Page 161 - pollyanna

‘Yes, yes—never mind about all that,’ interrupted the
man. His face was very, very red now—and no wonder, per-
haps: it was not for ‘giving things’ that John Pendleton had
been best known in the past. ‘That’s all nonsense. ‘Twasn’t
much, anyhow—but what there was, was because of you.
YOU gave those things; not I! Yes, you did,’ he repeated, in
answer to the shocked denial in her face. ‘And that only
goes to prove all the more how I need you, little girl,’ he
added, his voice softening into tender pleading once more.
‘If ever, ever I am to play the ‘glad game,’ Pollyanna, you’ll
have to come and play it with me.’
The little girl’s forehead puckered into a wistful frown.
‘Aunt Polly has been so good to me,’ she began; but the
man interrupted her sharply. The old irritability had come
back to his face. Impatience which would brook no opposi-
tion had been a part of John Pendleton’s nature too long to
yield very easily now to restraint.
‘Of course she’s been good to you! But she doesn’t want
you, I’ll warrant, half so much as I do,’ he contested.
‘Why, Mr. Pendleton, she’s glad, I know, to have—‘
‘Glad!’ interrupted the man, thoroughly losing his pa-
tience now. ‘I’ll wager Miss Polly doesn’t know how to be
glad—for anything! Oh, she does her duty, I know. She’s a
very DUTIFUL woman. I’ve had experience with her ‘duty,’
before. I’ll acknowledge we haven’t been the best of friends
for the last fifteen or twenty years. But I know her. Every
one knows her—and she isn’t the ‘glad’ kind, Pollyanna.
She doesn’t know how to be. As for your coming to me—
you just ask her and see if she won’t let you come. And, oh,

1 0 Pollyanna