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Page 72
"Oh, oh, Mr. Ford! You--YOU haven't broken YOUR leg or--or
anything, have you?" she gasped.
The minister dropped his hands, and looked up quickly. He tried
to smile.
"No, dear--no, indeed! I'm just--resting."
"Oh," sighed Pollyanna, falling back a little. "That's all right,
then. You see, Mr. Pendleton HAD broken his leg when I found
him--but he was lying down, though. And you are sitting up."
"Yes, I am sitting up; and I haven't broken anything--that
doctors can mend."
The last words were very low, but Pollyanna heard them. A swift
change crossed her face. Her eyes glowed with tender sympathy.
"I know what you mean--something plagues you. Father used to feel
like that, lots of times. I reckon ministers do--most generally.
You see there's such a lot depends on 'em, somehow."
The Rev. Paul Ford turned a little wonderingly.
"Was YOUR father a minister, Pollyanna?"
"Yes, sir. Didn't you know? I supposed everybody knew that. He
married Aunt Polly's sister, and she was my mother."
"Oh, I understand. But, you see, I haven't been here many years,
so I don't know all the family histories."
"Yes, sir--I mean, no, sir," smiled Pollyanna.
There was a long pause. The minister, still sitting at the foot
of the tree, appeared to have forgotten Pollyanna's presence. He
had pulled some papers from his pocket and unfolded them; but he
was not looking at them. He was gazing, instead, at a leaf on the
ground a little distance away--and it was not even a pretty leaf.
It was brown and dead. Pollyanna, looking at him, felt vaguely
sorry for him.
"It--it's a nice day," she began hopefully.
For a moment there was no answer; then the minister looked up
with a start.
"What? Oh!--yes, it is a very nice day."
"And 'tisn't cold at all, either, even if 'tis October," observed
Pollyanna, still more hopefully. "Mr. Pendleton had a fire, but
he said he didn't need it. It was just to look at. I like to look
at fires, don't you?"
There was no reply this time, though Pollyanna waited patiently,
before she tried again--by a new route.
"Do You like being a minister?"
The Rev. Paul Ford looked up now, very quickly.
"Do I like--Why, what an odd question! Why do you ask that, my
dear?"
"Nothing--only the way you looked. It made me think of my father.
He used to look like that--sometimes."
"Did he?" The minister's voice was polite, but his eyes had gone
back to the dried leaf on the ground.
"Yes, and I used to ask him just as I did you if he was glad he
was a minister."
The man under the tree smiled a little sadly.
"Well--what did he say?"
"Oh, he always said he was, of course, but 'most always he said,
too, that he wouldn't STAY a minister a minute if 'twasn't for
the rejoicing texts."
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