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Page 23
"Oh, Nancy, what a dreadful thing to say! Why?"
"Because it isn't pretty like the others. You see, I was the
first baby, and mother hadn't begun ter read so many stories with
the pretty names in 'em, then."
"But I love 'Nancy,' just because it's you," declared Pollyanna.
"Humph! Well, I guess you could love 'Clarissa Mabelle' just as
well," retorted Nancy, "and it would be a heap happier for me. I
think THAT name's just grand!"
Pollyanna laughed.
"Well, anyhow," she chuckled, "you can be glad it isn't
'Hephzibah.'"
"Hephzibah!"
"Yes. Mrs. White's name is that. Her husband calls her 'Hep,' and
she doesn't like it. She says when he calls out 'Hep--Hep!' she
feels just as if the next minute he was going to yell 'Hurrah!'
And she doesn't like to be hurrahed at."
Nancy's gloomy face relaxed into a broad smile.
"Well, if you don't beat the Dutch! Say, do you know?--I sha'n't
never hear 'Nancy' now that I don't think o' that 'Hep--Hep!' and
giggle. My, I guess I AM glad--" She stopped short and turned
amazed eyes on the little girl. "Say, Miss Pollyanna, do you
mean--was you playin' that 'ere game THEN--about my bein' glad I
wa'n't named Hephzibah'?"
Pollyanna frowned; then she laughed.
"Why, Nancy, that's so! I WAS playing the game--but that's one of
the times I just did it without thinking, I reckon. You see, you
DO, lots of times; you get so used to it--looking for something
to be glad about, you know. And most generally there is something
about everything that you can be glad about, if you keep hunting
long enough to find it."
"Well, m-maybe," granted Nancy, with open doubt.
At half-past eight Pollyanna went up to bed. The screens had not
yet come, and the close little room was like an oven. With
longing eyes Pollyanna looked at the two fast-closed windows--but
she did not raise them. She undressed, folded her clothes neatly,
said her prayers, blew out her candle and climbed into bed.
Just how long she lay in sleepless misery, tossing from side to
side of the hot little cot, she did not know; but it seemed to
her that it must have been hours before she finally slipped out
of bed, felt her way across the room and opened her door.
Out in the main attic all was velvet blackness save where the
moon flung a path of silver half-way across the floor from the
east dormer window. With a resolute ignoring of that fearsome
darkness to the right and to the left, Pollyanna drew a quick
breath and pattered straight into that silvery path, and on to
the window.
She had hoped, vaguely, that this window might have a screen, but
it did not. Outside, however, there was a wide world of
fairy-like beauty, and there was, too, she knew, fresh, sweet air
that would feel so good to hot cheeks and hands!
As she stepped nearer and peered longingly out, she saw something
else: she saw, only a little way below the window, the wide, flat
tin roof of Miss Polly's sun parlor built over the porte-cochere.
The sight filled her with longing. If only, now, she were out
there!
Fearfully she looked behind her. Back there, somewhere, were her
hot little room and her still hotter bed; but between her and
them lay a horrid desert of blackness across which one must feel
one's way with outstretched, shrinking arms; while before her,
out on the sun-parlor roof, were the moonlight and the cool,
sweet night air.
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