“But I’m bad and wicked, Nancy-awful wicked,” she sobbed. “I just can’t make myself understand that God and the angels needed my father more than I did.”
“No more they did, neither,” declared Nancy, stoutly.
“Oh-h! – NANCY!” The burning horror in Pollyanna’s eyes dried the tears.
Nancy gave a shamefaced smile and rubbed her own eyes vigorously.
“There, there, child, I didn’t mean it, of course,” she cried briskly. “Come, let’s have your key and we’ll get inside this trunk and take out your dresses in no time, no time.”
Somewhat tearfully Pollyanna produced the key.
“There aren’t very many there, anyway,” she faltered.
“Then they’re all the sooner unpacked,” declared Nancy.
Pollyanna gave a sudden radiant smile.
“That’s so! I can be glad of that, can’t I?” she cried.
Nancy stared.
“Why, of-course,” she answered a little uncertainly.
Nancy’s capable hands made short work of unpacking the books, the patched undergarments, and the few pitifully unattractive dresses. Pollyanna, smiling bravely now, flew about, hanging the dresses in the closet, stacking the books on the table, and putting away the undergarments in the bureau drawers.
“I’m sure it-it’s going to be a very nice room. Don’t you think so?” she stammered, after a while.
There was no answer. Nancy was very busy, apparently, with her head in the trunk. Pollyanna, standing at the bureau, gazed a little wistfully at the bare wall above.
“And I can be glad there isn’t any looking-glass here, too, ‘cause where there ISN’T any glass I can’t see my freckles.”
Nancy made a sudden queer little sound with her mouth-but when Pollyanna turned, her head was in the trunk again. At one of the windows, a few minutes later, Pollyanna gave a glad cry and clapped her hands joyously.
“Oh, Nancy, I hadn’t seen this before,” she breathed. “Look-’way off there, with those trees and the houses and that lovely church spire, and the river shining just like silver. Why, Nancy, there doesn’t anybody need any pictures with that to look at. Oh, I’m so glad now she let me have this room!”
To Pollyanna’s surprise and dismay, Nancy burst into tears. Pollyanna hurriedly crossed to her side.
“Why, Nancy, Nancy-what is it?” she cried; then, fearfully: “This wasn’t-YOUR room, was it?”
“My room!” stormed Nancy, hotly, choking back the tears. “If you ain’t a little angel straight from Heaven, and if some folks don’t eat dirt before-Oh, land! there’s her bell!” After which amazing speech, Nancy sprang to her feet, dashed out of the room, and went clattering down the stairs.
Left alone, Pollyanna went back to her “picture,” as she mentally designated the beautiful view from the window. After a time she touched the sash tentatively. It seemed as if no longer could she endure the stifling heat. To her joy the sash moved under her fingers. The next moment the window was wide open, and Pollyanna was leaning far out, drinking in the fresh, sweet air.
She ran then to the other window. That, too, soon flew up under her eager hands. A big fly swept past her nose, and buzzed noisily about the room. Then another came, and another; but Pollyanna paid no heed. Pollyanna had made a wonderful discovery-against this window a huge tree flung great branches. To Pollyanna they looked like arms outstretched, inviting her. Suddenly she laughed aloud.
“I believe I can do it,” she chuckled. The next moment she had climbed nimbly to the window ledge. From there it was an easy matter to step to the nearest tree-branch. Then, clinging like a monkey, she swung herself from limb to limb until the lowest branch was reached. The drop to the ground was-even for Pollyanna, who was used to climbing trees-a little fearsome. She took it, however, with bated breath, swinging from her strong little arms, and landing on all fours in the soft grass. Then she picked herself up and looked eagerly about her.
She was at the back of the house. Before her lay a garden in which a bent old man was working. Beyond the garden a little path through an open field led up a steep hill, at the top of which a lone pine tree stood on guard beside the huge rock. To Pollyanna, at the moment, there seemed to be just one place in the world worth being in-the top of that big rock.
With a run and a skilful turn, Pollyanna skipped by the bent old man, threaded her way between the orderly rows of green growing things, and-a little out of breath-reached the path that ran through the open field. Then, determinedly, she began to climb. Already, however, she was thinking what a long, long way off that rock must be, when back at the window it had looked so near!
Fifteen minutes later the great clock in the hallway of the Harrington homestead struck six. At precisely the last stroke Nancy sounded the bell for supper.
One, two, three minutes passed. Miss Polly frowned and tapped the floor with her slipper. A little jerkily she rose to her feet, went into the hall, and looked upstairs, plainly impatient. For a minute she listened intently; then she turned and swept into the dining room.
“Nancy,” she said with decision, as soon as the little serving-maid appeared; “my niece is late. No, you need not call her,” she added severely, as Nancy made a move toward the hall door. “I told her what time supper was, and now she will have to suffer the consequences. She may as well begin at once to learn to be punctual. When she comes down she may have bread and milk in the kitchen.”
“Yes, ma’am.” It was well, perhaps, that Miss Polly did not happen to be looking at Nancy’s face just then.
At the earliest possible moment after supper, Nancy crept up the back stairs and thence to the attic room.
“Bread and milk, indeed! – and when the poor lamb hain’t only just cried herself to sleep,” she was muttering fiercely, as she softly pushed open the door. The next moment she gave a frightened cry. “Where are you? Where’ve you gone? Where HAVE you gone?” she panted, looking in the closet, under the bed, and even in the trunk and down the water pitcher. Then she flew downstairs and out to Old Tom in the garden.
“Mr. Tom, Mr. Tom, that blessed child’s gone,” she wailed. “She’s vanished right up into Heaven where she come from, poor lamb-and me told ter give her bread and milk in the kitchen-her what’s eatin’ angel food this minute, I’ll warrant, I’ll warrant!”
The old man straightened up.
“Gone? Heaven?” he repeated stupidly, unconsciously sweeping the brilliant sunset sky with his gaze. He stopped, stared a moment intently, then turned with a slow grin. “Well, Nancy, it do look like as if she’d tried ter get as nigh Heaven as she could, and that’s a fact,” he agreed, pointing with a crooked finger to where, sharply outlined against the reddening sky, a slender, wind-blown figure was poised on top of a huge rock.
“Well, she ain’t goin’ ter Heaven that way ter-night-not if I has my say,” declared Nancy, doggedly. “If the mistress asks, tell her I ain’t furgettin’ the dishes, but I gone on a stroll,” she flung back over her shoulder, as she sped toward the path that led through the open field.
Chapter V
The game
“For the land’s sake, Miss Pollyanna, what a scare you did give me,” panted Nancy, hurrying up to the big rock, down which Pollyanna had just regretfully slid.
“Scare? Oh, I’m so sorry; but you mustn’t, really, ever get scared about me, Nancy. Father and the Ladies’ Aid used to do it, too, till they found I always came back all right.”
“But I didn’t even know you’d went,” cried Nancy, tucking the little girl’s hand under her arm and hurrying her down the hill. “I didn’t see you go, and nobody didn’t. I guess you flew right up through the roof; I do, I do.”
Pollyanna