Pollyanna Grows Up

by Eleanor H. Porter

"Well, no, Pollyanna, I can't say that I do," responded Mrs. Carew, dryly, as she turned away.

As it chanced, not two days later, Mrs. Carew heard something more of
Pollyanna and trolley cars—this time from Mary.

"I mean, it's queer, ma'am," explained Mary earnestly, in answer to a question her mistress had asked, "it's queer how Miss Pollyanna just gets 'round EVERYBODY—and without half trying. It isn't that she DOES anything. She doesn't. She just—just looks glad, I guess, that's all. But I've seen her get into a trolley car that was full of cross-looking men and women, and whimpering children, and in five minutes you wouldn't know the place. The men and women have stopped scowling, and the children have forgot what they're cryin' for.

"Sometimes it's just somethin' that Miss Pollyanna has said to me, and they've heard it. Sometimes it's just the 'Thank you,' she gives when somebody insists on givin' us their seat—and they're always doin' that—givin' us seats, I mean. And sometimes it's the way she smiles at a baby or a dog. All dogs everywhere wag their tails at her, anyway, and all babies, big and little, smile and reach out to her. If we get held up it's a joke, and if we take the wrong car, it's the funniest thing that ever happened. And that's the way 'tis about everythin'. One just can't stay grumpy, with Miss Pollyanna, even if you're only one of a trolley car full of folks that don't know her."

"Hm-m; very likely," murmured Mrs. Carew, turning away.

October proved to be, that year, a particularly warm, delightful month, and as the golden days came and went, it was soon very evident that to keep up with Pollyanna's eager little feet was a task which would consume altogether too much of somebody's time and patience; and, while Mrs. Carew had the one, she had not the other, neither had she the willingness to allow Mary to spend quite so much of HER time (whatever her patience might be) in dancing attendance to Pollyanna's whims and fancies.

To keep the child indoors all through those glorious October afternoons was, of course, out of the question. Thus it came about that, before long, Pollyanna found herself once more in the "lovely big yard"—the Boston Public Garden—and alone. Apparently she was as free as before, but in reality she was surrounded by a high stone wall of regulations.

She must not talk to strange men or women; she must not play with strange children; and under no circumstances must she step foot outside the Garden except to come home. Furthermore, Mary, who had taken her to the Garden and left her, made very sure that she knew the way home—that she knew just where Commonwealth Avenue came down to Arlington Street across from the Garden. And always she must go home when the clock in the church tower said it was half-past four.

Pollyanna went often to the Garden after this. Occasionally she went with some of the girls from school. More often she went alone. In spite of the somewhat irksome restrictions she enjoyed herself very much. She could WATCH the people even if she could not talk to them; and she could talk to the squirrels and pigeons and sparrows that so eagerly came for the nuts and grain which she soon learned to carry to them every time she went.

Pollyanna often looked for her old friends of that first day—the man who was so glad he had his eyes and legs and arms, and the pretty young lady who would not go with the handsome man; but she never saw them. She did frequently see the boy in the wheel chair, and she wished she could talk to him. The boy fed the birds and squirrels, too, and they were so tame that the doves would perch on his head and shoulders, and the squirrels would burrow in his pockets for nuts. But Pollyanna, watching from a distance, always noticed one strange circumstance: in spite of the boy's very evident delight in serving his banquet, his supply of food always ran short almost at once; and though he invariably looked fully as disappointed as did the squirrel after a nutless burrowing, yet he never remedied the matter by bringing more food the next day—which seemed most short-sighted to Pollyanna.