THE DAY POLLYANNA DID NOT PLAY
And so one by one the winter days passed. January and February slipped
away in snow and sleet, and March came in with a gale that whistled
and moaned around the old house, and set loose blinds to swinging and
loose gates to creaking in a way that was most trying to nerves
already stretched to the breaking point.
Pollyanna was not finding it very easy these days to play the game,
but she was playing it faithfully, valiantly. Aunt Polly was not
playing it at all--which certainly did not make it any the easier for
Pollyanna to play it. Aunt Polly was blue and discouraged. She was not
well, too, and she had plainly abandoned herself to utter gloom.
Pollyanna still was counting on the prize contest. She had dropped
from the first prize to one of the smaller ones, however: Pollyanna
had been writing more stories, and the regularity with which they came
back from their pilgrimages to magazine editors was beginning to shake
her faith in her success as an author.
"Oh, well, I can be glad that Aunt Polly doesn't know anything about
it, anyway," declared Pollyanna to herself bravely, as she twisted in
her fingers the "declined-with-thanks" slip that had just towed in one
more shipwrecked story. "She CAN'T worry about this--she doesn't know
about it!"
All of Pollyanna's life these days revolved around Aunt Polly, and it
is doubtful if even Aunt Polly herself realized how exacting she had
become, and how entirely her niece was giving up her life to her.
It was on a particularly gloomy day in March that matters came, in a
way, to a climax. Pollyanna, upon arising, had looked at the sky with
a sigh--Aunt Polly was always more difficult on cloudy days. With a
gay little song, however, that still sounded a bit forced--Pollyanna
descended to the kitchen and began to prepare breakfast.
"I reckon I'll make corn muffins," she told the stove confidentially;
"then maybe Aunt Polly won't mind--other things so much."
Half an hour later she tapped at her aunt's door.
"Up so soon? Oh, that's fine! And you've done your hair yourself!"
"I couldn't sleep. I had to get up," sighed Aunt Polly, wearily. "I
had to do my hair, too. YOU weren't here."
"But I didn't suppose you were ready for me, auntie," explained
Pollyanna, hurriedly. "Never mind, though. You'll be glad I wasn't
when you find what I've been doing."
"Well, I sha'n't--not this morning," frowned Aunt Polly, perversely.
"Nobody could be glad this morning. Look at it rain! That makes the
third rainy day this week."
"That's so--but you know the sun never seems quite so perfectly lovely
as it does after a lot of rain like this," smiled Pollyanna, deftly
arranging a bit of lace and ribbon at her aunt's throat. "Now come.
Breakfast's all ready. Just you wait till you see what I've got for
you."
Aunt Polly, however, was not to be diverted, even by corn muffins,
this morning. Nothing was right, nothing was even endurable, as she
felt; and Pollyanna's patience was sorely taxed before the meal was
over. To make matters worse, the roof over the east attic window was
found to be leaking, and an unpleasant letter came in the mail.
Pollyanna, true to her creed, laughingly declared that, for her part,
she was glad they had a roof--to leak; and that, as for the letter,
she'd been expecting it for a week, anyway, and she was actually glad
she wouldn't have to worry any more for fear it would come. It
COULDN'T come now, because it HAD come; and 'twas over with.
All this, together with sundry other hindrances and annoyances,
delayed the usual morning work until far into the afternoon--something
that was always particularly displeasing to methodical Aunt Polly, who
ordered her own life, preferably, by the tick of the clock.
"But it's half-past three, Pollyanna, already! Did you know it?" she
fretted at last. "And you haven't made the beds yet."
"No, dearie, but I will. Don't worry."
"But, did you hear what I said? Look at the clock, child. It's after
three o'clock!"
"So 'tis, but never mind, Aunt Polly. We can be glad 'tisn't after
four."
Aunt Polly sniffed her disdain.
"I suppose YOU can," she observed tartly.
Pollyanna laughed.
"Well, you see, auntie, clocks ARE accommodating things, when you stop
to think about it. I found that out long ago at the Sanatorium. When I
was doing something that I liked, and I didn't WANT the time to go
fast, I'd just look at the hour hand, and I'd feel as if I had lots of
time--it went so slow. Then, other days, when I had to keep something
that hurt on for an hour, maybe, I'd watch the little second hand; and
you see then I felt as if Old Time was just humping himself to help me
out by going as fast as ever he could. Now I'm watching the hour hand
to-day, 'cause I don't want Time to go fast. See?" she twinkled
mischievously, as she hurried from the room, before Aunt Polly had
time to answer.
It was certainly a hard day, and by night Pollyanna looked pale and
worn out. This, too, was a source of worriment to Aunt Polly.
"Dear me, child, you look tired to death!" she fumed. "WHAT we're
going to do I don't know. I suppose YOU'LL be sick next!"
"Nonsense, auntie! I'm not sick a bit," declared Pollyanna, dropping
herself with a sigh on to the couch. "But I AM tired. My! how good
this couch feels! I'm glad I'm tired, after all--it's so nice to
rest."
Aunt Polly turned with an impatient gesture.
"Glad--glad--glad! Of course you're glad, Pollyanna. You're always
glad for everything. I never saw such a girl. Oh, yes, I know it's the
game," she went on, in answer to the look that came to Pollyanna's
face. "And it's a very good game, too; but I think you carry it
altogether too far. This eternal doctrine of 'it might be worse' has
got on my nerves, Pollyanna. Honestly, it would be a real relief if
you WOULDN'T be glad for something, sometime!"
"Why, auntie!" Pollyanna pulled herself half erect.
"Well, it would. You just try it sometime, and see."
"But, auntie, I--" Pollyanna stopped and eyed her aunt reflectively.
An odd look came to her eyes; a slow smile curved her lips. Mrs.
Chilton, who had turned back to her work, paid no heed; and, after a
minute, Pollyanna lay back on the couch without finishing her
sentence, the curious smile still on her lips.
It was raining again when Pollyanna got up the next morning, and a
northeast wind was still whistling down the chimney. Pollyanna at the
window drew an involuntary sigh; but almost at once her face changed.
"Oh, well, I'm glad--" She clapped her hands to her lips. "Dear me,"
she chuckled softly, her eyes dancing, "I shall forget--I know I
shall; and that'll spoil it all! I must just remember not to be glad
for anything--not ANYTHING to-day."
Pollyanna did not make corn muffins that morning. She started the
breakfast, then went to her aunt's room.
Mrs. Chilton was still in bed.
"I see it rains, as usual," she observed, by way of greeting.
"Yes, it's horrid--perfectly horrid," scolded Pollyanna. "It's rained
'most every day this week, too. I hate such weather."
Aunt Polly turned with a faint surprise in her eyes; but Pollyanna was
looking the other way.
"Are you going to get up now?" she asked a little wearily.
"Why, y-yes," murmured Aunt Polly, still with that faint surprise in
her eyes. "What's the matter, Pollyanna? Are you especially tired?"
"Yes, I am tired this morning. I didn't sleep well, either. I hate not
to sleep. Things always plague so in the night, when you wake up."
"I guess I know that," fretted Aunt Polly. "I didn't sleep a wink
after two o'clock myself. And there's that roof! How are we going to
have it fixed, pray, if it never stops raining? Have you been up to
empty the pans?"
"Oh, yes--and took up some more. There's a new leak now, further
over."
"A new one! Why, it'll all be leaking yet!"
Pollyanna opened her lips. She had almost said, "Well, we can be glad
to have it fixed all at once, then," when she suddenly remembered, and
substituted, in a tired voice:
"Very likely it will, auntie. It looks like it now, fast enough.
Anyway, it's made fuss enough for a whole roof already, and I'm sick
of it!" With which statement, Pollyanna, her face carefully averted,
turned and trailed listlessly out of the room.
"It's so funny and so--so hard, I'm afraid I'm making a mess of it,"
she whispered to herself anxiously, as she hurried down-stairs to the
kitchen.
Behind her, Aunt Polly, in the bedroom, gazed after her with eyes that
were again faintly puzzled.
Aunt Polly had occasion a good many times before six o'clock that
night to gaze at Pollyanna with surprised and questioning eyes.
Nothing was right with Pollyanna. The fire would not burn, the wind
blew one particular blind loose three times, and still a third leak
was discovered in the roof. The mail brought to Pollyanna a letter
that made her cry (though no amount of questioning on Aunt Polly's
part would persuade her to tell why). Even the dinner went wrong, and
innumerable things happened in the afternoon to call out fretful,
discouraged remarks.
Not until the day was more than half gone did a look of shrewd
suspicion suddenly fight for supremacy with the puzzled questioning in
Aunt Polly's eyes. If Pollyanna saw this she made no sign. Certainly
there was no abatement in her fretfulness and discontent. Long before
six o'clock, however, the suspicion in Aunt Polly's eyes became
conviction, and drove to ignominious defeat the puzzled questioning.
But, curiously enough then, a new look came to take its place, a look
that was actually a twinkle of amusement.
At last, after a particularly doleful complaint on Pollyanna's part,
Aunt Polly threw up her hands with a gesture of half-laughing despair.
"That'll do, that'll do, child! I'll give up. I'll confess myself
beaten at my own game. You can be--GLAD for that, if you like," she
finished with a grim smile.
"I know, auntie, but you said--" began Pollyanna demurely.
"Yes, yes, but I never will again," interrupted Aunt Polly, with
emphasis. "Mercy, what a day this has been! I never want to live
through another like it." She hesitated, flushed a little, then went
on with evident difficulty: "Furthermore, I--I want you to know
that--that I understand I haven't played the game myself--very well,
lately; but, after this, I'm going to--to try--WHERE'S my
handkerchief?" she finished sharply, fumbling in the folds of her
dress.
Pollyanna sprang to her feet and crossed instantly to her aunt's side.
"Oh, but Aunt Polly, I didn't mean--It was just a--a joke," she
quavered in quick distress. "I never thought of your taking it THAT
way."
"Of course you didn't," snapped Aunt Polly, with all the asperity of a
stern, repressed woman who abhors scenes and sentiment, and who is
mortally afraid she will show that her heart has been touched. "Don't
you suppose I know you didn't mean it that way? Do you think, if I
thought you HAD been trying to teach me a lesson that I'd--I'd--" But
Pollyanna's strong young arms had her in a close embrace, and she
could not finish the sentence.