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Page 41
"All right. I'll be there." The boy paused before he went on
slowly: "Maybe I'd better go back, then, for ter-night, ter the
Home. You see I hain't no other place ter stay; and--and I didn't
leave till this mornin'. I slipped out. I didn't tell 'em I
wasn't comin' back, else they'd pretend I couldn't come--though
I'm thinkin' they won't do no worryin' when I don't show up
sometime. They ain't like FOLKS, ye know. They don't CARE!"
"I know," nodded Pollyanna, with understanding eyes. "But I'm
sure, when I see you to-morrow, I'll have just a common home and
folks that do care all ready for you. Good-by!" she called
brightly, as she turned back toward the house.
In the sitting-room window at that moment, Miss Polly, who had
been watching the two children, followed with sombre eyes the boy
until a bend of the road hid him from sight. Then she sighed,
turned, and walked listlesly up-stairs--and Miss Polly did not
usually move listlessly. In her ears still was the boy's scornful
"you was so good and kind." In her heart was a curious sense of
desolation--as of something lost.
CHAPTER XII. BEFORE THE LADIES' AID
Dinner, which came at noon in the Harrington homestead, was a
silent meal on the day of the Ladies' Aid meeting. Pollyanna, it
is true, tried to talk; but she did not make a success of it,
chiefly because four times she was obliged to break off a "glad"
in the middle of it, much to her blushing discomfort. The fifth
time it happened, Miss Polly moved her head wearily.
"There, there, child, say it, if you want to," she sighed. "I'm
sure I'd rather you did than not if it's going to make all this
fuss."
Pollyanna's puckered little face cleared.
"Oh, thank you. I'm afraid it would be pretty hard--not to say
it. You see I've played it so long."
"You've--what?" demanded Aunt Polly.
"Played it--the game, you know, that father--" Pollyanna stopped
with a painful blush at finding herself so soon again on
forbidden ground.
Aunt Polly frowned and said nothing. The rest of the meal was a
silent one.
Pollyanna was not sorry to hear Aunt Polly tell the minister's
wife over the telephone, a little later, that she would not be at
the Ladies' Aid meeting that afternoon, owing to a headache. When
Aunt Polly went up-stairs to her room and closed the door,
Pollyanna tried to be sorry for the headache; but she could not
help feeling glad that her aunt was not to be present that
afternoon when she laid the case of Jimmy Bean before the Ladies'
Aid. She could not forget that Aunt Polly had called Jimmy Bean a
little beggar; and she did not want Aunt Polly to call him
that--before the Ladies' Aid.
Pollyanna knew that the Ladies' Aid met at two o'clock in the
chapel next the church, not quite half a mile from home. She
planned her going, therefore, so that she should get there a
little before three.
"I want them all to be there," she said to herself; "else the
very one that wasn't there might be the one who would be wanting
to give Jimmy Bean a home; and, of course, two o'clock always
means three, really--to Ladies' Aiders."
Quietly, but with confident courage, Pollyanna ascended the
chapel steps, pushed open the door and entered the vestibule. A
soft babel of feminine chatter and laughter came from the main
room. Hesitating only a brief moment Pollyanna pushed open one of
the inner doors.
The chatter dropped to a surprised hush. Pollyanna advanced a
little timidly. Now that the time had come, she felt unwontedly
shy. After all, these half-strange, half-familiar faces about her
were not her own dear Ladies' Aid.
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