Page 43 - pollyanna

A bell sounded from the house. The next moment Nancy
was seen flying out the back door.
‘Miss Pollyanna, that bell means breakfast—mornin’s,’
she panted, pulling the little girl to her feet and hurry-
ing her back to the house; ‘and other times it means other
meals. But it always means that you’re ter run like time
when ye hear it, no matter where ye be. If ye don’t—well, it’ll
take somethin’ smarter’n we be ter find ANYTHIN’ ter be
glad about in that!’ she finished, shooing Pollyanna into the
house as she would shoo an unruly chicken into a coop.
Breakfast, for the first five minutes, was a silent meal;
then Miss Polly, her disapproving eyes following the airy
wings of two flies darting here and there over the table, said
sternly:
‘Nancy, where did those flies come from?’
‘I don’t know, ma’am. There wasn’t one in the kitchen.’
Nancy had been too excited to notice Pollyanna’s up-flung
windows the afternoon before.
‘I reckon maybe they’re my flies, Aunt Polly,’ observed
Pollyanna, amiably. ‘There were lots of them this morning
having a beautiful time upstairs.’
Nancy left the room precipitately, though to do so she
had to carry out the hot muffins she had just brought in.
‘Yours!’ gasped Miss Polly. ‘What do you mean? Where
did they come from?’
‘Why, Aunt Polly, they came from out of doors of course,
through the windows. I SAW some of them come in.’
‘You saw them! You mean you raised those windows
without any screens?’

Pollyanna