Pollyanna, Eleanor H. Porter [the top 100 crime novels of all time txt] 📗

hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.’

“ ’Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.’

“ ’Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.’ ”

It was a bitter denunciation. In the green aisles of the woods, the minister’s deep voice rang out with scathing effect. Even the birds and squirrels seemed hushed into awed silence. It brought to the minister a vivid realization of how those words would sound the next Sunday when he should utter them before his people in the sacred hush of the church.

His people!⁠—they were his people. Could he do it? Dare he do it? Dare he not do it? It was a fearful denunciation, even without the words that would follow⁠—his own words. He had prayed and prayed. He had pleaded earnestly for help, for guidance. He longed⁠—oh, how earnestly he longed!⁠—to take now, in this crisis, the right step. But was this⁠—the right step?

Slowly the minister folded the papers and thrust them back into his pocket. Then, with a sigh that was almost a moan, he flung himself down at the foot of a tree, and covered his face with his hands.

It was there that Pollyanna, on her way home from the Pendleton house, found him. With a little cry she ran forward.

“Oh, oh, Mr. Ford! You⁠—you haven’t broken your leg or⁠—or anything, have you?” she gasped.

The minister dropped his hands, and looked up quickly. He tried to smile.

“No, dear⁠—no, indeed! I’m just⁠—resting.”

“Oh,” sighed Pollyanna, falling back a little. “That’s all right, then. You see, Mr. Pendleton had broken his leg when I found him⁠—but he was lying down, though. And you are sitting up.”

“Yes, I am sitting up; and I haven’t broken anything⁠—that doctors can mend.”

The last words were very low, but Pollyanna heard them. A swift change crossed her face. Her eyes glowed with tender sympathy.

“I know what you mean⁠—something plagues you. Father used to feel like that, lots of times. I reckon ministers do⁠—most generally. You see there’s such a lot depends on ’em, somehow.”

The Rev. Paul Ford turned a little wonderingly.

“Was your father a minister, Pollyanna?”

“Yes, sir. Didn’t you know? I supposed everybody knew that. He married Aunt Polly’s sister, and she was my mother.”

“Oh, I understand. But, you see, I haven’t been here many years, so I don’t know all the family histories.”

“Yes, sir⁠—I mean, no, sir,” smiled Pollyanna.

There was a long pause. The minister, still sitting at the foot of the tree, appeared to have forgotten Pollyanna’s presence. He had pulled some papers from his pocket and unfolded them; but he was not looking at them. He was gazing, instead, at a leaf on the ground a little distance away⁠—and it was not even a pretty leaf. It was brown and dead. Pollyanna, looking at him, felt vaguely sorry for him.

“It⁠—it’s a nice day,” she began hopefully.

For a moment there was no answer; then the minister looked up with a start.

“What? Oh!⁠—yes, it is a very nice day.”

“And ’tisn’t cold at all, either, even if ’tis October,” observed Pollyanna, still more hopefully. “Mr. Pendleton had a fire, but he said he didn’t need it. It was just to look at. I like to look at fires, don’t you?”

There was no reply this time, though Pollyanna waited patiently, before she tried again⁠—by a new route.

“Do You like being a minister?”

The Rev. Paul Ford looked up now, very quickly.

“Do I like⁠—Why, what an odd question! Why do you ask that, my dear?”

“Nothing⁠—only the way you looked. It made me think of my father. He used to look like that⁠—sometimes.”

“Did he?” The minister’s voice was polite, but his eyes had gone back to the dried leaf on the ground.

“Yes, and I used to ask him just as I did you if he was glad he was a minister.”

The man under the tree smiled a little sadly.

“Well⁠—what did he say?”

“Oh, he always said he was, of course, but ’most always he said, too, that he wouldn’t stay a minister a minute if ’twasn’t for the rejoicing texts.”

“The⁠—what?” The Rev. Paul Ford’s eyes left the leaf and gazed wonderingly into Pollyanna’s merry little face.

“Well, that’s what father used to call ’em,” she laughed. “Of course the Bible didn’t name ’em that. But it’s all those that begin ‘Be glad in the Lord,’ or ‘Rejoice greatly,’ or ‘Shout for joy,’ and all that, you know⁠—such a lot of ’em. Once, when father felt specially bad, he counted ’em. There were eight hundred of ’em.”

“Eight hundred!”

“Yes⁠—that told you to rejoice and be glad, you know; that’s why father named ’em the ‘rejoicing texts.’ ”

“Oh!” There was an odd look on the minister’s face. His eyes had fallen to the words on the top paper in his hands⁠—“But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” “And so your father⁠—liked those ‘rejoicing texts,’ ” he murmured.

“Oh, yes,” nodded Pollyanna, emphatically. “He said he felt better right away, that first day he thought to count ’em. He said if God took the trouble to tell us eight hundred times to be glad and rejoice, He must want us to do it⁠—some. And father felt ashamed that he hadn’t done it more. After that, they got to be such a comfort to him, you know, when things went wrong; when the Ladies’ Aiders got to fight⁠—I mean, when they didn’t agree about something,” corrected Pollyanna, hastily. “Why, it was those texts, too, father said, that made him think of the game⁠—he began with me on the crutches⁠—but he said ’twas the rejoicing texts that started him on it.”

“And what game might that be?” asked the minister.

“About finding something in everything to be glad about, you