Page 74 - pollyanna

‘Humph!’ she vouchsafed. Then, showing her old-time
interest, she went on: ‘But, say, it is queer, his speakin’ to
you, honestly, Miss Pollyanna. He don’t speak ter no one;
and he lives all alone in a great big lovely house all full of
jest grand things, they say. Some says he’s crazy, and some
jest cross; and some says he’s got a skeleton in his closet.’
‘Oh, Nancy!’ shuddered Pollyanna. ‘How can he keep
such a dreadful thing? I should think he’d throw it away!’
Nancy chuckled. That Pollyanna had taken the skeleton
literally instead of figuratively, she knew very well; but, per-
versely, she refrained from correcting the mistake.
‘And EVERYBODY says he’s mysterious,’ she went on.
‘Some years he jest travels, week in and week out, and it’s al-
ways in heathen countries—Egypt and Asia and the Desert
of Sarah, you know.’
‘Oh, a missionary,’ nodded Pollyanna.
Nancy laughed oddly.
‘Well, I didn’t say that, Miss Pollyanna. When he comes
back he writes books—queer, odd books, they say, about
some gimcrack he’s found in them heathen countries. But
he don’t never seem ter want ter spend no money here—
leastways, not for jest livin’.’
‘Of course not—if he’s saving it for the heathen,’ declared
Pollyanna. ‘But he is a funny man, and he’s different, too,
just like Mrs. Snow, only he’s a different different.’
‘Well, I guess he is—rather,’ chuckled Nancy.
‘I’m gladder’n ever now, anyhow, that he speaks to me,’
sighed Pollyanna contentedly.