“Well, I reckon I’ll just have to show ’em that I’m not strange children,” she said at last to herself, moving confidently forward again.
Pursuant of this idea Pollyanna smiled sweetly into the eyes of the next person she met, and said blithely:
“It’s a nice day, isn’t it?”
“Er – what? Oh, y-yes, it is,” murmured the lady addressed, as she hastened on a little faster.
Twice again Pollyanna tried the same experiment, but with like disappointing results. Soon she came upon the little pond that she had seen sparkling in the sunlight through the trees. It was a beautiful pond, and on it were several pretty little boats full of laughing children. As she watched them, Pollyanna felt more and more dissatisfied to remain by herself. It was then that, spying a man sitting alone not far away, she advanced slowly toward him and sat down on the other end of the bench. Once Pollyanna would have danced unhesitatingly to the man’s side and suggested acquaintanceship with a cheery confidence that had no doubt of a welcome; but recent rebuffs had filled her with unaccustomed diffidence. Covertly she looked at the man now.
He was not very good to look at. His garments, though new, were dusty, and plainly showed lack of care. They were of the cut and style (though Pollyanna of course did not know this) that the State gives its prisoners as a freedom suit. His face was a pasty white, and was adorned with a week’s beard. His hat was pulled far down over his eyes. With his hands in his pockets he sat idly staring at the ground.
For a long minute Pollyanna said nothing; then hopefully she began:
“It IS a nice day, isn’t it?”
The man turned his head with a start.
“Eh? Oh – er – what did you say?” he questioned, with a curiously frightened look around to make sure the remark was addressed to him.
“I said ’twas a nice day,” explained Pollyanna in hurried earnestness; “but I don’t care about that especially. That is, of course I’m glad it’s a nice day, but I said it just as a beginning to things[27], and I’d just as soon talk about something else – anything else. It’s only that I wanted you to talk – about something, you see.”
The man gave a low laugh. Even to Pollyanna the laugh sounded a little queer, though she did not know (as did the man) that a laugh to his lips had been a stranger for many months.
“So you want me to talk, do you?” he said a little sadly. “Well, I don’t see but what I shall have to do it, then. Still, I should think a nice little lady like you might find lots nicer people to talk to than an old duffer like me.”
“Oh, but I like old duffers,” exclaimed Pollyanna quickly; “that is, I like the OLD part, and I don’t know what a duffer is, so I can’t dislike that. Besides, if you are a duffer, I reckon I like duffers. Anyhow, I like you,” she finished, with a contented little settling of herself in her seat that carried conviction.
“Humph! Well, I’m sure I’m flattered,” smiled the man, ironically. Though his face and words expressed polite doubt, it might have been noticed that he sat a little straighter on the bench. “And, pray, what shall we talk about?”
“It’s – it’s infinitesimal to me. That means I don’t care, doesn’t it?” asked Pollyanna, with a beaming smile. “Aunt Polly says that, whatever I talk about, anyhow, I always bring up at the Ladies’ Aiders. But I reckon that’s because they brought me up first, don’t you? We might talk about the party. I think it’s a perfectly beautiful party – now that I know some one.”
“P-party?”
“Yes – this, you know – all these people here to-day. It IS a party, isn’t it? The lady said it was for everybody, so I stayed – though I haven’t got to where the house is, yet, that’s giving the party.”
The man’s lips twitched.
“Well, little lady, perhaps it is a party, in a way,” he smiled; “but the ‘house’ that’s giving it is the city of Boston. This is the Public Garden – a public park, you understand, for everybody.”
“Is it? Always? And I may come here any time I want to? Oh, how perfectly lovely! That’s even nicer than I thought it could be. I’d worried for fear I couldn’t ever come again, after to-day, you see. I’m glad now, though, that I didn’t know it just at the first, for it’s all the nicer now. Nice things are nicer when you’ve been worrying for fear they won’t be nice, aren’t they?”
“Perhaps they are – if they ever turn out to be nice at all,” conceded the man, a little gloomily.
“Yes, I think so,” nodded Pollyanna, not noticing the gloom. “But isn’t it beautiful – here?” she gloried. “I wonder if Mrs. Carew knows about it – that it’s for anybody, so. Why, I should think everybody would want to come here all the time, and just stay and look around.”
The man’s face hardened.
“Well, there are a few people in the world who have got a job – who’ve got something to do besides just to come here and stay and look around; but I don’t happen to be one of them.”
“Don’t you? Then you can be glad for that, can’t you?” sighed Pollyanna, her eyes delightedly following a passing boat.
The man’s lips parted indignantly, but no words came. Pollyanna was still talking.
“I wish I didn’t have anything to do but that. I have to go to school. Oh, I like school; but there’s such a whole lot of things I like better. Still I’m glad I CAN go to school. I’m ’specially glad when I remember how last winter I didn’t think I could ever go again. You see, I lost my legs for a while – I mean, they didn’t go; and you know you never know how much you use things, till you don’t have ’em. And eyes, too. Did you ever think what a lot you do with eyes? I didn’t till I went to the Sanatorium. There was a lady there who had just got blind the year before. I tried to get her to play the game – finding something to be glad about, you know – but she said she couldn’t; and if I wanted to know why, I might tie up my eyes with my handkerchief for just one hour. And I did. It was awful. Did you ever try it?”
“Why, n-no, I didn’t.” A half-vexed, half-baffled expression was coming to the man’s face.
“Well, don’t. It’s awful. You can’t do anything – not anything that you want to do. But I kept it on the whole hour. Since then I’ve been so glad, sometimes – when I see something perfectly lovely like this, you know – I’ve been so glad I wanted to cry; – ’cause I COULD see it, you know. She’s playing the game now, though – that blind lady is. Miss Wetherby told me.”
“The – GAME?”
“Yes; the ‘glad game’. Didn’t I tell you? Finding something in everything to be glad about. Well, she’s found it now – about her eyes, you know. Her husband is the kind of a man that goes to help make the laws, and she had him ask for one that would help blind people, ‘specially little babies. And she went herself and talked and told those men how it felt to be blind. And they made it – that law. And they said that she did more than anybody else, even her husband, to help make it, and that they didn’t believe there would have been any law at all if it hadn’t been for her. So now she says she’s glad she lost her eyes, ’cause she’s kept so many little babies from growing up to be blind like her. So you see she’s playing it – the game. But I reckon you don’t know about the game yet, after all; so I’ll tell you. It started this way.” And Pollyanna, with her eyes on the shimmering beauty all about her, told of the little pair of crutches of long ago, which should have been a doll.
When the story was finished there was a long silence; then, a little abruptly the man got to his feet.
“Oh, are you going away NOW?” she asked in open disappointment.
“Yes, I’m going now.” He smiled down at her a little queerly.
“But