"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.