Pollyanna: Chapters 21–32

She was sure that, with a clean conscience today, she could set the love-hungry little girl's heart at rest.

"I always knew I wanted to live with Aunt Polly--but I reckon maybe I didn't know quite how much I wanted Aunt Polly--to want to live with me!"

She was sorry, too, for the long, lonely life that had made him so unhappy; and she was grieved that it had been because of her mother that he had spent those dreary years.

The last word was so low it was almost inaudible; but Pollyanna heard.

"As if I would have any but you!" resented an indignant voice.

In fact, I know that a 'nice live little boy' would be far better than--my skeleton in the closet; only--we aren't always willing to make the exchange. We are apt to still cling to--our skeletons, Pollyanna.

Perhaps the laugh cleared the air; or perhaps the pathos of Jimmy Bean's story as told by Pollyanna's eager little lips touched a heart already strangely softened.

On the afternoon that Pollyanna told John Pendleton of Jimmy Bean, the Rev. Paul Ford climbed the hill and entered the Pendleton Woods, hoping that the hushed beauty of God's out-of-doors would still the tumult that His children of men had wrought.

Month by month, for a year past, conditions in the parish under him had been growing worse and worse; until it seemed that now, turn which way he would, he encountered only wrangling, backbiting, scandal, and jealousy.

He had argued, pleaded, rebuked, and ignored by turns; and always and through all he had prayed--earnestly, hopefully.

Even the Christian Endeavor Society was in a ferment of unrest owing to open criticism of two of its officers.

As to the Sunday school--it had been the resignation of its superintendent and two of its teachers that had been the last straw, and that had sent the harassed minister to the quiet woods for prayer and meditation.

"'But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, 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.'"

The influence of a beautiful, helpful, hopeful character is contagious, and may revolutionize a whole town...

Thus it happened that the Rev. Paul Ford's sermon the next Sunday was a veritable bugle-call to the best that was in every man and woman and child that heard it; and its text was one of Pollyanna's shining eight hundred: "Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, ye righteous, and shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart."

"Why, Aunt Polly, I can't get up," she moaned, falling back on the pillow, after an ineffectual attempt to lift herself.

With an imploring look into the nurse's face, Miss Polly struggled to her feet, and turned away.

"I called to ask for--Pollyanna," he began at once, a little brusquely.

Involuntarily his thoughts went back to what Pollyanna had said when he had made his final plea for her presence: "Oh, I couldn't leave Aunt Polly--now!"

It came to her, suddenly, what a brilliant future it would have meant for Pollyanna--this adoption; and she wondered if Pollyanna were old enough and mercenary enough--to be tempted by this man's money and position.

Miss Polly remembered suddenly why she had taken this child in the first place--and with the recollection came the remembrance of Pollyanna's own words uttered that very morning: "I love to be called 'dear' by folks that belong to you!"

A distressed color suffused Miss Polly's face.

As to Pollyanna--Pollyanna petted the dog, smoothed the cat's sleek head, admired the flowers and ate the fruits and jellies that were sent in to her; and returned innumerable cheery answers to the many messages of love and inquiry that were brought to her bedside.

In spite of her own perturbation and heartache, her hands had not been idle, and she stood now at the bedside with the quieting powder ready.

In spite of the curt terseness of the word, Nancy quite understood the anxiety that lay behind that short "well?"

Everybody knew by sight now the piquant little freckled face that had always a smile of greeting; and almost everybody knew of the "game" that Pollyanna was playing.

And neither the talking nor the weeping grew less when fast on the heels of the news itself, came Nancy's pitiful story that Pollyanna, face to face with what had come to her, was bemoaning most of all the fact that she could not play the game; that she could not now be glad over--anything.

Some brought a book, a bunch of flowers, or a dainty to tempt the palate.

John Pendleton, wealthy, independent, morose, reputed to be miserly and supremely selfish, to adopt a little boy--and such a little boy?

She saw something of the pressure that was probably brought to bear on Pollyanna herself at the time John Pendleton was asking her to be the "child's presence," which was to transform his great pile of gray stone into a home.

In no other way, however, could she account for this incoherent, illogical, unmeaning rush of words.

"Why, of course," murmured Miss Polly, wondering just how much of this remarkable discourse she could remember to tell.

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.

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.

As the days passed, however, and the news came to be no better, but rather worse, something besides anxiety began to show in the man's face: despair, and a very dogged determination, each fighting for the mastery.

"'Twa'n't about me, an' 'twa'n't sneak listenin'," bridled Jimmy. "And I'm glad I listened. You will be when I tell ye. Why, it may make Pollyanna--walk!"

"It is all right, my dear; don't worry," soothed Miss Polly, agitatedly, hurrying forward. "I have told Dr. Chilton that—that I want him to look you over—with Dr. Warren, this morning."

At twilight a wonderfully tremulous, wonderfully different Aunt Polly crept to Pollyanna's bedside.