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

that. Legs ain’t always given to the one who can make the best use of ’em, I notice.”

She paused, and cleared her throat; but when she resumed her voice was still husky.

“Maybe you don’t know it, but I’ve seen a good deal of that little girl of yours. We live on the Pendleton Hill road, and she used to go by often⁠—only she didn’t always go by. She came in and played with the kids and talked to me⁠—and my man, when he was home. She seemed to like it, and to like us. She didn’t know, I suspect, that her kind of folks don’t generally call on my kind. Maybe if they did call more, Miss Harrington, there wouldn’t be so many⁠—of my kind,” she added, with sudden bitterness.

“Be that as it may, she came; and she didn’t do herself no harm, and she did do us good⁠—a lot o’ good. How much she won’t know⁠—nor can’t know, I hope; ’cause if she did, she’d know other things⁠—that I don’t want her to know.

“But it’s just this. It’s been hard times with us this year, in more ways than one. We’ve been blue and discouraged⁠—my man and me, and ready for⁠—’most anything. We was reckoning on getting a divorce about now, and letting the kids well, we didn’t know what we would do with the kids. Then came the accident, and what we heard about the little girl’s never walking again. And we got to thinking how she used to come and sit on our doorstep and train with the kids, and laugh, and⁠—and just be glad. She was always being glad about something; and then, one day, she told us why, and about the game, you know; and tried to coax us to play it.

“Well, we’ve heard now that she’s fretting her poor little life out of her, because she can’t play it no more⁠—that there’s nothing to be glad about. And that’s what I came to tell her today⁠—that maybe she can be a little glad for us, ’cause we’ve decided to stick to each other, and play the game ourselves. I knew she would be glad, because she used to feel kind of bad⁠—at things we said, sometimes. Just how the game is going to help us, I can’t say that I exactly see, yet; but maybe ’twill. Anyhow, we’re going to try⁠—’cause she wanted us to. Will you tell her?”

“Yes, I will tell her,” promised Miss Polly, a little faintly. Then, with sudden impulse, she stepped forward and held out her hand. “And thank you for coming, Mrs. Payson,” she said simply.

The defiant chin fell. The lips above it trembled visibly. With an incoherently mumbled something, Mrs. Payson blindly clutched at the outstretched hand, turned, and fled.

The door had scarcely closed behind her before Miss Polly was confronting Nancy in the kitchen.

“Nancy!”

Miss Polly spoke sharply. The series of puzzling, disconcerting visits of the last few days, culminating as they had in the extraordinary experience of the afternoon, had strained her nerves to the snapping point. Not since Miss Pollyanna’s accident had Nancy heard her mistress speak so sternly.

“Nancy, will you tell me what this absurd ‘game’ is that the whole town seems to be babbling about? And what, please, has my niece to do with it? Why does everybody, from Milly Snow to Mrs. Tom Payson, send word to her that they’re ‘playing it’? As near as I can judge, half the town are putting on blue ribbons, or stopping family quarrels, or learning to like something they never liked before, and all because of Pollyanna. I tried to ask the child herself about it, but I can’t seem to make much headway, and of course I don’t like to worry her⁠—now. But from something I heard her say to you last night, I should judge you were one of them, too. Now will you tell me what it all means?”

To Miss Polly’s surprise and dismay, Nancy burst into tears.

“It means that ever since last June that blessed child has jest been makin’ the whole town glad, an’ now they’re turnin’ ’round an’ tryin’ ter make her a little glad, too.”

“Glad of what?”

“Just glad! That’s the game.”

Miss Polly actually stamped her foot.

“There you go like all the rest, Nancy. What game?”

Nancy lifted her chin. She faced her mistress and looked her squarely in the eye.

“I’ll tell ye, ma’am. It’s a game Miss Pollyanna’s father learned her ter play. She got a pair of crutches once in a missionary barrel when she was wantin’ a doll; an’ she cried, of course, like any child would. It seems ’twas then her father told her that there wasn’t ever anythin’ but what there was somethin’ about it that you could be glad about; an’ that she could be glad about them crutches.”

“Glad for⁠—crutches!” Miss Polly choked back a sob⁠—she was thinking of the helpless little legs on the bed upstairs.

“Yes’m. That’s what I said, an’ Miss Pollyanna said that’s what she said, too. But he told her she could be glad⁠—‘cause she didn’t need ’em.”

“Oh-h!” cried Miss Polly.

“And after that she said he made a regular game of it⁠—findin’ somethin’ in everythin’ ter be glad about. An’ she said ye could do it, too, and that ye didn’t seem ter mind not havin’ the doll so much, ’cause ye was so glad ye didn’t need the crutches. An’ they called it the ‘jest bein’ glad’ game. That’s the game, ma’am. She’s played it ever since.”

“But, how⁠—how⁠—” Miss Polly came to a helpless pause.

“An’ you’d be surprised ter find how cute it works, ma’am, too,” maintained Nancy, with almost the eagerness of Pollyanna herself. “I wish I could tell ye what a lot she’s done for mother an’ the folks out home. She’s been ter see ’em, ye know, twice, with me. She’s made me glad, too, on such a lot o’ things⁠—little things, an’ big things; an’ it’s made ’em so much easier. For instance, I don’t mind ‘Nancy’ for a