Pollyanna Crows up / Поллианна вырастает. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Pollyanna’s face fell.

“But in Boston I won’t have Jimmy, or Mr. Pendleton, or Mrs. Snow, or anybody that I know, Aunt Polly.”

“No, dear; but you didn’t have them when you came here – till you found them.”

Pollyanna gave a sudden smile.

“Why, Aunt Polly, so I didn’t! And that means that down to Boston there are some Jimmys and Mr. Pendletons and Mrs. Snows waiting for me that I don’t know, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Then I can be glad of that. I believe now, Aunt Polly, you know how to play the game better than I do. I never thought of the folks down there waiting for me to know them. And there’s such a lot of ’em, too! I saw some of them when I was there two years ago with Mrs. Gray. We were there two whole hours, you know, on my way here from out West.

“There was a man in the station – a perfectly lovely man who told me where to get a drink of water. Do you suppose he’s there now? I’d like to know him. And there was a nice lady with a little girl. They live in Boston. They said they did. The little girl’s name was Susie Smith. Perhaps I could get to know them. Do you suppose I could? And there was a boy, and another lady with a baby – only they lived in Honolulu, so probably I couldn’t find them there now. But there’d be Mrs. Carew, anyway. Who is Mrs. Carew, Aunt Polly? Is she a relation?”

“Dear me, Pollyanna!” exclaimed Mrs. Chilton, half-laughingly, half-despairingly. “How do you expect anybody to keep up with your tongue, much less your thoughts[15 - much less your thoughts – (разг.) а уж тем более за твоими мыслями], when they skip to Honolulu and back again in two seconds! No, Mrs. Carew isn’t any relation to us. She’s Miss Della Wetherby’s sister. Do you remember Miss Wetherby at the Sanatorium?”

Pollyanna clapped her hands.

“HER sister? Miss Wetherby’s sister? Oh, then she’ll be lovely, I know. Miss Wetherby was. I loved Miss Wetherby. She had little smile-wrinkles all around her eyes and mouth, and she knew the NICEST stories. I only had her two months, though, because she only got there a little while before I came away. At first I was sorry that I hadn’t had her ALL the time, but afterwards I was glad; for you see if I HAD had her all the time, it would have been harder to say good-by than ’twas when I’d only had her a little while. And now it’ll seem as if I had her again, ’cause I’m going to have her sister.”

Mrs. Chilton drew in her breath and bit her lip.

“But, Pollyanna, dear, you must not expect that they’ll be quite alike,” she ventured.

“Why, they’re SISTERS, Aunt Polly,” argued the little girl, her eyes widening; “and I thought sisters were always alike. We had two sets of ’em in the Ladies’ Aiders. One set was twins, and THEY were so alike you couldn’t tell which was Mrs. Peck and which was Mrs. Jones, until a wart grew on Mrs. Jones’s nose, then of course we could, because we looked for the wart the first thing. And that’s what I told her one day when she was complaining that people called her Mrs. Peck, and I said if they’d only look for the wart as I did, they’d know right off. But she acted real cross – I mean displeased, and I’m afraid she didn’t like it – though I don’t see why; for I should have thought she’d been glad there was something they could be told apart by, ’specially as she was the president, and didn’t like it when folks didn’t ACT as if she was the president – best seats and introductions and special attentions at church suppers, you know. But she didn’t, and afterwards I heard Mrs. White tell Mrs. Rawson that Mrs. Jones had done everything she could think of to get rid of that wart, even to trying to put salt on a bird’s tail. But I don’t see how THAT could do any good. Aunt Polly, DOES putting salt on a bird’s tail help the warts on people’s noses?”

“Of course not, child! How you do run on, Pollyanna, especially if you get started on those Ladies’ Aiders!”

“Do I, Aunt Polly?” asked the little girl, ruefully. “And does it plague you? I don’t mean to plague you, honestly, Aunt Polly. And, anyway, if I do plague you about those Ladies’ Aiders, you can be kind o’ glad, for if I’m thinking of the Aiders, I’m sure to be thinking how glad I am that I don’t belong to them any longer, but have got an aunt all my own. You can be glad of that, can’t you, Aunt Polly?”

“Yes, yes, dear, of course I can, of course I can,” laughed Mrs. Chilton, rising to leave the room, and feeling suddenly very guilty that she was conscious sometimes of a little of her old irritation against Pollyanna’s perpetual gladness.

During the next few days, while letters concerning Pollyanna’s winter stay in Boston were flying back and forth, Pollyanna herself was preparing for that stay by a series of farewell visits to her Beldingsville friends.

Everybody in the little Vermont village knew Pollyanna now, and almost everybody was playing the game with her. The few who were not, were not refraining because of ignorance of what the “glad game” was. So to one house after another Pollyanna carried the news now that she was going down to Boston to spend the winter; and loudly rose the clamor of regret and remonstrance, all the way from Nancy in Aunt Polly’s own kitchen to the great house on the hill where lived John Pendleton.

Nancy did not hesitate to say – to every one except her mistress – that SHE considered this Boston trip all foolishness, and that for her part she would have been glad to take Miss Pollyanna home with her to the Corners, she would, she would; and then Mrs. Polly could have gone to Germany all she wanted to[16 - all she wanted to – (разг.) раз ей так хочется].

On the hill John Pendleton said practically the same thing, only he did not hesitate to say it to Mrs. Chilton herself. As for Jimmy, the twelve-year-old boy whom John Pendleton had taken into his home because Pollyanna wanted him to, and whom he had now adopted – because he wanted to himself – as for Jimmy, Jimmy was indignant, and he was not slow to show it.

“But you’ve just come,” he reproached Pollyanna, in the tone of voice a small boy is apt to use when he wants to hide the fact that he has a heart.

“Why, I’ve been here ever since the last of March. Besides, it isn’t as if I was going to stay. It’s only for this winter.”

“I don’t care. You’ve just been away for a whole year, ’most, and if I’d s’posed you was going away again right off, the first thing, I wouldn’t have helped one mite to meet you with flags and bands and things, that day you come from the Sanatorium.”

“Why, Jimmy Bean!” ejaculated Pollyanna, in amazed disapproval. Then, with a touch of superiority born of hurt pride, she observed: “I’m sure I didn’t ASK you to meet me with bands and things – and you made two mistakes in that sentence. You shouldn’t say ‘you was’; and I think ‘you come’ is wrong. It doesn’t sound right, anyway.”

“Well, who cares if I did?”

Pollyanna’s eyes grew still more disapproving.

“You SAID you did – when you asked me this summer to tell you when you said things wrong, because Mr. Pendleton was trying to make you talk right.”

“Well, if you’d been brought up in a ’sylum without any folks that cared, instead of by a whole lot of old women who didn’t have anything to do but tell you how to talk right, maybe you’d say ‘you was,’ and a whole lot more worse things, Pollyanna Whittier!”

“Why, Jimmy Bean!” flared Pollyanna. “My Ladies’ Aiders weren’t old women – that is, not many of them, so very old,” she corrected hastily, her usual proclivity for truth and literalness superseding her anger; “and —”

“Well, I’m not Jimmy Bean, either,” interrupted the boy, uptilting his chin.

“You’re – not – Why, Jimmy Be – — What do you mean?” demanded the little girl.

“I’ve been adopted, LEGALLY. He’s been intending to do it, all along, he says, only he didn’t get to it. Now he’s done it. I’m to be called ‘Jimmy Pendleton’ and I’m to call him Uncle John, only I ain’t – are not – I mean, I AM not used to it yet, so I hain’t – haven’t begun to call him that, much.”

The boy still spoke crossly, aggrievedly, but every trace of displeasure had fled from the little girl’s face at his words. She clapped her hands joyfully.

“Oh, how splendid! Now you’ve really got FOLKS – folks that care, you know. And you won’t ever have to explain that he wasn’t BORN your folks, ’cause your name’s the same now. I’m so glad, GLAD, GLAD!”

The boy got up suddenly from the stone wall where they had been sitting, and walked off. His cheeks felt hot, and his eyes smarted with tears. It was to Pollyanna that he owed it all – this great good that had come to him; and he knew it. And it was to Pollyanna that he had just now been saying —

He kicked a small stone fiercely, then another, and another. He thought those hot tears in his eyes were going to spill over and roll down his cheeks in spite of himself. He kicked another stone, then another; then he picked up a third stone and threw it with all his might. A minute later he strolled back to Pollyanna still sitting on the stone wall.

“I bet you I can hit that pine-tree down there before you can,” he challenged airily.

“Bet you can’t,” cried Pollyanna, scrambling down from her perch.

The race was not run after all, for Pollyanna remembered just in time that running fast was yet one of the forbidden luxuries for her. But so far as Jimmy was concerned, it did not matter. His cheeks were no longer hot, his eyes were not threatening to overflow with tears. Jimmy was himself again.

Chapter III

A Dose of Pollyanna

As the eighth of September approached – the day Pollyanna was to arrive – Mrs. Ruth Carew became more and more nervously exasperated with herself. She declared that she had regretted just ONCE her promise to take the child – and that was ever since she had given it. Before twenty-four hours had passed she had, indeed, written to her sister demanding that she be released from the agreement; but Della had answered that it was quite too late, as already both she and Dr. Ames had written the Chiltons.

Soon after that had come Della’s letter saying that Mrs. Chilton had given her consent, and would in a few days come to Boston to make arrangements as to school, and the like. So there was nothing to be done, naturally, but to let matters take their course. Mrs. Carew realized that, and submitted to the inevitable, but with poor grace[17 - but with poor grace – (разг.) но неохотно]. True, she tried to be decently civil when Della and Mrs. Chilton made their expected appearance; but she was very glad that limited time made Mrs. Chilton’s stay of very short duration, and full to the brim of business.

It was well, indeed, perhaps, that Pollyanna’s arrival was to be at a date no later than the eighth; for time, instead of reconciling Mrs. Carew to the prospective new member of her household, was filling her with angry impatience at what she was pleased to call her “absurd yielding to Della’s crazy scheme.”

Nor was Della herself in the least unaware of her sister’s state of mind. If outwardly she maintained a bold front, inwardly she was very fearful as to results; but on Pollyanna she was pinning her faith, and because she did pin her faith on Pollyanna, she determined on the bold stroke of leaving the little girl to begin her fight entirely unaided and alone. She contrived, therefore, that Mrs. Carew should meet them at the station upon their arrival; then, as soon as greetings and introductions were over, she hurriedly pleaded a previous engagement and took herself off. Mrs. Carew, therefore, had scarcely time to look at her new charge before she found herself alone with the child.

“Oh, but Della, Della, you mustn’t – I can’t —” she called agitatedly, after the retreating figure of the nurse.

But Della, if she heard, did not heed; and, plainly annoyed and vexed, Mrs. Carew turned back to the child at her side.

“What a shame! She didn’t hear, did she?” Pollyanna was saying, her eyes, also, wistfully following the nurse. “And I didn’t WANT her to go now a bit. But then, I’ve got you, haven’t I? I can be glad for that.”

“Oh, yes, you’ve got me – and I’ve got you,” returned the lady, not very graciously. “Come, we go this way,” she directed, with a motion toward the right.