“Well, in plain words, it’s just that nothin’ what ever has happened, has happened right in Mis’ Snow’s eyes. Even the days of the week ain’t run ter her mind. If it’s Monday she’s bound ter say she wished ‘twas Sunday; and if you take her jelly you’re pretty sure ter hear she wanted chicken—but if you DID bring her chicken, she’d be jest hankerin’ for lamb broth!”
“Why, what a funny woman,” laughed Pollyanna. “I think I shall like to go to see her. She must be so surprising and—and different. I love DIFFERENT folks.”
“Humph! Well, Mis’ Snow’s ‘different,’ all right—I hope, for the sake of the rest of us!” Nancy had finished grimly.
Pollyanna was thinking of these remarks to-day as she turned in at the gate of the shabby little cottage. Her eyes were quite sparkling, indeed, at the prospect of meeting this “different” Mrs. Snow.
A pale-faced, tired-looking young girl answered her knock at the door.
“How do you do?” began Pollyanna politely. “I’m from Miss Polly Harrington, and I’d like to see Mrs. Snow, please.”
“Well, if you would, you’re the first one that ever ‘liked’ to see her,” muttered the girl under her breath; but Pollyanna did not hear this. The girl had turned and was leading the way through the hall to a door at the end of it.
In the sick-room, after the girl had ushered her in and closed the door, Pollyanna blinked a little before she could accustom her eyes to the gloom. Then she saw, dimly outlined, a woman half-sitting up in the bed across the room. Pollyanna advanced at once.
“How do you do, Mrs. Snow? Aunt Polly says she hopes you are comfortable to-day, and she’s sent you some calf’s-foot jelly.”
“Dear me! Jelly?” murmured a fretful voice. “Of course I’m very much obliged, but I was hoping ‘twould be lamb broth to-day.”
Pollyanna frowned a little.
“Why, I thought it was CHICKEN you wanted when folks brought you jelly,” she said.
“What?” The sick woman turned sharply.
“Why, nothing, much,” apologized Pollyanna, hurriedly; “and of course it doesn’t really make any difference. It’s only that Nancy said it was chicken you wanted when we brought jelly, and lamb broth when we brought chicken—but maybe ‘twas the other way, and Nancy forgot.”
The sick woman pulled herself up till she sat erect in the bed—a most unusual thing for her to do, though Pollyanna did not know this.
“Well, Miss Impertinence, who are you?” she demanded.
Pollyanna laughed gleefully.
“Oh, THAT isn’t my name, Mrs. Snow—and I’m so glad ‘tisn’t, too! That would be worse than ‘Hephzibah,’ wouldn’t it? I’m Pollyanna Whittier, Miss Polly Harrington’s niece, and I’ve come to live with her. That’s why I’m here with the jelly this morning.”
All through the first part of this sentence, the sick woman had sat interestedly erect; but at the reference to the jelly she fell back on her pillow listlessly.
“Very well; thank you. Your aunt is very kind, of course, but my appetite isn’t very good this morning, and I was wanting lamb—” She stopped suddenly, then went on with an abrupt change of subject. “I never slept a wink last night—not a wink!”
“O dear, I wish I didn’t,” sighed Pollyanna, placing the jelly on the little stand and seating herself comfortably in the nearest chair. “You lose such a lot of time just sleeping! Don’t you think so?”
“Lose time—sleeping!” exclaimed the sick woman.
“Yes, when you might be just living, you know. It seems such a pity we can’t live nights, too.”
Once again the woman pulled herself erect in her bed.
“Well, if you ain’t the amazing young one!” she cried. “Here! do you go to that window and pull up the curtain,” she directed. “I should like to know what you look like!”
Pollyanna rose to her feet, but she laughed a little ruefully.
“O dear! then you’ll see my freckles, won’t you?” she sighed, as she went to the window; “—and just when I was being so glad it was dark and you couldn’t see ‘em. There! Now you can—oh!” she broke off excitedly, as she turned back to the bed; “I’m so glad you wanted to see me, because now I can see you! They didn’t tell me you were so pretty!”
“Me!—pretty!” scoffed the woman, bitterly.
“Why, yes. Didn’t you know it?” cried Pollyanna.
“Well, no, I didn’t,” retorted Mrs. Snow, dryly. Mrs. Snow had lived forty years, and for fifteen of those years she had been too busy wishing things were different to find much time to enjoy things as they were.
“Oh, but your eyes are so big and dark, and your hair’s all dark, too, and curly,” cooed Pollyanna. “I love black curls. (That’s one of the things I’m going to have when I get to Heaven.) And you’ve got two little red spots in your cheeks. Why, Mrs. Snow, you ARE pretty! I should think you’d know it when you looked at yourself in the glass.”
“The glass!” snapped the sick woman, falling back on her pillow. “Yes, well, I hain’t done much prinkin’ before the mirror these days—and you wouldn’t, if you was flat on your back as I am!”
“Why, no, of course not,” agreed Pollyanna, sympathetically. “But wait—just let me show you,” she exclaimed, skipping over to the bureau and picking up a small hand-glass.
On the way back to the bed she stopped, eyeing the sick woman with a critical gaze.
“I reckon maybe, if you don’t mind, I’d like to fix your hair just a little before I let you see it,” she proposed. “May I fix your hair, please?”
“Why, I—suppose so, if you want to,” permitted Mrs. Snow, grudgingly; “but ‘twon’t stay, you know.”
“Oh, thank you. I love to fix people’s hair,” exulted Pollyanna, carefully laying down the hand-glass and reaching for a comb. “I sha’n’t do much to-day, of course—I’m in such a hurry for you to see how pretty you are; but some day I’m going to take it all down and have a perfectly lovely time with it,” she cried, touching with soft fingers the waving hair above the sick woman’s forehead.
For five minutes Pollyanna worked swiftly, deftly, combing a refractory curl into fluffiness, perking up a drooping ruffle at the neck, or shaking a pillow into plumpness so that the head might have a better pose. Meanwhile the sick woman, frowning prodigiously, and openly scoffing at the whole procedure, was, in spite of herself, beginning to tingle with a feeling perilously near to excitement.
“There!” panted Pollyanna, hastily plucking a pink from a vase near by and tucking it into the dark hair where it would give the best effect. “Now I reckon we’re ready to be looked at!” And she held out the mirror in triumph.
“Humph!” grunted the sick woman, eyeing her reflection severely. “I like red pinks better than pink ones; but then, it’ll fade, anyhow, before night, so what’s the difference!”
“But I should think you’d be glad they did fade,” laughed Pollyanna, “‘cause then you can have the fun of getting some more. I just love your hair fluffed out like that,” she finished with a satisfied gaze. “Don’t you?”
“Hm-m; maybe. Still—’twon’t last, with me tossing back and forth on the pillow as I do.”
“Of course not—and I’m glad, too,” nodded Pollyanna, cheerfully, “because then I can fix it again. Anyhow, I should think you’d be glad it’s black—black shows up so much nicer on a pillow than yellow hair like mine does.”
“Maybe; but I never did set much store by black hair—shows gray too soon,” retorted Mrs. Snow. She spoke fretfully, but she still held the mirror before her face.
“Oh, I love black hair! I should be so glad if I only had it,” sighed Pollyanna.
Mrs. Snow dropped the mirror and turned irritably.
“Well, you wouldn’t!—not if you were me. You wouldn’t be glad for black hair nor anything else—if you had to lie here all day as I do!”
Pollyanna bent her brows in a thoughtful frown.
“Why, ‘twould be kind of hard—to do it then, wouldn’t it?” she mused aloud.
“Do what?”
“Be glad about things.”
“Be glad about things—when you’re sick in bed all your days? Well, I should say it would,” retorted Mrs. Snow. “If you don’t think so, just tell me something to be glad about; that’s all!”
To Mrs. Snow’s unbounded amazement, Pollyanna sprang to her feet and clapped her hands.
“Oh, goody! That’ll be a hard one—won’t it? I’ve got to go, now, but I’ll think and think all the way home; and maybe the next time I come I can tell it to you. Good-by. I’ve had a lovely time! Good-by,” she called again, as she tripped through the doorway.
“Well, I never! Now, what does she mean by that?” ejaculated Mrs. Snow, staring after her visitor. By and by she turned her head and picked up the mirror, eyeing her reflection critically.
“That little thing HAS got a knack with hair and no mistake,” she muttered under her breath. “I declare, I didn’t know it could look so pretty. But then, what’s the use?” she sighed, dropping the little glass into the bedclothes, and rolling her head on the pillow fretfully.
A little later, when Milly, Mrs. Snow’s daughter, came in, the mirror still lay among the bedclothes—though it had been carefully hidden from sight.
“Why, mother—the curtain is up!” cried Milly, dividing her amazed stare between the window and the pink in her mother’s hair.
“Well, what if it is?” snapped the sick woman. “I needn’t stay in the dark all my life, if I am sick, need I?”
“Why, n-no, of course not,” rejoined Milly, in hasty conciliation, as she reached for the medicine bottle. “It’s only—well, you know very well that I’ve tried to get you to have a lighter room for ages and you wouldn’t.”
There was no reply to this. Mrs. Snow was picking at the lace on her nightgown. At last she spoke fretfully.
“I should think SOMEBODY might give me a new nightdress—instead of lamb broth, for a change!”
“Why—mother!”
No wonder Milly quite gasped aloud with bewilderment. In the drawer behind her at that moment lay two new nightdresses that Milly for months had been vainly urging her mother to wear.
CHAPTER IX. WHICH TELLS OF THE MAN
It rained the next time Pollyanna saw the Man. She greeted him, however, with a bright smile.
“It isn’t so nice to-day, is it?” she called blithesomely. “I’m glad it doesn’t rain always, anyhow!”
The man did not even grunt this time, nor turn his head. Pollyanna decided that of course he did not hear her. The next time, therefore (which happened to be the following day), she spoke up louder. She thought it particularly necessary to do this, anyway, for the Man was striding along, his hands behind his back, and his eyes on the ground—which seemed, to Pollyanna, preposterous in the face of the glorious sunshine and the freshly-washed morning air: Pollyanna, as a special treat, was on a morning errand to-day.
“How do you do?” she chirped. “I’m so glad it isn’t yesterday, aren’t you?”
The man stopped abruptly. There was an angry scowl on his face.
“See here, little girl, we might just as well settle this thing right now, once for all,” he began testily. “I’ve got something besides the weather to think of. I don’t know whether the sun shines or not.” Pollyanna beamed joyously.
“No, sir; I thought you didn’t. That’s why I told you.”
“Yes; well—Eh? What?” he broke off sharply, in sudden understanding of her words.
“I say, that’s why I told you—so you would notice it, you know—that the sun shines, and all that. I knew you’d be glad it did if you only stopped to think of it—and you didn’t look a bit as if you WERE thinking of it!”
“Well, of all the—” ejaculated the man, with an oddly impotent gesture. He started forward again, but after the second step he turned back, still frowning.
“See here, why don’t you find some one your own age to talk to?”
“I’d like to, sir, but there aren’t any ‘round here, Nancy says. Still, I don’t mind so very much. I like old folks just as well, maybe better, sometimes—being used to the Ladies’ Aid, so.”
“Humph! The Ladies’ Aid, indeed! Is that what you took me for?” The man’s lips were threatening to smile, but the scowl above them was still trying to hold them grimly stern.
Pollyanna laughed gleefully.
“Oh, no, sir. You don’t look a mite like a Ladies’ Aider—not but that you’re just as good, of course—maybe better,” she added in hurried politeness. “You see, I’m sure you’re much nicer than you look!”
The man made a queer noise in his throat.
“Well, of all the—” he ejaculated again, as he turned and strode on as before.
The next time Pollyanna met the Man, his eyes were gazing straight into hers, with a quizzical directness that made his face look really pleasant, Pollyanna thought.
“Good afternoon,” he greeted her a little stiffly. “Perhaps I’d better say right away that I KNOW the sun is shining to-day.”
“But you don’t have to tell me,” nodded Pollyanna, brightly. “I KNEW you knew it just as soon as I saw you.”
“Oh, you did, did you?”
“Yes, sir; I saw it in your eyes, you know, and in your smile.”
“Humph!” grunted the man, as he passed on.
The Man always spoke to Pollyanna after this, and frequently he spoke first, though usually he said little but “good afternoon.” Even that, however, was a great surprise to Nancy, who chanced to be with Pollyanna one day when the greeting was given.
“Sakes alive, Miss Pollyanna,” she gasped, “did that man SPEAK TO YOU?”
“Why, yes, he always does—now,” smiled Pollyanna.
“‘He always does’! Goodness! Do you know who—he—is?” demanded Nancy.
Pollyanna frowned and shook her head.
“I reckon he forgot to tell me one day. You see, I did my part of the introducing, but he didn’t.”
Nancy’s eyes widened.
“But he never speaks ter anybody, child—he hain’t for years, I guess, except when he just has to, for business, and all that. He’s John Pendleton. He lives all by himself in the big house on Pendleton Hill. He won’t even have any one ‘round ter cook for him—comes down ter the hotel for his meals three times a day. I know Sally Miner, who waits on him, and she says he hardly opens his head enough ter tell what he wants ter eat. She has ter guess it more’n half the time—only it’ll be somethin’ CHEAP! She knows that without no tellin’.”
Pollyanna nodded sympathetically.
“I know. You have to look for cheap things when you’re poor. Father and I took meals out a lot. We had beans and fish balls most generally. We used to say how glad we were we liked beans—that is, we said it specially when we were looking at the roast turkey place, you know, that was sixty cents. Does Mr. Pendleton like beans?”
“Like ‘em! What if he does—or don’t? Why, Miss Pollyanna, he ain’t poor. He’s got loads of money, John Pendleton has—from his father. There ain’t nobody in town as rich as he is. He could eat dollar bills, if he wanted to—and not know it.”
Pollyanna giggled.
“As if anybody COULD eat dollar bills and not know it, Nancy, when they come to try to chew ‘em!”
“Ho! I mean he’s rich enough ter do it,” shrugged Nancy. “He ain’t spendin’ his money, that’s all. He’s a-savin’ of it.”
“Oh, for the heathen,” surmised Pollyanna. “How perfectly splendid! That’s denying yourself and taking up your cross. I know; father told me.”
Nancy’s lips parted abruptly, as if there were angry words all ready to come; but her
eyes, resting on Pollyanna’s jubilantly trustful face, saw something that prevented the words being spoken.
“Humph!” she vouchsafed. Then, showing her old-time interest, she went on: “But, say, it is queer, his speakin’ to you, honestly, Miss Pollyanna. He don’t speak ter no one; and he lives all alone in a great big lovely house all full of jest grand things, they say. Some says he’s crazy, and some jest cross; and some says he’s got a skeleton in his closet.”
“Oh, Nancy!” shuddered Pollyanna. “How can he keep such a dreadful thing? I should think he’d throw it away!”
Nancy chuckled. That Pollyanna had taken the skeleton literally instead of figuratively, she knew very well; but, perversely, she refrained from correcting the mistake.
“And EVERYBODY says he’s mysterious,” she went on. “Some years he jest travels, week in and week out, and it’s always in heathen countries—Egypt and Asia and the Desert of Sarah, you know.”
“Oh, a missionary,” nodded Pollyanna.
Nancy laughed oddly.
“Well, I didn’t say that, Miss Pollyanna. When he comes back he writes books—queer, odd books, they say, about some gimcrack he’s found in them heathen countries. But he don’t never seem ter want ter spend no money here—leastways, not for jest livin’.”
“Of course not—if he’s saving it for the heathen,” declared Pollyanna. “But he is a funny man, and he’s different, too, just like Mrs. Snow, only he’s a different different.”
“Well, I guess he is—rather,” chuckled Nancy.
“I’m gladder’n ever now, anyhow, that he speaks to me,” sighed Pollyanna contentedly.
CHAPTER X. A SURPRISE FOR MRS. SNOW
The next time Pollyanna went to see Mrs. Snow, she found that lady, as at first, in a darkened room.
“It’s the little girl from Miss Polly’s, mother,” announced Milly, in a tired manner; then Pollyanna found herself alone with the invalid.
“Oh, it’s you, is it?” asked a fretful voice from the bed. “I remember you. ANYbody’d remember you, I guess, if they saw you once. I wish you had come yesterday. I WANTED you yesterday.”
The Classic Children's Literature Collection: 39 Classic Novels Page 40