MISS POLLY (Pollyanna)

01CHAPTER I.

02Miss Polly Harrington entered her kitchen a little hurriedly this June morning.

03Miss Polly did not usually make hurried movements.

04She specially prided herself on her repose of manner.

05But today she was hurrying, actually hurrying.

06Nancy, washing dishes at the sink, looked up in surprise.

07Nancy had been working in Miss Polly's kitchen only two months, but already she knew that her mistress did not usually hurry.

08Nancy?

09Yes, ma'am.

10Nancy answered cheerfully, but she still continued wiping the pitcher in her hand.

11Nancy—Miss Polly's voice was very stern now—when I'm talking to you, I wish you to stop your work and listen to what I have to say.

12Nancy flushed miserably.

13She set the pitcher down at once, with the cloth still about it, thereby nearly tipping it over, which did not add to her composure.

14Yes, ma'am.

15I will, ma'am, she stammered, writing the pitcher and turning hastily.

16I was only keeping on with my work, cause you specially told me this morning to hurry with my dishes, you know.

17Her mistress frowned.

18That will do, Nancy.

19I did not ask for explanations.

20I asked for your attention.

21Yes, ma'am.

22Nancy stifled a sigh.

23She was wondering if ever in any way she could please this woman.

24Nancy had never worked out before, but a sick mother, suddenly widowed and left with three younger children besides Nancy herself, had forced the girl into doing something toward their support.

25And she had been so pleased when she found a place in the kitchen of the great house on the hill.

26Nancy had come from the corners six miles away, and she knew Miss Polly Harrington only as the mistress of the old Harrington homestead and one of the wealthiest residents of the town.

27That was two months before.

28She knew Miss Polly now as a stern, severe-faced woman who frowned if a knife clattered to the floor or if a door banged, but who never thought to smile even when knives and doors were still.

29When you've finished your morning work, Nancy, Miss Polly was saying now, you may clear the little room at the head of the stairs in the attic and make up the cot bed.

30Sweep the room and clean it, of course, after you clear out the trunks and boxes.

31Yes, ma'am.

32And where shall I put the things, please, that I take out?

33In the front attic.

34Miss Polly hesitated, then went on, I suppose I may as well tell you now, Nancy.

35My niece, Miss Pollyanna Whittier, is coming to live with me.

36She is eleven years old and will sleep in that room.

37A little girl?

38Coming here, Miss Harrington?

39Oh, won't that be nice!

40cried Nancy, thinking of the sunshine her own little sisters made in the home at the corners.

41Nice?

42Well, that isn't exactly the word I should use, rejoined Miss Polly stiffly.

43However, I intend to make the best of it, of course.

44I am a good woman, I hope, and I know my duty.

45Nancy colored hotly.

46Of course, ma'am.

47It was only that I thought a little girl here might—might brighten things up for you, she faltered.

48Thank you, rejoined the lady dryly.

49I can't say, however, that I see any immediate need of that.

50But of course you—you'd want her—your sister's child, ventured Nancy, vaguely feeling that somehow she must prepare a welcome for this lonely little stranger.

51Miss Polly lifted her chin haughtily.

52Well, really, Nancy, just because I happened to have a sister who was silly enough to marry and bring unnecessary children into a world that was already quite full enough, I can't see how I should particularly want to have to care for them myself.

53However, as I said before, I hope I know my duty.

54See that you clean the corners, Nancy.

55She finished sharply as she left the room.

56Yes, ma'am, sighed Nancy, picking up the half-dried pitcher.

57Now so cold it must be rinsed again.

58In her own room Miss Polly took out once more the letter which she had received two days before from the faraway western town, and which had been so unpleasant a surprise to her.

59The letter was addressed to Miss Polly Harrington, Beldingsville, Vermont, and it read as follows.

60Dear Madam, I regret to inform you that the Reverend John Whittier died two weeks ago, leaving one child, a girl, eleven years old.

61He left practically nothing else save a few books, for as you doubtless know, he was the pastor of this small mission church and had a very meager salary.

62I believe he was your deceased sister's husband, but he gave me to understand the families were not on the best of terms.

63He thought, however, that for your sister's sake you might wish to take the child and bring her up among her own people in the East.

64Hence I am writing to you.

65The little girl will be all ready to start by the time you get this letter, and if you can take her we would appreciate it very much if you would write that she might come at once, as there is a man and his wife here who are going East very soon, and they would take her with them to Boston and put her on the Beldingsville train.

66Of course you would be notified what day and train to expect Pollyanna on.

67Hoping to hear favorably from you soon, I remain respectfully yours, Jeremiah O.

68White.

69With a frown Miss Polly folded the letter and tucked it into its envelope.

70She had answered it the day before, and she had said she would take the child, of course.

71She hoped she knew her duty well enough for that.

72Disagreeable as the task would be.

73As she sat now with the letter in her hands, her thoughts went back to her sister, Jeannie, who had been this child's mother, and to the time when Jeannie, as a girl of twenty, had insisted upon marrying the young minister, in spite of her family's remonstrances.

74There had been a man of wealth who had wanted her, and the family had much preferred him to the minister.

75But Jeannie had not.

76The man of wealth had more years, as well as more money, to his credit, while the minister had only a young head full of youth's ideals and enthusiasms, and a heart full of love.

77Jeannie had preferred these.

78Quite naturally, perhaps, so she had married the minister, and had gone south with him as a home missionary's wife.

79The break had come then.

80Miss Polly remembered it well, though she had been but a girl of fifteen, the youngest, at the time.

81The family had had little more to do with the missionary's wife.

82To be sure, Jeannie herself had written for a time, and had named her last baby Polly Anna, for her two sisters, Polly and Anna.

83The other babies had all died.

84This had been the last time that Jeannie had written, and in a few years there had come the news of her death, told in a short but heartbroken little note from the minister himself, dated at a little town in the West.

85Meanwhile time had not stood still for the occupants of the great house on the hill.

86Miss Polly, looking out at the far-reaching valley below, thought of the changes those twenty-five years had brought to her.

87She was forty now, and quite alone in the world.

88Father, mother, sisters, all were dead.

89For years now she had been sole mistress of the house, and of the thousands left by her father.

90There were people who had openly pitied her lonely life, and who had urged her to have some friend or companion to live with her, but she had not welcomed either their sympathy or their advice.

91She was not lonely, she said.

92She liked being by herself.

93She preferred quiet.

94But now Miss Polly rose with a frowning face and closely shut lips.

95She was glad, of course, that she was a good woman, and that she not only knew her duty, but had sufficient strength of character to perform it.

96But Polly Anna!

97What a ridiculous name!

98End of chapter 1