CHAPTER X. A SURPRISE FOR MRS. SNOW
The next time Pollyanna went to see Mrs. Snow, she found that lady, asat first, in a darkened room.
"It's the little girl from Miss Polly's, mother," announced Milly, in atired manner; then Pollyanna found herself alone with the invalid.
"Oh, it's you, is it?" asked a fretful voice from the bed. "I rememberyou. ANYbody'd remember you, I guess, if they saw you once. I wish youhad come yesterday. I WANTED you yesterday."
"Did you? Well, I'm glad 'tisn't any farther away from yesterday thanto-day is, then," laughed Pollyanna, advancing cheerily into the room,and setting her basket carefully down on a chair. "My! but aren't youdark here, though? I can't see you a bit," she cried, unhesitatinglycrossing to the window and pulling up the shade. "I want to see ifyou've fixed your hair like I did--oh, you haven't! But, never mind; I'mglad you haven't, after all, 'cause maybe you'll let me do it--later.But now I want you to see what I've brought you."
The woman stirred restlessly.
"Just as if how it looks would make any difference in how it tastes,"she scoffed--but she turned her eyes toward the basket. "Well, what isit?"
"Guess! What do you want?" Pollyanna had skipped back to the basket. Herface was alight. The sick woman frowned.
"Why, I don't WANT anything, as I know of," she sighed. "After all, theyall taste alike!"
Pollyanna chuckled.
"This won't. Guess! If you DID want something, what would it be?"
The woman hesitated. She did not realize it herself, but she had so longbeen accustomed to wanting what she did not have, that to state off-handwhat she DID want seemed impossible--until she knew what she had.Obviously, however, she must say something. This extraordinary child waswaiting.
"Well, of course, there's lamb broth--"
"I've got it!" crowed Pollyanna.
"But that's what I DIDN'T want," sighed the sick woman, sure now of whather stomach craved. "It was chicken I wanted."
"Oh, I've got that, too," chuckled Pollyanna.
The woman turned in amazement.
"Both of them?" she demanded.
"Yes--and calf's-foot jelly," triumphed Pollyanna. "I was just bound youshould have what you wanted for once; so Nancy and I fixed it. Oh, ofcourse, there's only a little of each--but there's some of all of 'em!I'm so glad you did want chicken," she went on contentedly, as shelifted the three little bowls from her basket. "You see, I got tothinking on the way here--what if you should say tripe, or onions,or something like that, that I didn't have! Wouldn't it have been ashame--when I'd tried so hard?" she laughed merrily.
There was no reply. The sick woman seemed to be trying--mentally to findsomething she had lost.
"There! I'm to leave them all," announced Pollyanna, as she arranged thethree bowls in a row on the table. "Like enough it'll be lamb broth youwant to-morrow. How do you do to-day?" she finished in polite inquiry.
"Very poorly, thank you," murmured Mrs. Snow, falling back into herusual listless attitude. "I lost my nap this morning. Nellie Higginsnext door has begun music lessons, and her practising drives me nearlywild. She was at it all the morning--every minute! I'm sure, I don'tknow what I shall do!"
Polly nodded sympathetically.
"I know. It IS awful! Mrs. White had it once--one of my Ladies' Aiders,you know. She had rheumatic fever, too, at the same time, so shecouldn't thrash 'round. She said 'twould have been easier if she couldhave. Can you?"
"Can I--what?"
"Thrash 'round--move, you know, so as to change your position when themusic gets too hard to stand."
Mrs. Snow stared a little.
"Why, of course I can move--anywhere--in bed," she rejoined a littleirritably.
"Well, you can be glad of that, then, anyhow, can't you?" noddedPollyanna. "Mrs. White couldn't. You can't thrash when you haverheumatic fever--though you want to something awful, Mrs. White says.She told me afterwards she reckoned she'd have gone raving crazy if ithadn't been for Mr. White's sister's ears--being deaf, so."
"Sister's--EARS! What do you mean?"
Pollyanna laughed.
"Well, I reckon I didn't tell it all, and I forgot you didn't know Mrs.White. You see, Miss White was deaf--awfully deaf; and she came to visit'em and to help take care of Mrs. White and the house. Well, they hadsuch an awful time making her understand ANYTHING, that after that,every time the piano commenced to play across the street, Mrs. Whitefelt so glad she COULD hear it, that she didn't mind so much that sheDID hear it, 'cause she couldn't help thinking how awful 'twould be ifshe was deaf and couldn't hear anything, like her husband's sister. Yousee, she was playing the game, too. I'd told her about it."
"The--game?"
Pollyanna clapped her hands.
"There! I 'most forgot; but I've thought it up, Mrs. Snow--what you canbe glad about."
"GLAD about! What do you mean?"
"Why, I told you I would. Don't you remember? You asked me to tell yousomething to be glad about--glad, you know, even though you did have tolie here abed all day."
"Oh!" scoffed the woman. "THAT? Yes, I remember that; but I didn'tsuppose you were in earnest any more than I was."
"Oh, yes, I was," nodded Pollyanna, triumphantly; "and I found it, too.But 'TWAS hard. It's all the more fun, though, always, when 'tis hard.And I will own up, honest to true, that I couldn't think of anything fora while. Then I got it."
"Did you, really? Well, what is it?" Mrs. Snow's voice was sarcasticallypolite.
Pollyanna drew a long breath.
"I thought--how glad you could be--that other folks weren't likeyou--all sick in bed like this, you know," she announced impressively.Mrs. Snow stared. Her eyes were angry.
"Well, really!" she ejaculated then, in not quite an agreeable tone ofvoice.
"And now I'll tell you the game," proposed Pollyanna, blithelyconfident. "It'll be just lovely for you to play--it'll be so hard. Andthere's so much more fun when it is hard! You see, it's like this." Andshe began to tell of the missionary barrel, the crutches, and the dollthat did not come.
The story was just finished when Milly appeared at the door.
"Your aunt is wanting you, Miss Pollyanna," she said with drearylistlessness. "She telephoned down to the Harlows' across the way. Shesays you're to hurry--that you've got some practising to make up beforedark."
Pollyanna rose reluctantly.
"All right," she sighed. "I'll hurry." Suddenly she laughed. "I supposeI ought to be glad I've got legs to hurry with, hadn't I, Mrs. Snow?"
There was no answer. Mrs. Snow's eyes were closed. But Milly, whose eyeswere wide open with surprise, saw that there were tears on the wastedcheeks.
"Good-by," flung Pollyanna over her shoulder, as she reached the door."I'm awfully sorry about the hair--I wanted to do it. But maybe I cannext time!"
One by one the July days passed. To Pollyanna, they were happy days,indeed. She often told her aunt, joyously, how very happy they were.Whereupon her aunt would usually reply, wearily:
"Very well, Pollyanna. I am gratified, of course, that they are happy;but I trust that they are profitable, as well--otherwise I should havefailed signally in my duty."
Generally Pollyanna would answer this with a hug and a kiss--aproceeding that was still always most disconcerting to Miss Polly; butone day she spoke. It was during the sewing hour.
"Do you mean that it wouldn't be enough then, Aunt Polly, that theyshould be just happy days?" she asked wistfully.
"That is what I mean, Pollyanna."
"They must be pro-fi-ta-ble as well?"
"Certainly."
"What is being pro-fi-ta-ble?"
"Why, it--it's just being profitable--having profit, something to showfor it, Pollyanna. What an extraordinary child you are!"
"Then just being glad isn't pro-fi-ta-ble?" questioned Pollyanna, alittle anxiously.
"Certainly not."
"O dear! Then you wouldn't like it, of course. I'm afraid, now, youwon't ever play the game, Aunt Po
lly."
"Game? What game?"
"Why, that father--" Pollyanna clapped her hand to her lips."N-nothing," she stammered. Miss Polly frowned.
"That will do for this morning, Pollyanna," she said tersely. And thesewing lesson was over.
It was that afternoon that Pollyanna, coming down from her attic room,met her aunt on the stairway.
"Why, Aunt Polly, how perfectly lovely!" she cried. "You were coming upto see me! Come right in. I love company," she finished, scampering upthe stairs and throwing her door wide open.
Now Miss Polly had not been intending to call on her niece. She had beenplanning to look for a certain white wool shawl in the cedar chest nearthe east window. But to her unbounded surprise now, she found herself,not in the main attic before the cedar chest, but in Pollyanna's littleroom sitting in one of the straight-backed chairs--so many, many timessince Pollyanna came, Miss Polly had found herself like this, doing someutterly unexpected, surprising thing, quite unlike the thing she had setout to do!
"I love company," said Pollyanna, again, flitting about as if she weredispensing the hospitality of a palace; "specially since I've had thisroom, all mine, you know. Oh, of course, I had a room, always, but 'twasa hired room, and hired rooms aren't half as nice as owned ones, arethey? And of course I do own this one, don't I?"
"Why, y-yes, Pollyanna," murmured Miss Polly, vaguely wondering why shedid not get up at once and go to look for that shawl.
"And of course NOW I just love this room, even if it hasn't got thecarpets and curtains and pictures that I'd been want--" With a painfulblush Pollyanna stopped short. She was plunging into an entirelydifferent sentence when her aunt interrupted her sharply.
"What's that, Pollyanna?"
"N-nothing, Aunt Polly, truly. I didn't mean to say it."
"Probably not," returned Miss Polly, coldly; "but you did say it, sosuppose we have the rest of it."
"But it wasn't anything only that I'd been kind of planning on prettycarpets and lace curtains and things, you know. But, of course--"
"PLANNING on them!" interrupted Miss Polly, sharply.
Pollyanna blushed still more painfully.
"I ought not to have, of course, Aunt Polly," she apologized. "It wasonly because I'd always wanted them and hadn't had them, I suppose. Oh,we'd had two rugs in the barrels, but they were little, you know, andone had ink spots, and the other holes; and there never were only thosetwo pictures; the one fath--I mean the good one we sold, and the bad onethat broke. Of course if it hadn't been for all that I shouldn't havewanted them, so--pretty things, I mean; and I shouldn't have got toplanning all through the hall that first day how pretty mine would behere, and--and--but, truly, Aunt Polly, it wasn't but just a minute--Imean, a few minutes--before I was being glad that the bureau DIDN'T havea looking-glass, because it didn't show my freckles; and there couldn'tbe a nicer picture than the one out my window there; and you've been sogood to me, that--"
Miss Polly rose suddenly to her feet. Her face was very red.
"That will do, Pollyanna," she said stiffly.
"You have said quite enough, I'm sure." The next minute she had sweptdown the stairs--and not until she reached the first floor did itsuddenly occur to her that she had gone up into the attic to find awhite wool shawl in the cedar chest near the east window.
Less than twenty-four hours later, Miss Polly said to Nancy, crisply:
"Nancy, you may move Miss Pollyanna's things down-stairs this morning tothe room directly beneath. I have decided to have my niece sleep therefor the present."
"Yes, ma'am," said Nancy aloud.
"O glory!" said Nancy to herself.
To Pollyanna, a minute later, she cried joyously:
"And won't ye jest be listenin' ter this, Miss Pollyanna. You're tersleep down-stairs in the room straight under this. You are--you are!"
Pollyanna actually grew white.
"You mean--why, Nancy, not really--really and truly?"
"I guess you'll think it's really and truly," prophesied Nancy,exultingly, nodding her head to Pollyanna over the armful of dresses shehad taken from the closet. "I'm told ter take down yer things, and I'mgoin' ter take 'em, too, 'fore she gets a chance ter change her mind."
Pollyanna did not stop to hear the end of this sentence. At the imminentrisk of being dashed headlong, she was flying down-stairs, two steps ata time.
Bang went two doors and a chair before Pollyanna at last reached hergoal--Aunt Polly.
"Oh, Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, did you mean it, really? Why, that room'sgot EVERYTHING--the carpet and curtains and three pictures, besidesthe one outdoors, too, 'cause the windows look the same way. Oh, AuntPolly!"
"Very well, Pollyanna. I am gratified that you like the change, ofcourse; but if you think so much of all those things, I trust you willtake proper care of them; that's all. Pollyanna, please pick up thatchair; and you have banged two doors in the last half-minute." MissPolly spoke sternly, all the more sternly because, for some inexplicablereason, she felt inclined to cry--and Miss Polly was not used to feelinginclined to cry.
Pollyanna picked up the chair.
"Yes'm; I know I banged 'em--those doors," she admitted cheerfully. "Yousee I'd just found out about the room, and I reckon you'd have bangeddoors if--" Pollyanna stopped short and eyed her aunt with new interest."Aunt Polly, DID you ever bang doors?"
"I hope--not, Pollyanna!" Miss Polly's voice was properly shocked.
"Why, Aunt Polly, what a shame!" Pollyanna's face expressed onlyconcerned sympathy.
"A shame!" repeated Aunt Polly, too dazed to say more.
"Why, yes. You see, if you'd felt like banging doors you'd have banged'em, of course; and if you didn't, that must have meant that you weren'tever glad over anything--or you would have banged 'em. You couldn't havehelped it. And I'm so sorry you weren't ever glad over anything!"
"PollyANna!" gasped the lady; but Pollyanna was gone, and only thedistant bang of the attic-stairway door answered for her. Pollyanna hadgone to help Nancy bring down "her things."
Miss Polly, in the sitting room, felt vaguely disturbed;--but then, ofcourse she HAD been glad--over some things!