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Miss Polly Harrington did not rise to meet her niece.
“How do you do, Pollyanna? I – ”.
“Oh, Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, I don’t know how to be glad enough that you let me come to live with you,” she was sobbing. “You don’t know how perfectly lovely it is to have you and Nancy and all this!”
“Nancy, you may go,” Aunt Polly said.
“We will go upstairs to your room, Pollyanna. Your trunk is already there, I presume. I told Timothy to take it up – if you had one. You may follow me.”
Without speaking, Pollyanna turned and followed her aunt from the room. Her eyes were filled with tears, but her chin was bravely high.
She was on the stairway now.
“Oh, Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly,” breathed the little girl; “what a perfectly lovely, lovely house! How awfully glad you must be you’re so rich!”
“PollyANNA!” ejaculated her aunt. “I’m surprised at you – making a speech like that to me!”
“Why, Aunt Polly, AREN’T you?” asked Pollyanna, in wonder.
“Certainly not, Pollyanna. How can I be proud of any gift the Lord has sent me?” declared the lady.
Miss Polly turned and walked down the hall toward the attic stairway door. At the top of the stairs there were innumerable trunks and boxes. It was hot. Pollyanna lifted her head higher – it seemed so hard to breathe. Then she saw that her aunt threw open a door at the right.
“There, Pollyanna, here is your room, and your trunk is here. Do you have your key?”
Pollyanna nodded. Her eyes were a little wide and frightened.
Her aunt frowned.
“When I ask a question, Pollyanna, I prefer that you should answer aloud not merely with your head.”
“Yes, Aunt Polly.”
“Thank you; that is better. I believe you have everything that you need here,” she added. “I will send Nancy to help you unpack your truck. Supper is at six o’clock,” she finished and left the room.
For a moment Pollyanna stood quite still. Then she turned her wide eyes to the bare wall, the bare floor, the bare windows and fell on her knees, covering her face with her hands.
Nancy found her there when she came up a few minutes later.
“There, there, you, poor lamb,” she crooned, drawing the little girl into her arms.
“Oh, Nancy, I’m so wicked,” she sobbed. “I just can’t understand why God and the angels need my father more than I do.”
“There, there, child, let’s have your key and we’ll get inside this trunk and take out your dresses.”
Pollyanna produced the key.
“There aren’t very many there,” she faltered.
“Then they’re all soon be unpacked,” declared Nancy.
“It’s such a nice room! Don’t you think so?” Pollyanna stammered.
There was no answer. Nancy was very busy with the trunk.
“And I can be glad there isn’t any looking-glass here, too, because where there ISN’T any glass I can’t see my freckles.”
A few minutes later, Pollyanna clapped her hands joyously.
“Oh, Nancy, look at these trees and the houses and that lovely church spire, and the river. Oh, I’m so glad now she let me have this room!”
To Pollyanna’s surprise, Nancy burst into tears.
“Why, Nancy – what is it?” she cried; “This wasn’t – YOUR room, was it?”
“My room!” stormed Nancy. “You are a little angel straight from Heaven!”
After that Nancy sprang to her feet and went down the stairs.
Left alone, Pollyanna went back to her “picture,” as she mentally designated the beautiful view from the window. The next moment she opened the window. She ran then to the other window and opened it too. Then Pollyanna made a wonderful discovery – against this window there was a huge tree. Suddenly she laughed aloud.
“I believe I can do it,” she chuckled. The next moment she climbed to the window ledge. From there it was easy to step to the nearest tree-branch. Then she reached the lowest branch and dropped to the ground.
She was at the back of the house. Then Pollyanna reached the path that ran through the open field.
Fifteen minutes later the great clock struck six. At the last stroke Nancy sounded the bell for supper.
One, two, three minutes passed. Miss Polly frowned. She rose to her feet, went into the hall, and looked upstairs. For a minute she listened; then she turned and went to the dining room.
“Nancy,” she said, “my niece is late. You need not call her,” she added. “I told her what time supper was, and now she will have to suffer the consequences. She must learn to be punctual. When she comes she may have bread and milk in the kitchen.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
At the possible moment after supper, Nancy crept up to the attic room.
She softly pushed open the door. The next moment she gave a frightened cry. “Where are you?” she panted, and flew to Old Tom in the garden.
“Mr. Tom, Mr. Tom, that blessed child’s gone,” she cried.
The old man stopped, straightened up and pointed at the slender figure on top of a huge rock.
“Miss Pollyanna, what a scare you did give me,” panted Nancy, hurrying up to the big rock.
“Scare? Oh, I’m so sorry; but you mustn’t, really, ever get scared about me, Nancy,” said Pollyanna and slid down the rock.
“I didn’t see you go, and nobody didn’t. I guess you flew right up through the roof; I do, I do. Poor little lamb, you must be hungry, too. I–I’m afraid you’ll have to have bread and milk in the kitchen with me. Your aunt didn’t like it – because you didn’t come down to supper.”
“But I couldn’t. I was up here. But I’m glad.”
“Glad! Why?”
“I like bread and milk, and I’d like to eat with you. I don’t see any trouble about being glad about that.”
“You don’t seem to see any trouble being glad about everything,” retorted Nancy.
Pollyanna laughed softly.
“Well, that’s the game, you know, anyway.”
“The – GAME?”
“Yes; the ‘just being glad’ game.”
“Whatever in the world are you talking about?”
“Why, it’s a game. Father told it to me, and it’s lovely. We’ve played it always, ever since I was a little, little girl. I told the Ladies’ Aid, and they played it – some of them… Only sometimes it’s almost too hard especially when your father goes to Heaven… I suppose, though, it’ll be a little harder now, as long as I haven’t anybody to play it with. Maybe Aunt Polly will play it, though,” she added.
“See here, Miss Pollyanna, I’m not sure that I’ll play it very well, and I don’t know how but I’ll play it with you, I will!”
“Oh, Nancy! That’ll be splendid!”
“Maybe,” said Nancy, in open doubt. “You mustn’t count too much on me but I’ll try to play it with you,” she finished, as they entered the kitchen together.
Pollyanna ate her bread and milk with good appetite and went into the sitting room, where her aunt sat reading. Miss Polly looked up coldly.
“Have you had your supper, Pollyanna?”
“Yes, Aunt Polly.”
“I’m very sorry, Pollyanna, to have been obliged so soon to send you into the kitchen to eat bread and milk.”
“But I was really glad you did it, Aunt Polly. I like bread and milk, and Nancy, too. You mustn’t feel bad about that.”
Aunt Polly sat suddenly a little more erect in her chair.
“Pollyanna, go to bed. It was a hard day, and tomorrow we must plan your hours and go over your clothing to see what it is necessary to get for you. Nancy will give you a candle. Breakfast will be at half-past seven. Good night.”
Pollyanna came straight to her aunt’s side and gave her an affectionate hug.
“I know I’m going to just love living with you but then. Good night,” she said cheerfully, as she ran from the room.
“What a most extraordinary child!” Aunt Polly said. Then she frowned. “She’s ‘glad’ I punished her, and I ‘mustn’t feel bad about that,’ and she’s going to ‘love to live’ with me! Well, upon my soul!”
Fifteen minutes later, in the attic room, a lonely little girl sobbed into the sheet:
“I know, father-among-the-angels, I’m not playing the game; I don’t believe even you could find anything to be glad about sleeping all alone in the dark. If only I was near Nancy or Aunt Polly, or even a Ladies’ Aider, it would be easier!”
It was nearly seven o’clock when Pollyanna awoke that first day after her arrival. Her windows faced the south and the west, so she could not see the sun yet; but she could see the morning sky, and she knew that the day promised to be a fair one.
Pollyanna ran to the garden where she saw Aunt Polly with an old man.
“Oh, Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, I am glad this morning just to be alive!”
“PollyANNA!” said Aunt Polly, “is this the usual way you say good morning?”
“I saw you from my window and I decided to hug you!”
The old man turned his back suddenly.
“Do you always work in the garden, Mister?” asked Pollyanna.
The man turned. His eyes were filled with tears.
“Yes, Miss. I’m Old Tom, the gardener,” he answered. “You are so like your mother, little Miss! I used to know her when she was a young girl. You see, I used to work in the garden – then.”
“You did? And you knew my mother, really? Oh, please tell me about her!”
A bell sounded from the house. The next moment Nancy appeared.
“Miss Pollyanna, that bell means breakfast,” she said, pulling the little girl to her feet and hurrying her back to the house; “and other times it means other meals. But it always means that you must run when you hear it, no matter where you are.” she finished, shooing Pollyanna into the house.
Half an hour after breakfast Miss Polly entered Pollyanna’s room.
“Pollyanna, you may bring out your clothes now, and I will look them over. What are not suitable for you I shall give to the Sullivans, of course.”
Pollyanna dived into her closet then, hurriedly, and brought out all the poor little dresses in both her arms.
With the tips of her fingers Miss Polly turned over the garments, so obviously made for anybody but Pollyanna.
Aunt Polly turned to Pollyanna abruptly.
“You have been to school, of course, Pollyanna?”
“Oh, yes, Aunt Polly. Besides, I was taught at home, too.”
Miss Polly frowned.
“Very good. In autumn you will enter school here, of course. Mr. Hall, will doubtless settle in which grade you belong.”
“I love to read; but if you don’t want to hear me I will be glad to read to myself, Aunt Polly.”
“I don’t doubt it,” rejoined Miss Polly. “Have you studied music?”
“Not much. I don’t like my music. Though I learned to play the piano a little.”
“Nevertheless I think it is my duty to see that you are properly instructed in at least the rudiments of music. You sew, of course.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Pollyanna sighed. “The Ladies’ Aid taught me that.”
“I shall teach you sewing myself, of course. You do not know how to cook, I presume.”
Pollyanna laughed suddenly.
“They were just beginning to teach me that this summer, but I hadn’t got far.”
“At nine o’clock every morning you will read aloud one half-hour to me. Before that you will use the time to put this room in order. Wednesday and Saturday, after half-past nine, you will spend with Nancy in the kitchen, learning to cook. Other mornings you will sew with me. That will leave the afternoons for your music,” she finished.
Pollyanna cried out in dismay.
“Oh, but Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, you haven’t left me any time at all just to – to live.”
“To live, child! What do you mean? As if you weren’t living all the time!”
“I mean living – doing the things you want to do: playing outdoors, reading to myself, climbing hills, talking to Mr. Tom in the garden, and Nancy. That’s what I call living, Aunt Polly. Just breathing isn’t living!”
“Pollyanna, you ARE the most extraordinary child! You will be allowed a proper amount of playtime, of course. Just be grateful.
Pollyanna looked shocked.
“Oh, Aunt Polly, as if I ever could be ungrateful to YOU! I LOVE YOU, you’re my aunt!”
“Very well; then don’t act ungrateful,” said Miss Polly and turned toward the door.
She had gone halfway down the stairs when a small, unsteady voice called after her:
“Please, Aunt Polly, you didn’t tell me which of my things you wanted to give away.”
“Oh, I forgot to tell you, Pollyanna. Timothy will drive us into town at half past one this afternoon. Not one of your garments is fit for my niece to wear.”
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