one were those days of waiting easy. The nurse tried to look cheerful, but her eyes were troubled. The doctor was nervous and impatient. Miss Polly said little; but even the waves of hair about her face, and the becoming laces at her throat, could not hide the fact that she was growing thin and pale.[136] As to Pollyanna – Pollyanna admired the flowers and ate the fruits and jellies that were sent in to her; and returned cheery answers to the many messages of love and. But she, too, grew pale and thin; and the nervous activity of the poor little hands and arms only emphasized the pitiful motionlessness of the once active little feet and legs now lying so quiet under the blankets.

Chapter XXV. A Door Ajar

Just a week from the time Dr. Mead, the specialist, came. He was a tall man with kind gray eyes, and a cheerful smile. Pollyanna liked him at once.

Everyone said afterward that it was the cat that noiselessly opened the door. And if the door had not been open, Pollyanna would not have heard her aunt’s words.[137]

In the hall the two doctors, the nurse, and Miss Polly stood talking. In Pollyanna’s room the cat was purring on the bed when through the open door sounded clearly Aunt Polly’s exclamation.

“Not that! Doctor, not that! You don’t mean – the child – will NEVER WALK again!”

It was all confusion then. First, from the bedroom came Pollyanna’s terrified “Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly!” Then Miss Polly, seeing the open door and realizing that her words had been heard, gave a low little moan and – for the first time in her life – fainted away.

The nurse, with a choking “She heard!” ran toward the open door.

“Miss Hunt, please, I want Aunt Polly. I want her right away, quick, please!”

The nurse closed the door and came forward hurriedly. Her face was very pale.

“She – she can’t come just this minute, dear. She will – a little later. What is it? Can’t I – get it?[138]”

Pollyanna shook her head.

“But I want to know what she said – just now. Did you hear her? I want Aunt Polly – she said something. I want her to tell me it isn’t true!”

The nurse tried to speak, but no words came.

“Miss Hunt, you DID hear her! It is true! Oh, it isn’t true! You don’t mean I can’t ever – walk again?”

“There, there, dear – don’t, don’t!” said the nurse. “Perhaps he didn’t know. Perhaps he was mistaken.”

“But Aunt Polly said he knew more than anybody else about broken legs like mine!”

“Yes, yes, I know, dear; but all doctors make mistakes sometimes. Just don’t think anymore about it now – please don’t, dear.”

“But I can’t help thinking about it,[139]” she sobbed. “It’s all there is now to think about. Miss Hunt, how am I going to school, or to see Mr. Pendleton, or Mrs. Snow, or – or anybody?” She sobbed wildly for a moment. Suddenly she stopped and looked up. “Miss Hunt, if I can’t walk, how am I ever going to be glad for – ANYTHING?”

Miss Hunt did not know “the game;” but she knew that her patient must be quieted. That is why she stood now at the bedside with the quieting powder ready.

“There, there, dear, just take this,” she soothed; “Things aren’t half as bad as they seem, dear, lots of times, you know.”

Chapter XXVI. Two Visits

It was Nancy who was sent to tell Mr. John Pendleton of Dr. Mead’s verdict.

“I’m Nancy, sir,” she said respectfully to Mr. Pendleton, when he came into the room. “Miss Harrington sent me to tell you about – Miss Pollyanna.”

“Well?”

“It isn’t well, Mr. Pendleton,” she choked.

“You don’t mean – ” He paused.

“Yes, sir. He says – she can’t walk again – never.”

For a moment there was absolute silence in the room; then the man spoke, in a voice shaken with emotion.[140]

“Poor – little – girl! Poor – little – girl!”

Nancy glanced at him, but dropped her eyes at once. In a moment he asked:

“She herself doesn’t know yet – of course – does she?”

“But she does, sir.” sobbed Nancy, “It’s only that the cat pushed open the door and Miss Pollyanna overheard them talking. She found out – that way.”

“Poor – little – girl!” sighed the man again.

“Yes, sir. You see it’s all so new to her, and she keeps thinking all the time of new things she can’t do – NOW. It worries her, too, because she can’t be glad – maybe you don’t know about her game, though,” said Nancy, apologetically.

“The ‘glad game’?” asked the man. “Oh, yes; she told me of that.”

“Oh, she did! Well, I guess she has told it generally to most folks.[141] But you see, now she – she can’t play it herself, and it worries her.”

Nancy paused, but the man did not speak. He sat with his hand over his eyes.

At the door she hesitated, turned, and asked timidly:

“There is also one more thing she feels bad about. It’s Jimmy Bean. She said she’d taken him to you once, but she didn’t think he showed off very well that day, and that she was afraid you didn’t think he would make a very nice child’s presence, after all. Maybe you know what she means by that; but I didn’t, sir.”

“Yes, I know – what she means.”

“All right, sir. She wanted to take him again to show you he really was a lovely child’s presence. And now she – can’t! I beg your pardon, sir. Goodbye!”

It did not take long for the entire town to learn that the great New York doctor had said Pollyanna would never walk again.[142] Everybody knew her little freckled face and almost everybody knew of the “game” that Pollyanna was playing.

Soon Aunt Polly, greatly to her surprise, began to receive calls: calls from people she knew, and people she did not know; calls from men, women, and children. Some brought a book or a bunch of flowers. Some cried frankly. Everybody was anxious for the little injured girl.

First came Mr. John Pendleton.

“I don’t need to tell you how shocked I am,” he began almost harshly. “But can – nothing be done?”

Miss Polly gave a gesture of despair.

“Oh, we’re ‘doing,’ of course, all the time. Dr. Mead prescribed certain treatments and medicines that might help. But – he held out almost no hope.”

John Pendleton rose abruptly. His face was white. Miss Polly, looking at him, knew very well why he felt that he could not stay longer in her presence. At the door he turned.

“I have a message for Pollyanna,” he said. “Will you tell her, please, that I have seen Jimmy Bean and – that he’s going to be my boy hereafter. Tell her I thought she would be – GLAD to know. I shall adopt him, probably.[143]”

For a brief moment Miss Polly lost her usual self-control.

“You will adopt Jimmy Bean!” she gasped.

“Yes. I think Pollyanna will understand. I hope she will be glad!”

“Thank you,” bowed John Pendleton, as he turned to go.

With a somewhat dazed face Miss Polly went upstairs to Pollyanna’s room.