Поллианна / Pollyanna

“Why, Aunt Polly, you SAID to!”

Aunt Polly sighed.

“I SAID, Pollyanna, that I did not send it, and for you to be very sure that he did not think I DID! – which is a very different matter from TELLING him outright that I did not send it.[92]”

“Dear me! Well, I don’t see where the difference is,” sighed Pollyanna.

Chapter XVI. A Red Rose and a Lace Shawl

About a week after Pollyanna’s visit to Mr. John Pendleton Miss Polly attended the Ladies’ Aid meeting. When she returned at three o’clock, her cheeks were pink, and her hair was fluffed into curls.

“Oh – oh – oh! Aunt Polly, you’ve got them, too,” she cried rapturously, dancing round and round her aunt, as that lady entered the sitting room.

“Pollyanna, what does all this mean?” demanded Aunt Polly.

“Oh, Aunt Polly!” I’m talking about those darling little black curls. Oh, Aunt Polly, they’re so pretty! May I do your hair?[93]”

“Nonsense! What do you mean, Pollyanna, by going to the Ladies’ in that absurd fashion? When the ladies told me this afternoon how you came to them, I was so ashamed! I – ”

Pollyanna began to dance up and down lightly on her toes.

“Wait just where you are. I’ll get a comb.”

“But Pollyanna, Pollyanna,” remonstrated Aunt Polly, following the little girl from the room and upstairs after her.

“Oh, did you come up here?” Pollyanna greeted her at the door of Miss Polly’s own room. “I’ve got the comb. Now sit down, please, right here. Oh, I’m so glad you let me do it!”

“But, Pollyanna, I–I – ”

“Oh, what pretty hair you’ve got,” prattled Pollyanna. Aunt Polly, I’ll make you so pretty everybody’ll just love to look at you!”

“Pollyanna! I–I’m sure I don’t know why I’m letting you do this silly thing.”

“Why, Aunt Polly, don’t you like to look at pretty things?”

“But – but – ”

“And I just love to do hair!” purred Pollyanna, contentedly. “Oh, Aunt Polly, now your hair is almost done,[94] and I need to leave you for just a minute; and you must promise – promise – PROMISE not to stir nor peek till I come back. Now remember!” she finished, as she ran from the room.

Aloud Miss Polly said nothing. But at that moment – unaccountably – Miss Polly caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror of the dressing table. And she saw her face – not young, it is true, but the cheeks were a pretty pink, the eyes sparkled. The hair, dark, and still damp from the outdoor air, lay in loose waves.

Miss Polly was amazed and absorbed with what she saw. Then Pollyanna entered the room again. She chuckled.

With trembling fingers she draped about her aunt’s shoulders a beautiful lace shawl.[95]

Promptly, therefore, she pulled her aunt toward the sun parlor and thrusted a red rose into the soft hair above Miss Polly’s left ear.

For one moment Miss Polly stood still but then she gave a low cry and fled to her room. Pollyanna, following the direction of her aunt’s last gaze, saw, through the open windows of the sun parlor Dr. Chilton.

“Dr. Chilton, Dr. Chilton! Did you want to see me?”

“Yes,” smiled the doctor, a little gravely. “Will you come down, please?”

In the bedroom Pollyanna found a flushed-faced, angry-eyed aunt Polly.

“Pollyanna, how could you?” moaned the woman. “To think of your rigging me up like this, and then letting me – BE SEEN![96]”

Pollyanna stopped in dismay.

“But you looked lovely – perfectly lovely, Aunt Polly; and – ”

Downstairs Pollyanna found the doctor.

He smiled.

“Mr. John Pendleton wants to see you today. It’s stopped raining, so I drove down after you. Will you come? I can bring you back before six o’clock.”

“I’ll be glad!” exclaimed Pollyanna. “Let me ask Aunt Polly.”

In a few moments she returned, hat in hand, but with rather a sober face.

The doctor a little hesitatingly, asked:

“Wasn’t it your aunt I saw with you a few minutes ago – in the window of the sun parlor?”

“Yes, I dressed her up in a perfectly lovely lace shawl and I fixed her hair and put on a rose, and she looked so pretty. Didn’t YOU think she looked just lovely?”

“Yes, Pollyanna, I–I thought she did look – just lovely.[97]”

“I’m so glad! I’ll tell her,” nodded the little girl.

“Never! Pollyanna, please don’t tell her – that.”

“Why, Dr. Chilton! Why not? I should think you’d be glad – ”

The doctor said nothing. He did not speak again until they reached the great stone house in which John Pendleton lay with a broken leg.

Chapter XVII. “Just Like a Book”

John Pendleton greeted Pollyanna today with a smile.

“Well, Miss Pollyanna, I’m so glad you’re here. Well, you know, I was pretty cross with you, I’m afraid, both the other day when you so kindly brought me the jelly, and that time when you found me with the broken leg at first. By the way, too, I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you for that![98]”

“But I was glad to find you – that is, I don’t mean I was glad your leg was broken, of course,” she corrected hurriedly.

John Pendleton smiled.

“I understand. And I consider you a very brave little girl to do what you did that day. I thank you for the jelly, too,” he added.

“Did you like it?” asked Pollyanna with interest.

“Very much. Well, well, listen! Out in the library – the big room where the telephone is, you know – you will find a carved box. Bring it to me. It is heavy, but not too heavy for you to carry, I think.”

“Oh, I’m very strong,” declared Pollyanna, cheerfully. In a minute she returned with the box.

It was a wonderful half-hour that Pollyanna spent then. The box was full of treasures that John Pendleton had picked up in years of travel – and concerning each there was some entertaining story.

The visit, certainly, was a delightful one, but before it was over, Pollyanna was realizing that they were talking about something besides the wonderful things in the beautiful carved box. They were talking of herself, of Nancy, of Aunt Polly, and of her daily life. They were talking, too, even of the life and home long ago in the far Western town.

When it was time for her to go, John Pendleton said:

“Little girl, I want you to come to see me often.[99] Will you? I’m lonesome, and I need you. At first, after I found out who you were, I didn’t want you to come any more. You reminded me of – of something I have tried for long years to forget. So I said to myself that I never wanted to see you again. But now I understand that I need you. Will you come again?”

“Yes, Mr. Pendleton!” breathed Pollyanna.”

“Thank you,” said John Pendleton, gently.

After supper that evening, Pollyanna told Nancy all about Mr. John Pendleton’s wonderful carved box, and the wonderful things it contained and that strange thing he wanted to forget.

“What’s that?” interrupted Nancy, excitedly. “He said you reminded him of something he wanted to forget?”

“Yes. But afterwards – ”

“What was it?” Nancy was eagerly insistent.

“He didn’t tell me. He just said it was something.”

“THE MYSTERY!” breathed Nancy. “That’s why he took to you, Miss Pollyanna![100] Now tell me everything he said!”

“But he didn’t tell me anything,” cried Pollyanna. And he didn’t even know who I was till I took the calf’s-foot jelly, and had to make him understand that Aunt Polly didn’t send it, and – ”

“Oh, Miss Pollyanna, I know, I know – I KNOW, I know!” Nancy cried rapturously. “It was after he found out you were Miss Polly’s niece that he said he didn’t ever want to see you again, wasn’t it?[101]”

“Oh, yes. I told him that the last time I saw him, and he told me this today.”

“Then I’ve got it, sure! Now listen. MR. JOHN PENDLETON WAS MISS POLLY HARRINGTON’S LOVER!” she announced impressively.

“Why, Nancy, she doesn’t like him,” objected Pollyanna.

“Of course she doesn’t! THAT’S the quarrel!”

Pollyanna still looked incredulous.

“Just before you come, Mr. Tom told me Miss Polly had had a lover once. I didn’t believe it. But Mr. Tom said she had, and that he was living now right in this town. And NOW I know, of course. It’s John Pendleton!”

“Oh-h!” breathed Pollyanna, in amazement. “But, Nancy, I should think if they loved each other they’d make up some time.[102] Both of them all alone, so, all these years. I should think they’d be glad to make up!”

Nancy sniffed.

“I guess maybe you don’t know much about lovers, Miss Pollyanna. You aren’t big enough yet.”

Pollyanna said nothing; but when she went into the house a little later, her face was very thoughtful.

Chapter XVIII. Prisms

As the warm August days passed, Pollyanna went very frequently to the house of Mr. Pendleton. He talked to her and showed her many strange and beautiful things – books, pictures. He obviously liked her.

Pollyanna never doubted now that John Pendleton some time ago was her Aunt Polly’s lover; and with all the strength of her loving heart she tried to bring happiness into their lonely lives.

She also talked to Mr. Pendleton about her aunt; and he listened, sometimes politely, sometimes irritably. She talked to her aunt about Mr. Pendleton. Usually Miss Polly didn’t listen. She always found something else to talk about.

One day, making an early morning call on John Pendleton, found the flaming band of blue and gold and green and red and violet lying across his pillow.

“Mr. Pendleton, it’s a real rainbow!” she exclaimed. “How pretty it is! But how DID it get in?” she cried.

The man laughed a little grimly.

“Well, I suppose it ‘got in’ through the glass thermometer in the window. The sun shouldn’t strike it at all but it does in the morning.[103]”

“Oh, it’s so pretty, Mr. Pendleton! And does just the sun do that?”

Suddenly a thought came to Mr. Pendleton. He touched the bell.

“Nora,” he said, when his maid appeared at the door, “bring me a big brass candlestick from the drawing-room.”

“Yes, sir,” murmured the woman. A musical tinkling entered the room with her as she advanced toward the bed. It came from the prism pendants encircling the old-fashioned candelabrum in her hand.

“Thank you. You may stand it here,” directed the man.

As the maid left the room he turned smiling eyes toward Pollyanna.

“Bring me the candlestick now, please, Pollyanna.”

With both hands she brought it; and in a moment he was slipping off the pendants, until they lay, side by side, on the bed.[104]

“Now, my dear, take the string from my table and hook the pendants to it across the window.”

When she finished, she stepped back with a cry of delight. Everywhere in the room were bits of dancing red and green, violet and orange, gold and blue. The wall, the floor, and the furniture, even to the bed, were aflame with shimmering bits of color.

“Oh, how lovely!” breathed Pollyanna; then she laughed suddenly. “I reckon the sun himself is trying to play my game now!” she cried, forgetting for the moment that Mr. Pendleton could not know what she was talking about.

“Oh, I forgot. You don’t know about the game. I remember now.”

“Suppose you tell me, then.”

And this time Pollyanna told him everything about her “being glad” game.

For a moment there was silence. Then a low voice from the bed said unsteadily: