Войти в систему
Войти с помощью соц. сетей:
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!”
“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. 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! 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?”
“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. 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.
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.”
“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.
“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:
“Perhaps; now I know the best prism of them is you, Pollyanna.”
“Oh, but I don’t show beautiful red and green and purple when the sun shines through me, Mr. Pendleton!”
“Don’t you?” smiled the man. And Pollyanna, looking into his face, wondered why there were tears in his eyes.
“No,” she said. “I’m afraid, Mr. Pendleton, the sun make just freckles on my face!”
Pollyanna looked at him. His laugh had sounded almost like a sob.
Pollyanna entered school in September. School, in some ways, was a surprise to Pollyanna; and Pollyanna, certainly, in many ways, was very much of a surprise to school. They were soon on the best of terms, however, and to her aunt Pollyanna confessed that going to school WAS living.
In spite of her delight in her new work, Pollyanna did not forget her old friends. She could not give them quite so much time now, of course; but she gave them what time she could. Perhaps John Pendleton, however, was the most dissatisfied.
One Saturday afternoon he spoke to her about it.
“See here, Pollyanna, how would you like to come and live with me?” he asked, a little impatiently.
Pollyanna laughed – Mr. Pendleton was such a funny man!
“I thought you didn’t like to have any people around,” she said.
“Oh, but that was before you taught me to play that wonderful game of yours. Now I’m glad to be waited on!”
“Oh, but you aren’t really glad; you just SAY you are,” pouted Pollyanna. “You know you don’t play the game right, Mr. Pendleton – you know you don’t!”
The man’s face grew suddenly very grave.
“That’s why I want you, little girl – to help me play it. Will you come?”
“Mr. Pendleton, I can’t – you know I can’t. I’m – Aunt Polly’s! You know she has been so – good to me,” she began slowly; “and she took me when I didn’t have anybody left but the Ladies’ Aid, and – ”
A spasm of something crossed the man’s face.
“Pollyanna, long years ago I loved somebody very much. I hoped to bring her to this house. But I didn’t bring her here. Never mind why. And my house is not a home. It takes a woman’s hand and heart, or a child’s presence, to make a home, Pollyanna; and I have not had either. Now will you come, my dear?”
“Then it’s all right,” sighed the little girl. “Now you can take us both, and everything will be lovely.”
“Take – you – both?” repeated the man.
A faint doubt crossed Pollyanna’s countenance.
“Pollyanna, what ARE you talking about?” asked the man. He raised his hand and began to speak; but the next moment the maid appeared.
“The doctor, sir,” she said.
Pollyanna rose at once.
John Pendleton turned to her feverishly.
“Pollyanna, for Heaven’s sake, say nothing of what I asked you to your aunt,” he said in a low voice. Pollyanna smiled.
“Of course not! I know you must tell her everything yourself!” she called back.
John Pendleton fell limply back in his chair.
Войти с помощью соц. сетей: