Pollyanna Grows Up

by Eleanor H. Porter

"I'm afraid I was rude," she apologized.

"Never mind that. Tell me what you meant. I've thought of it so many times since."

For a moment the girl was silent; then, a little bitterly she said:

"'Twas because I knew a girl once, and I was thinkin' of her. She came from my town, and she was pretty and good, but she wa'n't over strong. For a year we pulled together, sharin' the same room, boiling our eggs over the same gas-jet, and eatin' our hash and fish balls for supper at the same cheap restaurant. There was never anything to do evenin's but to walk in the Common, or go to the movies, if we had the dime to blow in, or just stay in our room. Well, our room wasn't very pleasant. It was hot in summer, and cold in winter, and the gas-jet was so measly and so flickery that we couldn't sew or read, even if we hadn't been too fagged out to do either—which we 'most generally was. Besides, over our heads was a squeaky board that some one was always rockin' on, and under us was a feller that was learnin' to play the cornet. Did you ever hear any one learn to play the cornet?"

"N-no, I don't think so," murmured Mrs. Carew.

"Well, you've missed a lot," said the girl, dryly. Then, after a moment, she resumed her story.

"Sometimes, 'specially at Christmas and holidays, we used to walk up here on the Avenue, and other streets, huntin' for windows where the curtains were up, and we could look in. You see, we were pretty lonesome, them days 'specially, and we said it did us good to see homes with folks, and lamps on the center-tables, and children playin' games; but we both of us knew that really it only made us feel worse than ever, because we were so hopelessly out of it all. 'Twas even harder to see the automobiles, and the gay young folks in them, laughing and chatting. You see, we were young, and I suspect we wanted to laugh and chatter. We wanted a good time, too; and, by and by—my chum began to have it—this good time.

"Well, to make a long story short, we broke partnership one day, and she went her way, and I mine. I didn't like the company she was keepin', and I said so. She wouldn't give 'em up, so we quit. I didn't see her again for 'most two years, then I got a note from her, and I went. This was just last month. She was in one of them rescue homes. It was a lovely place; soft rugs, fine pictures, plants, flowers, and books, a piano, a beautiful room, and everything possible done for her. Rich women came in their automobiles and carriages to take her driving, and she was taken to concerts and matinees. She was learnin' stenography, and they were going to help her to a position just as soon as she could take it. Everybody was wonderfully good to her, she said, and showed they wanted to help her in every way. But she said something else, too. She said:

"'Sadie, if they'd taken one half the pains to show me they cared and wanted to help long ago when I was an honest, self-respectin', hard-workin' homesick girl—I wouldn't have been here for them to help now.' And—well, I never forgot it. That's all. It ain't that I'm objectin' to the rescue work—it's a fine thing, and they ought to do it. Only I'm thinkin' there wouldn't be quite so much of it for them to do—if they'd just show a little of their interest earlier in the game."

"But I thought—there were working-girls' homes, and—and settlement-houses that—that did that sort of thing," faltered Mrs. Carew in a voice that few of her friends would have recognized.