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

dozen wreaths, and quantities of holly and Christmas baubles. For the first time in many years the house was aflame and aglitter with scarlet and tinsel. There was even to be a Christmas party, for Mrs. Carew had told Pollyanna to invite half a dozen of her schoolgirl friends for the tree on Christmas Eve.

But even here Mrs. Carew met with disappointment; for, though Pollyanna was always grateful, and at times interested and even excited, she still carried frequently a sober little face. And in the end the Christmas party was more of a sorrow than a joy; for the first glimpse of the glittering tree sent her into a storm of sobs.

“Why, Pollyanna!” ejaculated Mrs. Carew. “What in the world is the matter now?”

“N-n-nothing,” wept Pollyanna. “It’s only that it’s so perfectly, perfectly beautiful that I just had to cry. I was thinking how Jamie would love to see it.”

It was then that Mrs. Carew’s patience snapped.

“ ‘Jamie, Jamie, Jamie’!” she exclaimed. “Pollyanna, can’t you stop talking about that boy? You know perfectly well that it is not my fault that he is not here. I asked him to come here to live. Besides, where is that glad game of yours? I think it would be an excellent idea if you would play it on this.”

“I am playing it,” quavered Pollyanna. “And that’s what I don’t understand. I never knew it to act so funny. Why, before, when I’ve been glad about things, I’ve been happy. But now, about Jamie⁠—I’m so glad I’ve got carpets and pictures and nice things to eat, and that I can walk and run, and go to school, and all that; but the harder I’m glad for myself, the sorrier I am for him. I never knew the game to act so funny, and I don’t know what ails it. Do you?”

But Mrs. Carew, with a despairing gesture, merely turned away without a word.

It was the day after Christmas that something so wonderful happened that Pollyanna, for a time, almost forgot Jamie. Mrs. Carew had taken her shopping, and it was while Mrs. Carew was trying to decide between a duchesse-lace and a point-lace collar, that Pollyanna chanced to spy farther down the counter a face that looked vaguely familiar. For a moment she regarded it frowningly; then, with a little cry, she ran down the aisle.

“Oh, it’s you⁠—it is you!” she exclaimed joyously to a girl who was putting into the show case a tray of pink bows. “I’m so glad to see you!”

The girl behind the counter lifted her head and stared at Pollyanna in amazement. But almost immediately her dark, somber face lighted with a smile of glad recognition.

“Well, well, if it isn’t my little Public Garden kiddie!” she ejaculated.

“Yes. I’m so glad you remembered,” beamed Pollyanna. “But you never came again. I looked for you lots of times.”

“I couldn’t. I had to work. That was our last half-holiday, and⁠—Fifty cents, madam,” she broke off, in answer to a sweet-faced old lady’s question as to the price of a black-and-white bow on the counter.

“Fifty cents? Hm-m!” The old lady fingered the bow, hesitated, then laid it down with a sigh. “Hm, yes; well, it’s very pretty, I’m sure, my dear,” she said, as she passed on.

Immediately behind her came two bright-faced girls who, with much giggling and bantering, picked out a jeweled creation of scarlet velvet, and a fairy-like structure of tulle and pink buds. As the girls turned chattering away Pollyanna drew an ecstatic sigh.

“Is this what you do all day? My, how glad you must be you chose this!”

“Glad!”

“Yes. It must be such fun⁠—such lots of folks, you know, and all different! And you can talk to ’em. You have to talk to ’em⁠—it’s your business. I should love that. I think I’ll do this when I grow up. It must be such fun to see what they all buy!”

“Fun! Glad!” bristled the girl behind the counter. “Well, child, I guess if you knew half⁠—That’s a dollar, madam,” she interrupted herself hastily, in answer to a young woman’s sharp question as to the price of a flaring yellow bow of beaded velvet in the show case.

“Well, I should think ’twas time you told me,” snapped the young woman. “I had to ask you twice.”

The girl behind the counter bit her lip.

“I didn’t hear you, madam.”

“I can’t help that. It is your business to hear. You are paid for it, aren’t you? How much is that black one?”

“Fifty cents.”

“And that blue one?”

“One dollar.”

“No impudence, miss! You needn’t be so short about it, or I shall report you. Let me see that tray of pink ones.”

The salesgirl’s lips opened, then closed in a thin, straight line. Obediently she reached into the show case and took out the tray of pink bows; but her eyes flashed, and her hands shook visibly as she set the tray down on the counter. The young woman whom she was serving picked up five bows, asked the price of four of them, then turned away with a brief:

“I see nothing I care for.”

“Well,” said the girl behind the counter, in a shaking voice, to the wide-eyed Pollyanna, “what do you think of my business now? Anything to be glad about there?”

Pollyanna giggled a little hysterically.

“My, wasn’t she cross? But she was kind of funny, too⁠—don’t you think? Anyhow, you can be glad that⁠—that they aren’t all like her, can’t you?”

“I suppose so,” said the girl, with a faint smile, “But I can tell you right now, kiddie, that glad game of yours you was tellin’ me about that day in the Garden may be all very well for you; but⁠—” Once more she stopped with a tired: “Fifty cents, madam,” in answer to a question from the other side of the counter.

“Are you as lonesome as ever?” asked Pollyanna wistfully, when the salesgirl was at liberty again.

“Well, I can’t say I’ve given more’n five parties, nor been to more’n seven, since I saw you,” replied the girl so bitterly that Pollyanna detected the sarcasm.

“Oh,