Page 190 - pollyanna

Nancy glanced through the open barn door toward the
house, and came a step nearer to the old man.
‘Listen! ‘Twas you that was tellin’ me Miss Polly had a
lover in the first place, wa’n’t it? Well, one day I thinks I
finds two and two, and I puts ‘em tergether an’ makes four.
But it turns out ter be five—an’ no four at all, at all!’
With a gesture of indifference Old Tom turned and fell
to work.
‘If you’re goin’ ter talk ter me, you’ve got ter talk plain
horse sense,’ he declared testily. ‘I never was no hand for
figgers.’
Nancy laughed.
‘Well, it’s this,’ she explained. ‘I heard somethin’ that
made me think him an’ Miss Polly was lovers.’
‘MR. PENDLETON!’ Old Tom straightened up.
‘Yes. Oh, I know now; he wasn’t. It was that blessed child’s
mother he was in love with, and that’s why he wanted—but
never mind that part,’ she added hastily, remembering just
in time her promise to Pollyanna not to tell that Mr. Pend-
leton had wished her to come and live with him. ‘Well, I’ve
been askin’ folks about him some, since, and I’ve found
out that him an’ Miss Polly hain’t been friends for years,
an’ that she’s been hatin’ him like pizen owin’ ter the sil-
ly gossip that coupled their names tergether when she was
eighteen or twenty.’
‘Yes, I remember,’ nodded Old Tom. ‘It was three or four
years after Miss Jennie give him the mitten and went off
with the other chap. Miss Polly knew about it, of course,
and was sorry for him. So she tried ter be nice to him. May-

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