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

“But what did you mean?” she nervously asked Sadie Dean one evening; “what did you mean that first day in the store – what you said – about helping the girls?”

Sadie Dean colored distressfully.

“I’m afraid I was rude,” she apologized.

“Never mind that. [77] Never mind that. – ( разг. ) Ничего страшного; забудем об этом. Tell me what you meant. I’ve thought of it so many times since.”

For a moment the girl was silent; then, a little bitterly she said:

“’twas because I knew a girl once, and I was thinkin’ of her. She came from my town, and she was pretty and good, but she wa’n’t over strong. For a year we pulled together, sharin’ the same room, boiling our eggs over the same gas-jet, and eatin’ our hash and fish balls for supper at the same cheap restaurant. There was never anything to do evenin’s but to walk in the Common, or go to the movies, if we had the dime to blow in, or just stay in our room. Well, our room wasn’t very pleasant. It was hot in summer, and cold in winter, and the gas-jet was so measly and so flickery that we couldn’t sew or read, even if we hadn’t been too fagged out to do either – which we ’most generally was. Besides, over our heads was a squeaky board that some one was always rockin’ on, and under us was a feller that was learnin’ to play the cornet. Did you ever hear any one learn to play the cornet?”

“N-no, I don’t think so,” murmured Mrs. Carew.

“Well, you’ve missed a lot,” said the girl, dryly. Then, after a moment, she resumed her story.

“Sometimes, ’specially at Christmas and holidays, we used to walk up here on the Avenue, and other streets, huntin’ for windows where the curtains were up, and we could look in. You see, we were pretty lonesome, them days ’specially, and we said it did us good to see homes with folks, and lamps on the center-tables, and children playin’ games; but we both of us knew that really it only made us feel worse than ever, because we were so hopelessly out of it all. ’twas even harder to see the automobiles, and the gay young folks in them, laughing and chatting. You see, we were young, and I suspect we wanted to laugh and chatter. We wanted a good time, too; and, by and by – my chum began to have it – this good time.

“Well, to make a long story short, we broke partnership one day, and she went her way, and I mine. I didn’t like the company she was keepin’, and I said so. She wouldn’t give ’em up, so we quit. I didn’t see her again for ’most two years, then I got a note from her, and I went. This was just last month. She was in one of them rescue homes. It was a lovely place; soft rugs, fine pictures, plants, flowers, and books, a piano, a beautiful room, and everything possible done for her. Rich women came in their automobiles and carriages to take her driving, and she was taken to concerts and matinées . She was learni n’ stenography, and they were going to help her to a position just as soon as she could take it. Everybody was wonderfully good to her, she said, and showed they wanted to help her in every way. But she said something else, too. She said:

“‘Sadie, if they’d taken one half the pains to show me they cared and wanted to help long ago when I was an honest, self-respectin’, hard-workin’ homesick girl – I wouldn’t have been here for them to help now.’ And – well, I never forgot it. That’s all. It ain’t that I’m objectin’ to the rescue work – it’s a fine thing, and they ought to do it. Only I’m thinkin’ there wouldn’t be quite so much of it for them to do – if they’d just show a little of their interest earlier in the game [78] earlier in the game – ( разг. ) чуть раньше .”

“But I thought – there were working-girls’ homes, and – and settlement-houses that – that did that sort of thing,” faltered Mrs. Carew in a voice that few of her friends would have recognized.

“There are. Did you ever see the inside of one of them?”

“Why, n-no; though I – I have given money to them.” This time Mrs. Carew’s voice was almost apologetically pleading in tone.

Sadie Dean smiled curiously.

“Yes, I know. There are lots of good women that have given money to them – and have never seen the inside of one of them. Please don’t understand that I’m sayin’ anythin’ against the homes. I’m not. They’re good things. They’re almost the only thing that’s doing anything to help; but they’re only a drop in the bucket to what is really needed. I tried one once; but there was an air about it – somehow I felt – But there, what’s the use? Probably they aren’t all like that one, and maybe the fault was with me [79] maybe the fault was with me – ( разг. ) может, дело было во мне . If I should try to tell you, you wouldn’t understand. You’d have to live in it – and you haven’t even seen the inside of one. But I can’t help wonderin’ sometimes why so many of those good women never seem to put the real HEART and INTEREST into the preventin’ that they do into the rescuin’. But there! I didn’t mean to talk such a lot. But – you asked me.”

“Yes, I asked you,” said Mrs. Carew in a half-stifled voice, as she turned away.

Not only from Sadie Dean, however, was Mrs. Carew learning things never learned before, but from Jamie, also.

Jamie was there a great deal. Pollyanna liked to have him there, and he liked to be there. At first, to be sure, he had hesitated; but very soon he had quieted his doubts and yielded to his longings by telling himself (and Pollyanna) that, after all, visiting was not “staying for keeps.”

Mrs. Carew often found the boy and Pollyanna contentedly settled on the library window-seat, with the empty wheel-chair close by. Sometimes they were poring over a book. (She heard Jamie tell Pollyanna one day that he didn’t think he’d mind so very much being lame if he had so many books as Mrs. Carew, and that he guessed he’d be so happy he’d fly clean away if he had both books and legs.) Sometimes the boy was telling stories, and Pollyanna was listening, wide-eyed and absorbed.

Mrs. Carew wondered at Pollyanna’s interest – until one day she herself stopped and listened. After that she wondered no longer – but she listened a good deal longer. Crude and incorrect as was much of the boy’s language, it was always wonderfully vivid and picturesque, so that Mrs. Carew found herself, hand in hand with Pollyanna, trailing down the Golden Ages at the beck of a glowing-eyed boy.

Dimly Mrs. Carew was beginning to realize, too, something of what it must mean, to be in spirit and ambition the center of brave deeds and wonderful adventures, while in reality one was only a crippled boy in a wheel-chair. But what Mrs. Carew did not realize was the part this crippled boy was beginning to play in her own life. She did not realize how much a matter of course his presence was becoming [80] how much a matter of course his presence was becoming – ( разг. ) насколько естественным (само собой разумеющимся) становилось его присутствие в доме , nor how interested she now was in finding something new “for Jamie to see.” Neither did she realize how day by day he was coming to seem to her more and more the lost Jamie, her dead sister’s child.

As February, March, and April passed, however, and May came, bringing with it the near approach of the date set for Pollyanna’s home-going, Mrs. Carew did suddenly awake to the knowledge of what that home-going was to mean to her.

She was amazed and appalled. Up to now she had, in belief, looked forward with pleasure to the departure of Pollyanna. She had said that then once again the house would be quiet, with the glaring sun shut out. Once again she would be at peace, and able to hide herself away from the annoying, tiresome world. Once again she would be free to summon to her aching consciousness all those dear memories of the lost little lad who had so long ago stepped into that vast unknown and closed the door behind him. All this she had believed would be the case when Pollyanna should go home.