Pollyanna

  CHAPTER XXI. A QUESTION ANSWERED

  The sky was darkening fast with what appeared to be an approachingthunder shower when Pollyanna hurried down the hill from JohnPendleton's house. Half-way home she met Nancy with an umbrella. By thattime, however, the clouds had shifted their position and the shower wasnot so imminent.

  "Guess it's goin' 'round ter the north," announced Nancy, eyeing the skycritically. "I thought 'twas, all the time, but Miss Polly wanted me tercome with this. She was WORRIED about ye!"

  "Was she?" murmured Pollyanna abstractedly, eyeing the clouds in herturn.

  Nancy sniffed a little.

  "You don't seem ter notice what I said," she observed aggrievedly. "Isaid yer aunt was WORRIED about ye!"

  "Oh," sighed Pollyanna, remembering suddenly the question she was sosoon to ask her aunt. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare her."

  "Well, I'm glad," retorted Nancy, unexpectedly. "I am, I am."

  Pollyanna stared.

  "GLAD that Aunt Polly was scared about me! Why, Nancy, THAT isn't theway to play the game--to be glad for things like that!" she objected.

  "There wa'n't no game in it," retorted Nancy. "Never thought of it. YOUdon't seem ter sense what it means ter have Miss Polly WORRIED about ye,child!"

  "Why, it means worried--and worried is horrid--to feel," maintainedPollyanna. "What else can it mean?"

  Nancy tossed her head.

  "Well, I'll tell ye what it means. It means she's at last gettin' downsomewheres near human--like folks; an' that she ain't jest doin' herduty by ye all the time."

  "Why, Nancy," demurred the scandalized Pollyanna, "Aunt Polly alwaysdoes her duty. She--she's a very dutiful woman!" Unconsciously Pollyannarepeated John Pendleton's words of half an hour before.

  Nancy chuckled.

  "You're right she is--and she always was, I guess! But she's somethin'more, now, since you came."

  Pollyanna's face changed. Her brows drew into a troubled frown.

  "There, that's what I was going to ask you, Nancy," she sighed. "Do youthink Aunt Polly likes to have me here? Would she mind--if if I wasn'there any more?"

  Nancy threw a quick look into the little girl's absorbed face. She hadexpected to be asked this question long before, and she had dreadedit. She had wondered how she should answer it--how she could answer ithonestly without cruelly hurting the questioner. But now, NOW, inthe face of the new suspicions that had become convictions by theafternoon's umbrella-sending--Nancy only welcomed the question with openarms. She was sure that, with a clean conscience to-day, she could setthe love-hungry little girl's heart at rest.

  "Likes ter have ye here? Would she miss ye if ye wa'n't here?" criedNancy, indignantly. "As if that wa'n't jest what I was tellin' of ye!Didn't she send me posthaste with an umbrella 'cause she see a littlecloud in the sky? Didn't she make me tote yer things all down-stairs, soyou could have the pretty room you wanted? Why, Miss Pollyanna, when yeremember how at first she hated ter have--"

  With a choking cough Nancy pulled herself up just in time.

  "And it ain't jest things I can put my fingers on, neither," rushed onNancy, breathlessly. "It's little ways she has, that shows how you'vebeen softenin' her up an' mellerin' her down--the cat, and the dog, andthe way she speaks ter me, and oh, lots o' things. Why, Miss Pollyanna,there ain't no tellin' how she'd miss ye--if ye wa'n't here," finishedNancy, speaking with an enthusiastic certainty that was meant to hidethe perilous admission she had almost made before. Even then she was notquite prepared for the sudden joy that illumined Pollyanna's face.

  "Oh, Nancy, I'm so glad--glad--glad! You don't know how glad I am thatAunt Polly--wants me!"

  "As if I'd leave her now!" thought Pollyanna, as she climbed the stairsto her room a little later. "I always knew I wanted to live with AuntPolly--but I reckon maybe I didn't know quite how much I wanted AuntPolly--to want to live with ME!"

  The task of telling John Pendleton of her decision would not be aneasy one, Pollyanna knew, and she dreaded it. She was very fond of JohnPendleton, and she was very sorry for him--because he seemed to be sosorry for himself. She was sorry, too, for the long, lonely life thathad made him so unhappy; and she was grieved that it had been because ofher mother that he had spent those dreary years. She pictured the greatgray house as it would be after its master was well again, with itssilent rooms, its littered floors, its disordered desk; and her heartached for his loneliness. She wished that somewhere, some one might befound who--And it was at this point that she sprang to her feet with alittle cry of joy at the thought that had come to her.

  As soon as she could, after that, she hurried up the hill to JohnPendleton's house; and in due time she found herself in the great dimlibrary, with John Pendleton himself sitting near her, his long, thinhands lying idle on the arms of his chair, and his faithful little dogat his feet.

  "Well, Pollyanna, is it to be the 'glad game' with me, all the rest ofmy life?" asked the man, gently.

  "Oh, yes," cried Pollyanna. "I've thought of the very gladdest kind of athing for you to do, and--"

  "With--YOU?" asked John Pendleton, his mouth growing a little stern atthe corners.

  "N-no; but--"

  "Pollyanna, you aren't going to say no!" interrupted a voice deep withemotion.

  "I--I've got to, Mr. Pendleton; truly I have. Aunt Polly--"

  "Did she REFUSE--to let you--come?"

  "I--I didn't ask her," stammered the little girl, miserably.

  "Pollyanna!"

  Pollyanna turned away her eyes. She could not meet the hurt, grievedgaze of her friend.

  "So you didn't even ask her!"

  "I couldn't, sir--truly," faltered Pollyanna. "You see, I foundout--without asking. Aunt Polly WANTS me with her, and--and I want tostay, too," she confessed bravely. "You don't know how good she's beento me; and--and I think, really, sometimes she's beginning to be gladabout things--lots of things. And you know she never used to be. Yousaid it yourself. Oh, Mr. Pendleton, I COULDN'T leave Aunt Polly--now!"

  There was a long pause. Only the snapping of the wood fire in the gratebroke the silence. At last, however, the man spoke.

  "No, Pollyanna; I see. You couldn't leave her--now," he said. "I won'task you--again." The last word was so low it was almost inaudible; butPollyanna heard.

  "Oh, but you don't know about the rest of it," she reminded him eagerly."There's the very gladdest thing you CAN do--truly there is!"

  "Not for me, Pollyanna."

  "Yes, sir, for you. You SAID it. You said only a--a woman's hand andheart or a child's presence could make a home. And I can get it foryou--a child's presence;--not me, you know, but another one."

  "As if I would have any but you!" resented an indignant voice.

  "But you will--when you know; you're so kind and good! Why, think of theprisms and the gold pieces, and all that money you save for the heathen,and--"

  "Pollyanna!" interrupted the man, savagely. "Once for all let us endthat nonsense! I've tried to tell you half a dozen times before. Thereis no money for the heathen. I never sent a penny to them in my life.There!"

  He lifted his chin and braced himself to meet what he expected--thegrieved disappointment of Pollyanna's eyes. To his amazement, however,there was neither grief nor disappointment in Pollyanna's eyes. Therewas only surprised joy.

  "Oh, oh!" she cried, clapping her hands. "I'm so glad! That is," shecorrected, coloring distressfully, "I don't mean that I'm not sorry forthe heathen, only just now I can't help being glad that you don't wantthe little India boys, because all the rest have wanted them. And so I'mglad you'd rather have Jimmy Bean. Now I know you'll take him!"

  "Take--WHO?"

  "Jimmy Bean. He's the 'child's presence,' you know; and he'll be so gladto be it. I had to tell him last week that even my Ladies' Aid out Westwouldn't take him, and he was so disappointed. But now--when he hears ofthis--he'll be so glad!"

  "Will he? Well, I won't," ejaculated the man, decisively. "Pollyanna,this is sheer nonsense!"

/>   "You don't mean--you won't take him?"

  "I certainly do mean just that."

  "But he'd be a lovely child's presence," faltered Pollyanna. She wasalmost crying now. "And you COULDN'T be lonesome--with Jimmy 'round."

  "I don't doubt it," rejoined the man; "but--I think I prefer thelonesomeness."

  It was then that Pollyanna, for the first time in weeks, suddenlyremembered something Nancy had once told her. She raised her chinaggrievedly.

  "Maybe you think a nice live little boy wouldn't be better than that olddead skeleton you keep somewhere; but I think it would!"

  "SKELETON?"

  "Yes. Nancy said you had one in your closet, somewhere."

  "Why, what--" Suddenly the man threw back his head and laughed. Helaughed very heartily indeed--so heartily that Pollyanna began to cryfrom pure nervousness. When he saw that, John Pendleton sat erect verypromptly. His face grew grave at once.

  "Pollyanna, I suspect you are right--more right than you know," he saidgently. "In fact, I KNOW that a 'nice live little boy' would be farbetter than--my skeleton in the closet; only--we aren't always willingto make the exchange. We are apt to still cling to--our skeletons,Pollyanna. However, suppose you tell me a little more about this nicelittle boy." And Pollyanna told him.

  Perhaps the laugh cleared the air; or perhaps the pathos of Jimmy Bean'sstory as told by Pollyanna's eager little lips touched a heart alreadystrangely softened. At all events, when Pollyanna went home that nightshe carried with her an invitation for Jimmy Bean himself to call at thegreat house with Pollyanna the next Saturday afternoon.

  "And I'm so glad, and I'm sure you'll like him," sighed Pollyanna, asshe said good-by. "I do so want Jimmy Bean to have a home--and folksthat care, you know."