If she’d just let that tight hair of hern all out loose and careless-like, as it used ter be, and wear the sort of bunnits with posies in ’em, and the kind o’ dresses all lace and white things – you’d see she’d be handsome! Miss Polly ain’t old, Nancy.”
“Ain’t she, though? Well, then she’s got an awfully good imitation of it – she has, she has!” sniffed Nancy.
“Yes, I know. It begun then – at the time of the trouble with her lover,” nodded Old Tom; “and it seems as if she’d been feedin’ on wormwood an’ thistles ever since – she’s that bitter an’ prickly ter deal with.”
“I should say she was,” declared Nancy, indignantly. “There’s no pleasin’ her, nohow, no matter how you try! I wouldn’t stay if ’twa’n’t for the wages and the folks at home what’s needin’ ’em. But some day – some day I shall jest b’ile over; and when I do, of course it’ll be good-by Nancy for me. It will, it will.”
Old Tom shook his head.
“I know. I’ve felt it. It’s nart’ral – but ’tain’t best, child; ’tain’t best. Take my word for it, ’tain’t best.” And again he bent his old head to the work before him.
“Nancy!” called a sharp voice.
“Y-yes, ma’am,” stammered Nancy; and hurried toward the house.
In due time came the telegram announcing that Pollyanna would arrive in Beldingsville the next day, the twenty-fifth of June, at four o’clock. Miss Polly read the telegram, frowned, then climbed the stairs to the attic room. She still frowned as she looked about her.
The room contained a small bed, neatly made, two straight-backed chairs, a washstand, a bureau – without any mirror – and a small table. There were no drapery curtains at the dormer windows, no pictures on the wall. All day the sun had been pouring down upon the roof, and the little room was like an oven for heat. As there were no screens, the windows had not been raised. A big fly was buzzing angrily at one of them now, up and down, up and down, trying to get out.
Miss Polly killed the fly, swept it through the window (raising the sash an inch for the purpose), straightened a chair, frowned again, and left the room.
“Nancy,” she said a few minutes later, at the kitchen door, “I found a fly up-stairs in Miss Pollyanna’s room. The window must have been raised at some time. I have ordered screens, but until they come I shall expect you to see that the windows remain closed. My niece will arrive to-morrow at four o’clock. I desire you to meet her at the station. Timothy will take the open buggy and drive you over. The telegram says ‘light hair, red-checked gingham dress, and straw hat.’ That is all I know, but I think it is sufficient for your purpose.”
“Yes, ma’am; but – you—”
Miss Polly evidently read the pause aright, for she frowned and said crisply:
“No, I shall not go. It is not necessary that I should, I think. That is all.” And she turned away – Miss Polly’s arrangements for the comfort of her niece, Pollyanna, were complete.
In the kitchen, Nancy sent her flatiron with a vicious dig across the dish-towel she was ironing.
“‘Light hair, red-checked gingham dress, and straw hat’ – all she knows, indeed! Well, I’d be ashamed ter own it up, that I would, I would – and her my onliest niece what was a-comin’ from ’way across the continent!”
Promptly at twenty minutes to four the next afternoon Timothy and Nancy drove off in the open buggy to meet the expected guest. Timothy was Old Tom’s son. It was sometimes said in the town that if Old Tom was Miss Polly’s right-hand man, Timothy was her left.
Timothy was a good-natured youth, and a good-looking one, as well. Short as had been Nancy’s stay at the house, the two were already good friends. To-day, however, Nancy was too full of her mission to be her usual talkative self; and almost in silence she took the drive to the station and alighted to wait for the train.
Over and over in her mind she was saying it “light hair, red-checked dress, straw hat.” Over and over again she was wondering just what sort of child this Pollyanna was, anyway.
“I hope for her sake she’s quiet and sensible, and don’t drop knives nor bang doors,” she sighed to Timothy, who had sauntered up to her.
“Well, if she ain’t, nobody knows what’ll become of the rest of us,” grinned Timothy. “Imagine Miss Polly and a noisy kid! Gorry! there goes the whistle now!”
“Oh, Timothy, I—I think it was mean ter send me,” chattered the suddenly frightened Nancy, as she turned and hurried to a point where she could best watch the passengers alight at the little station.
It was not long before Nancy saw her – the slender little girl in the red-checked gingham with two fat braids of flaxen hair hanging down her back. Beneath the straw hat, an eager, freckled little face turned to the right and to the left, plainly searching for some one.
Nancy knew the child at once, but not for some time could she control her shaking knees sufficiently to go to her. The little girl was standing quite by herself when Nancy finally did approach her.
“Are you Miss – Pollyanna?” she faltered. The next moment she found herself half smothered in the clasp of two gingham-clad arms.
“Oh, I’m so glad, glad, glad to see you,” cried an eager voice in her ear. “Of course I’m Pollyanna, and I’m so glad you came to meet me! I hoped you would.”
“You—you did?” stammered Nancy, vaguely wondering how Pollyanna could possibly have known her – and wanted her. “You—you did?” she repeated, trying to straighten her hat.
“Oh, yes; and I’ve been wondering all the way here what you looked like,” cried the little girl, dancing on her toes, and sweeping the embarrassed Nancy from head to foot, with her eyes. “And now I know, and I’m glad you look just like you do look.”
Nancy was relieved just then to have Timothy come up. Pollyanna’s words had been most confusing.
“This is Timothy. Maybe you have a trunk,” she stammered.
“Yes, I have,” nodded Pollyanna, importantly. “I’ve got a brand-new one. The Ladies’ Aid bought it for me – and wasn’t it lovely of them, when they wanted the carpet so? Of course I don’t know how much red carpet a trunk could buy, but it ought to buy some, anyhow – much as half an aisle, don’t you think? I’ve got a little thing here in my bag that Mr. Gray said was a check, and that I must give it to you before I could get my trunk. Mr. Gray is Mrs. Gray’s husband. They’re cousins of Deacon Carr’s wife. I came East with them, and they’re lovely! And – there, here ’tis,” she finished, producing the check after much fumbling in the bag she carried.
Nancy drew a long breath. Instinctively she felt that some one had to draw one – after that speech. Then she stole
