Pollyanna Grows Up, Eleanor H. Porter [best short novels of all time txt] 📗

wish’t there was,” he sighed wistfully. “But when you⁠—you can’t even walk, you can’t fight battles and win trophies, and have fair ladies hand you your sword, and bestow upon you the golden guerdon.” A sudden fire came to the boy’s eyes. His chin lifted itself as if in response to a bugle call. Then, as suddenly, the fire died, and the boy fell back into his old listlessness.

“You just can’t do nothin’,” he resumed wearily, after a moment’s silence. “You just have to sit and think; and times like that your think gets to be something awful. Mine did, anyhow. I wanted to go to school and learn things⁠—more things than just mumsey can teach me; and I thought of that. I wanted to run and play ball with the other boys; and I thought of that. I wanted to go out and sell papers with Jerry; and I thought of that. I didn’t want to be taken care of all my life; and I thought of that.”

“I know, oh, I know,” breathed Pollyanna, with shining eyes. “Didn’t I lose my legs for a while?”

“Did you? Then you do know, some. But you’ve got yours again. I hain’t, you know,” sighed the boy, the shadow in his eyes deepening.

“But you haven’t told me yet about⁠—the Jolly Book,” prompted Pollyanna, after a minute.

The boy stirred and laughed shamefacedly.

“Well, you see, it ain’t much, after all, except to me. you wouldn’t see much in it. I started it a year ago. I was feelin’ ’specially bad that day. Nothin’ was right. For a while I grumped it out, just thinkin’; and then I picked up one of father’s books and tried to read. And the first thing I see was this: I learned it afterwards, so I can say it now.

“ ‘Pleasures lie thickest where no pleasures seem;
There’s not a leaf that falls upon the ground
But holds some joy, of silence or of sound.’1

“Well, I was mad. I wished I could put the guy that wrote that in my place, and see what kind of joy he’d find in my ‘leaves.’ I was so mad I made up my mind I’d prove he didn’t know what he was talkin’ about, so I begun to hunt for ’em⁠—the joys in my ‘leaves,’ you know. I took a little old empty notebook that Jerry had given me, and I said to myself that I’d write ’em down. Everythin’ that had anythin’ about it that I liked I’d put down in the book. Then I’d just show how many ‘joys’ I had.”

“Yes, yes!” cried Pollyanna, absorbedly, as the boy paused for breath.

“Well, I didn’t expect to get many, but⁠—do you know?⁠—I got a lot. There was somethin’ about ‘most everythin’ that I liked a little, so in it had to go. The very first one was the book itself⁠—that I’d got it, you know, to write in. Then somebody give me a flower in a pot, and Jerry found a dandy book in the subway. After that it was really fun to hunt ’em out⁠—I’d find ’em in such queer places, sometimes. Then one day Jerry got hold of the little notebook, and found out what ’twas. Then he give it its name⁠—the Jolly Book. And⁠—and that’s all.”

“All⁠—all!” cried Pollyanna, delight and amazement struggling for the mastery on her glowing little face. “Why, that’s the game! You’re playing the glad game, and don’t know it⁠—only you’re playing it ever and ever so much better than I ever could! Why, I⁠—I couldn’t play it at all, I’m afraid, if I⁠—I didn’t have enough to eat, and couldn’t ever walk, or anything,” she choked.

“The game? What game? I don’t know anything about any game,” frowned the boy.

Pollyanna clapped her hands.

“I know you don’t⁠—I know you don’t, and that’s why it’s so perfectly lovely, and so⁠—so wonderful! But listen. I’ll tell you what the game is.”

And she told him.

“Gee!” breathed the boy appreciatively, when she had finished. “Now what do you think of that!”

“And here you are, playing my game better than anybody I ever saw, and I don’t even know your name yet, nor anything!” exclaimed Pollyanna, in almost awestruck tones. “But I want to;⁠—I want to know everything.”

“Pooh! there’s nothing to know,” rejoined the boy, with a shrug. “Besides, see, here’s poor Sir Lancelot and all the rest, waiting for their dinner,” he finished.

“Dear me, so they are,” sighed Pollyanna, glancing impatiently at the fluttering and chattering creatures all about them. Recklessly she turned her bag upside down and scattered her supplies to the four winds. “There, now, that’s done, and we can talk again,” she rejoiced. “And there’s such a lot I want to know. First, please, what is your name? I only know it isn’t ‘Sir James.’ ”

The boy smiled.

“No, it isn’t; but that’s what Jerry ’most always calls me. Mumsey and the rest call me ‘Jamie.’ ”

“ ‘Jamie!’” Pollyanna caught her breath and held it suspended. A wild hope had come to her eyes. It was followed almost instantly, however, by fearful doubt.

“Does ‘mumsey’ mean⁠—mother?”

“Sure!”

Pollyanna relaxed visibly. Her face fell. If this Jamie had a mother, he could not, of course, be Mrs. Carew’s Jamie, whose mother had died long ago. Still, even as he was, he was wonderfully interesting.

“But where do you live?” she catechized eagerly. “Is there anybody else in your family but your mother and⁠—and Jerry? Do you always come here every day? Where is your Jolly Book? Mayn’t I see it? Don’t the doctors say you can ever walk again? And where was it you said you got it?⁠—this wheel chair, I mean.”

The boy chuckled.

“Say, how many of them questions do you expect me to answer all at once? I’ll begin at the last one, anyhow, and work backwards, maybe, if I don’t forget what they be. I got this chair a year ago. Jerry knew one of them fellers what writes for papers, you know, and he put it in about me⁠—how I couldn’t ever walk, and all