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

see exactly what you mean, too. I think I felt the same way⁠—till I saw her last winter in Rome.”

The other turned eagerly.

“Sure enough, you have seen her! Tell me about her.”

A shrewd twinkle came into John Pendleton’s eyes.

“Oh, but I thought you didn’t want to know Pollyanna⁠—grown up.”

With a grimace the young fellow tossed this aside.

“Is she pretty?”

“Oh, ye young men!” shrugged John Pendleton, in mock despair. “Always the first question⁠—‘Is she pretty?’!”

“Well, is she?” insisted the youth.

“I’ll let you judge for yourself. If you⁠—On second thoughts, though, I believe I won’t. You might be too disappointed. Pollyanna isn’t pretty, so far as regular features, curls, and dimples go. In fact, to my certain knowledge the great cross in Pollyanna’s life thus far is that she is so sure she isn’t pretty. Long ago she told me that black curls were one of the things she was going to have when she got to Heaven; and last year in Rome she said something else. It wasn’t much, perhaps, so far as words went, but I detected the longing beneath. She said she did wish that sometime someone would write a novel with a heroine who had straight hair and a freckle on her nose; but that she supposed she ought to be glad girls in books didn’t have to have them.”

“That sounds like the old Pollyanna.”

“Oh, you’ll still find her⁠—Pollyanna,” smiled the man, quizzically. “Besides, I think she’s pretty. Her eyes are lovely. She is the picture of health. She carries herself with all the joyous springiness of youth, and her whole face lights up so wonderfully when she talks that you quite forget whether her features are regular or not.”

“Does she still⁠—play the game?”

John Pendleton smiled fondly.

“I imagine she plays it, but she doesn’t say much about it now, I fancy. Anyhow, she didn’t to me, the two or three times I saw her.”

There was a short silence; then, a little slowly, young Pendleton said:

“I think that was one of the things that was worrying me. That game has been so much to so many people. It has meant so much everywhere, all through the town! I couldn’t bear to think of her giving it up and not playing it. At the same time I couldn’t fancy a grown-up Pollyanna perpetually admonishing people to be glad for something. Someway, I⁠—well, as I said, I⁠—I just didn’t want Pollyanna to grow up, anyhow.”

“Well, I wouldn’t worry,” shrugged the elder man, with a peculiar smile. “Always, with Pollyanna, you know, it was the ‘clearing-up shower,’ both literally and figuratively; and I think you’ll find she lives up to the same principle now⁠—though perhaps not quite in the same way. Poor child, I fear she’ll need some kind of game to make existence endurable, for a while, at least.”

“Do you mean because Mrs. Chilton has lost her money? Are they so very poor, then?”

“I suspect they are. In fact, they are in rather bad shape, so far as money matters go, as I happen to know. Mrs. Chilton’s own fortune has shrunk unbelievably, and poor Tom’s estate is very small, and hopelessly full of bad debts⁠—professional services never paid for, and that never will be paid for. Tom could never say no when his help was needed, and all the dead beats in town knew it and imposed on him accordingly. Expenses have been heavy with him lately. Besides, he expected great things when he should have completed this special work in Germany. Naturally he supposed his wife and Pollyanna were more than amply provided for through the Harrington estate; so he had no worry in that direction.”

“Hm-m; I see, I see. Too bad, too bad!”

“But that isn’t all. It was about two months after Tom’s death that I saw Mrs. Chilton and Pollyanna in Rome, and Mrs. Chilton then was in a terrible state. In addition to her sorrow, she had just begun to get an inkling of the trouble with her finances, and she was nearly frantic. She refused to come home. She declared she never wanted to see Beldingsville, or anybody in it, again. You see, she has always been a peculiarly proud woman, and it was all affecting her in a rather curious way. Pollyanna said that her aunt seemed possessed with the idea that Beldingsville had not approved of her marrying Dr. Chilton in the first place, at her age; and now that he was dead, she felt that they were utterly out of sympathy in any grief that she might show. She resented keenly, too, the fact that they must now know that she was poor as well as widowed. In short, she had worked herself into an utterly morbid, wretched state, as unreasonable as it was terrible. Poor little Pollyanna! It was a marvel to me how she stood it. All is, if Mrs. Chilton kept it up, and continues to keep it up, that child will be a wreck. That’s why I said Pollyanna would need some kind of a game if ever anybody did.”

“The pity of it!⁠—to think of that happening to Pollyanna!” exclaimed the young man, in a voice that was not quite steady.

“Yes; and you can see all is not right by the way they are coming today⁠—so quietly, with not a word to anybody. That was Polly Chilton’s doings, I’ll warrant. She didn’t want to be met by anybody. I understand she wrote to no one but her Old Tom’s wife, Mrs. Durgin, who had the keys.”

“Yes, so Nancy told me⁠—good old soul! She’d got the whole house open, and had contrived somehow to make it look as if it wasn’t a tomb of dead hopes and lost pleasures. Of course the grounds looked fairly well, for Old Tom has kept them up, after a fashion. But it made my heart ache⁠—the whole thing.”

There was a long silence, then, curtly, John Pendleton suggested:

“They ought to be met.”

“They will be met.”

“Are you going to the station?”

“I am.”

“Then you know what train they’re coming on.”

“Oh, no. Neither does