Chapter XXIII. John Pendleton

“And so it’s hurt that I am, and not sick,” she sighed at last. “Well, I’m glad of that.”

“G-glad, Pollyanna?” asked her aunt, who was sitting by the bed.

“Yes. I’d so much rather have broken legs like Mr. Pendleton’s than life-long-invalids like Mrs. Snow, you know. Broken legs get well, and life-long-invalids don’t.”

Miss Polly got suddenly to her feet and walked to the little dressing table. Her face was white and drawn.

On the bed Pollyanna lay looking at the dancing colors on the ceiling, which came from one of the prisms in the window.

“I’m glad it isn’t appendicitis nor measles, because they’re catching – measles are, I mean – and they wouldn’t let you stay here.”

“You seem to – to be glad for a good many things, my dear,” faltered Aunt Polly.

Pollyanna laughed softly.

“I am. I’m so glad Mr. Pendleton gave me those prisms! But I’m most glad I was hurt.”

“Pollyanna!”

Pollyanna laughed softly again. “Well, you see, since I have been hurt, you’ve called me ‘dear’ lots of times – and you didn’t before. I love to be called ‘dear’. Some of the Ladies’ Aiders called me that; and of course that was pretty nice. Oh, Aunt Polly, I’m so glad you belong to me!”

Aunt Polly did not answer. Her eyes were full of tears. She turned away and hurried from the room.

It was that afternoon that Nancy ran out to Old Tom. Her eyes were wild.

“Mr. Tom, Mr. Tom, guess what’s happened,” she panted. “You couldn’t guess in a thousand years – you couldn’t, you couldn’t! Who do you suppose is in the parlor now with the mistress?”

Old Tom shook his head.

“It’s – John Pendleton!”

“You’re joking, girl.”

“Not much I am! Just think, Mr. Tom – HE called on HER!”

“Well, why not?” demanded the old man, a little aggressively.

“Well, I’ve found out that Miss Polly still hates him owing to the silly gossip that coupled their names together when she was eighteen or twenty.”

“Yes, I remember,” nodded Old Tom. “It was three or four years after Miss Jennie gave him the mitten and went off with the other chap. Miss Polly knew about it, of course, and was sorry for him. So she tried to be nice to him. Somebody began to make trouble. They said she was running after him. Then about that time she had troubles with her own lover. After that she shut up like an oyster. Her heart just seemed to turn bitter at the core.”

“Yes, I know,” rejoined Nancy; “and that’s why I was so surprised when I saw HIM at the door! But I let him in and went and told her.”

“What did she say?”

“‘Tell Mr. Pendleton I will be down at once.’ And I told him. Then I came out here and told you,” finished Nancy.

“Humph!” grunted Old Tom.

Mr. John Pendleton did not have to wait long before a swift step warned him of Miss Polly’s coming. As he attempted to rise, she made a gesture of remonstrance. She did not offer her hand, however, and her face was coldly reserved.

“I called to ask for – Pollyanna,” he began at once.

“Thank you. She is about the same,” said Miss Polly.

“And that is – won’t you tell me HOW she is?” His voice was not quite steady.

A quick spasm of pain crossed the woman’s face.

“I can’t, I wish I could!”

“You mean – you don’t know?”

“Yes.”

“But – the doctor?”

“Dr. Warren is in correspondence now with a New York specialist. They have arranged for a consultation at once.”

“But – but what WERE her injuries that you know?”

“A slight cut on the head, one or two bruises, and – and an injury to the spine which has seemed to cause – paralysis from the hips down.”

A low cry came from the man. There was a brief silence; then he asked:

“And Pollyanna – how does she – take it?”

“She doesn’t understand – at all – how things really are. And I CAN’T tell her.”

“But she must know – something!”

“Oh, yes. She knows she can’t – move; but she thinks her legs are – broken. She says she’s glad it’s broken legs like yours rather than ‘lifelong-invalids’ like Mrs. Snow’s; because broken legs get well, and the other – doesn’t. She talks like that all the time, until it – it seems as if I should – die!”

Through the blur of tears in his own eyes, the man saw the drawn face opposite.

“Do you know, Miss Harrington, how hard I tried to get Pollyanna to come and live with me.”

“With YOU! – Pollyanna!”

“Yes. I wanted to adopt her – legally, you understand; making her my heir, of course.”

“I am very fond of Pollyanna,” the man was continuing. “I am fond of her both for her own sake, and for – her mother’s. I’m ready to give Pollyanna the love that had been twenty-five years in storage.”

“LOVE.” Miss Polly remembered suddenly why SHE had taken this child in the first place – and with the recollection came the remembrance of Pollyanna’s own words: “I love to be called ‘dear’!” With a sinking heart, too, she realized something else: the dreariness of her own future now without Pollyanna.

“Well?” she said. The man smiled sadly.

“She would not come,” he answered.

“Why?”

“She doesn’t want to leave you. She wanted to stay with you – and she said she THOUGHT you wanted her to stay,” he finished.

He did not look toward Miss Polly. He turned his face resolutely toward the door. But instantly he heard a swift step at his side, and found a shaking hand thrust toward him.

“When the specialist comes, and I know anything – definite about Pollyanna, I will let you hear from me,” said a trembling voice. “Goodbye – and thank you for coming. Pollyanna will be pleased.”

Chapter XXIV. A Waiting Game

On the day after John Pendleton’s call at the Harrington homestead, Miss Polly set herself to the task of preparing Pollyanna for the visit of the specialist.

“Pollyanna, my dear,” she began gently, “we want another doctor besides Dr. Warren to see you. Another one might tell us something new to do – to help you get well faster, you know.”

A joyous light came to Pollyanna’s face.

“Dr. Chilton! Oh, Aunt Polly, I’m so glad! I’ve wanted him all the time, but I was afraid you didn’t.”

Aunt Polly’s face turned white, then red, then white again. But when she answered, she showed very plainly that she was trying to speak cheerfully.

“Oh, no, dear! It wasn’t Dr. Chilton at all that I meant. It is a new doctor – a very good doctor from New York.”

“But it was Dr. Chilton who doctored Mr. Pendleton’s broken leg, Aunt Polly. If – if you don’t mind VERY much, I WOULD LIKE to have Dr. Chilton – truly I would!”

For a moment Aunt Polly did not speak at all; then she said gently:

“But I mind very much. I can do anything – almost anything for you, my dear; but there is some reason why I don’t wish Dr. Chilton called in on this case. And believe me, he can NOT know so much about your trouble, as this great doctor, who will come from New York tomorrow.”

Pollyanna still looked unconvinced.

The nurse entered the room at that moment, and Aunt Polly rose to her feet abruptly.

“I am very sorry, Pollyanna,” she said, “but it’s already arranged. The New York doctor will come tomorrow.”

As it happened, however, the New York doctor did not come “tomorrow.” At the last moment a telegram told of an unavoidable delay owing to the sudden illness of the specialist himself.

As the days of waiting passed, one by one, it seemed that Aunt Polly was doing everything that she could do to please her niece.

“I still can’t believe it,” Nancy said to Old Tom one morning. “but Miss Polly does everything that pleases Miss Pollyanna! She’s sent Timothy three times for fresh flowers. She lets the nurse do her hair. And Miss Polly wears her hair like that every day now – just to please that blessed child!”

Old Tom chuckled.

“Well, I think Miss Polly herself looks better now wearing these curls round her forehead,” Old Tom observed.

“Yes, she looks like FOLKS, now. She actually looks better with the ribbons and lace Miss Pollyanna makes her wear around her neck.”

“I told you so,” nodded the man. “She was a beauty some time ago.”

Nancy laughed.

“Well, say, Mr. Tom, who WAS her lover?”

“Well, I guess you won’t know it from me,” grinned Old Tom. Then, abruptly, the light died from his eyes. “How is she, today – the little gal?”

Nancy shook her head.

“Just the same, Mr. Tom. There is no special difference, as I can see. She just lays there and sleeps and talks and tries to smile and be ‘glad’ because the sun sets or the moon rises, or some other such thing.”

“I know; it’s the ‘game’!” nodded Old Tom.

“She told YOU, too, about that game?”

“Oh, yes. She told me long ago.”

For no one were those days of waiting easy. The nurse tried to look cheerful, but her eyes were troubled. The doctor was nervous and impatient. Miss Polly said little; but even the waves of hair about her face, and the becoming laces at her throat, could not hide the fact that she was growing thin and pale. As to Pollyanna – Pollyanna admired the flowers and ate the fruits and jellies that were sent in to her; and returned cheery answers to the many messages of love and. But she, too, grew pale and thin; and the nervous activity of the poor little hands and arms only emphasized the pitiful motionlessness of the once active little feet and legs now lying so quiet under the blankets.