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"Ah! Some calf's-foot jelly?" he asked genially. "That will be
fine! Maybe you'd like to see our patient, eh?"
"Oh, yes, sir," beamed Pollyanna; and the woman, in obedience to
a nod from the doctor, led the way down the hall at once, though
plainly with vast surprise on her face.
Behind the doctor, a young man (a trained nurse from the nearest
city) gave a disturbed exclamation.
"But, Doctor, didn't Mr. Pendleton give orders not to admit--any
one?"
"Oh, yes," nodded the doctor, imperturbably. "But I'm giving
orders now. I'll take the risk." Then he added whimsically: "You
don't know, of course; but that little girl is better than a
six-quart bottle of tonic any day. If anything or anybody can
take the grouch out of Pendleton this afternoon, she can. That's
why I sent her in."
"Who is she?"
For one brief moment the doctor hesitated.
"She's the niece of one of our best known residents. Her name is
Pollyanna Whittier. I--I don't happen to enjoy a very extensive
personal acquaintance with the little lady as yet; but lots of my
patients do--I'm thankful to say!"
The nurse smiled.
"Indeed! And what are the special ingredients of this
wonder-working--tonic of hers?"
The doctor shook his head.
"I don't know. As near as I can find out it is an overwhelming,
unquenchable gladness for everything that has happened or is
going to happen. At any rate, her quaint speeches are constantly
being repeated to me, and, as near as I can make out, 'just being
glad' is the tenor of most of them. All is," he added, with
another whimsical smile, as he stepped out on to the porch, "I
wish I could prescribe her--and buy her--as I would a box of
pills;--though if there gets to be many of her in the world, you
and I might as well go to ribbon-selling and ditch-digging for
all the money we'd get out of nursing and doctoring," he laughed,
picking up the reins and stepping into the gig.
Pollyanna, meanwhile, in accordance with the doctor's orders, was
being escorted to John Pendleton's rooms.
Her way led through the great library at the end of the hall,
and, rapid as was her progress through it, Pollyanna saw at once
that great changes had taken place. The book-lined walls and the
crimson curtains were the same; but there was no litter on the
floor, no untidiness on the desk, and not so much as a grain of
dust in sight. The telephone card hung in its proper place, and
the brass andirons had been polished. One of the mysterious doors
was open, and it was toward this that the maid led the way. A
moment later Pollyanna found herself in a sumptuously furnished
bedroom while the maid was saying in a frightened voice:
"If you please, sir, here--here's a little girl with some jelly.
The doctor said I was to--to bring her in."
The next moment Pollyanna found herself alone with a very
cross-looking man lying flat on his back in bed.
"See here, didn't I say--" began an angry voice. "Oh, it's you!"
it broke off not very graciously, as Pollyanna advanced toward
the bed.
"Yes, sir," smiled Pollyanna. "Oh, I'm so glad they let me in!
You see, at first the lady 'most took my jelly, and I was so
afraid I wasn't going to see you at all. Then the doctor came,
and he said I might. Wasn't he lovely to let me see you?"
In spite of himself the man's lips twitched into a smile; but all
he said was "Humph!"
"And I've brought you some jelly," resumed Pollyanna;
"--calf's-foot. I hope you like it?" There was a rising
inflection in her voice.
"Never ate it." The fleeting smile had gone, and the scowl had
come back to the man's face.
For a brief instant Pollyanna's countenance showed
disappointment; but it cleared as she set the bowl of jelly down.
"Didn't you? Well, if you didn't, then you can't know you DON'T
like it, anyhow, can you? So I reckon I'm glad you haven't, after
all. Now, if you knew--"
"Yes, yes; well, there's one thing I know all right, and that is
that I'm flat on my back right here this minute, and that I'm
liable to stay here--till doomsday, I guess."
Pollyanna looked shocked.
"Oh, no! It couldn't be till doomsday, you know, when the angel
Gabriel blows his trumpet, unless it should come quicker than we
think it will--oh, of course, I know the Bible says it may come
quicker than we think, but I don't think it will--that is, of
course I believe the Bible; but I mean I don't think it will come
as much quicker as it would if it should come now, and--"
John Pendleton laughed suddenly--and aloud. The nurse, coming in
at that moment, heard the laugh, and beat a hurried--but a very
silent--retreat. He had the air of a frightened cook who, seeing
the danger of a breath of cold air striking a half-done cake,
hastily shuts the oven door.
"Aren't you getting a little mixed?" asked John Pendleton of
Pollyanna.
The little girl laughed.
"Maybe. But what I mean is, that legs don't last--broken ones,
you know--like lifelong invalids, same as Mrs. Snow has got. So
yours won't last till doomsday at all. I should think you could
be glad of that."
"Oh, I am," retorted the man grimly.
"And you didn't break but one. You can be glad 'twasn't two."
Pollyanna was warming to her task.
"Of course! So fortunate," sniffed the man, with uplifted
eyebrows; "looking at it from that standpoint, I suppose I might
be glad I wasn't a centipede and didn't break fifty!"
Pollyanna chuckled.
"Oh, that's the best yet," she crowed. "I know what a centipede
is; they've got lots of legs. And you can be glad--"
"Oh, of course," interrupted the man, sharply, all the old
bitterness coming back to his voice; "I can be glad, too, for all
the rest, I suppose--the nurse, and the doctor, and that
confounded woman in the kitchen!"
"Why, yes, sir--only think how bad 'twould be if you DIDN'T have
them!"
"Well, I--eh?" he demanded sharply.
"Why, I say, only think how bad it would be if you didn't have
'em--and you lying here like this!"
"As if that wasn't the very thing that was at the bottom of the
whole matter," retorted the man, testily, "because I am lying
here like this! And yet you expect me to say I'm glad because of
a fool woman who disarranges the whole house and calls it
'regulating,' and a man who aids and abets her in it, and calls
it 'nursing,' to say nothing of the doctor who eggs 'em both
on--and the whole bunch of them, meanwhile, expecting me to pay
them for it, and pay them well, too!"
Pollyanna frowned sympathetically.
"Yes, I know. THAT part is too bad--about the money--when you've
been saving it, too, all this time."
"When--eh?"
"Saving it--buying beans and fish balls, you know. Say, DO you
like beans?--or do you like turkey better, only on account of the
sixty cents?"
"Look a-here, child, what are you talking about?"
Pollyanna smiled radiantly.
"About your money, you know--denying yourself, and saving it for
the heathen. You see, I found out about it. Why, Mr. Pendleton,
that's one of the ways I knew you weren't cross inside. Nancy
told me."
The man's jaw dropped.
"Nancy told you I was saving money for the--Well, may I inquire
who Nancy is?"
"Our Nancy. She works for Aunt Polly."
"Aunt Polly! Well, who is Aunt Polly?"
"She's Miss Polly Harrington. I live with her."
The man made a sudden movement.
"Miss--Polly--Harrington!" he breathed. "You live with--HER!"
"Yes; I'm her niece. She's taken me to bring up--on account of my
mother, you know," faltered Pollyanna, in a low voice. "She was
her sister. And after father--went to be with her and the rest of
us in Heaven, there wasn't any one left for me down here but the
Ladies' Aid; so she took me."
The man did not answer. His face, as he lay back on the pillow
now, was very white--so white that Pollyanna was frightened. She
rose uncertainly to her feet.
"I reckon maybe I'd better go now," she proposed. "I--I hope
you'll like--the jelly."
The man turned his head suddenly, and opened his eyes. There was
a curious longing in their dark depths which even Pollyanna saw,
and at which she marvelled.
"And so you are--Miss Polly Harrington's niece," he said gently.
"Yes, sir."
Still the man's dark eyes lingered on her face, until Pollyanna,
feeling vaguely restless, murmured:
"I--I suppose you know--her."
John Pendleton's lips curved in an odd smile.
"Oh, yes; I know her." He hesitated, then went on, still with
that curious smile. "But--you don't mean--you can't mean that it
was Miss Polly Harrington who sent that jelly--to me?" he said
slowly.
Pollyanna looked distressed.
"N-no, sir: she didn't. She said I must be very sure not to let
you think she did send it. But I--"
"I thought as much," vouchsafed the man, shortly, turning away
his head. And Pollyanna, still more distressed, tiptoed from the
room.
Under the porte-cochere she found the doctor waiting in his gig.
The nurse stood on the steps.
"Well, Miss Pollyanna, may I have the pleasure of seeing you
home?" asked the doctor smilingly. "I started to drive on a few
minutes ago; then it occurred to me that I'd wait for you."
"Thank you, sir. I'm glad you did. I just love to ride," beamed
Pollyanna, as he reached out his hand to help her in.
"Do you?" smiled the doctor, nodding his head in farewell to the
young man on the steps. "Well, as near as I can judge, there are
a good many things you 'love' to do--eh?" he added, as they drove
briskly away.
Pollyanna laughed.
"Why, I don't know. I reckon perhaps there are," she admitted. "I
like to do 'most everything that's LIVING. Of course I don't like
the other things very well--sewing, and reading out loud, and all
that. But THEY aren't LIVING."
"No? What are they, then?"
"Aunt Polly says they're 'learning to live,' sighed Pollyanna,
with a rueful smile.
The doctor smiled now--a little queerly.
"Does she? Well, I should think she might say--just that."
"Yes," responded Pollyanna. "But I don't see it that way at all.
I don't think you have to LEARN how to live. I didn't, anyhow."
The doctor drew a long sigh.
"After all, I'm afraid some of us--do have to, little girl," he
said. Then, for a time he was silent. Pollyanna, stealing a
glance at his face, felt vaguely sorry for him. He looked so sad.
She wished, uneasily, that she could "do something." It was this,
perhaps, that caused her to say in a timid voice:
"Dr. Chilton, I should think being a doctor would, be the very
gladdest kind of a business there was."
The doctor turned in surprise.
" 'Gladdest'!--when I see so much suffering always, everywhere I
go?" he cried.
She nodded.
"I know; but you're HELPING it--don't you see?--and of course
you're glad to help it! And so that makes you the gladdest of any
of us, all the time."
The doctor's eyes filled with sudden hot tears. The doctor's life
was a singularly lonely one. He had no wife and no home save his
two-room office in a boarding house. His profession was very dear
to him. Looking now into Pollyanna's shining eyes, he felt as if
a loving hand had been suddenly laid on his head in blessing. He
knew, too, that never again would a long day's work or a long
night's weariness be quite without that new-found exaltation that
had come to him through Pollyanna's eyes.
"God bless you, little girl," he said unsteadily. Then, with the
bright smile his patients knew and loved so well, he added: "And
I'm thinking, after all, that it was the doctor, quite as much as
his patients, that needed a draft of that tonic!" All of which
puzzled Pollyanna very much--until a chipmunk, running across the
road, drove the whole matter from her mind.
The doctor left Pollyanna at her own door, smiled at Nancy, who
was sweeping off the front porch, then drove rapidly away.
"I've had a perfectly beautiful ride with the doctor," announced
Pollyanna, bounding up the steps. "He's lovely, Nancy!"
"Is he?"
"Yes. And I told him I should think his business would be the
very gladdest one there was."
"What!--goin' ter see sick folks--an' folks what ain't sick but
thinks they is, which is worse?" Nancy's face showed open
skepticism.
Pollyanna laughed gleefully.
"Yes. That's 'most what he said, too; but there is a way to be
glad, even then. Guess!"
Nancy frowned in meditation. Nancy was getting so she could play
this game of "being glad" quite successfully, she thought. She
rather enjoyed studying out Pollyanna's "posers," too, as she
called some of the little girl's questions.
"Oh, I know," she chuckled. "It's just the opposite from what you
told Mis' Snow."
"Opposite?" repeated Pollyanna, obviously puzzled.
"Yes. You told her she could be glad because other folks wasn't
like her--all sick, you know."
"Yes," nodded Pollyanna.
"Well, the doctor can be glad because he isn't like other
folks--the sick ones, I mean, what he doctors," finished Nancy in
triumph.
It was Pollyanna's turn to frown.
"Why, y-yes," she admitted. "Of course that IS one way, but it
isn't the way I said; and--someway, I don't seem to quite like
the sound of it. It isn't exactly as if he said he was glad they
WERE sick, but--You do play the game so funny, sometimes Nancy,"
she sighed, as she went into the house.
Pollyanna found her aunt in the sitting room.
"Who was that man--the one who drove into the yard, Pollyanna?"
questioned the lady a little sharply.
"Why, Aunt Polly, that was Dr. Chilton! Don't you know him?"
"Dr. Chilton! What was he doing--here?"
"He drove me home. Oh, and I gave the jelly to Mr. Pendleton,
and--"
Miss Polly lifted her head quickly.
"Pollyanna, he did not think I sent it?"
"Oh, no, Aunt Polly. I told him you didn't."
Miss Polly grew a sudden vivid pink.
"You TOLD him I didn't!"
Pollyanna opened wide her eyes at the remonstrative dismay in her
aunt's voice.
"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." And she
turned vexedly away.
"Dear me! Well, I don't see where the difference is," sighed
Pollyanna, as she went to hang her hat on the one particular hook
in the house upon which Aunt Polly had said that it must be hung.
CHAPTER XVI. A RED ROSE AND A LACE SHAWL
It was on a rainy day about a week after Pollyanna's visit to Mr.
John Pendleton, that Miss Polly was driven by Timothy to an early
afternoon committee meeting of the Ladies' Aid Society. When she
returned at three o'clock, her cheeks were a bright, pretty pink,
and her hair, blown by the damp wind, had fluffed into kinks and
curls wherever the loosened pins had given leave.
Pollyanna had never before seen her aunt look like this.
"Oh--oh--oh! Why, Aunt Polly, you've got 'em, too," she cried
rapturously, dancing round and round her aunt, as that lady
entered the sitting room.
"Got what, you impossible child?"
Pollyanna was still revolving round and round her aunt.
"And I never knew you had 'em! Can folks have 'em when you don't
know they've got 'em? DO you suppose I could?--'fore I get to
Heaven, I mean," she cried, pulling out with eager fingers the
straight locks above her ears. "But then, they wouldn't be black,
if they did come. You can't hide the black part."
"Pollyanna, what does all this mean?" demanded Aunt Polly,
hurriedly removing her hat, and trying to smooth back her
disordered hair.
"No, no--please, Aunt Polly!" Pollyanna's jubilant voice turned
to one of distressed appeal. "Don't smooth 'em out! It's those
that I'm talking about--those darling little black curls. Oh,
Aunt Polly, they're so pretty!"
"Nonsense! What do you mean, Pollyanna, by going to the Ladies'
Aid the other day in that absurd fashion about that beggar boy?"
"But it isn't nonsense," urged Pollyanna, answering only the
first of her aunt's remarks. "You don't know how pretty you look
with your hair like that! Oh, Aunt Polly, please, mayn't I do
your hair like I did Mrs. Snow's, and put in a flower? I'd so
love to see you that way! Why, you'd be ever so much prettier
than she was!"
"Pollyanna!" (Miss Polly spoke very sharply--all the more
sharply because Pollyanna's words had given her an odd throb of
joy: when before had anybody cared how she, or her hair looked?
When before had anybody "loved" to see her "pretty"?) "Pollyanna,
you did not answer my question. Why did you go to the Ladies' Aid
in that absurd fashion?"
"Yes'm, I know; but, please, I didn't know it was absurd until I
went and found out they'd rather see their report grow than
Jimmy. So then I wrote to MY Ladies' Aiders--'cause Jimmy is far
away from them, you know; and I thought maybe he could be their
little India boy same as--Aunt Polly, WAS I your little India
girl? And, Aunt Polly, you WILL let me do your hair, won't you?"
Aunt Polly put her hand to her throat--the old, helpless feeling
was upon her, she knew.
"But, Pollyanna, when the ladies Old me this afternoon how you
came to them, I was so ashamed! I--"
Pollyanna began to dance up and down lightly on her toes.
"You didn't!--You didn't say I COULDN'T do your hair," she crowed
triumphantly; "and so I'm sure it means just the other way
'round, sort of--like it did the other day about Mr. Pendleton's
jelly that you didn't send, but didn't want me to say you didn't
send, you know. Now wait just where you are. I'll get a comb."
"But Pollyanna, Pollyanna," remonstrated Aunt Polly, following
the little girl from the room and panting up-stairs after her.
"Oh, did you come up here?" Pollyanna greeted her at the door of
Miss Polly's own room. "That'll be nicer yet! 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--"
Miss Polly did not finish her sentence. To her helpless amazement
she found herself in the low chair before the dressing table,
with her hair already tumbling about her ears under ten eager,
but very gentle fingers.
"Oh, my! what pretty hair you've got," prattled Pollyanna; "and
there's so much more of it than Mrs. Snow has, too! But, of
course, you need more, anyhow, because you're well and can go to
places where folks can see it. My! I reckon folks'll be glad when
they do see it--and surprised, too, 'cause you've hid it so long.
Why, Aunt Polly, I'll make you so pretty everybody'll just love
to look at you!"
"Pollyanna!" gasped a stifled but shocked voice from a veil of
hair. "I--I'm sure I don't know why I'm letting you do this silly
thing."
"Why, Aunt Polly, I should think you'd be glad to have folks like
to look at you! Don't you like to look at pretty things? I'm ever
so much happier when I look at pretty folks, 'cause when I look
at the other kind I'm so sorry for them."
"But--but--"
"And I just love to do folks' hair," purred Pollyanna,
contentedly. "I did quite a lot of the Ladies' Aiders'--but there
wasn't any of them so nice as yours. Mrs. White's was pretty
nice, though, and she looked just lovely one day when I dressed
her up in--Oh, Aunt Polly, I've just happened to think of
something! But it's a secret, and I sha'n't tell. Now your hair
is almost done, and pretty quick I'm going to leave you just a
minute; and you must promise--promise--PROMISE not to stir nor
peek, even, till I come back. Now remember!" she finished, as she
ran from the room.
Aloud Miss Polly said nothing. To herself she said that of course
she should at once undo the absurd work of her niece's fingers,
and put her hair up properly again. As for "peeking" just as if
she cared how--
At that moment--unaccountably--Miss Polly caught a glimpse of
herself in the mirror of the dressing table. And what she saw
sent such a flush of rosy color to her cheeks that--she only
flushed the more at the sight.
She saw a face--not young, it is true--but just now alight with
excitement and surprise. The cheeks were a pretty pink. The eyes
sparkled. The hair, dark, and still damp from the outdoor air,
lay in loose waves about the forehead and curved back over the
ears in wonderfully becoming lines, with softening little curls
here and there.
So amazed and so absorbed was Miss Polly with what she saw in the
glass that she quite forgot her determination to do over her
hair, until she heard Pollyanna enter the room again. Before she
could move, then, she felt a folded something slipped across her
eyes and tied in the back.
"Pollyanna, Pollyanna! What are you doing?" she cried.
Pollyanna chuckled.
"That's just what I don't want you to know, Aunt Polly, and I was
afraid you WOULD peek, so I tied on the handkerchief. Now sit
still. It won't take but just a minute, then I'll let you see."
"But, Pollyanna," began Miss Polly, struggling blindly to her
feet, "you must take this off! You--child, child! what ARE you
doing?" she gasped, as she felt a soft something slipped about
her shoulders.
Pollyanna only chuckled the more gleefully. With trembling
fingers she was draping about her aunt's shoulders the fleecy
folds of a beautiful lace shawl, yellowed from long years of
packing away, and fragrant with lavender. Pollyanna had found the
shawl the week before when Nancy had been regulating the attic;
and it had occurred to her to-day that there was no reason why
her aunt, as well as Mrs. White of her Western home, should not
be "dressed up."
Her task completed, Pollyanna surveyed her work with eyes that
approved, but that saw yet one touch wanting. Promptly,
therefore, she pulled her aunt toward the sun parlor where she
could see a belated red rose blooming on the trellis within reach
of her hand.
"Pollyanna, what are you doing? Where are you taking me to?"
recoiled Aunt Polly, vainly trying to hold herself back.
"Pollyanna, I shall not--"
"It's just to the sun parlor--only a minute! I'll have you ready
now quicker'n no time," panted Pollyanna, reaching for the rose
and thrusting it into the soft hair above Miss Polly's left ear.
"There!" she exulted, untying the knot of the handkerchief and
flinging the bit of linen far from her. "Oh, Aunt Polly, now I
reckon you'll be glad I dressed you up!"
For one dazed moment Miss Polly looked at her bedecked self, and
at her surroundings; then she gave a low cry and fled to her
room. Pollyanna, following the direction of her aunt's last
dismayed gaze, saw, through the open windows of the sun parlor,
the horse and gig turning into the driveway. She recognized at
once the man who held the reins. Delightedly she leaned forward.
"Dr. Chilton, Dr. Chilton! Did you want to see me? I'm up here."
"Yes," smiled the doctor, a little gravely. "Will you come down,
please?"
In the bedroom Pollyanna found a flushed-faced, angry-eyed woman
plucking at the pins that held a lace shawl in place.
"Pollyanna, how could you?" moaned the woman. "To think of your
rigging me up like this, and then letting me--BE SEEN!"
Pollyanna stopped in dismay.
"But you looked lovely--perfectly lovely, Aunt Polly; and--"
" 'Lovely'!" scorned the woman, flinging the shawl to one side
and attacking her hair with shaking fingers.
"Oh, Aunt Polly, please, please let the hair stay!"
"Stay? Like this? As if I would!" And Miss Polly pulled the
locks so tightly back that the last curl lay stretched dead at
the ends of her fingers.
"O dear! And you did look so pretty," almost sobbed Pollyanna, as
she stumbled through the door.
Down-stairs Pollyanna found the doctor waiting in his gig.
"I've prescribed you for a patient, and he's sent me to get the
prescription filled," announced the doctor. "Will you go?"
"You mean--an errand--to the drug store?" asked Pollyanna, a
little uncertainly. "I used to go some--for the Ladies' Aiders."
The doctor shook his head with a smile.
"Not exactly. It's Mr. John Pendleton. He would like to see you
to-day, if you'll be so good as to come. It's stopped raining, so
I drove down after you. Will you come? I'll call for you and
bring you back before six o'clock."
"I'd love to!" exclaimed Pollyanna. "Let me ask Aunt Polly."
In a few moments she returned, hat in hand, but with rather a
sober face.
"Didn't--your aunt want you to go?" asked the doctor, a little
diffidently, as they drove away.
"Y-yes," sighed Pollyanna. "She--she wanted me to go TOO much,
I'm afraid."
"Wanted you to go TOO MUCH!"
Pollyanna sighed again.
"Yes. I reckon she meant she didn't want me there. You see, she
said: 'Yes, yes, run along, run along--do! I wish you'd gone
before.' "
The doctor smiled--but with his lips only. His eyes were very
grave. For some time he said nothing; then, a little
hesitatingly, he asked:
"Wasn't it--your aunt I saw with you a few minutes ago--in the
window of the sun parlor?"
Pollyanna drew a long breath.
"Yes; that's what's the whole trouble, I suppose. You see I'd
dressed her up in a perfectly lovely lace shawl I found
up-stairs, and I'd fixed her hair and put on a rose, and she
looked so pretty. Didn't YOU think she looked just lovely?"
For a moment the doctor did not answer. When he did speak his
voice was so low Pollyanna could but just hear the words.
"Yes, Pollyanna, I--I thought she did look--just lovely."
"Did you? I'm so glad! I'll tell her," nodded the little girl,
contentedly.
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