Pollyanna Grows Up Eleanor H. Porter (booksvooks .TXT) đ
- Author: Eleanor H. Porter
Book online «Pollyanna Grows Up Eleanor H. Porter (booksvooks .TXT) đ». Author Eleanor H. Porter
âBut if you canât help Jamie, I should think youâd be so glad there was someone like him you could help,â urged Pollyanna, tremulously. âWhat if your Jamie was like this Jamie, all poor and sick, wouldnât you want someone to take him in and comfort him, andâ ââ âDonâtâ âdonât, Pollyanna,â moaned Mrs. Carew, turning her head from side to side, in a frenzy of grief. âWhen I think that maybe, somewhere, our Jamie is like thatâ ââ Only a choking sob finished the sentence.
âThatâs just what I meanâ âthatâs just what I mean!â triumphed Pollyanna, excitedly. âDonât you see? If this is your Jamie, of course youâll want him; and if it isnât, you couldnât be doing any harm to the other Jamie by taking this one, and youâd do a whole lot of good, for youâd make this one so happyâ âso happy! And then, by and by, if you should find the real Jamie, you wouldnât have lost anything, but youâd have made two little boys happy instead of one; andâ ââ But again Mrs. Carew interrupted her.
âDonât, Pollyanna, donât! I want to thinkâ âI want to think.â
Tearfully Pollyanna sat back in her seat. By a very visible effort she kept still for one whole minute. Then, as if the words fairly bubbled forth of themselves, there came this:
âOh, but what an awful, awful place that was! I just wish the man that owned it had to live in it himselfâ âand then see what heâd have to be glad for!â
Mrs. Carew sat suddenly erect. Her face showed a curious change. Almost as if in appeal she flung out her hand toward Pollyanna.
âDonât!â she cried. âPerhapsâ âshe didnât know, Pollyanna. Perhaps she didnât know. Iâm sure she didnât knowâ âshe owned a place like that. But it will be fixed nowâ âit will be fixed.â
âShe! Is it a woman that owns it, and do you know her? And do you know the agent, too?â
âYes.â Mrs. Carew bit her lips. âI know her, and I know the agent.â
âOh, Iâm so glad,â sighed Pollyanna. âThen itâll be all right now.â
âWell, it certainly will beâ âbetter,â avowed Mrs. Carew with emphasis, as the car stopped before her own door.
Mrs. Carew spoke as if she knew what she was talking about. And perhaps, indeed, she didâ âbetter than she cared to tell Pollyanna. Certainly, before she slept that night, a letter left her hands addressed to one Henry Dodge, summoning him to an immediate conference as to certain changes and repairs to be made at once in tenements she owned. There were, moreover, several scathing sentences concerning ârag-stuffed windows,â and ârickety stairways,â that caused this same Henry Dodge to scowl angrily, and to say a sharp word behind his teethâ âthough at the same time he paled with something very like fear.
XI A Surprise for Mrs. CarewThe matter of repairs and improvements having been properly and efficiently attended to, Mrs. Carew told herself that she had done her duty, and that the matter was closed. She would forget it. The boy was not Jamieâ âhe could not be Jamie. That ignorant, sickly, crippled boy her dead sisterâs son? Impossible! She would cast the whole thing from her thoughts.
It was just here, however, that Mrs. Carew found herself against an immovable, impassable barrier: the whole thing refused to be cast from her thoughts. Always before her eyes was the picture of that bare little room and the wistful-faced boy. Always in her ears was that heartbreaking âWhat if it were Jamie?â And always, too, there was Pollyanna; for even though Mrs. Carew might (as she did) silence the pleadings and questionings of the little girlâs tongue, there was no getting away from the prayers and reproaches of the little girlâs eyes.
Twice again in desperation Mrs. Carew went to see the boy, telling herself each time that only another visit was needed to convince her that the boy was not the one she sought. But, even though while there in the boyâs presence, she told herself that she was convinced, once away from it, the old, old questioning returned. At last, in still greater desperation, she wrote to her sister, and told her the whole story.
âI had not meant to tell you,â she wrote, after she had stated the bare facts of the case. âI thought it a pity to harrow you up, or to raise false hopes. I am so sure it is not heâ âand yet, even as I write these words, I know I am not sure. That is why I want you to comeâ âwhy you must come. I must have you see him.
âI wonderâ âoh, I wonder what youâll say! Of course we havenât seen our Jamie since he was four years old. He would be twelve now. This boy is twelve, I should judge. (He doesnât know his age.) He has hair and eyes not unlike our Jamieâs. He is crippled, but that condition came upon him through a fall, six years ago, and was made worse through another one four years later. Anything like a complete description of his fatherâs appearance seems impossible to obtain; but what I have learned contains nothing conclusive either for or against his being poor Dorisâs husband. He was called âthe Professor,â was very queer, and seemed to own nothing save a few books. This might, or might not signify. John Kent was certainly always queer, and a good deal of a Bohemian in his tastes. Whether he cared for books or not I donât remember. Do you? And of course the title âProfessorâ might easily have been assumed, if he wished, or it might have been merely given him by others. As for this boyâ âI donât know, I donât knowâ âbut I do hope you will!
âYour distracted sister,
âRuth.â
Della came at once, and she went immediately to see the boy; but she did not âknow.â Like her sister, she said she did not think it was their Jamie, but at the same time there was that chanceâ âit might be he, after all.
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