“Yes, yes, dear, of course I can, of course I can,” laughed Mrs. Chilton, rising to leave the room, and feeling suddenly very guilty that she was conscious sometimes of a little of her old irritation against Pollyanna’s perpetual gladness.
During the next few days, while letters concerning Pollyanna’s winter stay in Boston were flying back and forth, Pollyanna herself was preparing for that stay by a series of farewell visits to her Beldingsville friends.
Everybody in the little Vermont village knew Pollyanna now, and almost everybody was playing the game with her. The few who were not, were not refraining because of ignorance of what the “glad game” was. So to one house after another Pollyanna carried the news now that she was going down to Boston to spend the winter; and loudly rose the clamor of regret and remonstrance, all the way from Nancy in Aunt Polly’s own kitchen to the great house on the hill where lived John Pendleton.
Nancy did not hesitate to say – to every one except her mistress – that SHE considered this Boston trip all foolishness, and that for her part she would have been glad to take Miss Pollyanna home with her to the Corners, she would, she would; and then Mrs. Polly could have gone to Germany all she wanted to[16].
On the hill John Pendleton said practically the same thing, only he did not hesitate to say it to Mrs. Chilton herself. As for Jimmy, the twelve-year-old boy whom John Pendleton had taken into his home because Pollyanna wanted him to, and whom he had now adopted – because he wanted to himself – as for Jimmy, Jimmy was indignant, and he was not slow to show it.
“But you’ve just come,” he reproached Pollyanna, in the tone of voice a small boy is apt to use when he wants to hide the fact that he has a heart.
“Why, I’ve been here ever since the last of March. Besides, it isn’t as if I was going to stay. It’s only for this winter.”
“I don’t care. You’ve just been away for a whole year, ’most, and if I’d s’posed you was going away again right off, the first thing, I wouldn’t have helped one mite to meet you with flags and bands and things, that day you come from the Sanatorium.”
“Why, Jimmy Bean!” ejaculated Pollyanna, in amazed disapproval. Then, with a touch of superiority born of hurt pride, she observed: “I’m sure I didn’t ASK you to meet me with bands and things – and you made two mistakes in that sentence. You shouldn’t say ‘you was’; and I think ‘you come’ is wrong. It doesn’t sound right, anyway.”
“Well, who cares if I did?”
Pollyanna’s eyes grew still more disapproving.
“You SAID you did – when you asked me this summer to tell you when you said things wrong, because Mr. Pendleton was trying to make you talk right.”
“Well, if you’d been brought up in a ’sylum without any folks that cared, instead of by a whole lot of old women who didn’t have anything to do but tell you how to talk right, maybe you’d say ‘you was,’ and a whole lot more worse things, Pollyanna Whittier!”
“Why, Jimmy Bean!” flared Pollyanna. “My Ladies’ Aiders weren’t old women – that is, not many of them, so very old,” she corrected hastily, her usual proclivity for truth and literalness superseding her anger; “and —”
“Well, I’m not Jimmy Bean, either,” interrupted the boy, uptilting his chin.
“You’re – not – Why, Jimmy Be – — What do you mean?” demanded the little girl.
“I’ve been adopted, LEGALLY. He’s been intending to do it, all along, he says, only he didn’t get to it. Now he’s done it. I’m to be called ‘Jimmy Pendleton’ and I’m to call him Uncle John, only I ain’t – are not – I mean, I AM not used to it yet, so I hain’t – haven’t begun to call him that, much.”
The boy still spoke crossly, aggrievedly, but every trace of displeasure had fled from the little girl’s face at his words. She clapped her hands joyfully.
“Oh, how splendid! Now you’ve really got FOLKS – folks that care, you know. And you won’t ever have to explain that he wasn’t BORN your folks, ’cause your name’s the same now. I’m so glad, GLAD, GLAD!”
The boy got up suddenly from the stone wall where they had been sitting, and walked off. His cheeks felt hot, and his eyes smarted with tears. It was to Pollyanna that he owed it all – this great good that had come to him; and he knew it. And it was to Pollyanna that he had just now been saying —
He kicked a small stone fiercely, then another, and another. He thought those hot tears in his eyes were going to spill over and roll down his cheeks in spite of himself. He kicked another stone, then another; then he picked up a third stone and threw it with all his might. A minute later he strolled back to Pollyanna still sitting on the stone wall.
“I bet you I can hit that pine-tree down there before you can,” he challenged airily.
“Bet you can’t,” cried Pollyanna, scrambling down from her perch.
The race was not run after all, for Pollyanna remembered just in time that running fast was yet one of the forbidden luxuries for her. But so far as Jimmy was concerned, it did not matter. His cheeks were no longer hot, his eyes were not threatening to overflow with tears. Jimmy was himself again.
Chapter III
A Dose of Pollyanna
As the eighth of September approached – the day Pollyanna was to arrive – Mrs. Ruth Carew became more and more nervously exasperated with herself. She declared that she had regretted just ONCE her promise to take the child – and that was ever since she had given it. Before twenty-four hours had passed she had, indeed, written to her sister demanding that she be released from the agreement; but Della had answered that it was quite too late, as already both she and Dr. Ames had written the Chiltons.
Soon after that had come Della’s letter saying that Mrs. Chilton had given her consent, and would in a few days come to Boston to make arrangements as to school, and the like. So there was nothing to be done, naturally, but to let matters take their course. Mrs. Carew realized that, and submitted to the inevitable, but with poor grace[17]. True, she tried to be decently civil when Della and Mrs. Chilton made their expected appearance; but she was very glad that limited time made Mrs. Chilton’s stay of very short duration, and full to the brim of business.
It was well, indeed, perhaps, that Pollyanna’s arrival was to be at a date no later than the eighth; for time, instead of reconciling Mrs. Carew to the prospective new member of her household, was filling her with angry impatience at what she was pleased to call her “absurd yielding to Della’s crazy scheme.”
Nor was Della herself in the least unaware of her sister’s state of mind. If outwardly she maintained a bold front, inwardly she was very fearful as to results; but on Pollyanna she was pinning her faith, and because she did pin her faith on Pollyanna, she determined on the bold stroke of leaving the little girl to begin her fight entirely unaided and alone. She contrived, therefore, that Mrs. Carew should meet them at the station upon their arrival; then, as soon as greetings and introductions were over, she hurriedly pleaded a previous engagement and took herself off. Mrs. Carew, therefore, had scarcely time to look at her new charge before she found herself alone with the child.
“Oh, but Della, Della, you mustn’t – I can’t —” she called agitatedly, after the retreating figure of the nurse.
But Della, if she heard, did not heed; and, plainly annoyed and vexed, Mrs. Carew turned back to the child at her side.