AUNT POLLY TAKES ALARM
Pollyanna had been at home about a week when the letter from Della
Wetherby came to Mrs. Chilton.
"I wish I could make you see what your little niece has done for my
sister," wrote Miss Wetherby; "but I'm afraid I can't. You would have
to know what she was before. You did see her, to be sure, and perhaps
you saw something of the hush and gloom in which she has shrouded
herself for so many years. But you can have no conception of her
bitterness of heart, her lack of aim and interest, her insistence upon
eternal mourning.
"Then came Pollyanna. Probably I didn't tell you, but my sister
regretted her promise to take the child, almost the minute it was
given; and she made the stern stipulation that the moment Pollyanna
began to preach, back she should come to me. Well, she hasn't
preached--at least, my sister says she hasn't; and my sister ought to
know. And yet--well, just let me tell you what I found when I went to
see her yesterday. Perhaps nothing else could give you a better idea
of what that wonderful little Pollyanna of yours has accomplished.
"To begin with, as I approached the house, I saw that nearly all the
shades were up: they used to be down--'way down to the sill. The
minute I stepped into the hall I heard music--Parsifal. The
drawing-rooms were open, and the air was sweet with roses.
"'Mrs. Carew and Master Jamie are in the music-room,' said the maid.
And there I found them--my sister, and the youth she has taken into
her home, listening to one of those modern contrivances that can hold
an entire opera company, including the orchestra.
"The boy was in a wheel chair. He was pale, but plainly beatifically
happy. My sister looked ten years younger. Her usually colorless
cheeks showed a faint pink, and her eyes glowed and sparkled. A little
later, after I had talked a few minutes with the boy, my sister and I
went up-stairs to her own rooms; and there she talked to me--of Jamie.
Not of the old Jamie, as she used to, with tear-wet eyes and hopeless
sighs, but of the new Jamie--and there were no sighs nor tears now.
There was, instead, the eagerness of enthusiastic interest.
"'Della, he's wonderful,' she began. 'Everything that is best in
music, art, and literature seems to appeal to him in a perfectly
marvelous fashion, only, of course, he needs development and training.
That's what I'm going to see that he gets. A tutor is coming
to-morrow. Of course his language is something awful; at the same
time, he has read so many good books that his vocabulary is quite
amazing--and you should hear the stories he can reel off! Of course in
general education he is very deficient; but he's eager to learn, so
that will soon be remedied. He loves music, and I shall give him what
training in that he wishes. I have already put in a stock of carefully
selected records. I wish you could have seen his face when he first
heard that Holy Grail music. He knows all about King Arthur and his
Round Table, and he prattles of knights and lords and ladies as you
and I do of the members of our own family--only sometimes I don't know
whether his Sir Lancelot means the ancient knight or a squirrel in the
Public Garden. And, Della, I believe he can be made to walk. I'm going
to have Dr. Ames see him, anyway, and--'
"And so on and on she talked, while I sat amazed and tongue-tied, but,
oh, so happy! I tell you all this, dear Mrs. Chilton, so you can see
for yourself how interested she is, how eagerly she is going to watch
this boy's growth and development, and how, in spite of herself, it is
all going to change her attitude toward life. She CAN'T do what she is
doing for this boy, Jamie, and not do for herself at the same time.
Never again, I believe, will she be the soured, morose woman she was
before. And it's all because of Pollyanna.
"Pollyanna! Dear child--and the best part of it is, she is so
unconscious of the whole thing. I don't believe even my sister yet
quite realizes what is taking place within her own heart and life, and
certainly Pollyanna doesn't--least of all does she realize the part
she played in the change.
"And now, dear Mrs. Chilton, how can I thank you? I know I can't; so
I'm not even going to try. Yet in your heart I believe you know how
grateful I am to both you and Pollyanna.
"DELLA WETHERBY."
"Well, it seems to have worked a cure, all right," smiled Dr. Chilton,
when his wife had finished reading the letter to him.
To his surprise she lifted a quick, remonstrative hand.
"Thomas, don't, please!" she begged.
"Why, Polly, what's the matter? Aren't you glad that--that the
medicine worked?"
Mrs. Chilton dropped despairingly back in her chair.
"There you go again, Thomas," she sighed. "Of COURSE I'm glad that
this misguided woman has forsaken the error of her ways and found that
she can be of use to some one. And of course I'm glad that Pollyanna
did it. But I am not glad to have that child continually spoken of as
if she were a--a bottle of medicine, or a 'cure.' Don't you see?"
"Nonsense! After all, where's the harm? I've called Pollyanna a tonic
ever since I knew her."
"Harm! Thomas Chilton, that child is growing older every day. Do you
want to spoil her? Thus far she has been utterly unconscious of her
extraordinary power. And therein lies the secret of her success. The
minute she CONSCIOUSLY sets herself to reform somebody, you know as
well as I do that she will be simply impossible. Consequently, Heaven
forbid that she ever gets it into her head that she's anything like a
cure-all for poor, sick, suffering humanity."
"Nonsense! I wouldn't worry," laughed the doctor.
"But I do worry, Thomas."
"But, Polly, think of what she's done," argued the doctor. "Think of
Mrs. Snow and John Pendleton, and quantities of others--why, they're
not the same people at all that they used to be, any more than Mrs.
Carew is. And Pollyanna did do it--bless her heart!"
"I know she did," nodded Mrs. Polly Chilton, emphatically. "But I
don't want Pollyanna to know she did it! Oh, of course she knows it,
in a way. She knows she taught them to play the glad game with her,
and that they are lots happier in consequence. And that's all right.
It's a game--HER game, and they're playing it together. To you I will
admit that Pollyanna has preached to us one of the most powerful
sermons I ever heard; but the minute SHE knows it--well, I don't want
her to. That's all. And right now let me tell you that I've decided
that I will go to Germany with you this fall. At first I thought I
wouldn't. I didn't want to leave Pollyanna--and I'm not going to leave
her now. I'm going to take her with me."
"Take her with us? Good! Why not?"
"I've got to. That's all. Furthermore, I should be glad to plan to
stay a few years, just as you said you'd like to. I want to get
Pollyanna away, quite away from Beldingsville for a while. I'd like to
keep her sweet and unspoiled, if I can. And she shall not get silly
notions into her head if I can help myself. Why, Thomas Chilton, do we
want that child made an insufferable little prig?"
"We certainly don't," laughed the doctor. "But, for that matter, I
don't believe anything or anybody could make her so. However, this
Germany idea suits me to a T. You know I didn't want to come away when
I did--if it hadn't been for Pollyanna. So the sooner we get back
there the better I'm satisfied. And I'd like to stay--for a little
practice, as well as study."
"Then that's settled." And Aunt Polly gave a satisfied sigh.