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possible moment after supper, Nancy crept up the back stairs and thence to the attic room.
“Bread and milk, indeed! – and when the poor lamb hain’t only just cried herself to sleep,” she was muttering fiercely, as she softly pushed open the door. The next moment she gave a frightened cry. “Where are you? Where’ve you gone? Where HAVE you gone?” she panted, looking in the closet, under the bed, and even in the trunk and down the water pitcher. Then she flew down-stairs and out to Old Tom in the garden.
“Mr. Tom, Mr. Tom, that blessed child’s gone,” she wailed. “She’s vanished right up into Heaven where she come from, poor lamb – and me told ter give her bread and milk in the kitchen – her what’s eatin’ angel food this minute, I’ll warrant, I’ll warrant!”
The old man straightened up.
“Gone? Heaven?” he repeated stupidly, unconsciously sweeping the brilliant sunset sky with his gaze. He stopped, stared a moment intently, then turned with a slow grin. “Well, Nancy, it do look like as if she’d tried ter get as nigh Heaven as she could, and that’s a fact,” he agreed, pointing with a crooked finger to where, sharply outlined against the reddening sky, a slender, wind-blown figure was poised on top of a huge rock.
“Well, she ain’t goin’ ter Heaven that way ter-night – not if I has my say,” declared Nancy, doggedly. “If the mistress asks, tell her I ain’t furgettin’ the dishes[33], but I gone on a stroll,” she flung back over her shoulder, as she sped toward the path that led through the open field.
Chapter V
The Game
“For the land’s sake, Miss Pollyanna, what a scare you did give me[34],” panted Nancy, hurrying up to the big rock, down which Pollyanna had just regretfully slid.
“Scare? Oh, I’m so sorry; but you mustn’t, really, ever get scared about me, Nancy. Father and the Ladies’ Aid used to do it, too, till they found I always came back all right.”
“But I didn’t even know you’d went,” cried Nancy, tucking the little girl’s hand under her arm and hurrying her down the hill. “I didn’t see you go, and nobody didn’t. I guess you flew right up through the roof; I do, I do.”
Pollyanna skipped gleefully.
“I did, ’most – only I flew down instead of up. I came down the tree.”
Nancy stopped short.
“You did – what?”
“Came down the tree, outside my window.”
“My stars and stockings!” gasped Nancy, hurrying on again. “I’d like ter know what yer aunt would say ter that!”
“Would you? Well, I’ll tell her, then, so you can find out,” promised the little girl, cheerfully.
“Mercy!” gasped Nancy. “No – no!”
“Why, you don’t mean she’d CARE!” cried Pollyanna, plainly disturbed.
“No – er – yes – well, never mind. I – I ain’t so very particular about knowin’ what she’d say, truly,” stammered Nancy, determined to keep one scolding from Pollyanna, if nothing more. “But, say, we better hurry. I’ve got ter get them dishes done, ye know.”
“I’ll help,” promised Pollyanna, promptly.
“Oh, Miss Pollyanna!” demurred Nancy.
For a moment there was silence. The sky was darkening fast. Pollyanna took a firmer hold of her friend’s arm.
“I reckon I’m glad, after all, that you DID get scared – a little, ’cause then you came after me,” she shivered.
“Poor little lamb! And you must be hungry, too. I – I’m afraid you’ll have ter have bread and milk in the kitchen with me. Yer aunt didn’t like it – because you didn’t come down ter supper, ye know.”
“But I couldn’t. I was up here.”
“Yes; but – she didn’t know that, you see!” observed Nancy, dryly, stifling a chuckle. “I’m sorry about the bread and milk; I am, I am.”
“Oh, I’m not. I’m glad.”
“Glad! Why?”
“Why, I like bread and milk, and I’d like to eat with you. I don’t see any trouble about being glad about that.”
“You don’t seem ter see any trouble bein’ glad about everythin’,” retorted Nancy, choking a little over her remembrance of Pollyanna’s brave attempts to like the bare little attic room.
Pollyanna laughed softly.
“Well, that’s the game, you know, anyway.”
“The – GAME?”
“Yes; the ‘just being glad’ game.”
“Whatever in the world are you talkin’ about?”
“Why, it’s a game. Father told it to me, and it’s lovely,” rejoined Pollyanna. “We’ve played it always, ever since I was a little, little girl. I told the Ladies’ Aid, and they played it – some of them.”
“What is it? I ain’t much on games[35], though.”
Pollyanna laughed again, but she sighed, too; and in the gathering twilight her face looked thin and wistful.
“Why, we began it on some crutches that came in a missionary barrel.”
“CRUTCHES!”
“Yes. You see I’d wanted a doll, and father had written them so; but when the barrel came the lady wrote that there hadn’t any dolls come in, but the little crutches had. So she sent ’em along as they might come in handy[36] for some child, sometime. And that’s when we began it.”
“Well, I must say I can’t see any game about that, about that,” declared Nancy, almost irritably.
“Oh, yes; the game was to just find something about everything to be glad about[37] – no matter what ’twas,” rejoined Pollyanna, earnestly. “And we began right then – on the crutches.”
“Well, goodness me! I can’t see anythin’ ter be glad about – gettin’ a pair of crutches when you wanted a doll!”
Pollyanna clapped her hands.
“There is – there is,” she crowed. “But I couldn’t see it, either, Nancy, at first,” she added, with quick honesty.
“Father had to tell it to me.”
“Well, then, suppose YOU tell ME,” almost snapped Nancy.
“Goosey! Why, just be glad because you don’t – NEED – ’em!” exulted Pollyanna, triumphantly. “You see it’s just as easy – when you know how!”
“Well, of all the queer doin’s!” breathed Nancy, regarding Pollyanna with almost fearful eyes.
“Oh, but it isn’t queer – it’s lovely,” maintained Pollyanna enthusiastically. “And we’ve played it ever since. And the harder ’tis, the more fun ’tis to get ’em out; only – only sometimes it’s almost too hard – like when your father goes to Heaven, and there isn’t anybody but a Ladies’ Aid left.”
“Yes, or when you’re put in a snippy little room ’way at the top of the house with nothin’ in it,” growled Nancy.
Pollyanna sighed.
“That was a hard one, at first,” she admitted, “specially when I was so kind of lonesome. I just didn’t feel like playing the game, anyway, and I HAD been wanting pretty things, so! Then I happened to think how I hated to see my freckles in the looking-glass, and I saw that lovely picture
I ain’t furgettin’ the dishes – (
what a scare you did give me – (
I ain’t much on games – (
they might come in handy – (
just find something about everything to be glad about – (