Pollyanna did not go to school "to-morrow," nor the "day after to-morrow." Pollyanna, however, did not realize this, except momentarily when a brief period of full consciousness sent insistent questions to her lips. Pollyanna did not realize anything, in fact, very clearly until a week had passed; then the fever subsided, the pain lessened somewhat, and her mind awoke to full consciousness. She had then to be told all over again what had occurred.
"And so it's hurt that I am, and not sick," she sighed at last.
"Well, I'm glad of that."
"G-glad, Pollyanna?" asked her aunt, who was sitting by the bed.
"Yes. I'd so much rather have broken legs like Mr. Pendleton's than life-long-invalids like Mrs. Snow, you know. Broken legs get well, and lifelong-invalids don't."
Miss Polly--who had said nothing whatever about broken legs--got suddenly to her feet and walked to the little dressing table across the room. She was picking up one object after another now, and putting each down, in an aimless fashion quite unlike her usual decisiveness. Her face was not aimless-looking at all, however; it was white and drawn.
On the bed Pollyanna lay blinking at the dancing band of colors on the ceiling, which came from one of the prisms in the window.
"I'm glad it isn't smallpox that ails me, too," she murmured contentedly. "That would be worse than freckles. And I'm glad 'tisn't whooping cough--I've had that, and it's horrid--and I'm glad 'tisn't appendicitis nor measles, 'cause they're catching--measles are, I mean--and they wouldn't let you stay here."
"You seem to--to be glad for a good many things, my dear," faltered Aunt Polly, putting her hand to her throat as if her collar bound.
Pollyanna laughed softly.
"I am. I've been thinking of 'em--lots of 'em--all the time I've been looking up at that rainbow. I love rainbows. I'm so glad Mr.
Pendleton gave me those prisms! I'm glad of some things I haven't said yet. I don't know but I'm 'most glad I was hurt."
"Pollyanna!"
Pollyanna laughed softly again. She turned luminous eyes on her aunt. "Well, you see, since I have been hurt, you've called me 'dear' lots of times--and you didn't before. I love to be called 'dear'--by folks that belong to you, I mean. Some of the Ladies' Aiders did call me that; and of course that was pretty nice, but not so nice as if they had belonged to me, like you do. Oh, Aunt Polly, I'm so glad you belong to me!"
Aunt Polly did not answer. Her hand was at her throat again. Her eyes were full of tears. She had turned away and was hurrying from the room through the door by which the nurse had just entered.
It was that afternoon that Nancy ran out to Old Tom, who was cleaning harnesses in the barn. Her eyes were wild.
"Mr. Tom, Mr. Tom. guess what's happened," she panted. "You couldn't guess in a thousand years--you couldn't, you couldn't!"
"Then I cal'late I won't try," retorted the man, grimly, "specially as I hain't got more'n TEN ter live, anyhow, probably.
You'd better tell me first off, Nancy."
"Well, listen, then. Who do you s'pose is in the parlor now with the mistress? Who, I say?"
Old Tom shook his head.
"There's no tellin'," he declared.
"Yes, there is. I'm tellin'. It's--John Pendleton!"
"Sho, now! You're jokin', girl."
"Not much I am--an' me a-lettin' him in myself--crutches an' all!
An' the team he come in a-waitin' this minute at the door for him, jest as if he wa'n't the cranky old crosspatch he is, what never talks ter no one! jest think, Mr. Tom--HIM a-callin' on HER!"
"Well, why not?" demanded the old man, a little aggressively.
Nancy gave him a scornful glance.
"As if you didn't know better'n me!" she derided.
"Eh?"
"Oh, you needn't be so innercent," she retorted with mock indignation; "--you what led me wildgoose chasin' in the first place!"
"What do ye mean?"
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. Pendleton 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 silly gossip that coupled their names tergether when she was eighteen or twenty."
