Page 192 - pollyanna

‘Thank you. She is about the same,’ said Miss Polly.
‘And that is—won’t you tell me HOW she is? His voice
was not quite steady this time.
A quick spasm of pain crossed the woman’s face.
‘I can’t, I wish I could!’
‘You mean—you don’t know?’
‘Yes.’
‘But—the doctor?’
‘Dr. Warren himself seems—at sea. He is in correspon-
dence now with a New York specialist. They have arranged
for a consultation at once.’
‘But—but what WERE her injuries that you do know?’
‘A slight cut on the head, one or two bruises, and—and
an injury to the spine which has seemed to cause—paralysis
from the hips down.’
A low cry came from the man. There was a brief silence;
then, huskily, he asked:
‘And Pollyanna—how does she—take it?’
‘She doesn’t understand—at all—how things really are.
And I CAN’T tell her.’
‘But she must know—something!’
Miss Polly lifted her hand to the collar at her throat in
the gesture that had become so common to her of late.
‘Oh, yes. She knows she can’t—move; but she thinks her
legs are—broken. She says she’s glad it’s broken legs like
yours rather than ‘lifelong-invalids’ like Mrs. Snow’s; be-
cause broken legs get well, and the other—doesn’t. She talks
like that all the time, until it—it seems as if I should—die!’
Through the blur of tears in his own eyes, the man saw

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