Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter (books to read fiction .TXT) 📕

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-cochère 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 newfound 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