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

they were off, with one long shriek of the siren under Jimmy’s mischievous fingers.

In after days Pollyanna often went back in her thoughts to that first night in camp. The experience was so new and so wonderful in so many ways.

It was four o’clock when their forty-mile automobile journey came to an end. Since half-past three their big car had been ponderously picking its way over an old logging-road not designed for six-cylinder automobiles. For the car itself, and for the hand at the wheel, this part of the trip was a most wearing one; but for the merry passengers, who had no responsibility concerning hidden holes and muddy curves, it was nothing but a delight growing more poignant with every new vista through the green arches, and with every echoing laugh that dodged the low-hanging branches.

The site for the camp was one known to John Pendleton years before, and he greeted it now with a satisfied delight that was not unmingled with relief.

“Oh, how perfectly lovely!” chorused the others.

“Glad you like it! I thought it would be about right,” nodded John Pendleton. “Still, I was a little anxious, after all, for these places do change, you know, most remarkably sometimes. And of course this has grown up to bushes a little⁠—but not so but what we can easily clear it.”

Everybody fell to work then, clearing the ground, putting up the two little tents, unloading the automobile, building the camp fire, and arranging the “kitchen and pantry.”

It was then that Pollyanna began especially to notice Jamie, and to fear for him. She realized suddenly that the hummocks and hollows and pine-littered knolls were not like a carpeted floor for a pair of crutches, and she saw that Jamie was realizing it, too. She saw, also, that in spite of his infirmity, he was trying to take his share in the work; and the sight troubled her. Twice she hurried forward and intercepted him, taking from his arms the box he was trying to carry.

“Here, let me take that,” she begged. “You’ve done enough.” And the second time she added: “Do go and sit down somewhere to rest, Jamie. You look so tired!”

If she had been watching closely she would have seen the quick color sweep to his forehead. But she was not watching, so she did not see it. She did see, however, to her intense surprise, Sadie Dean hurry forward a moment later, her arms full of boxes, and heard her cry:

“Oh, Mr. Carew, please, if you would give me a lift with these!”

The next moment, Jamie, once more struggling with the problem of managing a bundle of boxes and two crutches, was hastening toward the tents.

With a quick word of protest on her tongue, Pollyanna turned to Sadie Dean. But the protest died unspoken, for Sadie, her finger to her lips, was hurrying straight toward her.

“I know you didn’t think,” she stammered in a low voice, as she reached Pollyanna’s side. “But, don’t you see?⁠—it hurts him⁠—to have you think he can’t do things like other folks. There, look! See how happy he is now.”

Pollyanna looked, and she saw. She saw Jamie, his whole self alert, deftly balance his weight on one crutch and swing his burden to the ground. She saw the happy light on his face, and she heard him say nonchalantly:

“Here’s another contribution from Miss Dean. She asked me to bring this over.”

“Why, yes, I see,” breathed Pollyanna, turning to Sadie Dean. But Sadie Dean had gone.

Pollyanna watched Jamie a good deal after that, though she was careful not to let him, or anyone else, see that she was watching him. And as she watched, her heart ached. Twice she saw him essay a task and fail: once with a box too heavy for him to lift; once with a folding-table too unwieldy for him to carry with his crutches. And each time she saw his quick glance about him to see if others noticed. She saw, too, that unmistakably he was getting very tired, and that his face, in spite of its gay smile, was looking white and drawn, as if he were in pain.

“I should think we might have known more,” stormed Pollyanna hotly to herself, her eyes blinded with tears. “I should think we might have known more than to have let him come to a place like this. Camping, indeed!⁠—and with a pair of crutches! Why couldn’t we have remembered before we started?”

An hour later, around the camp fire after supper, Pollyanna had her answer to this question; for, with the glowing fire before her, and the soft, fragrant dark all about her, she once more fell under the spell of the witchery that fell from Jamie’s lips; and she once more forgot⁠—Jamie’s crutches.

XXII Comrades

They were a merry party⁠—the six of them⁠—and a congenial one. There seemed to be no end to the new delights that came with every new day, not the least of which was the new charm of companionship that seemed to be a part of this new life they were living.

As Jamie said one night, when they were all sitting about the fire:

“You see, we seem to know each other so much better up here in the woods⁠—better in a week than we would in a year in town.”

“I know it. I wonder why,” murmured Mrs. Carew, her eyes dreamily following the leaping blaze.

“I think it’s something in the air,” sighed Pollyanna, happily. “There’s something about the sky and the woods and the lake so⁠—so⁠—well, there just is; that’s all.”

“I think you mean, because the world is shut out,” cried Sadie Dean, with a curious little break in her voice. (Sadie had not joined in the laugh that followed Pollyanna’s limping conclusion.) “Up here everything is so real and true that we, too, can be our real true selves⁠—not what the world says we are because we are rich, or poor, or great, or humble; but what we really are, ourselves.”

“Ho!” scoffed Jimmy,