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Page 42
"How do you do, Ladies' Aiders?" she faltered politely. "I'm
Pollyanna Whittier. I--I reckon some of you know me, maybe;
anyway, I do YOU--only I don't know you all together this way."
The silence could almost be felt now. Some of the ladies did know
this rather extraordinary niece of their fellow-member, and
nearly all had heard of her; but not one of them could think of
anything to say, just then.
"I--I've come to--to lay the case before you," stammered
Pollyanna, after a moment, unconsciously falling into her
father's familiar phraseology.
There was a slight rustle.
"Did--did your aunt send you, my dear?" asked Mrs. Ford, the
minister's wife.
Pollyanna colored a little.
"Oh, no. I came all by myself. You see, I'm used to Ladies'
Aiders. It was Ladies' Aiders that brought me up--with father."
Somebody tittered hysterically, and the minister's wife frowned.
"Yes, dear. What is it?"
"Well, it--it's Jimmy Bean," sighed Pollyanna. "He hasn't any
home except the Orphan one, and they're full, and don't want him,
anyhow, he thinks; so he wants another. He wants one of the
common kind, that has a mother instead of a Matron in it--folks,
you know, that'll care. He's ten years old going on eleven. I
thought some of you might like him--to live with you, you know."
"Well, did you ever!" murmured a voice, breaking the dazed pause
that followed Pollyanna's words.
With anxious eyes Pollyanna swept the circle of faces about her.
"Oh, I forgot to say; he will work," she supplemented eagerly.
Still there was silence; then, coldly, one or two women began to
question her. After a time they all had the story and began to
talk among themselves, animatedly, not quite pleasantly.
Pollyanna listened with growing anxiety. Some of what was said
she could not understand. She did gather, after a time, however,
that there was no woman there who had a home to give him, though
every woman seemed to think that some of the others might take
him, as there were several who had no little boys of their own
already in their homes. But there was no one who agreed herself
to take him. Then she heard the minister's wife suggest timidly
that they, as a society, might perhaps assume his support and
education instead of sending quite so much money this year to the
little boys in far-away India.
A great many ladies talked then, and several of them talked all
at once, and even more loudly and more unpleasantly than before.
It seemed that their society was famous for its offering to Hindu
missions, and several said they should die of mortification if it
should be less this year. Some of what was said at this time
Pollyanna again thought she could not have understood, too, for
it sounded almost as if they did not care at all what the money
DID, so long as the sum opposite the name of their society in a
certain "report" "headed the list"--and of course that could not
be what they meant at all! But it was all very confusing, and not
quite pleasant, so that Pollyanna was glad, indeed, when at last
she found herself outside in the hushed, sweet air--only she was
very sorry, too: for she knew it was not going to be easy, or
anything but sad, to tell Jimmy Bean to-morrow that the Ladies'
Aid had decided that they would rather send all their money to
bring up the little India boys than to save out enough to bring
up one little boy in their own town, for which they would not get
"a bit of credit in the report," according to the tall lady who
wore spectacles.
"Not but that it's good, of course, to send money to the heathen,
and I shouldn't want 'em not to send SOME there," sighed
Pollyanna to herself, as she trudged sorrowfully along. "But they
acted as if little boys HERE weren't any account--only little
boys 'way off. I should THINK, though, they'd rather see Jimmy
Bean grow--than just a report!"
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