Элинор Портер - Pollyanna Crows up / Поллианна вырастает. Книга для чтения на английском языке

There was a moment’s breathless hush, then, very quietly, Mrs. Carew got to her feet. Her face was colorless; but there was that in it that silenced the sob that rose to Pollyanna’s lips.

“Come, Pollyanna,” was all she said.

“Well, if you ain’t the fool limit [70] if you ain’t the fool limit – ( сленг ) большего дурака я не встречал !” babbled Jerry Murphy to the boy on the bed, as the door closed a moment later.

But the boy on the bed was crying very much as if the closing door had been the one that had led to paradise – and that had closed now forever.

Mrs. Carew was very angry. To have brought herself to the point where she was willing to take this lame boy into her home, and then to have the lad calmly refuse to come, was unbearable. Mrs. Carew was not in the habit of having her invitations ignored, or her wishes scorned. Furthermore, now that she could not have the boy, she was conscious of an almost frantic terror lest he were, after all, the real Jamie. She knew then that her true reason for wanting him had been – not because she cared for him, not even because she wished to help him and make him happy – but because she hoped, by taking him, that she would ease her own mind, and forever silence that awful eternal questioning on her part: “What if he WERE her own Jamie?”

It certainly had not helped matters any that the boy had divined her state of mind, and had given as the reason for his refusal that she “did not care.” To be sure, Mrs. Carew now very proudly told herself that she did not indeed “care,” that he was NOT her sister’s boy, and that she would “forget all about it.”

But she did not forget all about it. However insistently she might disclaim responsibility and relationship, just as insistently responsibility and relationship thrust themselves upon her in the shape of panicky doubts; and however resolutely she turned her thoughts to other matters, just so resolutely visions of a wistful-eyed boy in a poverty-stricken room loomed always before her.

Then, too, there was Pollyanna. Clearly Pollyanna was not herself at all. In a most unPollyanna-like spirit she moped about the house, finding apparently no interest anywhere.

“Oh, no, I’m not sick,” she would answer, when remonstrated with, and questioned.

“But what IS the trouble?”

“Why, nothing. It – it’s only that I was thinking of Jamie, you know, – how HE hasn’t got all these beautiful things – carpets, and pictures, and curtains.”

It was the same with her food. Pollyanna was actually losing her appetite; but here again she disclaimed sickness.

“Oh, no,” she would sigh mournfully. “It’s just that I don’t seem hungry. Some way, just as soon as I begin to eat, I think of Jamie, and how HE doesn’t have only old doughnuts and dry rolls; and then I – I don’t want anything.”

Mrs. Carew, spurred by a feeling that she herself only dimly understood, and recklessly determined to bring about some change in Pollyanna at all costs, ordered a huge tree, two dozen wreaths, and quantities of holly and Christmas baubles. For the first time in many years the house was aflame and aglitter with scarlet and tinsel. There was even to be a Christmas party, for Mrs. Carew had told Pollyanna to invite half a dozen of her schoolgirl friends for the tree on Christmas Eve.

But even here Mrs. Carew met with disappointment; for, though Pollyanna was always grateful, and at times interested and even excited, she still carried frequently a sober little face. And in the end the Christmas party was more of a sorrow than a joy; for the first glimpse of the glittering tree sent her into a storm of sobs.

“Why, Pollyanna!” ejaculated Mrs. Carew. “What in the world is the matter now?”

“N-n-nothing,” wept Pollyanna. “It’s only that it’s so perfectly, perfectly beautiful that I just had to cry. I was thinking how Jamie would love to see it.”

It was then that Mrs. Carew’s patience snapped.

“‘Jamie, Jamie, Jamie’!” she exclaimed. “Pollyanna, CAN’t you stop talking about that boy? You know perfectly well that it is not my fault that he is not here. I asked him to come here to live. Besides, where is that ‘glad game’ of yours? I think it would be an excellent idea if you would play it on this.”

“I AM playing it,” quavered Pollyanna. “And that’s what I don’t understand. I never knew it to act so funny. Why, before, when I’ve been glad about things, I’ve been happy. But now, about Jamie – I’m so glad I’ve got carpets and pictures and nice things to eat, and that I can walk and run, and go to school, and all that; but the harder I’m glad for myself, the sorrier I am for him. I never knew the game to act so funny, and I don’t know what ails it. Do you?”

But Mrs. Carew, with a despairing gesture, merely turned away without a word.

It was the day after Christmas that something so wonderful happened that Pollyanna, for a time, almost forgot Jamie. Mrs. Carew had taken her shopping, and it was while Mrs. Carew was trying to decide between a duchesse-lace and a point-lace collar, that Pollyanna chanced to spy farther down the counter a face that looked vaguely familiar. For a moment she regarded it frowningly; then, with a little cry, she ran down the aisle.

“Oh, it’s you – it IS you!” she exclaimed joyously to a girl who was putting into the show case a tray of pink bows. “I’m so glad to see you!”

The girl behind the counter lifted her head and stared at Pollyanna in amazement. But almost immediately her dark, somber face lighted with a smile of glad recognition.

“Well, well, if it isn’t my little Public Garden kiddie!” she ejaculated.

“Yes. I’m so glad you remembered,” beamed Pollyanna. “But you never came again. I looked for you lots of times.”

“I couldn’t. I had to work. That was our last half-holiday, and – Fifty cents, madam,” she broke off, in answer to a sweet-faced old lady’s question as to the price of a black-and-white bow on the counter.

“Fifty cents? Hm-m!” The old lady fingered the bow, hesitated, then laid it down with a sigh. “Hm, yes; well, it’s very pretty, I’m sure, my dear,” she said, as she passed on.

Immediately behind her came two bright-faced girls who, with much giggling and bantering, picked out a jeweled creation of scarlet velvet, and a fairy-like structure of tulle and pink buds. As the girls turned chattering away Pollyanna drew an ecstatic sigh.

“Is this what you do all day? My, how glad you must be you chose this!”

“GLAD!”

“Yes. It must be such fun – such lots of folks, you know, and all different! And you can talk to ’em. You HAVE to talk to ’em – it’s your business. I should love that. I think I’ll do this when I grow up. It must be such fun to see what they all buy!”

“Fun! Glad!” bristled the girl behind the counter. “Well, child, I guess if you knew half – That’s a dollar, madam,” she interrupted herself hastily, in answer to a young woman’s sharp question as to the price of a flaring yellow bow of beaded velvet in the show case.

“Well, I should think ’twas time you told me [71] twas time you told me – ( ирон. ) наконец-то вы ответили ,” snapped the young woman. “I had to ask you twice.”

The girl behind the counter bit her lip.

“I didn’t hear you, madam.”

“I can’t help that. It is your business TO hear. You are paid for it, aren’t you? How much is that black one?”

“Fifty cents.”

“And that blue one?”

“One dollar.”