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Page 34
"Your aunt is wanting you, Miss Pollyanna," she said with dreary
listlessness. "She telephoned down to the Harlows' across the
way. She says you're to hurry--that you've got some practising to
make up before dark."
Pollyanna rose reluctantly.
"All right," she sighed. "I'll hurry." Suddenly she laughed. "I
suppose I ought to be glad I've got legs to hurry with, hadn't I,
Mrs. Snow?"
There was no answer. Mrs. Snow's eyes were closed. But Milly,
whose eyes were wide open with surprise, saw that there were
tears on the wasted cheeks.
"Good-by," flung Pollyanna over her shoulder, as she reached the
door. "I'm awfully sorry about the hair--I wanted to do it. But
maybe I can next time!"
One by one the July days passed. To Pollyanna, they were happy
days, indeed. She often told her aunt, joyously, how very happy
they were. Whereupon her aunt would usually reply, wearily:
"Very well, Pollyanna. I am gratified, of course, that they are
happy; but I trust that they are profitable, as well--otherwise I
should have failed signally in my duty."
Generally Pollyanna would answer this with a hug and a kiss--a
proceeding that was still always most disconcerting to Miss
Polly; but one day she spoke. It was during the sewing hour.
"Do you mean that it wouldn't be enough then, Aunt Polly, that
they should be just happy days?" she asked wistfully.
"That is what I mean, Pollyanna."
"They must be pro-fi-ta-ble as well?"
"Certainly."
"What is being pro-fi-ta-ble?"
"Why, it--it's just being profitable--having profit, something to
show for it, Pollyanna. What an extraordinary child you are!"
"Then just being glad isn't pro-fi-ta-ble?" questioned Pollyanna,
a little anxiously.
"Certainly not."
"O dear! Then you wouldn't like it, of course. I'm afraid, now,
you won't ever play the game, Aunt Polly."
"Game? What game?"
"Why, that father--" Pollyanna clapped her hand to her lips.
"N-nothing," she stammered. Miss Polly frowned.
"That will do for this morning, Pollyanna," she said tersely. And
the sewing lesson was over.
It was that afternoon that Pollyanna, coming down from her attic
room, met her aunt on the stairway.
"Why, Aunt Polly, how perfectly lovely!" she cried. "You were
coming up to see me! Come right in. I love company," she
finished, scampering up the stairs and throwing her door wide
open.
Now Miss Polly had not been intending to call on her niece. She
had been planning to look for a certain white wool shawl in the
cedar chest near the east window. But to her unbounded surprise
now, she found herself, not in the main attic before the cedar
chest, but in Pollyanna's little room sitting in one of the
straight-backed chairs--so many, many times since Pollyanna came,
Miss Polly had found herself like this, doing some utterly
unexpected, surprising thing, quite unlike the thing she had set
out to do!
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