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Page 58
"Well, well, this will never do at all! I didn't send for you to
see me moping this time. Listen! Out in the library--the big room
where the telephone is, you know--you will find a carved box on
the lower shelf of the big case with glass doors in the corner
not far from the fireplace. That is, it'll be there if that
confounded woman hasn't 'regulated' it to somewhere else! You may
bring it to me. It is heavy, but not too heavy for you to carry,
I think."
"Oh, I'm awfully strong," declared Pollyanna, cheerfully, as she
sprang to her feet. In a minute she had returned with the box.
It was a wonderful half-hour that Pollyanna spent then. The box
was full of treasures--curios that John Pendleton had picked up
in years of travel--and concerning each there was some
entertaining story, whether it were a set of exquisitely carved
chessmen from China, or a little jade idol from India.
It was after she had heard the story about the idol that
Pollyanna murmured wistfully:
"Well, I suppose it WOULD be better to take a little boy in India
to bring up--one that didn't know any more than to think that God
was in that doll-thing--than it would be to take Jimmy Bean, a
little boy who knows God is up in the sky. Still, I can't help
wishing they had wanted Jimmy Bean, too, besides the India boys."
John Pendleton did not seem to hear. Again his, eyes were staring
straight before him, looking at nothing. But soon he had roused
himself, and had picked up another curio to talk about.
The visit, certainly, was a delightful one, but before it was
over, Pollyanna was realizing that they were talking about
something besides the wonderful things in the beautiful carved
box. They were talking of herself, of Nancy, of Aunt Polly, and
of her daily life. They were talking, too, even of the life and
home long ago in the far Western town.
Not until it was nearly time for her to go, did the man say, in a
voice Pollyanna had never before heard from stern John Pendleton:
"Little girl, I want you to come to see me often. Will you? I'm
lonesome, and I need you. There's another reason--and I'm going
to tell you that, too. I thought, at first, after I found out who
you were, the other day, that I didn't want you to come any more.
You reminded me of--of something I have tried for long years to
forget. So I said to myself that I never wanted to see you again;
and every day, when the doctor asked if I wouldn't let him bring
you to me, I said no.
"But after a time I found I was wanting to see you so much
that--that the fact that I WASN'T seeing you was making me
remember all the more vividly the thing I was so wanting to
forget. So now I want you to come. Will you--little girl?"
"Why, yes, Mr. Pendleton," breathed Pollyanna, her eyes luminous
with sympathy for the sad-faced man lying back on the pillow
before her. "I'd love to come!"
"Thank you," said John Pendleton, gently.
After supper that evening, Pollyanna, sitting on the back porch,
told Nancy all about Mr. John Pendleton's wonderful carved box,
and the still more wonderful things it contained.
"And ter think," sighed Nancy, "that he SHOWED ye all them
things, and told ye about 'em like that--him that's so cross he
never talks ter no one--no one!"
"Oh, but he isn't cross, Nancy, only outside," demurred
Pollyanna, with quick loyalty. "I don't see why everybody thinks
he's so bad, either. They wouldn't, if they knew him. But even
Aunt Polly doesn't like him very well. She wouldn't send the
jelly to him, you know, and she was so afraid he'd think she did
send it!"
"Probably she didn't call him no duty," shrugged Nancy. "But what
beats me is how he happened ter take ter you so, Miss
Pollyanna--meanin' no offence ter you, of course--but he ain't
the sort o' man what gen'rally takes ter kids; he ain't, he
ain't."
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