At half-past one o'clock Timothy drove Miss Polly and her niece to the four or five principal dry goods stores, which were about half a mile from the homestead.
Fitting Pollyanna with a new wardrobe proved to be more or less of an exciting experience for all concerned. Miss Polly came out of it with the feeling of limp relaxation that one might have at finding oneself at last on solid earth after a perilous walk across the very thin crust of a volcano. The various clerks who had waited upon the pair came out of it with very red faces, and enough amusing stories of Pollyanna to keep their friends in gales of laughter the rest of the week. Pollyanna herself came out of it with radiant smiles and a heart content; for, as she expressed it to one of the clerks: “When you haven't had anybody but missionary barrels and Ladies' Aiders to dress you, it IS perfectly lovely to just walk right in and buy clothes that are brand-new, and that don't have to be tucked up or let down because they don't fit!”
The shopping expedition consumed the entire afternoon; then came supper and a delightful talk with Old Tom in the garden, and another with Nancy on the back porch, after the dishes were done, and while Aunt Polly paid a visit to a neighbor.
Old Tom told Pollyanna wonderful things of her mother, that made her very happy indeed; and Nancy told her all about the little farm six miles away at “The Corners,” where lived her own dear mother, and her equally dear brother and sisters. She promised, too, that sometime, if Miss Polly were willing, Pollyanna should be taken to see them.
“And THEY'VE got lovely names, too. You'll like THEIR names,” sighed Nancy. “They're 'Algernon,' and 'Florabelle' and 'Estelle.' I--I just hate 'Nancy'!”
“Oh, Nancy, what a dreadful thing to say! Why?”
“Because it isn't pretty like the others. You see, I was the first baby, and mother hadn't begun ter read so many stories with the pretty names in 'em, then.”
“But I love 'Nancy,' just because it's you,” declared Pollyanna.
“Humph! Well, I guess you could love 'Clarissa Mabelle' just as well,” retorted Nancy, “and it would be a heap happier for me. I think THAT name's just grand!”
Pollyanna laughed.
“Well, anyhow,” she chuckled, “you can be glad it isn't 'Hephzibah.'”
“Hephzibah!”
“Yes. Mrs. White's name is that. Her husband calls her 'Hep,' and she doesn't like it. She says when he calls out 'Hep--Hep!' she feels just as if the next minute he was going to yell 'Hurrah!' And she doesn't like to be hurrahed at.”
Nancy's gloomy face relaxed into a broad smile.
“Well, if you don't beat the Dutch! Say, do you know?--I sha'n't never hear 'Nancy' now that I don't think o' that 'Hep--Hep!' and giggle. My, I guess I AM glad--” She stopped short and turned amazed eyes on the little girl. “Say, Miss Pollyanna, do you mean--was you playin' that 'ere game THEN--about my bein' glad I wa'n't named Hephzibah'?”
Pollyanna frowned; then she laughed.
“Why, Nancy, that's so! I WAS playing the game--but that's one of the times I just did it without thinking, I reckon. You see, you DO, lots of times; you get so used to it--looking for something to be glad about, you know. And most generally there is something about everything that you can be glad about, if you keep hunting long enough to find it.”
“Well, m-maybe,” granted Nancy, with open doubt.
At half-past eight Pollyanna went up to bed. The screens had not yet come, and the close little room was like an oven. With longing eyes Pollyanna looked at the two fast-closed windows--but she did not raise them. She undressed, folded her clothes neatly, said her prayers, blew out her candle and climbed into bed.
Just how long she lay in sleepless misery, tossing from side to side of the hot little cot, she did not know; but it seemed to her that it must have been hours before she finally slipped out of bed, felt her way across the room and opened her door.
Out in the main attic all was velvet blackness save where the moon flung a path of silver half-way across the floor from the east dormer window. With a resolute ignoring of that fearsome darkness to the right and to the left, Pollyanna drew a quick breath and pattered straight into that silvery path, and on to the window.
She had hoped, vaguely, that this window might have a screen, but it did not. Outside, however, there was a wide world of fairy-like beauty, and there was, too, she knew, fresh, sweet air that would feel so good to hot cheeks and hands!
As she stepped nearer and peered longingly out, she saw something else: she saw, only a little way below the window, the wide, flat tin roof of Miss Polly's sun parlor built over the porte-cochere. The sight filled her with longing. If only, now, she were out there!
Fearfully she looked behind her. Back there, somewhere, were her hot little room and her still hotter bed; but between her and them lay a horrid desert of blackness across which one must feel one's way with outstretched, shrinking arms; while before her, out on the sun-parlor roof, were the moonlight and the cool, sweet night air.
If only her bed were out there! And folks did sleep out of doors. Joel Hartley at home, who was so sick with the consumption, HAD to sleep out of doors.
Suddenly Pollyanna remembered that she had seen near this attic window a row of long white bags hanging from nails. Nancy had said that they contained the winter clothing, put away for the summer. A little fearfully now, Pollyanna felt her way to these bags, selected a nice fat soft one (it contained Miss Polly's sealskin coat) for a bed; and a thinner one to be doubled up for a pillow, and still another (which was so thin it seemed almost empty) for a covering. Thus equipped, Pollyanna in high glee pattered to the moonlit window again, raised the sash, stuffed her burden through to the roof below, then let herself down after it, closing the window carefully behind her--Pollyanna had not forgotten those flies with the marvellous feet that carried things.
How deliciously cool it was! Pollyanna quite danced up and down with delight, drawing in long, full breaths of the refreshing air. The tin roof under her feet crackled with little resounding snaps that Pollyanna rather liked. She walked, indeed, two or three times back and forth from end to end--it gave her such a pleasant sensation of airy space after her hot little room; and the roof was so broad and flat that she had no fear of falling off. Finally, with a sigh of content, she curled herself up on the sealskin-coat mattress, arranged one bag for a pillow and the other for a covering, and settled herself to sleep.
“I'm so glad now that the screens didn't come,” she murmured, blinking up at the stars; “else I couldn't have had this!”
Down-stairs in Miss Polly's room next the sun parlor, Miss Polly herself was hurrying into dressing gown and slippers, her face white and frightened. A minute before she had been telephoning in a shaking voice to Timothy:
“Come up quick!--you and your father. Bring lanterns. Somebody is on the roof of the sun parlor. He must have climbed up the rose-trellis or somewhere, and of course he can get right into the house through the east window in the attic. I have locked the attic door down here--but hurry, quick!”
Some time later, Pollyanna, just dropping off to sleep, was startled by a lantern flash, and a trio of amazed ejaculations. She opened her eyes to find Timothy at the top of a ladder near her, Old Tom just getting through the window, and her aunt peering out at her from behind him.
“Pollyanna, what does this mean?” cried Aunt Polly then.
Pollyanna blinked sleepy eyes and sat up.
“Why, Mr. Tom--Aunt Polly!” she stammered. “Don't look so scared! It isn't that I've got the consumption, you know, like Joel Hartley. It's only that I was so hot--in there. But I shut the window, Aunt Polly, so the flies couldn't carry those germ-things in.”
Timothy disappeared suddenly down the ladder. Old Tom, with almost equal precipitation, handed his lantern to Miss Polly, and followed his son. Miss Polly bit her lip hard--until the men were gone; then she said sternly:
“Pollyanna, hand those things to me at once and come in here. Of all the extraordinary children!” she ejaculated a little later, as, with Pollyanna by her side, and the lantern in her hand, she turned back into the attic.
To Pollyanna the air was all the more stifling after that cool breath of the out of doors; but she did not complain. She only drew a long quivering sigh.
At the top of the stairs Miss Polly jerked out crisply:
“For the rest of the night, Pollyanna, you are to sleep in my bed with me. The screens will be here to-morrow, but until then I consider it my duty to keep you where I know where you are.”
Pollyanna drew in her breath.
“With you?--in your bed?” she cried rapturously. “Oh, Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, how perfectly lovely of you! And when I've so wanted to sleep with some one sometime--some one that belonged to me, you know; not a Ladies' Aider. I've HAD them. My! I reckon I am glad now those screens didn't come! Wouldn't you be?”
There was no reply. Miss Polly was stalking on ahead. Miss Polly, to tell the truth, was feeling curiously helpless. For the third time since Pollyanna's arrival, Miss Polly was punishing Pollyanna--and for the third time she was being confronted with the amazing fact that her punishment was being taken as a special reward of merit. No wonder Miss Polly was feeling curiously helpless.
