said I might. Wasn’t he lovely to let me see you?”
In spite of himself the man’s lips twitched into a smile; but all he said was “Humph!”
“And I’ve brought you some jelly,” resumed Pollyanna; “-calf’s-foot. I hope you like it?” There was a rising inflection in her voice.
“Never ate it.” The fleeting smile had gone, and the scowl had come back to the man’s face.
For a brief instant Pollyanna’s countenance showed disappointment; but it cleared as she set the bowl of jelly down.
“Didn’t you? Well, if you didn’t, then you can’t know you DON’T like it, anyhow, can you? So I reckon I’m glad you haven’t, after all. Now, if you knew-”
“Yes, yes; well, there’s one thing I know all right, and that is that I’m flat on my back right here this minute, and that I’m liable to stay here-till doomsday, I guess.”
Pollyanna looked shocked.
“Oh, no! It couldn’t be till doomsday, you know, when the angel Gabriel blows his trumpet, unless it should come quicker than we think it will-oh, of course, I know the Bible says it may come quicker than we think, but I don’t think it will-that is, of course I believe the Bible; but I mean I don’t think it will come as much quicker as it would if it should come now, and-”
John Pendleton laughed suddenly-and aloud. The nurse, coming in at that moment, heard the laugh, and beat a hurried-but a very silent-retreat. He had the air of a frightened cook who, seeing the danger of a breath of cold air striking a half-done cake, hastily shuts the oven door.
“Aren’t you getting a little mixed?” asked John Pendleton of Pollyanna.
The little girl laughed.
“Maybe. But what I mean is, that legs don’t last-broken ones, you know-like lifelong invalids, same as Mrs. Snow has got. So yours won’t last till doomsday at all. I should think you could be glad of that.”
“Oh, I am,” retorted the man grimly.
“And you didn’t break but one. You can be glad ‘twasn’t two.” Pollyanna was warming to her task.
“Of course! So fortunate,” sniffed the man, with uplifted eyebrows; “looking at it from that standpoint, I suppose I might be glad I wasn’t a centipede and didn’t break fifty!”
Pollyanna chuckled.
“Oh, that’s the best yet,” she crowed. “I know what a centipede is; they’ve got lots of legs. And you can be glad-”
“Oh, of course,” interrupted the man, sharply, all the old bitterness coming back to his voice; “I can be glad, too, for all the rest, I suppose-the nurse, and the doctor, and that confounded woman in the kitchen!”
“Why, yes, sir-only think how bad ‘twould be if you DIDN’T have them!”
“Well, I-eh?” he demanded sharply.
“Why, I say, only think how bad it would be if you didn’t have ‘em-and you lying here like this!”
“As if that wasn’t the very thing that was at the bottom of the whole matter,” retorted the man, testily, “because I am lying here like this! And yet you expect me to say I’m glad because of a fool woman who disarranges the whole house and calls it ‘regulating,’ and a man who aids and abets her in it, and calls it ‘nursing,’ to say nothing of the doctor who eggs ‘em both on-and the whole bunch of them, meanwhile, expecting me to pay them for it, and pay them well, too!”
Pollyanna frowned sympathetically.
“Yes, I know. THAT part is too bad-about the money-when you’ve been saving it, too, all this time.”
“When-eh?”
“Saving it-buying beans and fish balls, you know. Say, DO you like beans? – or do you like turkey better, only on account of the sixty cents?”
“Look a-here, child, what are you talking about?”
Pollyanna smiled radiantly.
“About your money, you know-denying yourself, and saving it for the heathen. You see, I found out about it. Why, Mr. Pendleton, that’s one of the ways I knew you weren’t cross inside. Nancy told me.”
The man’s jaw dropped.
“Nancy told you I was saving money for the-Well, may I inquire who Nancy is?”
“Our Nancy. She works for Aunt Polly.”
“Aunt Polly! Well, who is Aunt Polly?”
“She’s Miss Polly Harrington. I live with her.”
The man made a sudden movement.
“Miss-Polly-Harrington!” he breathed. “You live with-HER!”
“Yes; I’m her niece. She’s taken me to bring up-on account of my mother, you know,” faltered Pollyanna, in a low voice. “She was her sister. And after father-went to be with her and the rest of us in Heaven, there wasn’t any one left for me down here but the Ladies’ Aid; so she took me.”
The man did not answer. His face, as he lay back on the pillow now, was very white-so white that Pollyanna was frightened. She rose uncertainly to her feet.
“I reckon maybe I’d better go now,” she proposed. “I–I hope you’ll like-the jelly.”
The man turned his head suddenly, and opened his eyes. There was a curious longing in their dark depths which even Pollyanna saw, and at which she marvelled.
“And so you are-Miss Polly Harrington’s niece,” he said gently.
“Yes, sir.”
Still the man’s dark eyes lingered on her face, until Pollyanna, feeling vaguely restless, murmured:
“I–I suppose you know-her.”
John Pendleton’s lips curved in an odd smile.
“Oh, yes; I know her.” He hesitated, then went on, still with that curious smile. “But-you don’t mean-you can’t mean that it was Miss Polly Harrington who sent that jelly-to me?” he said slowly.
Pollyanna looked distressed.
“N-no, sir: she didn’t. She said I must be very sure not to let you think she did send it. But I-”
“I thought as much,” vouchsafed the man, shortly, turning away his head. And Pollyanna, still more distressed, tiptoed from the room.
Under the porte-cochere she found the doctor waiting in his gig. The nurse stood on the steps.
“Well, Miss Pollyanna, may I have the pleasure of seeing you home?” asked the doctor smilingly. “I started to drive on a few minutes ago; then it occurred to me that I’d wait for you.”
“Thank you, sir. I’m glad you did. I just love to ride,” beamed Pollyanna, as he reached out his hand to help her in.
“Do
