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

“And is that your chief desire now?”

“N-no, maybe not,” hesitated Pollyanna. “But I still think I’d like them. Besides, my eyelashes aren’t long enough, and my nose isn’t Grecian, or Roman, or any of those delightfully desirable ones that belong to a ‘type.’ It’s just NOSE. And my face is too long, or too short, I’ve forgotten which; but I measured it once with one of those ‘correct-for-beauty’ tests, and it wasn’t right, anyhow. And they said the width of the face should be equal to five eyes, and the width of the eyes equal to – to something else. I’ve forgotten that, too – only that mine wasn’t.”

“What a lugubrious picture!” laughed Pendleton. Then, with his gaze admiringly regarding the girl’s animated face and expressive eyes, he asked:

“Did you ever look in the mirror when you were talking, Pollyanna?”

“Why, no, of course not!”

“Well, you’d better try it sometime.”

“What a funny idea! Imagine my doing it,” laughed the girl. “What shall I say? Like this? ‘Now, you, Pollyanna, what if your eyelashes aren’t long, and your nose is just a nose, be glad you’ve got SOME eyelashes and SOME nose!’”

Pendleton joined in her laugh, but an odd expression came to his face.

“Then you still play – the game,” he said, a little diffidently.

Pollyanna turned soft eyes of wonder full upon him.

“Why, of course! Why, Jimmy, I don’t believe I could have lived – the last six months – if it hadn’t been for that blessed game.” Her voice shook a little.

“I haven’t heard you say much about it,” he commented.

She changed color.

“I know. I think I’m afraid – of saying too much – to outsiders, who don’t care, you know. It wouldn’t sound quite the same from me now, at twenty, as it did when I was ten. I realize that, of course. Folks don’t like to be preached at, you know,” she finished with a whimsical smile.

“I know,” nodded the young fellow gravely. “But I wonder sometimes, Pollyanna, if you really understand yourself what that game is, and what it has done for those who are playing it.”

“I know – what it has done for myself.” Her voice was low, and her eyes were turned away.

“You see, it really WORKS, if you play it,” he mused aloud, after a short silence. “Somebody said once that it would revolutionize the world if everybody would really play it. And I believe it would.”

“Yes; but some folks don’t want to be revolutionized,” smiled Pollyanna. “I ran across a man in Germany last year. He had lost his money, and was in hard luck generally [101] and was in hard luck generally – ( разг. ) и вообще ему ужасно не везло . Dear, dear, but he was gloomy! Somebody in my presence tried to cheer him up one day by saying, ‘Come, come, things might be worse, you know!’ Dear, dear, but you should have heard that man then!

“‘If there is anything on earth that makes me mad clear through,’ he snarled, ‘it is to be told that things might be worse, and to be thankful for what I’ve got left. These people who go around with an everlasting grin on their faces caroling forth that they are thankful that they can breathe, or eat, or walk, or lie down, I have no use for. I don’t WANT to breathe, or eat, or walk, or lie down – if things are as they are now with me. And when I’m told that I ought to be thankful for some such tommyrot as that, it makes me just want to go out and shoot somebody!’”

“Imagine what I’d have gotten if I’d have introduced the ‘glad game’ to that man!” laughed Pollyanna.

“I don’t care. He needed it,” answered Jimmy.

“Of course he did – but he wouldn’t have thanked me for giving it to him.”

“I suppose not. But, listen! As he was, under his present philosophy and scheme of living, he made himself and everybody else wretched, didn’t he? Well, just suppose he was playing the game. While he was trying to hunt up something to be glad about in everything that had happened to him, he COULDN’t be at the same time grumbling and growling about how bad things were; so that much would be gained. He’d be a whole lot easier to live with, both for himself and for his friends. Meanwhile, just thinking of the doughnut instead of the hole [102] thinking of the doughnut instead of the hole – ( разг. ) думать о бублике, а не о дырке от него couldn’t make things any worse for him, and it might make things better; for it wouldn’t give him such a gone feeling in the pit of his stomach, and his digestion would be better. I tell you, troubles are poor things to hug. They’ve got too many prickers.”

Pollyanna smiled appreciatively.

“That makes me think of what I told a poor old lady once. She was one of my Ladies’ Aiders out West, and was one of the kind of people that really ENJOYS being miserable and telling over her causes for unhappiness. I was perhaps ten years old, and was trying to teach her the game. I reckon I wasn’t having very good success, and evidently I at last dimly realized the reason, for I said to her triumphantly: ‘Well, anyhow, you can be glad you’ve got such a lot of things to make you miserable, for you love to be miserable so well!’”

“Well, if that wasn’t a good one on her,” chuckled Jimmy.

Pollyanna raised her eyebrows.

“I’m afraid she didn’t enjoy it any more than the man in Germany would have if I’d told him the same thing.”

“But they ought to be told, and you ought to tell —” Pendleton stopped short with so queer an expression on his face that Pollyanna looked at him in surprise.

“Why, Jimmy, what is it?”

“Oh, nothing. I was only thinking,” he answered, puckering his lips. “Here I am urging you to do the very thing I was afraid you WOULD do before I saw you, you know. That is, I was afraid before I saw you, that – that —” He floundered into a helpless pause, looking very red indeed.

“Well, Jimmy Pendleton,” bridled the girl, “you needn’t think you can stop there, sir. Now just what do you mean by all that, please?”

“Oh, er – n-nothing, much.”

“I’m waiting,” murmured Pollyanna. Voice and manner were calm and confident, though the eyes twinkled mischievously.

The young fellow hesitated, glanced at her smiling face, and capitulated.

“Oh, well, have it your own way [103] have it your own way – ( разг. ) будь по-твоему ,” he shrugged. “It’s only that I was worrying – a little – about that game, for fear you WOULD talk it just as you used to, you know, and —” But a merry peal of laughter interrupted him.

“There, what did I tell you? Even you were worried, it seems, lest I should be at twenty just what I was at ten!”

“N-no, I didn’t mean – Pollyanna, honestly, I thought – of course I knew – ” But Pollyanna only put her hands to her ears and went off into another peal of laughter.

It was toward the latter part of June that the letter came to Pollyanna from Della Wetherby.

“I am writing to ask you a favor,” Miss Wetherby wrote. “I am hoping you can tell me of some quiet private family in Beldingsville that will be willing to take my sister to board for the summer. There would be three of them, Mrs. Carew, her secretary, and her adopted son, Jamie. (You remember Jamie, don’t you?) They do not like to go to an ordinary hotel or boarding-house. My sister is very tired, and the doctor has advised her to go into the country for a complete rest and change. He suggested Vermont or New Hampshire. We immediately thought of Beldingsville and you; and we wondered if you couldn’t recommend just the right place to us. I told Ruth I would write you. They would like to go right away, early in July, if possible. Would it be asking too much to request you to let us know as soon as you conveniently can if you do know of a place? Please address me here. My sister is with us here at the Sanatorium for a few weeks’ treatment.