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“Well, you wouldn’t! – not if you were me. You wouldn’t be glad for black hair nor anything else-if you had to lie here all day as I do!”

Pollyanna bent her brows in a thoughtful frown.

“Why, ‘twould be kind of hard-to do it then, wouldn’t it?” she mused aloud.

“Do what?”

“Be glad about things.”

“Be glad about things-when you’re sick in bed all your days? Well, I should say it would,” retorted Mrs. Snow. “If you don’t think so, just tell me something to be glad about; that’s all!”

To Mrs. Snow’s unbounded amazement, Pollyanna sprang to her feet and clapped her hands.

“Oh, goody! That’ll be a hard one-won’t it? I’ve got to go, now, but I’ll think and think all the way home; and maybe the next time I come I can tell it to you. Good-by. I’ve had a lovely time! Good-by,” she called again, as she tripped through the doorway.

“Well, I never! Now, what does she mean by that?” ejaculated Mrs. Snow, staring after her visitor. By and by she turned her head and picked up the mirror, eyeing her reflection critically.

“That little thing HAS got a knack with hair and no mistake,” she muttered under her breath. “I declare, I didn’t know it could look so pretty. But then, what’s the use?” she sighed, dropping the little glass into the bedclothes, and rolling her head on the pillow fretfully.

A little later, when Milly, Mrs. Snow’s daughter, came in, the mirror still lay among the bedclothes-though it had been carefully hidden from sight.

“Why, mother-the curtain is up!” cried Milly, dividing her amazed stare between the window and the pink in her mother’s hair.

“Well, what if it is?” snapped the sick woman. “I needn’t stay in the dark all my life, if I am sick, need I?”

“Why, n-no, of course not,” rejoined Milly, in hasty conciliation, as she reached for the medicine bottle. “It’s only-well, you know very well that I’ve tried to get you to have a lighter room for ages and you wouldn’t.”

There was no reply to this. Mrs. Snow was picking at the lace on her nightgown. At last she spoke fretfully.

“I should think SOMEBODY might give me a new nightdress-instead of lamb broth, for a change!”

“Why-mother!”

No wonder Milly quite gasped aloud with bewilderment. In the drawer behind her at that moment lay two new nightdresses that Milly for months had been vainly urging her mother to wear.

Chapter IX
Which tells of the man

It rained the next time Pollyanna saw the Man. She greeted him, however, with a bright smile.

“It isn’t so nice today, is it?” she called blithesomely. “I’m glad it doesn’t rain always, anyhow!”

The man did not even grunt this time, nor turn his head. Pollyanna decided that of course he did not hear her. The next time, therefore (which happened to be the following day), she spoke up louder. She thought it particularly necessary to do this, anyway, for the Man was striding along, his hands behind his back, and his eyes on the ground-which seemed, to Pollyanna, preposterous in the face of the glorious sunshine and the freshly-washed morning air: Pollyanna, as a special treat, was on a morning errand to-day.

“How do you do?” she chirped. “I’m so glad it isn’t yesterday, aren’t you?”

The man stopped abruptly. There was an angry scowl on his face.

“See here, little girl, we might just as well settle this thing right now, once for all,” he began testily. “I’ve got something besides the weather to think of. I don’t know whether the sun shines or not.” Pollyanna beamed joyously.

“No, sir; I thought you didn’t. That’s why I told you.”

“Yes; well-Eh? What?” he broke off sharply, in sudden understanding of her words.

“I say, that’s why I told you-so you would notice it, you know-that the sun shines, and all that. I knew you’d be glad it did if you only stopped to think of it-and you didn’t look a bit as if you WERE thinking of it!”

“Well, of all the-” ejaculated the man, with an oddly impotent gesture. He started forward again, but after the second step he turned back, still frowning.

“See here, why don’t you find someone your own age to talk to?”

“I’d like to, sir, but there aren’t any ‘round here, Nancy says. Still, I don’t mind so very much. I like old folks just as well, maybe better, sometimes-being used to the Ladies’ Aid, so.”

“Humph! The Ladies’ Aid, indeed! Is that what you took me for?” The man’s lips were threatening to smile, but the scowl above them was still trying to hold them grimly stern.

Pollyanna laughed gleefully.

“Oh, no, sir. You don’t look a mite like a Ladies’ Aider-not but that you’re just as good, of course-maybe better,” she added in hurried politeness. “You see, I’m sure you’re much nicer than you look!”

The man made a queer noise in his throat.

“Well, of all the-” he ejaculated again, as he turned and strode on as before.

The next time Pollyanna met the Man, his eyes were gazing straight into hers, with a quizzical directness that made his face look really pleasant, Pollyanna thought.

“Good afternoon,” he greeted her a little stiffly. “Perhaps I’d better say right away that I KNOW the sun is shining today.”

“But you don’t have to tell me,” nodded Pollyanna, brightly. “I KNEW you knew it just as soon as I saw you.”

“Oh, you did, did you?”

“Yes, sir; I saw it in your eyes, you know, and in your smile.”

“Humph!” grunted the man, as he passed on.

The Man always spoke to Pollyanna after this, and frequently he spoke first, though usually he said little but “good afternoon.” Even that, however, was a great surprise to Nancy, who chanced to be with Pollyanna one day when the greeting was given.

“Sakes alive, Miss Pollyanna,” she gasped, “did that man SPEAK TO YOU?”

“Why, yes, he always does-now,” smiled Pollyanna.

“‘He always does’! Goodness! Do you know who-he-is?” demanded Nancy.

Pollyanna frowned and shook her head.

“I reckon he forgot to tell me one day. You see, I did my part of the introducing, but he didn’t.”

Nancy’s eyes widened.

“But he never speaks ter anybody, child-he hain’t for years, I guess, except when he just has to, for business, and all that. He’s John Pendleton. He lives all by himself in the big house on Pendleton Hill. He won’t even have anyone ‘round ter cook for him-comes down ter the hotel for his meals three times a day. I know Sally Miner, who waits on him, and she says he hardly opens his head enough ter tell what he wants ter eat. She has ter guess it more’n half the time-only it’ll be somethin’ CHEAP! She knows that without no tellin’.”

Pollyanna nodded sympathetically.

“I know. You have to look for cheap things when you’re poor. Father and I took meals out a lot. We had beans and fish balls most generally. We used to say how glad we were we liked beans-that is, we said it specially when we were looking at the roast turkey place, you know, that was sixty cents. Does Mr. Pendleton like beans?”

“Like ‘em! What if he does-or don’t? Why, Miss Pollyanna, he ain’t poor. He’s got loads of money, John Pendleton has-from his father. There ain’t nobody in town as rich as he is. He could eat dollar bills, if he wanted to-and not know it.”

Pollyanna giggled.

“As if anybody COULD eat dollar bills and not know it, Nancy, when they come to try to chew ‘em!”

“Ho! I mean he’s rich enough ter do it,” shrugged Nancy. “He ain’t spendin’ his money, that’s all. He’s a-savin’ of it.”

“Oh, for the heathen,” surmised Pollyanna. “How perfectly splendid! That’s denying yourself and taking up your cross. I know; father told me.”

Nancy’s lips parted abruptly, as if there were angry words all ready to come; but her eyes, resting on Pollyanna’s jubilantly trustful face, saw something that prevented the words being spoken.

“Humph!” she vouchsafed. Then, showing her old-time interest, she went on: “But, say, it is queer, his speakin’ to you, honestly, Miss Pollyanna. He don’t speak ter no one; and he lives all alone in a great big lovely house all full of jest grand things, they say. Some says he’s crazy, and some jest cross; and some says he’s got a skeleton in his closet.”

“Oh, Nancy!” shuddered Pollyanna. “How can he keep such a dreadful thing? I should think he’d throw it away!”

Nancy chuckled. That Pollyanna had taken the skeleton literally instead of figuratively, she knew very well; but, perversely, she refrained from correcting the mistake.

“And EVERYBODY says he’s mysterious,” she went on. “Some years he jest travels, week in and week out, and it’s always in heathen countries-Egypt and Asia and the Desert of Sarah, you know.”

“Oh, a missionary,” nodded Pollyanna.

Nancy laughed oddly.

“Well, I didn’t say that, Miss Pollyanna. When he comes back he writes books-queer, odd books, they say, about some gimcrack he’s found in them heathen countries. But he don’t never seem ter want ter spend no money here-leastways, not for jest livin’.”

“Of course not-if he’s saving it for the heathen,” declared Pollyanna. “But he is a funny man, and he’s different, too, just like Mrs. Snow, only he’s a different different.”

“Well, I guess he is-rather,” chuckled Nancy.

“I’m gladder’n ever now, anyhow, that he speaks to me,” sighed Pollyanna contentedly.

Chapter X
A surprise for
mrs. Snow

The next time Pollyanna went to see Mrs. Snow, she found that lady, as at first, in a darkened room.

“It’s the little girl from Miss Polly’s, mother,” announced Milly, in a tired manner; then Pollyanna found herself alone with the invalid.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” asked a fretful voice from the bed. “I remember you. ANYbody’d remember you, I guess, if they saw you once. I wish you had come yesterday. I WANTED you yesterday.”

“Did you? Well, I’m glad ‘tisn’t any farther away from yesterday than today is, then,” laughed Pollyanna, advancing cheerily into the room, and setting her basket carefully down on a chair. “My! but aren’t you dark here, though? I can’t see you a bit,” she cried, unhesitatingly crossing to the window and pulling up the shade. “I want to see if you’ve fixed your hair like I did-oh, you haven’t! But, never mind; I’m glad 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 is it?”

“Guess! What do you want?” Pollyanna had skipped back to the basket. Her face was alight. The sick woman frowned.

“Why, I don’t WANT anything, as I know of,” she sighed. “After all, they all 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 long been accustomed to wanting what she did not have, that to state offhand what she DID want seemed impossible-until she knew what she had. Obviously, however, she must say something. This extraordinary child was waiting.

“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 what her 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 you should have what you wanted for once; so Nancy and I fixed it. Oh, of course, 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 she lifted the three little bowls from her basket. “You see, I got to thinking 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 a shame-when I’d tried so hard?” she laughed merrily.

There was no reply. The sick woman seemed to be trying-mentally to find something she had lost.

“There! I’m to leave them all,” announced Pollyanna, as she arranged the three bowls in a row on the table. “Like enough it’ll be lamb broth you want tomorrow. How do you do today?” she finished in polite inquiry.

“Very poorly, thank you,” murmured Mrs. Snow, falling back into her usual listless attitude. “I lost my nap this morning. Nellie Higgins next door has begun music lessons, and her practising drives me nearly wild. She was at it all the morning-every minute! I’m sure, I don’t know 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 she couldn’t thrash ‘round. She said ‘twould have been easier if she could have. Can you?”

“Can I-what?”

“Thrash ‘round-move, you know, so as to change your position when the music gets too hard to stand.”

Mrs. Snow stared a little.

“Why, of course I can move-anywhere-in bed,” she rejoined a little irritably.

“Well, you can be glad of that, then, anyhow, can’t you?” nodded Pollyanna. “Mrs. White couldn’t. You can’t thrash when you have rheumatic fever-though you want to something awful, Mrs. White says. She told me afterwards she reckoned she’d have gone raving crazy if it hadn’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 had such an awful time making her understand ANYTHING, that after that, every time the piano commenced to play across the street, Mrs. White felt so glad she COULD hear it, that she didn’t mind so much that she DID hear it, ‘cause she couldn’t help thinking how awful ‘twould be if she was deaf and couldn’t hear anything, like her husband’s sister. You see, 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 can be glad about.”

“GLAD about! What do you mean?”

“Why, I told you I would. Don’t you remember? You asked me to tell you something to be glad about-glad, you know, even though you did have to lie here abed all day.”

“Oh!” scoffed the woman. “THAT? Yes, I remember that; but I didn’t suppose 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 for a while. Then I got it.”

“Did you, really? Well, what is it?” Mrs. Snow’s voice was sarcastically polite.

Pollyanna drew a long breath.

“I thought-how glad you could be-that other folks weren’t like you-all sick in bed like this, you know,” she announced impressively. Mrs. Snow stared. Her eyes were angry.